Peace

by Richard Bausch

  “Great. Let’s send up a flare,” said Joyner. He grabbed a handful of snow and packed it into his sleeve. “Fuck’n freezing. And I’ve gotta put ice on my fuck’n arm.”

  Asch stirred suddenly and scrabbled through the snow a few feet away and was sick there, noisily, with a terrible-sounding loud belch. Then he groaned and was sick again. He came back and crouched with his back against the tree trunk. “I didn’t even know I was gonna do that.”

  “You all right now?” Marson asked him.

  “I don’t know.” He indicated the corpse lying only a few feet away. “I can’t stop looking at that. I just got a feeling, like a jolt, like a—like a sudden remembering where I am. And I thought of the whore. It got me. Let’s get out of here and get a look over the other side and then get our asses back down to the road. Jesus.”

  “Near,” said the old man.

  “If he says that one more time I’m gonna blow him to Sardinia,” Joyner said.

  “Man,” Asch said. “Let up a little.”

  “I don’t wanna die on this fucker.”

  “Stop talking shit,” said Corporal Marson. “We’re gonna wait another fifteen minutes. Be quiet and listen and maybe we won’t die.”

  Again, they were silent. The quiet stretched on away from them. It was impossible to believe that there was a war on the other side of the hill, beyond whatever hills there were. But then another little breeze stirred, and it brought a sound to them, a distant hum. Marson thought he might be imagining it. Asch said, “What the hell is that?”

  Joyner, holding his arm, said, “Planes.”

  “No,” said Marson. “Tanks.”

  “Jesus Christ. Up here?”

  “No.”

  “Carri armati,” the old man said.

  “Near?” said Joyner, spitting.

  “No, signore.”

  “Yeah—we’ll find out that ‘near’ means the fuck’n Jerries.”

  “It is tanks,” Marson said. “Come on, move out.” He indicated for the old man to lead the way.

  They followed him, past the body of the dead German, across the corridor of snow and into the trees, up another swale of ground, and then a path down again, more and more steeply, so that several times they slid in the snow and had to hold on and pause. There were a large number of foot tracks where they walked now, and they kept low, moving once more from tree to tree with stealth. The old man was doing the same. They had been doing this for some time before it came to Marson to wonder whether he himself had started this or had followed the lead of the old man. He was too exhausted to think. He looked at the moon in the starry sky and understood that they had not yet crossed midnight. At a wide, extended stairlike ledge of rock, he signaled the old man with a tap on his back to stop. They all slid out on the first tier of the ledge to look down. There was another snowfield, perhaps fifty yards across, and the crowding tops of more pines. Beyond that was another mountain, other mountains. The snowfield was heavily marked up with foot tracks, all going away.

  “They came through here after the snow stopped,” said Marson.

  “Near,” the old man said, nodding.

  Marson turned to Asch and Joyner. “That shot we heard—it was what we left back there. Whatever—”

  Asch interrupted him. “It took you until now to figure that out?”

  Marson went on, more slowly. “Whatever they’re up to, it’s got nothing to do with us. So let’s see if we can get a look at what they’re running to, from a distance, and then go back down.”

  “We gotta go up again before we go back down,” Joyner said.

  Marson said, “We’ll give them a little time to get farther away.”

  They moved back off the ledge and down, to the hollow beneath it. A mound of drifted snow hid them and kept them from the stirrings of the frigid air. Marson’s clothes were almost dry now, from the outside in, the wind having taken care of the outer surfaces. His underclothes were still soggy and they clung to him in all the wrong ways. The others were suffering the same discomforts. They ate some more rations, and Asch passed his canteen, then filled it with snow and put it back.

  “We’re gonna have to climb this fucker again, you know,” Joyner said.

  Asch said, “We know they’re going away, don’t we?”

  “A little farther,” said the corporal. “If we get to where we can see down to the road from a distance, we’ll know more.”

  “How much do you wanna know?” Joyner said. He was scratching his arm again, pulling at the snow and using it to freeze the abraded place.

  The wind picked up once more, a cold scarf lashing across their faces.

