While in South America embalmed bodies were accumulating in the house of Professor Jones and a copulation inspired by a serpent’s bite engendered a little girl whose mother would call her Eva so she would love life, also in Europe reality took on abnormal dimensions. The war sank the world into confusion and fear. By the time the little girl was walking, clinging to her mother’s skirts, peace was being signed on the other side of the Atlantic on a continent in ruins. Meanwhile, on this side of the ocean, few lost any sleep over that distant violence. They were sufficiently occupied with violence of their own.
* * *
As he grew up, Rolf Carlé proved to be observant, proud, and tenacious, with a certain inclination toward romanticism that he looked on as a sign of weakness. In that age of glorification of war, he and his friends played at bloodshed in the trenches and shooting planes from the sky; but secretly he was moved by the buds of each spring, the flowers of summer, the gold of autumn, and the melancholy whiteness of winter. In each of the seasons, he walked through the woods collecting leaves and insects to study under his magnifying glass. He tore pages from his notebooks and wrote poems, which he then hid in the hollows of tree trunks or beneath stones with the inadmissible hope that someone might find them. He never spoke of this to anyone.
He was ten years old the afternoon they took him to bury the dead. He was happy that day, because his brother Jochen had trapped a hare and the house was filled with the aroma of the meat, marinated in vinegar and rosemary, stewing over a slow fire. He had not smelled that smell in a very long time, and his mouth was watering with such anticipated pleasure that only his strict upbringing prevented him from lifting the lid and sticking a spoon in the pot. It was also baking day. He loved seeing his mother bent over the enormous kitchen table, elbow-deep in dough, moving to the measured rhythm of making bread. She kneaded the ingredients, formed long rolls of dough, divided them, and from each piece produced a round loaf. Before, in times of plenty, she had put aside a bit of the dough, added milk, eggs, and cinnamon, and made buns that she stored in a tin—one for each child for each day of the week. Now the flour was mixed with bran, and the result was dark and harsh, like bread made of sawdust.
The day had begun with a commotion in the street—movement of the occupation troops, shouted orders—but no one was overly startled; their fear had been exhausted in the rout of defeat, and they had little left to expend in premonitions of bad omens. Following the armistice, the Russians had moved into the village. Rumors of brutality preceded the soldiers of the Red Army, and the terrified populace awaited a bloodbath. They are beasts, people said; they slash open the bellies of pregnant women and throw the fetuses to the dogs; they run their bayonets through old people; they stick dynamite up men’s asses and blow them to bits; they rape, burn, destroy. However, none of that happened. Searching for an explanation, the mayor concluded that they were indeed fortunate; the soldiers who occupied their town had not come from the most war-ravaged part of the Soviet Union, and therefore they had less stored-up bitterness and unfulfilled revenge. They had rumbled into town, heavy vehicles pulling all their matériel, under the command of a young officer with Asian features; they had requisitioned all the food, stowed everything they could find of value in their knapsacks, and had shot six prominent members of the community accused of collaborating. The soldiers set up camp on the edge of the village and stayed to themselves. That day, however, they had rounded up all the townspeople, mustering them over loudspeakers and going into houses to roust out the hesitant. Frau Carlé wrapped a jacket around Katharina’s shoulders and hurried outside before the soldiers could come in and commandeer the hare and the week’s bread. With her three children, Jochen, Katharina, and Rolf, she went to the public square. The village had survived those war years in better shape than most, in spite of the bomb that had fallen on the school one Sunday night, converting it to rubble and scattering splinters of desks and blackboards far and wide. Part of the medieval cobblestones were missing, because various troops had used the stones to construct barricades. The enemy had appropriated the clock in the mayor’s office, the church organ, and the last wine harvest, the only local treasures. Buildings were all in need of paint, and here and there some were bullet-pocked, but the village had not lost the charm acquired over centuries of existence.
The people congregated in the square, circled by enemy soldiers; the Soviet commandant, in his tattered uniform, worn-out boots, and several days’ growth of beard, walked past the group, closely observing each one. No one looked him in the eye; they stood with heads lowered, shoulders bowed, expectant; only Katharina fixed her meek eyes on the officer, and stuck a finger in her nose.
“Is she retarded?” asked the officer, pointing to the girl.
“She was born that way,” Frau Carlé replied.
“Then she doesn’t have to go. Leave her here.”
“She can’t stay here by herself, please. . . . Let me take her with us.”
“As you like.”
Under a pale spring sun they stood and waited for more than two hours, at gunpoint, the elderly leaning on the strongest, the children asleep on the ground, the youngest in their parents’ arms, until finally the order was given, and they set off, following behind the commandant’s jeep, under the watchful eye of soldiers who tried to hurry the slow-moving line headed by the mayor and the school principal, the only authorities surviving from the catastrophe of the last years. They walked in silence, uneasy, turning to look back at the roofs of their houses still visible among the hills, asking each other where they were being taken—until it became obvious that they were being led in the direction of the prison camp, and their hearts closed like fists.
