by Brian Aldiss
This despairing impulse soon faded. Gerard was as equable as ever, and Helge supported him. Palfrey, heavy of brow, suggested you go down to the village and shoot the Germans, but it seemed that even he did not take this proposal seriously.
Supper was merely a crust of bread, at which Pief complained loudly. Helge promised to catch more fish on the morrow. Pief cuddled against her. Afterwards, when the children were settled, you sat about talking as usual, by the light of a stub of candle.
Gerard said that, as you were English, he would quote the words of Bishop George Berkeley as saying that ‘an idea can be like nothing but an idea’. You replied that Berkeley was an Irishman.
‘Do not concentrate on inessentials,’ said Gerard. ‘An idea surely incorporates things.’
He went on to ask himself if in justice existed before the idea of justice. No doubt it did. For the idea to continue to exist, it must be transmitted to others than the originator, either in speech or in writing.
Here Helge spoke, to say that a German writer had written of the creation of ideas in conversation. The paper emphasized that frequently a speaker did not know what he was about to say – his words came spontaneously and might contain something that was new and had not occurred to him until released from its prison of silence, as it were, triggered by what the other person had said.
‘So he would have no choice but to say it,’ you remarked, in agreement. ‘I can see that a writer might, when in full flow, stumble on something new in the same way.’
This comment Gerard ignored, returning to his favourite subject of injustice, from which he and his wife had greatly suffered. He said that according to his model philosopher, Aristotle, it was those who acted rightly who were truly happy because – here he thumped his knee for emphasis – pleasure was an experience of the soul. He had found pleasure in work, in being curator of his museum, of arranging things in sensible order so that they might have most meaning for those who came to look and learn. He considered himself a just man, but he had to live in a world of turmoil and injustice. He was deprived of pleasure because of his race; it was the deepest form of injustice.
Helge said that she suffered from another kind of injustice. She was persecuted because she reported the truth about the cruelty of the Nazi regime. She had been happy, the most pleasant of all feelings, because she dared to tell the truth. And for that she had been persecuted.
You then said that you noticed a dichotomy between pleasure and its opposites, pain and sorrow. That when you were sad you certainly knew it, yet when you were happy you were scarcely aware of it. Only in retrospect were you aware you had been happy. If sorrow were a stone, then happiness was a butterfly.
‘So are you happy here or sad?’ asked Helge. ‘In this great sheltering forest?’
You could only answer, both at once. You asked what Aristotle had had to say about the gods. Did he believe in them? You said that although you did not believe in God, you sometimes felt His presence. It had become easy to believe in God in a great forest. Evidences of a woodcutter had been found. Neatly chopped logs had been discovered – those logs had fuelled your fire. Such men must have believed in God, so you claimed. As you gazed into the embers of your fire, you ventured to say that perhaps the forest itself was God, and woodcutters and forest and all were a part of God’s disposition.
There you were so close to the truth … And you forgot all about it later when you were back in what you call … civilization.
Perhaps at that time, sitting there with them, I might even have claimed that civilization was a way of warding off God. My deeper feelings had been stirred by the encounter with the Geldsteins.
Such matters you three discussed for an hour or two, until finally you went away to sleep. You kept no watch during the night. It would have been too taxing for such a small number of people to stay awake during the small hours. It was because there was no watch that you slept so fitfully. Your dreams were full of fragments of attack, arrest and torture.
You were, as you claimed, both miserable and happy.
You were not out of the woods yet.
17
The Wehrmacht Pays a Visit
One of the countless trees in the Forêt de la Bouche began to shed its leaves. Slowly, over the previous weeks, its leaves had changed from green to a bright yellow – brighter still when the sun shone on them. A mild ground frost prompted other trees to follow suit, shedding their foliage. The great tide of the seasons was lapping its way down the hillside. The green went. The leaves went. Soon the forest was carpeted in yellow and gold and bronze to its very depths. And the nights became chillier, the hillside more frequently shrouded in a cloying mist.
