The Turncoat

by Siegfried Lenz

“Good evening,” said Kunkel.

  Proska nodded, perplexed. The innkeeper closed the door.

  “What are you doing here?” Proska asked. “Do you come to this place often?”

  “No.”

  “Are you here because of me?”

  “Yes. I’m glad I’ve found you. There are three of us looking for you. Fabrun’s waiting in front of the dairy store just down the street from your building, Kroogmann’s at the train station, and I, as you see, am waiting for you here.”

  “What does this mean?” asked Proska. “Aren’t you going to tell me why you’re all lying in wait for me? What is it you want?”

  Kunkel whispered, “You have to disappear.”

  “What?”

  “You have to bugger off, as fast as you can. They’re waiting for you in your apartment. I watched them go in. So far, they haven’t come back out.”

  Proska asked, “Are you sure they’re in my room, waiting for me? Other people live in that building…How do you know they want me?”

  “Proska, you can be sure it’s you they’re waiting for. I don’t know anybody who’s more overdue than you.”

  “You’re not giving me any news. We’re all overdue, even before we get here. I’m just now coming from Swerdlow.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I have only one possibility.”

  Kunkel pushed a little packet across the table, seized Proska’s hand, pressed it, and said, “Maybe we’ll see each other again before too long. Take care.”

  Then, impassively, he left the room.

  * * *

  —

  Before midnight, the rain suddenly stopped and the wind became weaker. Proska failed to notice any of that. The spruces in the protected plantation area were crowded close together, and when the man touched a branch, the drops of water hanging on the needles immediately sprinkled him. He made very slow progress.

  The young spruces, a head taller than he was, tolerated him in their midst only with great reluctance.

  In spite of the season, the air among the trees was strangely sultry. The sultry air lay dense over the earth, and when Proska, at regular intervals, ducked his head and listened, or when he dropped down on his knees to rest and held his ear to the night, then the sultriness wafted over him, and it was as if the earth blew its breath full in his face, copiously and rudely. The breath wafted over him from all sides, wherever he turned; there was no escaping it. His shirt and underpants were stuck to his body. His fingers swelled up, and there was a savage throbbing inside his temples.

  Beyond the spruce plantation, a plowed field awaited him—soft, fertile soil. He jumped down into the first furrow. He could hear his heart pounding against the ground. His hand felt along the furrow’s little wall, and then he raised his head, supported his upper body on his arms, and peered across the field. The moon unexpectedly slipped out, looked down, and left. All clear—no sentry for twenty meters. Proska continued on, moving from furrow to furrow. Between jumps, waiting, listening intently and waiting. In some of the furrows, water, a finger deep. Low clouds, low sky.

  Proska jumped again, and on the way down, he saw that someone was already lying in the spot where he was about to land. He threw himself to one side, wrenching his body out of the direction of its fall, but he couldn’t avoid the legs of the person cowering under him. Proska realized at once that this was no sentry—it was a woman. She cried out softly; Proska’s boot had struck her shin.

  “Quiet,” Proska said in a choked voice. The woman fell silent and concentrated on looking straight ahead. Beside her lay a backpack, soaked through and covered with mud.

  “Is someone out there?” Proska asked softly.

  “Two of them. They cross each other just before the meadow, then they move apart again. Every three minutes.”

  “And?”

  “They’re about to come together again. When they part, that’s the time.”

  They lay side by side in the furrow, unspeaking, and when the sentries approached their meeting point, Proska and the woman put their heads down. His face rested on her sweatpants. He felt a little less insecure than before.

  Once again, the moon sprang out from behind a cloud.

  “But not now,” the woman whispered.

  He raised his face and checked to see how much time the next cloud would need to hide the moon, but the moon had already gone in again.

  The sentries came together. They conversed, carrying their carbines braced against their hips. Proska thought, Safety catches off, ready to fire. Young people.

  He hissed, “I’ll take your backpack. We’ll go faster.”

  She answered softly, “No, I can carry it. It’s not so heavy.”

  He sensed that she was lying to him, stretched out a hand, and grasped one of the backpack’s straps. He tugged on it cautiously.