  “I want to know enough. What we were sent to know. And shut up.”

  “Why’d you pick me for this fucker, anyway.”

  “I didn’t pick you. Glick did.”

  “Glick’s a killer,” Asch said. “We’re soldiers. He’s a killer.”

  “Listen.”

  They paused. Far away, barely discernible, the wind was carrying another sound. Shooting. It was shooting. Unmistakable. But not a battle or a skirmish. The shots seemed timed—spaced at nearly exact intervals. Each of the men looked at the others, each trying to solve the problem of the sound and what it meant. It occurred to them almost simultaneously that they were hearing executions. Marson nodded at Asch, who was frowning, and then nodding, too. They were certain of it, now. The old man began to mutter, low, a singsong whose words were not even distinguishable as words.

  “Il mio paese,” he said to Marson. And he put his head down.

  “Paese.”

  “Amici. Amici del mio cuore.” The old man put one hand on his chest, over his heart.

  “Amici—friend,” Marson said. “Friend of your heart.”

  “Casa mia. How you say—house.”

  “Home.”

  “Sì.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  The old man did not respond. He folded his hands tightly at his thin chest, concentrating very deeply on something in his own thoughts, muttering low again.

  “Assassini,” the old man said through his bad teeth.

  “Killers.”

  They listened and the shooting went on, slow, gaps of a few seconds between shots, a volley each time, a firing squad, and the Germans were apparently shooting a lot of people, lining them up and shooting them down. With each volley the old man uttered a little sound of grief.

  “Goddamn,” Asch said. “Are they shooting everybody?”

  “Vigliacchi. Criminali.”

  “They’re shooting criminals?”

  “Sono criminali.”

  “I don’t understand what the fuck he’s saying,” Asch said. “Are they shooting the whole village?”

  “I Tedeschi sono criminali,” said the old man.

  “The Germans are the criminals,” Marson said.

  “Vigliacchi! Sì. Cowards. Tedeschi.” He spit.

  They listened. There were two more volleys, and then a pause, then two more. It went on.

  “Goddamn,” Asch said. “Goddamn.”

  There was a long pause. And then it began again.

  Marson said, “What the hell.”

  “Goddamn them,” Asch said suddenly, loud. “Oh, goddamn them.” He stood and looked out over the mound of drifted snow at the marked wide field and the tops of trees and shouted, “You goddamn motherfucking sons of bitches! I’ll kill every fucking one of you!”

  “But who are they shooting?” Joyner said. “Are they killing the whole fucking village? What the fuck.”

  “Ebrei,” said the old man.

  “Ebrei,” Asch said. “I heard that at Palermo. Ebrei. Hebrews. He’s talking about Jews.” He looked out at the marked-up snowfield, the black tops of the trees. “They’re shooting Jews?”

  They had heard rumors of what the Germans were doing in the north. They had not believed the rumors.

  Joyner was digging at his arm, his mouth pulled back in a grimace.

  “Ebrei,” said the
old man, looking down. “Sì.”

  Asch had even talked about atrocity propaganda from the first war, having heard similar stories from his grandfather.

  “Why would they—?” Marson said. And his nausea came back, silencing him. He turned and sat down in the snow, leaning against the rock wall. Beside him, Asch’s voice had spilled over into a kind of manic muttering.

  “That’s—that’s bullshit. That’s bullshit. They’re shooting partisans. Something—”

  “What the fuck,” Joyner said. “What the fuck.”

  “Ebrei,” the old man said. “Amici.” His eyes kept brimming. “Amici.”

  They heard another volley. It made them all wince. Marson tried to pray, murmuring the Lord’s Prayer. He kept repeating the phrase in his mind, deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil…

  “That’s bullshit,” Asch said, again, and then again. And then he murmured something in another language: “Yisgadal v’yiskadash sh’mei rabbaw.” He took a quick, sobbing breath. “B’allmaw dee v’raw chir’usei v’yamlich malchusei, b’chayeichon, uv’yomeichon, uv’chayei d’chol beis yisroel…”

  “What’re you saying?” Joyner asked.