As, in search of edible fungi, you wandered through the thickets of the forest, following almost invisible trails made by the cumulative progress of multitudinous small creatures, it occurred to you that through the labyrinths of your brain a similar transit of benevolent thoughts might in time wear a way through the wilderness of your mind, creating something of the enlightenment Gerard offered you. For you had some hope, not merely of finding ceps, but of becoming a wiser being, like the author of the Red Sandstone book, hardly realizing that, as the mushrooms had their season, so too your aspirations were seasonal. A winter was to follow which would freeze those hopes and ambitions for mental well-being.
One night, when the moon was high and full, a shot echoed through the trees. Immediately, you and the Geldsteins were alert; you rose and stood awaiting a second shot. It never came. You could not tell from which direction the single shot had originated; there was no further shot to guide your hearing.
You stared into the perspective of vague trees, those sentinels of autumn, seeing merely an entanglement of branches, fading into the eternity of forest. It was then you felt a true visceral discomfort. Each tree grew only for itself, struggled against its neighbours, grew to overcome them, to overshadow them, grim, emotionless, motionless: the very exemplar of Darwinian competition.
Another sound could be heard, faintly at first, the sound as of a steam goods train labouring from a station.
‘Shine a light,’ whispered Helge.
‘No, no!’ said Gerard, laying a restraining hand on her arm.
Soon a figure could be seen approaching, detaching itself from the ghostly landscape. Parts of its body were being revealed and concealed by turns, as faded moonlight or tree-shadow caught it. At least, whether friend or enemy, it was human. It seemed he was carrying a sack. With his heavy tread, the man was kicking up the bed of leaves in his path, the remembered noise of a steam goods train.
‘It’s only Palfrey,’ you said, with relief, going forward to meet him.
Palfrey grunted by way of greeting and pushed forward to the shelter. He bent and dumped his burden down. Pief ran squeaking to see what it was. A dead boar lay at their feet. Its great head lay resting on heavy cheek with dirt as pillow, its wide mouth gaping, tongue and teeth visible, still steaming, little eyes open, blind.
Pief spanked the hulking body with both hands.
‘Some food,’ said Palfrey. He leaned back to ease his spine.
Helge wrapped an arm round his waist and kissed his stubbly cheek. ‘Wonderful!’ she exclaimed. ‘How ever have you managed it?’
‘I shot it,’ he said flatly. ‘I waited and I shot it.’
‘Was it alone?’
‘I’ve seen several.’
‘Well done, Pete,’ you said. ‘We shall not starve, after all.’ But you thought how inedible the corpse looked.
Gerard said nothing. Quite apart from his dislike of Palfrey, he feared that the sound of the shot could be heard in Le Forgel, awakening enemy curiosity.
The mist crept across the countryside, smothering details of fields, hedges and the distant roofs of Le Forgel. By dawn it lingered thick among the trees, so it was possible to light a fire and expect the smoke to remain undetected. Soon you were inhaling the smell of roasting boar, as Pief and Brenda insisted on taking turns to work
an improvised spit.
You remarked to Gerard that here was pleasure, and pleasure unearned.
He smiled, saying lightly, ‘This is not pleasure, Stephen. This is pure greed.’
You all ate chunks of that boar, burnt or almost raw, delicious in the mouth, blood seeping between the teeth and down the chin, to be swallowed improperly chewed, all in your eagerness. Pief and Brenda rolled about, gnawing on the bones they had been given and growling like small dogs in their enjoyment. The meat tasted extraordinarily good, a victory for nutrition. The mutilated body of the hog was then hung from a branch, where no wild creature could reach its remains.
On the following day, when you were all unusually somnolent, you received a visitor. You had not seen Marie Bourmard for three weeks; the season had declined since then. She arrived as before, a slight figure clad in a rough coat with the hood up over her head.
‘It’s a pleasure to see you again,’ you said, clutching her hard, thin hand. ‘Is all well in Le Forgel?’
