Arnost Lustig - Lovely Green Eyes

He knew that army whores didn’t concern themselves with the technicalities of warfare. They did not care about strategy or tactics, positional fighting, or defence in trenches protected by minefields, let alone about Operation Barbarossa or the Blue Plan which replaced it because the original Blitzkrieg did not allow for retreat. It was ancient history by now that at the beginning of the campaign the men didn’t get winter clothing or boots because it was believed that they’d be home before the winter. Was it true then that pride came before a fall? If you want to know what winter means, he thought, you should spend a day in the east. That’s what the pious old women on his mother’s side used to say. Wer andern eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein . He who digs a hole for others will fall into it himself. He smiled.

“War or no war, millions of women throughout the world get pregnant each day. More than those killed on all fronts. Added to this there are five times as many men crippled as killed. Think how many broken families that means. Good manners command the cripples to make room for their rivals and withdraw with their tail between their legs. I see them terrified of dusk, of the approach of night, of the expectations of their wives.”

He was watching the wolves in the half light.

“The worst thing is the frosts.”

For her the worst thing in Poland had not been the frosts.

He turned away from the window to face her.

“You’ll have pretty hair when it grows again. I like redheads. Do you get it from your mother or your father?”

She took a second to think of a reply. “From my father’s mother.” Captain Hentschel began to dress. “Light the candle, will you? I can’t see my boots.”

He was thinking that the enemy had approached within artillery range. Today it was heavy guns; tomorrow it would be machine guns. Gone were the days when they’d advanced with the wind behind them. Now they were retreating. They were being chased back to where they had come from.

“The fog is at home here.”

She noticed that he had not put his pullover on. It was lying on the chair.

“Keep it, I have another.”

“Thank you. Shall I get dressed?”

“Put it straight on next to your body. That’s what Lilo used to do.”

From the pocket of his greatcoat, which he had put on but not done up, he produced a flask. He unscrewed the cap. His holster was still on the hook.

“Yes, you can get dressed,” he answered, “but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. You’re a feast for the eyes when you’ve nothing on. You haven’t got much of anything.”

“No,” she said, almost against her will.

Again she thought of her father. If he were to see her like this, with a Wehrmacht captain, and this enormous pullover over her naked body … It went down to her thighs. Would this be a greater dishonour to her father than if he saw her dead? It was her body she had killed, not the religion of her ancestors. To her father, as a whore she would be as good as dead. Should she be glad that her family no longer existed? She felt the coarse bulky wool on her; she was warm and realized how welcome the pullover was. Did she know where the captain had got it? She knew where he had got his greatcoat. She might make the excuse to her father that she had not been with the captain; he had been with her. Would her father believe her if she lied and said she would rather be dead? It would only be half a lie. Had she committed a sin by wanting to live?

“Will you have a drink with me?” the captain asked.

He poured himself a thimbleful and drank it in one go. He poured out another. She expected him to drink that too, but he handed it to her. He was treating her as no-one in the brothel had treated her before.

She stood by the bed in his pullover, no longer wondering whether it came from the store at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She knocked the drink back in one gulp, like the captain, and started coughing. The captain laughed, it was a chesty laugh, deep and grating like his voice.

He poured himself a second shot and drank it in one gulp.

“Yesterday I killed a Russian who’d killed a comrade before my eyes. I grabbed a rifle and struck his head, perhaps 15 times. You can’t control yourself when your blood is up. What can be worse than seeing a comrade killed at your side?”

Did he assume she was on his side? The S S men in the camps had expected total submission. They believed that the conquered should feel honoured, should appreciate and admire their conquerors. It was the only glory, reflected glory that could fall on them before they perished.

Beneath his greatcoat she could see an Iron Cross. Who knew what he’d got it for? He had been to Auschwitz-Birkenau for a share in the loot held in those huge stores of everything that her father, mother, grandmothers, aunts and uncles and untold others had regarded as indispensable to life, and of which they had been stripped. That, in her eyes, made something cling to him, as it would cling to Germany to the end of all time.

As he poured his third shot he said: “Even a German sometimes forgets that he is a German.”

She did not know what that meant.

“Do you have a shop here for the troops? They do at some brothels.”

“Not here.”

“I’m leaving you a few marks. 30 enough?”

She was overcome with shame. The same kind of shame as when she stood before him naked.

“You’ve already given me your pullover.”

“So?”

“We’re not allowed to ask for money.”

“As far as I know you’re not under orders to refuse it.”

He put three ten-mark notes on the chair. It was obvious that he didn’t want to offend her. He didn’t say what had been on the tip of his tongue: Anyone going with a whore is a bit of a prostitute himself.

“Next time I’ll bring you a bag of millet. Your stomach must be rumbling. I’ve no intention of cooking food for myself.”

She was thrown by the words “next time”. He smiled. He touched the tip of her nose. If it was possible, he said, he would come again.

She dressed quickly.

He put on his belt, closed the buckle and adjusted the holster. Her eyes were tired and worried, as they had been when he arrived. If he stood up straight the ceiling was too low for him. He touched one of the beams. He might come at Christmas.

“Would you like to see the New Year in with me? I’ll let off a red signal flare outside the estate. To let you know I’ve arrived.”

He looked at her more carefully.

“What is that in your eyes? Hatred?” He bent down to her, his legs wide apart, his face very close.

“We’re not allowed to kiss,” she said once more.

Suddenly he didn’t look so huge or so polite as he might have wished. He said he didn’t care what he was or wasn’t allowed to do. For a few seconds, before he pulled himself together, he looked at her more as he would a lover than a prostitute. She didn’t recognize this. She had had over 70 experiences as an army prostitute but not a single one as a lover. She dared not pull away from his hand behind her neck, kept there so he could kiss her.

“I must stoke up the fire or it will go out,” she said.

She did not find it agreeable to be kissed by him. Every touch reminded her of who he was.

He was still putting off his leaving. She was getting impatient. He produced a cigarette case from his pocket and with his lighter lit a slim Juno.

“Alight and drawing,” he said. “At least something’s functioning. Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Never tried it?”

“As a child.”

“Would you like one?”

“No, thank you. Really.”

He looked at the hot flue as if he was seeing it for the first time in his life. He was reminded of something, and smiled.