Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

“Well, well,” the man said, smiling, his voice hearty and welcoming, “here you are. Here you are. Sorry to keep you waiting. Terribly sorry.” He beamed across the room, leaning forward hospitably from his position in front of the desk. He was a short, stocky man with a light, pink face, and pale, silky hair that he wore long, possibly in an attempt to hide what might be an increasing tendency to baldness. He looked like an amiable butcher’s boy, growing a little old for his job, or the strong man in a tumbling act in a small-time circus, the one on the bottom that the others climbed on. Garbrecht stood up and peered at him, trying to remember if he had ever seen the man before.

“No, no,” the man said, waving his pudgy hands, “no, we have never met. Do not trouble your brain. Sit down, sit down. Comfort first. Everything else after.” He leapt lightly across the room and almost pushed Garbrecht into his chair. “It is a lesson I have learned from our friends, the Americans. How to slouch. Look what they’ve accomplished merely by spending most of their time on the base of their spines.” He laughed uproariously, as though the joke were too merry not to be enjoyed, and swept quickly across the room, with his almost leaping, light gait, and hurled himself into the large leather chair behind the desk. He continued beaming at Garbrecht.

“I want to say,” said Garbrecht, “that I have no notion of why I was asked to come here. I merely came,” he said carefully, “because the young lady made me curious, and I had an hour to spare, anyway, and …”

“Enough, enough.” The man rocked solidly back and forth in the squeaking chair. “You came. Sufficient. Delighted. Very pleased. Have a cigarette.…” With a sudden movement, he thrust out the brass cigarette box that lay on the desk.

“Not at the moment, thank you,” Garbrecht said, although his throat was quivering for one.

“Ah,” the fat man said, grinning. “A rarity. Only German known to refuse a cigarette since the surrender. Still, no matter.…” He took a cigarette himself and lighted it deftly. “First, introductions, Lieutenant. My name. Anton Seedorf. Captain, Hermann Goering Division. I keep the title.” He grinned. “A man saves what he can from a war.”

“I imagine,” Garbrecht said, “you know my name.”

“Yes.” Seedorf seemed to bubble with some inward humor. “Oh, yes, I certainly do. Yes, indeed. I’ve heard a great deal about you. Been most anxious to meet you. The arm,” he said, with sudden solemnity. “Where was that?”

“Stalingrad.”

“Ah, Stalingrad,” Seedorf said heartily, as though he were speaking the name of a winter resort at which he had spent a marvelous holiday. “A lot of good souls left there, weren’t there, many good souls. A miscalculation. One of many. Vanity. The most terrible thing in the world, the vanity of a victorious army. A most interesting subject for historians—the role of vanity in military disasters. Don’t you agree?” He peered eagerly at Garbrecht.

“Captain,” Garbrecht said coldly, “I cannot remain here all afternoon.”

“Of course,” Seedorf said. “Naturally. You’re curious about why I invited you here. I understand.” He puffed swiftly on his cigarette, wreathing his pale head in smoke before the cracked mirror. He jumped up and perched himself on the desk, facing Garbrecht, boyishly. “Well,” he said, heartily, “it is past time for hiding anything. I know you. I know your very good record in the Party …”

Garbrecht felt the cold rising in his throat. It’s going to be worse, he thought, worse than I expected.

“… promising career in the army until the unfortunate accident at Stalingrad,” Seedorf was saying brightly, “loyal, dependable, et cetera; there is really no need to go into it at this moment, is there?”

“No,” said Garbrecht, “none at all.” He stood up. “If it is all the same to you, I prefer not to be reminded of any of it. That is all past and, I hope, it will soon all be forgotten.”

Seedorf giggled. “Now, now,” he said. “There is no need to be so cautious with me. To a person like you or me,” he said, with a wide, genial gesture, “it is never forgotten. To a person who has said the things we have said, who did the things we have done, for so many years, a paid Party official, a good soldier, a good German …”

“I am not interested any more,” Garbrecht said loudly but hopelessly, “in being what you call a good German.”

“It is not a question,” Seedorf said, smiling widely and dousing his cigarette, “of what you are interested in, Lieutenant. I beg your pardon. It is a question of what must be done. Simply that.”

“I am not going to do anything,” said Garbrecht.

“I beg your pardon once more.” Seedorf rocked happily back and forth on the edge of the desk. “There are several little things that you can be very useful doing. I beg your pardon, you will do them. You work for the Russians, collecting information in the American zone. A useful fellow. You also work for the Americans, collecting information in the Russian zone.” Seedorf beamed at him. “A prize!”

Garbrecht started to deny it, then shrugged wearily. There might be a way out, but denial certainly was not it.

“We, too, several of us, maybe more than several, could use a little information.” Seedorf’s voice had grown harder, and there was only an echo of jollity left in it, like the sound of laughter dying down a distant alley on a cold night. “We are not as large an organization at the moment as the Russians; we are not as well equipped for the time being, as the Americans … but we are even more … more …” He chuckled as he thought of the word … “Curious. And more ambitious.”

There was silence in the room. Garbrecht stared heavily at the pale, fat head outlined against the broken mirror with its insane, multiplied reflections. If he were alone, Garbrecht knew he would bend his head and weep, as he did so often, without apparent reason, these days.

“Why don’t you stop?” he asked heavily. “What’s the sense? How many times do you have to be beaten?”

Seedorf grinned. “One more time, at least,” he said. “Is that a good answer?”

“I won’t do it,” Garbrecht said. “I’ll give the whole thing up. I don’t want to get involved any more.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Seedorf happily, “you will give up nothing. It is terrible for me to talk to a man who gave his arm for the Fatherland this way,” he said with a kind of glittering facsimile of pity, “but I am afraid the Russians would be told your correct name and Party position from 1934 on, and they would be told of your affiliations with the Americans, and they would be told of your job as adjutant to the commanding officer of Maidanek concentration camp in the winter of 1944, when several thousand people died by orders with your name on them.…”

Seedorf drummed his heels softly and cheerfully against the desk. “They have just really begun on their war trials … and these new ones will not run ten months, Lieutenant. I beg your pardon for talking this way, and I promise you from now on, we will not mention any of these matters again.” He jumped up and came across the room in his swift, round walk. “I know how you feel,” he said softly. “Often, I feel the same way. Quit. Quit now, once and for all. But it is not possible to quit. In a little while you will see that and you will be very grateful.”

“What is it?” Garbrecht said. “What is it that you want me to do?”

“Just a little thing,” Seedorf said. “Nothing at all, really. Merely report here every week and tell me what you have told the Russians and the Americans and what they have told you. Fifteen minutes a week. That’s all there is to it.”