Comrades of War (42 page)

‘They’re alive, Inge and Gunni are alive. You can’t understand that, you ass. They’re alive.’

‘Certainly, Herr General, no discipline at the front.’ They are at Father-in-law’s. ‘Certainly, Herr General, compulsory salute is the basis of victory and the successful course of military operations.’ Father in heaven, thanks for letting them get away. ‘Certainly, Herr General, the incompetence of an officer shows itself through his failure to salute in accordance with army regulations.’ You red-striped shit, I wish a Tommy-bomb would send you to the top of Brandenburg Tor. ‘Certainly, Herr General, won’t happen again. Thanks, Herr General, that Herr General will overlook it.’ You old sclerotic nitwit, I wish you’d lose your war soon so Ivan can chase you around. ‘No, Herr General, I don’t want to have my leave cancelled. Certainly, Herr General, I’m not worthy of wearing an officer’s uniform.’

The General put three fingers in deerskin gloves to the peak of his cap. Then he wobbled down the street on his knock-kneed old man’s legs. He bleated like a goat over the incident.

Lieutenant Ohlsen brought together his slanted heels with a bang and rushed off. In passing he just managed to tip a regulation salute to a major with the red stripes of the General Staff on his light gray trousers.

Berlin, lovely, stinking Berlin, rotten to the core! If only the Revolution would soon come so that all the gangs from out there could sweep you clean. What a lovely sight: Porta and Tiny behind a machine gun on Brandenburger Tor. Seeing all those hick-town heroes run for their lives! Thank God, they’re alive.

He turned down Joachim-Friedrichsstrasse. He lost one of his bags, stopped, swung it over his shoulder and continued at breakneck pace.

A girl called after him. He didn’t hear. She laughed and hissed: ‘Stupid pig!’

She had been dead certain of a pound of butter and a bottle of vodka when she saw that lieutenant.

But he probably had battle fatigue. Stupid pig.

Then he stood in front of the house. A large stately building with polished granite steps before the ornamented portal. A marble staircase with gold-ornamented mirrors on every landing and trumpet-blowing angels all the way up. He had kind of grinned at those angels the first time he came to the house. The whole thing was wide, vast, ostentatious.

On the second floor was a tall oak door with a bright brass plate, inscribed in Gothic letters: ‘Von Lander,’ and under the name in somewhat smaller letters the lovely title ‘Regierungsrat.’

Lieutenant Ohlsen stared at the name. He saw his arrogant parents-in-law and his gossip-mongering sister-in-law in his mind.

He drew a couple of deep breaths before he pressed the button. Far off he could hear the bell ring. He rang again. Not a sound. He knocked, first softly, then more strongly.

Silence.

No one home? he thought. Odd. He drummed with his fingers on the carved oaken door. Then he slumped down on the stairs. Stared forlorn at the door. Far away he heard a clock strike twelve. It was midnight.

Inge just had to be home. Gunni was always afraid to be alone. He listened. What was that? Something moved. It was only a slight noise, like the rustle of silk. He was dead sure he heard it. There was someone behind the door.

He stared at the double doors, which seemed to grin at him in mockery. Someone was walking stealthily about. Someone who didn’t want to be heard. He jumped up and hammered away at the door.

Not a sound.

He tried to peek through the letter slit, but something hung in front of it so he could only catch a glimpse of a red runner.

Open up, damn it, he thought. He started pounding on the door with both fists, but everything remained quiet.

He thought he could hear a whisper of a man’s voice. He knew there was someone inside. His Inge? Impossible. She had always written she would wait. The last thing she said the day they parted on Anhalter Bahnhof was that she would wait.

With heavy steps he walked down the stairs. He slammed the door behind him so loudly it could be heard upstairs. Then quite softly he stole up to the landing from where he could keep an eye on the door of his parents-in-law.

He was breathing heavily and with difficulty. He clenched his fists about the handles of his two bags. He glanced up at the angels. They also seemed to grin at him. He spat after them.

Again, shivering, he thought of the little Legionnaire: We’re swine, superfluous swine. Allah is wise. He knows why. Come with me to
La Légion Etrangère
and die by a true believer’s knife. Allah will rejoice!

He grimaced.

An elegant couple, a lady and a gentleman, came up the stairs. They stopped. They kissed. They laughed. The lady hit out at her partner’s exploring hand.

‘No, Otto, wait till we’re upstairs,’ she whispered. Silence and heavy breathing.

She uttered a little scream.

‘No, not here. Are you crazy, what if someone came!’

