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Then Wilke came on the wall and
mumbled something too, a soldier's prayer, and soon afterward Reiter came on
the wall and bit his lips without saying a word. And then Entrescu got up and
they saw, or thought they saw, drops of blood on his penis shiny with semen and
vaginal fluid, and then Baroness Von Zumpe asked for a glass of vodka, and then
they watched as Entrescu and the baroness stood entwined, each with a glass in
hand and an air of distraction, and then Entrescu recited a poem in his tongue,
which the baroness didn't understand but whose musicality she lauded, and then
Entrescu closed his eyes and cocked his head as if to listen to something, the
music of the spheres, and then he opened his eyes and sat at the table and set
the baroness on his cock, erect again (the famous foot-long cock, pride of the
Romanian army), and the cries and moans and tears resumed, and as the baroness
sank down onto Entrescu's cock or Entrescu's cock rose up into the Baroness Von
Zumpe, the Romanian general recited a new poem, a poem that he accompanied by
waving both arms (the baroness clinging to his neck), a poem that again neither
of them understood, except for the word
Dracula,
which was repeated
every four lines, a poem that might have been martial or satirical or
metaphysical or marmoreal or even anti-German, but whose rhythm seemed made to
order for the occasion, a poem that the young baroness, sitting astride
Entrescu's thighs, celebrated by swaying back and forth, like a little
shepherdess gone wild in the vastness of Asia, digging her nails into her
lover's neck, scrubbing the blood that still flowed from her right hand on her
lover's face, smearing the corners of his lips with blood, while Entrescu,
undeterred, continued to recite his poem in which the word
Dracula
sounded
every four lines, a poem that was surely satirical, decided Reiter (with
infinite joy) as Wilke jerked off again.

When it was all over, though
for the unflagging Entrescu and the unflagging baroness it was far from over,
they filed silently back down the secret passageways, silently replaced the
mirror, crept silently down to the improvised underground barracks, and slipped
silently into bed next to their respective guns and kits.

The next morning the detachment
left the castle after the departure of the two carloads of guests. Only the SS
officer remained behind while they swept, washed, and tidied everything. Then,
when the officer was fully satisfied with their efforts, he ordered them off
and the detachment climbed into the truck and headed back down to the plain.
Only the SS officer's car—with no driver, which was odd—was left at the castle.
As they drove away, Reiter saw the officer: he had climbed up to the
battlements and was watching the detachment leave, craning his neck, rising up
on tiptoe, until the castle, on the one hand, and the truck, on the other,
disappeared from view.

While he was posted in
Romania
, Reiter
requested and obtained two leaves that he used to visit his parents. Back in
the village, he spent the day lying on the rocky shore watching the sea, but
with no urge to swim, much less dive, or he took long walks through the
countryside, walks that invariably ended at the ancestral home of the Baron Von
Zumpe, empty and diminished, now watched over by the old gamekeeper, with whom
he sometimes stopped to talk, although the conversations, if they could be
called that, were mostly frustrating. The gamekeeper asked how the war was
going and Reiter shrugged. Reiter, in turn, asked about the baroness (actually
he asked about the young baroness, which was how the locals referred to her)
and the gamekeeper shrugged. The shrugs could mean he didn't know or that
reality was increasingly vague, more like a dream, or that everything was going
badly and it was best not to ask questions and to gird oneself with patience.

He also spent long periods with
his sister, Lotte, who was ten by then and adored her brother. This devotion
made Reiter laugh, but it made him sad, too, and he was swamped by grim
thoughts in which everything was meaningless, though he was careful not to come
to any resolve because he was sure he would end up shot. No one commits suicide
in wartime, he thought as he lay in bed listening to his mother and father
snore. Why not? Well, for convenience's sake, to postpone the inevitable,
because human beings tend to leave their fate in the hands of others. In fact,
the suicide rate is highest in wartime, but Reiter was too young then (though he
could no longer be called completely untutored) to know that. On both leaves,
too, he visited
Berlin
(on the way to his village) and tried in vain to find Hugo Halder.

