The Kindly Ones

by Jonathan Littell

  Another message was waiting for me at the Hotel Eden: “Frau von Üxküll,” the porter explained. “Here is the number where you can reach her.” I went up to my room and sat down on the sofa without even unbuttoning my tunic, overwhelmed. Why contact me like this, after all these years? Why now? I would have been incapable of saying if I did or didn’t want to see her again; but I knew that if she wanted to, not seeing her again would be as impossible for me as not breathing anymore. That night I didn’t sleep at all, or only a little. The memories came brutally rushing back; unlike the ones that had welled up in great waves in Stalingrad, these were not solar, dazzling memories of the force of happiness, but memories already tinged with the cold light of the full moon, white and bitter. In the springtime, back from our winter sports, we continued our games in the attic, naked, shining in the dust-filled light, among the dolls and piles of trunks and suitcases overloaded with old clothes behind which we nestled together. After the winter, I was pale, and still hairless; as for her, the shadow of a tuft was appearing between her legs, and minuscule breasts were beginning to deform her chest, which I loved so flat and smooth. But there was no way back. It was still cold, our skin was taut and bristling. She climbed on top of me, but already a trickle of blood was running down the inside of her thighs. She cried: “It’s beginning, the end is beginning.” I took her in my thin arms and cried with her. We weren’t yet thirteen. It wasn’t right, I wanted to be like her; why couldn’t I bleed too, share that with her? Why couldn’t we be the same? I didn’t have ejaculations yet, our games continued; but maybe now we were observing each other, we were observing ourselves a little more, and that already introduced a distance, an infinitesimal one still, but one that may have made us push things sometimes. Then came the inevitable: one day, the whitish cream on my hand, my thighs. I told Una and showed her. It fascinated her, but she was afraid, she had learned the mechanics of the thing. And for the first time the attic seemed gloomy to us, dusty, full of spiderwebs. I wanted to kiss her breasts, round now, but that didn’t interest her, and she knelt down, presenting her narrow adolescent buttocks to me. She had brought some cold cream taken from our mother’s bathroom: “Take it,” she said. “There nothing can happen.” More than the sensation, I remember the acrid, heady smell of the cold cream. We were between the Golden Age and the Fall.

  When I called her, in the late morning, her voice was perfectly calm. “We’re at the Kaiserhof.”—“Are you free?”—“Yes. Can we see each other?”—“I’ll come by and pick you up.” She was waiting for me in the lobby and got up when she saw me. I took off my cap and she kissed me delicately on the cheek. Then she stepped back and contemplated me. She held out a finger and tapped one of the silver buttons on my tunic with the tip of her fingernail: “It suits you nicely, this uniform.” I looked at her without saying anything: she hadn’t changed, a little older of course, but she was still just as beautiful. “What are you doing here?” I asked.—“Berndt had some business with his lawyer. I thought you might be in Berlin, and I wanted to see you.”—“How did you find me?”—“A friend of Berndt’s at the OKW called the Prinz-Albrechtstrasse and they told him where you were staying. What would you like to do?”—“You have some time?”—“The whole day.”—“Let’s go to Potsdam, then. We can eat and walk in the park.”