Marie tossed back the hood, smiling. ‘It is better. That German officer and his driver have left. It is almost like we are at peace again. So I can come once more to bring for you a little food.’
And she brought more than food. She brought bandages and ointment for your leg.
She said she would massage the leg first, and then apply ointment and bandage. You protested, saying your legs were filthy.
‘It is a filthy time we live in,’ she said. When she had done her work, she shyly kissed you on the cheek, to acknowledge that you were a man far from home.
Two days later, Marie returned after dark, when a light rain was falling. She brought no food, only bad news. The German officer had returned. He had again established himself in the best house of the village. It appeared he had gone to Rennes only to report, returning to duty to Le Forgel in an evil mood.
‘Perhaps he is ticked off because he is not enough strict,’ Marie said, with a chuckle.
The rain gathered strength, aided by a blustering wind.
You told her she could not return to the village in such weather. She must stay in your shelter until the rain ceased.
The rain did not cease. It fell with a stubborn determination, as if it had decided never to stop.
‘Stay here for the night, Marie,’ you urged. ‘Sleep in my bed with me.’ Your throat tightened with desire as you spoke the words.
You twain lay together fully dressed. When you tried to fondle her, she spoke of her religious beliefs. ‘I am attracted to you, yes, but God watches our actions.’
You mocked her, saying it was absurd to hold religious beliefs in wartime, when France had been overrun by a ruthless enemy.
‘It is then the Christian religion is most necessary,’ she told you. ‘I am fond of you, my English officer, but do not take advantage of me.’
You did not take advantage of her. There was some comfort, as well as torment, to be had in having a girl sleeping warmly by your side. You lay for a long while, listening to her quiet breathing. It brought no hope for the future but a consoling memory of the distant past.
Towards dawn, the rain abated. Everything dripped. Marie rose, kissed your cheek and left, to make her way cautiously down the slippery hillside.
A crisis struck the next day. Pief came running into the shelter, where his mother was washing some clothes.
‘A man comes! A man comes!’
Helge corrected him. ‘Is coming.’ She looked grave as she called quietly to you.
Cautiously, you looked from the concealment of a tree. A grey-clad man was slowly climbing the hill, where the grass was still slippery from the recent rainstorm.
You watched him, judging his size. You felt no fear, where once you had been startled by a bird rising up from a nearby thicket with a clatter of wings. You had come into yourself.
‘Hide yourselves,’ you said. ‘The Wehrmacht is paying us a visit.’
Calmly, Gerard ushered his little family through the door to their private hiding place in the cellar. You and Palfrey waited. Palfrey, before disappearing, signalled where he wanted you to position yourself.
So you stood tight where the trees were growing thinly, now seeing the approaching stranger more clearly. He wore a grey overcoat and had a peaked cap rammed on his head. There was no mistaking an officer of the Wehrmacht.
Your pulse quickened, but you reassured yourself that you were wearing a tattered battledress and were clearly a British officer. Supposing you were arrested, you should be treated according to the rules of the Geneva Convention.
The German halted when he saw you. He unholstered his service revolver. You slowly raised your hands, staying put where you were.
He uttered a challenge and moved forward, into the sparse outer limits of the trees, his eyebrows raised in astonishment. At that juncture, Palfrey launched himself from a high branch. Crashing down on the officer, he bore him flat to the ground. You ran to help, grabbing the German’s revolver.
The officer gave no cry. He was badly winded, and hurt. Palfrey locked an arm about his neck and wrenched. A distinct crack sounded.
‘Oh, no!’ you exclaimed.
Palfrey looked up, savage of face. ‘What you mean, “No”? He’s our enemy. Had to finish him, didn’t we? Ah, but that was neat! I always longed to do that!’
The German sprawled there, unmoving, ugly in death. Palfrey got to his feet and rubbed his ankle.
‘We should have talked to him,’ you said weakly.
He turned a rock hard face to confront me.
‘Whose side are you on? How would we talk to the bastard? Do you speak German? ’Cos I don’t. He pulled a gun on you. Don’t be so fucking wet.’