  “This backpack’s too heavy for you, ma’am. You can’t run with it.” The woman, seeing that his hand was on her property, pulled the backpack away from him and clasped it tightly, desperately, to her chest.

  “I’ll carry it,” he whispered. “Otherwise we’ll never get across.”

  “In that case, too bad for me,” she said. “But if you take my backpack, I’ll scream. I won’t care about anything anymore.”

  “I really don’t want it for myself.”

  “Then leave it to me.”

  Proska saw that he wouldn’t be able to overcome the woman’s distrust. She would have preferred letting the sentries catch her to letting him carry her backpack. This is a waste of time, he thought. Even if I try to help her while we’re running for it, she’ll scream…let her lug the thing herself…the sentries…

  The sentries parted, marching away in opposite directions, slowly. After a few steps, the darkness had already swallowed them. In their invisible presence, however, they were bigger than ever; the two sentries suddenly became four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two. In daylight, two sentries are two sentries; in darkness, they increase and multiply.

  “Now,” said the woman.

  “Not yet!” said Proska.

  She obeyed. She stayed where she was, lying beside him but prepared to jump up, waiting for his signal.

  Proska picked up a clump of earth, squeezed it in one hand, and ordered, “Go!”

  And then they both sprang to their feet, ran crouching over the furrows, ready to throw themselves down at any second, splashed into standing water, slipped, pulled themselves together, went on: he in front, unencumbered by baggage, strong and resolute; she behind, desperate, reeling, her heavy backpack slung over one shoulder. When the distance between them became too great, he stopped impatiently, turned his head, and waved her forward. They reached the meadow: rotting posts and triple strands of wire. He climbed up on the top strand—the posts leaned toward him—and jumped. A screeching, rusty sound was heard. Proska pressed the bottom wire down to the ground with his foot, and with his hands he pulled up the middle strand, saying, “Come through, quick, quick.”

  * * *

  —

  While she was creeping through the wire fence, he turned his head alternately right and left, his eyes piercing the darkness, looking for the sentries. They must be back soon. Maybe they were already close? Maybe they were watching him and the woman as they put themselves through this hopeless torment? Proska released the strands of wire, took the woman’s hand, and pulled her into the meadow. The sentries must be just about to cross…we won’t go much farther…four more steps…get down and lie still…now.

  He dropped to the ground, pulling the woman down with him. She lay half on him; her body was shaking. Her breath seeped through his clothes. He counted to ninety and relied on God. His angle of vision was too small to let him make out the place where the sentries would meet. And after he had counted to ninety, he raised his upper body, bracing himself on his arms, and pa
nted, “Fast, across the meadow.”

  They traversed the meadow and reached the tall, stern forest. They went through the forest and found themselves unexpectedly standing on an embankment. The horizon grew lighter; the day promised to arrive before long. The red eye of a distant signal burned through the early morning fog. A road ran past their feet. Proska said, “Now we’re all right, here’s our road. We were lucky. I counted to ninety, because I thought the sentries would have to be far enough away by then. I was right. Where do you want to go?”

  The woman answered, “The next village. Where my husband is. It’s not far from here. He’ll probably come out to meet me.”

  “Are you saying that because you’re afraid of me?”

  “No,” she said. “My husband will help me carry this pack. It’s his manuscripts and notes I went over to pick up. I got everything that was left.”

  “That’s why you went to the other side?” Proska asked.

  “He needs this work. He was just offered a professorship.”

  She spoke more and more softly, and in the end she choked and her voice fell silent. She sat on her backpack and wept.

  Proska clambered down the embankment and walked to the train station. On the way, he encountered a man, and he stood in the man’s path and said, “Your wife’s sitting back there. Everything went fine.”

  The next train north left right on time.

  * * *

  —

  The big locomotive came to a stop, right on time, under the glass dome of the main railroad station. The engine blew its black smoke at the transparent roof in great puffs; water streamed down its hot flanks and dripped onto the rails. A man with an oilcan went up to the locomotive, turned several caps, looked for the little funnel, found it, and raised the can.