They began walking up the stairs. Noticing him, they became nervous and scrutinized him with timid glances. Even Germans could confuse the black panzer uniform with the SS. The big hussar death’s-heads on his lapel recalled death excursions in black cars at night.

They hurried past. Glanced over the banister from the fourth floor. Whispered briefly together.

Ohlsen caught the words: Raid. Gestapo. A door clicked.

Now their night is spoiled, he thought, lighting his forty-third cigarette. He glanced at his watch. Almost three!

Finally he heard the door being opened. A big powerful man in well-fitting clothes. He heard them kissing.

‘Good-bye, sweetheart,’ he whispered.

‘See you again,’ she said.

‘Yes, on Thursday,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll send the youngster a package.’

Then he ran down the stairs. He didn’t notice Lieutenant Ohlsen hiding in the niche. He seemed to feel very self-confident.

Red spots danced before the eyes of Lieutenant Ohlsen. There was a buzzing in his ears. Desperately he pounded on the wall with clenched fists. His body was shaken by uncontrolled sobbing. A weeping that made his stomach muscles contract in convulsions.

‘What can I do?’ he whispered. ‘Inge, why?’ Suddenly a terrible thought took hold of him: Gunni, what about Gunni? Was it he the man had meant with ‘youngster’? Gunni was his! He would go to the Gestapo. To the SS. He would shun no recourse to keep his boy. He knew that his comrades would despise him if they found out he had gone to the Gestapo. The gang, his gang, would turn their backs on him. The Legionnaire might murder him. But he didn’t care. Better take the contempt and mockery of his comrades than losing his boy.

He walked up the stairs slowly, step by step. Stood for a moment in front of the ostentatious door. Then he rang and knocked.

On the fourth floor he heard a door being opened. Whispering voices.

‘It is at von Lander’s,’ he heard a woman whisper.

Behind the closed door a deep woman’s voice asked: ‘Who is it?’

Some time passed before he could pull himself sufficiently together to answer. He had to draw several deep breaths to quiet his upset nerves. When he answered he couldn’t recognize his own voice:

‘It’s Bernt, Inge.’

The woman behind the door seemed to need some time to collect herself.

Then she stood in the open door. Slim, dark. Her brown eyes laughed. Her mouth smiled:

‘Bernt,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, you!’ She threw herself into his arms. He hugged her. For a moment he believed that everything connected with the strange man was only a dream.

They kissed. They kissed savagely.

He slammed the door with his foot. They walked into the room. The large room with the costly rugs he had been afraid to walk on at first. She had been amused at that.

She jabbered away. He picked up only half of it: Bombs. Everything gone. Rescued. Father inducted. On the QMG’s staff in Leipzig. Mother taking a cure in Karlsbad. Anni with Aunt Ingeborg. She talked, talked, talked.

A bottle of wine popped up. Tall rummers appeared on the table.

She had on a tight-fitting Japanese kimono. Verdigris green and black. She crossed her legs.

He noticed she was naked under the heavy silk.

She smiled. Her eyes glittered.

You bitch! he thought. You disgusting, dirty bitch!

He nonchalantly swung one of his booted legs. His boots were dusty. Russian dust. Again he saw the Legionnaire’s sneering face when they had pipe-dreamed about the time after the war.

Suddenly she realized he hadn’t said a single word since he stepped inside.

Again she poured out two full glasses. He flushed down his in one gulp.

She raised one of her well-shaped eyebrows, curled her mouth in a faint smile, and again filled up his glass.

‘Would you like to take a bath?’

He shook his head.

‘Are you hungry? I have some cold turkey. Father sent one.’

Hungry? He probably was, but he shook his head.

‘Are you tired? Do you want to go to bed?’

He was dead tired, but he shook his head.

She looked closely at him and asked sharply: ‘What’s the matter with you?’

He forced a smile. ‘It’s only that we are at war, my friend. Our home is gone. We have lost everything!’ He held the word ‘everything’ on his tongue for a moment, to taste it, then repeated it.

She laughed, relieved.

‘Is that all? That, you know, you shouldn’t take to heart. Father will get what we need, and more. He has the best connections in the Party and the SS.’

‘Where is Gunni?’ he asked.

She glanced up at the large crystal chandelier in the ceiling and slowly lit a cigarette before she answered.

‘He is at the National Socialist home in Bergen by Lüneburg.’

He slammed down his glass and gave her a squinting look. In a low, menacing voice he asked: ‘Why, if I may ask?’

