CHAPTER SEVEN
The Kroysing novella
AT THAT HE opened the manuscript that Bertin had sent him. He poured another glass of wine, lit another slim Dutch cigar, looked disapprovingly at Bertin’s rather cramped handwriting, began to read the story, holding each sheet up to the light, and was quickly absorbed and captivated. The light cast a soft glow, the mouse rustled behind the wallpaper, people passed the window, talking, but Posnanski was now in Fosses wood in a hollow full of shot-up trees where two abandoned guns raised their long, mournful necks to the sky and amongst a group of workers in field grey he saw the tanned, friendly face of young Kroysing, his curved forehead and calm eyes. The work could hardly pass as a novella, since it contained no artful characterisation or surprising plot twists. Sometimes the language wasn’t very polished, which could be excused by the speed of writing, or was too bold where a more restrained expression would’ve been more powerful. But it did invoke the figure of the man as perceived by the author and it showed what had happened clearly and pitilessly, shaking the world from its sleep so that it could not just snore on as a French shell dispatched the writer’s recently won friend. And it made it quite clear that the burden of this death did not lie with the French. No, behind the miserable ASC chiefs lay the gigantic outline of the owners and unleashers of violence – all those who were planning and carrying out the suicide of Europe, those backward types who saw their neighbours only as something to attack and whose last trump card in international competition was: the gun.
The fact that Bertin had not invented names in this draft created an unusual and convincing effect. The hero was simply called Christoph, and other names were indicated by initial capital letters. At the end of the fourth page he found a note from the author to himself: ‘Improve names.’ But however essential it might be for artistic effect to invent credible characters and refine real events to bring out their essence, the relaxed handling of names and events meant this first draft spoke all the more directly to the lonely reader. Posnanski groaned in agony and also in satisfaction; under no circumstances should he let the unprepossessing Bertin get away. He belonged to the same group of men as young Kroysing and Posnanski himself: those who tried to sort the world out and using the right tools for the job – justice, reason and informed debate. It might seem laughable but it was true: whoever used those tools inevitably excited the anger of the evil principle and its minions, the men of violence with their feverish thirst for action and desire to oppress. And as Posnanksi buttoned his housecoat over his rotund body, because it was a cold March night and he was tired, to his amazement he found himself marching over to the fireplace at the far end of the room where embers still glowed. Marching because the glow embodied the enemy, the eternal foe of all creativity, the opponent and the opposition in one, the blocker, Satan himself. He literally saw him squatting there with claws, a beak, bat-like wings and a dragon’s tail, casting around with his ambiguous basilisk’s eyes, always on the brink of shrill laughter. It was this rash, devouring element, allied with ubiquitous steel, that had given birth to every technology and forged every gun, and whose omnipotent laughter lay behind every explosion. It had killed young Kroysing and wounded his older brother. It threatened Bertin in the form of duds, it had killed Judge Advocate Mertens in the form of an aerial bomb, it lurked over him, Posnanski, over Winfried, over that old Junker Lychow – over every man and every woman. Man had made a bad job of taming the fire that had fallen from Heaven; reason too, the light of Heaven, and morality, born on Mount Sinai, he had handled like a schoolboy. In that dark hour before bedtime, Posnanski was inclined to give the human race as a whole a mark of three minus. That made Pupil Bertin all the more indispensable. Fire had consumed Pupil Kroysing, and the same thing happened to countless others every day. It was sheeplike logic to plunge into the fire in ever greater numbers because of that and not bother about individuals because that had no purpose in such times. But Pupil Posnanski knew that there was a purpose and that it was the only purpose because it was always at hand; it didn’t wait for the fire to go out but quietly smuggled the creative principle away from the destroyers. At present there was nothing to be done about the Kroysing case, and Posnanski carefully laid the various sheets of paper in the orange folder with a Montmédy file reference. He put the Kroysing novel in there too.
