The Road Back (15 page)

Then the darkness glides up swiftly again, and with it a rumble of artillery. And only out of the far distance, as if they came up over forests and seas, I hear words dropping down, words that gradually sort themselves to a meaning and then penetrate in to me. "Uncle Karl sent the sausage," says the voice of my mother amid the faint roll of the guns.

The words reach me on the very edge of the shellhole into which I am sliding, and with them there appears a smug, self-satisfied face, and disappears. "Ach, him," I say sourly, and my voice sounds as though I had a mouth full of wadding, weariness is swilling round and about me so—"that—silly—arsehole——" Then I fall, fall, fall, and the shadows leap toward me, sweep over me in long rollers, dark and darker.

But I do not fall asleep. Something has gone that was there before—that steady, light, metallic clinking. Slowly I grope my way back into consciousness and open my eyes.—There is my mother, pale and horrified, staring down at me.

"What's the matter, mother?" I cry, jumping up in alarm. "Are you ill?"

She shakes her head. "No, no—but to think you would
say such a thing "

I reflect. What did I say then? Ah, yes, that about Uncle Karl "Come, mother, you mustn't be so touchy," I laugh in relief. "After all, Uncle Karl is a profiteer, you know, isn't he now?"

"That is not what I mind at all," she answers quietly,
"but that you should use such expressions——"

Then I remember what I did say in my drowse, and I feel ashamed that it should have happened before my mother. "It just popped out of me, mother," I explain apologetically. "It takes a while, you know, to get used to not being at the Front any longer. Our language was a bit rough out there, mother, I know—Rough, but honest."

I smooth down my hair and button my tunic. I start to hunt for a cigarette and observe incidentally that my mother is still looking at me. Her hands are trembling!

I give up my search. "But, mother!" I say in astonishment, putting my arm about her shoulders. "There's really nothing so very bad in that! Soldiers are always like that."

"Yes, yes, I know," she protests, "but you—you too——"

I laugh. Me too? Why, of course! I am about to exclaim; but check myself and remove my arm, for something has suddenly dawned on me. I sit down on the sofa to sort myself out.

There she stands before me, an old woman with an anxious, care-worn face. Her hands are clasped; weary, toil-worn hands, with a soft, wrinkled skin, where the veins stand out bluish; hands become so for my sake. I never thought of that before. There is a lot I did not think of before—I was too young. But now I understand how it is that for this withered, little woman I am something different from any other soldier in the world: I am her child.

To her I have always remained so, even as a soldier. In the war she has seen only a pack of wild beasts threatening the life of her child. It has never occurred to her that this same threatened child has been just such another wild beast to the children of yet other mothers.

My gaze drops from her hands to my own. In May, '17, I stabbed a Frenchman with these hands. The blood ran nauseatingly hot over my fingers, and in a panic of fear and of rage I stabbed again and again. And when the Frenchman, choking, clapped his hands to the wound. I could not stop myself, but stabbed through his hands too, till he sagged dqwn like an emptying tube. And afterwards I vomited and the whole night through I wept. Only next day was Adolf Bethke able to comfort me—I had just turned eighteen then, and that was the first attack I was in.

I turn my hands over slowly. In the big push at the beginning of July, I shot three men with these hands. They remained the whole day long hanging on the barbed-wire. Their limp arms would fling upward with the blast of the shell-explosions as if they still threatened us, and sometimes too, as if imploring us for help. One of them had snow-white hair and his tongue lolled out of his mouth.—And again later, I once threw a bomb at twenty yards that tore the legs off an English captain. He screamed terribly. He threw back his head, his mouth wide open, and, propping himself on his rigid arms, his trunk reared like a seal; then rapidly he bled to death.

Now I sit here before my mother, and she is on the verge of tears because she cannot understand that I should have become so coarse as to make use of an improper expression.

"Ernst," she says gently, "I have been meaning to say this to you for some time: You have changed. You have become very restless."

Changed! I think bitterly; yes, I have changed!—What is it you know of me now, mother? A mere memory, nothing but the memory of a quiet, eager youth of the days that are gone. You must never know, mother, never know of these last years; never even wonder what they were like, and much less what has become of me. A hundredth part would break your heart—you, who tremble and are shocked by the impact of a mere word, one word that has been enough to shatter your picture of me. "Things will be better soon," I say rather helplessly, and try to comfort myself with that.

She sits down beside me and strokes my hands. I take them away. She looks at me grieved. "You are quite strange to me sometimes, Ernst," she says. "Then you have such a look that I hardly recognise."

"I must get used to things first, mother," I say. "I still keep feeling as if I were merely here on a visit."

Twilight is gathering in the room. My dog comes in from the passage and lies down on the floor in front of me. His eyes shine as he looks up at me. He, too, is restless still; he has not settled down yet either.

My mother leans back in her chair. "Just to think you 
have come back again, Ernst——"

"Yes, that's the main thing," I say and stand up.

She remains seated in her corner, a little figure in the twilight; and with strange tenderness I see how all at once our roles have been interchanged. Now it is she has become the child.

I love her—when did I ever love her more than now? now, though I know I may never come to her and sit beside her and tell her it all, and so perhaps regain peace. I have lost her. Suddenly I feel how alien and alone I really am.

She has closed her eyes. "I'll get dressed now and go out for a bit," I whisper, so as not to disturb her. She nods. "Yes, my boy," says she—and after a while, softly—"my good boy."

It pierces me like a stab. Gently I pull the door to.

