His face is buried in his jacket, which is rolled into a ball and now serves as his pillow, a jacket that was actually almost new when Frank arrived. And he was stupid enough, in the early days, to treat it carefully by taking it off for the night, which stopped him from feeling as good as he might have.
To feel good. To smell that earth smell, the smell of something living and sweating. He deliberately sticks his nose in the place that smells strongest, under his arms. He would like to stink, as people say outside, to stink the way the earth stinks, because people outside think that men stink, that the earth stinks.
To feel his own heartbeat, to feel it everywhere: in his temples, in his wrists, in his toes. To smell the odour of his breath, to feel the warmth of his breath. And to mingle the images, bigger than life, truer than life, things seen, things heard and lived, others, too, that might have happened, to mingle all that, with his eyes closed and his body inert, while still listening out for particular footsteps on the iron staircase.
He has become very good at this game. But is it a game? No, it’s life. At school, they used to say, ‘He’s good at maths.’ Not about him, but about a classmate with a large head.
Well, now Frank is good at life. He knows how to burrow into his planks, bury his face in his jacket, close his eyes, dive in, dump ballast, go up and down at will, or almost. Somewhere, there are days, hours, minutes. Not here, not for him. Sometimes, when he really wants to count, he counts in ‘dives’.
It seems stupid. He hasn’t become stupid. He hasn’t lost his footing, and he is more determined than ever not to let himself go. On the contrary, he has made progress. What is the point, for example, of being concerned about the hours, such as they are used outside, in a place where nothing is adjusted to them?
If you cut a cake in quarters and you’re greedy, you worry about the quarters. But what if you cut it into slices? Or into thimble-sized pieces?
Everything has to be learned, starting with sleep. To think that men imagine they know how to sleep! Because they have as many hours to devote to sleep as they choose. There are those who dare to complain that they are slaves of their alarm-clock, when it is they themselves who set it when they go to bed, and they sometimes come out of their half sleep to make sure it is properly set!
To be woken by an alarm-clock you have set! To be woken by yourself, in other words! And to hear them, that’s slavery!
Let them learn first of all to sleep on their stomachs, to sleep wherever, on the ground, like worms, like insects. And, for lack of the smell of the earth, let them learn to be content with their own smell.
Lotte sprays perfume under her arms, probably between her thighs, too, and forces her girls to do the same.
It’s inconceivable!
To sleep on your stomach, to measure out your aches, watch for them, orchestrate them, to stick your tongue in the hole left by your two missing teeth and tell yourself that, if everything goes well, if it’s one of your lucky days, you’ll see the window open over there beyond the courtyard, to sleep like that, to think like that – that’s already close to the truth. It isn’t yet the whole truth, he knows that. It’s comforting all the same to know you are on the right track.
The signal is the men from the classroom next door leaving for their exercise. How else to put it? They have a spring in their step. Whatever happens, even those who will be shot tomorrow have a spring in their step, maybe because they don’t yet know!
They pass. Right! Now, the question is: does the old man have enough work or not? The old man is a lot more important than anyone else in the world. He can’t be married. If he is, his wife must have stayed in her country, which comes to the same thing. However busy he is, he is the kind of man who could raise his head and order, ‘Bring me Frank Friedmaier.’
Fortunately, he seldom does so at this hour. What’s most fortunate is that he doesn’t know, that nobody knows, and that’s one of the reasons Frank has got into the habit of sleeping on his stomach. If they knew he was listening out, if they suspected for a moment the joy it gives him, they would probably change the timetable.
It isn’t winter any more. No, that’s wrong! It’s the middle of winter, obviously. The worst of the cold hasn’t passed, but is still to come. It generally comes in February or March, and the later it comes, the harsher it is. It sometimes lasts until the middle, or even the end, of April.
Let us say they are through the darkest part of the tunnel. This year, as sometimes happens at the end of January, there is a false spring; at least that’s what they call it outside. The air and sky are limpid. The snow glitters without melting and yet it isn’t cold. The water is icy every morning, and there is such beautiful sunshine all day long that you would swear the birds are going to build their nests. In fact, the birds must be taken in by it, because they can be seen flying in couples, pursuing each other as if mating.
The window, over there beyond the gymnasium or the assembly hall, stays open for longer. Once, he guessed from the woman’s movements that she was busy ironing. And another time – it was wonderful, unhoped for – she was probably taking advantage of one of the mildest days to do some spring cleaning. The window remained open for more than two hours! Had she put the cradle in another room or wrapped the sleeping baby warmly? She was beating clothes, including men’s clothes. She shook them, beat them like rugs, and each of her movements caused Frank terrible pain as well as doing him good.
From a distance, she is no larger than a doll. He wouldn’t recognize her in the street. Not that it matters, because the opportunity will never present itself. She isn’t a doll. Her features are impossible to make out, but she is a woman, a woman busy with her own household. The enthusiasm with which she takes care of it! He feels it, he senses it.
