Hugo Hamilton - The Last Shot

When she had finished washing, she threw the soap up on to the bank, where she hoped it wouldn’t collect grit.

She swam out a little, into the lake. She felt she was swimming with the trout. Her body looked like gold through the brown mountainy water. She had escaped the worst of this war. Even as she was swimming she remembered to thank God; a mental thanks as she turned on her back and kicked her legs. The sound of the splashing echoed across the lake. It was peacetime in Germany. Then at times she had an idle suspicion that Franz might be sneaking a look at her. She dismissed it and thought it was only her imagination. She saw nothing but the interior of the woods, which had now turned dark with the absence of light.

The lake itself was still quite bright. The reddish sunlight had turned the trunks of the trees at the edge to bronze. Bertha swam to the bank and stepped out of the lake, water dripping on to the stones. She left footprints on the hard earth. She began to dry herself, feeling the last of the day’s heat. She got dressed and picked up the small bar of soap. With her fingernail she prized off three brown pine needles and wondered if she would offer the soap to Franz. Of course she would.

She threw the towel over her arm and stared out at the lake. The midges still hovered over the water. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was like a painting.

On the far side of the lake, two men in the darkness of the trees had been watching her. Two Polish exiles. They had been in these woods for weeks. They had not seen soap for months. They had not seen the sight of a naked woman for years.

When Bertha came back, she offered Franz the soap. He thanked her and went away to wash himself while she prepared the food. There was so little left that it was difficult to call it a meal. They had managed to get some bread and gherkins from a farmer along the way. She was amazed how generous people were towards them.

She prepared the meal as festively as she could. She spread a headscarf out along the floor and placed the food on it. Within minutes, her prepared evening meal had been discovered by ants and she had to rearrange the whole thing somewhere else. She eventually set up her table on top of her bag a little back from the edge of the lake. She had to keep on beating off insects as she did so.

Franz came back. The sky moved through a spectrum of colours until it rested at a deep blue again. They sat down and ate their frugal meal in peace. They watched the blue of the sky fade into a navy. Stars came out. The moon lit up the lake.

Long after their meal, Franz sat back and lit a cigarette while Bertha cleared everything away. His face lit up over the small flame. The red cinder at the top of his cigarette waved about in the dark as he talked. Their voices drifted through the forest and out across the lake. Sometimes Bertha laughed and her laugh would come back in an echo. The red cinder jumped in the air and landed in the lake, where it went out with a fizzle.

They kept talking for a long time in low tones. Franz talked about beauty. He was such a cultured man, Bertha thought to herself. He knew all of the Verdi operas. She didn’t believe him at first. But then he sang some notes. He said he was more fond of swing. So was she. He sang the start of some swing tunes.

Sound travels clearly across water. Occasionally, a startled wood pigeon took off out of the trees along the lake. Sometimes they heard the sound of a strange bird. All the time they heard fish in the lake jumping at flies. The mayfly. In the distance, they heard a deer barking. The fervent clatter of nature reassured them. Whenever the woods fell silent, it was almost too empty.

She had been a little disappointed when Franz returned the tiny bar of soap to her with some granules of sand imbedded in one side. But she could forgive that. Otherwise, he was a refined man. Her mother would have been impressed with him. He had nice hands. Maybe it was a pity he was married.

Franz said the forest was like an orchestra of sound. Bertha agreed.

‘It’s like music,’ he said.

‘That’s true. I was just about to say that myself.’

They could no longer see each other properly in the dark. Only as silhouettes against the lake. It made it easier to say things. She began get her coat ready. Her simple bed.

Franz lit another cigarette. She liked the smell of smoke out in the open. It smelled like the cities she had been in. Paris, Prague, Cologne.

It was late. They looked at the stars for a while.

‘Thank God, we’re alive,’ she said suddenly, almost startling herself. It was something she would only say to herself privately. ‘I feel we’ve been so lucky,’ she added, trying to shift the emphasis.

Franz said nothing. Maybe what she’d said had ruined the atmosphere. Why speak about what might have happened? It was so strange being in the dark with a man. But she trusted him. He talked about the stars.

Once again she saw the end of the cigarette being projected in an arc out into the lake, where it died with another short fizzle. Franz approached her and stood in front of her. She could see nothing but the shape of his head against the sky. He leaned forward. Without a word, he kissed her on the mouth.

The calmness of the night had taken her by surprise. She didn’t resist. It would have been like resisting all of nature. It would have felt like denying the lake and all its peaceful beauty. What could be more honest than nature?

He placed his arm around her. At first she gave herself to the kiss, as though she were once more swimming in the lake. She swam in his arms. She tasted the tobacco on his lips. Smelled the smoke in his clothes.

For months during the war, she had renounced all attraction to anyone. Even the smallest liking for anything other than her work and her daily walk to Mass in Laun seemed a desertion of her own principles. Now she had fallen into a deep kiss and realized how much she had liked Franz Kern all along.

What would happen next? She pulled away and asked him to stop.

‘Forgive me, Bertha,’ he said. ‘It’s the lake. All this peace in the air. Please forgive me. I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘It’s nothing,’ she said.

They stood in soft white light, moonlight reflected up from the lake. She didn’t know what to say.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s the moon. I don’t know what came over me.’

It was an innocent kiss. What harm, she thought. Maybe he even deserved it for saving her life, for bringing her safely back to Germany. But she couldn’t say any of that. She was embarrassed. They said no more about it. They couldn’t let it happen again. Bertha began to get busy arranging things. Franz stepped away, down to the edge of the lake, in order to let her prepare her bed for the night. They said goodnight to each other. They tried to behave as though nothing had happened.

The forest was filled with allusions. The lake shone with significance. Franz listened to Bertha breathing, unsure whether she was asleep or not. She lay awake with her eyes open, looking at the stars, listening to the forest. She refused to let herself speak.

On the far side of the lake, the two men were still watching. They had seen faces lighting up under the flare of a match. They had heard the voices, and the laughter. They had seen the butt ends of cigarettes being tossed into the lake. Their minds were full of desire. Driven insane by the sight of food, and cigarettes, and the sight of a German woman swimming in the lake at dusk.

All over Germany, the retreat went on, relentless. Everybody in Europe was on the move. Some going home, some going to find new homes. New places where they could find peace. Everywhere, people now discovered the destruction of the war. The Germans were travelling west. The Czechs, Poles, Armenians, among many other races, were all moving east. All those who had been displaced by the Reich and brought to Germany as forced labour were now going back, angry, impatient to see their homes. They took with them what they could carry. People slept by the roadside, under trees, in barns, or under the stars in the fields. Those who had possessions hid them, or slept with them, or held them in their hands, or rolled them up in their jackets as pillows. Truck drivers and car drivers fell asleep at the wheel. Anyone who had salvaged something from this war had a head start on others with nothing. They were envied. They were watched.