The Constant Soldier

by William Ryan

  When they were alone on the road that led away from the village, his father finally spoke.

  ‘That was Brunner. A Volksdeutsch from the Ukraine. A Party member.’

  Brandt understood.

  ‘I don’t come into the village much these days,’ his father continued, as if Brunner might be the explanation. ‘Monika goes instead, mostly. It’s good for her to get out away from the farm – even to here.’

  His father was waiting for him to ask a question.

  ‘What happened to Hubert?’

  His father sighed.

  ‘He was here for a while – I took him on, of course. He could have stayed and been safe – at least safer than he would have been anywhere else – but then one day he was gone. I didn’t ask where he went because it’s better that way. But not too far away, I don’t think. Perhaps Monika doesn’t stay here just to keep me company.’ Brandt wondered about his sister, spending her youth in the valley – isolated, by virtue of being German, from much of the terror and loss that surrounded her. Her staying seemed a sensible choice to him. But as for Hubert?

  Brandt thought back to the watchers in the forest and wondered if Hubert had been one of them.

  The road turned once again, climbing as the valley closed in, trees coming down the slope to run alongside it, so that the buggy travelled in their shade. To their right, far below, he could see the remnants of the old road, built before the dam and made redundant by it. Ahead of them, the dam itself spread across the narrow gap, its buttresses, containing the turbines, spewing water down into a pool from where the new river flowed. The old river, when it had been in the mood, had regularly burst its banks further down its course, inundating the town and flooding the plain. The dam had tamed it, and widened the lake that had always run along the centre of the valley to form a reservoir. Now the dam’s turbines powered the factories in the town from which they had just come.

  On this side of the dam, the eastern side, men were working with spades and picks, digging out wide and deep trenches on either side of the road that led across the barrier’s length. They piled the earth that they were excavating onto the higher side, the water side, creating large banks in front of which the deep ditches ran – ten metres or so in width. Tank traps.

  The dam was being fortified. Tumbles of barbed wire ran across the approaches and behind the tank traps. Higher so it would dominate the approaches to the dam, Brandt could see a bunker being built into the side of the slope and, on either side of the road, a zig-zag trench. Someone, somewhere, was expecting the Russians to roll into this valley in the near future. He glanced across at his father, who shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘After all that’s happened over the last few years, a price will have to be paid.’

  Brandt thought about replying – but what could he say? After all, even if none of this had been their fault – even if they’d done their best – it had been done in their name. And, of course, in Brandt’s case, he’d fought in the east – and no one who had fought in Russia could wash their hands of what had happened there.

  The dam behind them, the road ran alongside the reservoir, wide and twinkling blue in the sunlight. He considered asking his father to stop for a moment. Perhaps he could cool his feet in its water. But he remembered Monika waiting at home for him and quashed the thought.

  There were more young men working in the fields here – some of them wearing worn-out military uniforms. Some were French and British but he heard other accents and languages as well. He saw no Russian prisoners of war but they must be here somewhere. They couldn’t all have been murdered.

  They turned off the main road, towards the farm. So strong was the sense of home now that it was as if he recognized each rock, each tree and each fence post. He saw thin, dark men in prison pyjamas cutting hay, a guard watching over them – his rifle at the ready. His father answered his unvoiced question.

  ‘There’s another work camp at the far end of the valley, to serve the mine. Most of them work in the mine, of course, but some are sent out to the fields if the farmer pays them enough. Not to our farm, I can promise you that.’

  The buggy’s traces were wrapped around the older man’s fists, and when he said the word ‘them’, he pointed towards a new building, one that Brandt didn’t remember, that stood up from the road ahead. It was long and low, more than fifty metres from one end to the other, its wooden walls still crisp with new whitewash. The grassy slope that led down to the road in front of the building was carefully tended – if it weren’t for the high barbed-wire fence and deep protective ditch that surrounded it, you might have thought the place was a hotel. Before the war, there had been a military fortification in the same spot, built by the Polish army to defend the dam from the Germans. At first he couldn’t see it, but it was still there, partially obscured by a manicured hedge – useless now that the threat was coming from the opposite direction. In front of the hut, on a tall whitewashed pole, an SS flag flew.

  ‘What are they doing here?’

  Brandt looked at the building with fresh eyes. Its rustic decoration, the terrace that ran the entire length of the side of the building that overlooked the reservoir, the wooden-tiled roof – all seemed now to have a more sinister aspect to them. And then there was the wire. And the guardhouse.

  ‘It’s a rest hut,’ his father answered.

  But Brandt wasn’t listening – he was watching a woman walk down the slope of the hut’s lawn, a rake held in her hands. She was thin, painfully so, and the grubby pyjamas she wore were several sizes too large for her, the black vertical stripes like prison bars she could carry around with her. Above her left breast a thin strip of white fabric had been sewn then marked with a hand-drawn red triangle and a number. The woman’s hair was little more than fuzz but it might have been blonde, originally. It was too short to be able to tell for certain.

  ‘It’s best not to look too closely. They don’t take kindly to it.’

