The Great War

by Aleksandar Gatalica

  Minister of the Court, Count Vladimir Frederiks

  * * *

  Dear Herr Doktor Schnebel,

  You know that having a son without the use of his arms is far from easy. It’s not the nursing or the hard work of teaching him that is hardest, but having to see that handsome face combined with his helpless hands which cannot pick up anything or do any normal human task, not even button up his own shirt. My son Hans is one such patient, but God is my witness of how grateful I am that Hans has gifts in return for what he lacks. That lovely face, and our piercing, northern blue eyes — every girl would desire him, and maybe he would even have gone to war if it weren’t for his two useless arms, which since childhood have hung down beside his trunk like the branches of a withered tree.

  Oh, how many nights did I lie awake crying, but that is over now by some strange miracle. No, Hans hasn’t found a marriageable girl, being as he is, but strength has unexpectedly begun to return to his arms. Imagine! Those muscles, once like deflated balloons, are now flushed with blood; colour has come back to the deathly-pale skin; and my poor son began first of all to wave with his arms, then to write first letters and to do much, much more. But what at first was a source of indescribable joy has since come to rather concern me.

  Maybe his long years of waiting are to blame for it all: the feeling that you’re handsome and well built, quite a stunner, a real man in every way, but no one wants you because wherever you go people react with a mixture of compassion and revulsion, which pushes you ever further from all society and any satisfaction. But to cut a long story short: after twenty years of waiting, blood began to flow through the veins of Hans’s arms. I immediately notified you and also our friend Dr Ingelthorp, who, to be sure, said the process could stop again, but we took no notice. Who was happier than the two of us. Hans has been without a father since he was eight, and I have no one other than him.

  Within two days, Hans was able to do up a button, after a week he was eating soup by himself, and within a month he could thread a needle. We danced and sang, but then his gloomy feelings began. Why couldn’t he simply be happy? I don’t know. He began to confide in me. First, he claimed his arms weren’t his own (Dr Ingelthorp recommended I ignore that), and afterwards he said he would soon tell me whose the left was, and whose the right. Before long, he triumphantly came out with the ‘news’. I was dumbfounded. His left arm had belonged to the French poet Blaise Cendrars, he said, and his reborn right was that of our famous pianist Paul Wittgenstein. How did these arms become Hans’s? He claimed that the right arm was amputated from Private Wittgenstein after the abortive siege of Warsaw on 1 March 1915 (you see, he knew the exact date). The wounded pianist was taken prisoner by the Russians, and the Russian doctors amputated his hopelessly mangled right arm; according to Hans, the pianist sat by his bedside and sobbed as all the music came back to him which he had played with it, and would no longer be able to. The left arm was amputated from a certain Private Cendrars (again an exact date: 7 October 1915) and then became the possession of my son.

  I tried to joke about it and find a logical flaw in the tale of boy who had never left his home town, never listened to Wittgenstein, as far as I know, and, like me, had never heard of Cendrars. I asked him why the pianist’s right arm had waited from March to November — what had it been waiting for? The left arm, he answered. Where had the right arm waited? In hell, he said. I immediately wrote and told Dr Ingelthorp, of course, and he replied that the story would be easy to confirm: one just needed to check up on the fate of the soldier cum pianist Paul Wittgenstein. The doctor and I both made inquiries, and we found out that the pianist really had lost his right arm. What a misfortune for the musician, and what a boon for my son! But how could that be? ‘It just is,’ my Hans replied. ’I’ll prove it as soon as I get a bit more used to the hand. I’ll play the piano, which I never practiced and never even learnt.’