It is because of her that he is so alert in the morning. Logically, at this hour, he ought to be sleeping heavily. At first, he was afraid he would miss her. In fact, he only missed her once, once when he was really exhausted. And even then it was at a time when he hadn’t yet learned to orchestrate his sleep.
She doesn’t know. She will never know. She is a woman, not rich, probably poor to judge by the place where she lives. She has a man and a child. The man must leave for his work early, because Frank has never seen him. Does she make his lunch ready for him in a tin box, like the one Holst took with him on his tram? It’s possible. It’s likely. Immediately afterwards, she gets down to work, in her home, in their home. She probably sings every now and again, or laughs with the baby. Because babies don’t just cry, as his nurse tried to make him believe.
‘Whenever you cried . . .’
‘The day you cried so loudly . . .’
‘That Sunday when you were so unbearable . . .’
She didn’t once say, ‘Whenever you laughed . . .’
And the bed, the bed that smells of the two of them. She doesn’t know. If she did, she wouldn’t put the sheets and blankets out to dry at the window. She wouldn’t even open the window. Lucky for him that she is on the outside. In her place, he would shut everything, keep everything in, let nothing of their life escape.
The morning of the spring clean seemed to him so exceptional that he found it hard to believe that fate could still have such joys in store for him. Over there, she was celebrating the false spring in her way, by airing, cleaning, scouring. She shook everything, moved everything. She was beautiful!
He has never seen her at close quarters, but it doesn’t matter: she was beautiful!
And there is a man, somewhere in town, who leaves in the morning with the certainty that he will see that woman again in the evening, and the child in its cradle, and the bed with their smells!
It doesn’t really matter what he does, what he thinks. It doesn’t matter that, from a distance, the woman at the window is reduced to the proportions of a puppet show. It is Frank who lives their life most intensely. Even if, lying on his stomach, he only risks keeping one eye open, because if they noticed what he is fascinated by, they would
change the timetable.
He knows them. Isn’t it Timo who claimed to know them? Timo had only scraps of truth, more like stock truths, the kind you read in the newspapers.
When he was little, his nurse, Mrs Porse, would infuriate him by saying, ‘You fought with Hans again because . . .’ And her because was always wrong . . . Because Hans was the son of a big farmer. Because he was rich . . . Because he was the strongest . . . Because . . . Because . . .
All his life, he has seen people get things wrong when they say because. Lotte foremost among them! Lotte has understood even less than the rest of them.
There is no because. It is a word for idiots. For people outside, anyway. With their because, there would be nothing surprising about them eventually giving him a medal he hasn’t deserved, or decorating him posthumously.
Because what?
Why didn’t he answer the officer who blew his cigar smoke in his face, when he was interrogated over there on the top floor of headquarters? He was no more of a hero than anyone else.
‘You must know, Friedmaier.’
That business of banknotes with little holes in them had nothing to do with him. He just needed to reply, ‘Ask the general.’ It was so stupid! A simple matter of watches. Since Frank didn’t know the general personally, he would have been forced to add, ‘I gave the watches to Kromer, and Kromer gave me my share of the money.’
He doesn’t feel sorry for Kromer, and he certainly has no desire to risk his life for him. On the contrary. For some time now, Kromer has been one of the few men he would like to see dead, if not the only one.
So what exactly happened up there in the office?
There was the officer in front of him, still good-natured, with his light cigar and his pink complexion. Frank has never seen the general. He has no reason to sacrifice himself for him. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to say, ‘That’s exactly how it happened, and you’re going to admit that I have nothing to do with the banknotes.’
Why didn’t he do that? Nobody will ever know. Not even him. He has found explanations two, three, ten days later, all of them different, all of them valid.
The true one, the only one, may be that he had no desire to be released, to be returned to everyday life.
Now he knows. In reality, it didn’t matter if he talked or not, at least not as far as the final result was concerned. He wouldn’t be able to find a satisfactory answer to someone who explained his attitude by asserting, ‘You knew perfectly well you were done for anyway!’
It’s obvious. Not that he knew, but that he is done for. Only, that was a truth he has only admitted later.
Basically, he resisted for the sake of resisting. It was almost a physical thing. Maybe, at a deeper level, it was his way of responding to the officer’s insulting familiarity.
‘I’m sorry,’ Frank replied.
‘You’re sorry for what you did, is that it?’
‘No, I’m just sorry.’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘I’m sorry, for your sake, that I have nothing to say.’
And he knew. He was aware of everything, the likelihood of torture, his death, everything. It was as if he was doing it deliberately.
He can’t remember now. It’s still a bit vague. There he was, as erect as a young cockerel, standing in front of that extraordinary power, and he behaved like a little boy who wants to be slapped.
‘You’re sorry, is that it, Friedmaier?’
‘Yes.’
He was looking the officer straight in the eyes. Was he somehow hoping that the other man, who was working behind him by the light of a lamp, would come to his aid? Was he counting on the typists passing in the corridors? Was he still telling himself, ‘That kind of thing can’t possibly happen here’?
Whatever the reason, he held out. He didn’t even want to blink.
