Forgotten Soldier (23 page)

"So you're Alsatian. I know Alsace very well."

I almost told her that she knew it better than I did.

"Yes, I'm Alsatian," I said, hoping to get a little peace.

She began to tell me about a trip she'd taken to Strasbourg, but I wasn't listening any more. By forcing me to remember Ernst, she had irritated me. I had better things to do than listen to this old bird reminisce about her travels. It was a beautiful day, I was on leave, and I needed to see something gay. This desire made me wonder what attitude to take when I got to the Neubachs'. These people had just lost their son, and were probably overwhelmed by grief.... Maybe they didn't even know he was dead. If that's how it was, what on earth could I say to them? It would be better to visit them on my way back. By then, they would surely have been told. Hals was right. I should have listened to him. He, at least, was still alive.

We came to a crossroad opposite a bridge over a stream-or even perhaps a large river. I knew that the Seine flowed through Paris, but couldn't have said whether Berlin was on the Elbe or the Oder. To the right, there was a massive block of buildings-the Schloss von Kaiser Wilhelm-and directly across the avenue an impressive memorial to the heroes of 1914-18: twelve hundred helmets of that time set round a forecourt, to give some idea of the sacrifice. Two sentries from Hitler's guard walked slowly back and forth along a cement apron at the base of the monument; their slow, even pace seemed to me strangely symbolic of a human being's slow progress toward eternity. With a regularity which a master watchmaker might well have envied, the two men executed impeccably synchronized half turns, faced each other at a distance of about thirty meters, resumed their march, crossed, turned, and began again. I found this spectacle somehow oppressive.

"Here we are, young man," the old woman said.

"You cross the bridge and follow that avenue."

She pointed toward the vast, stony backdrop of the city, in which I would have to find my address. But I had already stopped listening. I knew that I wasn't going to the Neubachs', and that these explanations were superfluous. Nevertheless, I outdid myself in expressions of gratitude, and pressed the old lady's hand. She withdrew, repeating her protestations of good will. I couldn't help smiling. As soon as she had disappeared, I rushed back in the direction from which we'd come, trying to make up for lost time, and find the station for the West as quickly as possible.

I walked along the river bank with the obsessive speed of a maniac. Suddenly, the air filled with martial music, and an elegantly dressed military band marched out through a tall gateway, and turned into the street. I remembered what we were taught at Bialystok, and snapped to attention, presenting arms to the indifferent troupe. After an hour and a half, with innumerable stops to ask my way, I arrived at the station from which trains left for the West, and France. I looked desperately for Hals amid the throngs on the platform: he would surely be on this train too-but I couldn't find him in the few minutes before departure. As I caught my breath on the train, the slow regular progress of our acceleration seemed to merge with the measured tempo of the German capital. Everything here was so entirely different from Russia. Even the soldiers had an air of seriousness which matched the civilized, organized life of all large European countries.

The contrast with Russia was so great that I wondered if what I'd seen there wasn't part of a bad dream.

Night fell, and the train rolled on. We had been moving for at least three hours, during which it seemed that we had never left the city. There was no countryside, only buildings. Suddenly, the train came to a stop, although we were not in a station. Everyone leaned out the windows to see what was happening. Although it was dark, the distant sky glowed with red light. We could hear a muffled rumbling, mingled with the boom of guns. The throbbing of a mass of airplanes overhead rattled the windows of the train.

"That must be Magdeburg, getting it in the neck," said a soldier who had shoved in beside me to look out too.

"Who's giving it to them?" I asked.

He looked at me curiously. "Those Yankee bastards, of course," he said, as if he were talking to a simpleton. "Things are just as hot here as they are at the front."

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the glow of the burning city. I had thought that we'd left the war far behind us. The train began to move again, only to come to a fresh halt fifteen minutes later. Soldiers ran up the track, calling everybody off. Somebody said that the line had been cut, and that all military personnel, whether on active duty or on leave, had to put themselves at the disposal of the local authorities. Thus I found myself, in my clean uniform and carrying my holiday package, falling into step with about a hundred resigned soldiers.