She was blowing smoke rings. Staring fixedly at the crystals, she answered: ‘Because I thought it was the best thing we could do. Father and Mother thought so, too.’

‘So that’s what you thought? You and your family don’t seem to realize that as Gunni’s father my advice should also be asked! Do you realize what it means to send him to a Nazi home? You have sold your own son to the Party in cold blood!’

She bowed her head. ‘I knew that.’

‘What did you know?’ he jeered. He was boiling with rage.

His temples were throbbing. He opened and clenched his fists while he whispered to himself: ‘Easy, easy, for God’s sake don’t do anything rash!’

‘I knew you wouldn’t understand anything at all,’ she almost snarled. Her eyes flashed. ‘You’re as stiff-necked and conceited as ever. One can clearly see where you’re from.’

He gave a tired laugh. ‘Yes, one can see where I come from, Inge. I’m a little office louse picked up from the gutter to lick the dust before the distinguished Lander,
von
Lander!’ The last words came out as a sneer.

Restlessly he began pacing the floor. He kicked the leg of a sofa. ‘You still haven’t told me why you sent Gunni to the Nazi home.’

‘That boy is impossible,’ she yelled, losing her self-control. ‘He’s like you. He’s disgusting. Sulky. Stubborn. When you asked him to do something he threatened he’d tell you all. He’s a liar.’ She checked herself.

He stopped pacing. ‘Tell me all? What in the world can he tell me that I shouldn’t know? That your family runs me down, that I know. Your ravishing sister, as you know, loves to put her nose into everything that doesn’t concern her. The stupid bitch,’ he added.

‘Be kind enough to control your language here in my house,’ she warned, drawing herself up.

He leaned back laughing, went into convulsions of laughter.

She gaped in astonishment. ‘Have you gone mad?’

All at once he stopped his hysterical laughter. He looked at her. His eyes were dark. He blew out waves of smoke.

‘Is “bitch” improper? What then do you think of “pig,” “slut,” or “whore”?’

She got up and bent forward a little. Her voice was quite steady. ‘That will do, Bernt. Go. Get out!’ On the finger with which she showed him the door gleamed a diamond ring. ‘This is my father’s house. Not yours. You’ve no business here. I’ve been given shelter here. Not you.’

He threw down his glass. It broke.

She looked reproachfully at him. ‘Why didn’t you open when I rang and knocked last night?’ he asked, pushing his angry distorted face at her.

She looked quietly at him. Suddenly she discovered she despised him the way he sat there in his filthy uniform.

‘Well, I suppose because it didn’t suit me to open for you. That should have gotten through to you long ago.’

He gasped for breath. His stomach contracted. Their roles had been exchanged. No longer was she the mouse. He was.

Not let me in, he thought, his face distorted with mental pain. His Inge, whom he loved, quite calmly said she wouldn’t let him in. She didn’t apologize for anything. Didn’t explain anything. Everything can be forgiven, even infidelity, but here no forgiveness was asked. Was it over? By God or Allah, it mustn’t happen! He could endure the war, even if it were to last for ages yet. He could endure everything, but if Inge left him . . . that he couldn’t bear. And his boy? He swallowed a lump in his throat and looked into her dark velvety eyes.

She returned his glance firmly. She didn’t falter a bit. She passed a slender well-kept hand over her glossy black hair.

‘But why wouldn’t you let me in, Inge?’ His rage was gone. Only sorrow, deep, unbearable sorrow remained. ‘I have three weeks’ leave.’

She raised an eyebrow, pursed her lips. She walked over to the photograph and put on a record.

‘Because I had company, my friend.’

‘Company?’ he asked.

‘Yes, as I’m sure you know very well. I assume you were hiding somewhere near by and saw Willy leave.’ She smiled.

He nodded.

‘Yes, you’re right. I was standing on the landing below.’ He slumped down into the chair. ‘Do you want a divorce?’

She swayed her hips, walked a moment back and forth humming Zarah Leander’s song: ‘
Davon gebt die Welt nicht unter
.’

‘Divorce?’ she answered, pouring out a glass of cognac for herself. ‘That didn’t occur to me till you mentioned it. Might be a good idea.’ She sipped her cognac. Lit another cigarette. She was smoking from a long gold cigarette holder, ornamented with five small diamonds. ‘I’m tired of waiting, at any rate. Right now I’m in love with Willy, but I suppose you, with your soldier’s morals, won’t believe that a woman can’t live only on letters. Our relationship has been a misunderstanding from the beginning.’