  It was one of the very first fine days of the year. The air was getting warmer, the trees were budding beneath a pale sun. In the train we didn’t say much; she seemed distant, and to tell the truth, I was terrified. Her face turned to the window, she watched the still-bare trees of the Grunewald go by; and I watched that face. Beneath her heavy, jet black hair, it looked almost translucent; the long blue veins were clearly outlined beneath her milk white skin. One of them started at the temple, touched the corner of her eye, then, in a long curve, crossed her cheek like a scar. I imagined the blood pulsing slowly beneath this surface as thick and deep as the opalescent oils of a Flemish master. At the base of her neck, another network of veins began, unfurled over the delicate clavicle, and passed beneath her sweater, I knew, like two large open hands to irrigate her breasts. As for her eyes, I could see them reflected in the window, on the dense brown background of the trees, colorless, distant, absent. In Potsdam I knew a little restaurant near the Garnisonskirche. The pealing bells were ringing out their little melancholic tune, to a melody by Mozart. The restaurant was open: “Goebbels’s obsessions don’t hold sway in Potsdam,” I commented; but even in Berlin most of the restaurants were already reopening. I ordered some wine and asked my sister about her husband’s health. “He’s fine,” she replied laconically. They were just in Berlin for a few days; after that, they would go to a sanatorium in Switzerland, where von Üxküll would get his treatment. Hesitant, I wanted her to talk about her life in Pomerania. “I have nothing to complain about,” she said, looking at me with her large clear eyes. “Berndt’s farmers bring us food to eat, we have everything we need. Sometimes we even have fish. I read a lot, take walks. The war seems very far away.”—“It’s getting closer,” I said harshly.—“You don’t think they’ll get as far as Germany?” I shrugged my shoulders: “Anything is possible.” Our words remained cold, awkward, I could see, but I didn’t know how to break this coldness to which she seemed indifferent. We drank and ate a little. Finally, more gently, she ventured: “I heard you were wounded. From some of Berndt’s army friends. We live a somewhat retired life, but he keeps his contacts. I didn’t get any details and I was worried. But seeing you, it must not have been very serious.” So, calmly, I told her what had happened and showed her the hole. She put down her silverware and turned pale; she raised her hand, then put it down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I held out my fingers and touched the back of her hand; she slowly withdrew it. I didn’t say anything. In any case I didn’t know what to say: everything I wanted to say, everything I should have said, I couldn’t say. There was no coffee; we finished our meal and I paid. The streets of Potsdam were quiet: some soldiers, some women with strollers, not many vehicles. We headed for the park, without speaking. The Marlygarten, where you enter, prolonged the calm of the streets and deepened it; from time to time we saw a couple, or some convalescent soldiers, on crutches or in wheelchairs. “It’s terrible,” murmured Una. “What a waste.”—“It’s necessary,” I said. She didn’t reply: we were still talking past each other. Some tame squirrels were scampering in the grass; to our right, one of them ran up to snatch some pieces of bread from a little girl’s hand, withdrew, returned to nibble, and the girl broke out in peals of laughter. On the ornamental ponds, some mallards and other ducks were swimming or had just landed: just before impact, they quickly beat their wings, leaning backward to slow down, and pointing their webbed feet at the water; as soon as they touched the surface, they folded back their feet and ended up skidding on their rounded bellies, in a little spray of water. The sun was shining through the pines and bare oak branches; where the paths joined, little cherubs or nymphs stood on gray stone pedestals, superfluous and laughable. At the Mohrenrondell, a circle of busts set in topiary hedges, beneath terraced vines and greenhouse plants, Una gathered her skirt around her and sat down on a bench, casually, like a teenager. I lit a cigarette; she borrowed it from me and took a few drags before giving it back. “Tell me about Russia.” I explained to her, in short, dry sentences, what security work in the rear areas consisted of. She listened without saying anything. In the end she asked: “And you, did you kill people?”—“Once, I had to give the coups de grâce. Most of the time I gathered information, wrote reports.”—“And when you shot at people, what did you feel?” I answered without hesitating: “The same thing as when I watched other people shoot. As long as it has to be done, it doesn’t matter who does it. And also, I consider that watching involves my responsibility as much as doing.”—“But do you have to do it?”—“If we want to win this war, yes, certainly.” She thought about this and then said: “I’m happy I’m not a man.”—“And I’ve often wished I had your
luck.” She held out her arm and brushed her hand over my cheek, pensive: I thought happiness would suffocate me, that I would huddle in her arms, like a child. But she stood up and I followed her. She calmly climbed the terraces toward the little yellow palace. “Have you heard from Mother?” she asked over her shoulder.—“No. We stopped writing years ago. What’s happened with her?”—“She’s still in Antibes, with Moreau. He was doing business with the German army. Now they’re under Italian control: apparently they’re very well behaved, but Moreau is furious because he’s convinced Mussolini wants to annex the Côte d’Azur.” We had reached the last terrace, an expanse of gravel reaching to the façade of the palace. From there, we looked out over the park; the roofs and steeples of Potsdam were silhouetted behind the trees. “Papa liked this place very much,” Una said calmly. The blood rose to my face and I grasped her arm: “How do you know that?” She shrugged her shoulders: “I know it, that’s all.”—“You never…” She looked at me sadly: “Max, he’s dead. You should get that into your head.”—“You too, even you say that,” I spat out angrily. But she remained calm: “Yes, I too say that.” And she recited these lines in English:

  Full fathom five thy father lies;

  Of his bones are coral made;

  Those are pearls that were his eyes;

  Nothing of him that doth fade,

  But doth suffer a sea-change

  Into something rich and strange.