We walked for about half an hour into the blinding, acrid smoke of countless fires, and began shifting fallen timbers and massive masonry blocks, while delayed-action bombs pulverized what was left of a terrified bourgeois population. Groups of whimpering civilians were impressed into cleanup squads by foul-mouthed officials shouting at the tops of their lungs. Everyone was put to work. Although it was pitch dark, we were able to see: broken gas pipes thrown up onto the torn earth blazed like blow torches, amid the heaps of stones, broken wood, window glass, furniture, arms, and legs.

A gang of territorials handed out picks, and we piled the rest of our equipment beside a fire truck. We had to dig into the ruins with the greatest possible speed: we could hear the groans and cries of people trapped in the cellars. Women and children weeping with terror were carting away bricks and stones to clear some space. Shouted orders overlapped: "Quick! This way!" "We need help over here!" "Quick! The water pipes have burst and are flooding the cellars!" Of course, the military were chosen to deal with the most dangerous situations, and sent into places threatened with immediate collapse.

We reached the cellars through the deep airshafts. We attacked a brick wall which seemed to be blocking the entrance to a basement where people were calling for help. My pick sank into something soft: probably the stomach of some poor soul crushed by the debris. And damn it! I was on leave, and all of this was holding me up! An explosion shifted the ground we were standing on: another one of those American bombs which blow up some time after they've landed. Nonetheless, our efforts were finally successful. The last brick wall fell beneath our blows, and a bunch of haggard, blackened people surged through the jagged opening, engulfed in a swirling cloud of dust. Several people embraced us, sobbing with relief and recognition. Others were in a state of literal madness. Everyone was somehow hurt or wounded. We had to climb down ourselves to bring out terrified women clutching their children so tightly they were nearly suffocating them.

I pulled out the first child I saw. A kid of about five was tugging at one of my trouser legs so hard that it came right out of my boot. He was trying to drag me to a particular spot, and he was crying so hard that his gasps for breath between each sob were extraordinarily long. He pulled me over to a recess where a crushed wine bin was holding up the base of a vault on the brink of collapse. An inert human form was lying in the jumble of rubble at my feet. The kid was still howling, in a passion of grief that couldn't be helped.

I shouted as loud as I could: "Licht aus! Schnell!"

Someone came over with a torch, and we saw the body of a woman crushed by the metal of the bottle rack, which had collapsed under the weight of thirty or forty tons of disintegrating masonry. The body of a child was wedged in beside her. Pulling against the stiff, dusty clothes of the corpse, I dragged out the child's body as if it were just another stone. But maybe the kid was still alive: it seemed to move a little. Dragging the two kids with me, I made for the exit hole, and handed over the child in my arms to some rescue workers. The one who was howling trailed along with me for a short distance, until I abandoned him. He could shift for himself, for God's sake. In Germany, everyone had to be ready for that-the younger the better. We were already needed for another job.

The sirens were howling again: the Anglo-Americans were faithfully adhering to their practice of coming back with a second dose before we had time to help the victims of the first. The gang chiefs blew their whistles for retreat. Voices were shouting: "Everyone take cover."

But where? For four hundred yards around us we could see nothing but heaps of rubble. People who knew the district ran in what they hoped were likely directions. Bewildered children were crying. Above us, we could hear the roar of four-engined planes. I was running too, and I knew what I was looking for. The fire truck had disappeared, but our heap of packs remained where we'd left them. Soldiers were turning them over, grabbing the right one, and running off. I recognized mine by the metal eidelweiss I had sewed onto the piece of calfskin which served as a pillow. I pulled it out, along with my gun. . . . But my gift package ... God damn it!

"Hey ... you ... my package!"

Someone threw me a package across the maelstrom. Everyone was hurrying off.

"Hey . . . This isn't it! Wait a minute! God damn it!"

Bombs were beginning to fall at the other end of the city. God damn it to hell!