The meadows are wet and from the pathways and tracks the water runs gurgling. In the pocket of my greatcoat is a small pickle-jar and I walk along the brook by the poplars. As a youngster I used to catch fish and butterflies here, and here I used to lie down under the trees and dream.

In springtime it would be full of water-weeds and frog spawn. Bright green bushes of water-weed flickered to and fro in the little, clear waves, long-legged skaters zig-zagged between the stalks of the sedge, and shoals of tittlebats in the sun cast their swift, slim shadows on the golden-spotted sand.

But now it is cold and damp. The poplars stand beside the stream in a long line. Their branches are bare but a soft blue bloom is on them. One day they will be green again and rustling, and the sun will lie warm and blessed over this stretch of ground that holds so many memories of my childhood. And then I shall have forgotten the war and all will be again as it used to be.

I stamp my foot on the sloping edge of the bank. A couple of fish dart out from under it. At sight of them I can contain myself no longer. Where the stream narrows so that I can bestride it with my legs, I wait watching, and at last scoop up two tittlebats in my hollowed hand. I drop them into my jar and examine them.

They dart to and fro, lovely and perfect with their three spines, their slender, brown bodies and quivering pectoral fins. The water is clear as crystal and spangles of light on the glass are reflected in it. Suddenly my breath is quite taken away, so piercingly do I see how beautiful it is, this water in the glass, the lights and the reflections.

I hold it carefully in my hand and wander farther; I carry it cautiously and look into it often, with beating heart, as if I had caught my childhood in it and now would take it back home with me. I squat on the edge of the pool where dense layers of duckweed are floating and see the blue-marbled salamanders, like little mines, dangling vertical as they come up for air. Caddis-fly larvae creep slowly through the mud, a beetle paddles lazily along the bottom, and from under a decaying root the astonished eyes of a motionless pond-frog look up at me. I see everything, and more is there even than can be seen—memory is there, and hopes and past happiness.

Cautiously I take up my jar and go on, searching, hop
ing——The wind blows and the mountains lie blue along the skyline.

Suddenly a spasm of alarm sweeps over me Down, man! Down! Under cover! You're in full view there!—I crouch down in mad fear, I spread my arms ready to sprint forward and take shelter behind a tree, I tremble and pant.—Now I breathe again. It is over—and I look round foolishly—no one has seen me. It is a moment before I am calm again. Then I make a dive for my pickle-jar that has fallen out of my hand. The water is all spilled, but the little fish are still flapping about inside it. I stoop down to the stream and let fresh water pour in.

I push on slowly, absorbed in my thoughts. The wood is nearer now. A cat stalks across the pathway. There the railway embankment cuts through the fields and is lost again in the thicket. One could build dugouts there, I think to myself, good deep ones with concrete roofs—then extend the line of trench to the left, with cover-saps and listening-posts—and over there a few machine-guns—no, two would be enough, the rest in the wood—then practically the whole terrain would be under cross-fire. The poplars would have to come down, so as not to give the enemy artillery a point to register on—and behind there, on the hill, a couple of trench-mortars—Then let them come!

A train whistles and I look up. What is this I am doing? I came here to recover the scene of my childhood, and I am drawing a system of trenches across it! It has become a habit, I say to myself: We see no countryside now, only terrain—terrain for attack and defence. The old mill on the top there is no mill, but a strong point—the wood is no wood, it is artillery cover. Such things will always creep in.

I shake it off, and try to remember past times, but I do not succeed very well. And I no longer feel so happy as I did. I have no wish to go farther. I turn back.

In the distance I see a solitary figure approaching. It is Georg Rahe.

"What are you doing here?" he asks in surprise.

"What are you?"

"Nothing," he says.

"Same here," I reply.

"And the pickle-jar?" he asks and looks at me a trifle mockingly.

I turn red.

"Nothing to be ashamed of," he says. "Been trying to catch fish again?"

I nod. "And then what?" he asks.

I shake my head.

"Yes, hardly goes with a uniform, eh?" he says meditatively.

We sit down on a log and begin to smoke. Rahe takes off his cap. "Remember how we used to exchange postage stamps here?"

"Yes, I remember." And how the timber-yard in the sun smelt of resin and tar; how the poplar trees shimmered, and the wind blew up cool from the water—I still remember it all —how we hunted for greenfrogs; how we used to read books here together; how we would talk of the future and of life, where it lay waiting for us there beyond the blue horizon, alluring as soft music.

"It all turned out rather differently, eh, Ernst?" says Rahe and smiles—this smile that we all have, something bitter and something weary—"Why we even caught fish differently out there! One bomb into the water and then up they would come floating to the surface, with burst swimming-bladders and white bellies. It was more practical, there's no denying."

"How is it, do you suppose, Georg," I ask, "that we just sit around here like this and don't know even what we should begin to do?"

"You find there's something missing, Ernst, eh?" 

I nod. He taps me on the chest. "I think I can tell you— I've been thinking about it, too. You see this here," he points to the meadows before us, "that was life, it flowered and grew, and we grew along with it. And that behind us—" he motions with his head backwards into the distance, "that was death; it killed and destroyed, and destroyed something of us along with the rest." He smiles again. "We're in need of repairs a little, my boy."

"Perhaps things would be better if only it were summer," I say. "Everything is easier in summer."

"No, it's not there the trouble lies," he answers, blowing the smoke before him. "It's something very different from that, I think."

"What then?" I ask.

He shrugs his shoulders and stands up. "Let's be going, Ernst. Would you care to know what I've decided to do?"