He couldn't find him. A family
of civil servants with four adolescent daughters lived in Halder's old flat.
When he asked whether the previous tenant had left an address where he could be
found, the head of the family, a party member, answered curtly that he didn't
know, but as Reiter was leaving, one of the daughters, the oldest and prettiest,
caught up to him on the stairs and said she knew where Halder was living now.
Then she continued down the stairs and Reiter followed her. The girl dragged
him to a public park. There, in a corner safe from prying eyes, she turned, as
if seeing him for the first time, and hurled herself at him, planting a kiss on
his mouth. Reiter pulled away and asked why in heaven she was kissing him. The
girl said she was happy to see him. Reiter studied her eyes, a washed-out blue,
like the eyes of a blind woman, and realized he was talking to a madwoman.

Even so, he wanted to know what
information the girl had about Halder. She said that if he didn't let her kiss
him she wouldn't tell him. They kissed again: the girl's tongue was very dry at
first and Reiter caressed it with his tongue until it was thoroughly moistened.
Where does Hugo Halder live now? he asked. The girl smiled at him as if Reiter
were a slow child. Can't you guess? she asked. Reiter shook his head. The girl,
who couldn't have been more than sixteen, began to laugh so hard that Reiter
was afraid if she didn't stop the police would come, and he could think of no
better way of silencing her than kissing her on the mouth again.

"My name is
Ingeborg," said the girl when Reiter removed his lips from hers.

"My name is Hans
Reiter," he said.

Then she looked at the sandy,
pebbly ground and paled visibly, as if she were about to faint.

"My name," she
repeated, "is Ingeborg Bauer, I hope you won't forget me."

From this moment on they spoke
in fainter and fainter whispers.

"I won't," said
Reiter.

"Swear it," said the
girl.

"I swear," said
Reiter.

"Who do you swear by? Your
mother, your father, God?" asked the girl.

"I swear by God,"
said Reiter.

"I don't believe in
God," said the girl.

"Then I swear by my mother
and father," said Reiter.

"An oath like that is no
good," said the girl, "parents are no good, people are always trying
to forget they have parents."

"Not me," said
Reiter.

"Yes, you," said the
girl, "and me, and everyone."

"Then I swear to you by
whatever you want," said Reiter.

"Do you swear by your
division?" asked the girl.

"I swear by my division
and regiment and battalion," said Reiter, and then he added that he also
swore by his corps and his army group.

"Don't tell anyone,"
said the girl, "but to be honest, I don't believe in the army."

"What do you believe
in?" asked Reiter.

"Not much," said the
girl after pondering her reply for a second. "Sometimes I even forget what
I believe in. There are so few things, and so many things I don't believe in,
such a huge number of things, that they hide what I do believe in. Right now,
for example, I can't remember anything."

"Do you believe in
love?" asked Reiter.

"Frankly, no," said
the girl.

"What about honesty?"
asked Reiter.

"Ugh, that's worse than
love," said the girl.

"Do you believe in
sunsets," asked Reiter, "starry nights, bright mornings?"

"No, no, no," said
the girl with a gesture of evident distaste, "I don't believe in anything
ridiculous."

"You're right," said
Reiter. "What about books?"

"Even worse," said
the girl, "and anyway in my house there are only Nazi books, Nazi
politics, Nazi history, Nazi economics, Nazi mythology, Nazi poetry, Nazi
novels, Nazi plays."

"I had no idea the Nazis
had written so much," said Reiter.

"As far as I can tell, you
don't have much idea about anything, Hans," said the girl, "except
kissing me."

"True," said Reiter,
who was always ready to admit his ignorance.

