‘I’m not a Nazi,’ Max’s words were drowned out both by the sound of the waves slapping the shore and by Volkov cackling, but he didn’t feel it was worth raising his voice to be heard. He knew this wasn’t a debate, just a ridiculing.
‘You dump the corpses at the bottom of the hill. Altogether in a pile. When we have enough human popsicles they’ll be dragged up here for the foxes to feast on,’ he marched over to them, snatched the shovel from Bubi and stomped down the hill back to the shelter of the gatehouse.
The captain was left at the bottom of the hill as ordered. But he wasn’t alone for long. By the end of the week he had eighteen companions all of whom froze together like fish in a Baltic trawler’s hull. Then rope was lashed about them and a horse that was so malnourished it was almost a corpse itself staggered up the hill dragging the bodies eventually to the top.
Edgar and Horst stood by the window that night, hugging a tin can each of Peter’s gruel and looking up towards the hill. It was too dark to see anything, but the horrific screams of the foxes had the two doctors imagining the corpses had come back to life just in time to feel the vermin teeth ripping into their frosty flesh. Horst looked over his shoulder to see Max pouring over a patient’s Bible.
‘Should we say a prayer or something?’ Horst’s weak offer fell on the slippery floor and wriggled off under the nearest bed.
‘What’s the point anymore? If God has put us in this shit then praying is useless.’
Edgar’s response hooked Max’s ears and reeled him out of the warm morphinic waters of scripture. To Horst, Max hadn’t budged, his head still deep in the Bible, but in fact Max was now spiritually thrashing and slapping himself around on the cold floor of doubt where Edgar’s shocking words had just landed him. Edgar the church organist, the devout Catholic. Yes, he was cynical about most things, had indulged in a more licentious way of life than most, must have raised many a priest’s eyebrows in the shadows of the confession box, but despite all this, or perhaps because of all this, Edgar always came back to his faith at the end of the day. But now here, where the days had no discernible end or beginning, if Edgar had decided prayer was pointless, Max was going to need a hitching post of incredible stability to cling to as the tide pulled at his feet and the wind howled through his head.
As Max was counted through the gate at the end of his shift he was met by Volkov, whose face was contorted in a confusion of emotions comparable with his own. But whereas those which disfigured Max’s were qualm and conviction, Volkov’s usual mask of spite sat awkwardly now over an expression that Max thought might be envy. But since Max could not imagine for a second how this could be, he blamed the eternal dusk on his misinterpretation of his captor’s expression.
‘After rollcall in the morning you will walk to Pechenga.’
Pechenga? That was the nearest town to Gegesha and Max had heard it was over six kilometres away. There was certainly no envy apparent as Volkov informed him of this.
‘Some of our officers reside there and they and their families require medical attention. It is a long walk. You will need this.’
Now that apparent envy was crawling all over his face again, Max was sure of it this time, as Volkov thrust the long fur coat, which had been draped over his arm, at the doctor and followed it with a Red Cross armband.
‘Where do I report to when I arrive in town?’ Max asked, feeling at once weak under the enormous weight of this coat in his arms and elated at the sensation of the soft pelt his fingers sunk into, with all the promise of warmth for his entire body the garment held.
‘The guards that accompany you will direct you where to go,’ Volkov’s eyes poked around in Max’s face for disappointment. ‘What did you think, we were going to let you walk all that way alone?’
That night Max slept better than he had in months wrapped in his new fur coat. Better in the sense that, for an hour or two at a time, he slept undisturbed by the draughts and the damp, whelmed in a warmth he had not experienced for so long it felt like the first time. But at intervals he awoke with such a violent start, as guilt and fear took turns to disturb him. Fear that another prisoner would be driven to murder him for a touch of that warm fur, or guilt that Edgar or Horst would come to bed when their shifts ended and notice him snoring contentedly like some hibernating bear. Assuming Ivan didn’t spitefully take back the coat between visits to town, Max vowed right then, as his trapped body heat anesthetised him again, that he would take turns with them each night to have the coat.