  Afterwards we went through the ’Blaise Cendrars period’. Who was that? What did he do? I found out everything in detail from the mouth of my son. I won’t bother you now with the whole life story of an enemy. Suffice to say, Cendrars was a destitute poet — a weaselly sort of man. His real name was Frédéric Sauser, and he wasn’t even French. Even so, he was shooting at us. I’ll skip most of the biography of that small-time poet to tell you one important detail: it seems that Hans has acquired not only the arm but also all the memory and emotions of its owner. Just imagine what he said to me: a year of fighting for his adopted Fatherland aroused the war poet in Cendrars, but later his confidence began to crumble when he apparently saw the way generals offhandedly send soldiers to their deaths yet seek ease and luxury for themselves. This is what Hans says he learnt from Cendrars — a picture as vivid as reality itself: troops enter the town of Chantilly, where Commander-in-Chief Joffre and his generals have their headquarters. The great general doesn’t want to be disturbed by the harsh pounding of infantry boots passing through the streets, so he orders that tons and tons of hay be spread in the streets to preserve the quiet he says he needs for his strategic deliberations.

  There is no way of us verifying this because it is behind enemy lines, but how could Hans know all that when he has no idea who Joffre is, nor where the little French town of Chantilly is? That’s why I’m very worried instead of simply being happy. Hans has promised poetry in French and his first concert for the right hand in just a week or two. Please come and pay us a visit, Dr Schnebel. It would make me feel much better. If things turn out well, I’ll be the happiest and the most unhappy mother in the world. If they don’t, I’ll be the most unhappy and the happiest mother in the world.

  Yours respectfully,

  An anxious mother, Amanda Henze

  * * *

  Dear Zoë, love of my life,

  You haven’t come. You weren’t allowed to — Nana didn’t let you. You were afraid to come and see the monster who played cards with the dead near Lunéville in 1914 and callously killed hopeless patients in Hôpital Vaugirard in Montparnasse. You didn’t believe you could rouse and nurture the man in me again. I don’t blame you. You’re probably right. And now, farewell. I am going to hell. The first step: I take the pistol. The second: I put a bullet in the barrel. The third: I close.

  Your Germain D’Esparbès

  DEFENCE AND ULTIMATE COLLAPSE

  Behind each announcement in a newspaper is a story. Shortly before the Central Powers decided to deal the death blow to Serbia in October 1915 and the heavy shelling of Belgrade with mortars and Big Berthas began on 6 October, the last issue of Politika — printed in the city on 11 September 1915 (by the old calendar) — published one of many missing-person announcements. At the bottom of the fourth page of the thin edition it read: “Where is Mrs Lir, who used to live alone in number 3 Valpinska Street in Belgrade? If anyone knows anything about her whereabouts, please write to Karlo Saradal, c/o Bank of Prague, Chupriya branch.” Hardly anyone took note of this announcement printed in nonpareil, and the people in the town of Chupriya say that Karlo Saradal did not receive any messages in the days that followed. But how could he have? The bank clerk left for the Front the same day as he placed the announcement, while the Bank of Prague closed its doors in the middle of October and compensated savers by distributing shares signed by the manager.

  Still, maybe someone was able to get in touch with the worried nephew about his aunt from Valpinska Street in Belgrade. But how could they have, when no one at all had seen Mrs Lir in the days leading up to the ultimate collapse? She was last noticed at the beginning of September 1915 (by the old calendar) in the tailor shop of Zhivka D. Spasich in 22 Dunavska Street, at the moment she drew the curtain of the changing cubicle to try on a garment she had had let out and mended. Only the assistant was in the shop when something happened which the seamstress had unfortunately already seen: instead of Mrs Lir, a different woman appeared in the cubicle: with dishevelled hair, bedraggled appearance and scratched arms. This person did not as much as ask ‘Where am I?’ like t
he previous one, but just ran out and drowned herself in a pond in Robiyash Garden.

  It wasn’t always the case that the changing booth took one woman in behind the curtain and spat out another, but the assistant still had an aversion to it. Whenever she could, she suggested to customers that they change in the corner next to the sewing machine or behind her substantial frame so they wouldn’t have to go into the changing room, but Mrs Lir was ashamed of her frayed petticoat, which she hadn’t had altered, so she pulled the curtain closed behind her. Then she vanished into a different time like the confectioner Nataliya Babich, Anka Milichevich the pensioner, Yelka Chavich the baker and Mileva Voivodich the cab driver before her. By some strange interplay of time and circumstance, the space behind the curtain in 22 Dunavska Street wore people out on ephemeral visits to the years to come and sent them back to the present haggard and bewildered, condemning these slaves of a better future to spend a day or two, a month or two, or their whole life in wormwood-bitter 1915 and the years that followed. That is what happened to Mrs Lir. And that is why no one replied to Karlo Saradal’s announcement or those of relatives searching for other previous visitors to the changing room in Zhivka D. Spasich’s tailor shop.