  Disgusted, I turned and walked away. She caught up with me and took my arm. “Come. Let’s visit the palace.” The gravel crunching under our steps, we went round the building and under the rotunda. Inside, I looked vaguely at the gilt finish, the small, precious furniture, the voluptuous eighteenth-century paintings; I was moved only in the music room, when I saw the fortepiano and wondered if it was the same one on which old Bach had improvised for the king what would become the Musical Offering, the day he had come there: if it weren’t for the guard, I would have stretched out my hand and struck the keys that might have felt Bach’s fingers. The famous painting by von Menzel that shows Frederick II, illumined by cathedrals of candles, playing his flute just as on the day he received Bach, had been taken down, likely from fear of bombs. A little farther on, the tour went through the guest room known as Voltaire’s Room, with a tiny bed where the great man supposedly had slept during the years he taught Frederick the Enlightenment and hatred of the Jews; actually he stayed at the Potsdam town castle. Una studied the frivolous decorations with amusement: “For a king who couldn’t even take off his own boots, let alone his pants, he certainly appreciated naked women. The whole palace seems eroticized.”—“That’s to remind himself of what he had forgotten.” At the exit, she pointed to the hill where some artificial ruins stood out, products of this rather capricious prince’s whim: “Would you like to climb up there?”—“No. Let’s go toward the orangery.” We strolled lazily along, without looking much at the things around us. We sat down for a bit on the terrace of the orangery, then went down the steps framing the large ponds and flowerbeds in a regular, classical, perfectly symmetrical order. Afterward the park began again and we walked on at random, down one of the long footpaths. “Are you happy?” she asked me.—“Happy? Me? No. But I’ve known happiness. Now I’m content with what there is, I can’t complain. Why do you ask me that?”—“Just like that. No reason.” A little farther, she went on: “Can you tell me why we haven’t spoken in more than eight years?”—“You got married,” I answered, holding back a burst of rage.—“Yes, but that was later. And also, that’s not a reason.”—“For me it is. Why did you get married?” She stopped and looked at me closely: “I don’t owe you any explanations. But if you want to know, I love him.” I looked at her now: “You have changed.”—“Everyone changes. You’ve changed too.” We continued walking. “And you, you’ve never loved anyone?” she asked.—“No. I keep my promises.”—“I never made you any.”—“That’s true,” I acknowledged.—“Anyway,” she went on, “obstinate attachment to old promises is no virtue. The world changes, you have to be able to change with it. You’re still a prisoner of the past.”—“I’d rather call it loyalty, fidelity.”—“The past is over, Max.”—“The past is never over.”

