Outside Verdun

by Zweig, Arnold; Rintoul, Fiona;

  CHAPTER NINE

  Everything is hunky dory

  DURING THE REST hour, Sister Kläre sat in her room and wrote to her two children, who were being better looked after and brought up in a countryside boarding school than they could have been within a marriage destroyed by war. She wanted to write to her husband too, whom she still held very dear, although a shared life had become impossible since he’d started to react in a threatening way to any dissent. And who could listen with equanimity to him berating the Kaiser for joining with the lunatic Austrians in unleashing a war that was already lost because he was afraid of the Pan-Germans? Who could remain silent when a once highly gifted man fumed that German misanthropy was to blame for the war and whoever was a slave to that would pay the price into the third and fourth generations, as was written in the scriptures? Perhaps later they’d find a doctor who could remove the burden from Lieutenant Schwersenz’s mind and the poison from his soul. Klara Schwersenz would then gladly take him by the hand again, start a new home, bring the children back, rebuild their life together and forget the whole dreadful nightmare. Until then, everything had to stay as it was: he buried away in Hinterstein valley, and she working in the service of the Fatherland. Klara Schwersenz, daughter of the well-know Pidderit family from the Rhineland, now simply Sister Kläre, didn’t see herself as a martyr. She had a found a second youth in the tumble of war, had become freer and at the same time more capable, loved her work, and also being a woman, and knew that you got but one transitory life. She wrote to her children in clear, pointed handwriting. Later she would do some ironing in the lieutenants’ room.

  There was a gentle knock at the door. An orderly brought the confidential news that a gentlemen called Judge Advocate Kostanski, or something like that, wanted to say goodbye to her. She raised her eyebrows, shrugged her shoulders and said to show him in. A moment later, Posnanski’s bulky figure filled the front of the room. Sister Kläre sat on the bed, offered him the wooden stool and asked if the time had come for him disappear to the east.

  Posnanski blew out his clean-shaven cheeks, rolled his frog-like eyes at her, and, thinking how attractive she looked and that she should always wear this nun’s costume, began to speak in a very skilled and humane way: yes, he said, he was here to say goodbye, but that was really a side issue. Much more important was a question he had for her, a request in fact. They were both adults who had seen something of life and so there was no point in beating about the bush. Through Lieutenant Kroysing, he, Posnanksi, had learnt of a shocking abuse of justice to which Kroysing’s younger brother had fallen victim. In connection with that, Private Bertin had come to his attention. He believed the man had been shunting ammunition around long enough and that it was time to think about the country’s intellectual nourishment after the war and make sure a few talented men were saved, and he’d tried to act on that belief. He’d noticed that Sister Kläre had taken to the writer as well.

  ‘Very much so,’ she agreed with a smile. ‘I’m letting him soak in the bath right now, the poor lice-ridden chap.’

  ‘So much the better,’ replied Posnanski. ‘Then perhaps you’ve heard what happened to my application to have the worthy gentleman transferred to our nice little court martial?’

  ‘Not a sausage,’ said Sister Kläre.

  Right, said Posnanski, in that case he’d better begin at the beginning with the Trojan War. And in an easy, good-humoured way he described the simmering resentment between the army groups east and west of the Meuse, and how, against this background, Bertin’s battalion had refused his request, and that the matter now looked completely hopeless. If the division had not been about to move off and if Excellency Lychow’s mind had not already been in the east, then the Western Group Command would certainly have had its way. Because right was on their side. A request from high-ranking personnel to have a man who was only fit for limited service to perform office duties ought not to be refused when men fit for active service were being released. After a bit of back and forth, ASC private Bertin would have been transferred from his unit to the Lychow Divisional Staff and given his marching orders. But when the gods were busy, dwarves came out on top and that’s what would happen now, unless higher powers intervened.

  ‘Higher powers than a divisional general?’ asked Sister Kläre in astonishment. ‘Where will you find them?’

  ‘There’s one very near at hand,’ replied Posnanski.

  Sister Kläre blushed, deeper and deeper. ‘That’s a lot of silly gossip,’ she said and got up.

  ‘Gracious lady,’ said Posnanski, remaining seated, ‘let me ignore that rejection for two minutes. You may yourself have noticed that Herr Bertin has held out under considerable pressure for quite a long time and is now in a parlous state. He might survive another year if a dud or shell doesn’t wipe him out before then. We can get him a decent job in the next few days. Why pussyfoot around with something that is simple and humane and in everyone’s best interests. Of course I know it’s all gossip. People can’t live without gossip, and the higher staff echelons constitute their own social zone and have their own interests and gossip. But there’s always a grain of truth in such gossip, and so I assume that the crown prince has had the honour of being introduced to you and taking tea at your house. Would it be asking too much to suggest that you telephone the exalted gentleman, not today, not tomorrow, but, say, this coming Sunday, and ask him for a favour, which we believe would benefit the collective intellectual good and not just a personal acquaintance? Wouldn’t you do it without a second thought if you were in Berlin?’