  Proska got off the train. Immediately caught up in the stream of travelers heading for the exit, he was washed up the stone steps and almost startled to find himself standing in the station’s dusty hall. He was no longer wedged between warm shoulders; the stream had lost him, expelled him.

  Nobody knew him, nobody wished to speak to him, nobody interested him, and no one noticed him.

  Things will go on…I’ll get a job, I’ll work…it’ll be all right…

  Confidence and optimism swelled in him. He strolled unhurriedly past the vendors’ stands lining the concourse, reading the posted prices and the writing on cans and boxes. And then he stopped in front of a wall on which a large blackboard hung.

  On the left, a poster: MURDER, and printed below: REWARD. And in addition to the poster: public announcements, warnings, appeals, requests, tips, want ads, and search notices: GREAT DANE MISSING. WHOEVER HAS…SILVER BRACELET LOST, THE HONEST FINDER WHO…

  A locomotive passed through without stopping and shook the station hall. The floor vibrated, and the vibrations extended deep into Proska’s body as well. With half an eye, he read the administrative and private messages. His gaze slid over the board, involuntary and purposeless. MANDATORY REGISTRATION…SCHOOL VACCINATIONS WILL TAKE PLACE ON…RAT POISON…SUCCESS GUARANTEED, MANY CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS…INSPECTION UPON REQUEST…IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REPORT OF THE LDJ/IIIC AND THE DISTRICT COMMITTEE OF THE VDB, ALL MEMBERS MUST…

  Proska jumped suddenly, as if someone in the clouds had called his name. A jolt like a lightning strike surged through his body. He bent a little to one side; all the blood withdrew from his brain; he shut his eyes and opened them again at once. He murmured a name and turned around jerkily, fearing that the name he’d spoken could have been overheard by a stranger. But there was no one near him. He was all alone in the spacious hall. An announcement was hanging from the edge of the blackboard:

  WHO CAN PROVIDE INFORMATION REGARDING MY HUSBAND, KURT ROGALSKI?

  LAST SEEN IN SYBBA, EAST PRUSSIA.

  INFORMATION REQUESTED BY MARIA ROGALSKI, CURRENTLY AT…

  “Who can provide information…,” Proska read in an undertone.

  You, Proska, you alone. You alone know what took place, and why. You caused what happened to happen. There’s no action that doesn’t entail suffering; you acted as you thought you had to act. You didn’t lie idle. Your conscience constantly lashed you, urging you forward. The actions behind you are inessential. What’s essential always happens up ahead…Your sister Maria is looking for her husband. You killed him. We were all witnesses, we all saw him put himself in your line of fire. But it was your finger that curled around the trigger, it was your shoulder that absorbed the recoil.

  Maria is asking for certainty. You alone can give it to her, Proska. You must give it to her. Suffer, but don’t forget to act. You don’t need to write to her now—she wouldn’t demand that of you. But one day you must write her, one day. When you know where you’ll sleep, where you can be alone with yourself and the long days, when you know that all paths yearn to be walked to the end: then do it, Proska, do it. You will do it. You must do it. By now we know you too well to think you won’t.

  * * *

  —

  Proska opened his eyes and shook himself, as if trying to throw off the last drops of memory that were still clinging to him. He had needed months to find the strength to write to his sister. Now the letter lay in the mailbox over there on the other side of the street, a properly stamped confession for which the old, oblivion-seeking pharmacist had loaned him the stamps.

  What will she say when she reads it?…And how will she answer me, if she answers me at all?

  He saw the postman arrive at the mailbox, watched him open the bottom flap, observed him as he impassively let the letters fall into a waterproof canvas bag, climbed back on his bicycle, and rode away. The crossed strips of wood separating the windowpanes threw a sharp-edged shadow into the room. The swallows were flying low.

  And then came a day when the postman climbed up the steep stairs to Proska’s apartment. “For you,” he said, and went back down.

  Proska rushed to the window and, with trembling fingers, held the envelope up to the light. It was his letter to Maria! Someone had written in indelible pencil on the back of the envelope: “Undeliverable—no forwarding address. Return to Sender.”

