‘We’re counting on you remaining in Germany from now on, my beloved child, and returning to your profession if possible, hopefully somewhere very nearby. We both very much regret that we weren’t always close before the war. Perhaps that was just part of your growing up, but now, darling boy, now, my dear lanky Hardi, you must remember that you are our only child and help us to take some joy in life again. A family home is only a family home if the children call it home. And we’ve already had to part with our dear Christel. I have to confess that I’m not a heroic mother. I could weep and weep over your dear, kind, talented brother, just as I would have wept inconsolably if it had been you and our tall, proud, manly Hardi were never to dash up our steps again. I don’t cry because it’s useless and it just breaks your father’s heart, and he can’t do anything to help me. If the Fatherland really needs further sacrifices, then other fathers and mothers will have to make them because we have suffered enough. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever lift a grandchild from its crib – that’s the only real joy left to an old woman like me. Yes, thought Kroysing, a grandchild would give her a new lease of life. He should write to her and say that. He’d been right to offer Niggl’s scalp to Father Lochner as they philosophised together earlier – provided Lochner agreed to help with certain difficulties that Sister Kläre would tell him about after dinner. It was a fair exchange, and Lochner seemed to acknowledge that.
And so he replied to his mother immediately. He felt unusually warm towards her. The resentment she’d alluded to was completely forgotten. Tender, cheerful words poured from him as he bent uncomfortably over the table and wrote his forces letter in bold handwriting – his last.
BOOK NINE
Fire from heaven
CHAPTER ONE
A helping hand
FATHER LOCHNER TRIPPED into Sister Kläre’s nun’s cell with excited little baby steps. She’d invited him for a coffee before the end of the lunch break. ‘What’s this I hear, Sister Kläre – and not from you, but from the wild hunter himself!’
The little room smelt pleasantly of real coffee, the one luxury Sister Kläre did not deny herself and her friends. She sat calmly on the bed looking at the agitated priest with a direct, almost stern expression. ‘It doesn’t matter who you heard it from, and if our tall friend exaggerated, then I’m here to set things straight. So, will you condone it or not?’
The chaplain had lowered himself on to the stool and was stirring his sugar with a small spoon, his pinkie delicately raised. ‘That’s what I call taking the bull by the horns. That’s vintage Sister Kläre. Do you know, you could have been abbess of a great convent. A thousand years ago, you might have shed light and consolation upon a whole area or province.’
‘Now you’re just talking rubbish, Father Lochner, complete and utter rubbish, and you’re doing it to avoid answering. But you must answer.’
‘Do you like him?’ asked the priest carefully.
‘Yes,’ replied Sister Kläre. ‘I like him. I like that tall young man a lot. But I also like my husband and children. I’m not some daft wee girl. My liking for him is not so ingrained that I couldn’t cauterise it like a granulated wound if need be. If you think that the practical difficulties are too great and that it would be too painful for my husband and children, I’ll tell Kroysing we can’t have what we want and that we’ll have to form a different kind of friendship if we survive the war or go our separate ways.’
Father Lochner raised his eyebrows, secretly shocked at the down-to-earth way this lady from the highest echelons of society, in nurse’s uniform with the face of a lovely nun called Klara, expressed herself. ‘Do you think then,’ he fumbled, ‘that Colonel Schwersenz will ever get better? Do you think you’ll ever be able to live with him properly again and mean something to him?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Sister Kläre. ‘My mother writes from the house in Hinterstein that he sits there surrounded by maps and papers, more shut away than ever. He’s completely obsessed by his role in the Battle of the Marne and is dead to everything else. He only takes the vaguest and most distracted interest in what’s going on around him and hardly ever asks about the children, whom he calls his grandchildren. But he’s strong physically and has a healthy appetite. He goes for long walks – route marches – and sees nothing but sectors and strategic, tactical problems. The old lady, who’s the wisest person I know, says she’s become quite a military expert. Her main concern is that Schwersenz will try to leave so he can explain his role in the Battle of the Marne to the Kaiser and the Reichstag, or even try to address the nation from a public square, in which case he’d be transferred to a closed institution.’
‘Dreadful,’ said Father Lochner. ‘O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!’
‘That’s Hamlet, isn’t it? It’s only too true. What if I can never really connect with him again?’
‘Then a Christian marriage with him is no longer possible,’ said the priest, draining his cup. They were both silent.
Sister Kläre wondered whether she should say any more. Then she did: ‘It’s not that I’m complaining. But neither do I particularly care what people think. What I would like to say is that the current state of affairs is just the last stage in a process that began years ago and always looked like it might end this way. My husband lived for his work like a scholar or a monk. He was a soldier body and soul. Otherwise a man of his class would never have embarked on such a career. No living creature was ever good enough for him, me included. Before the war I thought that was just how it was, particularly as my father and brothers were no different. Now I don’t think that any more.’
‘I understand,’ said the priest, as he watched the steaming coffee fall on to another cube of sugar and began to look forward to a second cup. ‘The war has shown you humanity in all its myriad forms. It has revealed the kingdom of the world to you in all its abundance and misery, as well as the relief work you perform. You no longer want to lie fallow. But, Sister Kläre, how do you think a new marriage would affect your children?’
