Men of Snow (13 page)

It was the following lunchtime when he was ordered to go to Colonel Durer’s office. He already understood the order’s reasons. Franz prided himself on always being prepared.

The Colonel’s office was spacious with high windows behind his large desk.    

‘I don’t understand it Brucker,’ was the first thing he said after Franz had come to attention and saluted in front of the desk.

The colonel was another fattened on the riches of Paris, his bald head glistening, his paunch mounded beneath his uniform.

When Franz made the slightest move he ordered in a raised voice, ‘No. Not at ease. I want you at attention. I want you listening.’

‘How can I help sir?’

The colonel stopped, resting his pudgy hands on the edge of his desk, his voice lowering as he said, ‘Just who the hell do you think you are?’

Franz made no response, concentrating on the rooftops seen through one of the windows.

‘You’ve taken one of my interrogation teams without any agreement, without any order. Braun and Schubert are under my command.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Not at all Brucker. You have no idea. Your yes sir is meaningless. Who said you could organise a prisoner’s interrogation?’

‘I was shot at sir.’

‘So?’ the colonel asked, staring at him.

‘I wanted to discover the reasons.’

‘I would have thought they’re the same for everyone else who has been attacked in this city or anywhere else under occupation. You’re a soldier of the Reich.’

‘I wanted to make sure it was nothing more than a random attack.’

Franz could almost predict the colonel’s every response. The opportunity was for him to push his rank, to remind himself of the powers he imagined he still had.

‘And why should you consider it to be anything else?’

‘I was not sure sir.’

‘It’s arrogance Brucker, sheer self-obsession. Whatever happened, it did not give you the right to use anybody in my interrogation team without my permission. Do you understand that?’

Franz decided to force the issue and answered, ‘I did not realise I was interfering in any chain of command.’

‘Fuck the chain of command. You know what I’m talking about. You’re not the only German officer who has been so full of his own shit that he imagines everything has to be personal.’

‘I was only doing what I thought best sir.’

‘For you,’ Durer muttered, ‘Nobody else.’

He picked up his pen and rolled it between his fingers before saying, ‘Your prisoner was shot this morning, ordered by me.’

Suddenly things had gone in a different direction and Franz was angry.

‘Who shot him?’ he asked a little too quickly.

‘What the hell does that matter?’

‘I would just like to know who shot my prisoner.’

‘Dammit Brucker, he wasn’t your fucking prisoner.’

‘He was under my observation.’

‘Without my orders.’

‘I think I have the right to ask who took part in his execution.’

‘No Brucker, not at all. You have no right to know anything unless I tell you.’

‘I know the prisoner would have talked sir.’

Durer sat back and sighed.

‘Well he’s not going to talk now.’

‘No sir,’ was Franz’s curt response.

‘Just remember, if you want any questioning done in my cells, using my soldiers, you need my signature at the bottom of the order. Is that clear?’

‘It is clear sir.’

‘Then you’re dismissed.’

‘Yes sir,’ Franz answered loudly as he clipped his heels again, saluted and turned sharply to leave the office.

He made his way down the busy stairs, this being the headquarters for the central sector of the city. Telephones were ringing, office staff moving from one level to the next. As there was to be a visit from Berlin everything was fast and intense.

‘The cold creeps into your bones. The freezing fog makes everything disappear. You see white shadows everywhere. There is no sense of distance, no way of telling how far anything is. You’re always moving blind, that is until the Ruskies suddenly appear like snowmen out of nowhere. Then you know you’re lost. Whatever happens you’re lost.’

As he walked down the street Franz heard again the voice of the wounded sergeant. Everything about the Eastern front was the strongest provocation, putting colonel Durer and his tantrums into  perspective. The only irritation was the loss of the prisoner.

‘They call them white lights, strange trails of silvery light in the sky just after a snow fall. You think they’re shell trails but there is no sound. Then they’re gone and like everything there you think you’ve imagined them, until the next time. Everything is changed. There is no horizon, no edge to anything. You’re told you’re advancing when it feels you’re going round in circles and when you stop there is only the noise of the frozen snow ringing in your ears, the sound of the earth shrinking.’

All of them had listened intently. For once his fellow officers had offered no cynicism, no easy remarks because they knew that the Eastern front was inevitable. Franz was confident that soon he and his men would be transferred to where the Reich was fighting for its existence, a real fight, something that he desired more than anything.

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It had started with a routine search. Proustain’s apartment had rooms full of antiques and art work. The old man had appeared diffident, even encouraging. On Franz’s second visit it had seemed as though he had been expected.

‘You have come either to admire or relieve me of some of my treasures,’ he had said casually.

The search had been through the whole block, a new policy to try random inspections of certain streets and their apartments.

‘Or maybe captain I might be presumptuous by suggesting you are here because you want to be.’

The rooms were decorated in a mid-18th century style, something that Franz had imagined before being posted to the city, deep gold and crimson with ornate furniture and high windows, the French style, decadent and baroque.

‘Or maybe you have heard about my criminal activities. I have managed to store away real coffee and English tea and of course the finest brandies.’

And Proustain himself had appeared like an old professor with his usual thin glasses, corduroy trousers and jacket with a buttoned shirt and floral tie.

