The Pale House

by Luke McCallin

  He realized his earlier anger had faded, or subsided. Wound down tight within him. Compressed, like strata, beneath the self-doubt that, it seemed, could not be so easily done away with. If the passions of his younger days were not enough to remake him, still he could feel he was different. Yes, the anger had faded, the doubts were creeping in, but in turning inward he had turned backward, tapped that reservoir of memories and feelings, that younger version of himself. He could not let himself become that man again, though. That man had been too dangerous, too foolhardy, too out of control . . .

  That was the man who had killed those men at the house. Two bursts. No consideration, only cold calculation. No remorse. had asked him if it was forgiveness he had come for, but it was not what he sought. He had been acknowledging a mistake. He should not have killed those men. They had had uses. Reinhardt had known that, but he had killed them anyway.

  Sometime in the night, he realized, something in him had begun to fuse. Parts that had been separate for a long time. That part of him that yearned toward what he could do as a Feldjaeger, finding some echo of the man he had been when he had fought through and survived the first war’s storm of steel. And then there was the other part, the cautious, creeping part, the part that wanted only to sidle and worm its way along, scrimping and miserly with what he thought and even more with what he said. He had measured those two sides so long, keeping that younger, rasher side down, he did not know what he would be like if he gave in and accepted himself as someone who could be both.

  A soft brush of sound, maybe from the kitchen, and he knew it was that sound that had awakened him before. Somehow, he sensed was awake as well, and he ran a hand softly up her arm, whispered in her ear.

  “Tell him it is all right.”

  She stiffened against him, and then her head turned toward him, her eyes very wide and dark.

  “Tell him,” whispered Reinhardt again, softly.

  She sat up, wrapping her robe around her as Reinhardt pulled his trousers and shirt on. She walked quietly to the kitchen, called a name in a quiet voice. He heard her voice, soft, coaxing, and then she was coming back, and a boy had his hand in hers.

  The boy from the forest.

  brought him to the couch and sat, bringing him against her. The boy’s eyes looked wide and white as he stared at Reinhardt, saying nothing.

  “His name is Neven,” said . The boy blinked and turned his head up to her at the sound of his name. She ruffled his hair, kissed the top of his head. “I could not leave him with the others. With the elderly couple. They were not his family, anyway.”

  “I understand,” said Reinhardt.

  “Did you know he was here?”

  “Before I came?” She nodded. “I guessed. But it’s not why I came,” he said, sliding his hand along the back of the sofa to brush her shoulder, then her hair from her cheek. “How has he been?”

  “He seems . . . all right. But he does not say much. I only know he lived with his uncle and sister. They had a little farm, and raised livestock that his uncle would butcher for sale at the market.”

  “Where did he live?”

  “He does not know,” whispered, brushing her mouth across the top of Neven’s head. “Before the war, he had never been far from where he used to live.”

  “Who knows he is here?”

  “No one,” she said, laying her chin on Neven’s head, her eyes far away.

  “You know, they will not stop looking for him.”

  “I can keep him safe until the Partisans come.”

  Reinhardt looked at him, tilting his head down until the boy looked up at him. “Do you think I can ask him? About what happened?”

  “Must you?”

  “It’s important, Suzana,” he replied, a small thrill darting through him at the use of her name. She nodded, after a moment, and whispered quietly in Neven’s ear. The boy never took his eyes from Reinhardt, though his head shook slightly, and his breathing came high and shallow, short little movements of his chest. held him, rocked him, and gave him his time, until the boy spoke, startling them both.

  “Došli su kad sam bio u šumi.”

  “I was in the forest when they came,” translated. “I was with Almira and Suljo, and I heard the cars, then the shouting. I wanted to run home, but my uncle always told me, if men came, if men in uniforms come, to run and hide and not to come back.” The boy’s eyes did not waver as he told the story. “But it was difficult. I could not stay away. There was my uncle, and my sister. So I came as close as I dared, and Almira came with me. I saw the men. They lined up my uncle, and my sister, and the others. And from their truck they took three men. They were crying, but they shot them, and they threw them in one of the houses. And then from their truck they took an old man, and made him stand with my uncle, and his friends. Then they killed them all. Then they set fire to the hut, and watched it burn. And then they left.”

  Reinhardt and exchanged a look at the boy’s stark recital of the horror that had descended upon him and his family. He wanted so much to leave it at that, but could not, and his eyes asked forgiveness of as there seemed no way to ask it of Neven.

  “Neven, I must ask you some other things,” said Reinhardt, softly. “Did you hear the men say anything?”

  “Some things. They were angry we were there. ‘Why are you here?’ one of them demanded. They argued what to do. Then one of them decided, and he lined them all up.”

  “The ones they took from the truck. The three men they put in the house. What did they look like?”

  “They were Germans. They had German uniforms.”

  “When did you arrive there, do you know?”

  “We arrived two days before this happened. We were running. Our village was destroyed. We found the houses and thought we would be safe. They were empty. My uncle told us we would be safe there. The Ustaše would not get us there. But then Elma—she was my sister—she found the bodies and was scared, and everyone argued if we should stay or go.”

  “You found bodies?”

