At noon a non-commissioned officer came in. "Does anyone here want a shave?"
"What?"
"A shave. I'm a barber. I have excellent soap. Left over from France."
"A shave while the train is moving?"
"Of course. I've just been working in the officers' car."
"How much does it cost?"
"Fifty pfennigs. Half a Reichsmark. Cheap when you consider I have to cut off your beards first."
"Fine." Someone brought out the money. "But if you cut me you don't get anything."
The barber set down his shaving bowl and produced from his pocket a pair of scissors and a comb. He had a big paper bag into which he threw the hair. Then he began to work up a lather. He was standing beside a window. The foam was as white as though he were using snow for soap. He was adroit. Three men had themselves shaved. The wounded refused. Graeber was the fourth to sit down. He looked at the three who were finished. They looked strange now. Their faces were red and spotted from the weather; underneath shone their white chins. They were half soldiers' faces and half the faces of stay-at-homes. Graeber heard the scraping of the razor. Being shaved made him more cheerful. It was already a bit of home, especially since a superior was serving him. The effect was like being in civilian clothes.
In the afternoon they stopped once more. A field kitchen stood outside. They got out to receive their portions. Luettjens did not go with them. Graeber saw that he was moving his lips rapidly. As he did so he held his uninjured right hand as though folded into the other invisible one. The left was bandaged and hung inside his tunic. They got Swedish turnips. They were lukewarm.
It was evening when they came to the border. The train was emptied. The men on leave were assembled and taken to a delousing station. They turned over their clothes and sat around naked in the barracks to let their body lice die. The room was warm, the water was warm, and there was soap that smelled strongly of carbolic. For the first time in months Graeber was sitting in a really warm room. At the front there had sometimes been ovens, but then it was always just the side you turned to the heat that was warm. The other was icy. Here the whole room was warm. One's bones could finally thaw out. One's bones and one's skull. It was the skull that had been frost-bound longest.
They sat around and looked for lice and cracked them. Graeber had no head lice. Blanket lice and clothing lice did not invade the head, that was an old rule. Lice respected one another's territory. They had no wars.
The warmth made him drowsy. He saw the pale bodies of his comrades, the chilblains on their feet and the red lines of scars. They were suddenly no longer soldiers. Their uniforms were hanging somewhere in the steam; they were naked human beings cracking lice, and their conversation became immediately dilTerent. They no longer talked about the war. They talked about food and women.
"She has a child," said a man called Bernhard. He was sit ting beside Graeber and was catching the lice in his eyebrows with the aid of a pocket mirror. "I haven't been home for two years and the child is four months old. She claims it's fourteen months old and mine. But my mother has written me that it was fathered by a Russian. Besides, she only began to write about it ten months ago. Never before. What do you think?"
"That sort of thing happens," a bald-headed man replied indifferently. "In the country there are a lot of children fathered by war prisoners."
"I'd kick the woman out," declared a man who was reban-daging his feet. "It's an obscenity."
"Obscenity? What do you mean obscenity?" The baldhead waved contemptuously. "In wartime things like that are not the same. You have to understand that. What is it, a boy or a girl?"
"A boy. She writes he looks like me." "If it's a boy you can keep it. He'll be useful. On a farm one always needs help."
"But, look, he's half Russian—"
"What difference? The Russians are Aryans. And the fatherland needs soldiers."
Bernhard put away his mirror. "It's not as simple as that. It's easy for you to talk. You're not the one it happened to."
"Would you prefer it if some fat, reconditioned native bull gave your wife a child?"
"Certainly not that."
"All right, then."
"She might have waited for me," Bernhard said softly and embarrassedly.
The baldhead shrugged his shoulders. "Some of them wait and-some don't. You can't expect everything if you don't get home for years."
"Are you married too?"
"No, thank God, I'm not."
"Russians are not Aryans," a mouse-like man with a pointed face and a small mouth said suddenly. He had been silent till then.
Everyone looked at him. "You're mistaken," the baldhead replied. "They are Aryans. After all, they were once our allies."
"They're subhumans, Bolshevik subhumans. That's the definition."
"You're mistaken. Poles, Czechs, and French are subhumans. We are freeing the Russians from the Communists. They are Aryans, with the exception of the Communists, of course. Perhaps not master Aryans like us. Simply Aryan workers. But they are not to be exterminated."
The mouse was taken aback. "They were always subhumans," he declared. "I know that for sure. Pure subhumans."
"That was changed long ago. Just like the Japanese. They too are Aryans now, since they're our allies. Yellow Aryans."
"You're both wrong," said the extraordinarily hairy bass.
"The Russians were not subhuman while they were still our allies. But they are now. That's the way it stands."
"Then what is he to do with the child?"
