Monika Schröder: The Dog in the Wood

“My mother won’t let me go that far anymore,” Fritz answered. “Last week old Herr Heimann told her that an escaped French forced laborer had shot a peasant woman from a jeep as she was working in her field.”

“So we just don’t tell where we’re going!” Paul answered. They heard Mama calling from the living room and followed her call.

“ Guten Tag , Frau Friedrich. Can Fritz come out and play?”

“Where are you going to play?”

“We’ll go out behind the wheat field and play with a ball,” Paul said. The lie came easily from Paul’s lips. Fritz quickly told himself that it was Paul who had said they were going to play ball.

Mama nodded. “Just be back in time.”

Fritz grabbed his jacket, and Paul threw him a triumphant smile as they walked out the door. “Don’t be a worrywart!” Paul teased him. “Nobody will find out unless you tell them.” When they crossed the yard, a group of hens scurried away. Paul kicked a pebble after the slowest one.

The cow pastures at the south end of the village had been plowed into beet fields, and the green crowns of the plants spread out in rows across the dark soil. The weather had been blustery this spring, but now, after a rain shower, the sky was brilliant and the earth seemed cleaned up for Sunday. When they came to the end of the sugar beets, they turned right and made their way into the wheat field. Through it was a shortcut to the main road connecting their village with the county seat.

Last winter, the road had been filled with horse-drawn wagons and people on foot, all headed west. Trek after trek had clattered down the road. After Fritz had watched the treks the first time, Lech had explained that the refugees came from eastern Prussia and other German regions in the East. The people had all been fleeing from the Russians. Now they saw a trek only occasionally. There was also military traffic to watch.

Paul led the way up a nearby hillock. At first there was only the occasional truck, a jeep, or a horse cart on the road. Then Paul called out, “There’s one coming.”

The treks usually consisted of groups of refugees from one village who were trying to stay together on their journey west. This one was made up of about eight wagons, led by a boy on a bicycle who rode ahead to scout out the way and to seek villages that were able and willing to take in refugees for the night. Some wagons rolled on big balloon tires pulled by strong farm horses and led by women in handsome coats. Others were just rickety carts, dragged along by a single mule or a shaggy-looking horse. Most wagons were covered with canvas, some with Oriental rugs. People packed onto the carts as many belongings as they could carry. All of them were fleeing without their fathers, of course, since the men were fighting in the war or had been killed. Some older men, probably grandfathers, were sitting on the carts or walking slowly beside their belongings. Had these grandfathers first tried to defend their villages? Fritz caught a glimpse of a boy sitting on a wooden box, steadying a clock in the crook of his right arm each time the wagon rolled over a stone or hole.

“Look at that.” Paul pointed in the direction of a middle-aged woman who walked beside a scrawny horse, leading it on a rope. She turned around frequently, looking at the mare. Two big leather suitcases were tied onto its saddle, swaying with every step.

“What’s wrong with the horse?” Fritz asked.

“I don’t know. It looks very skinny,” Paul answered.

“It also looks very sick,” Fritz added, examining the shivering animal.

The horse was now stumbling, and its forelegs buckled every time its weight shifted. Then the horse stopped, and when the woman tried to pull it to the side of the road, it staggered into the ditch and fell on its side. The suitcases slid off the saddle. The boys saw the horse’s belly heaving. It let out a heavy groan. The other people in the trek hardly took notice. Some looked briefly at the woman, but her place in line was quickly filled, and the group moved on. The horse moaned again. Then, with a last sigh, it leaned its head back, and a final shiver rippled through its emaciated body. The woman collapsed over it and cried.

“It just died,” Paul stated.

Fritz wished that someone with a stronger horse would offer help to the old woman.

“What’s she going to do now, I wonder,” Fritz said. “She’s all alone.” Fritz looked at Paul, expecting an answer, but Paul just shrugged.

“Don’t you feel bad for her?”

“She should have taken a stronger horse,” Paul said.

The woman picked up the suitcases. With slumped shoulders she walked slowly, trying to catch up with the others.

“I want to go home now,” Fritz said.

“All right, but let’s come back soon.”

“I’m not sure that we can,” Fritz said as they began their way back. “My grandpa says the Russians will be here any day.” Fritz looked back at the road. This is where Russian tanks would roll soon. German jeeps and soldiers would be fleeing. He could almost hear the gunshots and the roaring of the treads. He picked up a round stone from the path. “What will your family do when the Russians come?”

“My mother says we will put out a red flag and greet the Russians with food,” Paul answered.

“Give them food? They are our enemies!” Fritz cried out.

“My mother can’t wait until the Russians liberate us,” Paul said.

“Liberate us from what?”

“From the Nazis, the brown pest! They brought all this on,” Paul said. “My dad will come back once they free all the political prisoners. The Russians are Communists themselves, just like my dad.”

Paul turned to Fritz. “What’s your family going to do when the war is over?”

“My mother says it’s time for peace. She says the Nazis lost, but they don’t know it yet.”

“What does your grandpa say?”

“He wants to defend the village,” Fritz answered, smoothing his thumb over the stone.

“How? Karl Friedrich, the hero of Schwartz, the savior of the Reich ?” Paul added.

“But what about all the horrible things the Russians have done to people?” Fritz now squeezed the stone in his fist.

“My mother says that the Russians will bring peace. That’s what the Communists want.”

“Haven’t you seen the pictures? The fires in Dresden and Hamburg?” Fritz remembered the weekly newsreel film he had seen in a movie theater in Nirow. The Allied air raids had left big German cities destroyed. Mama had cried when she left the movie hall.

“What do you think German soldiers did in Russia?” Paul asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The German army invaded Russia without having been attacked. Now the Russians are defeating the Nazis. Their time has come.” Paul was now slashing the long grass on the right side of the path, moving his hand like a scythe. “You have to pay a price when you lose a war.”

Fritz wondered what Paul meant by that but did not dare to comment. Instead he asked, “What about your patriotic duty?”

“Hah!” Paul stopped. They had reached the edge of the village. “Patriotic duty! That’s what your grandpa tells you. Are you his parrot?”

“No!” Fritz screamed. He wished he would know what to say, but he drew a blank. He hurled the stone into the field. Paul had started walking in the direction of his house.

Oma Lou was preparing dinner in the kitchen when Fritz returned to the house. She took a large loaf of bread out of the bread box, held it to her chest, cut off thick slices, and placed them in a small basket.

“Where have you been all afternoon?” she asked.

“Paul and I saw another refugee trek near Buschof,” he answered, looking at her to check if she disapproved.