But the Bertin case was one to fight. He’d used the first half of the night well and he’d use the second half even better, because people were always much cleverer and more whole when asleep than when awake. And as Posnanski opened the window to spare Madame Jovin the worst of the bother, he said to himself: there are serious ways to rescue a man and funny ways, direct and indirect, honest and dishonest. They’re all allowed. The only way that is proscribed is the one that doesn’t work and puts him in more danger. Common sense and what he remembered from his last conversation with Lieutenant Winfried told Posnanski that he wouldn’t be able to count on Lychow in this instance but should turn to his ADC (which he was wrong about). The only one he could rope in fully was Eberhard Kroysing, because it would be easy to make him see that the future shape of his campaign against Niggl stood or fell on Bertin’s testimony. Sitting on the edge of his bed in his underpants, groaning, flushed and tight-lipped from the effort of reaching his sock suspenders over the bulk of his stomach, Posnanski came to a final decision: the main thing was to sort out the Bertin affair.
Then, when he was already in his pyjamas under his soft clean coverlet and had turned off the lamp, he noticed to his annoyance that he’d left the light on in the living room. Fire always resisted him, he thought, mocking himself grumpily, as get got up, fussed about with his slippers, went out and turned the light off. He noticed with amazement how bright the moon, now sinking in the west, shone through the window.
Once he was asleep and dreaming, he was transported to a fabulous landscape and there came to him the face of Christoph Kroysing, whom he’d never seen. It appeared surrounded by luxuriant southern foliage like the face of a man pushing through a jungle, and in the middle of the jungle resided the sleeping man – Posnanski, in rejuvenated form, fervently engaged in regulating the traffic on an anthill and in reaching, with the help of white termites, the ideal offered by the round public square and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church outside his window. As if seen from the perspective of ants, the young sergeant’s countenance hung like a large orb in the midst of bayonet-like agave leaves, which ended in a spike and were ridged with narrow little points, and palm fronds seemed to grab at his visored cap. Beneath the red ribbon and visor of his cap, Kroysing’s steady, dark brown eyes were trained on Posnanski, who was busily working away, and there was a smile on his lips beneath his broad forehead and arching brows. ‘As you can see, I was unfortunately detained, my dear colleague,’ his voice said from far above the earth, and Posnanski, a chubby schoolboy crouched in the sand, replied: ‘I hope you’ve got a note from your parents. You brown-eyed types are always playing truant and leaving us to do all the work. It’s a typical sixth former’s trick.’
‘Oh, you poor thing. You’ve really changed,’ said the young sergeant. ‘Can’t you see that there’ll be no leave for me?’
And then Posnanski recognised the fire burning among the plants: iron and oxygen had combined to set their green cells ablaze. ‘A hundred years of purgatory will pass in no time,’ he said reassuringly. And the man held prisoner by the plants agreed: ‘War years count double.’
‘I’ll be your representative in the meantime, my dear colleague,’ said Posnanski into a telephone attached to a green silk cord that he was now holding in his hand, and from far above, now transformed into a sort of moon but still connected to Posnanski’s desk lamp by a long, twisted root, the prisoner spoke into the receiver: ‘Affirmative.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
A cry for help
IT WAS A lucky thing for Private Bertin that the First Company’s postal orderly never arrived from Etraye-East until the early hours of the afternoon.
