Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

DURING THE REST hour, Sister Kläre sat in her room and wrote to her two children, who were being better looked after and brought up in a countryside boarding school than they could have been within a marriage destroyed by war. She wanted to write to her husband too, whom she still held very dear, although a shared life had become impossible since he’d started to react in a threatening way to any dissent. And who could listen with equanimity to him berating the Kaiser for joining with the lunatic Austrians in unleashing a war that was already lost because he was afraid of the Pan-Germans? Who could remain silent when a once highly gifted man fumed that German misanthropy was to blame for the war and whoever was a slave to that would pay the price into the third and fourth generations, as was written in the scriptures? Perhaps later they’d find a doctor who could remove the burden from Lieutenant Schwersenz’s mind and the poison from his soul. Klara Schwersenz would then gladly take him by the hand again, start a new home, bring the children back, rebuild their life together and forget the whole dreadful nightmare. Until then, everything had to stay as it was: he buried away in Hinterstein valley, and she working in the service of the Fatherland. Klara Schwersenz, daughter of the well-know Pidderit family from the Rhineland, now simply Sister Kläre, didn’t see herself as a martyr. She had a found a second youth in the tumble of war, had become freer and at the same time more capable, loved her work, and also being a woman, and knew that you got but one transitory life. She wrote to her children in clear, pointed handwriting. Later she would do some ironing in the lieutenants’ room.

There was a gentle knock at the door. An orderly brought the confidential news that a gentlemen called Judge Advocate Kostanski, or something like that, wanted to say goodbye to her. She raised her eyebrows, shrugged her shoulders and said to show him in. A moment later, Posnanski’s bulky figure filled the front of the room. Sister Kläre sat on the bed, offered him the wooden stool and asked if the time had come for him disappear to the east.

Posnanski blew out his clean-shaven cheeks, rolled his frog-like eyes at her, and, thinking how attractive she looked and that she should always wear this nun’s costume, began to speak in a very skilled and humane way: yes, he said, he was here to say goodbye, but that was really a side issue. Much more important was a question he had for her, a request in fact. They were both adults who had seen something of life and so there was no point in beating about the bush. Through Lieutenant Kroysing, he, Posnanksi, had learnt of a shocking abuse of justice to which Kroysing’s younger brother had fallen victim. In connection with that, Private Bertin had come to his attention. He believed the man had been shunting ammunition around long enough and that it was time to think about the country’s intellectual nourishment after the war and make sure a few talented men were saved, and he’d tried to act on that belief. He’d noticed that Sister Kläre had taken to the writer as well.

‘Very much so,’ she agreed with a smile. ‘I’m letting him soak in the bath right now, the poor lice-ridden chap.’

‘So much the better,’ replied Posnanski. ‘Then perhaps you’ve heard what happened to my application to have the worthy gentleman transferred to our nice little court martial?’

‘Not a sausage,’ said Sister Kläre.

Right, said Posnanski, in that case he’d better begin at the beginning with the Trojan War. And in an easy, good-humoured way he described the simmering resentment between the army groups east and west of the Meuse, and how, against this background, Bertin’s battalion had refused his request, and that the matter now looked completely hopeless. If the division had not been about to move off and if Excellency Lychow’s mind had not already been in the east, then the Western Group Command would certainly have had its way. Because right was on their side. A request from high-ranking personnel to have a man who was only fit for limited service to perform office duties ought not to be refused when men fit for active service were being released. After a bit of back and forth, ASC private Bertin would have been transferred from his unit to the Lychow Divisional Staff and given his marching orders. But when the gods were busy, dwarves came out on top and that’s what would happen now, unless higher powers intervened.

‘Higher powers than a divisional general?’ asked Sister Kläre in astonishment. ‘Where will you find them?’

‘There’s one very near at hand,’ replied Posnanski.

Sister Kläre blushed, deeper and deeper. ‘That’s a lot of silly gossip,’ she said and got up.