"Hand it over to the state,-' said the mouse with new authority. "Painless mercy-death. What else?"
"And his wife?"
"That's up to the authorities. Branding, head shaving, penitentiary, concentration camp or gallows."
"They haven't done anything to her so far," Bernhard said.
"The authorities probably don't know about it yet."
"They know. My mother reported it."
"Then they are dirty and corrupt. They belong in a concentration camp too."
"Oh, damn it all, leave me in peace!" Bernhard cried, suddenly furious, and turned away.
A bandy-legged, pigeon-chested man who had been wandering restlessly through the room came up to them arid stopped. "We are supermen," he said, "and the others are subhuman, that much is clear. But who now are the ordinary men?"
The baldhead reflected. "Swedes," he said presently, "or Swiss."
"Savages," announced the bass. "White savages, of course."
"White savages don't exist any more," said the mouse.
"No?" The bass stared at him hard.
Graeber dozed off. He heard the others starting to talk about women again. He didn't know much about them. The race theories of his country did not correspond very well with what he understood of love. He did not want to get it all mixed up with natural selection, family trees, and the ability to bear children. As a soldier he had scarcely known anything but a few whores in the countries where he had fought. They had been just as matter-of-fact as the members of the German Maidens' Guild; but with them at least it was a profession.
They got their clothes back and dressed. All at once they were privates, lance-corporals, sergeants, and non-coms again. The man with the Russian child turned out to be a non-com. The bass as well. The mouse was a convoy soldier. He shrank into himself when he saw that the others were non-coms. Graeber examined his tunic. It was still warm and smelled of acid. Under the clasp of the braces he found a colony of lice that had taken refuge there. They were dead. Gassed. He scratched them away.
They were conducted into a barracks. A political officer delivered an address. He stood on a podium behind which hung a picture of the Fuehrer and he explained to them that now, since they were going back to the homeland,- they had a great responsibility. Nothing must be mentioned about their time at the front. Nothing about positions, locations, troop disposal, or troop movements. Spies were lying in-wait everywhere. Therefore silence was of the utmost importance. Whoever talk
ed loosely could count on severe punishment. Idle criticism, too, was treason. The Fuehrer was conducting the war; he knew what he was doing. The situation was brilliant. The Russians were bleeding to death. They had suffered unprecedented losses, and the counterattack was being mounted. Care of the troops was first class and their spirit excellent. Once more: to divulge the names of places or the position of troops was high treason. Alarmism also. The Gestapo was on the alert everywhere. Everywhere.
The officer paused. Then he explained in an altered tone that the Fuehrer, despite his immense task, kept watch over all his soldiers. He had specified that each man on leave was to receive a gift to take back home with him. For this purpose food packages would be issued to them. They were to be handed over to their families at home as evidence that the troops abroad were well cared for and that they could even bring back presents. Anyone who opened his packet on the way and ate it himself would be punished. There would be an inspection at each destination to make sure. Heil Hitler!
They stood at attention. Graeber expected Deutschland, Deutschland ueber alles and the Horst Wessel song; the Third Reich was great on songs. But nothing happened. Instead came the order: "Men with furloughs to the Rhineland, three steps forward!"
A few men stepped in front of the line. "Furloughs to the Rhineland are canceled," announced the officer. He turned to the man standing nearest him. "Where do you want to go instead?"
"To Cologne."
"I have just told you that the Rhineland is restricted. Where do you want to go instead?"
"To Cologne," said the man uncomprehendingly. "I come from Cologne."
"You cannot go to Cologne. Don't you understand? To what other city do you want to go?"
"No other city. My wife and children are in Cologne. I was a locksmith there. My furlough certificate is stamped for Cologne."
"I see that. But you cannot go there. Try to understand! For the time being Cologne is forbidden to men on leave."
"Forbidden?" asked the former locksmith. "Why?"
"Have you gone crazy, man? Whose business is it to ask questions? Yours or the authorities'?"
A captain came up and whispered something to the officer. He nodded. "Men with furloughs to Hamburg and Alsace, step forward," he commanded.
No one stepped forward. "Rhinelanders remain here! The rest at ease! Left about face! Step up and receive your homecoming packages."
They were standing in the station once more. The Rhinelanders joined them after a while. "What was up?" asked the bass.
"You heard what it was."
"You can't go to Cologne? Where are you going now?"
"To Rothenburg. I have a sister there. What am I to do in Rothenburg? I live in Cologne. What's going on in Cologne? Why can't I go to Cologne?"
"Careful!" someone said and glanced at two S.S. men who were striding by with thudding boots.
"To hell with them! What am I to do in Rothenburg? Where is my family? They were in Cologne. What is happening there?"
"Perhaps your family is in Rothenburg too." "They're not in Rothenburg. There is no place for them there. My wife and my sister can't stand each other. What is going on in Cologne?"