Sister Kläre took off her head covering and smoothed her hair into shape with her strong hands. ‘I’m convinced,’ she said, ‘that a younger, more active stepfather such as Kroysing would be good for them – as far as one can humanly tell. But children are passionate, impulsive and unpredictable, and so you never know how they will react. I know only too well that growing children are people in their own right, inscrutable to a certain extent and not easily swayed. That needs to be taken into account.’
‘People are not insurance companies,’ said Father Lochner, dabbing his bald head with a handkerchief. ‘If they have good intentions and are convinced their actions are right, that’s enough.’
‘God knows I have those,’ said Sister Kläre.
‘Then in my opinion your marriage to Colonel Schwersenz may be declared invalid, and if that’s what you want I’ll do everything I can to support you.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s what I want.’ And she replaced her head covering.
‘My God.’ He looked at the clock. ‘You must get back to work. And I had better say goodbye to all those poor lads who want to ease their souls, whether they’re Catholics or not. I’ll start in ward 1 and try to finish in ward 3. I must find time for that Pahl. And the boss man has invited me to share a bottle of wine after dinner as a reward for my abstemiousness during my treatment. That’s my little timetable for today.’
Sister Kläre buttoned on her apron. ‘Then we’ll be bumping into each other.’ She did up the buttons at the back, and almost as an after-thought added: ‘You know Kroysing’s a Protestant, don’t you?’
‘Oh,’ said Father Lochner, raising his hands to table height as if to fend off this objection, ‘it’s best if we stick to the matter in hand. If your marriage is dissolved or declared invalid, a new page will be turned and this is not the time to decide what will be written on it. But I must confess,’ and he smiled a little guiltily, ‘that I shall not perform this service without
misgivings. As he will tell you himself, Kroysing has promised me he will behave like a Christian rather than a heathen and pardon an enemy, or at least to let him go, avoid a dreadful court case that would have caused uproar in Bavaria and embarrassed our Church, and for that reason, Sister Kläre, I thank the Holy Virgin that things come together for the best and no one will suffer for your happiness.’
‘Here on earth we can expect no more.’
CHAPTER TWO
The man
BERTIN APPEARED LATE in the afternoon, accompanied by Karl Lebehde. They found a strange gathering at Pahl’s bedside. A lot of patients were standing around, sitting on beds or leaning on the wall, listening. Kroysing, looking like a referee, sat on a stool with his bandaged leg stretched out on Pahl’s mattress. He had in mind the unnecessarily strident arguments from his student days, which ended in mutual insults. But Father Lochner, who’d worked in the Ruhr mining district, the Cologne docks and the button-making factories of Elberfeld, had no intention of playing that game. As a Rhinelander he was used to dealing with city folk, and in a few minutes he had started a conversation, which he expected to control, watched expectantly by Pahl with his magnetic gaze. However, it proved not to be so easy. When Kroysing arrived, accompanied by the medical officer in his white coat, they were arguing about the origins and meaning of the Easter festival. Pahl saw reflected in it the general joy that people and animals felt at the return of spring, and for him the symbolic egg represented fertility rites and resurgent life. Father Lochner, by contrast, took an historical, materialist view of the festival’s meaning, taking it back to the struggle for freedom – for example, that of the Jewish proletarian nation from Egyptian exploitation – under a civil servant or member of the ruling class, such as Mirabeau or, at that moment, the lawyer Kerenski in Russia. So they’ve swapped sides, thought Kroysing in amusement. The priest had been too clever, and Pahl was as ever Pahl, bright-eyed and calm. But when Bertin and Lebehde joined the friends, the conversation took an even more general turn. They discussed redemption, martyrdom on Calvary, ‘evil’ and human nature, and the divine. There was a fervour in the air, said Lochner. With each passing month, all of humanity was yearning ever more deeply for peace, since the Kaiser had, so to speak, stamped the imperial eagle on the word. The Pope, the Kaiser, Professor Wilson and international labour leaders were united in their efforts to restore peace to the world, but it didn’t happen. What was going on? What was barring the road to salvation? Definitely not the soldiers. They’d all had enough, and if the bugles sounded the ceasefire at 12 noon that afternoon, it would be pretty to difficult to drum up a German, French or British soldier for a game of skat by 12.30.
General laughter. General agreement. Only Pahl didn’t laugh. He’d sat on his pillow, his back against the bedstead, and in his slow but direct manner advanced the counter argument: ‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘the ruling masters’ peace overtures all have conditions attached that the other side must meet, just as a dog catcher will keep a dog that he’s just caught on the lead. He doesn’t know the dog, and guess what, it turns out to be wild and won’t do what he tells it, and so the conditions are not met and peace must unfortunately stay in the box.’
‘No politics, please,’ said the medical officer. The wide space between his eyes, his square forehead and bouffant hair gave him a decisive air, which was softened by his husky voice.
‘Nonsense, doctor,’ said Kroysing. ‘Let the tormented flesh talk politics if it wants. We won’t lock horns.’
