Ingo Schulze - New Lives

Edgar had thought that the way they were standing silently at the door had actually meant they’d come to an agreement. Discipline, Mehnert had demanded it. It had been a victory for discipline, the way the entire company gathered outside the door in silence.

“He’ll start bawling, but that’ll be all he’ll do, you’ll see.”

“There’ll be more to it than that. Just wait and see what all he’ll try.”

Edgar kept on working, with even more regular, more rhythmic strokes, he thought. Like a musician Edgar could close his eyes, concentrating just on the rustle of the brush weighed down with metal plates and on the clicking sound when he changed directions. His arms knew, his whole body knew when he needed to brake the waxer so it wouldn’t bang into the wall. Whenever a corner of the brush hit, it left holes in the plaster, which trickled down and was then evenly distributed by the brush. The only thing that bothered Edgar was how he couldn’t help thinking about Pitt’s stupid joke about waxing and stomach muscles and screwing.

The spy’s weapon was a submachine gun. Edgar would have loved to trade with him, although a machine gun was heavier. But his own grenade launcher looked like a bassoon or something. He always felt ridiculous crawling through the sand with an instrument like that on his shoulder, even if it was the only weapon that could take out a tank. So they said, at least. In the APC they sat next to each other on the bench behind the first gunner. They could stretch their legs there or change off lying on the floor. But Edgar was quartered in a different room. Otherwise it might well have been him instead of Teichmann and Bär who had to testify as his victims: Yes, I said that, yes, I said that, in a regular rhythm, so that it took Edgar three swipes with the waxer, left, right, left — yes, I said that, three times across the width of the hall, click, click, click — yes, I said that. The spy had written it all down, word for word. And Mehnert had the proof in his hand, Private Mehnert, a “junior,” driver, room corporal.

Teichmann — who because of his ponderous gait and gray hair everyone assumed was from the reserves — didn’t want to have anything to do with this circus. It was different with Bär, who approved of what Mehnert was doing. But Bär didn’t want any blows struck either, at least that wasn’t part of the plan.

“Nobody said anything about ‘at ease.’ Did some one say ‘at ease’?”

“Hey you, hey spy, that’s a question, did anyone give the order ‘at ease’?”

[Letter of March 4, 1990]

They had kicked the spy’s legs out from under him.

Edgar pushed the waxer up close to the first pair of boots and past some slippers, and Frank — the first gunman from his group, who always said he was the lucky one, because during an attack he wouldn’t have to get out and run across an open field — offered Edgar his stool. “He wants it this way, he’s provoking it,” Frank exclaimed as he ran to the john.

The spy doesn’t know anything about a plan, and so he’s not scared. And you can always tell if someone’s scared or not. They don’t have to say anything. Just a glance will do. And a glance like that is the worst sort of provocation. Or a gesture of the hand. His hands aren’t bound tight, although his wrists are tied even with his head to the cross brace where it joins the frame at the foot of the top bunk. Bär had moved his hands during the dry run, as if he were trying to wave or fly — at any rate it had been so funny that even Mehnert and Pitt had laughed.

That cracking sound was slapping. It was perfectly natural for all this to escalate. Kicking his feet out from under him was childish. If you hit the heel just right, the guy went sprawling. But the spy couldn’t fall, he was bound to the bed. Slaps hurt.

“Stuff his mouth with the shit!”

“Swallow it, spy.”

“Dicks on parade, dicks on parade!”

When the spy didn’t open his mouth, they tried to force him with slaps. Mehnert wanted to rip the page in pieces, three times, not too small and not too big, the spy should have to chew a little.

Edgar had held the page, scribbled full of slanted lines, in his own hand. Mehnert had given it to anyone who wanted to see. But whoever wanted to read it would have to join in, it was as straightforward as that — straight straightforward, Bär had said. Edgar tried to imagine what it looks like when you stuff paper into somebody’s mouth. Crumpled up or in a stack of little slips like a piece of pyramid cake. Edgar had once cut his tongue licking an envelope. But how did you force him to chew and swallow? And what if he spit it all out? Who would pick up the soggy pieces? Did you then start all over again? They were bellowing so loud now it was as if there weren’t an officer anywhere in the whole regiment.

Edgar shoved the waxer along behind the pack of them. When he had room again, it took a while for him to get his rhythm back.

Edgar stopped humming once he noticed that it was the melody of “I Wanna Be a Polar Bear.” He didn’t like the song any better than he liked Pitt’s joke about it. But what with all the noise, he couldn’t come up with another tune. Edgar was working much too fast now, as if trying to get away from the yowling. But he didn’t want to get away. He wasn’t afraid. He knew the plan and he knew Mehnert’s laugh — the way his mouth repeated the curves of his chin, a clownish laugh. Maybe Mehnert would laugh like that when he removed the spy’s belt and pulled down his pants — laugh with pride at how his plan had been no empty promise. With uniform pants all you had to do was unhook the front and pull the suspenders aside, but he’d have to take hold of his own long johns and pull them down. Or were Mehnert and Bär already rubbing the spy’s butt with shoe polish? No, Mehnert would spare himself that — that was dirty work for somebody else he’d call forward, somebody who would make the others laugh. The spy wouldn’t laugh, even if it tickled. Who knows what a shoe brush feels like on your naked ass and if you might not get used to it — or whether the spy’s cheeks would pinch tight in reflex. And if he did laugh? He’d regret it. Or start bawling? What do you do with a bawling spy? He wouldn’t bawl. The spy keeps his eyes down or looks at the ceiling. And what if he looked at the others, looked them in the eye? What would be the point? To memorize their names? To swear revenge? The whole affair was too cut-and-dried for that. If there was such a thing as hard proof, that was the case here. The spy was being served his just desserts, taught a lesson. Edgar wondered how much Mehnert was risking in deciding to do this. Mehnert had guts, he was the ringleader, he’d be the first to be punished.

Where the hallway opened onto the stairwell, Edgar gave the waxer more of a free rein. He could in fact feel his stomach muscles. The second-in-command stood up from his desk as if to make way for Edgar, and then headed to join the pack.

Why hadn’t the spy yelled for some noncoms? Two of them had watched, Detchens and Freising, the good-looking Spaniard. Someone brought them a stool. But even if they were to say something, give the order to cease and desist, it wouldn’t have made any difference. It would only impair their authority. And if the spy begged for them to help free him? Let him try it, just a simple “Comrade officer, help me!” That would put Freising and Detchens on the hot seat.

“Mehnert’s painting his dick,” the second-in-command said as he passed Edgar on the way to the john.

They were really into it now. Mehnert dabbed the tip of the spy’s cock with a brush. Like an animal trainer Mehnert would get the spy’s cock to rear up. And every one of them wanted to see some other guy get hard, since his was the only dick he’d ever had in his hand. Edgar forced himself to think of soccer, school, hiking trips. “I wanna be a polar bear, up in the cold, cold north, wouldn’t have a single care…” Mehnert in the role of his life. The spy’s cock would rise above right angle, like an obscene salute. Mehnert planned to hang the spy’s belt over his hard-on and then count how long it would hang there, like a boxing referee. Then it would be time for photographs — of the woman the spy claimed was his girlfriend, although he never wrote to her. The spy hadn’t thought about that. The only letters he gets, Mehnert said, are from his mother and some other guy.