  Sister Kläre had sat down again. The flush on her cheeks had faded to a rosy glow, and she looked pensively at the tips of her shoes and her ankles in their coarse black woollen stockings. ‘I shouldn’t like to meet you in court as lawyer for the other side, Dr Posnanski,’ she said.

  ‘My dear lady,’ replied Posnanski soberly, ‘I hope I’d know better than to do that. No one can win a case against Saint Genevieve.’

  Sister Kläre shook her head impatiently. ‘We’re talking like monkeys,’ she said. ‘This isn’t Berlin. The crown prince isn’t a gentleman, and I’m not a lady. I’m a nurse, which makes me a sergeant at best, and the crown prince is a general and commander of an entire front. I hope that lets you see that what you’re asking me to do is quite monstrous.’

  ‘I’m afraid, my dear, gracious lady, that you’re talking to a civilian, a Prussian civilian but a civilian nonetheless. I’m completely convinced that the crown prince, who is a person like you or me, will gratefully kiss your hand if you dare to do the monstrous, as you call it. After all, what are you asking of him? That he get his adjutant to write a couple of words to rescue the situation. Words from on high, like in a fairytale.’ And when Sister Kläre didn’t reply, he suddenly added in a different, more nonchalant tone: ‘We don’t want things to be dictated by a bunch of bourgeois philistines after the war. I’m interested in your view – you don’t want that, do you? Surely the novel Love at Last Sight is worth conquering your compunction for.’

  For a moment, silence reigned between them. Sister Kläre looked calmly into her companion’s ugly face, and he looked equally calmly into her beautiful face. She sensed that this frog knew no prejudices and understood people’s ways. For him there was no shame in admitting what one had had the guts to do. Nonetheless, it was unpleasant for a sensitive woman to realise she was the object of tittle-tattle and that her private life, which was of no concern to anyone else, was a source of entertainment for others. If she consented now – all right, I’ll phone the crown prince – she would be confirming the gossip around her and betraying the relationship to this lawyer whom she didn’t know. Caution demanded that she not do it, tact demanded it, femininity, the social contract. No one who counted would blame her for having a friendship with such an agreeable and high-ranking man, a prince and son of the Kaiser, who set every German girl’s heart a-pounding when he carried the white Borussian standard through the streets of Bonn, her h
ome town. Every woman who knew of the liaison envied Klara Schwersenz, formerly Klara Pidderit, or stared up at her in awe. But she must not confess it openly. She must preserve an impassive countenance and the family honour. And this lawyer in uniform wanted her to confess it openly. He sat there girded in tan leather with a look on his fat face, a Socratic look, that exhorted her not to kick up such a fuss when she was so beautiful. Not to erect a cardboard façade between them. Not to act more stupid than life already was. Hadn’t it been really rather a nice experience? And even if it hadn’t – if the best she could say was: it was okay; it was fine – shouldn’t one be extremely grateful for any small pleasure when the whole world faced a doubtful future? Sister Kläre realised she was smiling openly at her own inhibitions, gently mocking herself. She reached her hand out to Posnanski and said: ‘Thank you, Dr Posnanski. I’ll think it over, but for now I must fish our charge out of the bath.’

  But when Sister Kläre went into Pechler the bath orderly’s room, the bird had, as he put it, flown. Bertin had hurried off to see Pahl, reproaching himself for neglecting him and saying that he really should put his own worries aside for once and think about him. He was concerned, however, about how he would justify his desire to be transferred to the court martial to Pahl.

  Thus two ASC men met by Pahl’s bed: Lebehde and Bertin, both currently troubled in mind but physically comforted; for one of them had emerged newborn from the bath and the other had been in the kitchen, which also had its merits. They were unanimous in their view that Wilhelm was changed beyond recognition. He was sitting up for half an hour at a time, putting on weight and felt himself to be on the mend. ‘I bet you’re surprised, aren’t you?’ he grinned. ‘Yes, I’m feeling better. It’s not getting me down so much any more. The worst is when they change the bandages in the morning.’ He frowned. ‘Just lying there knowing you’re going to be put through the mill and there’s no help for it – that’s what knocks the heart out of you.’

  Karl Lebehde caught himself wanting to stroke Pahl’s hands. Bertin wondered anxiously what he’d say to this martyr if he started to talk hopefully about their future work together in Berlin. Diehl’s carbon copy rustled in his pocket. Perhaps there would be a way to give a funny twist to the whole application story, which thanks to Major Jansch’s kindness now affected Pahl too.

