Unforgiving Years (23 page)

Nothing had happened. “Reporting sporadic incoming fire, location, time …” Propped over the map, Vosskov was dozing again, a wax statue. One hundred and four hours on duty and so little sleep! All he wanted was sleep. He would lie down in piles of warm fresh straw, he would sleep on stoves in peasant kitchens, sleep in meadows of grass, rest against the wall of a shelter, collapse wherever he could! The miracle of sleep began to steal over him, there was a lively country fair, children singing … “Right,” he groaned, his blissful expression morphing into a scowl, “hand me the receiver …” Colonel Fontov was on the line. “No, Comrade Colonel, no sign of them yet … Nothing to report …” Time crept onward, malign and inconceivable. Daria was prowling back and forth between the claustrophobic shelter, the trench, and the eternity of darkness beyond. There she ran into the colonel. During the incident, he had given himself one of those injections against physiological depression. (Humiliating to know how much we depend on our glands!) “Ah, it’s you! Enjoying a breath of northern air? Bracing, isn’t it? Did you like our little party? It went off very well. My plan executed to the letter. Our men are coming back …” She was still lost for a reply when he turned and ambled off, spry despite the stick, trailing a fan of shadows. Daria wrung her hands in the emptiness.

Four men returned, bringing one prisoner. Patkin reported the death of Tziulik, the Ukrainian. “I crawled up to him, I felt his head, my fingers went into his brains. A minute later the ice turned over under him. Sidorov” (the tractor mechanic from Voronezh, who had made no physical impression) “took several bullets in the back, the stretcher bearers picked him up … Leifert, dead for sure, he was a real brick, he drew the enemy fire so we could get through … I think he was in the way of that torpedo …” Killed several times over, then, the printing worker of German descent. “We’ve brought you one NCO, the other drowned.” “Congratulations, Patkin!” the colonel said loudly (his face was like a Chinese mask with bad teeth). “Go get some rest. Have them bring in the prisoner …” The basic mission had been accomplished. The colonel’s rheumatic knee, the right, was aching.

The prisoner marched in with a certain assurance. Stripped of his white shroud and the fur coat of Tziulik the Ukrainian, he appeared in a faded Wehrmacht uniform, with the insignia of a subaltern. Wrists lashed together, age about twenty-five, fair hair, domed forehead, pale clipped mustache, fluttering eyes.

“No weapons on him? Untie his hands!” the colonel ordered.

Two lamps placed at either end of the desk illuminated the captive from below. He snapped to attention. Vosskov stood behind him. Daria sat to one side with a notebook on her lap, ready to interpret. Colonel Fontov began: “Surname, first name, rank, specialty, unit!”

The prisoner, calm, answered with unhurried precision.

“How long has your unit held this position on the Neva?”

Daria noticed that the prisoner was swaying very slightly on the spot. As she translated, he looked oddly at her, blinking his eyes, and leaned toward the colonel to murmur something.

“What’s that, Sublieutenant? Repeat please.”

He repeated, in a low, strangled voice, “Why this playacting? I know where I am.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Forgive me …”

He waggled his head feebly.

The colonel demanded: “Are you feeling well? Are you sick?”

“I am feeling quite well, Inspector, thank you.”

He raised his eyes to the damp log beams above them, gleaming with icicles. A smile half formed on his face; the blue gaze was erratic and veiled, as if by smoke. His elbows twitched, so violently that Vosskov and the Mongolian soldier both jumped, ready to grab him … The colonel banged the flat of his hand on the table.

“Ask him if he’s frightened and if so, of what. Tell him we treat prisoners fairly here, in compliance with the rules of war …”

Daria went right up to the young man to look him in the face, and it was she who felt a touch of fear. The blue eyes were transparent, intoxicated. He was grimacing.

“Repeat, woman,” he said with an effort. “My head hurts … No, I am not frightened. Of anything. Why are you trying to deceive me? Why are you talking this foreign language? It is not worthy of you. I was expecting to be arrested. I have committed a serious offense before the Party and the Führer and I am ready to admit it.”

He threw back his head, making the Adam’s apple bulge against the rim of his collar, begging for the cutthroat’s invisible knife … Major Vosskov flung a glass of cold water into his face. It had an immediate effect. He wiped his face with his knuckles, and said, “I am obliged to you, sir. Ah! That’s better!”

“Are you a Nazi?”

(Almost all of them deny it … )

“Ja, Herr Offizier.
Heil
Hitler!”

