Not that he was useless, far from it. Unlike Indowy machines this one had awesome defects to it; awesome at least for one born into a civilization where perfection was the minimum standard for tools and machines. The little bat-faced sentient spent full and busy days helping to fix one crisis fault after another. He had a genuine knack for it, even with, to him, alien machinery.
But, useful or not, well treated and respected or not, he simply lacked the sense of ‘Kameradshaft’[41] these humans felt for each other. Perhaps it was that he could not imbibe these things the Germans called “Schnapps” or “Bier.” Kameradeschaft certainly seemed to grow by bounds when the humans had a few each of those.
Though singing seemed a big part of it too.
Rinteel had a hopeless singing voice, where human song was concerned. He started contemplating where aboard Brünnhilde he might build a synthesizer to create the sole Indowy intoxicant, med.
47th Field Hospital, Potsdam, Germany, 2 January 2008
Drugged unconscious, in the Korps field hospital, a dark place and soundless except for the plaintive, unconscious cry of some lonely, wounded soldier, Hans dreamt.
Though she had never turned to fat, Anna’s hair had grayed, her skin had browned and wrinkled under the harsh sun of Israel.
Still, after more than forty years, Hans found her lovely beyond measure. Only the obscenity growing in her body, wracking her with agony the drugs could never quite overcome, detracted from the beauty of her body, mind and soul; that obscene cancer, and the horrid mechanical sounds of the machines keeping her alive.
By her bedside Hans sat, as he sat every moment he was allowed. Often enough, tears poured from his face. At those moments, Anna often turned her face away. That was not how she wished to remember him, in the hereafter.
It was near the end; they both knew it. She was calm and content. He was desolated. Hans had only the thought, It won’t be so long that I will have to be apart from her, to console himself.
“We have had a good life, Hansi, isn’t that so?” Anna asked.
Wiping his eyes, he answered, “Where you were was paradise for me, Anna. Where you were not was hell… even before we met.”
She gave him a soft smile, and answered, as softly, “It was the same for me, Hansi. But Hansi, what will you do?” she fretted.
“I do not know, Anna. There will be nothing left here for me, once…” And he fell into a fresh wave of tears.
“Hush, hush,” she said, reaching out a weak, skeletal hand to pat his arm. “It will only be for a while… only for a while.”
She pressed, “What will you do?”
Hans forced the tears away, forced calm to his voice. “Perhaps I will return to Berlin. I have no more friends here, since Sol passed away, no relatives either. I still have some there, though I do not know them.”
She digested that thought for a while, came upon another. “Hansi, I never asked. Neither of us wanted to talk about it. But, talked about or not, I always knew. Why did you never forgive yourself? I forgave you long ago, that first night in your hut. But you never did. Why?”
This was not something Hans really wanted to talk about… and yet… and yet it was time. Slowly, deliberately, he answered, “There were three kinds of Germans, Anna, in those days. There were those who didn’t know… about what was done to the Jews and the others in the camps, I mean. A majority, that was, I think, though many more might have suspected. They have no sin, except perhaps one of omission.
“And then there were the other Germans, the ones who did know, reveled in the knowing, and thought it all to be proper and right. They can answer to God or the Devil — and I have strong suspicions who it will be that they finally talk to, with a straight face and a clear eye… at least until the fire reaches them.” Hans sniffed with disdain.
The last part came harder; a mirror is often the most difficult kind of glass to look into.
Yet Hans was a brave man, had faced fire bravely in more places than he cared to think about. He could be brave this once more, for his wife. “The last group were the worst and I was in that group. We were the ones who knew, knew that it was wrong, evil, and even knowing this, turned our faces from it, instead of fighting it; turned our faces and ran.
“This kind of German, my kind of German, will face God or the Devil, too. What we will be able to say in our defense before the fire reaches us?”
Anna nodded, understanding, though even that little effort was a strain. She was growing weaker by the minute. In a breathless voice she said, “I understand, my Hansi. You are afraid, perhaps, that we will not be together in the future. Well, let me tell you, speaking as a Jew to a German… you are a good man, Hansi. You have done no wrong… and you always did your best.” She reached up to stroke his cheek, as old as hers and even more weathered, and finished, the sound fading even as she spoke, “God does not expect perfection in his creations, and we will be together again, I promise you…”
Alone in his bed, a sleeping old man in a twenty-year-old body wept for an old woman remembered as a young woman. In his heart and his mind she was remembered as fresh… and as freshly remembered as the last spring. Though his hospital robe had no breast pocket still, unconsciously, his hand stroked for a little packet usually found there.
47th Field Hospital, Potsdam, Germany, 2 January 2008
On the street outside the hospital a column of gray-clad, determined-looking Schwabian infantry marched past on their way to the front, their boots ringing on the cobblestones below. The Schwabians sang as they marched:
Ignoring the music, Mühlenkampf reached out an arm to shake awake Hans Brasche, ignoring the latter’s splinted arm and well-wrapped head. “Get up, Hansi, I need you.”
Slowly and groggily, Hans did awaken. And immediately reached for the bucket near his bed.
Mühlenkampf turned his head away. “Never mind that,” he insisted. “We’ve both been concussed before. Puking afterwards is just another part of it.”
Hans ignored his commander, finishing his business with the bucket before looking upwards. “And how may I assist you, Herr General?” he asked, with polite disinterest, after emptying his stomach.
“You can get back on your feet! You can take over command again of that fucking, falling-apart rabble we call the 501st Schwere Panzer. You can get back to the fucking war.”
Mühlenkampf relented. “I am sorry, Hansi, I truly am. The eastern front has collapsed. Oh, many of the troops will get away but they are a mess. I am throwing the 47th Korps, including the 501st, and two infantry Korps to try to hold it while we reorganize the survivors.
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