‘I’m sorry!’ he repeated.
He swore to himself not to utter, even under torture, the word ‘general’, or the name of that bastard Kromer. Or any name. Or anything at all.
‘I’m sorry!’
‘Really, you’re sorry! Tell me exactly what you’re sorry for, Friedmaier. Think before you answer.’
He gave a stupid answer, although he made up for it later:
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re sorry you didn’t know before that we make little holes in the notes, is that it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you sorry you showed that money to everyone?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And now you’re sorry you know too much. There you are! You’re sorry you know too much, Friedmaier!’
‘I—’
‘In a while, you’ll regret you didn’t talk!’
It all happened in a kind of fog. Neither was concerned with the meaning of the words any more. They threw them out haphazardly, like stones you pick up from the ground without looking.
‘You remember now, I bet. You’re going to remember.’
‘No.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m sure you remember.’
‘No.’
‘Oh, yes. A big pile of banknotes like that!’ Sometimes he seemed to be joking, and sometimes his face assumed a fierce expression. ‘You remember, Friedmaier.’
‘No.’
‘At your age, you always remember in the end.’
The cigar! What most stays in his mind is the cigar moving close to his face, then away, the other man’s face getting red and covered with blotches, then, all of a sudden, a certain stillness in those earthenware-blue eyes. He had never seen eyes like that before, especially not at such close quarters.
‘Friedmaier, you’re a lowlife.’
‘I know.’
‘Friedmaier, you’re going to talk.’
‘No.’
‘Friedmaier . . .’
It’s funny how adults continue to do all their lives what they did at school! The officer behaved just like a senior boy in class, or even like a teacher grappling with a young tearaway. He was at the end of his tether. He breathed, almost imploringly, ‘Friedmaier . . .’
Frank had decided, once and for all, to say no.
‘Friedmaier . . .’
There was a ruler on the desk, a solid brass ruler.
The officer grabbed it and repeated, on the verge of losing control:
‘Young Friedmaier, it’s time you understood . . .’
‘No.’
Did Frank want to get the ruler full across his face? It’s possible. It was what happened. Suddenly. Just as he was least expecting it, when perhaps the other man was also least expecting it, even though he already had the ruler in his hand.
‘Friedmaier . . .’
‘No.’
He isn’t a martyr, or a hero. He’s nothing at all. He understood, maybe four, maybe five days later. What would have happened if he had said yes instead of no?
It wouldn’t have changed anything for the others, probably. Kromer is on the run, he is almost certain of that. As for the general, firstly Frank doesn’t give a damn about him, and secondly, the testimony of a runt like him won’t decide the fate of a general anyway. He will disappear from circulation, unless he has already disappeared. Who cares?
What matters, what Frank only discovered later, is that his fate, too, would have been the same whether or not he had spoken, apart from the ruler in his face.
He knows too much now. You don’t put kids who know as much as he does back on the street. If the general’s suicide is announced tomorrow, you don’t want someone going around crying, ‘It isn’t true!’
When it comes to officers, nobody has the right to assert, ‘They’re thieves!’
At the time, up there in that office, he didn’t think about it. He said, ‘No.’ And he isn’t sure now that it was because he wanted to suffer. There was certainly the attraction of torture, the matter of knowing if he would withstand it or not, as he has so often wondered.
Lotte often says of him, ‘He goes crazy if he so mu
ch as scratches himself shaving.’
Lotte doesn’t matter. It isn’t about her. Or about anything that concerns her. Only he was at stake when he said no. Just him. Not even Holst. Let alone Sissy.
Nor should anybody think it’s about his friendship for Kromer, or his debt towards the general. It was for himself, Frank, not even Frank, just himself, that he said no.
Just to see!
And the fat officer, as he lost his head, repeated two or three times, ‘Do you understand? Do you understand?’
Frank must have been wearing his most stubborn expression, the one that always infuriates Lotte. In this way, he was taking revenge for all kinds of things – they are scores he will settle later; in any case, in a knowing, almost calculating way he pushed the officer over the edge.
‘You have to—’
‘No.’
‘You will have to, won’t you?’
‘No.’
And there it came! The ruler full in his face, straight across his face. Frank felt it coming. Up until the last moment, he could have said yes, or, at a pinch, have ducked. He didn’t flinch, and there was a cracking of bone.
He wanted that blow. He was scared, but he wanted it. He felt the shock of it all through his body, from head to foot. He closed his eyes. He thought, he hoped, he would end up on the floor, but he remained standing.
What he did that was most difficult – and really that was the only difficult thing – was not to lift his hand to his face. And yet he had the impression that his left eye had come out of its socket. Like the cat in Mrs Porse’s tree! The cat made him think of Sissy. When you have inflicted on someone what he inflicted on her, do you have to right to flinch because of an eye?
Blood was flowing everywhere, down his neck, over his chin, and he didn’t say anything, he didn’t lift his hand to touch his face, he continued to face the officer, head held high.
The Snow Was Dirty Page 17
