The Young Lions (21 page)

Corinne got up and prepared breakfast for him. There was white bread he had brought her from the shop that did the baking for the officers' mess. The coffee, of course, was ersatz, thin and black. He felt his mouth draw sourly as he drank it in the still-dark kitchen. Corinne looked sleepy and messy, with her heavy hair in disorder, but she moved around the kitchen deftly enough.

"Cheri," she said, sipping her coffee noisily, "you will not forget me in Germany?"

"No," said Christian.

"You will be back in three weeks?"

"Yes."

"Definitely?"

"Definitely."

"You will bring me something from Berlin?" She coquetted heavily.

"Yes," said Christian, "I'll bring you something."

She smiled widely at him. The truth was, she was always asking for something, new dresses, black-market meat, stockings, perfume, a little cash because the sofa needed recovering… When the corporal-husband comes back from Germany, Christian thought unpleasantly, he'll find his wife well fitted out. There'll be a question or two he'll want to ask when he looks through the cupboards.

"Cheri" Corinne said, munching strongly and evenly on her bread, which she had soaked in the coffee, "I have arranged for my brother-in-law to meet you when you return."

"What's that?" Christian looked at her, puzzled.

"I told you about him," Corinne said. "My husband's brother. The one with the produce business. Milk and eggs and cheese. You know. He has a very nice offer from a broker in town here. He can make a fortune if the war lasts long enough."

"Good," said Christian. "I'm delighted to hear your family is doing well."

"Cheri…" Corinne looked at him reproachfully. "Cheri, don't be mean. It isn't as simple as that."

"What does he want from me?" Christian asked.

"The problem is, getting it into the city." Corinne spoke defensively. "You know the patrols on the roads, at the entrances. Checking up to see whether it is requisitioned material or not. You know."

"Yes?"

"My brother-in-law asked if I knew a German officer…"

"I am not an officer."

"Sergeant, my brother-in-law said, was good enough. Somebody who could get some kind of pass from the authorities. Somebody who three times a week could meet his truck outside the city and drive in with it at night…" Corinne stood up and came around the table and played with his hair. Christian wriggled a little, certain she had neglected to wipe the butter off her fingers. "He is willing to share fifty-fifty in the profits," Corinne said, in a wheedling tone, "and later on, if you find it possible to secure some petrol, and he can use two more trucks, you could make yourself a rich man. Everybody is doing it, you know, your own Lieutenant…"

"I know about my own Lieutenant," Christian said. God, he thought, her husband's brother, and the husband rotting in prison, and the brother anxious to go into business with the wife's German lover. The amenities of French family life.

"In matters of money, Cheri," Corinne held him closely around the neck, "it is necessary to be practical."

"Tell your miserable brother-in-law," Christian said loudly, "that I am a soldier, not a black-market merchant."

Corinne took her arms away. "Cheri," she said coldly, "there is no need to be insulting. All the others are soldiers too and they are making fortunes."

"I am not all the others," Christian shouted.

"I think," Corinne said, beginning to cry, "that you are tired of me."

"Oh, God," Christian said. He put on his tunic and picked up his cap. He wrenched the door open and went out.

Outside, in the dawn, smelling the cool, thin air, he felt less angry. After all, it had been a pleasant convenience, and a man could do much worse. Ah, he thought, it will wait till I get back from Germany.

He strode down the street, sleepy, but each moment more happily excited with the thought that at seven o'clock he would be in the train and leaving for home.

Berlin was glorious in the autumn sunlight. Christian had never liked the city much, but today, as he walked out of the station, carrying his bag, there seemed to be an air of solidity and purpose, a dash and smartness to the uniforms and even the clothing of the civilians, a general sense of energy and wellbeing that was in refreshing contrast to the drabness and boredom of the French towns in which he had spent the last twelve months.

He got out the paper that had Mrs Hardenburg's address on it. As he took it out of his pocket he remembered that he had neglected to report the Pioneer private who had needed a shave. Well, he would have to remember that when he got back.

