“He’s not sick!” and the devil roared with laughter, his desire for Gerta flickering out in spasms of recognition of his foe, the bedded influenza.
He had horns. Terrible, agonizing, deformed short stubs protruding from the wrinkled crown, and the pipes he held in his fiery hands were the pipes of sin. All of the calm of Heaven evaporated and at the last moment, not knowing what it was all about, Ernst recognized Old Snow. And in that moment of defense, of hating the devilish return of boisterous heroic Herman, Ernst died without even realizing the long-awaited event; in that last view of smallness, that last appearance of the intruder, Ernst, with his mouth twisted into dislike, died, and was reprieved from saintliness. The old man still laughed, “Feigning, he’s only feigning!” Stella was irritated with his ignorance, at least this father could rise to the dignity of the occasion by admitting the fact of death. But no, he chuckled and looked stupid.
Herman paid for his mirth, for it had stolen his son and his stamina. He slept uncomfortably with Gerta in the room which she felt was much too small for the rest of the night.
The guard, Stella found, managed in the morning to fulfill her final obligation to the dead. The disbelief and anger were still on the fencer’s face as he was carried from the house, saved by the grace of his own ill-luck and ill-will.
Jutta awoke with the vision of spectacles and hood still in the abbey room and out of the weak unending dream, she heard the tinkle of the goodnight bell, while the pain in her arms and legs was numbed by her victory; for Superior was gone.
“Jutta, Jutta, go to bed,” but she discounted that voice. The last authority was gone. Superior, rebuffed, sat at her desk down the hall, unable to write, so angry, the cowl that covered her fierce shaved head tossed aside on a chair. The waiting woman stared in concern at the nun turned monk.
Jutta tried to move, but could not, and stayed for a moment, her face turned to the floor, rising from the squeamish pit of the too-easy psalm and too-easy dying bone. She opened her eyes. “There are enemies even within our own State,” she remembered and wondered why the Oberleutnant didn’t stop Superior, and she was glad to know, being allowed to wake once more, that life was not miraculous but clear, not right but undeniable. How narrow and small was the suffocating Superior with part of each day spent bartering with the miraculous medal salesman. Jutta felt, being once more back in the cell where Gerta put her, uncomfortably sick and very tired. She would try to reach the cot.
The nunnery, high and safe within the meek heart, far from the blockade at sea, rested confident and chaste in the middle of the night, spreading its asylum walls outwards over a few bare feet of uninhabited dry earth. Safe, within the Allied querulous dragnet, because a taste of faith was all the inmates knew, because over the years, the hearts grew large and the stomachs naturally small, safe, with the cyclical event of mother, girl, and vanity thrown out. The old white barn rocked gently in the cloudy night. The moss had grown thin, turned brown, and died on the mud walls, water no longer trickled and grew thick in the well, the sand could hardly lift itself through the halls at night on the wind’s back, but still in the morning and evening, bells faithfully chimed out the remote and tedious day. “Father, save me,” thinking of the girls, “from these merciless infidels,” said Superior, and leaning forward, she shrouded herself in darkness and sat for a long while with her pains and troubles by the window.
An oyster shell on the beach far away was shrouded in oil, coming in off the treacherous tide. The dogs barked.
“Perhaps I should call a doctor,” thought the Oberleutnant bending over the sick girl, but at that moment she stirred, and besides, he remembered, the old horse that used to be in the stables and could have made the journey to the surgeon’s house, was dead.
Jutta could not reach the cot, but slowly her anger and childish pain brought her back from the fleece-lined pit, and at that moment, she heard the bell in the tower ring three, heard Superior, who had rung it, padding back, feelings still hurt, to sit by the window. With a sudden lucky gesture, Jutta turned her head upwards, and in the dim light stared at the uncovered masculine chest of the Oberleutnant as he bent down, watching her on the floor.
Then, that night, she passed the crisis, and breath by breath, though scrutinized and unloved, she assumed more of life, still alone, more silent, colder than ever.
A few months after the death of Ernst, Stella gave birth to her fragile son, and while she was still on the bearing bed, Gerta and Herman took the child from her, carried it and kept it, down in the first-floor dark pleasure room where they had failed together that first night. Food became more scarce, and Stella never forgave the old woman for the stolen son. Hearing the dogs howling around the station at the port of entry to the grave, she thought, once more, of singing. The Christ carving had disappeared.
PART THREE–1945
TONIGHT
All during the day the villagers had been burning out the pits of excrement, burning the fresh trenches of latrines where wads of wet newspapers were scattered, burning the dark round holes in the back stone huts where moisture traveled upwards and stained the privy seats, where pools of water became foul with waste that was as ugly as the aged squatter. These earthen pots were still breathing off their odor of burned flesh and hair and biddy, and this strange odor of gas and black cheese was wafted across the roads, over the fields, and collected on the damp leaves and in the bare night fog along the embankment of the Autobahn. This smell not only rested over the mud, but moved, and with every small breath of air, the gas of mustard, soft goat pellets and human liquid became more intimate, more strong and visible in reddening piles. One’s own odor could always be sifted out and recognized, a disturbingly fresh stream in the turning ash, a personal mark that could be sniffed and known after midnight, sometimes as if the tongue were poking in the incinerator and the warm air curling about the hewn seat.
The three of us waited by the side of the road, stockingless feet burning and itching in our unlaced shoes, plucking at nostrils, listening to a wasted mongrel paw the leaves, hearing an occasional tile slide from a roof and fall to the mud with the swishing of a tail. The flats turned away before us, unpeopled, dark, an occasional shell-case filling with seepage, the fingers of a lost glove curling with dew. Behind us the ghosts left the stalled tank and filed downward toward the canal.
“He’s late,” said Fegelein.
“Yes.”
“No sleep for us then.”
“Wait, have patience,” I answered.
We crowded invisibly together with the road high overhead that extended far beyond this edge of town, and there were no precision transits or plumb lines to point the kilometers of travel or show the curve on the map where the blank spot of this town would be. We never ventured away, though we still wore the grey shirts and had signed our way to the outside world.
“It’s a good machine he’s riding,” said Fegelein.
“Don’t worry. I won’t shoot at it.”
“Good.”
“Remember, no talking. Stintz would be sure to say something when the next rider comes through in a month looking for this one.” I constantly had to give commands.
“In a month we’ll be ready.”
“Yes.”
“And the motorbike will be useful.”
“Yes.” I had to humor them.
In every town there are a few who, though they don’t remember how it came about, or how they returned, or when they went away, or what the enemy expects, gather together in the night to rise again, despite the obstacle of their own people or the swarming invader. Behind us the town grew smaller; the sleepers were cold and numberless.