Otherwise he would have come to grief that day. There wasn’t much left to crush in his soul, but such miserable little scraps of optimism and presence of mind as remained were obliterated by Diehl’s carbon copy. He understood immediately what had happened and saw what it meant. This was the end. He’d had a bit of wild good luck and been applied for by a court martial – but because it was him, things didn’t follow their natural course, and an ASC major was able to turn the request down and suggest a replacement who was no replacement at all. It was disgusting, it was enough to make you puke, to make you mutiny, to make you want to die. Would anyone keep trying after such a rebuff? Surely not. There was only one way out. He’d better go at once to Kroysing, to Sister Kläre, to people who knew him and wished him well, and who thought that he wasn’t meant to hump crates of wet explosives around and break his back under a load that made the blood rush to his head and weighed 89 pounds even when dry. He gave himself a cursory wash, told Sergeant Barkopp he was going out and ran rather than walked up the familiar hill path, which was getting muddier each day but luckily froze over at night. Blind to the misty beauty of the early spring evening under a jade sky, he trudged on, getting worked up over a long letter and cry for help he was composing in his head to his wife Lenore – as if she were in a position to help. To the rhythm of his footsteps, his troubled heart let rip, spilling forth a confused, accusing mixture of self-pity and entreaties, based upon a pathetic overestimate of the influence his father-in-law could wield on his daughter’s behalf.
That was how he consoled himself as he wished the hospital porter good evening, exchanging remarks about the weather. And although his cry for help showed a certain childishness, this sort of daydream did him good. It put him in a position to describe the matter to Eberhard Kroysing and his two room mates with the kind of casual self-mockery needed to maintain and if possible increase his esteem with the young officer.
In the meantime, because they shared a room and a common fate, Lieutenants Mettner and Flachsbauer had been let in on the matter that bound Bertin and Kroysing, gradually at first then completely – and during the long conversations that filled the endless expanse of days, some of Bertin’s other experiences had been discussed, for example the bizarre outcome of Lieutenant von Roggstroh’s medal recommendation. The two young officers roared with laughter, recognising the way the military worked; both of them had been robbed of the credit for valiant actions while some ‘lazy bones’ or other benefited. They thought that Bertin had behaved impeccably and warned him that he should under no circumstances make a hasty complaint or do anything stupid. He could safely leave the next move to the judge advocate, whose division would hit back at such a rebuff as a matter of honour if nothing else.
The white-washed barracks room with its three metal beds looked more homely than it had a few days ago. A vase had appeared, containing pussy willow, alder and some early greenery – a sign of the interest Sister Kläre had lately started to take in the three lieutenants – all three of them. She was careful to resist a mild impulse to favour one of them, a sturdy, big-nosed lad whose exceptional character shone through. As a result, a humorous undertone of jealousy had broken out among the three, who half liked and half couldn’t stand each other, and this new tinge to their lives, with its attendant rivalry and competition, provided a vigorous spur to healing. For her part, Sister Kläre, a grown woman, was delighted by the beneficial effect she was having on them and appeared to take all three young men equally lightly, learning various details of their lives and sometimes bringing in work to do while she sat with them.
Now that the good weather had started, there was no need to worry about keeping the windows shut, and the men could smoke to their hearts’ content. At the same time, the wounded men, who’d been patched up in a pretty makeshift way, found the arrival of spring very tiring. And so an hour of bed rest had been prescribed from 5pm to 6pm before the evening meal for all rooms and wards with no exceptions: no talking, no smoking, no reading – only dozing. After months of overexertion, soldiers can sleep like babies – any time and with enjoyment. Bertin sat rather unhappily on his stool, wondering what to do in the meantime as Pahl would be sleeping too. The lieutenants, who already had their bedclothes pulled up to their chins, consoled him that Sister Kläre would soon appear. She had threatened and promised to check if they were obeying orders. She might let Bertin write his letter in her room during the period of bed rest (and the letter would now come to him in more considered form than on the way up the hill).
Sister Kläre came in with her light step. Some nurses stamped about like dragoons. Sister Kläre had all the beauty of a nun, Bertin thought, as she paused for a moment in the doorway, surprised to find him there, yet pleased: she blushed slightly. ‘That’s nice,’ she said, ‘but you’ll have to leave.’ Bertin obediently stood up and made his request. What beautiful shining blue eyes this woman had, or rather this lady, to use an expression that had gradually lost all relevance in his life. ‘I have a much better idea,’ she said. ‘Come with me. Goodbye, gentlemen. See you in an hour.’