The locksmith stared at the others. He had tears in his eyes. His thick lips quivered. "Why can you go home and I can't? After all this time! What has happened? What has become of my wife and my children? George is my eldest's name. Eleven years old. What has happened?"
"Listen," said the bass. "You can't do anything about it. Send your wife a telegram. Have her come to Rothenburg. Otherwise you won't see her at all."
"And the trip? Who will pay for that? And where is she to stay?"
"If they won't let you into Cologne they won't let your wife out," said the mouse. "That's certain. That's the way regulations are."
The locksmith opened his mouth but said nothing. Only after a time he asked: "Why not?" ' "Think it out for yourself." The locksmith looked around. He glanced from one to another. "Everything can't have gone to pieces! That's absolutely impossible!"
"Be glad they didn't send you straight back to the front," said the bass. "That could very well have happened, once your district is barred."
Graeber listened in silence. He realized that he was shivering and that the cold did not come from outside. Once more the ghostly and intangible something was there that had haunted him so long and that could never be wholly grasped, that eluded him and came back and stared at him and had a hundred ill-defined faces and no face at all. He looked at the rails. They led toward home, security, warmth and peace, toward the only thing that was left. And now the something from outside seemed to have slipped in with him, it breathed eerily beside him and was not to be frightened away.
"Furlough," said the man from Cologne bitterly. "This is my furlough! What now?"
The others looked at him and said nothing. It was as though a hidden sickness had suddenly shown itself in him. He was innocent but he seemed to be strangely marked, and imperceptibly they edged away. They were glad it had not struck them but they weren't safe yet themselves—and for that reason they edged away. Misfortune was contagious.
The train rolled slowly into the train shed. It was black and it blotted out the last of the light.
CHAPTER VI
NEXT day the landscape had changed. It rose clearly out of the soft morning mist. Graeber was now sitting by the window, his face pressed against the pane. He saw fallow land and fields still flecked with snow under which the even black furrows of the plow were visible, and the pale green shimmer of the young rye. No shell holes. No destruction. Flat, smooth plains. No trenches. No dugouts. Country.
Then came the first village. A church on which a cross gleamed. A schoolhouse on whose roof a weather vane was slowly turning, A tavern in front of which people were standing. The open doors of houses, maids with brooms, a wagon, the first reflection of the sun in unbroken windows. Roofs that were whole, undamaged houses, trees that had all their branches, streets that were streets, and children on their way to school. Graeber had not seen any children in a long time. He took a deep breath. This was what he had been waiting for. It was there'. There after all!
"Looks different already, doesn't it?" said a non-com at the other window.
"Entirely different."
The mist lifted more and more. Woods approached from the horizon. One could see a long way. Telegraph wires accompanied the train. They swooped up and down—lines and staves of an endless inaudible melody. Birds fluttered up from them like songs. The landscape was still. The rumbling of the front had sunk far behind. No more airplanes. It seemed to Graeber as though he had been on his way for weeks. Even the memory of his comrades was suddenly pale.
"What's today?" he asked.
"Thursday."
"So it's Thursday."
"Of course. Yesterday was Wednesday. Do you think there's any chance we'll get coffee somewhere?"
"Of course. Here everything's the way it used to be."
A few of the men got bread out of their knapsacks and began to munch it. Graeber waited; he wanted to have his. bread with the coffee. He thought of the breakfast table at home. His mother had a blue and white checkered tablecloth and there had been honey and rolls and coffee with hot milk. The canary had sung and in summer the sun had shone upon the rose geraniums in the window. At that time he had often rubbed the dark green leaves between his hands smelling the strong, foreign perfume and thinking of foreign lands. Since then he had seen plenty of foreign lands but not the way he had dreamed of at that time.
He looked out again. Suddenly he felt comforted. Outside stood field hands looking at the train. Women were there, too, with kerchiefs around their heads. The non-com lowered his window,and waved. No one waved back.
"Well then don't, you louts," the non-com said, in disappointment.
A few minutes later came another field with people in it and he waved again. This time he leaned far out of the window. This time, too, no one waved back although the people had straightened up an
d were looking at the train. ' "That's what we're fighting for now," declared the non-com angrily.
"Perhaps they're prisoners who're working there. Or foreign laborers."
"There were enough women among them. They at least could have waved."
"Perhaps they were Russians, too. Or Poles." "Nonsense. They didn't look like that. And even so, there must have been some Germans, too."
"This is a train with'wounded," said the baldhead. "No one waves at them."
"Oxen," declared the non-com, closing the subject. "Village idiots and milkmaids." He put up the window with a jerk.
"In Cologne they're different," said the locksmith.
A Time to Love and a Time to Die Page 7
