Skeletons at the Feast (2008)

by Chris Bohjalian

  "It's overrated," he said.

  "Really?"

  "Well, it is if you're a paratrooper. No windows. Bad seating. Most blokes spend a good part of the ride either vomiting or trying not to vomit. Airsickness and terror: a mighty bad combination."

  "Maybe if you had a comfortable seat and a window."

  He rose up on his elbow now and looked down at her. She could see his face in the light from the candle on the windowsill, and he was smiling at her. "Maybe," he said, the two syllables oddly wistful. Except that he was smiling.

  "Your face doesn't match your words," she said.

  "What?"

  "You sound sad. But you look happy."

  He seemed to think about this, but only briefly. And then, instead of answering her, he bent toward her and kissed her, his lips soft and his tongue tasting slightly of candy cane--probably from one of the very last treats they had remaining from Christmas. His fingers started to inch under her robe and against her nightgown, and then they were grazing her collarbone and her neck. They were oddly, surprisingly warm, and suddenly the layers of flannel separating their bodies seemed a barrier that was at once considerable and frustrating: She loved him and who could say when they would ever get to lie together like this again. She wanted to feel his skin against her skin, the cold be damned, and she wanted to feel him running his fingers over her nipples and holding her breasts in the palms of his hands. She wanted to feel him inside her. And so she sat up and pulled her nightgown over her head, and he followed her lead and climbed from her brother's long underwear. She had planned on leading his fingers to her breasts, but already his hands were there, and she felt a shiver as they started to brush in circles over her nipples. She allowed herself a soft purr, aware that outside the wind was blowing the fallen snow against the windows and somewhere nearby there was a mouse, but that didn't matter, that didn't matter at all. His erection was pressing against her, she could feel it against her hips, and she grasped it in the dark beneath their quilt. Stroked it gently, felt the moistness at the tip.

  "I'm beside you," he whispered, a slight pant in his voice because, she could tell, of the way she was massaging his penis. "How could I be anything but happy?" And then he kissed her again, this time on her forehead, her eyes, her nose. But he surprised her by scooting over her mouth. An image crossed her mind: Her hand was replicating her vagina, and it made her want to lick her palm for him. But he raised himself up once again and pulled away so she could no longer fondle his cock. Already he was retreating under the tent of their quilt, slipping down toward her waist and her knees so that she could no longer see him. She knew what he was going to do because they had done this before, and at first she had been shocked. She had been shocked that he would even have such an idea. But then she realized this was just one more way that he had experiences far beyond her ken, and she had given herself over to him and to what he was doing and, yes, to the sensations. He had used his tongue on her in much the same way that she would touch herself when she was alone, only this felt so much better: the orgasms so intense, especially that first time when the feelings had coiled inside her, building until she had come so powerfully that she had feared she was going to pee on the rug at the edge of the ballroom.

  Now his hands were massaging her thighs and his head was between her legs, his mouth moist and warm and insistent. In a moment, she knew, he would gently part her pubic hair and stiffen his tongue, and he would be brushing it against her so rapidly that the sensations would swell till she came, and then, when her legs might still be shaking, almost abruptly he would be holding his body up on his arms and sliding inside her--which, now, gave her a pang of apprehension. They had always used the condoms she had found in Werner's bedroom, and she wondered if they had one left. She had given him the box soon after she had discovered it, because she didn't think it was right that such things should reside in her bedroom. What if Mutti discovered them there? But she didn't know if they had any remaining. Still, it seemed impossible at first to open her mouth and ask him. To stop him. She couldn't get pregnant, however, she simply couldn't--not by him, not now. Perhaps not ever. And so she found the resolve within her to reach down for his head, to get his attention. At first he thought she was merely urging him on, massaging his scalp as he lapped at her vagina. But then she asked him, put the question out there. He stopped what he was doing and rose up from beneath her, and he smiled. "Oh, I wish we'd had the time to be such bunnies that we'd gone through Werner's whole stash."

  "We've one left?"

  "Actually, I believe we have two," he reassured her, and then he disappeared once more between her thighs, and she gave herself over to the feelings there, closing her eyes to the ice and the snow and the death: to the reality that somewhere, not very far away, their army was trying desperately to slow a juggernaut of Russian barbarians. For the moment, all that mattered was that she was with Callum, her Callum, and their bodies were warm and electric and very much alive.

  it was still dark when Helmut awoke, and even in the midst of the spring planting or the autumn harvest no one would have been up for another hour and a half. Even today, the morning of their departure, he knew his mother and father wouldn't be rising for a short while. They'd done most of their packing yesterday, and the house was now without power and there was only so much more they could do in the cold and the dark. And so he considered going back to sleep, but once more he saw in his mind the fear in the eyes of his cousin Jutta. The oblivious, happy smile on her son. His uncle's irresponsible complacency in the face of the Bolsheviks.

  But mostly he saw Jutta's eyes.

