The Turncoat

by Siegfried Lenz

  “Where does it hurt?” asked Wolfgang.

  “You have to get away, now,” said Proska. “All they have to do with me is give me the coup de grâce, but if they catch you—”

  “Is it here?”

  Two airplanes whooshed over the village, fired, made turns so deep that their wings almost touched the ground, and vanished. The MG fell silent.

  “Now we can go on,” said Wolfgang.

  Then Proska unexpectedly stood up and took hold of his rifle. He’d only fallen chest-first onto a sharp clod of frozen earth. Soon his pains were completely gone.

  After a series of zigzag advances, they reached the village.

  Behind Rogalski’s shed, they stopped and discussed what they should do next. They didn’t know whether Proska’s brother-in-law had fled or stayed; the farm looked abandoned. Then there was the fact that they couldn’t stay there long, because they’d received strict and important orders, and if those orders hadn’t by chance required them to pass close to Rogalski’s house, they probably wouldn’t have gone there on their own initiative. Proska had been given the mission only because he knew every path and every stone in the neighborhood, and he’d taken along Milk Roll because four eyes see more than two, and because two rifles can accomplish more than one, and because, generally speaking, two people who undertake a task have better prospects of success than only one.

  A needle-sharp wind pricked their faces, their cheeks burned, and their fingers grew stiff. When they spoke, they hardly moved their lips. A bank of snow clouds hung over the horizon. Now and then the ice on the frozen lake cracked, and every time, there was a booming sound like thunder. Proska was waiting for the dog to start barking, but the dog didn’t bark; surely it was curled up in its doghouse, sound asleep, lying on its chain with its head between its forepaws. Or maybe Rogalski had taken the dog away with him. The two soldiers couldn’t be seen behind the shed, but they couldn’t see anything either.

  “Now what?” Wolfgang asked. “Do you intend to stay here?”

  “We’ll go into the yard from the back.”

  They circled the shed. The farmyard door creaked when Proska opened it. Wolfgang was standing right behind him.

  At that moment, a shot was fired, and the echo resounded in the farmyard. They didn’t know where the shot had come from. Proska cried, “Get down!” and both of them lay in the snow. They scrutinized the windows and the dormers. The shot must have come from there, they thought.

  “We have to get to the barn, Wolfgang. You go first. When you reach it, I’ll follow.”

  While Milk Roll sprang to his feet and headed for the barn, making long, bounding strides, Proska stared at the dormers. A second shot rang out, and the report banged against the barn, ricocheted over to the woodshed, and from there to the farmhouse. In Proska’s ears the reverberations produced a high, clear, persisting buzz, and he opened his mouth so the buzzing would disappear.

  The bullet struck Wolfgang in midstride, dealing him a short, sharp blow and knocking him backward. His arm described a swift circle, his legs bent at the knees.

  Proska had watched as though paralyzed. Now he took his eyes off Wolfgang and scanned the house, and he noticed the entrance door slowly move and saw a shotgun barrel peep out, just above the cold cement floor, pointing at him. Desperately and instinctively, Proska jerked the butt of his automatic rifle to his shoulder, aimed at the door through which he had so often, in former days, entered the house, and pulled the trigger.

  Everything went black before his eyes.

  The force of the rounds had flung the door open. Fresh wooden splinters shone in the clear air.

  After a while, Proska raised his head and looked over to the house. A man was lying on the cement entryway; the bullets had reached him through the wood.

  Proska jumped up and ran to Wolfgang, lifted him up, and carried him to the barn. He set him down so that his back was leaning against the planks of the barn wall. Proska knelt beside his wounded comrade.

  “Wolfgang, my God, what is it, damn, what’s wrong with you? Can’t you hear me? Say something.” As he spoke, his big, ruddy hands were fiddling around on Wolfgang’s chest while he tried to hold up the unconscious man’s constantly drooping head. A wave of heat surged up into Proska’s own skull. “Hey!” he cried. “Why don’t you answer me?”

