It was no longer winter. Well, not exactly. It was still, obviously, midwinter, with the worst of the cold yet to come. Generally it came in February or March, and the later it came the worse it was, sometimes lasting to the middle, even the end of April.
Let’s say the darkest part of the tunnel was past. This year there was a false spring, not unusual at the end of January. At least, outside they called it a false spring. The air and the sky were limpid. The snow shone without melting, and yet it wasn’t cold. The water was frozen every morning, and all day the sun was so bright that you would have sworn the birds were going to start building their nests. They must have been fooled, too, since you could see them flying around in pairs, chasing each other in a mating dance.
The window over there, beyond the gym or assembly hall, stayed open longer. One time he could make out from the woman’s movements that she was ironing. And there had been another time that was wonderful, and completely unexpected. Probably because she was taking advantage of the warmer weather to do her spring-cleaning, the window had stayed open for more than two hours! Had she put the cradle in another room or covered the sleeping baby with extra blankets? She had shaken clothes out at the open window—some men’s clothes, too. She had shaken them out and beaten them like rugs, and each of her movements not only hurt Frank horribly but did him good.
From that distance, she was no bigger than a doll. He wouldn’t recognize her in the street—it didn’t matter, that would never happen. She was just a doll. He couldn’t make out her features. But it was a woman, and she was looking after her home. And he could sense her enthusiasm. He could feel it.
He watched for her every morning. Logically, at that hour, he should have been collapsed with exhaustion. At first he was afraid of missing her. It had happened only once, when he had been at the end of his rope. That was before he had learned how to orchestrate his sleep.
She didn’t know. She would never know. It was a woman, not a rich one, a poor woman to judge by where she lived. She had a husband and a child. The man probably went to work early, since Frank never saw him. Did she put his lunch in a tin lunch box like the one Holst took with him on his streetcar? Maybe. Probably. As soon as he left she began to work in her home, their home. She must sing with the baby and laugh with it a lot. Babies don’t cry all the time—as his wet-nurse had tried to make him believe.
“When you used to cry …”
“The day you cried so hard …”
“The Sunday when you were so insufferable …”
She never said, “When you used to laugh …”
And the bed, the bed that smelled of the two of them. She didn’t know. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have hung the sheets and blankets to air in the window. She wouldn’t even have opened the window. It was lucky for him that she was from the outside. In her place, he’d have shut everything, kept everything for himself. He wouldn’t have allowed anything of their life to escape.
The spring-cleaning morning had seemed so extraordinary to him that he couldn’t believe fate had reserved such joys for him. There she was celebrating the false spring in her own way, airing, cleaning, polishing. She shook everything, shifted everything. She was beautiful!
He hadn’t really seen her, but it didn’t matter: she was beautiful!
Somewhere in town there was a man who went to work every day knowing that in the evening she’d be waiting for him, with their child in its cradle, their bed that smelled of them.
It made no difference what he did or thought. It made no difference that the woman at the window was no bigger than a puppet. Frank was the one who lived their life the most. Even if, lying on his stomach, he only dared to use one eye, since if they noticed how fascinated he was, they would have altered his schedule.
He knew them. Hadn’t Timo claimed he understood them? Timo only knew pieces of the truth—ready-made truths, like the ones you read in the papers.
When he was little, Madame Porse, his wet-nurse, used to make him angry by saying, “You’ve been fighting with Hans again because …”
And her because was always wrong. Because Hans was the son of a wealthy farmer. Because he was rich. Because he was stronger than Frank. Because. Because.
His whole life he’d seen people going wrong with their becauses. Lotte most of all! Lotte, who understood less than anybody.
There was no because. It was a word for fools. For people outside, at least. With their becauses, it wouldn’t surprise him if, one day, they gave him a medal he didn’t deserve or a posthumous decoration.
Because what?
Why hadn’t he answered the officer who blew smoke in his face when he was being questioned at headquarters, up there on the top floor? He wasn’t any more of a hero than anyone.
“You really have to know, Friedmaier.”
That story of the banknotes with the little holes in them had nothing to do with him. All he had to reply was, “Ask the general.”
Stupid! A simple matter of watches. Since Frank didn’t know the general personally, he would have had to add, “I gave the watches to Kromer, and Kromer gave me my share of the money.”
He wasn’t at all concerned for Kromer. He absolutely didn’t want to risk his life for him. On the contrary. For some time, Kromer had been one of the few men, maybe the only one, he would like to have seen dead.
Then what had happened up there in the military building?
The officer stood in front of him, still friendly, with his light-colored cigar and his pink complexion. Frank had never seen the general. He had no reason to sacrifice himself for him. It would have been simpler to say, “Well, this is exactly how it happened, and you’ll have to admit I had nothing to do with the banknotes.”
Why hadn’t he said that? No one would have known. Not even the general. He had thought of explanations two days, five days, ten days later, all of them different, all of them plausible.