‘I suppose you’re right. Sorry. Now we’ll have to bury the sod. Before anyone comes looking for him.’
Gerard emerged from hiding, looked down at the dead man, gave him a kick in the ribs.
Looking to him for sympathy with your point of view, you began to protest at the killing. Gerard stopped you immediately. ‘It’s done, isn’t it? What’s done is done. Keep quiet.’
He stood gazing down at the body. ‘Search all his pockets. See if there’s anything we can use. He came to investigate that rifle shot a few nights ago, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Shut it,’ said Palfrey. ‘You ate the bloody boar, didn’t you?’
‘But once they find this rat is missing –’
‘Bloody shut it,’ Palfrey repeated. ‘First things first.’
You were shaking. Without further comment, both you and Palfrey grabbed the dead man by the shoulders of his coat and dragged him into the undergrowth. A spade had been abandoned in the ruins. You went to fetch it. When you returned to the body, Palfrey was scraping back dead leaves with his boot.
‘No brambles here,’ he said. ‘You want first dig?’
All the Geldstein family had gathered to look at the dead body. The children were silent, glancing up continually at their mother, who was hiding her eyes, weeping. No doubt they looked for clues as to how they should behave in the face of death.
‘What are you crying about?’ asked Palfrey, with a sneer. ‘He was a Kraut, wasn’t he? Don’t worry.’
Helge turned a wet-cheeked face to him. ‘I am also a Kraut, as you call it. What I am crying for is … is … oh, who can say?’ She burst into fresh tears.
‘It’s the misery of the world, my cherub,’ said Gerard, putting a comforting arm round his wife’s shoulders.
Palfrey pulled a long face and shrugged. ‘Better get digging. I’m going to keep a look out, okay?’ He trotted off.
You began to dig. The earth was soft, but with plenty of root to slow progress. You worked. You sweated, and you worked. You now felt surprisingly content, saying to yourself, ‘This is real life with a vengeance.’
After about an hour, you rested. Gerard took over the digging. Pief and Brenda still stood solemnly by and regarded the dead German officer. Brenda clutched her brother’s hand.
‘He rea
lly is dead,’ said she, after deep thought. ‘He really looks really dead. I bet he was really bad when he was alive.’
‘I bet he tortured lots of people,’ Pief said. ‘I bet he’d have tortured us.’
Eventually, Palfrey returned to the site. He stood looking at the growing hole before saying, calmly, ‘Another bloke is coming up the hill.’
You and Gerard stood and stared at him. Palfrey was thinking, solid in command of the situation.
‘Okay, here’s what we do. You lot hide behind trees. Kids, you follow your dad and don’t make a sound, understand? Don’t move. Steve, give me the revolver.’
‘What are you going to do?’ you asked.
‘I’ll think of something.’
‘Who is it? Military?’
He prodded the dead body. ‘Could be this sod’s driver. Get yourself hidden. Don’t worry. I can sort it.’
You smarted under that patronizing tone, but nevertheless did as Palfrey instructed. You stood behind a tree. The others were already hidden. The children had long ago learnt to be mute when told.
Palfrey lay flat on the damp ground, facing the open country, covering himself with fallen leaves. You waited.
Minutes passed. Then a head appeared in the clearing. It bore blonde hair, close-cropped. Plain and beefy features, grey eyes, searching ahead. Then the torso became visible as he took another couple of steps forward. He waved his cap about. He was hot from the climb. He hesitated. The country was silent all round him.
Finding all was quiet ahead, he advanced cautiously to level ground. Standing by the first trees, he called out the name of his officer, a question in his voice. Only silence answered. When he received no other response, he took another couple of steps forward. He was now little more than twenty metres from where you were hiding. It was then that Palfrey shot him.
The noise was extraordinary. Birds flew up, startled, and smashed away through twigs and foliage to the free air. The driver – you later established it was the driver – was still standing. He turned to one side, his knees buckled, and he fell to the ground.