‘Gracious lady,’ said Posnanski, remaining seated, ‘let me ignore that rejection for two minutes. You may yourself have noticed that Herr Bertin has held out under considerable pressure for quite a long time and is now in a parlous state. He might survive another year if a dud or shell doesn’t wipe him out before then. We can get him a decent job in the next few days. Why pussyfoot around with something that is simple and humane and in everyone’s best interests. Of course I know it’s all gossip. People can’t live without gossip, and the higher staff echelons constitute their own social zone and have their own interests and gossip. But there’s always a grain of truth in such gossip, and so I assume that the crown prince has had the honour of being introduced to you and taking tea at your house. Would it be asking too much to suggest that you telephone the exalted gentleman, not today, not tomorrow, but, say, this coming Sunday, and ask him for a favour, which we believe would benefit the collective intellectual good and not just a personal acquaintance? Wouldn’t you do it without a second thought if you were in Berlin?’

Sister Kläre had sat down again. The flush on her cheeks had faded to a rosy glow, and she looked pensively at the tips of her shoes and her ankles in their coarse black woollen stockings. ‘I shouldn’t like to meet you in court as lawyer for the other side, Dr Posnanski,’ she said.

‘My dear lady,’ replied Posnanski soberly, ‘I hope I’d know better than to do that. No one can win a case against Saint Genevieve.’

Sister Kläre shook her head impatiently. ‘We’re talking like monkeys,’ she said. ‘This isn’t Berlin. The crown prince isn’t a gentleman, and I’m not a lady. I’m a nurse, which makes me a sergeant at best, and the crown prince is a general and commander of an entire front. I hope that lets you see that what you’re asking me to do is quite monstrous.’

‘I’m afraid, my dear, gracious lady, that you’re talking to a civilian, a Prussian civilian but a civilian nonetheless. I’m completely convinced that the crown prince, who is a person like you or me, will gratefully kiss your hand if you dare to do the monstrous, as you call it. After all, what are you asking of him? That he get his adjutant to write a couple of words to rescue the situation. Words from on high, like in a fairytale.’ And when Sister Kläre didn’t reply, he suddenly added in a different, more nonchalant tone: ‘We don’t want things to be dictated by a bunch of bourgeois philistines after the war. I’m interested in your view – you don’t want that, do you? Surely the novel Love at Last Sight is worth conquering your compunction for.’

For a moment, silence reigned between them. Sister Kläre looked calmly into her companion’s ugly face, and he looked equally calmly into her beautiful face. She sensed that this frog knew no prejudices and understood people’s ways. For him there was no shame in admitting what one had had the guts to do. Nonetheless, it was unpleasant for a sensitive woman to realise she was the object of tittle-tattle and that her private life, which was of no concern to anyone else, was a source of entertainment for others. If she consented now – all right, I’ll phone the crown prince – she would be confirming the gossip around her and betraying the relationship to this lawyer whom she didn’t know. Caution demanded that she not do it, tact demanded it, femininity, the social contract. No one who counted would blame her for having a friendship with such an agreeable and high-ranking man, a prince and son of the Kaiser, who set every German girl’s heart a-pounding when he carried the white Borussian standard through the streets of Bonn, her home town. Every woman who knew of the liaison envied Klara Schwersenz, formerly Klara Pidderit, or stared up at her in awe. But she must not confess it openly. She must preserve an impassive countenance and the family honour. And this lawyer in uniform wanted her to confess it openly. He sat there girded in tan leather with a look on his fat face, a Socratic look, that exhorted her not to kick up such a fuss when she was so beautiful. Not to erect a cardboard façade between them. Not to act more stupid than life already was. Hadn’t it been really rather a nice experience? And even if it hadn’t – if the best she could say was: it was okay; it was fine – shouldn’t one be extremely grateful for any small pleasure when the whole world faced a doubtful future? Sister Kläre realised she was smiling openly at her own inhibitions, gently mocking herself. She reached her hand out to Posnanski and said: ‘Thank you, Dr Posnanski. I’ll think it over, but for now I must fish our charge out of the bath.’