If some special mission is to be carried out on enemy territory, it’s rehearsed in every detail, just like a play. Simple cleaning out is easiest, of course.
REPORTER Of course.
ALICE SCHALEK Two grenadiers take the lead.
Once the grenades have been thrown, the group runs round the traverse. Then the following infantry occupy the trenches that have been cleaned out — that means, they’ve been taken.
The storm troops in Lysonia in central Poland, under the command of Lieutenant Tanka, Second-lieutenant Kovacs, and Officer-cadet Sipos, are working as if they’re on an exercise. They are aglow with fervour and an awareness of their importance.
The precision of their movements, the effective way they interconnect, is amazing, deeply moving, overpowering.
The cleaning out goes on until 10 in the evening.
REPORTER It surely must be all clean by now?!
ALICE SCHALEK You think? Far from it!
Second-lieutenant Pintér and Lance-corporals Juhasz and Baranyi carry out their tasks with particular care and totally by the book.
But it takes another three days to clean out the first line of trenches. On the third day, they come across a wounded soldier, saved by the fact that the “cleaning out” lasted for three days. He’d been shot in the stomach, and was only saved by having to lie for three terrible days without food or drink.
REPORTER It just shows you how healthy cleaning up is.
ALICE SCHALEK Obviously.
When the storm troops then smoke them out of their dugouts with hand grenades, they beg for mercy.
REPORTER Do tell me, did you see all that with your own eyes?
ALICE SCHALEK I could tell you a lot of other things, too! Don’t keep interrupting.
During the three days they’re mopping up at the front, the commandant of 318, Colonel Söld, is cleaning out the wood with the troops he had left.
REPORTER Where were the rest?
ALICE SCHALEK He’d never seen so many corpses. They work day and night to get them all buried.
A few silly geese escape when their cage is destroyed, and are happily strolling around during the barrage.
What d’you say to that?
REPORTER I’m thrilled! If it wasn’t for the bit about cleaning up, not a soul would realize it was written by a woman!
ALICE SCHALEK How do you mean?
REPORTER I mean, the way you describe the cleaning up — attaching so much importance to cleanliness in the trenches—
ALICE SCHALEK What?
REPORTER I mean — the cleaning up — the way you praise it!
ALICE SCHALEK (casting a contemptuous glance at him) What a greenhorn! Cleaning up means massacring!
REPORTER (reels back, stares at her) Y’know—
ALICE SCHALEK You didn’t know that? You men, call yourselves reporters!
REPORTER But—
ALICE SCHALEK Get a grip! — All’s fair in love and war.
REPORTER I must admit — the rest of us—
ALICE SCHALEK Well?
REPORTER I take off my hat to you! (After a pause during which he regards her silently, in ecstasy.) It could only happen in Russia. Or in France, as with Joan of Arc! Do you recall how Salten evokes the scene? When the men had almost lost all hope, such a girl arose, awakened and inspired, whom the impact of the calamity had wrenched from the life to which she had been born, and stepped forth to rouse the men. It is on such individual figures that we bestow our admiration; they are trailing clouds of glory, they are invested with the fascination of great bravery and poetic exploits, and it is precisely because of the exceptional status they enjoy that we so readily idealize them, to the point that sober reason is simply incapable of recalling all the many terrible, hateful, brutal things they must without doubt have done themselves or seen done.
ALICE SCHALEK What must be must be!
REPORTER No, that didn’t appear in the “So-must-it-be” article, but in the one about the Russian death battalion. Where women are transformed into hyenas, as Schiller says.
ALICE SCHALEK What are you trying to say—?
REPORTER Don’t interrupt me. We can’t simply ignore such perversions of female nature, for they clarify certain aspects of our experience of war. The repulsive lack of femininity, the openly exhibited heartlessness — these are signs of serious degeneracy—
ALICE SCHALEK I beg your pardon — what you’ve just said is — is very inconsiderate towards one of one’s colleagues — where does it come from?
REPORTER From the editorial, from Himself, let me finish — And as is usually the case when woman abandons the characteristics of her sex — discarding her gentleness and becoming disfigured, a virago — she tends towards a strange cruelty — as the English experience has also reflected.
ALICE SCHALEK Aha!
REPORTER That’s where women become hyenas! The spinsters—
ALICE SCHALEK Who are you saying’s a spinster? I’ll lodge a complaint with Colonel Eisner von Bubna of the War Press Bureau!
REPORTER Listen, there’s no comparison between an English spinster and her European sister. The latter is a sweet, good-natured, modest creature.
ALICE SCHALEK (flattered) There’s no one else these days can write an editorial like Him!
REPORTER Thank heavens the preferred place of an Austrian woman in this war is caring for the sick, restoring spirits, and consoling the oppressed.
ALICE SCHALEK What’s he mean? Is that what it says? Y’know — sometimes he gets carried away by his temperament. One shouldn’t generalize. Everything has its place. You can’t just sit around back home. Everyone knows I was the one who initiated the Black-and-Yellow Cross charity, together with Countess Anke Bienerth!
REPORTER We know, don’t get worked up—
ALICE SCHALEK (fighting back her tears, with determination) I’ll send Him my article straight away!
REPORTER Of course you should. But I’d advise you to leave out the last sentence.
ALICE SCHALEK The last sentence? (She looks at her draft.) “A few silly geese escape when their cage is destroyed, and are happily strolling around during the barrage”—should I take that out?
REPORTER Yes.
ALICE SCHALEK Why?
REPORTER Just do it.
ALICE SCHALEK But tell me—
REPORTER (hesitates) Well, haven’t you heard—
ALICE SCHALEK Heard what?
REPORTER —that the War Press Bureau has decided—
ALICE SCHALEK What?
REPORTER —from now on to accredit a few more female war reporters, apart from you!
ALICE SCHALEK (taken aback, then tragically, with a bitter laugh) Such is the gratitude the House of Habsburg — showers on its loyal servants! (She is too stunned to move.)
(Change of scene.)
Scene 17
Subscriber and Patriot in conversation.
SUBSCRIBER What do you say about the rumours?
PATRIOT I’m worried.
SUBSCRIBER In Vienna it’s rumoured that there are rumours circulating in Austria. They’re even being passed by word of mouth, but no one can tell you—
PATRIOT Nothing’s known for certain, they’re only rumours, but there must be something in it if even the government has let it be known that rumours are circulating.
SUBSCRIBER The government warns explicitly against believing or spreading rumours, and calls upon everyone to do the utmost to help suppress them. Well, I’m doing what I can; wherever I go I say “Who believes in rumours?”
PATRIOT The Hungarian government also says that it’s rumoured in Budapest that rumours are circulating in Hungary, and it’s also issued a caution.