  He knew his father was right: Karl and his family had to evacuate, and they had to leave now. If Karl refused, then at the very least he should allow his daughter, his daughter-in-law, and his grandson to join the exodus working its way west. And so Helmut rose and dressed as quickly as he could by the light of a candle, climbing into his new winter uniform and his snow boots, and wrapping his wide belt around him with its weighty, holstered Luger. Then he scribbled a short note for his parents. He didn't believe the roads would be crowded at this hour of the night--it couldn't possibly be as bad as it was yesterday morning--and so he guessed he would be at his uncle's by sunrise. And either he would convince his uncle to gather his family and join him, or he would simply take the two women and the boy.

  He grabbed an apple as he passed through the kitchen and found himself glowering at the door to the maid's room. He wasn't sure what he thought of his parents' decision to bring the Scot with them when they went west. He liked the idea of another man on the trek--especially a man as large and physically intimidating as Callum. But, in truth, how helpful would this particular fellow be? Half the time he'd probably be hidden beneath bags of grain and apples and sugar. And when he wasn't? He was a soldier who'd never even fired his gun at the enemy before surrendering. Besides, the last thing his family should do was encourage whatever inappropriate feelings already existed between the prisoner and his twin sister. His parents already gave the man far too many liberties and extended to him far too many kindnesses.

  When he reached the barn, he saw there was just enough petrol in the BMW to reach his uncle's estate; he would refill the tank there to get home. His family wouldn't approve of this excursion, but if he brought Mutti's brother and the rest of the clan back, he would be a hero. And right now the Reich needed heroes. It needed them desperately. He had yet to see any fighting--he'd only finished his training last week--and a part of him longed for the respect that his older brother received when he was on leave. To accomplish the things his brother had on the battlefield. To be taken seriously as a soldier.

  He didn't expect he would actually see any Russians, and that gave him confidence; at the same time, it diminished in his opinion the scope of the task before him. How heroic was he really if the most difficult parts of his endeavor were battling a river of refugees moving in the opposite direction, and then cajoling his fat, stubborn uncle to come with him?
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br />   Then, however, he remembered the shells that were already falling on his uncle's estate, and he stood a little straighter. Yes, the Reich needed heroes, even if they were only eighteen and their mission was to rescue their families.

  uri drove the two women and the three children as far as the Vistula, and then he gave them the Russian jeep. They'd spoken little as they had driven through the night, partly because the women were so shaken and partly because the children actually slept in the back of the vehicle. But he learned the women were sisters, and the three children all belonged to the older of the siblings. The younger sister hadn't married yet. They both insisted they had never joined the party, though these days, Uri knew, anyone who bragged about being a party member was either an idiot or a fanatic. Still, he found it revealing how many people were so quick to tell strangers they'd never been Nazis.

  "I wasn't in the party either," he informed them, appreciating the irony. "I don't think they would have had a lot of use for a person like me."

  The pair implored him to stay with them when they reached the frozen river, to continue to protect them as they went west. But he told them that wasn't possible. He said that he needed to return to his unit. The truth was, of course, that he didn't have a unit, and among the critical lessons he had learned in his different guises in the Wehrmacht was that no one was going to question him so long as he was near the front. It was only when he was in the theoretic safety of the rear that he was in danger of being found out or-- and this would have been a bizarre turn of events--shot as a deserter. Yes, he would get west: He had to. But he would have to move judiciously.

  In the headlights from another vehicle parked now along the bank of the river, he saw a couple of green Volkssturm teens and a captain with one arm attempting to manage the horde trying to cross this stretch of ice. He climbed from the jeep and started toward them. As he walked a little closer, he recognized that the fellow was, much to his surprise, Captain Hanke--his commanding officer as recently as October. Then the man had gone home to Dortmund on leave and there, Uri had heard, been wounded in an air raid. Apparently he had lost an arm.

  Uri had liked Hanke, and Hanke had seemed to like him. The Hanke men had been soldiers for generations--long before there had been a Nazi regime and a world war to compel them into the service.

  Already Uri saw that an old couple with a wheelbarrow were descending upon the Russian jeep, begging to put their bags of clothing in the back with the children. Begging to somehow squeeze onto the vehicle themselves. One of the young women looked back at Uri, pleading with him with her eyes to try to solve this problem, too. Rescue them as he had at the castle. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head, shrugging his shoulders. There wasn't anything he could do. There wasn't anything anyone could do. There really wasn't room for the old couple and the meager remnants of their lives, but you really couldn't leave them behind either. Still, this man was persistent and loud, and he beseeched them that if nothing else the family had to find room in the vehicle for his wife. They had to. He said she had a bad heart and she desperately needed to sit. And so, finally, Uri strolled back to them, rested his hand on the warm hood of the jeep, and suggested to the woman in the front passenger seat that she climb into the back and allow the old lady into the vehicle. He reminded her that this was where she had been when he had been driving.