He gave the raised-arm salute, impeccably smart.

“Ask him whether he understands his situation?”

“I understand. Tell the Military Police Inspector that I don’t expect clemency. The culprits are Klaus Heimann, Heinrich Sittner, Werner Biederman …”

Daria wrote down the names as fast as she could. “Units?” She translated in some perplexity as the prisoner went on,

“Klaus Heimann brought the enemy radio broadcasts back from Stettin. Sittner copied them on the regimental typewriter … Biederman gave me four pages that I hid in my kit so as to give them to the authorities … I’ve done my duty, and if I deserve to be punished I …”

Vosskov punched him hard between the shoulder blades. The prisoner rounded on him furiously, but was grappled back. He said, “Water, quick, please …” He took a face full of water without blinking, he was laughing out loud.

The colonel cocked his revolver and put it on the table.

“Tell him that if he doesn’t put an end to this pointless masquerade, I will blow his brains out.”

The prisoner was laughing, not listening. They allowed him to bend his head over to stare at the revolver. “Not mine,” he announced. Daria confronted him. “Listen here, prisoner of war. Look at me! Can you see me clearly? Now look at the colonel …” The word colonel brought him down to earth. He regarded Fontov with set chin, calmly. “The colonel has warned you …” The prisoner responded calmly enough, but his mouth grew unsteady.

“Kill me? But I’m innocent … You’ve no right … I’ve made amends. I await your orders, Colonel! Sir!”

His forehead wrinkled as he remembered something. “Prisoners of war? I don’t know …” A telephone call alerted them to some focused artillery fire against eastern positions, in such-and-such a sector … In case it were the prelude to an attack, the battalion urgently requested instructions and ammunition. Division wanted an evaluation of the raid’s success, with the number and quality of prisoners taken … Bits of ice and grit rained onto the table as the ground, shaken by an explosion, vibrated violently. Vosskov knocked over the nearest lamp as he dived for the shelter door; the light went down by half and shadows rebounded. All Colonel Fontov saw was the cherubic telephonist, going, “Post 7 is out, the line must be down, post 7 is out, the line …” “Will you please shut up!” scolded the colonel, his face sickly tense in the gloom, his beard blending with the mobile darkness. “Where’s Sitkin?” he asked, too loudly (Sitkin was the chief of staff). No one answered. The prisoner said, “Sittner was arrested last night.”

Daria translated without thinking.

“What?” asked Fontov who was assessing the strength of the threatened battalion, the quantity of available munitions, the ominous silence of post 7, and the wrath of the division. “What’s that, Sitkin arrested?” “No, no, Sittner.” “Who’s Sittner?” The floor rumbled again; there followed a gaping silence. Fontov caught sight of his revolver and the smoke-blind eyes of the prisoner, who was smiling, held by the arms. Daria translated: “Tell the colonel I am immortal. Immortal, it’s appalling … I am very sorry …”

“He is mad,” Daria whispered, her face white.

The colonel was not feeling very sane himself. “Make him shut up,” he said, shoving the gun back into its holster. “If he’s playacting, he’s damn good. But for pity’s sake, shut the bastard up.” The prisoner was gabbling in German, staccato. A blanket was thrown over his head; muffled yells came from beneath the hood. It took several men to restrain him, momentarily turning the shelter into a grotesque wrestling ring. Finally the prisoner was hustled away, bound with straps, to be thrown into the snow. “Sitkin is badly wounded … Allow me to replace him for the time being.” Major Vosskov’s day-old stubble was brilliant with ice crystals, as were his eyelashes and the hairs in his nose. “Good,” the colonel said. “Send the lunatic to division …” “What lunatic?” The earth trembled, lifted on a swell. Fontov shrugged. Daria heard him answer, “No, do not open fire until I give the order …” She groped her way out of the shelter, the cold earth vibrating against her hands. It was like emerging from a grave. Suddenly, as night faded, gray snow was slowly swirling … .It was like entering a vast tomb.