By then they were strolling
through the park holding hands and every so often Ingeborg would stop and kiss
Reiter on the mouth and anyone who saw them might have thought they were just a
young soldier and his girl, with no money to go anywhere else, very much in
love and with many things to tell each other. And yet if this hypothetical
observer had approached the couple and looked them in the eyes he would have
seen that the young woman was mad and the young soldier knew it and didn't
care. Truthfully, by now Reiter didn't care that the girl was crazy, much less
about his friend Hugo Halder's address. All he cared about was learning once
and for all the few things Ingeborg felt were worthy of swearing by. So he
asked and asked and made tentative suggestions: the girl's sisters and the city
of Berlin and world peace and the children of the world and the birds of the world
and the opera and the rivers of Europe and the faces, dear God, of men she had
loved, and her own life (Ingeborg's), and friendship and humor and everything
he could think of, and he received one negative response after another, until
at last, after they had explored every corner of the park, the girl remembered
two things she thought were valid oaths.

"Do you want to know what
they are?"

"Of course I do!"
said Reiter.

"I hope you won't laugh
when I tell you."

"I won't laugh," said
Reiter.

"The first is
storms," said the girl.

"Storms?" asked
Reiter, greatly surprised.

"Only big storms, when the
sky turns black and the air turns gray. Thunder, lightning, and peasants killed
when they cross fields," said the girl.

"Now I understand,"
said Reiter, who didn't love storms. "So what's the second thing?"

"The Aztecs," said
the girl.

"The Aztecs?" asked
Reiter, more perplexed than by the storms.

"That's right, the
Aztecs," said the girl, "the people who lived in
Mexico
before
Cortes came, the ones who built the pyramids."

"Oh, the Aztecs, those
Aztecs," said Reiter.

"They're the only
Aztecs," said the girl, "the ones who lived in
Tenochtitlan
and Tlatelolco and performed
human sacrifices and inhabited two cities built around lakes."

"Oh, so they lived in two
cities built around lakes," said Reiter.

"Yes," said the girl.

For a while they walked in
silence. Then the girl said: I imagine those cities to be like
Geneva
and Montreux. Once I was with my
family on holiday in
Switzerland
.
We went by ferry from
Geneva
to Montreux.
Lake Geneva
is marvelous in
summer, although there are perhaps too many mosquitoes. We spent the night at
an inn in Montreux and the next day we returned by ferry again to
Geneva
. Have you been to
Lake Geneva
?"

"No," said Reiter.

"It's very beautiful and
it isn't just those two cities, there are many towns on the lake, like
Lausanne
, which is bigger
than Montreux, or Vevey, or Evian. In fact there are more than twenty towns,
some tiny. Do you see?"

"Vaguely," said
Reiter.

"Look, this is the
lake"—the girl drew the lake with the tip of her shoe on the
ground—"here's
Geneva
,
here, and at the other end, Montreux, and these are the other towns. Do you see
now?"

"Yes," said Reiter.

"Well, that's how I
imagine the lake of the Aztecs," said the girl as she rubbed out the map
with her shoe. "Except much prettier. With no mosquitoes, nice weather all
year round, and lots of pyramids, so many and so big it's impossible to count
them all, pyramids on top of pyramids, pyramids behind other pyramids, all stained
red with the blood of daily sacrifices. And then I imagine the Aztecs, but
perhaps that doesn't interest you," said the girl.

"It does," said
Reiter, who until then had never given the Aztecs any thought.

"They're very strange
people," said the girl. "If you look them closely in the face, after
a moment you realize they're mad. But they aren't shut up in a madhouse. Or
maybe they are. But they don't seem to be. The Aztecs dress with great
elegance, they're very careful when they choose
what clothes to wear each
day, one might think they spent hours in a dressing room, choosing the proper
attire, and then they put on very precious plumed hats, and necklaces and
rings, as well as gems on their arms and feet, and both the men and the women
paint their faces, and then they go out for a walk along the lakeshore, never
speaking to one another, absorbed in contemplation of the passing boats, whose
crews, if they aren't Aztec, lower their gaze and keep fishing or hurry away,
because some Aztecs are seized by cruel whims, and after strolling like
philosophers they go into the pyramids, which are completely hollow and look
like cathedrals inside, and are illuminated only by a light from above, light
filtered through a great obsidian stone, in other words a dark, sparkling
light. By the way, have you ever seen a piece of obsidian?" asked the
girl.