  ‘Now I’m going to talk as much as I want,’ joked Pahl. ‘My bed is my castle, and we can spin a few yarns.’ He said that since his bandage had been changed he knew how prisoners must have felt in the Middle Ages when they were waiting to be tortured – tomorrow at 9am I’ll be interrogated again – or executed. It was horrible to have to hold still and let people do as they wanted with you like some kind of overgrown baby. The terrible pain, the intrusion – it was all awful. You didn’t need to experience an actual execution, be hanged or have you head chopped off or be shot, to realise that the death penalty was the lowest of all human ideas; it was enough to have your own body reduced to a passive object. Abolishing the death penalty was a natural step for people who had electricity and could spread the truth through print. Then he asked if there was any news from Russia. What he missed most here in hospital was the chance to discuss that earth-shattering event.

  No, said Bertin and Lebehde. They only knew what everyone else knew. The three of them marvelled at the speed and consistency with which things were moving in Russia. They all admitted that they hadn’t thought the Russians had it in them. Bertin in particular, who had twice crossed the Russian border with his school class and had taken an optional Russian class at school, repeated several times that no one had expected it because the people were so passive and had such meek faith in the Tsar. It had seemed as though the sun rose and set at the behest of the ‘Little Father’, and now, look, it had carried on doing its duty and was still shining down on Little Mother Russia although the double-headed imperial eagle was gone.

  ‘One day every beer glass will be full.’

  ‘Ours too,’ said Pahl firmly, looking at Bertin.

  But Bertin didn’t want to follow him down that path. Fortunately, he remembered something he’d witnessed when he was working with the Russian prisoners during the weeks at Romagne. One of them, a lad with teeth like a fish and a full blonde beard, was sitting at the fire in the lunch break distributing pieces of bread amongst his comrades, not out of kind-heartedness but for money: 10 Pfennigs a slice, quite costly. A young Russki with his cap pushed back and a blonde fringe, handed him a coin, received his slice, held it in front of him for a moment, opened his mouth as if to take a bite but then calmly said: ‘When we get you home, you miserable Kulak, we’ll batter you to death and that’s a promise.’ Then he took a bite. You could see the bread seller turning a lighter shade of grey beneath his dirty, tanned skin, and his small, light-coloured eyes were fixed on the other man’s as he replied: ‘If such is God’s will, Grigori, I’ll have you shot first.’ But the younger man, chewing away with his mouth full, just laughed and shook his head. ‘Did you hear that, my friends? We’d better watch out for those Kulaks.’ Muttered laughter ran through the group, but many of them clearly didn’t want to queer their pitch with the profiteer, who calmly went on selling his wares, checking coins and shoving them in his pockets. However, he did throw a quick glance at the guard’s bayonet, which didn’t escape Grigori’s notice. ‘No,’ he laughed, cleaning his hands on his coat, ‘there won’t be any Cossack there to protect you from us then.’

  ‘If God so wills it, then no one will protect me,’ the bearded man replied patiently. He was a gaunt, middle-aged man, who obviously had to exercise great self-control to hold on to the bread in order to sell it. This scene, which Bertin had observed during a cold snap worthy of Russia in the middle of France, had stayed with him because it was so savagely strange. Since the outbreak of the Revolution, it had taken on a deeper meaning. ‘If it has gripped the peasants, then it’ll succeed and it’ll last,’ he said pensively. ‘It started with the peasants in France too in 1789. They were crawling across the fields like animals, looking for something to eat – ragged beings reminiscent of people, as a writer called Taine wrote. The lord of the manor had sold the crops in order to live bon in Paris. It might succeed in Russia too, but what about at home,’ said Bertin doubtfully, ‘where everything’s so well organised?’

  ‘We’ve invented organised famine,’ said Pahl.

  And Karl Lebehde, his fat fingers folded across his stomach, said in a measured voice: ‘My dear man, has the phrase “grubbing trip” never come before your esteemed eyes? According to my old lady, whose letters are quite uplifting, Berliners go swarming across the Mark with rucksacks on Saturday evenings, sort of like older versions of the youngsters from the Wandervogel rambling club, and curse like blazes if a gendarme asks to look inside their packs. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, there aren’t many gendarmes that take the stuff off them, and it’s easy to see why. If this goes on for another year…’

  ‘Another year!’ cried Bertin and Pahl as one. ‘Listen,’ said Bertin, overcome by the dreadful prospect of an endless war and and full of good will towards the comrades who shared his fate. ‘For a couple of days, I’ve been mulling something over, and sometimes it makes me hopeful and sometimes it fills me with dread. I want you to tell me what you’d do in my place. It actually affects you quite deeply too, Wilhelm,’ and he described what had happened, or what he could guess had happened, between his first conversation with Posnanski and the present moment. Pahl’s hands trembled slightly as he held the carbon copy in silence. Lebehde bent his copper head over the pillow and read it too. Bertin waited to hear what they would say as if it were a court judgement. Then Pahl tore the thin paper into long strips. ‘What they want won’t happen,’ he said, ‘and what they don’t want will. You’ve no idea how well this suits us, my friend. I had a long chat with Karl about it the day before yesterday. I was still woozy when we had our first talk. I had completely forgotten something that my agent only wrote to me about in de
tail in January. And now you appear like an angel from Heaven and put everything straight again.’