Bertin had to take his coat and cap with him. Then he followed Sister Kläre through the half rectangle of the barracks’ corridors to a special wing that was damp and smelt of warm steam with a whiff of sulphuric acid. Opening a door, they stepped on to wet decking as in a bathroom. From a chair rose a giant of a man dressed in the overalls of a hospital orderly. His left hand was missing and had been replaced with a hook.
‘This is my young charge, Pechler. Give him a bath fit for a general and smoke out all his bees. He’s to be back in room 19 in an hour or so.’
‘Bloomin heck, Sister Kläre,’ chuckled Herr Pechler, ‘I’ve never had a general in before.’
Bertin lay in a bath full of hot water, a dark grey zinc tub in a dim cell. He could hear Herr Pechler outside going about his business, and it flashed through his mind to give him 50 Marks as a thank you. He hadn’t enjoyed the deep pleasure of a bath like this for nine months; the only chance he’d had to rub the old skin off his body had been in streams or the very occasional shower. He was trained to accept this, and only now that he was enjoying such civilised amenities again did he feel their lack since the start of the Glory Days. The immeasurable joy of a hot bath – which he’d taken as a matter of course every morning in the first winter of the war. How wonderfully relaxing to sink into it and ease out his limbs, how like sleep it was to abandon himself to it, only much rarer! And how nice it was to meet a woman, who wanted nothing from him and from whom he wanted nothing, but who simply wanted to show her thanks for a book, which he happened to have written.
Would he ever write again? Would the frost that had gone right into the marrow of his bones ever melt? Would he ever be able to write convincingly of all he’d experienced, the enormous misery and his bitter rage at the infernal stupidity and evil he’d encountered? They’d managed to reduce him. Like all the others, he’d been brought up to stand in the breach for the homeland, to remain steadfast, not to shirk the common fate. But now he was tired. All he wanted was some peace, to turn his back on the mountain of crap that kept threatening to engulf him, to escape from all the unchecked hostility directed at undermining the intellect and intellectuals in order to bring them down and bury them. He no longer cared what lieutenants and his class comrades thought of him. He didn’t want to see or hear any more about the demands of service; he wanted to crawl behind books and plunge into fantasy, to dissolve the world as it had been shown to be into farce, into a smile at the state of things that should linger like a soft reflection from the sky on the ragtag creatures of the earth. Over there, not very far away, lay the Ardennes forest, which Shakespeare had peopled with immortal beings, locating among its trees fugitives and exiles, melacholics and lovely maidens, youths and old men, dukes and minstrels. How he suddenly longed for that world as he lay there sweating in the warm steam. Ah, but he no longer knew a single verse of that heavenly music off by heart; none of the dialogue now resonated within him, a
ll forgotten. He did, however, know how an enormous weight breaks a man’s back, tightens his shoulder muscles and pushes his torso down on to his pelvis. He had, however, learnt all the labourer’s arts, how to use tools and his hands and all his muscles, lots of tricks, and he had become the Comrade and sleeping companion of those upon whom society builds its entire way of life. He had, however, witnessed all manner of destruction, men’s tenacity and endurance in the face of sludge, hunger and the threat of death, mutual killing on an industrial scale, mountains of rubble, rivers of blood, frozen twisted corpses, wounded men in the grip of fever shivering by a fire, and the mysterious impossibility of finding a way out that led not to death but to peace. He knew that it would all have to mature within him, year after year, the way a good ham is smoked. Could it be given expression? Would it resist being shaped, like the water in this bath as he opened and closed his hand? The novella was no good; he suddenly saw that. It had been stupid of him to show it to Dr Posnanski. He’d better stand up now, soap himself like some dingy old underwear, shower off and go back out into the world refreshed, turning his back on past and future dreams as soon as his foot hit the clean decking, the way you walk away from a shower that’s run cold, and deal with the stupid little private matter on which his life unfortunately depended.
Outside Verdun Page 40
