Skeletons at the Feast

  Then the three of them buried the boy, standing for a moment in the morning sun beside the flattened earth with the tombstone made of timber, aware of the sound of the surf and the gulls and-- somewhere to the east and the south--artillery fire.

  When they were done, Anna and Callum went to harness the two horses to one of the wagons. It didn't seem to make sense anymore to bring both wagons. They only had the two horses, Ragnit and Waldau, which meant they didn't need all that feed. Besides, it was Balga who had been the insatiable eater, the warhorse with an appetite that matched his charisma. Moreover, the snow was largely melted now and the pair that remained could graze on the spring grass that was slowly transforming the world from gray to green. And Theo and Sonje were no longer traveling with them: They were down to a party of three. Fewer people, fewer horses. Everything was dwindling. If they ever did reach the British or the Americans, Anna wondered who would be left.

  It was as they were finishing the task, as Mutti was draping a sheet over the divan in the bay window that looked out upon the street, that the three of them saw Manfred. A motorcycle roared down the almost preternaturally silent road and skidded to a stop perhaps a dozen meters from the horses, kicking up gravel and dust. At first neither the lone woman inside the house nor the young people with the animals outside recognized him. Instead of the gray and green uniform of a Wehrmacht corporal, he was wearing a rubberized motorcycle coat, with an officer's shoulder boards attached to loops there.

  "He's a bloody captain," Callum said, the incredulity apparent in his voice, and together with Anna he started over to him. "The man deserts his company for weeks at a time in the middle of winter--in the midst of an enemy offensive, for God's sake--and he winds up an officer come the spring."

  Manfred was wearing a steel helmet with an eagle and a swastika on the side, and when he pulled it off Anna thought his face looked longer and thinner than ever. His cheekbones seemed especially chiseled because he had shaved in the morning. When she went to stand beside him, she smelled soap and was surprised. She understood intellectually that the reality that he had found a place to bathe and shave before coming here didn't belie the privations he had almost certainly endured. But it seemed to suggest to her a level of comfort and ease that she hadn't expected. And, for reasons she did not initially understand, it upset her, and so instead of greeting him warmly--or even politely--she blurted out the first thought that came to her mind, the first news that mattered: "Theo passed away. He died just last night." And then, suddenly, her shoulders collapsed and she was sobbing, and she felt Callum's large hand on her back and she shook it off with a violent shudder as if it were an animal that had leapt there unexpectedly from a branch in the jungle.

  "What? How?" Manfred asked, and he reached for her. He started to embrace her, to pull her into him, and she pushed him away, too, just as she had Callum. She was angry and she wasn't sure why. But she knew she was. Yes, Theo would most likely have died even if Manfred hadn't left them--deserted them--back in February, but the fact he hadn't been present when her little brother had finally expired infuriated her. And while she could see that she wasn't being reasonable, she didn't care. She just didn't care at all. She had seen too much, she had heard too much, she had lost too much. At the moment, she simply wanted nothing to do with either of these men. With any men. With the men, like her father and her brothers, who were dead somewhere for reasons that made absolutely no sense, and with men like these two--men who were all too willing to fight the first chance they got, who had shot those Russians needlessly in that barn and would probably have shot each other by now if it weren't for her and Mutti and Theo. She turned from them both and stormed up the front walkway, where she saw Mutti standing just inside the heavy wooden door. Her mother saw her tears and the way she was shaking her head in disgust, but before the woman could even try to console her Anna barreled upstairs to the guestroom in which she had been staying and threw herself facedown on the bed. The paper blackout shades were still on the glass, and she was glad. She wanted the room to be dark. She knew they had to leave Stettin soon--they should have left yesterday, or the day before that--but she no longer cared. Let the Russians do what they wanted. Theo was dead, as--she had to presume--were her father and both of her soldier brothers. She simply didn't give a damn whether the Russians raped her or hanged her or crucified her. Let them do to her what they did to those poor girls in Nemmersdorf and Pillau. To her own cousin, Jutta. She found herself envying the German children who had been given small envelopes with poison to carry with them, or--like Gabi--been taught how to slash their wrists. If she were braver, she thought, she would have cut her wrists long ago.

  Outside her room she heard the sound of her mother padding up the stairs, but she lacked the energy to push herself off the bed and go lock the door. In a moment she was aware of the mattress sagging just a bit when her mother sat down beside her, and then she felt one of Mutti's strong hands making gentle circles around her shoulders and her spine and massaging the back of her neck. She didn't know how her mother could do it, how her mother could handle so much. She just couldn't imagine how anyone could shoulder a loss this great after so many others.