  Asch looked at him as if he had been startled out of sleep. “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t believe it.” He gestured with a tilting of his head toward the direction of the shots, the village. “But they do.”

  Joyner did not take his eyes away.

  “It’s called Kaddish, okay? Mourner’s Prayer. Prayer for the dead.”

  Joyner sat back and began concentrating on his arm again. “Goddamn,” he said. “Oh goddamn.”

  “I learned it as a kid,” Asch told them. Then he muttered again: “Y’hei shlawmaw rabbaw min sh’mayaw, v’chayim awleinu v’al kol yisroel.”

  “What’s it mean?” Marson asked him.

  “Yeah,” Joyner said, almost like a challenge, except that he had a forlorn look in his eyes. “Tell us what it’s saying.”

  Asch sighed, and the tears ran down his cheeks. “Ah—God. Look. It means—I don’t know what it means. It means you say it for the dead.” He gasped, choked, held his fist to his mouth, then took it away—his hand dropped to his side. “It means whatever it means when you can’t—” He sniffled and ran his wrist across his face. “Ah. Man,” he said. “Words. Goddamn.”

  They were all silent then. Asch murmured the prayer under his breath.

  Each volley made them recoil. And it went on, and on. Perhaps an hour of it while they looked out at the snowfield with its tracks leading away. The sky above them was beautiful, dark and full of stars, with small white tufts and high thin ribbons of cirrus, gleaming at the edges with the moon. The whole sky was colored with that light, and the stars sparkled in it like gemstones strewn across a vast bed.

  “What’re you gonna report now about the Kraut whore?” Joyner said suddenly, low.

  Asch didn’t answer him for a moment. Then: “I’m gonna report a murder.”

  “No shit. After this?”

  “Yes,” Asch said. “Especially after this. Especially after this, goddamn it.”

  “She was a fucking Nazi, Saul. Christ. How clear do you need it to be?”

  Another volley quieted them. Asch sat very still, staring out. Then he was sick, putting his head down between his knees.

  Marson watched him and kept trying to pray. He could not find the words. Each time there was a volley, the sound of it and what it meant rose up in him, facing at him, a wall against which his own soul could only collide in unbelief. He searched for something to feel other than the sickness and the vacancy of not being able to process the fact of what the sounds meant. It was all a blankness like the blankness of a field of snow where no human tracks have ever been made. And the world before his eyes was beautiful, like a painting, and the stars sparkled in the sky.

  “Maybe they’re shooting officers, like the guy back up the hill,” Joyner said, and then seemed to choke.

  Asch indicated the old man. “You heard him.”

  “Murderers,” the old man said, distinctly, like someone well versed in the language. He looked at Marson and said it again, clearly. “Murderers.”

  “God,” Marson said. “Ah, God.”

  In another moment, the volleys stopped. And the silence became freighted with waiting for the next one, which didn’t come.

  “I can’t stand this anymore,” Joyner said suddenly. He stood and hurled his carbine down into the snowfield—it made no sound, dropping in and leaving the imprint of itself—then ripped his field jacket off, and his blouse, so that his arms were bare. He knelt and stuck his bad arm down in the snow, all the way to the shoulder.

  “Joyner, for Christ’s sweet sake,” Asch said, wiping the back of his hand across his face, sniffling.

  Joyner didn’t move, but kept the arm down in the snow, the whole arm.

  “Come on, Joyner,” said the corporal. “Don’t make me have to report you.”

  “Hey, don’t report me. Shoot me.”

  “Stop this. Get your gear and your stuff together. We’re moving out.”

  They waited. He wept a little, moving the bad arm in the snowdrift, as if he had lost something and was feeling around for it. Finally he stood again and wiped the snow from himself, crying, cursing. Asch handed him his shirt. Asch buttoned it for him because in the few moments the snow had rendered Joyner’s hand too numb to function. He let it dangle at his side while Asch worked on him.