  Neven nodded, solemnly. “Yes. We found two bodies. They were buried, but not deep. Wild animals had found them.”

  “You saw these bodies?”

  “Yes. They were Germans, too. Elma was scared.”

  “I am sorry to ask you this, Neven.”

  “Auntie Suzana says you are a policeman.” eyes widened as she translated, looking down at Neven. The boy spoke to her, clear, simple words, and she smiled at him, but as he looked back at Reinhardt, she brushed the back of her hand across her face, the candlelight marking a wet, gold trail back from her eye. “Will you catch those men, he asks.”

  “I will do my best, Neven. I promise.” The boy looked at him a long moment, and then the hard edges of his face disappeared, and his expression seemed to soften, and Reinhardt knew he was looking at the real boy. The boy who existed before the trauma of this war. “Do you think you can remember what the Ustaše looked like?”

  “They were not Ustaše.”

  “Who were not Ustaše, Neven?”

  “The ones who killed the soldiers. And then killed the others. My uncle, and my sister. The Ustaše only brought the old man.”

  Reinhardt paused. “Who was it killed your family, then, Neven?”

  “They were Germans.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw their uniforms. I could hear them. They sounded like you.”

  “They sounded like me?”

  “They looked like you.”

  “Like me . . . ?”

  Reinhardt froze as the boy’s eyes fixed him, pinned him, and his finger came up to point at him. “They looked like you,” he said again, and then his finger drifted away, pointing. Reinhardt followed its line to a buttery gleam of metal, leaned over to the table, and lifted up what Neven had seen.

  “They wore this?”

&nb
sp; Neven nodded, pointing at the gorget in Reinhardt’s hands.

  Reinhardt stood at the window as took Neven back to bed. He parted the curtains slowly, looking out across the geometry of the city’s rooftops. The sky was studded with clouds and—when they let it emerge—the moon shone down like a newly minted coin. It was a bomber’s moon, glistening white, painting in pale shades the snow-shrouded slopes of Mount across the valley with its high valleys and coombs seeming to float in the night air. The city was very quiet now, only the sporadic crackle of gunfire from across the valley, shots that came in twos and threes.

  He fished the bloodied paper and the soldbuchs from his coat, sitting back down at the couch, spreading them on the table. He stared at the soldbuchs, wondering where they had come from. All soldiers were supposed to keep theirs on them at all times. Failure to do so was a serious offense, enough to get you sent to a penal battalion these days.

  He pondered that, then opened them one by one, flicking through the names and details within. Sergeant Heinrich Keppel, infantryman, born 15 August 1919, in Freising, Bavaria. Sergeant Georg Abler, infantryman, born 1 March 1922, in Marburg, Slovenia. Corporal Marius Maywald, tanker, born 19 April 1921 in Troppau, in Bohemia and Moravia. Personal information—height, religion, hair and eye color. All had served in a variety of postings and units before posting to a penal battalion. Fairly unobtrusive, run-of-the-mill soldiers. Nothing jumped out, although Abler seemed to ring a bell, or maybe look familiar, but he could not work out why. He knew no one called Abler, and until a few days ago he had had no idea of the existence of the penal battalion from which, presumably, these pay books had come.

  He turned them in his hands, running his fingers over them, turning each page slowly. There was nothing untoward about the grimy covers, the softened edges to the pages, the looping scrawls in green and blue and black ink that a dozen company clerks in the same number of army units had left. They were in good condition, as mandated. Only the back cover of Keppel’s book looked bloodstained.

  He unfolded the note, the paper crackling softly, and read the ten names, noting for the first time the elegant lines of the handwriting that had set them down, rather old-fashioned in the curls and flourishes and slants of the letters. He rubbed the paper between his fingers, bending it a little, seeing how thick and fine it was. It was paper made by a craftsman, he realized, thick, silky paper made for a fine hand that knew how to handle a pen. No pooling or blotting of the letters. Was there a message here, too?

  Georg Abler, Carl Benirschke, Otto Berthold, Bruno Cejka, Jozef Fett, Werner Janowetz, Marius Maywald, Jürgen Sedlaczek, Christian Seymer, and Ulrich Vierow. The names meant nothing to him. Neither did the six-digit numbers next to each name. Nothing. He let his mind relax, trying to see through to some kind of symmetry. He considered Keppel’s soldbuch, then put it carefully to one side. What was left were ten names, and he had found five bodies at that construction site, and three in the forest, and Neven had said he had found two more, buried, and they had probably been Berthold and Seymer who, if Reinhardt could figure this out properly, had been the first to disappear. Ten names, ten bodies. Ten bodies, but only two soldbuchs. Three, if he counted Keppel’s, but he still felt it did not belong. What the connection might be, he did not know and, hearing coming back, he piled them back together with the paper and put them back in his coat.

  “What time is it?” she asked, coming to sit beside him.

  “Two o’clock in the morning,” he answered. “I should go very soon.”

  She ducked her head and nodded against her chest. He shifted over on the sofa and took her in his arms. She came softly, and they leaned back together, his hand running down her hair.

  “What does it all mean?” she whispered.