  Mutti said nothing, and soon Anna heard her own cries slowing to mere sniffles. She was relieved that her mother wasn't asking her questions and seemed content at the moment merely to rub her back and ruminate on the cataclysmic losses that she herself had no choice but to endure.

  callum saw the two rucksacks strapped to the motorcycle and the clothing that was protruding from the loosely buckled opening at the top of one of them. He recognized the color of a Russian uniform, but he didn't say anything. There were myriad explanations, but none in the paratrooper's opinion were going to shed an especially favorable light on Manfred. It was strange, but Callum found himself viewing the corporal--or, perhaps, the captain--as a Machiavellian deserter and thinking less of him for it. But then he would remind himself that someone who deserted the German army was thus his ally and should be viewed as a friend. It was the reality that he had deserted them. This was what it was about Manfred that disturbed him now. Moreover, he recalled those moments in February when it had seemed to him that Manfred was trying to catch Anna's eye--or, perhaps, she was trying to catch his. He feared that Anna saw something in Manfred, something he lacked, and the notion made him uncomfortable. Why was it, he wondered, that Anna had only broken down when Manfred had arrived? Was it simply the fact that Manfred was German, too? Had these people become such an insular tribe under Hitler--such a race unto themselves--that they were drawn to each other like seals in April and May? He told himself he was being ridiculous, reminded himself that Anna was his and his alone, but his anxiety continued to linger.

  "Did the boy suffer long?" the captain was saying to him now.

  "Yes, I think so," he told Manfred. "He was in and out of consciousness, and that might have spared him some pain. But his mother suffered. As did Anna. It wasn't pretty to watch."

  "And you think it was an infection from the amputation?"

  "Versus?"

  "Typhus, maybe."

  "No, it wasn't typhus."

  "He seemed like a nice kid--"

  "He was a wonderful boy. He was smart. Courageous. Plucky. Don't call him a nice kid," Callum snapped. "It sounds like you're dismissing him. It's as if you feel you have to say something, and so you say he's a nice kid. Well, Theo was that. But he was also bright and giving and stronger than any of us realized. Yes, he was quiet. And he was shy. But that child didn't miss a thing. And he endured a hell of a lot this winter before he died. I have a cousin who's fourteen, and I can't imagine him putting up with half of what poor Theo did before he passed away. You told me in February you don't have any brothers or sisters, so I doubt you can even begin to imagine that sense of loss."

  "I've lost others."

  "Losing your mates in battle is not the same thing. That's hard, too--"

  "Not that you'd know."

  "All I meant i
s that Theo was one hell of a good chap. I don't want to see his memory diminished."

  "I'm sorry for him. And for his family."

  "Thank you."

  The German looked at him briefly with his eyebrows raised, clearly a little bemused by the way he had accepted the condolences on behalf of the Emmerichs--as if he himself were a part of the family. Then Manfred seemed to shrug it off and asked, "So, do you think I should bother to put the motorcycle in the carriage barn? Or should I just leave it right here on the street for the Russians?"

  "I don't suppose you're actually going to join the defense of this city."

  "I'm not sure there is a defense. Everyone is scurrying west as fast as they can."

  "Then why in the name of God would you leave the motorcycle behind?" Callum asked him. "You can't possibly prefer walking."

  He tapped the gas tank. "No petrol. I coasted the last stretch on fumes. And there isn't a liter of fuel to be found in all of Stettin."

  "Not even for a dedicated soldier of the Reich?"

  He smirked. "Ah, and none for me, either."

  "So you're going with us . . . again?"

  "I am."

  "Why?"

  "I like your company," he said, not even a trace of sarcasm in his response this time.

  "Tell me something."

  "Yes?"

  "How have you not been shot?"

  "By the Russians?"

  "By your own bloody army. I would think you would have been executed by now, not advanced to an officer."

  He seemed to think about this. Then: "I do my share, it seems."

  "Where have you been the last four or five weeks? Dare I ask?"

  "Well, I haven't been hiding out in a lovely house near the Baltic. Tell me, is this the first time they let you out? Have you been a house pet--an indoor cat--the whole time?"

  Callum inhaled slowly through his nose and tried to remain composed. He was a Scot in the middle of Stettin. He was unarmed at the moment and he was talking to a German captain. And, the truth was, he had indeed spent most of his time here either indoors or in the backyard. His greatest, most risky excursion? Carrying Theo to and from the hospital. He was only outside in front of the house now because they were harnessing the horses and loading the wagon, and were about to try to catch up to the long columns of refugees streaming west. And while Mutti must have suspected that he and Anna were now something more than friends, they had not gone out of their way to specify their relationship for the woman. He and Anna had discussed whether they should. But first the fact they were in Elfi's house had precluded them, and then Theo had gotten sick. And so instead of answering Manfred's question he said simply, "You got here just in time. If you'd come half an hour from now, we might have been gone."

  "That would have saddened me," he said, and he took a pair of the leather straps that were dangling near the horse's chest and buckled them together.

  "Really?"

  "Yes."

  "I have to ask, then: Why?"

  "Why have I come back?"

  "Exactly. Is it Anna?"