  At first, Mrs Lir was quite taken with 1937, where chance had randomly cast her. It was peacetime, and a soft, warm September, with people wearing strange suits and driving unusual cars. She briskly walked up the hill from the Danube and saw a large church being built on the near side of Tashmaydan Park, once the Turkish cemetery. At first she didn’t know where to go, dowdily dressed as she was in her mended traditional skirt embroidered with silver thread, but the very next day she found a gentleman who began to woo her and buy her everything she needed. She went out onto Teraziye Boulevard and saw how Belgrade would look in twenty-two years’ time. Everything appealed to her, and she even started to like the regent, Prince Paul. And just as Mrs Lir thought how blissfully easy it was to forget her nephew Karlo and the whole arduous past, she suddenly fell back into her 1915 — into the same booth behind the same curtain in 22 Dunavska Street, which has since been demolished.

  She went out into the street in the late afternoon of 6 October, and the sky was red and livid blue as if the sun had been maltreating it all day. Bewildered people were running past her, skirting the huge holes made by shrapnel, and shouting to each other as if she wasn’t there. She tried to tell them to stop and that there was no reason to worry, that in 1937 everyone would be happy, the sweets would be bigger, the cars larger and the gentlemen more courteous, but who could listen to the Belgrade Cassandra when the ultimate collapse of the capital was all about them. She spent that night alone, and on the morning of 7 October hell unfolded its wings. Now she didn’t know where to go either. She started to run through downtown Dorchol.

  She saw the desperate defence of Belgrade and could hardly believe it was real. All along the Danube quay down to the sawmill and the Prometna Banka, Serbian soldiers were offering resistance under the command of a madly brave, paunchy major with a long black moustache drooping into his mouth. The major, already hoarse, was yelling at the top of his voice and berating, cursing and encouraging the men at the same time — as if they were dogs one moment and people the next. The enemy emerged from the turbid river, mud-covered attackers like river monsters, who with gritted teeth captured the railway embankment, Ada Ciganliya Island, Robiyash Gardens on the outskirts and, like uninvited guests, took table after table of the Sharan restaurant. The major’s men pulled back, and then at noon the Belgrade gendarmes charged the enemy. They were literally mowed down by those invaders from the river’s sludge. It was little short of a massacre. Mrs Lir knew she had to console the bewildered people she met. Once again, she tried to tell them not to fret; they may be leaving their city with the enemy at their heels, but they would return and Belgrade would be more beautiful than before; a magnificent church would be raised at the edge of the former cemetery, and the sky above would be broader and smell of a childhood autumn.

  She went from street to street, threading her way through destroyed houses, and again reached the small square near café Yasenica. Soldiers were standing there, lined up in three rows — more dead than alive — their rifles adorned with flowers from the nearby flower shop. She saw the pot-bellied major with the moustache and wanted to go up to him. She thought she would tell him there was no need to yell, that the people would make everything whole again and reward the defenders for all their efforts. But the Belgrade Cassandra was pushed aside and the major shouted to his men: ‘At 15:00 hours sharp the enemy must be smashed and swept away by your mighty charge, by your grenades and bayonets. The honour of Belgrade, our capital, must be upheld. Soldiers! Heroes! The supreme command has struck our regiment from the records. Our regiment has been sacrificed for the glory of Belgrade and the Fatherland. You need no longer fear for your lives. They no longer exist. And now: forwards, to glory! For king and country! Long live the king, long live Belgrade!’ And the soldiers moved off with a song whose ribs were all broken, with a heroism which had long since overcome all fear of death. Death had become a reality, to which they were reconciled.

