He said this with a smile which betrayed the refined physician he once had been.
‘I am not in the SS,’ Krause protested.
A slight touch of sarcasm insinuated itself into Dr Stief’s dignified smile. ‘Many will say that when sometime here or in the hereafter accounts are to be settled.’
Porta growled ominously. ‘All SS men and NKVDs have volunteered. The fact that they later got cold feet is no excuse.’ He pointed at Krause. ‘You’ll always be an SS rat. The only reason we didn’t plug you a long time ago is because we’re going to give you up to see you broken on the wheel when we have our revolution. We’ve told you once and for all that you’re a swine, tolerated among decent people only because we have to tolerate you.’
Stief shook his head. ‘Why so bloodthirsty? He’s sure to be haunted by bad dreams when he gets old sometime . . .’
‘If he gets old,’ Porta cut in, giving Krause a dirty look.
‘. . . and is sitting alone. That’s far worse than getting hanged.’
‘Allah is wise. Allah does what’s right,’ the Legionnaire chanted, bowing toward the southeast.
‘Voos is baschjot,’ Dr Stief mumbled like an echo.
‘At Fort Plive we had to sit on a long board when we took a crap,’ Brandt said. ‘Anyone who fell into the pit would drown in his own and others’ shit. Many got drowned. The SS and the head-hunters made bets among themselves how long you could hold out before you sank.’
‘There’s a board like that in Majdanek, too,’ the old Jew nodded. ‘Many are getting choked to death also in that pit. A person who falls into it sinks slowly, as in a swamp. He vanishes to the gurgling sound of small air bubbles. When he’s gone it looks like boiling porridge.’
Tiny spat out part of a goose leg and took a slug from a bottle of Prague beer. ‘In Brückenkopf 3 below Torgau we had to piss at each other when we shit in our pants. The black beers gave us diarrhea.’
We looked at Tiny, astonished. It was the first time we’d heard a single word about his time in prison. We had no idea what he’d done or where he’d been.
He took a bite of the salami sausage, spat it out again quickly, dipped the sausage in a bowl of wine and stuck it in his mouth. He continued talking with his mouth full, which made it difficult to understand what he was saying.
‘An U-Scharführer from Totenkopf broke my arm in three places.’
He began picking his teeth with the point of his bayonet and spat out capers in all directions. Then he drank a little from the bowl in which he had dipped the sausage. ‘He tore off my little toe with a pair of pincers, a brand-new pair.’
Tiny drank a little more Prague beer. He got up, picked up a big armchair, lifted it over his head and banged it on the floor four or five times until it smashed to pieces. He kicked the broken bits. ‘That’s what I’ll do to that SS U-Scharführer when I find him. I know he’s on duty in a camp on the Weser.’
He broke into a grin which boded no good for that particular SS man from Totenkopfsverband.
‘In Lengries they bastinadoed us,’ I said. I recalled a Christmas Eve long ago under bare poplars and screeching crows, with SS Obersturmführer Schendrich commanding: ‘One, two, one, two!’ in a shrieking voice which broke with rapture when someone fainted. I didn’t say what I would do with Schendrich if we met. I hope we won’t ever meet.
‘In Fagen some of us were castrated for fun,’ the little Legionnaire said, clenching his fists around the handle of a hand grenade, his eyes flashing like the Moor’s when revenge is just around the corner.
‘In Gross Rosen 367 Jews were hanged head down,’ Stege said. ‘One of them had his nose cut off and given to the dog Max. That dog just loved human flesh. While he was eating the nose we had to sing: “Darling – I’ll see you no more.”’
‘When I returned home from Fort Zinna I tried to hang myself,’ the Old Man said.
We sat for a moment in silence. We knew from before that the Old Man had wanted to hang himself. His wife managed to cut him down in time. A clergyman friend took him in hand. The Old Man didn’t try to take his own life again.
‘When the war’s over,’ Gerhard Stief said, ‘I’ll invite you for beer to “The Half Rooster” on Hansaplatz.’
‘Great,’ Brandt cried. ‘We’ll meet in “The Half Rooster” and we’ll all of us stand beer!’