  At the far end of the block, along the cross street, they watched a German staff car speed past and then, a moment later, a pair of half-tracks loaded down with soldiers driving in the opposite direction.

  "There are staff officers still here in town," Manfred said and he sounded surprised--almost incredulous. "I would have thought they would have left days ago. Most of this ship is underwater. The rats should be long gone."

  "You didn't answer my question. Are you in love with Anna?"

  Manfred seemed to smirk. "Oh, I don't think I know her well enough to be in love with her."

  "But you might be?"

  "No, not likely. You can sleep easy. And I promise you, I didn't come back here because of her. Can we leave it at that?"

  "We can," he said. "But I really don't see why you're with us and not with your unit."

  Nearby a shell fell and exploded, one of the first to hit the outskirts of the city itself. Callum guessed it was no more than three or four blocks distant, and along the street a block to the west. A plume of brackish smoke began to curl up into the spring air. Seconds later another shell detonated even closer, this one no more than a block away, and the men watched as both horses sniffed at the air.

  uri hadn't planned on telling Callum his story that moment. There were still plenty of Nazis who would have been all too happy to gas him or shoot him, despite the fact their cause was irretrievably lost. And he certainly didn't want to get into the details at the start of an artillery barrage. But, the truth was, a reason why he had come back was this Scotsman standing before him now, and so--almost impulsively--he said, "I don't really have a unit."

  "Well, that's a surprise. How come? Dare I ask?"

  "Because, my friend, I'm a Jew," he said, the words liberating in a way he hadn't expected, a stupendous, bracing, and unforeseen release. Abruptly, his story was spilling from him. "You asked if I know loss? Trust me: I know loss. I've spent two years trying to stay alive by hiding out in the German army--and for a few days not precisely in Ivan's army, but with a Russian coat on my back-- and my goal now is to get to your army in the west. Get to your people or the Americans. I want out of Germany. I want off this continent. And so if I have come back for anyone, Callum, it is for you."

  "Me?"

  "Indeed."

  In the doorway, driven outside by the proximity of the falling bombs, were Mutti and Anna, each of them wrapped in a shawl and carrying a small bundle with clothing. The larger suitcases were already in the wagon. The air was starting to fill with dust from the building on the next block that had been hit, and somewhere in the distance there was a siren.

  "I'm trusting you not to tell them," he added before the two women had reached them.

  "Why?" Callum asked. "You know them. You can't possibly think they're anti-Semites."

  "You're the first person I've told, and I only told you because I thought it might make our walk together a little more peaceful."

  Callum wasn't completely sure he believed him. He thought he did. And he wanted to believe him. But this fellow seemed willing to do whatever it took to survive--impersonating all manner of German or Russian soldiers--and now he was insisting he was Jewish. It was just as likely he was SS. Nevertheless, he had come back here to be with them. And that had to mean something. Moreover, he had made them all feel a little safer when he had been with them, hadn't he? He was a chameleon, but he was also as tough as any soldier Callum had met in either army.

  Still, he wasn't going to hide something from the Emmerichs. "If you don't tell them, I will," he said finally.

  "Tell us what?" Mutti asked. "Is it about the Russians?" She sounded almost fatalistic.

  "Manfred here has a bit of a bombshell."

  "Uri, actually. My name isn't Manfred. It's Uri."

  Mutti looked a little perplexed to Callum, and then her eyes widened as if she understood. "You're a spy?" she asked.

  Anna turned to her mother, took the bundle from her arms, and tossed it unceremoniously into the wagon. "No, Mutti, I don't think that's what he means at all." She looked at him, her eyes still red from her tears, and said, "Is this your way of telling us you're Jewish?"

  He realized that he was shifting his feet anxiously. "Yes."

  "Fine. It's lovely to have you with us once more as a traveling companion. We missed you. Now, shall we leave?"

  A small series of shells landed on the next block, close enough that Waldau snorted nervously and turned his massive neck as far as he could in the direction of the noise.

  "I told you they wouldn't care," said Callum.

  "Okay, then," he agreed, and he took the two rucksacks off the motorcycle, tossing one over his shoulder and grasping the other by one of its buckles.

  "Why don't you put those in the wagon?" Anna suggested. "I think the horses can handle them."

  He thought about this, but only for a moment. Then he placed the packs in the long farm cart b
eside the bags of feed and the luggage and turned back to the women.

  "Mrs. Emmerich?"

  "Yes."

  "I am so sorry about Theo. He was"--and here he paused, glancing briefly at Callum--"a courageous and wonderful young man. I can't tell you how much I liked him. It's a terrible loss."

  She looked back at him with a strength that he found a little disarming. "It is," she said. "But I thank you. And I am sure you have had your losses, too."

  He nodded. He had, he had. He could feel Anna and Callum watching him, and their gazes made him uncomfortable. He realized he had put them at risk by revealing his identity and began to regret his spontaneity with the Scotsman. "As far as you all know," he told them, "I'm Captain Heinz Bauer."