Арнольд Цвейг - Outside Verdun

Pahl’s thoughts, as he tossed from side to side turning his face to the blue sky in the window, were as always focused on the essential dilemma of how to reawaken in the engineer and his kind the sense they’d had in their youth that they mustn’t squander their gifts. How could you teach them to see beyond their education – their training to act as faithful servants to the religion of private property as manifest in all the raw materials and natural forces that had been torn from their original owners – everyone? On the horizon Pahl saw a vision of suffering humanity awaiting its freedom and felt dizzy because he wasn’t strong enough for the enormous task that awaited him at home. Because life on the breadline – cramped housing, poor food, lack of time and education, insufficient schooling, monotonous work, lack of hope and longing for the comforts of the middle classes – paralysed or perverted whatever ideas, talent and special qualities slumbered in the vast army of the exploited. Bertin had once explained to him that Christianity had triumphed because it had awakened self-awareness in women, slaves, prisoners of war and children, had unleashed and unfettered their abilities to the benefit of the community. In this, as in so many other respects, Christianity was a precursor of socialism. Would he live to see a time, 20 years after the war, when one or two liberated nations had been able to show what colossal creative forces lay within them, after this frenzy of destruction?

When Kroysing returned to the room, Sister Kläre was clearing up and Lieutenant Flachsbauer had been taken down to the massage room to try out a few simple appliances and would be gone for half an hour at least. Kroysing was bristling with tension, and the engine of his will crackled and sparked. He sat on the bed and looked at this woman sluicing the floor with a pungent solution of Lysol. ‘Well, Kläre,’ he said abruptly, ‘what’s to become of us?’

Frau Colonel Schwersenz turned her beautiful nun’s eyes on him in shock. Had she hidden her feelings so badly? ‘What can I do for the young gentleman?’ she asked in servant’s mode, mocking both of them.

He looked at her sadly. ‘Come off it,’ he said. ‘Let’s put all that nonsense to one side and look at the matter honestly. If I were a foreman and you were a maid we’d have come to an agreement long ago and we’d now be considering how and on what basis to get married. Our situation is more complicated because we’re distinguished people.’

Sister Kläre felt herself flush with fear. ‘Lie down, Lieutenant. Rest your leg and don’t say things you can’t answer for.’ At the same time, she was ashamed of this inhibited avoidance tactic.

Kroysing lay down obediently, watching her fixedly. ‘Kläre,’ he said, ‘you know how things are. There were three men in this room who loved you. One of them has trundled off, the best and weakest of them, and now sleepy old Flachsbauer may dream of you his whole life long, which will do him good as he won’t get you. I’m the one who’s either going to marry you or snuff it.’

Sister Kläre made as if to push him away. ‘You’re a blackmailer. You’re like a mad vice.’

But Kroysing shook his head: ‘I’m just telling it as it is. I’m mad about you Kläre, not just in that way but in all conceivable ways. When I think of having you beside me day and night for the next 20 years, I feel I could jump on to the ceiling and bang the walls. You know that. You’re not a coward. You’re a real woman and your heart’s in the right place. I’m not trying to blind you with romance. I’m not producing flutes and violins. I’m not trying to stroke your leg or put my hand on your breast…’

‘You’ll get a cuff round the ear if you do, Lieutenant.’

‘…but I can’t sleep for asking myself how I’ll feed us and arrange accommodation. As long as the war lasts, I have to go where GHQ sends me. At the moment I’m just an ordinary sapper lieutenant but in nine months I’ll be a famous airman – or a pile of ashes.’

Sister Kläre looked at him wide-eyed, then she closed her eyes, took two steps towards the bed, opened them again, realised she had a wet cloth in her hands, wrapped it round the scrubbing brush and finished mopping the room.

He carried on talking as she mopped, and she felt his eyes following her every movement. ‘When the war is over and we’ve both come through it, you without having caught any diseases and me without having broken my neck or my big nose – when we’re back in Germany and everyone’s celebrating victory, what can I offer you then? That buckled lad Pahl next door is no fool. What prospects does an engineer have? As a boy, I always dreamt of being a ship’s captain in the merchant navy. I thought it would be wonderful to stand on the bridge and command some great white tub from port to starboard, from the top of the mast to the bilge – to be responsible for it. Of course it never occurred to me that the captain doesn’t own a single rivet on the ship. Now I know that a captain is really a modestly paid transport engineer with few options for advancement, even if his wife can travel round the world first class. So what do I really have to offer you apart from myself? A nice four-bedroomed house in Nuremberg or Augsburg, a couple of lovely old people as in-laws and with a bit of luck a car if the company provides one? I think I’ll manage to get one.’

Sister Kläre suddenly fell back into the cockiness she’d rediscovered in the field after 15 years of marriage. ‘Really?’ she said innocently. ‘Well, that would be necessary. For without a car – I’m afraid I couldn’t be happy without a car, Lieutenant.’

Kroysing fell for it. ‘That’s just it,’ he said despondently. ‘I imagine you couldn’t be. I don’t know how you lived before you came here. People say you’re from a rich family and your husband was a staff officer. We’d have to cut right back, Kläre. Not everyone can live like that.’

Later, Sister Kläre often remembered the absurd, sweet joy that flooded her during those morning hours on the 20th of March – the calm, collected way the young man wooed her, which he seemed to find as natural as the healing gun wound in his leg.

‘It’s nice of you to acknowledge the existence of my husband, Lieutenant Kroysing.’

‘There’s divorce,’ he answered curtly.

‘And there are Catholics,’ she said in the same tone.

Kroysing sat on the bed and peered at her. ‘Kläre,’ he said hoarsely, ‘you’re not going to tell me there can’t be anything between us because you’ve been married for a few years.’

‘A few years!’ said Sister Kläre. ‘Fifteen years!’ And that numeral inspired her to think of all the terrible difficulties of the situation. ‘You don’t just separate after that long because you’ve found someone younger who wants you. You’ve had a life together, and that deserves respect and consideration and a place in your heart. I’m not some kind of hussy who skips from bed to bed with no baggage. No, my dear friend, there’s a lot to think about, a lot of dissenting voices that must be considered, a lots of barriers. And if I’m to take your proposal seriously—’

‘Kläre,’ he cried, standing up on one leg with his injured leg bent under him, supporting himself on the bed with one hand and reaching out to her with the other.

With a happy but wistful laugh, she backed towards the door. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said firmly.

‘I’m sick of thinking,’ he cried almost angrily. ‘First she wanted to think about whether she could make a telephone call and save my friend, and now she wants to think about whether she can end her marriage and marry me. Well, my extremely thoughtful lady, I believe in acting quickly. If you’re prepared to marry me, phone the crown prince before midnight tonight. If you don’t want me, all you have to do is say tonight that you’d prefer to phone him in the morning. Agreed?’