The true reason, the only one, was perhaps that he didn’t want to be set free, didn’t want to return to everyone else’s life.
He knew now. It made no difference whether he talked or not—not as far as the end result was concerned. There was no way he could answer someone who explained what he’d done by saying: “You knew very well you were going to jail no matter what!”
That was obvious. Not that he knew he was going back to jail but that he had to. But he had only admitted this after.
In reality, he had resisted just to resist. Almost physically. Maybe, deep down, it had been his way of countering the officer’s insulting familiarity. Frank had replied, “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry for what you’ve done?”
“I’m sorry, that’s all.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I’m sorry for you that I have nothing to say.”
And he knew. He was aware of everything, of the torture in store for him, of his death, everything. It was as though he did it on purpose.
He couldn’t remember. It was all mixed up. He stood like a fighting cock, with this extraordinary figure of power planted there before him, and he acted like a little boy who wants to be slapped.
“You’re sorry, aren’t you, Friedmaier?”
“Yes.”
He looked the officer straight in the eye. Had he been vaguely hoping that he’d get help from the other officer working under the light behind him? Was he counting on the stenographers hurrying up and down the hall, saying to himself that such things couldn’t possibly happen here?
He held his ground, in any case. He didn’t even blink. Again he said, “I’m sorry.”
He swore to himself that he would never, not even under torture, pronounce the words “the general,” or the name of that pig Kromer. No names. Nothing.
“I’m sorry.”
“You really are sorry! Tell me exactly what you’re sorry for, Friedmaier. Think before you answer.”
His reply had been stupid, but he made up for it later.
“I don’t know.”
&nb
sp; “You’re sorry you didn’t find out earlier that we made little holes in the banknotes, is that it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re sorry you flashed the money around everywhere?”
“I don’t know.”
“And now you’re sorry you know too much about it. There you are! You’re sorry you know too much, Friedmaier!”
“I …”
“In a little while, you’ll be sorry you refused to talk!”
It all took place in a sort of fog. Now neither of them was paying any attention to the meaning of their words. They were tossing them around like stones you pick up without even looking.
“You remember now, I bet. You’re going to remember.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes. I’m sure’ll you remember.”
“No.”
“Oh, yes. A big wad of bills like that!”
Sometimes the officer seemed to be joking. Other times his face assumed an expression of ferocity.
“You remember, Friedmaier.”
“No.”
“At your age, one always ends up remembering.”
The cigar! Frank especially remembered the cigar coming close to his face, then receding again, the face going purple and blotchy, then suddenly the strange fixed pupils of those china-blue eyes, which looked nothing like any eyes he’d seen before.
“Friedmaier, you’re a shit.”
“I know.”
“Friedmaier, you’re going to talk.”
“No.”
“Friedmaier …”
It was funny how adults continued all their lives to act like children! The officer had behaved exactly like a schoolyard bully, or even a teacher dealing with an angry child. He had nearly had enough. He whispered, almost pleaded: “Friedmaier …”
Frank decided once and for all to say no.
“Friedmaier …”
There had been a ruler on the desk, a massive brass ruler.
The officer picked it up and repeated, barely able to restrain himself, “My dear Friedmaier, it’s about time you understood.”
“No.”
Did Frank want to be hit in the face with the ruler? Possibly. In any case, it was what happened. Brutally. When he least expected it, when perhaps even the other wasn’t expecting it, though the ruler was already in his hand.
“Friedmaier …”
“No.”
He wasn’t a martyr, he wasn’t a hero. He was nothing at all. Four, perhaps five days later he understood that. What would have happened if he’d said yes instead of no?
Not much, actually, as far as the others were concerned. Kromer was on the run, he was almost sure of that. As for the general, first of all Frank didn’t give a damn. Besides, the testimony of a nobody like himself wouldn’t affect the fate of a general. He would drop out of circulation, if he hadn’t already. No matter.
What counted, though Frank only discovered it later, was that his own fate would have been the same whether he talked or not, except for the ruler.
He knew too much now. They didn’t let kids who knew as much as he did loose on the streets. If the general’s suicide was announced tomorrow, there shouldn’t be anyone around who could shout, “It’s not true!”
If you said “Officer,” there shouldn’t be anyone to say, “They’re all thieves.”
At the time, when he was up there, he hadn’t been thinking. He’d said, “No.” And still he wasn’t sure whether it was because he wanted to suffer. Because there was the actual attraction of torture of course, and of finding out whether he could take it or not. He had so often wondered about that.
Lotte used to say, “If he just nicks himself shaving, he puts the whole house in an uproar.”
Lotte didn’t matter. It had nothing to do with her or anything that concerned her. Only he’d been at stake when he said no. Only him. Not even Holst. Still less Sissy.
He didn’t want to hear about his friendship with Kromer or about his obligations to the general. It had been for himself, for Frank, and not even Frank, for himself alone, that he’d said no.
To see.
And the big officer, just when he was about to lose control, had repeated, “Don’t you see? Don’t you see?”