‘We might as well be honest, right from the start. Don’t you agree captain?’

The voice had been soft, German words moulded between thick, moist lips and sounding always suggestive, ingratiating.

‘I appreciate your visit, now you are alone.’

‘And what if I had come for something that had caught my eye?’ Franz had asked.

Proustain understood the trick and thought carefully before saying, ‘Whatever you offered it could never be enough.’

‘Who mentioned offering anything?’

‘Oh I see,’ he had answered, followed by a tentative smile, ‘You imply the conqueror has come for his prize.’

‘Prizes.’

‘More than one.’

‘Or all of it.’

‘Yes, of course,’ the old man had sighed, ‘and how could I refuse? Why would I refuse? Being I think a sensible man, even an experienced one, I would bow to your authority and invite you to help yourself.’

‘Very sensible monsieur.’

‘I think so.’

‘But not very imaginative.’

‘At this moment I think reality has more significance. But please sit down. Would you like to partake of one of the results of my criminal activities?’

The tea had been golden and full flavoured, something Franz had not tasted in a long time.

‘So everything here in your apartment belongs to you?’ had been one of his questions.

‘Shall we say I am looking after all of it, which I am glad to do. The rest of the family moved south just at the start of the war.’

‘So why did you stay?’

Proustain, sitting opposite, had lifted his hands and pulled a doubtful expression, ‘I am greedy. I love to be surrounded by so many beautiful things. They are examples of our culture, fine examples I think. I could never imagine being anywhere else. I am fulfilling a duty, an important one. The rest of my family knew I would not leave. Their decision to go was based on that assumption. They knew me well enough. And I thank your Fuhrer for his noble gesture towards our city. He could have blown Paris to pieces, but he didn’t.’

‘It was a little easier than that,’ Franz had said.

‘Of course, Yes. We seem to have capitulated rather quicker than last time.’

On this occasion Proustain seemed tired and a little unsteady.

‘It’s where a society puts its emphasis. The French never seem to be able to make up their mind.’

‘We want all of it,’ the old man said, ‘and yet we either allow too much freedom or not enough. It’s ironical, an historical irony that some of the fiercest fighting the French have ever been involved with was in killing their own countrymen. The Royalists of Brittany were massacred at the time of the Revolution. Whole communities were wiped out. It was our civil war, always the most bitter.’

Franz momentarily thought of his later visit to Chantelle. She would be preparing herself like a gift being neatly, colourfully wrapped. Not once had he fully opened it and this afternoon would be no different.

‘Would you like another look around?’ was Proustain’s unexpected invitation.

‘Not at the moment,’ was Franz’s wary answer.

The old man sighed, peering over the top of his glasses, a worried frown appearing for an instant before he said, ‘As you wish, whenever you like.’

Franz waited, trying to calculate his next approach.

‘I suppose it’s what you consider art to be worth,’ he then mentioned, ‘and what kind of society can produce the greatest examples.’

‘But your great nation is hardly older than I am.’

‘A young country wants to prove itself.’

Proustain smiled and said, ‘Germany certainly has a lot of energy.’

‘I suppose that means arrogance.’

‘Not at all, I’d call it confidence.’

‘You have to be sure of yourself.’

‘And are you captain?’

‘Of my country, yes.’

‘Of course.’

‘That is why I am here in this capital city of yours.’

‘And I’m sat here trying to plead our case.’

‘The cultural capital of Europe,’ Franz went on.

‘I don’t think you can so easily produce great artists, writers, musicians. There is no formula. And I think it’s the same for science. Politics and armies are different. If you put enough resources into them then anything is possible.’

‘But art needs its patrons.’

‘And you think society can replace them.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because an artist has to have the freedom to express himself. In the end I don’t think your idea of a society can allow such freedom without it being undermined by such expression. There has to be risk. There has to be opposition and difference.’

‘And you think what’s here in this apartment of yours is an example of that?’

‘To some extent I do,’ was Proustain’s answer, his tone again uncertain.

‘So did you ever wish to become an artist?’ was the only thing he could think of to say.

Proustain carefully placed his hands on the arms of his deeply padded chair and said, ‘I once tried to write a novel.’

‘You were fortunate to have the chance.’

‘You mean be rich enough to have the time to try.’

‘Or find the right patron.’

‘I suppose that was my brother. He was the one who had inherited everything.’

‘But your brother died.’

For a moment Proustain’s eyes flickered, ‘How did you know that?’

‘Our rapid success here depends on information and you French are very good at giving it.’

‘You mean the number of traitors we seem to produce.’

‘Yes they are traitors. There are thousands of them.’

‘We even round up the Jews of Paris for you.’

‘That is less of a surprise.’

‘To me it is, a saddening performance.’

‘Dreyfus lives on.’

‘More than I realised.’

‘So what happened to your novel?’

‘It came to an end after two chapters. It was then I realised I had nothing I desperately wanted to say or anything of any difference to what I had read already. It was a miserable experience. That is one of the reasons I so much admire those who have their own voice and can create their own world.’

‘So the inheritance was passed on?’

‘Shared with my eldest sister.’

‘Who now lives in New York.’