Rolf knew the way, because he had often walked there when he went with Jochen to hunt snakes, trap foxes, or gather wood. Sometimes the brothers had sat beneath the trees, looking in the direction of the barbed-wire fence hidden by foliage; they were so far away they could not see clearly, and had to be satisfied with listening to the sirens and sniffing the air. When the wind was blowing, a peculiar odor drifted into their houses, but no one seemed to notice; certainly it was never mentioned. This was the first time that Rolf Carlé, or any of the other villagers, had passed through the metal gates; they were immediately struck by the eroded soil stripped of vegetation, arid as a desert of sterile dust, far different from the soft, green-growing fields of the season. The column filed along a long path, crossed through various barriers of rolled barbed wire, walked beneath guard towers and emplacements that had only recently housed machine guns, and finally reached a large open area. On one side were windowless sheds, on the other a brick building with large chimneys, and, at the rear, latrines and a gallows. Spring had halted at the gates of the prison: here everything was gray, shrouded in the fog of an eternal winter. The villagers came to a stop before the barracks; they huddled together, touching each other for courage, oppressed by that stillness, that immense silence, that sky turned to ash. The commandant gave an order and the soldiers herded them like cattle in the direction of the main building. And then everyone could see. There were dozens of them piled on the ground, one on top of another, a tangled, dismembered mass, a mountain of pale firewood. At first they could not believe they were human bodies, they looked like the marionettes of some macabre theater, but the Russians poked the villagers with their weapons, prodded them with their rifle butts, and they had to move closer, to smell, to look, to allow those bony, eyeless faces to be burned into their memories. Each of them heard the thudding of his own heart, and no one spoke, because there was nothing to say. For long moments they stood motionless, until the commandant picked up a shovel and handed it to the mayor. The soldiers distributed other tools.
“Begin digging,” said the officer without raising his voice, almost in a whisper.
They sent Katharina and other small children to sit beneath the gallows while the rest worked. Rolf stayed with Jochen. The ground was hard; his hand
s and fingernails were grimy from the flinty soil, but he did not stop; stooped over, his hair fallen over his face, he was shaken by a shame he would never forget, a shame that like a relentless nightmare would pursue him throughout his lifetime. He never looked up, not once. All he heard around him was the sound of metal striking rock, harsh breathing, the sobs of some women.
It was night by the time they finished digging the pits. Rolf noticed that the spotlights in the guard towers had been turned on, and night had become as bright as day. The Russian officer gave an order, and people were dispatched two by two to bring the bodies. The boy brushed off his hands, wiping them on his pants legs; he dried the sweat from his face, and with his brother Jochen walked forward to what awaited them. With a hoarse cry their mother tried to stop them, but the boys continued on; they bent down and picked up a cadaver by the ankles and wrists: naked, hairless, bones and skin, weightless, cold and hard as porcelain. They lifted it effortlessly and, tightly gripping the rigid form, started back toward the graves they had dug in the open square. Their load swayed slightly to and fro, and the head lolled backward. Rolf turned and looked at his mother; he saw her doubled over with nausea. He wanted to make a gesture of consolation, but his hands were occupied.
It was past midnight before they completed the task of burying the prisoners. They filled the graves and covered them with earth, but the time had not yet come to leave. The soldiers forced them to go through the barracks, to enter the death chambers, to examine the ovens, to walk beneath the gallows. No one dared pray for the dead. In their hearts they knew that from that moment they would try to forget, to tear that horror from their souls, resolved never to speak of it, with the hope that time would erase it. Finally, slowly, exhausted, feet dragging, they returned home. Last came Rolf Carlé, walking between two rows of skeletons, all equal in the desolation of death.
* * *
One week later, Lukas Carlé returned. His son Rolf did not recognize him; when his father had left for the front, the boy was not yet at the age of reason, and the man who burst into the kitchen that night did not in any way resemble the photograph on the mantel. During the years he had lived without a father, Rolf had invented one of heroic dimensions. He had clad him in an aviator’s uniform and covered his chest with medals, imagining a proud, brave warrior with boots so shiny a child could see himself in them. He did not associate that image with the person who appeared so suddenly that night and, thinking he was a beggar, did not even bother to say hello. The man in the photograph had a carefully trimmed mustache, and his eyes were as leaden as winter skies—authoritarian and cold. The man who flung open the kitchen door was wearing an oversized pair of pants held up by a cord around the waist, a threadbare jacket, a filthy kerchief around his neck, and, in place of the mirror-shine boots, rags wrapped around his feet. He was a rather small man, badly shaven, his bristling hair cut in clumps. No, that was not anyone Rolf knew. The rest of the family, on the other hand, remembered all too well. When his wife saw him, she clapped both hands to her mouth; Jochen leaped to his feet, overturning his chair in his haste to retreat; and Katharina ran to hide beneath the table, something she had not done in a long time, but which was an instinctive act lodged in her memory.