He debated with himself whether he should find a hotel first or deliver the package to Hardenburg's wife. He decided in favour of delivering the package. He would get that over, and then, for two weeks, his time would be completely his own, with no hangovers or duties from the world he had left behind him at Rennes. As he walked through the sunny streets, he idly mapped out a programme for himself for the next two weeks. Concerts and the theatre. There were agencies where soldiers could get tickets for nothing, and he would have to be careful of his money. It was too bad it was too early for skiing. That would have been the best thing. But he hadn't dared delay his leave. In the Army, he had learned, he who waits is lost, and a leave delayed is more often than not a leave vanished.

The Hardenburg apartment was in a new, impressive-looking building. A uniformed attendant stood at the door and there were heavy carpets in the foyer. As he waited for the lift, Christian wondered how the Lieutenant's wife managed to live so well.

He rang the bell on the fourth floor and waited. The door opened and a blonde woman with loose dishevelled hair, which made her look as though she had just risen from bed, was standing there. "Yes?" she asked, her voice brusque and annoyed.

"What do you want?"

"I'm Sergeant Diestl," Christian said, thinking: Not a bad life, just getting up at eleven in the morning. "I'm in Lieutenant Hardenburg's company."

"Yes?" The woman's voice was wary, and she did not open the door fully. She was dressed in a quilted silk dressing-gown of deep crimson and she kept pushing her hair back out of her eyes with a graceful, impatient gesture. Christian couldn't help thinking: Not bad for the Lieutenant, not bad at all.

"I've just arrived in Berlin on leave," Christian said, speaking slowly so that he could get a good look at her. She was a tall woman, with a long, slender waist, and a full bosom that the dressing-gown did not quite hide. "The Lieutenant has a gift for you. He asked me if I would deliver it."

The woman looked thoughtfully at Christian for a moment. She had large, cold, grey eyes, well set in her head, but too deliberate, Christian thought, too full of calculation and judgment. Then she decided to smile.

"Ah," she said, and her voice was very warm. "I know who you are. The serious one on the steps of the Opera."

"What?" Christian asked, puzzled.

"The photograph," the woman said. "The day Paris fell."

"Oh, yes." Christian remembered. He smiled at her.

"Come in, come in…" She took his arm and pulled at it.

"Bring your bag. It's so nice of you to come. Come in, come in…"

The living-room was large. A huge plate-glass window looked out over the surrounding roofs. The room was in a profound state of clutter at the moment, bottles, glasses, cigar and cigarette butts on the floor, a broken wine-glass on a table, items of women's clothing strewn around on the chairs. Mrs Hardenburg looked at it and shook her head.

"God," she said, "isn't it awful? You just can't keep a maid these days." She moved a bottle from one table to another and emptied an ash-tray into the fireplace. Then she surveyed the room once more in despair. "I can't," she said, "I just can't." She sank into a deep chair, her long legs bare as they stuck out in front of her, her feet encased in high-heeled red fur mules.

"Sit down, Sergeant," she said, "and forgive the way this room looks. It's the war, I tell myself." She laughed. "After the war, I will remake my entire life. I will become a tremendous housekeeper. Every pin in place. But for the present…" She waved at the disorder. "We must try to survive. Tell me about the Lieutenant."

"Well," said Christian, trying to remember some noble or amusing fact about Hardenburg, and trying to remember not to tell his wife that he had two girls in Rennes or that he was one of the leading black-market profiteers in Brittany, "Well, he is very dissatisfied, as you know, with…"

"Oh." She sat up and leaned over towards him, her face excited and lively. "The gift. The gift. Where is it?"

Christian laughed self-consciously. He bent over to his bag and got out the package. While he was bending over his bag he was aware of Mrs Hardenburg's measuring stare. When he turned back to her she did not drop her eyes, but kept them fixed on him, directly and embarrassingly. He walked over to her and handed her the package. She didn't look at it but stared coolly into his eyes, a slight, equivocal smile on her lips. She looks like an Indian, Christian thought, a wild American Indian.

"Thank you," she said, finally. She turned then and ripped open the paper of the package. Her movements were nervous and sharp, her long, red-tipped fingers tearing in flickering movements over the wrinkled brown paper. "Ah," she said flatly.

