Chris Bohjalian - Skeletons at the Feast

Had the front disintegrated so totally that the Russians had gotten behind him? Now that would be a disaster, as well: To have survived nearly two years by masquerading as a German soldier-German soldiers, actually-only to be overrun by the rampaging Soviets before he could either return to his original self or find a new guise.

As the soldiers emerged from the jeep, Uri realized that he could see the women and the children on one side of the castle wall, and the Russian soldiers on the other. But the Russians were oblivious of the civilians and the civilians were unaware of the Russians. One of the soldiers, a stout, walleyed sergeant with a rat's nest of red hair, was peeing into the snow, and Uri gave himself license to hope they would be here but a moment and move on. And after that he would figure out how he himself would move on. But then the second soldier, a lanky fellow with deeply pockmarked cheeks and a crooked beak for a nose, motioned toward the castle, and they started walking through the gate and inside the ruins.

Now the women saw them and, exactly as Uri had feared, one pulled a small gun from beneath her cape and fired. Her aim was comically bad and she missed both men completely. Instantly the soldiers were upon her. Both of them. The sergeant tackled her, the air reverberating with his howls of relief and mirth that the shooter was a woman and they had not stumbled upon retreating Wehrmacht or home guard. His partner ripped the gun from her fingers, chuckling when he saw the diminutive size of the pistol that almost had killed them. Together they pulled away the hood of her cloak and discovered that the woman was perhaps thirty, with golden hair and a long and gaunt but not unattractive face. She looked more angry than terrified.

Then the soldiers stood and motioned for the woman to remain there on the ground, while they rounded up her sister or friend and their three… girls. Yes, Uri could see now that they were girls. The four other females were lined up against the wall, a grown-up and three youngsters, and when the woman on the ground tried to roll in the snow to see what was happening, the Russian sergeant stepped on her. Barely bothering to look down at her, as if he were popping a rolling balloon at a birthday party with his foot, he smashed his boot flat into her stomach, causing what might have been a shriek of pain to be reduced to an airless gasp.

“Mommy!” the smallest of the three girls cried, and it looked as if she were going to say more but one of the older girls silenced her. Still, it was too late. She had drawn attention to herself and the tall soldier was scrutinizing her carefully. Then he pulled off his glove with his teeth and slid his hand under her coat, reaching down, it seemed, deep into her underwear. He said something to his comrade in a language that was largely foreign to Uri, but he got the gist of it: He'd take this girl first. They were going to begin by raping the girls in front of the women rather than starting with the two adults. The sergeant chuckled at this idea, removed his pistol from his holster, and aimed it down at the woman beneath his boot. She pleaded with him, begged him to take her instead, and he smirked and nodded. Said, Uri thought, that everyone would have a chance.

Quietly Uri pulled his rifle off his shoulder and unclipped the safety. He could take out the Russian standing with his foot atop this mother easily, but the other soldier would be a tougher shot. He was no more than fifty or sixty meters away, and at that distance there was no reason to believe the bullet wouldn't travel right through the fellow and lodge itself deep inside the child: The angle was such that if he aimed for his head, he might shoot the poor girl in the chest. If he aimed for his heart, he might shoot the child in the stomach. Certainly there was a chance that the moment he fired at the first Bolshevik-that one who was now seeming to grind his boot into the woman on the ground-the second would reflexively move away or take cover, and in that instant Uri could blast him, too. But it was equally likely that he might use the child as a shield and fire back at him from behind her.

Already, however, with almost preternatural speed, the Bolshevik had ripped off the poor girl's coat and was tearing open her dress, turning her nearly upside down as he pulled her underpants off her spindly legs so, suddenly, she was stark naked in the cold and the snow. She was screaming, a hairless wild animal with a hillockless chest-all rib cage and pancake-flat areolae, with a pencil dot for a navel-screaming so loudly that the soldier smacked her hard with the back of his hand and her whole body corkscrewed into the ground.

And so Uri gazed at the sergeant through the sight on his Mauser, aimed at a spot on his tunic just about where the fellow's heart would be, and fired. As if the gunshot were the dial that turned down the volume on a radio, the world instantly went quiet except for the echo from the blast. The child stopped howling and the woman stopped pleading, and even the wind seemed abruptly to cease. The sergeant never even turned to see the source of the shot, he simply collapsed into the snow beside the woman. Already, however, Uri was spinning the barrel of his rifle toward the second Russian, who he saw in his sight had his pants at his knees and was fumbling for something-his holster, his penis, Uri couldn't say-and gazing like a frightened animal directly at him. Instinctively Uri calculated the girl would be safer if he fired at the Russian's head, even if it meant a smaller target. This shot wasn't as clean: He took off the soldier's ear and a thin sliver of skull, sending a sizable chunk of hair and scalp splattering against the naked abdomen of the child. Still, he hadn't killed him. It looked like there was a lot of blood, but he barely had slowed him. Fortunately, as the soldier reached for his own gun, he put just enough distance between himself and the girl that this time Uri was able to fire into his stomach. And then, as he fell to his knees, into his chest. And, because Uri was absolutely furious that this bastard had been about to rape a child, into his face one more time.

Only then did Uri stand from his firing position in the tower and work his way down the stone steps to the family. He figured they should get that child dressed and take advantage of the fact they now had a jeep, and drive as far west as they could.

IN HIS CRISP, FRESHLY TAILORED UNIFORM AS A Wehrmacht private, Helmut accompanied his father east to Uncle Karl's estate. The drive usually took less than an hour, but today they had to battle against the crush of evacuees who were clogging the roads, and the trip took most of the morning. They weren't completely sure what they would find when they arrived at the home of Mutti's garrulous, indefatigably good-natured older brother, because the day before the phone service that far east had been cut. But when Mutti had called Karl two days earlier, the last time the siblings had spoken, shells had been falling sporadically in the corners of his property and the outbuilding where he stored the tractors in the winter had been damaged. Nonetheless, Karl had been adamant about staying.

As far back as Christmas Day he had told the Emmerichs, “I will greet the Russian commander as one civilized man to another. Maybe their soldiers are peasants, but I've heard their leaders are well educated. Some grew up before the revolution with the sort of reasonable privilege one expects from officers. On occasion, you know, class means more than country. Really, that's often the case. And so I wouldn't be surprised if we have more in common than any of us realizes. Of course, that presumes it ever comes to that and they actually reach this part of the Vistula. But who's to say they will? War is all about tides, and the tide should be with us again soon.”