I ran as fast as I could across an empty space where I narrowly escaped a car in as great a hurry as I. The surface of the road seemed to be rising and falling in ripples, and the sound of thousands of panes shattering simultaneously added a crystalline note to the huge shock produced by bombs of four and five thousand kilos.

The number of people on the street was shrinking rapidly. Only a few fools like myself were still running about looking for shelter. My eyes, stinging from the clouds of acrid dust, could see, in the intermittent flashes of white light, the outline of the houses bordering the street. On one of the buildings I could make out a white poster with black letters: SHELTER: THIRTY PERSONS.

Never mind if there were already a hundred! I ran down a spiral staircase between the only two walls left intact in the building. A dim lamp which some thoughtful soul had hooked to the wall lit the turns in the stair. But after two spirals the way was blocked by a large gray cylinder, which was even taller than I. I tried to squeeze through the narrow gap next to the stair wall, but a closer look at the object made my blood freeze. I was pressing myself against an enormous bomb, whose broken wings indicated that it had crashed through every floor of the building from the roof down. It must have weighed at least four tons, and might explode any minute. I streaked back up the stairs and out the door into the darkness, which flickered unevenly into brilliant light like a huge neon sign. Finally, gasping for breath, I collapsed beside a bench in a square, and lay there for about twenty minutes, until the sirens sounded the all clear. When everything was quiet again, I went back to the job of cleaning up, from which I was released at the end of the morning. Then I was given the most depressing news of all.

I was ready to continue my journey westward. Two days of my leave had already been wasted, and I couldn't spare another minute. I asked a territorial where I would find the train for Kassel and Frankfurt. He asked for my pass, looked it over, and told me to follow him. He took me to a military police station. I watched through the little window as my pass traveled from hand to hand, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on it. I saw several stamps being added to the scrap of paper I had brought from Akhtyrka. Then it was handed back to me, and I was informed, in an indifferent, administrative tone, that I could not proceed beyond the Magdeburg sector. Given the location of my army corps, I had come to the extreme western limit of permissible travel.

I was absolutely stunned, and stood staring at the cops. The shock of disappointment was so great that for a few moments I felt numb.

"We can understand that you are upset," one of them said, officially taking note of my condition. "You will be well taken care of at the reception center here in town."

Without a word, I took my pass from the counter, where the cop had put it down when he got tired of holding it out to me, and walked through the door. My throat felt as if it would burst from the effort of holding back my tears.

In the street, where the sun continued to shine, I stumbled on in a daze. I could see that people were staring at me as if I were drunk. Suddenly I felt ashamed, and looked for someplace where I could withdraw for a few minutes to compose myself. A little farther on, I took shelter in the ruins of a large building, collapsing onto a stone in the darkest corner I could find. Clutching my stamp-covered document, I burst into tears like a child. The sound of footsteps made me look up. Someone had followed me into the building, thinking, perhaps, that I was a thief. When he saw that I was only crying, he turned back to the street. Luckily, people cared more about ration cards than about tears in those days, so at least I was allowed to remain alone with my sorrow.

That evening, I caught a train back to Berlin, letting Fate dictate that I should call on the Neubachs after all. I didn't know where any of my German relatives lived-although at that time they were quite near Berlin-so I was reduced to either the reception center or the Neubachs'. I felt obsessed by my disappointment: I had been looking forward to this leave so much! And I had earned it, too: I had joined the infantry expressly to get it. And now, here I was with nothing but a ludicrous scrap of paper. I didn't even have my gift package any more: it had vanished at Magdeburg, which I had left with a box of some soldier's dirty laundry. Now I would have to show up with empty hands at the house of people I had never met. I certainly didn't have enough money to buy them anything.

That evening, I counted myself lucky to get a bed at the reception center in Berlin. One of the older soldiers there listened to the story of my pass, and advised me to speak to a noncom at the registration desk. The noncom turned out to be quite sympathetic, noted down all the details, and told me to come back in twenty-four hours.