  “About Neven?” A little hesitation, and she nodded, and Reinhardt wondered if she had wanted to ask about the two of them. “I’m not sure. I suspect . . . I suspect some of the Ustaše are bribing their way into our ranks. I think that way they hope to escape from here.”

  She stiffened, raised her head to him. “How would escaping as a German help them?”

  “I think they might be enlisting as what we call hiwis. Foreign volunteers. As such, they’ll do mostly menial work. No fighting. They’d be as safe as could be. And once they’re far from here . . .”

  He fell quiet under the pressure of her eyes, and she picked his words up. “Once they’re far from here, they can become themselves again.” Reinhardt nodded, suddenly relieved when she turned the piercing glitter of her gaze down, and came against his chest, again. He stroked her hair, feeling something had changed.

  He would have stayed there forever, he thought, but there was a day waiting for him out there, and there was no God to make the night longer just for him. He breathed deeply, and seemed to hear it for the signal it was. She straightened.

  “You must go.” She said it simply, as much a question as a statement. He nodded.

  She heated water on the oventop, and left him to use the amenities on the landing, shared with the three other apartments on this floor. He went quickly and quietly, not wanting to meet anyone for fear of drawing attention to her, but he could not help but smile. Him, standing shivering in his coat and boots in a communal latrine, and the memory of the night he had just spent. When he came back, they stood on towels in the kitchen and washed. The war had changed him, he knew. The spars of his ribs and shoulders were clear to see, the muscle sheeted taut across his torso, wound cord-tight around his arms and legs. The ridged scar across his knee stood proud and livid. She still had the round-hipped and full-breasted mark of so many of the women of this land, but it seemed to him time and age and war had shaped her differently, as if the lines of her body still hewed to the proud stance of her soul and she was beautiful to him.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “You,” he said, simply. She blushed and then smiled. He watched her, drinking his fill of her, wondering if this would be the only time, knowing it probably was.

  When he had dressed, pulling on his soiled and dirty clothes, she came over to him with a little glass vial in her hand. She took the stopper and dabbed a little perfume on his collar, under his chin. “If they ask . . .” she said, then faltered, looked down. He put his hand under her chin and lifted her head gently, and she met his eyes with a sudden determination.

  “I can say I was with someone,” he finished for her. She smiled and nodded, her eyes suddenly wet, and he felt his own sting shut, and it seemed it was all too soon they were at the door. Her eyes were wide and full on his, and he felt his own were brimming with all he had to say, and no way or time to say it.

  She ran a finger softly over his mouth, whispering. “No words. Later. If you need . . . If you want . . .” She blushed, again, her head shaking slightly at her own timidity in the face of what they had given each other that night. They kissed softly, and he wished it did not feel like it was the last time.

  He went quietly back down the stairs and saw no one, the doors on each floor standing shut and silent. He paused at the entrance to the building, listening, buttoning his coat up against the cold and deciding where to go. He was loath to leave, feeling that the entrance was a threshold not to be crossed lightly, but the day was not going to get any younger. He had known it on waking, and it was as true now as it was then. More so.

  He made to walk outside but paused, holding himself still. He did not know what it was, but he felt something. Somewhere out there, some part of the night was deeper, darker than it should be. A watcher himself, he could feel that something out there had eyes and saw him, and he folded himself back into the blackness of the entrance. Watching, waiting, listening, passing his eyes slowly across doors and arches and windows like inked squares on the coal outline of the street. Nothing moved, but he could feel it, some sense or vibration that ran at widdershins to the surface of the world.

  Finally, he shook himself lo
ose and made himself walk out, moving close to the walls. The city was very quiet, eerily so after the fighting earlier that night. Here in the Austrian city the roads were straight, some still bounded in filthy heaps of snow and ice and rubbish but empty of people. Still, he made himself change his rhythm, walking backward from time to time, checking behind, stopping to duck into a doorway, checking back, looking up at windows and across the street before continuing on. Above, the sky was rent dark blue and gray, the moon lighting the ragged edges of the torn clouds as they streamed above him on a chill wind that drove crosswise above the valley. He moved fast down Ante Street, still seeing no one, and finally up to the guard post at the barracks, and it was there he had the first inkling something was wrong.

  It was not the fortified entrance that gave him pause. That had gone up yesterday, with the first fighting around the ring of the city’s edge. It was the squad of Feldgendarmerie mingled with the soldiers on duty, the way their sergeant took a hard look at his armband, then asked for his soldbuch, comparing it to a handwritten list he held. His eyes froze, fixed Reinhardt where he stood, and he called over another of the Feldgendarmes.

  “Hey. I think this is the one you’re after.”

  The other Feldgendarme, also a sergeant, compared soldbuch and list, nodded, and with a motion of his wrist Reinhardt was bracketed by two more of them.

  “What’s the meaning of this, Sergeant?” Reinhardt’s tongue stole toward that gap in his teeth.

  “Orders, sir.”

  “Orders for what?”

  “Can’t say, sir.”

  “You will say more than that, Sergeant,” said Reinhardt, planting his feet. There was a creak of accoutrements, the iron slide of weapons all around, as the Feldgendarmes backed away from him.