  COMMENTARY ON SIEGFRIED LENZ’S

  • THE TURNCOAT •

  by Günter Berg

  It’s true, I often subject my characters to the pressure of an extraordinary situation, to which they must then react, one way or another.

  —Siegfried Lenz in an interview with Geno Hartlaub, Sonntagsblatt, December 25, 1966

  ORIGIN

  In February 1951, the German publishing house Hoffmann und Campe published Siegfried Lenz’s first novel, Es waren Habichte in der Luft (“There Were Hawks in the Air”). A serialized edition of the text had previously appeared in print in the daily newspaper Die Welt from October 24 to November 25, 1950. Lenz had begun a traineeship at Die Welt in 1948; later, having been promoted to culture and entertainment editor, he’d also been given responsibility for the literary texts the paper published in serial form. His mentor and patron, Willy Haas, had provided him with this prestigious opportunity.

  Lenz’s debut novel did not go unnoticed and received a unanimously warm reception from literary critics and reviewers. Therefore, at the end of March 1951—shortly after the appearance of this first work—the head of Hoffmann und Campe, Dr. Rudolf Soelter, saw no difficulty in immediately offering the promising young author a second book contract. The new novel’s working title was…da gibt’s ein Wiedersehen (“…We’ll Meet Again”), which is a line from the refrain of a well-known German popular song.

  But before settling down to work, Siegfried Lenz and his wife Liselotte took a vacation. On April 15, 1951, they boarded the M/S Lisboa in Bremen for a trip to Morocco, stopping at Melilla and Tangier before arriving in Casablanca. The couple could afford to go on such an extended journey (they were abroad for several weeks) because of the handsome fee, three
thousand marks, that Die Welt had paid Lenz for the serial rights to his first novel; moreover, he had the new contract for his second book in his pocket, and this combination of circumstances allowed him to believe in the possibility of a career as a freelance writer.

  Soon after his return to Hamburg, Siegfried Lenz started working on his new book. As was his lifelong habit, he wrote the manuscript by hand, and Lilo Lenz typed it up, with several carbon copies. The first draft of the novel, in twelve chapters (Version I), was ready by the end of summer 1951. By the autumn of that year, the certainty that they had discovered a serious young author encouraged Hoffmann und Campe to bring the typescript, still designated by its working title,…da gibt’s ein Wiedersehen, to the attention of the editorial staffs at various newspapers. At this early stage, and in the absence of a complete text, it’s possible that the publisher sent out only the first chapters as a pars pro toto, because the staffs at Die Zeit in Hamburg, at Die Neue Zeitung in Munich, and at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in their responses, all concentrated on the “partisan story” in the beginning of the novel (Chapters 2–8) and completely ignored the “turncoat story.”

  * * *

  —

  In any case, there was a noteworthy mention of Lenz’s novel project in a substantial article on new books about the Second World War that was published in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit on November 8, 1951. “The atmosphere of the Russian campaign, the winter snowstorms, the houses in the villages, lying like black points in the white void, the burning summer sun, the mosquitoes, the dust of the provisional roads, the shots fired by partisans hidden in treetops—all this will feel oppressively close if you read Siegfried Lenz’s novel…da gibt’s ein Wiedersehen, shortly to be published by Hoffmann & Campe.” The author of this long piece was Paul Hühnerfeld, who had already given Lenz’s first novel, Es waren Habichte in der Luft, a brief but friendly review in the May 10, 1951 edition of the same paper, and who now, six months later, had no doubt that Hoffmann und Campe would soon be publishing the young author’s new novel. Hühnerfeld called his article “The Pros and Cons of Witness Statements: Authors between Reporting and Literature—the Dilemma of German Books about the Eastern Front.” On the whole, he’s disappointed by what he sees as little more than “detailed descriptions of what war is like” in the novels he’s chosen for discussion. Only in Lenz’s text does he acknowledge a power of literary penetration that goes beyond mere description: “This book doesn’t aspire to be an eyewitness account, but perhaps it does reveal poetic ambitions. And thus this author gets closer than the others to evoking what war is really like.”