  An SS man sat on a low wall, further up the hill, his rifle beside him and the top buttons of his tunic undone. He was more interested in the view than Brandt and his father – or indeed the women who were working in the garden. There were six women in total, two with a red triangle on their prison pyjamas, two with a dark blue triangle and two with a yellow star. He had no idea what the triangles indicated, but he knew what the yellow star meant.

  The strange thing was that the woman he’d noticed first was familiar to him for some reason.

  ‘What did you say this place was?’ Brandt asked, keeping his voice low.

  ‘It’s for the SS.’

  His father didn’t look at him or the building, instead keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

  ‘You said it was a rest hut.’

  ‘I told you there was a place near here. A camp.’

  ‘I see,’ Brandt said, and found himself turning to spit. It landed black and wet on the pale dust of the road. He looked back up towards the hut, and found that something about his action had caught her attention.

  Their eyes met for an instant but the brief glance felt like a slap. It was as though the world had closed in around him and, for an instant, he was at one end of a tunnel and she at the other. Brandt found that his fingers were digging into the wooden bench. He could feel splinters cutting in under his nails.

  He must have made a noise because his father looked over to him, concerned.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said, struggling to find the breath to speak. ‘Sometimes there’s pain.’

  ‘I’ll look at you when we get home. Do you want to stop for a moment?’

  The lane that led to their farm was only a few hundred metres further along. He risked a glance over towards the woman but she had turned away. Brandt shook his head.

  ‘No. Let’s carry on.’

  He was conscious that his words had been growled rather than spoken. It couldn’t be her. If it was – wouldn’t she be wearing a yellow star?

  He took on
e last look up at the hut. She was raking the grass now, her back to the road. There was something about the way she held herself, even after all these years that removed all doubt.

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What are you going to do, now that you’re back here?’

  Brandt swallowed.

  ‘I plan to make amends,’ he said. ‘For all of my sins.’

  6

  BRANDT’S UNCLE ERNST, his mother’s brother, helped him down from the buggy when they reached the farm. Ernst was older than he remembered – his round face thinner, as was his hair. There was a welcoming committee. His aunt Ursula, Ernst’s wife, pushed forward a small girl and a boy of around six.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked them, looking for fear in their eyes and finding none.

  ‘These are Horst’s children – Eva and Johann.’

  Brandt tried to remember. Someone must have written to him about them, surely. Horst was Ernst and Ursula’s son – the last he’d heard, he’d been stationed in France.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ he said, and extended his hand. The boy took it but the girl hid in her grandmother’s skirt. He didn’t blame her – and anyway it was more out of shyness than fright.

  ‘How is Horst?’ he asked, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, knew the answer.

  ‘Horst was killed in Yugoslavia,’ his father said in a quiet voice. ‘In March of last year. I sent you a letter.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the post didn’t get through. If I’d have known, I would have written.’

  Ernst smiled reassuringly and the children didn’t seem to have noticed. Their mother died in childbirth with the girl so Horst’s death had made them orphans. All they had in the world were their grandparents. He felt tears itch at the corners of his eyes. He reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair.

  ‘Your father was a fine man,’ Brandt said. ‘A hero.’

  ‘And here is Monika,’ someone said, but by now his legs were slowly giving way. He reached for something to support his weight and felt strong hands take his arm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said and saw their concerned faces as if through a fog. He did his best to smile. Monika was there, he was sure of it. At one stage he thought he saw his mother, but that was when he was being helped upstairs and the house was swirling around him and he was so cold that his body shivered at the touch of their warm hands.

  He could hear someone – it sounded like him – repeating Judith’s name. The exhaustion went deep inside him, to the very marrow of his bones – but even that couldn’t account for the tears that ran down his frozen cheeks.

  §

  Perhaps his father looked in on him during the next day, he couldn’t be sure, but if he did, he didn’t wake him. And so, as it turned out, he slept for nearly a day and a half, managing to ignore the sunlight slipping through the shutters, the sounds from the yard beneath his window and the dull pain of his own battered body.

  §

  When he eventually awoke Brandt made his way, barefoot, down the wooden stairs, worn dark by hundreds of years of other feet making the same short journey. His father sat at the kitchen table, a newspaper open in front of him, its wartime paper yellow in the light from the window.

  Sleep and the strangeness of his surroundings, familiar and yet unfamiliar, had left Brandt disoriented.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘It’s the morning still, just past eight o’clock. A day later than you think perhaps.’

  ‘I slept for that long?’

  ‘You were tired and you’re not fully recovered from your injuries – sleep is good medicine. And cheap.’

  His place was set on the long table. The place he’d always sat at when he was a boy – beside his father and across from his mother. There was bread, butter, cheese and jam – a jug of creamy milk. A feast.

  ‘Is this your work?’

  ‘Monika’s,’ his father said, stuffing his pipe with cigarette tobacco.

  ‘Is she here?’

  ‘It’s good to have you back, Paul.’

  He turned to see a woman he barely recognized, standing in the doorway. The Monika he remembered had been nineteen years old when he left, bookish and pale. This Monika was older, tanned, with bobbed brown hair. Her smile was open and if she noticed his injuries, she gave no sign of it.