* * *

The officers’ club was nothing but a small, uncomfortable room, but it was heated and ornamented with pine branches and red banners. The busts of the Leaders lined up on the mantelpiece contributed no more than a pale plaster presence. Next to them, but smaller, stood a bust of the perfect poet: Pushkin, daubed with blacking, did more to inspire reverie. Officers who were hard up came here to play checkers and listen to bombs falling on the city … Daria took a magazine from the table, most likely
The New World
,
October
, or
The Star
; its cover was missing but it made no difference. The format, the paper, the crabbed grayish print, the content, all were the same from journal to journal, with as much variation as you’d discover within a regiment on the march. At first the ranks seem composed only of faded uniforms, but on closer inspection you start to notice the uniqueness of faces, you realize that humanity endures here, that man survives in solitude, perhaps, at the core of the multiple being, under his serial number, and that he may well be what gives it strength … Man, the atom of military power.

For this war, we need a mobilized, disciplined soul, the collective soul of a patient army. So let the imagination of poets and novelists put on a uniform and obey orders — but let each retain his gnarled or stony visage, as each wages war in his own way. The population of a rational society in danger must necessarily concentrate on the moment’s task. Not everything can be indulged at all times, not everything has to be expressed … If hypnosis is a weapon, another means of fortifying our resolve, of winning, then let hypnosis serve our ends! The ideal would be a hypnotic literature of endurance, willpower, obedience, sacrifice, of determination to survive beyond sacrifice. In modern warfare, the writer plays the part of the tribe’s witch doctor who praises the courage of warriors, conveys auspicious oracles, unleashes the communal visionary trance to the hoarse, hollow beating of the drums … The great brain that is the State assigns to the writer the duty of preparing souls for the ordeal, whether it be retreat or attack, and the writer sits down at his typewriter as though before a magic apparatus …

Daria could not conceive of literature as anything but an organized service, attuned to the needs of psychological strategy, military administration, resupply, the care of the wounded, and the reeducation of the mutilated. It was obvious that there had to be at least one decent novel and several slim volumes of verse on the topic of ambulances, triage centers, hospitals, and the nurses’ duty. A story by a lady writer dwelled on the enemy’s unspeakable cruelty and the edifying grandeur of our hate; then finding within herself extraordinary resources of love, she made stricken readers shed tears over the pages in which a wife worships her amputated and disfigured war hero, as a hundred cannon and a hundred searchlights turn Moscow’s skies into a cosmic extravaganza of victory. Lovingly she kisses the crushed face, and whispers, “You are the one who has achieved this, my darling! It is for you the hundred cannon boom in triumph! For you, the savior of us all!” A story that provided a much-needed support to the morale of amputees’ wives. Daria felt able to become such a wife, she almost wished it, and the image of a blinded Klim, shattered features seamed with pink welts, hobbling along on crutches, drifted before her mind’s eye and sickened her. Better for him to be killed outright! Better a grave on which to plant a young fir tree; better to brood over a grave, or before a horizon without a grave, than that! For love of you, Klim!

Feeling let down, as much by herself as by the lady writer, Daria was turning through the pages. She came across a dramatic piece whose title should really have been
The Heroic Children
; she remembered a play she’d seen in Paris about naughty ones,
Les Enfants terribles
. The characters were a couple of selfish, twisted little monsters, and there was a sequel,
Les Parents terribles
, about the same characters in middle age when they had become even more selfish and twisted, but rendered cowardly by what they called “experience.” And didn’t I once read a novel deserving of the title
The Spoiled Children
? Our managed literature is superior to the other, its children are more wholesome … The play was well written, full of poetic verve. One child, twelve-year-old Zina, has chestnut pigtails and toils away at her homework in a bombed-out house. Zina is passionately keen to become class leader, “because my big brother’s fighting the invaders, and this, Mother, is my way of fighting!” The siren wails, Zina shuts her exercise books and stuffs them under the floorboards, into the dirt, to preserve them from the flames, before contending with a classmate for another privilege — the job of helping the spotters out under the death-dealing sky. “It’s not fair, Irina, your class has already lost three pupils, and ours is still whole!” Daria began to chafe with annoyance, and skipped the rest of Act One. Around the middle of Act Two, here was little Vanya telling how he was tortured by the Nazis. He didn’t cry once, he scorned them, he hated them, he drew strength from hatred, he swore he would live to destroy them, he solemnly vowed as much to the Leader of the Fatherland, “and I didn’t tell them anything, I ran away!” “Me too, me too,” chirps Zoë, thirteen, “they beat me and burned my lips, look at the scars, and I didn’t tell them anything … The village was on fire, the sky was on fire and so was I …” In unison the children sing “The Fatherland loves us, now let us love the Fatherland.” Tossia declares she wants to be a schoolteacher, because there are millions of people to teach who are thirsty for knowledge …