  Proska clapped both hands to his forehead, and Wolfgang abruptly toppled sideways. Proska felt a strangling sensation in his throat, and it seemed to him as though all his saliva had flooded his mouth at once. He straightened up Wolfgang’s body again. “Talk to me, Wolfgang, answer me, open your eyes.” He tenderly caressed his friend’s cheeks and failed to notice that the front of his overcoat, the part over his chest, was turning darker. The assistant shook Wolfgang by the shoulders, so that his head jerked back and forth, and cried, “Why don’t you answer me? Why are you acting like this? Tell me what’s wrong!”

  Wolfgang’s eyes were shut, his face tense and contorted, as if he were enduring pain. His arms hung down limp; no more breath issued from his mouth. Proska threw himself on the snow next to Wolfgang and clasped his legs. Proska’s back heaved; the man was sobbing.

  And after a while, he grew completely calm; he got to his feet and dragged Wolfgang over the snow-covered ground. He hauled him to the edge of the field and then a good distance into it. At last he laid him down with great care, as if there were still something left in him to destroy. Then he knelt heavily beside him.

  “Goodbye, Wolfgang. Goodbye, my friend.”

  Proska slowly ran his fingers over Wolfgang’s forehead, left him where he was, and went anxiously back to the farmyard.

  Mistrustful and hesitant, he pushed open the door to the farmhouse, and then he saw that the man his bullets had riddled through the door was his brother-in-law Rogalski.

  Proska stood there as if a burning beam had just crashed to the floor a few centimeters in front of him. Intense heat surged up into his face, suddenly dazing him. He stretched out one hand and groped for the wall. The wall supported him. It did not leave him in the lurch, he could lean on it, it didn’t collapse under his touch—which, had it happened at that moment, wouldn’t have surprised him.

  These too are unexpected fruits of conscience, Proska.

  We’re better at hitting the closest targets, we tend to miss the ones that are far away. But we’re made for distance, and if we want to reach far enough, we have to overcome what’s near, we disregard it like dayblind owls. Now what will you do?

  Proska stared at the man on the floor; then he pushed himself off the wall and tottered into the house.

  “Maria!” he called hoarsely. “Maria? Where are you? Maria!”

  When he got no answer, he went out to the entryway, pushing Rogalski’s shotgun aside with his boot. He headed for the barn, opened the door, and listened.

  “Maria!” he called, “Are you here? Are you hiding? It’s me, Walter!”

  He was about to go out again when there was a rustling sound in the straw.

  “Maria?”

  A woman appeared atop a mound of straw and gazed fearfully down on Proska.

  “Well, come on,” he said tonelessly.

  She slid down and hesitantly approached him.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked, making an attempt to smile. Neither of them held out a hand to the other.

  “What was all that shooting?” she asked, distraught.

  He said, “That was a careless thing to do, hiding in the straw. If the barn had caught fire, you would’ve burned up.”

  “My God, where have you come from, Walter? What happened? Shots were fired in the yard, several shots. I heard them very clearly. Was it you?”

  “We don’t have much time,” he said.

  “Have you talked to Kurt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

 
“Gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “He’s safe.”

  “Without me?”

  “He’s waiting for you.”

  “Let me run into the house.”

  “No, don’t, stay here. You have very little time. I’ll show you how to reach safety. We have to go to Barany Cove.”

  “And Kurt?”

  “He’s there too. You’ll see him soon, come on.”

  “But what about my things, Walter? I’m all packed and ready. It happened so suddenly, you know? I had just made goose confit—the jars are still in the cellar.”

  “Come on now, fast,” Proska ordered sternly. “If we delay even a minute more, we’ll be too late.”

  He seized Maria by the wrist and pulled her after him.

  He pulled her over the snow-covered field and through a pine forest, unspeaking, his facial features unchanged. His tight grip made her groan, but he didn’t let her go. Maria had given up asking him questions. She was afraid of her grimly determined brother. They reached a road and followed it.