‘I should hope not,’ said Father Lochner. ‘Please note that I’m the only man in this group wearing anything approaching a military tunic…’
‘The militant Church—’ interjected Kroysing.
‘…I’d find it difficult to raise an army among all these white coats. And yet I’m in favour of war – and a militant Church. Not war with guns and infantry, but war against the indefatigable adversary – the only one who can chase peace from the world and impede redemption.’
‘Yes, when I look around me the world looks pretty darned redeemed,’ said the medical officer without bitterness.
‘And yet me must believe that Christ died on the cross to save us from the worst of our bestiality,’ said Father Lochner almost passionately, ‘or we might as well pack up and suck gas.’
‘Do you mean that if that hadn’t taken place things would be even worse,’ said Kroysing. ‘Assuming it really did take place?’
‘No religion, please,’ said the chief physician, not without a little self-irony.
It was relatively immaterial whether something had happened or not, compared with the faith it inspired, said Pahl. There was therefore no need for a theological dispute, since faith was a generally recognised fact and could not be denied by Christians, Jews or atheists. So the priest could happily carry on. But, he said with a joking twinkle, they should really hear what their comrade Bertin had to say about it. Because the Exodus from Egypt and the trial of Jesus of Nazareth before the Roman military governor of Judea had all taken place among Jews.
Bertin gave an embarrassed laugh. He was the only Jew in the room. He was proud of the urge for redemption and the messianic impulse towards a better organised world that had dominated the spiritual history of his race since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Before he’d been able to talk at length about the prophet’s tirades against the potentates and the multitudes, which were intended to instil morality in organised society. But now my mind is so dulled, he thought, as he prepared to answer Pahl’s question. Yes, he said, the struggle with fate, expressed by the Greeks in their tragedies, had been played out in real life for the Jews in the prophets’ struggle against the reluctant flesh of their own nation. They had not spared that nation and had even made a bad name for themselves on account of their obstinacy. But in truth all nations were just as obstinate; they just didn’t talk about it, or so it seemed. There was something there, he said, staring glumly into the middle distance, that impeded redemption. That was why the devil played such an important role in all cults and in every age, even if Christian teaching said that the worst of his teeth had been knocked out. You had to concur with the poets, Goethe for example, who said that his remaining powers were enough to be going on with.
Pahl and Kroysing protested, and Father Lochner wasn’t happy either. The first two didn’t want to hear such superstitious nonsense, while Father Lochner wanted more recognition to be given to the reality of the devil.
‘Oh dear,’ said Bertin, ‘I’m in hot water now. They don’t want to acknowledge the devil’s existence, and for you, Father, he’s not real enough. What am I to do?’
‘I’ll tell you what you can do,’ muttered Kroysing. ‘Let’s forget the bogeymen, eh? And we don’t need any riddles either.’
Pahl said nothing more, but made a mental note to box Comrade Bertin’s ears for coming out with such embarrassing antiquities, which would’ve made any young worker roar with laughter.
Karl Lebehde opened his mouth, which he’d thus far not done in that company. If the gas man came demanding payment for January in March and there was no money left to pay the bill, he explained, his wife would say the gas man was the devil incarnate. For there was only one gas cooker in their flat, provided by the state, and if the supply were to be cut off she wouldn’t be able to cook or eat. For his wife that would be the devil incarnate appearing. ‘If my wife were stupid,’ he said, ‘she’d have a go at the gas man, as if he could do something about it. If she weren’t so stupid, and I don’t think she is, then she’d work out where the real devil lies. For there must be one. She’d just have to ferret him out. Is he at the gasworks? No. In the city of Berlin? Again, no. At the provincial administration? Who knows. In the State of Prussia? That’s what the British think, as if their gas men were angels. Among the whites? That’s what the Indians and blacks are saying now. And so we come back to the Father’s view that he’s got the whole world firmly in his claws.’
‘Slow down,’ said Pahl. ‘I th
ink you skipped a few stations there.’
‘No,’ broke in Father Lochner. ‘Our Landstürmer hasn’t skipped any stations at all. The harshness of life, the lack of brotherly love, our un-Christian society: the spirit of the nation expresses all that in horns, hooves and the hairy tail of a cold, jeering monster, and there’s no point getting angry about it. The wise old Egyptians wrote in pictures, and nations are like children and Egyptians and poets: they think in pictures. The only fools are those who take the pictures literally and act as if the others were stupid. And yet no one thinks that lightning is really a jagged, shining wire thrown down from on high, even if that’s what it looks like.’
‘That’s one way to redemption,’ observed Kroysing drily.
Some of the men laughed. They always enjoyed listening to the tall lieutenant. He didn’t let these boring speechifiers pull the wool over his eyes.
‘So the devil is the capitalist system.’
Father Lochner frowned. That was trivial, he said sharply. Any economic system that knew no charity could degenerate in exactly the same infernal way. They’d been discussing fundamental forces, which were the message of Easter and the objective of religion when it tried to look after people’s souls.
Outside Verdun Page 45