"Lace. What widow did he steal this from?"

"What?"

Mrs Hardenburg laughed. She touched Christian's shoulder in a gesture of apology. "Nothing," she said. "I don't want to disillusion my husband's troops." She put the lace over her hair. It fell in soft black lines over the straight pale hair. "How does it look?" she asked. She tilted her head, close to Christian, and there was an expression on her face that Christian was too old not to recognize. He took a step towards her. She lifted her arms and he kissed her.

She pulled away. She turned without looking at him again and walked before him into the bedroom, the lace trailing down her back to her swinging waist. There's no doubt about it, Christian thought as he slowly followed her, this is better than Corinne.

She lifted a bottle. "Vodka," she said. "A friend of mine brought me three bottles from Poland."

He sat on the edge of the bed holding the glasses while she poured out two large drinks. She placed the bottle down without putting the cork back. The drink tasted searing and rich as it flowed down his throat. The woman downed hers with one swift gulp. "Ah," she said, "now we're alive." She leaned over and brought the bottle up again and silently poured for them both. "You took so long," she said, touching his glass with hers, "getting to Berlin."

"I was a fool," Christian said, grinning. "I didn't know." They drank. The woman dropped her glass to the floor. She reached up and pulled him down on her. "I have an hour," she said, "before I have to go."

Later, still in bed, they finished the bottle and Christian got up and found another in a cupboard stocked with vodka from Poland and Russia, Scotch that had been captured at British Headquarters in 1940, champagnes and brandies and fine Burgundies in straw covers, slivovitz from Hungary, aquavit, chartreuse, sherry, Benedictine and white Bordeaux. He opened the bottle and put it down on the floor, convenient to the woman's hand. He stood over her, wavering a little, looking at the outstretched, savage body, slender but full-breasted. She stared gravely up at him, her eyes half-surrendering, half-hating. That was the most exciting thing about her, he decided suddenly, that look. As he dropped to the bed beside her he thought: At last the war has brought me something good.

"How long," she said, in her deep voice, "how long are you going to stay?"

"In bed?" he asked.

She laughed. "In Berlin, Sergeant."

"I…" he began. He was going to tell her that his plan was to stay a week and then go home to Austria for the second week of his leave. "I," he said, "I'm staying two weeks."

"Good," she said dreamily. "But not good enough." She ran her hand lightly over his belly. "Perhaps I will talk to certain friends of mine in the War Office. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have you stationed in Berlin. What do you think of that?"

"I think," said Christian slowly, "it's a marvellous idea."

"And now," she said, "we have another drink. If it weren't for the war," her voice came softly over the sound of the liquor pouring into the glass, "if it weren't for the war, I'd never have discovered vodka." She laughed and poured out another drink for him.

"Tonight," she said, "after twelve. All right?"

"Yes."

"You haven't got another girl in Berlin?"

"No, I haven't another girl anywhere."

"Poor Sergeant. Poor lying Sergeant. I have a Lieutenant in Leipzig, a Colonel in Libya, a Captain in Abbeville, another Captain in Prague, a Major in Athens, a Brigadier-General in the Ukraine. That is not taking into account my husband, the Lieutenant, in Rennes. He has some queer tastes, my husband."

"Yes."

"A girl's men friends scattered in a war. You're the first Sergeant I've known since the war, though. Aren't you proud?"

"Ridiculous."

The woman giggled. "I'm going out with a full Colonel tonight and he is giving me a sable coat he brought back from Russia. Can you imagine what his face would be like if I told him I was coming home to a little Sergeant?"

"Don't tell him."

"I'll hint. That's all. Just a little hint. After the coat's on my back. Tiny little dirty hint. I think I'll have you made a Lieutenant. Man with your ability." She giggled again. "You laugh. I can do it. Simplest thing in the world. Let's drink to Lieutenant Diestl." They drank to Lieutenant Diestl.

"What're you going to do this afternoon?" the woman asked.

"Nothing much," said Christian. "Walk around, wait for midnight."