  When they heard the clatter of an approaching engine, Proska drew Maria behind a tree trunk. Not far from them, they spotted a truck that had apparently been stuck in the snow on a side road and was now trying to climb up to the higher, wider road on whose shoulder Proska and Maria were standing. Proska attentively studied the soldiers, who were busy sticking branches and cardboard under the truck’s free-spinning rear wheels, and then he said, “All right, now you go over to them. They’ll take you with them. We’ll meet again soon. Go now.”

  “What about you?” Maria asked.

  “I’ll be along later.”

  She gaped at him in amazement, turned, and left him. He moved to a different lookout position and waited, and after a short while, the truck, banging and bumping, heaved itself onto the road and drove away. Maria was standing on the box in the back, strenuously gazing toward the spot where, not long before, Proska had stood.

  After the vehicle was out of sight, Proska slumped to the ground. He gradually comprehended what had taken place. An excruciating headache went to work inside his forehead.

  Out of here…out of this country…out of this world…abandoned, alone…this can’t go on…Why doesn’t the world hold its breath?…Why do the crows fly over the field?…Doesn’t anyone understand what just happened?…So there’s no moment when life could take a break…just for once, out of respect?…Why are you all so indifferent, so patient, so cynical? Don’t you feel something, anything?…Are you so insensible to my pain?…Does my torment not strike you speechless?…Am I nothing, then?…Must it all go unnoticed?…Why don’t you stop your hearts?…Is my pain so little your own?

  Proska staggered backward. Heavy clouds hovered above him; it began to snow. Light snowflakes landed on his hand and melted.

  He walked down the road, which didn’t fork. He entrusted himself to it, and it took him along. The fresh rabbit tracks were gradually obliterated. Proska took a fleeting glance at the sky. It was a dull metallic color and held a lot of snow, ready to fall.

  Proska didn’t look back anymore. He kept his eyes pointed ahead of him. And ahead of him lay the steely horizon, which he was helping to expand, toward the west, toward the reddening sunset. One day that steel wall would collapse, it would disperse like fog in the busy hands of the wind—one day.

  For now, however, men still supported it, men still drove it resolutely forward. Would it never end?

  • FOURTEEN •

  Na zdrowie, cheers, or something like that!” said Proska. He swayed as he walked over to the two soldiers and handed each of them a glass, and then they drank. And after they had drunk, the soldiers—both Mongols—sat down on the bed, and Proska sat on a chair. He pulled the chair close to the edge of the bed, so that their knees were almost touching. Outside, under the window, the truck the soldiers had brought Proska in waited with its engine idling. The room was big, the walls freshly papered; the bed looked a little lost in one corner, the floor was shiny, and the chairs were new and uncomfortable. They forced the sitter to sit up straight.

  Proska fished some cigarettes out of a wooden case and offered them around. One soldier refused, the other accepted. They smoked and drank, and then both soldiers suddenly stood up from the bed and left without a word of farewell. Proska hurried over to the window and watched the two clamber into the truck, which then drove off.

  He stayed at the window awhile longer, hoping they’d come back. At last, he turned away, weary and disappointed, and lay down on the bed. He registered the warmth the Mongols had left behind on the bedspread. The window was open, and an optimistic spring climbed in. A delicate song wafted up from a hedge; the courageous bird was earthy-brown and very small.

  This was the end Proska had been looking forward to with increasing eagerness of late. The Gang had disappeared, melted in the fire of justice; they were on the other side of the mountain, as they say in Georgia. Over the miserable, scorched landscape of the war, narrow columns of smoke rose into the air, signs of a past conflagration, signs of a present calm. The wall of steel and fire had collapsed, and among the survivors, a strange illness was spreading: guilt pangs.

  Smashed tanks lay in fields; in ditches alongside railroad tracks, mighty locomotives with eviscerated bellies rested; and many roads had no more protection on either side, for the houses that had shielded them with their cruelly precise facades had broken apart under the embittered blows of the bombs.

