Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

That was how he consoled himself as he wished the hospital porter good evening, exchanging remarks about the weather. And although his cry for help showed a certain childishness, this sort of daydream did him good. It put him in a position to describe the matter to Eberhard Kroysing and his two room mates with the kind of casual self-mockery needed to maintain and if possible increase his esteem with the young officer.

In the meantime, because they shared a room and a common fate, Lieutenants Mettner and Flachsbauer had been let in on the matter that bound Bertin and Kroysing, gradually at first then completely – and during the long conversations that filled the endless expanse of days, some of Bertin’s other experiences had been discussed, for example the bizarre outcome of Lieutenant von Roggstroh’s medal recommendation. The two young officers roared with laughter, recognising the way the military worked; both of them had been robbed of the credit for valiant actions while some ‘lazy bones’ or other benefited. They thought that Bertin had behaved impeccably and warned him that he should under no circumstances make a hasty complaint or do anything stupid. He could safely leave the next move to the judge advocate, whose division would hit back at such a rebuff as a matter of honour if nothing else.

The white-washed barracks room with its three metal beds looked more homely than it had a few days ago. A vase had appeared, containing pussy willow, alder and some early greenery – a sign of the interest Sister Kläre had lately started to take in the three lieutenants – all three of them. She was careful to resist a mild impulse to favour one of them, a sturdy, big-nosed lad whose exceptional character shone through. As a result, a humorous undertone of jealousy had broken out among the three, who half liked and half couldn’t stand each other, and this new tinge to their lives, with its attendant rivalry and competition, provided a vigorous spur to healing. For her part, Sister Kläre, a grown woman, was delighted by the beneficial effect she was having on them and appeared to take all three young men equally lightly, learning various details of their lives and sometimes bringing in work to do while she sat with them.

Now that the good weather had started, there was no need to worry about keeping the windows shut, and the men could smoke to their hearts’ content. At the same time, the wounded men, who’d been patched up in a pretty makeshift way, found the arrival of spring very tiring. And so an hour of bed rest had been prescribed from 5pm to 6pm before the evening meal for all rooms and wards with no exceptions: no talking, no smoking, no reading – only dozing. After months of overexertion, soldiers can sleep like babies – any time and with enjoyment. Bertin sat rather unhappily on his stool, wondering what to do in the meantime as Pahl would be sleeping too. The lieutenants, who already had their bedclothes pulled up to their chins, consoled him that Sister Kläre would soon appear. She had threatened and promised to check if they were obeying orders. She might let Bertin write his letter in her room during the period of bed rest (and the letter would now come to him in more considered form than on the way up the hill).

Sister Kläre came in with her light step. Some nurses stamped about like dragoons. Sister Kläre had all the beauty of a nun, Bertin thought, as she paused for a moment in the doorway, surprised to find him there, yet pleased: she blushed slightly. ‘That’s nice,’ she said, ‘but you’ll have to leave.’ Bertin obediently stood up and made his request. What beautiful shining blue eyes this woman had, or rather this lady, to use an expression that had gradually lost all relevance in his life. ‘I have a much better idea,’ she said. ‘Come with me. Goodbye, gentlemen. See you in an hour.’

Bertin had to take his coat and cap with him. Then he followed Sister Kläre through the half rectangle of the barracks’ corridors to a special wing that was damp and smelt of warm steam with a whiff of sulphuric acid. Opening a door, they stepped on to wet decking as in a bathroom. From a chair rose a giant of a man dressed in the overalls of a hospital orderly. His left hand was missing and had been replaced with a hook.

‘This is my young charge, Pechler. Give him a bath fit for a general and smoke out all his bees. He’s to be back in room 19 in an hour or so.’

‘Bloomin heck, Sister Kläre,’ chuckled Herr Pechler, ‘I’ve never had a general in before.’

Bertin lay in a bath full of hot water, a dark grey zinc tub in a dim cell. He could hear Herr Pechler outside going about his business, and it flashed through his mind to give him 50 Marks as a thank you. He hadn’t enjoyed the deep pleasure of a bath like this for nine months; the only chance he’d had to rub the old skin off his body had been in streams or the very occasional shower. He was trained to accept this, and only now that he was enjoying such civilised amenities again did he feel their lack since the start of the Glory Days. The immeasurable joy of a hot bath – which he’d taken as a matter of course every morning in the first winter of the war. How wonderfully relaxing to sink into it and ease out his limbs, how like sleep it was to abandon himself to it, only much rarer! And how nice it was to meet a woman, who wanted nothing from him and from whom he wanted nothing, but who simply wanted to show her thanks for a book, which he happened to have written.

Would he ever write again? Would the frost that had gone right into the marrow of his bones ever melt? Would he ever be able to write convincingly of all he’d experienced, the enormous misery and his bitter rage at the infernal stupidity and evil he’d encountered? They’d managed to reduce him. Like all the others, he’d been brought up to stand in the breach for the homeland, to remain steadfast, not to shirk the common fate. But now he was tired. All he wanted was some peace, to turn his back on the mountain of crap that kept threatening to engulf him, to escape from all the unchecked hostility directed at undermining the intellect and intellectuals in order to bring them down and bury them. He no longer cared what lieutenants and his class comrades thought of him. He didn’t want to see or hear any more about the demands of service; he wanted to crawl behind books and plunge into fantasy, to dissolve the world as it had been shown to be into farce, into a smile at the state of things that should linger like a soft reflection from the sky on the ragtag creatures of the earth. Over there, not very far away, lay the Ardennes forest, which Shakespeare had peopled with immortal beings, locating among its trees fugitives and exiles, melacholics and lovely maidens, youths and old men, dukes and minstrels. How he suddenly longed for that world as he lay there sweating in the warm steam. Ah, but he no longer knew a single verse of that heavenly music off by heart; none of the dialogue now resonated within him, all forgotten. He did, however, know how an enormous weight breaks a man’s back, tightens his shoulder muscles and pushes his torso down on to his pelvis. He had, however, learnt all the labourer’s arts, how to use tools and his hands and all his muscles, lots of tricks, and he had become the Comrade and sleeping companion of those upon whom society builds its entire way of life. He had, however, witnessed all manner of destruction, men’s tenacity and endurance in the face of sludge, hunger and the threat of death, mutual killing on an industrial scale, mountains of rubble, rivers of blood, frozen twisted corpses, wounded men in the grip of fever shivering by a fire, and the mysterious impossibility of finding a way out that led not to death but to peace. He knew that it would all have to mature within him, year after year, the way a good ham is smoked. Could it be given expression? Would it resist being shaped, like the water in this bath as he opened and closed his hand? The novella was no good; he suddenly saw that. It had been stupid of him to show it to Dr Posnanski. He’d better stand up now, soap himself like some dingy old underwear, shower off and go back out into the world refreshed, turning his back on past and future dreams as soon as his foot hit the clean decking, the way you walk away from a shower that’s run cold, and deal with the stupid little private matter on which his life unfortunately depended.