Alphabet House (48 page)
Authors: Jussi Adler-Olsen
‘Yes.’
The sinews in James’ neck stood out. He raised his hands slowly towards Bryan’s torso. ‘But that’s not the worst thing.’ Bryan took a step backwards and planted his feet. Then he took a deep breath.
‘The worst thing…’ James continued, carefully taking hold of Bryan’s upper arms, ‘…the worst thing is that you didn’t come and get me!’
‘I didn’t know where to look, James! And that’s a fact! I tried, but you’d completely vanished.’ The grip on Bryan’s arms tightened.
For a moment James’ eyes took on a vacant look. Then he pulled himself together and whispered so quietly that the screaming of the gulls almost swallowed up the words. ‘But the absolute worst thing of all is knowing that I did nothing myself.’
A twitching in James’ face that lived and died in a split second drew Bryan down into the depths of the past where a hollow-cheeked boy with lively eyes and freckled, golden skin tried desperately to taunt him into helping him as the balloon’s canvas was being torn to shreds above him. ‘Trust me,’ James had said, wincing just before it happened. ‘It’ll turn out all right.’ It was this wince Bryan saw again in James’ face now. Imploring and full of self-contempt.
‘But you couldn’t, James,’ he whispered, almost to himself. ‘You were ill.’
‘Like hell I was!’ His exclamation was unexpectedly explosive, affecting his whole face. Now his eyes were desperate. ‘Maybe in the beginning, yes! And maybe also at the end! But it took years. Some bloody long years. The only peace I got during those years was from the pills. It was a terrible kind of peace. I was James, I was Gerhart, I was Erich. But ill, I was not.’ His grip tightened, stopping Bryan from interrupting. ‘Not most of the time, anyway,’ he concluded.
They stood looking at each other. There was anger, uncertainty and sorrow in James’ eyes. Bryan felt him shifting his
weight to his clenching hands. James tried twice to formulate the next sentence with a half-open mouth before it finally came.
‘And now you ask me whether I can remember the balloon! And you’ll keep asking me one thing after another! Things you and others know about, that only a ridiculously little part of me faintly remembers. It’s as if people are trying to force me to turn my back on all those years when I was sitting and waiting!’
‘Why do you think such things? Why should we want that?’ Bryan looked intensely at the trembling man. He raised his hands slowly and gripped James’ lower arms.
James shut his eyes tight. After a while they flew open, eyebrows raised. They still reflected agitation, even though his face had calmed down. He gave a short laugh. ‘In the end, things come back in bits and pieces, anyway.’ James pressed his upper arms in towards Bryan’s body. Bryan had to concentrate on maintaining his balance. ‘I’ve been seeing the dog patrols again lately, which I haven’t done for years. I see them trying to catch us, Bryan. They get closer and closer. And then I see the two trains passing each other down in the valley. One heading west, the other heading east. Our salvation, we thought at the time.’ Bryan nodded, trying as hard as he could to shift his fixated body.
‘And then I think maybe we shouldn’t have jumped on it.’
‘You shouldn’t think that, James. It makes no sense.’
James leaned towards Bryan so that his chin almost rested on his shoulder. Behind them the cliff was now almost enveloped in mist. Beneath them the waves were shovelling in from the east. Bryan felt them beckon.
A seabird flapped up from the foot of the cliffs, protesting audibly. At that moment James’ firm grip wavered. His body trembled like the calm before the storm.
He suddenly burst out laughing and Bryan forced his left leg behind him in a feverish reflex movement, sliding on the frozen earth. James appeared to be lost in thought. His eyes grew distant and his laughter ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The abrupt change of mood seemed both crazy and logical.
As the waves’ crashing subsided, their enticement died out as well. Gingerly, as in a waltz step, Bryan shifted his weight to his right foot and moved behind James, who scarcely noticed. It was as if a mist of lethargy had drawn the tension out of him.
James’ shoulders fell. He released his grasp.
The face Bryan saw looked calm. ‘It’s good we jumped on that train, James,’ he finally said. ‘You mustn’t think otherwise.’ Bryan tilted his head and tried to catch James’ eye. ‘And it’s good we jumped on the train we did, rather than the other one,’ he added gently. James gazed up at the sky, the breeze ruffling his hair. He breathed deeply, nostrils dilating. His closed eyes reflected harmony. ‘And do you know why, James…?’ He looked at his friend for some time. The wind dropped momentarily. James’ eyes opened and caught Bryan’s. He was waiting, not the least bit curious. ‘Because if we had taken the eastbound train, I’d bloody well have had to fetch you from Siberia!’
James looked at Bryan for a while, then turned his head away. From the way his eyes danced across the sky it almost looked as if he were counting the clouds, one by one, in their wild, disorderly flight.
Then he smiled quietly and turned away from the wind, bending his head back so the late rays of the sun covered his face.
After James had left him alone, Bryan stood motionless and watched him walk down to the house, step by step, in the pale refractive light of the setting sun. The figure did not turn around a single time.