After rollcall in the morning he set off on his six kilometre hike, a guard walking in front and one behind, as Volkov had told him, but unexpectedly he had a companion on his travels, a fellow prisoner and a Franciscan monk called Christoph.
‘I have been given the task of walking into town every morning to fetch the mail,’ Christoph simpered.
‘Every morning?’ Max looked at the monk, his robes covered in nothing but a layer of cement bag garments and thought about offering up his fur coat, but there was something about Christoph’s manner that told him he almost revelled in this painful situation, as if it was some kind of self-flagellation. Besides, there had to be a reason why the Soviets thought he didn’t deserve a fur coat and Max didn’t want to rouse the wrath of the guards by undermining it.
‘Yes, the Russians think it upsets me, but in many ways I have to say I prefer it to the heavy toil most prisoners have to undertake. This walk is actually very peaceful when the guards are not abusing me. It’s a great time for meditation.’
Max took this as a hint to shut up and did a little meditating of his own as they walked on for a while without a sound but the crunching of four pairs of boots on the rough road. Either side of them was nothing but fields as far as the eye could see but he only knew this because the light from the moon lit them up like vast lakes as it reflected off the snow that lay there.
Volkov had been so delighted to tell Max that he would not be making this journey unaccompanied by guards, but he wondered, even if he had been alone, would he be tempted to run away over those fields? Would he even survive out there for as many weeks as it would take to get back home? Could he leave Horst and Edgar back there in Gegesha? He had this terrible realisation, as he contemplated the silver countryside, that after so long in captivity the place he was drawn back to at the end of each day, the place we usually call home, was now for Max a Russian prison camp on the shores of the Barents Sea.
The town was more several buildings dropped either side of the road than the exciting electrically lit urban sprawl Max had conjured for himself around the word.
‘Well, this is my stop,’ Christoph said brightly as they arrived at a wooden building serving as post office, general store and community hub.
‘It was nice to meet you,’ Max said holding out his hand for Christoph to shake.
But the monk didn’t get a chance to take it.
‘Move it!’ one of the guards barked, kicking Christoph in the buttocks with a force that propelled him towards the store. ‘You’d do well not to associate with traitors like that, Doctor,’ the guard continued in Russian, aware of the doctor’s linguistic skills.
‘Traitors?’
‘Yeah,’ the guard beckoned Max on as his comrade stood guard outside the post office into which Christoph had scurried, ‘He gave himself up to us at the first sign of war just so he could avoid the fighting. He is a traitor to your country. A disgrace to you and his church.’
Max nodded to appease the guard, but was in no way in agreement that avoiding this war was something his God would have disapproved of. He thought of his brave father putting a bullet through his own wrist – all those carpals and metacarpals, tendons and muscles that met there in biological and mechanical harmony splintering apart like factions of the same political party, severing each other, breaking down the powerful whole, disabling. A gust of freezing wind rushed across the fields and penetrated his fur coat carrying images of his father helping Erika through overcrowded stations. He hated
the way the guard’s denigration of Christoph seemed to simultaneously steep Max in honour and nationalism. He was here to help people, he wanted to scream down the silent street, he wasn’t there as a soldier, he never was. He was no more a fighter than the monk.
‘Here’s your first stop. A Russian officer lives here with his wife. He’s concerned she has diphtheria or something.’
The guard clomped up to the porch and knocked on the door of the little house. The obelisk of an officer answered immediately peering past the guard at Max.
‘Are you the medic?’ he growled.
‘Yes, Colonel…?’ Max said quickly observing the man’s epaulettes.
‘Utkin,’ the Colonel informed him impatiently. ‘Come in, come in,’ he said indicating Max only.
Max left the guard on the inhospitable porch and followed Colonel Utkin into the living room, where a roaring fire had him quickly removing his coat. But the Colonel hurried on through to a bedroom at the back of the single storey home, where another fireplace was alight and candles burned by the bedside of a woman in her late thirties, Max guessed, though her illness, whatever it was, the unflattering light and the less than comfortable conditions could have put a few years on her.