  Proska tried to fall asleep. He was lying on his side, his right arm almost fully extended. His respiration was powerful and regular; his breath struck the freshly papered wall, scattered, and spread through the room. His right arm gradually grew heavy, the blood accumulated in one place. Because his right temple was resting on his upper arm, a buildup developed, a little dam blocking the circulation of the red fluid. Proska flung himself onto his back and exhaled loudly. It was broad daylight outside. He unbuttoned his shirt, and when he put his hand through the opening and touched his chest, he could feel that it was clammy. So was his forehead, and so were his back and his behind.

  I have to go to sleep, Proska thought. I’ve waited years for this moment. To sleep, to go under, to tip out of consciousness…Everything’s over now. I could get a reply from Wanda in two weeks. From her, from her! How changed she seemed that last time, in the ruins of the spa…Why did the Mongols leave so fast? They knew me, after all…Wanda will come, she’ll come here to me. Wanda.

  He rolled onto his left side, because he was used to sleeping on one side or the other. He felt his heart hammering indignantly against his elbow, refusing to put up with being compressed.

  “This won’t work,” he said half aloud to himself, and he imagined he saw the words swimming around like little buoys in the room. Groaning, he turned again onto his back, snorted, flexed his thigh muscles, let his fist fall against the wall, and moved his eyelids. His desperation was sublimely pointless. He sat up halfway, took a nonsensical look around, and threw himself back on the bed so hard that the springs squealed. He raised an arm and made grasping movements in the empty air. Then he cautiously laid a hand on his forehead. He could feel the pulse in his left temple throbbing against his fingertips. It’s no good. I’ve forgotten how to sleep this way. I’ll just have to get used to it again.

  Proska rose and stood at the open window, his feet planted wide apart. There was an air current that cooled off his hot body. The afternoon was enveloping the front yard and the street in solitude.

  He thought of himself as abandoned; he believed he was alone in the world. Proska, conscience’s assistant, felt pity for himself. By roundabout ways, he came to the conclusion that this day was a Sunday. Tomorrow he would enter his office for the first time, he’d take up the position he’d been offered without any effort on his part. He recalled the last conversation he’d had before being discharged. Colonel Swerdlow, a young, intellectual offi
cer, had summoned him. When Proska arrived, Swerdlow had scurried over to him on his thin little legs, greeted him amiably, and led him by the arm to a chair. Then he’d offered him a cigarette. Behind his desk, the colonel didn’t look so frail. He seemed to grow out of the polished wood, and the massive, pawlike, carved feet of the table supported him a little as well.

  “Show me the documents,” said the colonel.

  Proska opened a breast pocket and took out some papers. “Here,” he said, laying everything he’d had in his pocket on the table.

  The colonel didn’t touch the documents, nor did he read them; he merely pushed them uninterestedly to one side and put a ruler on them to hold them in place.

  “Are these all the papers you’ve got?”

  “Yes.”

  The colonel spoke accent-free German. But he spoke very softly, and Proska had to lean pretty far toward him if he wanted to understand every word. The colonel’s face scarcely changed as he spoke. He refrained from emphasizing individual words with gestures.

  “If these are all of them, then that’s good,” he said.

  Proska stood up. As far as he was concerned, their business was at an end. He made briskly for the door.

  “Don’t go, Proska. I have something to say to you. Sit back down and listen closely.” The colonel crushed out his cigarette and murmured, “Every power on earth is inclined to protect itself. One kind of self-protection consists in setting up outposts in places that are at risk. Such outposts function as breakwaters or lightning rods or membranes. You yourself know how important they are. In the era of reason, if you don’t have outposts, you’re sunk. You understand me so far?”

  “Yes,” said Proska.

  “Then that’s good…You fought on our side.”

  “Yes.”

  “The war is over now.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the need to fight—to fight in a somewhat different way, of course—isn’t over. Within the socialist society, nothing stands still. Standstills exist only in the bourgeois world, and that’s why every member of the bourgeoisie suffers from sphincter cramps. Do you follow me?”