  We had reached the Chinese pavilion. A mandarin under his parasol sat enthroned at the top of the cupola, which was trimmed with a blue-and-gold canopy supported by gilt columns in the shape of palm trees. I glanced inside: a round room, Oriental paintings. Outside, at the foot of each palm tree, sat exotic figures, also gilded. “A real folie,” I commented. “That’s what the great used to dream of. It’s a little ridiculous.”—“No more than the mad fantasies of the powerful today,” she replied calmly. “I like this century a lot. It’s the only one of which you can at least say it wasn’t a century of faith.”—“From Watteau to Robespierre,” I retorted ironically. She made a face: “Robespierre is already the nineteenth. He’s almost a German romantic. Do you still like that French music as much as you used to—Rameau, Forqueray, Couperin?” I felt my face darken: her question had suddenly reminded me of Yakov, the little Jewish pianist from Zhitomir. “Yes,” I answered finally. “But I haven’t had a chance to listen to them for a long time now.”—“Berndt plays them now and then. Especially Rameau. He says it’s not bad, that there are some things that are almost as good as Bach, for the keyboard.”—“That’s what I think too.” I had had almost the same conversation with Yakov. I didn’t say anything more. We had come to the edge of the park; we turned around and then, by common consent, headed off toward the Friedenskirche and the exit. “And you?” I asked. “Are you happy, in your Pomeranian hideout?”—“Yes. I’m happy.”—“You don’t get bored? You must feel a little lonely sometimes.” She looked at me again, for a long time, before replying: “I don’t need anything.” This statement chilled me. We took a bus to the train station. Waiting for the train, I went and bought the Völkische Beobachter; Una laughed when she saw me come back with it. “Why are you laughing?”—“I was thinking about one of Berndt’s jokes. He calls the VB the Verblödungsblatt, the Mindless Rag.” I scowled: “He should be careful about what he says.”—“Don’t worry. He’s not an idiot, and his friends are intelligent men.”—“I wasn’t worried. I was warning you, that’s all.” I looked at the front page: the English had bombed Cologne again, causing many civilian deaths. I showed her the article: “Those Luftmörder really have no shame,” I said. “They say they’re defending freedom and they kill women and children.”—“We’re killing women and children too,” she replied gently. Her words made me ashamed, but immediately my shame turned into anger: “We’re killing our enemies, to defend our country.”—“They’re defending their country too.”—“They’re killing innocent civilians!” I was turning red, but she remained calm. “The people you were executing—you didn’t catch them all with weapons in their hands. You too have killed children.” Rage was suffocating me, I didn’t know how to explain to her; the difference seemed obvious to me, but she was acting stubborn and pretending not to see it. “You’re calling me a murderer!” I shouted. She took my hand: “No, I’m not. Calm down.” I calmed down and went out to smoke; then we got on the train. As on the way down, she watched the Grunewald go by, and as I watched her I shifted, slowly at first, then vertiginously, into the memory of our last meeting. It was in 1934, just after our twenty-first birthday. I had finally won my freedom, I had announced to my mother that I was leaving France; on my way back to Germany, I made a detour through Zurich; I rented a room in a little hotel and went to find Una, who was studying there. She seemed surprised to see me: but she already knew about the scene in Paris, with Moreau and our mother, and about my decision. I took her out to dinner at a modest, quiet restaurant. She was happy in Zurich, she told me, she had friends, Jung was a magnificent man. These last words made my hackles rise, it must have been something in her tone, but I didn’t say anything. “And you?” she asked me. I revealed my hopes to her then, my enrollment in Kiel, my joining the NSDAP t
oo (I had done so during my second trip to Germany, in 1932). She listened to me as she drank her wine; I drank too, but more slowly. “I’m not sure I share your enthusiasm for this Hitler,” she commented. “He seems a neurotic to me, full of unresolved complexes, frustrations, and dangerous resentments.”—“How can you say that!” I launched into a long tirade. But she frowned, withdrew into herself. I stopped as she poured herself another glass, and I took her hand on the checkered tablecloth. “Una. It’s what I want to do, it’s what I have to do. Our father was German. My future is in Germany, not with the corrupt bourgeoisie of France.”—“You may be right. But I’m afraid you’ll lose your soul with those men.” I flushed with anger and struck the table. “Una!” It was the first time I had raised my voice with her. Her glass tipped over from the blow, rolled, and smashed at her feet, bursting into a puddle of red wine. A waiter hurried over with a broom and Una, who until then had kept her eyes lowered, raised them to me. Her gaze was clear, almost transparent. “You know,” I said, “I’ve finally read Proust. You remember this passage?” I recited, my throat tight: “This glass will be, as in the Temple, the symbol of our indestructible union.” She waved her hand. “No, no. Max, you don’t understand anything, you’ve never understood anything.” She was red, she must have drunk a lot. “You’ve always taken things too seriously. They were games, children’s games. We were children.” My eyes, my throat swelled up. I made an effort to control my voice. “You’re wrong, Una. You’re the one who never understood anything.” She drank some more. “You have to grow up, Max.” It had been seven years then since we were apart. “Never,” I said, “never.” And I kept that promise, even if she never thanked me for it.