  Then he turned away and called out to Captain Hanke, jogging over to the man. Suddenly he had to be away from these refugees. From all refugees. From this whole whining and scared and despairingly sad parade. The officer recognized him instantly, and Uri was pleased. Hanke even had a small smile for him.

  "You need some help here?" he asked the captain. "It looks like it's going to get ugly."

  "Oh, it's actually been very civilized so far," he told Uri. "It won't get ugly till later."

  "When the sun comes up and the real crowds arrive?"

  He craned his neck and looked to the south. "When the engineers get here. Then we're going to blow up this ice bridge to slow the Russians. That's when things will get nasty--and that's when I will indeed need your help."

  n the moon was mostly obscured by clouds and there were absolutely no stars. Yet the snow was oddly luminescent, as if it had its own source of light--like, Helmut thought, those fish that supposedly lived in the sunless depths of the ocean--and the birch trees were eerily skeletal. Helmut found the cold air more bracing than uncomfortable. There were few families on the road, but he did pass some. And they all told him the same thing: He was going the wrong way. A fellow soldier, his head bandaged beneath a wool cap, warned him that the Russians had pierced their lines everywhere-- that, in fact, there was no line left. An old couple pulling two small, sleeping grandchildren on a sled said they had seen a Russian tank on the outskirts of the village.

  When he reached the final stretch of road before his uncle's, the sky was lightening to the east, though it was clear there was going to be no sun again today. He was almost out of petrol, but he was so close it really wouldn't have mattered if the car had come to a dead stop right here. He knew from his visit yesterday with his father that he would be unable to drive all the way to the manor house anyway. Still, he coasted whenever he could.

  He was just stepping down from the BMW when he heard the metallic rumble approaching. He climbed back on to the vehicle's running board to see, hoping to God it was German tanks or, perhaps, some long antitank guns on trailers. It wasn't. There, no more than half a kilometer distant, were three massive Russian tanks lumbering across one of the fields where his uncle grew rutabagas and carrots. They were moving parallel to the road and clearly didn't give a damn about him or his family's BMW. Because clearly they saw him. If the commander inside any one of the tanks wanted, he needed only to spin his tank's turret and obliterate the car with a single shell.

  He jumped back into the driver's seat and raced as far up the driveway as he could, stopping only when he reached the fallen oak where he and his father had parked yesterday. Then he ran to the house, aware even as he churned his legs in the snow that something was different. Something had changed. He couldn't have said precisely how he knew this, and he told himself that his foreboding had been triggered, naturally enough, by the sight of three Russian tanks cavalierly driving westward behind him. Soon, however, he understood his premonition was well founded: He saw that the estate's high and wide front doors had been shattered, the wood slivered and the hinges bent like old playing cards. He stepped over what now were little more than sharp pieces of kindling and called for his uncle. He called for Jutta. A crow flew past him, swooping toward him down the stairs and then darting outside through the hole where the front doors once had stood. The heavy tapestries of hunters and herds of elk that usually adorned the eastern wall of the entrance hall had been slashed with bayonets, and each bulb on the great chandelier--all of them encased in globes with the faces of wood nymphs--had been exploded.

  He tried to convince himself that Karl had come to his senses and left with his family, but he didn't believe this. He walked gingerly across the broken glass from the light fixture, saw that the kitchen and the pantry had been ransacked--the doors ripped from the cupboards, the jars of pickles and cabbage and jam smashed onto the floor--and then across the shattered remnants of the mahogany dining room table into his uncle's study. Which was where he saw them. All four of them. The boy with the beautiful, cherubic smile had been hung as if he were a small pig by his ankles from one of the acorn finials atop the high cherry bookcases, his throat slashed so deeply that his head was dangling by twinelike shreds of muscle and skin. The women, including poor, frightened Jutta, had been tied facedown to Uncle Karl's broad desk, their legs naked, their dresses pulled up over their hips. There was dried blood caked like icing along the insides of their legs, and--almost hypnotized--he stared for a moment at the eggplant-colored bruises that marked their buttocks. After they had been violated (or before, for all Helmut knew), each woman had been shot once in the back of the head.
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  And on the floor nearby, still in his dressing gown, was Uncle Karl. Even in death the man's eyes were wide. The body was on its side, almost curled into a fetal position, and there was something causing the back of the dressing gown to tent. He knelt, pulled the silk aside, and saw that someone had taken the man's crystal decanter full of schnapps and thrust the bottleneck as far into the man's anus as it would fit.

  helmut wandered stunned, almost somnambulant, to his uncle's garage, where he found a can of petrol that the Russians must not have noticed. There he filled the BMW. Then he left and joined the throng traveling west. Although he was moving in the same direction as the stream, the trip home still took him nearly two and a half hours. When he passed a woman with five children and all of their suitcases and cartons trudging along on foot, he packed them into the car with him and brought them as far as the entrance to Kaminheim. The only traffic he encountered moving east was two trucks pulling antitank guns, the weapons' long barrels painted white for the winter.