Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

Sister Kläre buttoned on her apron. ‘Then we’ll be bumping into each other.’ She did up the buttons at the back, and almost as an after-thought added: ‘You know Kroysing’s a Protestant, don’t you?’

‘Oh,’ said Father Lochner, raising his hands to table height as if to fend off this objection, ‘it’s best if we stick to the matter in hand. If your marriage is dissolved or declared invalid, a new page will be turned and this is not the time to decide what will be written on it. But I must confess,’ and he smiled a little guiltily, ‘that I shall not perform this service without misgivings. As he will tell you himself, Kroysing has promised me he will behave like a Christian rather than a heathen and pardon an enemy, or at least to let him go, avoid a dreadful court case that would have caused uproar in Bavaria and embarrassed our Church, and for that reason, Sister Kläre, I thank the Holy Virgin that things come together for the best and no one will suffer for your happiness.’

‘Here on earth we can expect no more.’

BERTIN APPEARED LATE in the afternoon, accompanied by Karl Lebehde. They found a strange gathering at Pahl’s bedside. A lot of patients were standing around, sitting on beds or leaning on the wall, listening. Kroysing, looking like a referee, sat on a stool with his bandaged leg stretched out on Pahl’s mattress. He had in mind the unnecessarily strident arguments from his student days, which ended in mutual insults. But Father Lochner, who’d worked in the Ruhr mining district, the Cologne docks and the button-making factories of Elberfeld, had no intention of playing that game. As a Rhinelander he was used to dealing with city folk, and in a few minutes he had started a conversation, which he expected to control, watched expectantly by Pahl with his magnetic gaze. However, it proved not to be so easy. When Kroysing arrived, accompanied by the medical officer in his white coat, they were arguing about the origins and meaning of the Easter festival. Pahl saw reflected in it the general joy that people and animals felt at the return of spring, and for him the symbolic egg represented fertility rites and resurgent life. Father Lochner, by contrast, took an historical, materialist view of the festival’s meaning, taking it back to the struggle for freedom – for example, that of the Jewish proletarian nation from Egyptian exploitation – under a civil servant or member of the ruling class, such as Mirabeau or, at that moment, the lawyer Kerenski in Russia. So they’ve swapped sides, thought Kroysing in amusement. The priest had been too clever, and Pahl was as ever Pahl, bright-eyed and calm. But when Bertin and Lebehde joined the friends, the conversation took an even more general turn. They discussed redemption, martyrdom on Calvary, ‘evil’ and human nature, and the divine. There was a fervour in the air, said Lochner. With each passing month, all of humanity was yearning ever more deeply for peace, since the Kaiser had, so to speak, stamped the imperial eagle on the word. The Pope, the Kaiser, Professor Wilson and international labour leaders were united in their efforts to restore peace to the world, but it didn’t happen. What was going on? What was barring the road to salvation? Definitely not the soldiers. They’d all had enough, and if the bugles sounded the ceasefire at 12 noon that afternoon, it would be pretty to difficult to drum up a German, French or British soldier for a game of skat by 12.30.

General laughter. General agreement. Only Pahl didn’t laugh. He’d sat on his pillow, his back against the bedstead, and in his slow but direct manner advanced the counter argument: ‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘the ruling masters’ peace overtures all have conditions attached that the other side must meet, just as a dog catcher will keep a dog that he’s just caught on the lead. He doesn’t know the dog, and guess what, it turns out to be wild and won’t do what he tells it, and so the conditions are not met and peace must unfortunately stay in the box.’

‘No politics, please,’ said the medical officer. The wide space between his eyes, his square forehead and bouffant hair gave him a decisive air, which was softened by his husky voice.

‘Nonsense, doctor,’ said Kroysing. ‘Let the tormented flesh talk politics if it wants. We won’t lock horns.’

‘I should hope not,’ said Father Lochner. ‘Please note that I’m the only man in this group wearing anything approaching a military tunic…’

‘The militant Church—’ interjected Kroysing.

‘…I’d find it difficult to raise an army among all these white coats. And yet I’m in favour of war – and a militant Church. Not war with guns and infantry, but war against the indefatigable adversary – the only one who can chase peace from the world and impede redemption.’

‘Yes, when I look around me the world looks pretty darned redeemed,’ said the medical officer without bitterness.

‘And yet me must believe that Christ died on the cross to save us from the worst of our bestiality,’ said Father Lochner almost passionately, ‘or we might as well pack up and suck gas.’

‘Do you mean that if that hadn’t taken place things would be even worse,’ said Kroysing. ‘Assuming it really did take place?’

‘No religion, please,’ said the chief physician, not without a little self-irony.

It was relatively immaterial whether something had happened or not, compared with the faith it inspired, said Pahl. There was therefore no need for a theological dispute, since faith was a generally recognised fact and could not be denied by Christians, Jews or atheists. So the priest could happily carry on. But, he said with a joking twinkle, they should really hear what their comrade Bertin had to say about it. Because the Exodus from Egypt and the trial of Jesus of Nazareth before the Roman military governor of Judea had all taken place among Jews.

Bertin gave an embarrassed laugh. He was the only Jew in the room. He was proud of the urge for redemption and the messianic impulse towards a better organised world that had dominated the spiritual history of his race since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Before he’d been able to talk at length about the prophet’s tirades against the potentates and the multitudes, which were intended to instil morality in organised society. But now my mind is so dulled , he thought, as he prepared to answer Pahl’s question. Yes, he said, the struggle with fate, expressed by the Greeks in their tragedies, had been played out in real life for the Jews in the prophets’ struggle against the reluctant flesh of their own nation. They had not spared that nation and had even made a bad name for themselves on account of their obstinacy. But in truth all nations were just as obstinate; they just didn’t talk about it, or so it seemed. There was something there, he said, staring glumly into the middle distance, that impeded redemption. That was why the devil played such an important role in all cults and in every age, even if Christian teaching said that the worst of his teeth had been knocked out. You had to concur with the poets, Goethe for example, who said that his remaining powers were enough to be going on with.

Pahl and Kroysing protested, and Father Lochner wasn’t happy either. The first two didn’t want to hear such superstitious nonsense, while Father Lochner wanted more recognition to be given to the reality of the devil.

‘Oh dear,’ said Bertin, ‘I’m in hot water now. They don’t want to acknowledge the devil’s existence, and for you, Father, he’s not real enough. What am I to do?’

‘I’ll tell you what you can do,’ muttered Kroysing. ‘Let’s forget the bogeymen, eh? And we don’t need any riddles either.’