‘Dortmunder Export, a pump barrel for each,’ Stege laughed. ‘Yes, a whole barrel,’ he added excitedly.
We could almost smell that beer. We slapped each other’s shoulders and burst into an ecstatic yell over the Dortmunder Export we would drink in ‘The Half Rooster’.
‘Do you know “The Green Goat” in Albert Rolfgasse in Hamburg?’ Stief shouted enthusiastically above the uproar. ‘There you get the best meat balls and the best sauerbraten in the world.’
‘No, we don’t know that place,’ Stege laughed, ‘but if you’ll promise to show it to us, in return I’ll show you Lili’s saloon, the best birdcage in all Hamburg. One of the girls can do everything – just like a fakir girl. She’s said to have studied whoring at the Punjab pagoda in Raipur.’
‘We’ll wind up at Lili’s,’ the Old Man decided.
‘Any whores there?’ Tiny asked through the noise.
‘Oceans of them,’ Stege affirmed.
‘Ah, if only the war was over,’ Tiny sighed, ‘so we could set out right away.’
‘Afterward we’ll hit the town and raise hell,’ Porta shouted jubilantly. ‘We’ll pick a fight with every lousy bum we meet and have a crack at all the girls.’
Stief said: ‘We only have to watch out we don’t get stuck at “The Half Rooster”. It’s so scandalously pleasant there, and after two Dortmunders you know you get thirsty.’
‘Let’s have a game of mariage or blackjack,’ said Bauer, the big butcher from Hanover who always was afraid before an attack. He said one should carefully avoid taking any chances. Chance was a stupid swine. He claimed he had lost out on a lot of things by becoming a soldier.
‘I don’t want any cross,’ he said, ‘gold, iron or wood. Ten hours of work in a good sausage factory under a reasonable foreman, a good piece of nookie at night, and a game of mariage and beer with a couple of chums after knock-off time, that’s all I’d ask for.’
We played for about a half hour or so. Gerhard Stief won a couple of hundred marks. We made him win. He pretended not to notice.
‘You sure are a tough one, Gerhard,’ Porta laughed. ‘You’re giving us all a beating.’
In order that all fourteen could participate we switched over to banker. Whenever Gerhard turned up the right card our enthusiasm knew no bounds.
‘Hell, Gerhard, you’ll be a rich man. Maybe you’ll get to be our boss when we’re no longer busy with this war,’ Brandt said.
‘Yes, but let’s make sure not to forget that our revolution has to be settled before we close up shop and go home,’ Porta warned. He blew his nose on his fingers. A lump of snot hit a panel, where several other lumps testified to the diligent use of fingers for handkerchiefs.
Brandt shoved the bottle across to Gerhard. ‘Have another swig, Herr Lieutenant.’
Gerhard drank and put the bottle away, as we did, with a resolute thump. This thump was very important. It showed you were on easy terms with the bottle. You shouldn’t just set down a bottle, as a housewife does after she’s poured out a few drops of vinegar on the headcheese. You plunk down the bottle, as if saying: ‘Look, that’s where you stand, Comrade Green! Damn it all, you and I can boast of a few things neither God nor the Devil knows.’ A servant girl places a bottle. The snotnoses who want to show off pound the bottle on the table, whereas men from the port and the front, from the large trucks and the factories, put the bottle down with precisely this thump, which signifies that they come from the shipyard with its plates and steel. It stamps them as adults. These are the sort who grin at what others gape at, and the bottle says: ‘Hello, you old sot!’
Unteroffizier Heide had again
got back on his feet. Brassy and provocative, he squeezed himself between Krause and Gerhard. For a moment the situation was explosive. Calls and yells. After a string of scorching curses, Heide was seated beside Gerhard, in the place Krause had occupied. He grinned, drank a couple of glasses of schnapps and clicked his tongue: ‘Cards for Julius Heide!’ He looked sideways at Gerhard. ‘Let’s clean out those stinkers!’
Gerhard nodded. We played in silence. Gerhard won all the time. Heide acted offended. ‘You lucky swine,’ he cried. ‘Now I’ll soon be on my ass. If this goes on for long I’ll be settling down as a gigolo when the war’s over.’