Frank must have put on that stubborn expression of his, the one that always infuriated Lotte. It was his way of getting revenge for things—things that would have to be reckoned with later. In any case, he was consciously, almost scientifically, driving the officer to the edge.
“You’ll have to …”
“No.”
“You’ll have to, don’t you see?”
“No.”
And bang! The ruler hit his face, straight across it. Frank had felt it coming. Until the last second he could have said yes, or dodged the blow. He didn’t flinch. There was the sound of breaking bone.
He wanted it. He had been afraid of it, but he wanted it. He felt the shock throughout his body, from his head to his toes. He closed his eyes. He thought, he hoped, he’d be lying on the floor, but he was still standing up.
The hardest thing—in fact the only thing that was hard— was not lifting his hand to feel his face. It felt like his left eye had come out of its socket—like the cat at Madame Porse’s, the cat that made him think of Sissy. When you had done what he had, did you have the right to flinch just because of an eye?
Blood had flowed everywhere, down his neck, over his chin, but he’d said nothing, he hadn’t raised his hand to feel. Holding his head up, he continued to face the officer.
Was it then he realized he was lost no matter what, and that it didn’t matter? If so, it was a fleeting thought. He had made the real discovery here, lying on his stomach, in his cell.
It didn’t change anything.
He never imagined they did that kind of thing in an office building and he wasn’t far off the mark. After striking him the officer seemed uneasy. He said a few words to his subordinate working under the light. Probably something like, “Do something about him.”
It had been a mistake to hit him with the brass ruler. Frank knew that now. It shouldn’t have happened there. Who knows if the officer hadn’t been punished by now, or cashiered?
The sections, as Timo said.
Now there was a sigh from the officer under the light, a tall, thin man. It seemed this wasn’t the first time his colleague had given way to violent impulses. And he opened a door, disclosing a washbasin and a towel.
Bones had cracked, or cartilage, Frank was sure. He didn’t know which. When he opened his mouth, he spat out two teeth followed by a torrent of blood.
“Keep calm. It’s nothing.”
The second officer seemed upset. “When it bleeds, it’s nothing,” he said hesitantly.
He was deeply affected by the blood running on the floor. His superior clapped his cap on his head and left the office. The second officer seemed to be thinking, “He’ll never change!”
Frank’s eye hadn’t come out, but it felt like it. He might have fainted. That would have been easy. The officer was somewhat afraid he would. But Frank wanted to stay tough.
“It’s nothing. A scratch. You got him riled up. God, that was a stupid thing to do!”
Was the thin one any better than the other? Was he playing a game in order to get him to talk after all? He was tall and horsy, soft and slow in his movements. It upset him that the blood was still gushing out of Frank’s nose, mouth, and cheek.
Finally, exasperated, he gave up and called in the two civilians waiting in the next room. They gave each other a quick look, and one of them headed downstairs.
They only took a few minutes. The man who’d left reappeared. They wrapped some kind of coarse dark scarf around Frank’s face, and, each taking hold of an arm, they led him to the courtyard. The car was waiting in the side street.
Were they angry at each other, those two sets of men? Was there a real rivalry between them? The car started. Frank was all right, except that his head felt like it was slowly drain
ing. It wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. He remembered that he had to try to see the house where there was only one window that he knew, but at the last moment he didn’t have the strength to open his eyes.
He was still bleeding. It was disgusting. There was blood everywhere. He hardly had time to glimpse the old gentleman, who gave a few brief orders. The old gentleman wasn’t pleased, either.
That was how Frank got to know the infirmary just under the iron stairway, which he had never noticed before. It was a classroom, too, but they had fixed it up, put in some enameled furniture and a lot of instruments.
Was the man who treated him a doctor? At any rate he looked at the wound with an air of contempt, like the old gentleman with the glasses. Not contempt for the wound, but for the man who had inflicted it. He seemed to be saying: “Him again!”
Not Frank. The officer.
They treated him. They took out a third tooth that was loose. Now there were three teeth missing, two in the very front of his mouth, the other fairly far back. Sometimes when he went outside the raw sockets gave him an agreeable twinge.
They didn’t take him back there. Was it because of the way the officer with the cigar had acted? No, definitely not. He remembered the blows he had heard right here, the morning of his arrival.
It was a question of tactics. Timo had been right, generally speaking, about some things. Timo didn’t know everything, but he had a pretty good idea about the big picture.
Here, they treated him. They took him down to the infirmary several times. The painful thing was that they almost always came for him at the hour of the open window.
Maybe that was why he had recovered quickly.
He thought about it. The morning after his return from the city, he had deliberately not scratched a new line in the plaster to mark the day. For five whole days he left off doing it. Then he started trying to erase the marks he had already made.
From this point on they bothered him. They were the signs that an era was over. He hadn’t known then. He thought life was outside. He kept thinking of the time when he would go back.
Dirty Snow Page 17