Max set his bag down by the bed and began to examine the woman’s neck.
‘Could you open your mouth for me, Mrs Utkin, please?’
The woman did as she was asked.
‘How long have you felt ill, madam?’
‘It’s been a couple of weeks now,’ the Colonel answered for her. ‘I think it’s diphtheria. Is it diphtheria? Have one of my men brought some bloody disease into my house from those stinking prisoners?’
Max didn’t know whether to be offended at the epithet or flattered that the Colonel didn’t seem to tar him with the same brush as he used for the rest of the POWs, so he let the comment wash over him and concentrated instead on the symptoms of his patient.
‘Her glands are swollen, but there is certainly no bull neck associated with diphtheria. No grey pseudo-membrane over the tonsils. Mrs Utkin, I think what you have is just a very sore throat and a touch of the flu.’
‘Are you sure?’ The Colonel sounded almost disappointed.
Max feared the officer might doubt his competency as a doctor so he made sure to deliver his prescription with utter conviction and confidence. ‘I am sure, yes, sir. So all you need to do is…’ He looked into his bag at a small tin of pulverised aspirin and thought of Horst diligently measuring out the hospital’s meagre ration into doses small enough to make it last for all their ‘stinking’ patients. He closed the bag. ‘All you need to do is warm up some salty water and get your wife to gargle with it three times a day.’
‘And that will cure her?’
‘I have no doubt it will. Do you have access to any aspirin?’
‘They sell it at the post office.’
‘Good.’ Max maintained his composure though the thought of shelves full of painkillers in the little shop where Christoph was being handed the mail right now stung Max to his core. ‘A couple of tablets every day will help with the swelling and the temperature too. I guarantee she’ll be as good as new in a matter of days.’
‘Really? You’re sure?’
As sure as I can be with the terrible bloody resources you supply me with. He had to hold the words back beneath his vocal chords with such force he nearly developed a bull neck himself.
‘Absolutely,’ he smiled.
Utkin studied the doctor’s face as he had countless prisoners he had tortured under interrogation. Then, convinced the doctor was telling the truth, his heretofore stony expression erupted with a volcanic joy. ‘Well, that is very good, very good news. How can I ever thank you, Doc—? I know, I know.’ He hurried out to the living room and the inelegant sound of things sliding around wooden shelves and cupboard doors being slammed accompanied perfectly the awkward tableaux of Max politely smiling at Mrs Utkin in bed and Mrs Utkin clutching at the top of her blanket wishing she could be left in peace.
‘Here you go, doctor, take these as a token of my appreciation,’ the Colonel said shoving a loaf of bread, a tin of pork and a bottle of vodka into Max’s shocked grasp.
‘Oh no really, that’s not necessary.’ Max’s words were at total odds with the firm grip he now had on the treasures. A whole loaf of bread! Meat! And this vodka would make an excellent disinfectant at the hospital.
‘Come!’ the Colonel ushered Max back into the living room. ‘We’ll have a shot of that vodka now to celebrate the wife’s recovery.’
‘Oh no,’ Max said putting his coat on and trying to find pockets big enough for each of his gifts, ‘I really have to get on. I believe there are other patients for me to see today and…’
‘Sit down,’ Utkin barked with more slamming of cupboard doors as he located two small glasses before sitting too. ‘Take off the coat and sit down.’
Max clutched his latent bottle of disinfectant but watched as the Colonel sat on the edge of his chair as if ready to spring up at any moment and throttle Max if he didn’t join him in a drink.
‘Well, I suppose, a swift one cannot hurt,’ Max said slipping his coat off and sitting opposite Utkin, who snatched the bottle and began to pour.