  “I gotta get off this fucker,” Joyner said. “Jesus Christ. We gotta get away from all this shit. It’s shit. I gotta get back off this motherfucker of a mountain and out of this fucking terrible place.”

  Marson said, “Go get your weapon.”

  “I don’t care what you tell them down on the road. I don’t care if they court-martial me. Fuck it. I mean it.”

  “Let’s just get this over with, Joyner. Okay?”

  Joyner walked out onto the snowfield and made his way across to the weapon. And he brought it back, head down. He stood with the others, carbine in one hand, scratching that forearm with the other hand.

  “Let’s go,” Marson said.

  “I’m staying here,” said Joyner, still looking down. “I’ll be here when you come back through. And I don’t care what you do and I don’t care what you say.”

  Marson waited.

  “Near,” the old man said, low. It was clear that he had understood what was happening.

  “Joyner, don’t do this,” Marson said.

  “I’ll cover your back, Corporal. I’m not going over there.”

  Marson felt an urge, nearly irresistible, to strike him. But they were in this space together now, having been through the sounds from the village, having been faced with this something so far beyond their own worst expectations of themselves or of the world, even a world at war. It was a strange, sorrowful moment, suffused almost with a tenderness. He had to work to put it down in himself. He took a breath, and then turned to Asch. “You’re a witness to this,” he said. He was calling it up from all his training. “And I believe the penalty for desertion is death.”

  Asch looked at him with unconcealed surprise.

  “Got it?” Marson said.

  “It’s not desertion if I’m covering your back,” said Joyner, a pleading note in his voice.

  “It’s desertion if you disobey an order to march in a combat situation.”

  “È molto vicino. Good—near.”

  “Tell him to shut up,” Joyner said. “Goddamn it, I mean it. I don’t like his language. Tell him to just shut the fuck up.”

  “I’m telling you to shut up,” Marson said. And he turned to Asch again. “You’re a witness.”

  “I’m that,” said Asch. “I am that—Christ.”

  “We’re going on,” Marson said to Joyner. “You can stay here and suffer the consequences or you can fall in. If you fall in, we never mention it.” He gestured for Angelo to lead on, and started with him around the snow mound, descending again. After a fe
w paces, he stopped. Asch and Joyner were coming behind them.

  “Molto vicino,” the old man said.

  They kept going. Not talking, following him. There were no openings in the trees, and the ground kept dipping. They kept descending. You couldn’t see out for the tree branches, all pines now, thick and drooping with snow. The air was colder on this side of the mountain, or seemed so. At last they came to a shoulder, at the end of which they could see a narrow plain, opening out below, with the river running far off to the left, and the road and several farm fields ending in the cluster of buildings and houses that was, no doubt, Angelo’s unfortunate village. Beyond that were foothills and the other mountains. On the road, going away, several tanks rolled along, panzers, and, looking through the scope, you could see the troops marching alongside them. It looked like an orderly retreat.

  NINETEEN

  THEY HAD TURNED AROUND and were climbing again, going back up to the crest, past the marks of their descending. They got to the snowfield in front of the long terracelike ledge, and when Saul Asch paused to adjust a damp fold in the front of his field jacket, something hit him in the back.

  As he toppled forward, they all heard the shot.

  It came from very far off. Asch went over like a felled tree. The others scurried for the drift of snow under the ledge. They made it there and got down and stayed down, and waited. Marson looked out over the snow hillock. Asch lay still and quiet, on his stomach in the open, face to one side.

  “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Joyner kept saying under his breath. The old man moaned and lay on his side, his cloak pulled high over his head.

  “Where’d it come from?” Marson said.

  “I don’t know,” Joyner said. “Christ. Behind us. Way off.”

  “A sniper?”

  “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I knew it. They’re following us.”

  “No, it’s a sniper.”

  “Are you sure?” Joyner sighted with his carbine, sweeping the panorama of the moonlit space.

  Out in the field, Asch moved, seemed about to try and get up. Marson called to him. “Stay absolutely still, Saul. Don’t move. If he knows you’re alive he’ll shoot again. Hold still!”

  Joyner said, “We can’t leave him there.”