‘That certainly wouldn’t be much of a change,’ Porta observed casually. ‘You were one already before the war.’
Heide said with resignation, ‘Broke!’
Gerhard laughed quietly.
‘You may have credit from me.’
‘How many per cent?’ Heide sneered.
‘At the rate charged by sixty-percenters when the party in question is a shady character,’ the Legionnaire decided on Gerhard’s behalf.
‘That’ll be 250 per cent,’ Porta yelled, slamming the ace of spades on the table.
Porta took the whole pot. Three hundred and seventy marks and four opium sticks.
All together we pounced on Porta’s ace of spades and examined it thoroughly. Quite obviously he had cheated.
Heide and Brandt borrowed on sixty-percenters’ terms.
‘You’re smart,’ the Legionnaire scoffed. Pulling his nose, he scowled at Porta, who’d sat down on top of all his money.
‘And you’ll be gracious enough to shut your trap, Desert Rambler,’ Porta threatened. Again he hauled in large winnings. He lent them to Krause at 275 per cent. To invest them in Krause was a very poor use of the money, as he was an SS man and sentenced for cowardice. Two different camps had it in for him, and fate could catch up with him at any moment.
‘We’ll arrange a first-rate cock-fight in Hamburg,’ Bauer cried excitedly, ‘and you’ll be our boss, Lieutenant.’
‘Yeah, we’ll rent Planten en Blomen,’ Stege laughed.
‘Christ, what a cock-fight we can put on there,’ Tiny roared. In his mind’s eye he saw the cocks killing each other – while we were cheating the players.
Outside, a big round moon was shining. It seemed to laugh at us, at all fourteen candidates for the grave.
The Legionnaire swept the cards off the table and kicked over his chair.
‘I’m bored. Let’s have a fight instead!’
In a moment everything had been prepared. Tiny and Heide were going to have a boxing match. Braids from sofas and chairs were twined together to mark the ring. The two husky fellows stood there ready, dressed in underpants and infantry boots. Dressing rolls were used for hand bandages. We didn’t have any boxing gloves.
‘I’ll batter you to snot!’ Tiny said, getting worked up.
‘I’ll kick you in your belfry,’ Heide cried.
‘It’ll be a good fight,’ Porta vowed.
The Legionnaire nodded.
Tiny grinned and began swinging his arms. ‘Jesus, how I’m looking forward to knocking you cold.’
The Legionnaire held him back.
‘No punches till I give the word. And you’ll go on punching till one of you’s KOd.’
‘Quite right,’ Tiny cried. He was stalking noisily about the room in his infantry boots.
Heide slit his eyes and looked angrily at Tiny.
‘Remember, you bastard, I’m city champion! You’re going to whimper!’
The Legionnaire pounded on an empty gas-mask container with a hand grenade, the signal to begin the fight.
The two boxers jumped up and started stalking and dancing around each other. They both acted professional, but we knew from experience that the professional bit would soon wear off. As soon as one of them should happen to hit a bit hard, a regular fight with all the meanest street-fight tricks would develop. This was what we were looking forward to.
Throughout, Heide went after Tiny with his chin resting on his chest. He resembled a young bull set on chasing all other bulls to the ends of the earth.
Tiny walked backward and growled like a polar bear threatened with being deprived of his piece of meat. Both men were constantly muttering curses at each other.
All of a sudden Heide raised his right and planted it three or four times in Tiny’s face. Tiny’s head flew back like a coiled spring. He yelled from rage and frantically lashed out with both fists, but without hitting the grinning Heide, who evaded every murderous blow. He was excellent at defense and knew the art of keeping his guard up.
After three rounds Tiny’s face was badly decorated. Heide became presumptuous. After the tenth round he hammered a left against Tiny’s ribs. A blood-red stain appeared.
Tiny snorted up blood and roared balefully.
‘Now Tiny’s mad,’ Stege yelled joyously. ‘If he catches Julius he’ll kill him.’