Lukas Carlé had not returned out of any nostalgia for the hearth. Being a solitary person without a sense of country, he had never felt he belonged to that village—or to any other. He had returned because he was hungry and desperate; he preferred to risk falling into the hands of the victorious enemy rather than drag himself around the countryside any longer. He had deserted, and had survived by hiding during the day and traveling by night. He had stolen the identification papers of a fallen soldier, planning to change his name and erase his past, but soon realized that he had nowhere on that vast destroyed continent to go. The memory of the village with its pleasant houses and orchards and vineyards, as well as the school where he had taught so many years, held little attraction for him, but he had no other choice. He had won several decorations during the course of the war, not for bravery but for exercising cruelty. He was different; he had explored the murky depths of his soul; he knew exactly to what lengths he would go. After having tested the extremes, having passed the boundaries of evil and pleasure, it seemed a lowly fate to return to his former life and resign himself to teaching groups of runny-nosed, ill-bred children. It was his belief that man is made for war. History demonstrates that progress is never achieved without violence: grit your teeth and bear it; close your eyes and deal it out—that’s why we’re soldiers. Everything he had suffered had failed to instill in him any desire for peace; instead, it had etched in his mind the conviction that only gunpowder and blood can produce men capable of steering the foundering ship of humanity to port—abandoning the weak and helpless on the high seas, in accordance with the implacable laws of nature.
“What’s this? Aren’t you happy to see me?” he asked, closing the door behind him.
Absence had not diminished Carlé’s capacity for terrorizing his family. Jochen tried to say something, but the words stuck in his throat; only a guttural sound escaped him as he moved in front of his brother to protect him from an undefined danger. Frau Carlé’s first act, as soon as she recovered, was to run to the linen chest and take out a large white tablecloth, which she spread over the table so her husband would not see Katharina—would not, perhaps, even remember she existed. With nothing more than a quick glance around, Lukas Carlé took over the house and regained control of his family. His wife seemed no less stupid, but the fear in her eyes and the firmness of her rump were as apparent as ever. Jochen had grown into a tall, husky young man, and Carlé could not understand how he had escaped being conscripted into the youth brigades. He scarcely recognized Rolf, but it took him only an instant to appreciate that the boy was tied to his mother’s apron strings, and needed a jolt or two to wipe the spoiled lapdog look off his face. He would make it his business to make a man of him.
“Warm the water for my bath, Jochen. Is there anything to eat in this house? And you must be Rolf. . . . Come here and shake hands with your father. Did you hear me? Come here!”
After that night Rolf’s life was never the same. In spite of the war and all its hardships, he had never known fear. Lukas Carlé taught him. The boy would not have a good night’s sleep until years later when his father was found swinging from a tree in the forest.
The Russian soldiers who occupied the village were crude, destitute, and sentimental. In the evening they sat around the campfires beside their weapons and equipment and sang songs of their homeland, and, hearing the sweet sound of their village dialects, some of them wept with nostalgia. Sometimes they got drunk, and quarreled or danced till they dropped from exhaustion. The villagers avoided them, but a few girls, in exchange for a little food, went to their camps to offer themselves, quietly, never raising their eyes. They always returned with something, despite the fact that the victors were as hungry as the vanquished. The children were also drawn to the camp; they were fascinated by the soldiers’ language, their war machines, their strange customs, and they were enthralled by a sergeant with a deeply scarred face who entertained them by juggling four knives in the air at a time. Rolf usually went closer than any of his friends, even though his mother had specifically instructed him not to go there, and one day found him sitting beside the sergeant trying to understand what he was saying, and practicing tossing the knives. Within a few days of their arrival, the Russians had located all the remaining collaborators and deserters in hiding and had begun the war trials—extremely brief because there was little time for formalities. Few people attended; they were worn out and did not want to listen to further accusations. Nevertheless, when it was Lukas Carlé’s turn, Jochen and Rolf slipped in and sat at the back of the room. The accused did not seem to regret anything he had done: he merely stated in his own defense that he had obeyed his superiors’ orders; he was not in the Army to deliberate, but to win a war. The juggler serge
ant saw Rolf in the room, felt sorry for him, and tried to take him outside, but the boy sat firmly in his seat, determined to listen to the end. It would have been difficult to explain to the sergeant that his pallor was not caused by any concern for his father, but by his secret hope that there would be enough evidence to sentence him to the firing squad. When, instead, Carlé was consigned to six months of forced labor in the mines of the Ukraine, Jochen and Rolf considered it an unbelievably light punishment, and secretly prayed that Lukas Carlé would die in that faraway land and never come back.
Hunger did not end with the peace; for years foraging for food had been their first priority, and that did not change. Jochen could scarcely read, but he was strong and persistent, and after his father left and after the shelling had destroyed the fields, he had taken charge of providing for his family by cutting wood, selling blackberries and wild mushrooms, and hunting rabbits and partridges and foxes. Soon Rolf was a partner in his brother’s efforts and, like him, learned to pilfer odds and ends in the neighboring villages—always without the knowledge of his mother, who even during times of greatest hardship acted as if the war were a remote nightmare that had nothing to do with her; she was not, furthermore, one to compromise when it came to instilling moral values in her children. The boy became so accustomed to the gnawing in his innards that long afterward, when the markets were overflowing with the earth’s bounty and fried potatoes and sweets and sausages were being sold on every street corner, he continued to dream of stale bread hidden in a hollow in the floorboards beneath his bed.