  It was 7 October, the day before the fall of Belgrade. And then the bloody 8 October came, the indifferent 9 and the dull 10 October. The Serbian army had evacuated Belgrade, a city located right on the border where other nations would have only built a watchtower, and now continued its great retreat. When the 2nd Bulgarian Army reached the River Vardar and entered the Kachanik Gorge on 26 October, cutting off the Serbian retreat south, the rain set in. It rained when rumours came that the folk hero Prince Marko had appeared near Pirot riding his skewbald charger Sharac and brandishing his golden sword. It rained when Hannah Hardy called on Annabel Walden and the other British nurses to leave Kraguyevac and head south. It rained when they arrived in Kosovska Mitrovica with dishevelled hair, like Hecuba and her daughters. It rained when the last officer of the Serbian 4th Regiment, Major Radoyica Tatich, left mud-bound Knyazhevac, retreating before superior enemy forces. It rained when King Peter told his troops near Djer on 27 October that he would stay with them and fight until final victory, or complete defeat. It rained when the king noted in his diary in Ribarska Banya, one day later: ‘I hope the God of the Serbs still has a surprise in store for us.’ It rained when the old Serbian king visited the positions of Colonel Milivoy Andjelkovich Kayafa near Lepa Voda on 31 October. When the royal train set off towards Kruševac — a terrible rain fell. When General Zhivkovich reported that the Germans had taken Kralyevo — a heavy rain broke. When the Morava Division, like a company of phantoms vanguarded by raucous copper trumpets, set off from Kosovo to defend a piece of Macedonia or join the river of refugees — a leaden rain poured. When Ribarska Banya fell on 11 November — the rain fell without let-up. When the remnants of the victorious Serbian army of 1914 huddled in the valley near Priština — the rain turned to sleet. When the royal family dined with its generals in the Fatherland for the last time and the silence was heavier than any words — the sleet turned to snow.

  Then they all started towards Prizren and further, deep into uncertain Albania. A last liturgy and a last glance at the friendly landscape. The first station on this hardest of all roads was Lum-Kullë. The sides of the road were littered with field trains, cabs, guns, discarded breech-blocks of cannons, cars with their doors pulled off, men with a suicidal look, and draught animals blind with hunger and thirst. Old King Peter was accompanied by Colonel Kosta Knezhevich, the court major-domo, adjutant Djukanovich, cavalry Captain Milun Tadich, who travelled one day ahead of the king, and finally the king’s physician, Dr Svetislav Simonovich, who was inseparable from his umbrella. Everyone asked themselves what the long black umbrella was good for amidst the rocky terrain of Albania, in the incessant snow with sharp little flakes which crept under one’s collar like bedbugs, but Dr Simonovich didn’t explain much. He never used his big British umbrella to defend himself against the blasts of snow, nor did he swing it like a man of leisure, ye
t he was never to be seen without it. He set off into Albania with the umbrella and carried it all the way to Tirana.

  The doctor was faster than the others and lighter than them too, although he had to lug thirty kilos of the king’s medicines and dressings through Albania. But he had his umbrella. When no one was watching, Dr Simonovich would open the brolly and carefully arrange everything on his lap: the dressings, wooden boxes, ointments in glass jars, syringes and oval-shaped metal, surgical bowls. Then he closed it, fastened it with a band and clasp, and the umbrella would ‘swallow’ the whole load with only a slight bulge to be seen. The thirty kilos of medicines and related materials were reduced to a lump no larger than a nugget of gold and weighing just a hundred grams, until he opened the umbrella again. The doctor didn’t understand how it worked, but he thanked his lucky stars that it lessened his load in that Calvary through Albania.[1] So he went from Lum-Kullë to Spas, and on to the towns of Fletë, Pukë and Fushë-Arrëz. He watched his old king suffering and others straggling, saw frozen soldiers by the wayside and came across Field Marshal Putnik’s sedan chair, which was so small that it looked like a kind of box — while he had no problems of his own. He didn’t tell anyone because they could get suspicious, so he grimaced and grumbled a little and always made sure to arrive in a new town before or a little after the others.