‘It beats all the bullfights in Spain,’ came the Legionnaire’s fascinated whisper, as Heide’s iron fist landed with a hollow smack in Tiny’s stomach, making him gasp for breath.
‘At him, Tiny!’ Porta cried. ‘He said he can beat you as easily as a little Harlem bitch!’
Tiny stopped and glowered at Porta.
‘Did that pig say that?’
Porta nodded with a grin. ‘Oh yes, and more.’
Heide seized his chance at once and drummed away at Tiny’s diaphragm. At the same time he kicked him in the wrist.
Tiny bellowed with pain and boiling rage. He lowered his head like a ram and charged forward. With his speed he flung the Legionnaire out of the ring, tore the ropes to bits and hurled a stool after Heide, who’d leaped for cover behind us.
From deep within Tiny came strange animal sounds. He was almost totally blind, since the flesh around his eyes had swelled up terrifically. Heide kicked him in the stomach and butted him in the face – the Danish kiss.
They rushed in circles after each other. Heide jerked his left shoulder and hit Tiny a stinging blow across the neck. It brought him to his knees.
Like a weasel Heide was upon him. They bit, snarled, kicked, and spat. Then both of them were again on their feet. After all the thrusts and hits Heide had managed to place, Tiny’s face was twice its normal size.
‘My knife,’ Tiny yelled. ‘Get me my knife.’
He searched for it blindly. Heide gave him a kick that sent him smack on his face. For one second Heide forgot to look out. That second decided Heide’s fate in this as in countless earlier fights. Tiny got hold of his ankle, got up roaring like a sick gorilla, seized both of Heide’s kicking legs and pounded his head against the floor till he hung in his fists like a sour dishcloth. Then he threw the limp body into a corner, cashed in his prize for the scuffle, slumped down and slept.
In a little while the rest of us also went to sleep, huddled together like puppies in a cold stable.
Outside, the moon, suspended, shone down among naked frozen trees. The ominous stillness of the mountains fell upon fourteen candidates for the grave, in a cabin where formerly merry tourists had rested after skiing.
Tiny was the first to see them. They were walking in single file. They strode quickly down the mountain, where a fallen rock lay like a natural gate.
Tiny’s grunting brought us all out. We were cold. They outnumbered us by far. They had flame-throwers, three heavy machine guns and one of the new stovepipes.
The sun, which had just given the mountain a good morning kiss, flashed with inexplicable cheerfulness on their silver death’s heads.
Through the Old Man’s field glasses we could see that an SS Oberstumführer led the way. Stege was probably right thinking it was a full company.
‘That guy in front looks like a bloodhound with a cold,’ the Legionnaire said and spat out beyond the stone curb.
The Old Man lowered his field glasses. Without looking round, he whispered hoarsely: ‘Get Gerhard out of the way!’
/> ‘Where?’ asked Gerhard Stief, who was standing in the door looking over Porta’s shoulder.
Yes, where? We looked at each other in despair. Where?
Tiny and Heide turned their bruised faces toward the sun and blinked their eyes. It was an evil morning.
High up there on the narrow path someone stumbled. We could faintly hear him being bawled out by an SS Oberscharführer who was swinging a sub-machine gun and rushing around the company like a sheep dog.
‘That guy up there is a crap-pile,’ Heide grunted, feeling his swollen eye.
‘Let’s set up our light machine gun and plug the whole pack,’ Porta grinned, curling his narrow lips to a snarl like a dog ready to snap.
‘A great idea, and afterward we’ll cut their throats!’ Tiny suggested, flinging his long Siberian knife into the air. It twinkled as it twirled about and then ended up in his fist again, as if a rubber band had been attached to it.
‘Shut up, you fatheads,’ the Old Man exclaimed, annoyed. ‘If we start shooting we’re through. It’s twenty to one. We have to deceive them.’
‘You don’t believe that yourself,’ Stege mumbled. ‘They’ll knock us cold as soon as they notice the remnants of our big feast and find Gerhard. There will be fourteen “pops” and then the damned ravens will again have something to feed on.’
‘Right, Hugo,’ the Legionnaire nodded. ‘And that guy, the O-Scharführer, will have the job of pickling us!’