  ‘Monika?’

  She laughed and stepped forward to embrace him.

  ‘We’ve both changed a little bit.’

  He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had held him. He found that his face was hot.

  ‘You’d better sit down,’ she said, smiling at him once again. He was pleased to see that her teeth weren’t quite straight.

  ‘I think I’d better,’ he said, and did as he was told.

  §

  Another two days passed before Brandt put on an old pair of trousers, for which he needed a belt, and a jacket that, in contrast, was too narrow for him now. He hadn’t worn civilian clothes, not once, since he’d left Vienna for the training barracks. He put on his military boots – heavier than he remembered – and made his way down the stairs and out into the yard. He listened – no one was about. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see anyone – he just didn’t want them to stop him. They would only say he wasn’t strong enough to go outside but he couldn’t wait any longer.

  His path, each step of which he’d gone over in his mind a hundred times, led him past the SS hut. He walked slowly, not because he was tired, but because he wanted to be consistent. He didn’t know if one of the guards might be watching him as he approached, and he wanted to take his time when he reached the hut, so a constant pace made sense.

  When he reached the fenced garden, she was nowhere to be seen. It was all right, he decided, he would be patient. If nothing else, he had time. Perhaps he would see her on the way back.

  The walk up from the reservoir was harder. He stopped more than once to gather his strength, sitting at the side of the road, watching the workers in the fields and listening to the hum of insects around him. Before the war, there would have been the sound of farm machinery from somewhere in the valley – but not now, when there was barely petrol enough to keep the tanks moving. He stopped for a moment once again outside the hut. He glanced around to see if she was there, but saw no one, then turned to look across the water towards the forested upper slopes of the other side of the valley. It was a view you might put on a picture postcard – he could understand why they’d chosen this place.

  He fell into the habit of going for a walk in the morning and in the evening, and each time his path led him past the hut. He was careful, he hoped. He didn’t stare. But he paid attention whenever his gaze found its way up to the hillside on which the hut sat – and he took note of what he saw.

  The main building, whitewashed with a pitched roof, was surrounded by a long wooden terrace, which ran round the three sides that were visible from the road. Often he saw officers sitting in deckchairs taking the sun, or sitting in the shade provided by two cream awnings that were rolled down when the sun was stronger than usual. There were window boxes bursting with bright flowers. The building had been carefully modelled to look like some pre-war holiday camp.

  But it was not a normal place. He doubted that many passing vacationers would mistake it for a welcoming spot to rest their head for the night, even if the SS flag hadn’t flown above it.

  It was surrounded by two high barbed-wire fences, one inside the other, and the gate, up a steep lane from the main road, was protected by a double-height concrete pillbox which, along with a smaller wooden one on the other side of the hut, covered the fences as well. Because of the hut’s raised position, there was not a centimetre of the enclosed perimeter that was not within sight of one of the guard towers. And when Brandt looked closer at the hut, he noticed how thick the oak window shutters were, backed with iron sheeting that had been decorated with scrolling – and rifle slits.

  The hut also had a
presence, which he found disconcerting. Even when no one was visible, as he passed, he had the feeling that he was being watched from within – or perhaps by the building itself. There was something in that – the place made the back of his neck feel cold, even with the sun doing its best to warm it.

  Of course, the person he really wanted to see was the woman with the red triangle.

  What if it was her? What if it wasn’t? If it was her, he’d have to do something. He had no choice.

  And then it occurred to him that even if it wasn’t her – he should do something. He had a debt that needed to be repaid.

  There were wrongs he needed to right.

  7

  ‘BE CAREFUL when you pass that place,’ his father said to him one evening, his voice low. ‘I saw you today, looking up at it. They could shoot you – just for that.’

  Brandt nodded – it was the simplest thing to do. It wasn’t a discussion he wanted to let run on.

  ‘I didn’t realize – I’ll be more careful, don’t worry.’

  His father held Brandt’s eyes for a moment longer than was comfortable. As if he had a question that he would like to have answered but was not quite ready to ask.

  Monika leaned forward, reaching a hand across the table towards him.

  ‘You have to understand – there are no restraints on the SS here. They can do whatever they want. It’s best to avoid the place as much as possible.’

  Brandt had to admit they had a point. There was no sense in getting shot for no good reason. But he might have a solution.

  After they’d eaten, Brandt went to his bedroom and took his uniform from the wardrobe. He considered the insignia of his former rank, the badges and medal ribbons he’d been awarded for his service. He no longer wanted anything to do with what the tunic represented – but even the SS would think twice before shooting someone wearing it.

  The next day he wore it on his morning walk, taking the roundabout route that went above and behind the hut before coming down to it along the narrow lane that ran past its main gate. It was only when he was walking in the forest’s cool shade that he remembered it wasn’t only the SS he needed to be worried about. He looked around him, at the shadows and the brush that ran close to the path. For all he knew, up here where few people lived or visited, there might be a partisan tracking his progress through the sights of his rifle at this very moment. He could be dead before he heard the shot fired. He would keep to the lower, more travelled roads, he decided, when next going out for a walk dressed as a soldier.