‘So nothing has changed!’ thought Friedrich. ‘Kapturak and Parthagener have been expecting me as if I had gone across to fetch a “batch”.’ And to Parthagener: ‘So Kapturak is here?’
‘And why not! He has enlisted as a medical orderly. Didn’t you see the big Red Cross flag on our roof? We are, you might say, a hospital without patients. Kapturak marched in with the victorious army in the very first week. Just a common medical orderly! But actually involved in espionage. With connections with the army command. He brings us healthy soldiers and we treat them with various prescriptions. We give them civilian clothing and documents, injections, narcotics, symptoms of paralysis and defective vision. Unfortunately, I am quite alone. My sons have enlisted. At this very time. Not that I fear for their lives! A Parthagener doesn’t get killed in the war! But I’m an old man and can’t cope with the many deserters.’
More and more deserters came to Parthagener. The fear of a war that was only a possibility had turned into the much greater fear of a war that already existed. The old man sat in his inn and sold remedies against danger as an apothecary might sell powders against fever.
‘And where is your friend?’ asked the old man.
‘He’s waiting downstairs!’
Parthagener put on his glasses and combed his fine white beard before the mirror. Then he turned round again. Until now he had spoken personally. Henceforth he was the official landlord, ready to offer a stranger what he had — quiet dignity and spiritual comfort.
In the early evening twilight, Kapturak arrived. He was in uniform and seemed more composed than in more settled times. Then he had been an adventurer. Now, in the midst of the great adventure, he was an honest man who had not abandoned his civilian calling.
It was quiet in the tap-room. At times the heavy step of a patrol could be heard, making its way through the town. It was possible to forget that here the war, which had been in preparation so long, was at home, here on this frontier which was its homeland. Old Parthagener sat over a large book and calculated. Berzejev slept, head on the table-top. Only his tangled brown hair was visible.
‘Are you going to stay with him?’ asked Kapturak. The glance he cast in Berzejev’s direction was physical, like an outstretched index finger.
‘He intends to go to Switzerland via Rumania, the Balkans, Italy. I would rather go by Vienna.’
‘You both leave tomorrow!’ decided Kapturak. ‘As Swiss Red Cross. I’ll arrange the departure.’
They slept in the bar-parlour. Friedrich was woken a few times by distant shots which rang with a long echo through the still night, and by the distant pale gleam of the searchlights which lit up the horizon and the windows for short seconds. He saw himself, in a dream, running along a narrow path between fields. The path led into a wood. It was night. A broad band of light from a search-light sped over the fields to find the track along which Friedrich was running. The track had no end. The dark mass of the wood was visible close by. But the path took unexpected bends, evaded a rock and a puddle, and whenever Friedrich decided to abandon it and run straight across the fields the wood disappeared from his sight. A naked sky, shamelessly stripped by white searchlights, lay flat and endless over the world. Hastily he sought again for the treacherous path and he ran, carefully despite his haste, one foot in front of the other, so as not to step to one side and lose sight of the wood.
In the morning he walked once more through the little town. The shops were closed. No one showed himself at the windows of the low houses. Soldiers were encamped on the square market-place. The horses whinnied. Enormous cauldrons gave forth greasy warm odours. The supply waggons rolled incessantly and apparently aimlessly over the uneven cobblestones. On the stone threshold of a house whose door was closed sat a soldier. He held a sack between his knees, bent his head over it and looked inside. As Friedrich passed he closed the sack with startled haste and lifted his head. He had a pale broad face with faded brows over narrow light-grey eyes. His cap sat crooked on his hair and squashed one ear. His yellow uniform of coarse linen was too small and his broad shoulders bulged out the upper part of the sleeves. He was like a lunatic in a strait-jacket. A gradual fear spread over his face. His much too short lips, which could never quite be closed, revealed the gums over his long yellow teeth. He gave the appearance of laughing and crying, friendliness and rage. ‘I’ve frightened you!’ said Friedrich. The soldier nodded. ‘What have you got in the sack? Don’t be afraid!’ The soldier opened it quickly and let Friedrich look inside. Friedrich saw silver spoons, chains, candlesticks and watches. ‘What are you going to do with these?’ The soldier shrugged his shoulders and held his head on one side like a naughty child. At last he begged: ‘Give me your watch!’ ‘You’ve got so many!’ said Friedrich, ‘I’ve none.’ ‘Let’s see!’ pleaded the soldier. He stood up and put his hands in Friedrich’s pockets. He found papers, pencils, an old newspaper, a knife, a handkerchief. ‘No, you haven’t got one!’ said the soldier. ‘Here, help yourself!’ And he opened the sack. ‘I don’t want a watch!’ said Friedrich. ‘Go on. You must take one!’ insisted the man and put a watch in his coat pocket.
Friedrich went away. The soldier ran after him, the sack swinging in his hand. ‘Halt!’ he cried. And, as Friedrich stood stilclass="underline" ‘Give me back the watch!’ He took it back again with a trembling hand. Officers returned from breakfast, with jingling spurs, belted waists, with the warlike elegance that confers the badge of manhood on them together with a certain resemblance to female models. They swayed their hips, at which pistols hung like pieces of jewellery in their cases. The soldiers in the streets saluted. And the officers responded gaily and lightly. As they passed among respectful salutes, dumb submissiveness, infatuated devotion, they resembled society ladies passing through a ballroom.
Ambulances arrived from which wounded men with white bandages were removed like plaster figures from a drawer; a horse lay dying in the middle of the street, without anyone taking any notice; an officer rode by. He came up to the level of the house-tops and seemed to be visiting the world like a blue deity.
They left the same day for Rumania. Berzejev went on to Switzerland via Greece and Italy, Friedrich continued to Vienna by way of Hungary. They arranged to meet in Zürich. They travelled with Red Cross armbands and with identification papers of Kapturak’s manufacture as members of a Swiss medical mission.
10
In Rumania Friedrich parted from his friend. At the time, when I heard that he was going to Vienna, I found it inexplicable that he did not make the detour by way of Italy and Switzerland together with Berzejev. And when, in the field, I received the first letter from Friedrich for a long time — I quote a typical passage in one of the following pages — I still assumed that it was something important, probably on behalf of his Party, that took him to Austria. But he had nothing to do there. I cannot conceive that a man who had lived for over a year in a Siberian prison camp should return to a city in order to meet an acquaintance, or even a woman. Yet Friedrich seems to have had no other reason. Savelli was no longer in Vienna. The Ukrainian comrade P. had been living for a year in a concentration camp for civilian internees in Austria. R. had moved to Switzerland — a month before the outbreak of war. Friedrich could not even go safely through the streets without military papers. People — as one knows — had all become the shadows of their documents. Friedrich’s age group had long ago been called up. He must have appeared suspicious to every policeman on the streets. The large mobilization notices, in which he was named, clung faded and tattered to the walls, as if in confirmation that the members of this age-group had already fallen and begun to rot. Friedrich, to whom a definite citizenship could not be allotted, could be arrested and end up in a camp. At the frontier and en route he had stated that he had come from Rumania to enlist. People had believed him, there were many like him on the train. A gendarme who checked his papers told him as much. Men came from distant countries to take up a rifle. Here, too, the trains were decorated with foliage. The soldiers sang different songs and wore different colours from those in Russia. A month before they had all been in mufti, both here and over there, barely distinguishable. Why, then should they all at once be able to sing? They had never sung before when they had sat in trains as travellers in perfumery, as lawyers, as officials going on leave or returning to their duties. Had they no respect for death? Did they respect it only when it appeared with the festive insignia which they liked to bestow on it at proper times and in proper churchyards, at coffin-makers and in funeral parlours?