‘That’s right it can’t,’ he said. ‘Na zdorovie!’ though he threw the alcohol into himself in a way which made Max think he was trying to make it hurt. ‘Ah, this is my medicine, doctor. Without it I would have never survived in this hellhole. I’ll never forget,’ he said pouring himself another shot, ‘Sunday June 22nd 1941. I leaned out of my comfortable bed and turned the radio on as I always did. But the usual physical exercise program was not on. Instead it was incessant military march music. So you knew something was up, you know what I mean?’
Max nodded though he wasn’t sure exactly where this was going.
‘Then my papa came up and asked me to go for a beer with him and my little brother Alex. It was hot that morning so we sat outside the café. They had the radio on there too. I couldn’t escape that bloody music until it was interrupted by Foreign Minister Molotov: “Citizens,” he announced, “Fascist Germany has attacked us.” And what did I do? I tried to get another round of beers in, tried to make that morning with my dad and my brother last as long as possible, because somehow I knew then that I would never see them again. We were all called up to the front the next day and both of them were dead by ’42. To family!’ Utkin raised his glass.
‘To family!’ Max toasted enthusiastically, but merely sipped at his drink.
The Colonel was having none of that. So shot after shot they fired into the back of their throats and soon Max stopped worrying about his dwindling supply of disinfectant and instead began luxuriating in the heat inside him and out. He began to relax into the chair, even stretch out his legs in front of him. The climate and the atmosphere in Gegesha had you in a permanent state of contraction. Max only realised this as he unfurled himself before the fire like a crocus before the spring sun – a crocus watered by rains of booze. He soon stopped worrying about getting in trouble for not seeing the other sick relatives of Russian officers. After all, he was here with Colonel Utkin. He was only following orders. Besides it was still early. Ridiculously early to be drinking, especially for someone who hadn’t had a drink in so many months, but, yes, yes, that’s it, it was early, so after this little drink he would still have time to see the other patients before walking home… walking back to the camp, he meant to say. It was a shame Horst and Edgar weren’t here. They could have all enjoyed a drink together. God knows they deserved one. And this Utkin, he wasn’t so bad. For a Russian. And his wife. She seemed… well, he was sure she would be very nice if she didn’t feel so awful. But she’d be right as rain after a few gargles of salt water. My, what a fuss! It’s not like her fingers were black with frostbite, or she had festering wounds awash with maggots. Not like her penis had exploded. Max, giggled to himself – not that she had a penis of course. At least he didn’t think so, but if she
did it would be an interesting case he could write up for the medical journals. Anyway, shouldn’t he be encouraging Utkin to get some salty water warmed up for her to gargle? Perhaps he should have just prescribed this vodka instead for her to gargle. If there were any malignant bacteria in the back of his own throat they could not have survived the burning inundation he had subjected them to over the last few minutes, hour, whatever…
The next thing Max knew he was one of those bacteria being slapped with liquid, but his was not a fiery soaking. He was gasping and convulsing as bucket after bucket of cold water was thrown on him by the two guards where they had dumped him outside the barracks after bringing him all the way back unconscious from town.
‘That should sober you up,’ one of the guards snorted.
‘OK, OK, that’s enough!’
Max could barely see but he was relieved to hear the unmistakably fearless voice of his ally Edgar.
‘The water is starting to freeze on his skin. We have to get him inside otherwise he’ll die.’
He felt himself lifted by friendly, if not a little miffed, hands. He felt his clothes being stripped from him and the scratchy surface of his mattress beneath his trembling bones. He tried to speak, but his mouth was glued shut with an adhesive that tasted of sand. He felt blankets being piled on top of him. He only owned one so he gathered these were the charitable offerings from his friends’ beds. He desperately wanted a drink of water, but as he tried to articulate this his bunk began spinning and it was all he could do not to be sick on this improbable and terrible fairground ride. On the banks of the Rhine he had once seen a soldier’s eye protruding from his face because of the bullet which had entered his temple and pushed it out. Finally he knew what that felt like. But for Max, it felt like there were two zeppelin-like bullets pushing both of his eyes out of his skull and no death to save him from the pain.
Fifteen Words Page 16