The definitive slam of the door didn’t reach him until ages afterwards, muffled and infernal at the same time. Bryan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He lacked oxygen.
The trembling in his body came in waves.
When he finally let his shoulders fall, Laureen was standing before him.
She looked deep into his eyes as never before. It felt as if she were seeing all the way into him. Clutching her coat collar to her neck, she tried to smile. ‘I think the drawings are fakes, Bryan,’ she said after a brief silence, trying to keep the hair out of her face. ‘I advised Petra to have them examined.’
‘I was afraid of that.’ Bryan was listening to the screaming of the gulls. They were getting hungry now.
‘I don’t know if she will. James told her he’d get them sold, that she should just trust him and he would take care of it.’
The words came to Bryan in fragments. They merged to give another, yet significant, meaning.
‘Take care of it?’ Bryan breathed quietly. ‘That sounds familiar, somehow.’
Laureen took his arm. She squeezed it repeatedly as she tried to control her windswept hair with her other hand.
‘You’re not feeling very well, are you, Bryan?’ she asked cautiously.
He shrugged. Isolated splashes of froth swept up the surface of the cliff in gusts. All in all, Laureen was mistaken. But it was strange, the mood that was taking hold of him.
‘Do you feel let down, Bryan?’ she asked quietly.
Bryan delved deep into his pocket. The packet of cigarettes emerged from under his bunch of keys. For a while he stood with the unlit cigarette in his mouth. It quivered in the wind and flew away. He pondered the curious inversion of her question. Although he hadn’t formulated it so simply himself, a similar question had been ready and waiting since James had turned his back on him and left.
‘Do I feel let down?’ He bit the inside of his cheek as it began to tremble. ‘What does that feel like? I don’t know. But I’ve felt a breach of faith. The whole time! That feeling I
do
know.’
Echoes of broken promises filed through his brain and wrestled with his good upbringing, fake boarding-school manners and adult codes of honour – all of them comforting
memories of solidarity. And now the latest memory of James’ back, retreating towards the house.
Bryan stood in the throes of this struggle for some time. And conquered it in the end.
‘I’m wondering why it has taken thirty years for that question to be asked correctly, Laureen,’ he mused.
She stood motionless for a long time.
The sun was positioned like an aura around his head as the sea darkened. ‘But if you’d asked it before, I wouldn’t have known the answer.’
‘And now?’
‘Now?’ He shielded himself against the wind. ‘Now I’m free!’ He stood for a moment, then put his arm around Laureen’s shoulders. He drew her carefully to him and held her tenderly until he felt her relax.
Then he pulled out his bunch of keys with a metallic rustling. ‘Would you do me the favour of fetching the car, Laureen? You can pick me up down the road,’ he said, pointing at a cluster of trees. He handed her the keys. ‘I just want to stand here a moment.’
Bryan had already let go of her as she was about to protest, and he turned to face the increasingly cold wind. He barely noticed when she took his hand and put it up to her cheek. A short way down the path she paused. She turned towards him and called his name. When he turned around, she was gazing back tenderly. ‘You’re not planning to see him again, are you?’ she asked.
The cliff beneath him would probably last forever. His epoch was just an intermezzo in its eternal, proud swagger.
That’s how fast things could be relegated to the past. From one minute to the next.
He leaned back, listening to the fading echo of happy cries from a far distant past as the car started up behind the ridge.
The realisation – that it takes two to make a friendship, but only one to break it – grew and spread, becoming one
with the surroundings, and then lingered on the edge of the precipice for a single, ethereal moment until only the present remained.
Two small boys smiled at him in farewell and he smiled in return. Alive, naked, whole, and ready to face the future in the fading glow of the setting sun.
The rays danced the final steps of a languid tango for the Alphabet House’s very last simulant.
The End
The Background for the title,
Alphabet House:
With typical German thoroughness, everyone inducted for military service in the Third Reich was classified according to an ingenious alphabet system by the medical examiners. This was also applied later if they were wounded in relation to the war. This precise and cryptic system determined the degree to which the examinee was fit for duty.
During the course of the war, it turned out that some of these ‘labels’ could have fatal consequences for the bearer, including liquidation. This was particularly true for the insane and mentally retarded.
According to
Die Krankenbataillone
by Rolf Valentin, Droste Verlag 1981, the following designations were used, among others:
Designations for those fit for service:
k.v. =
kriegsverwendungsfähig
= fit for active duty. In some cases the ‘k.v.’ classification specified peculiarities: like L40 – great speech impediment; B54,1 – Bed wetter; L54,1 – Incurable bed wetter.
g.v.F. =
garnisonverwendungsfähig
= fit for garrison duty. I.e., office or kitchen duty, or suitable for flak or supply duty, construction work, etc.
g.v.H. =
garnisonverwendungsfähig heimat
= fit for homeland garrison duty. For example, hospital orderlies at the Alphabet House who took care of the SS officers. This was also the designation for dispatch carriers, workshop workers, overseers, etc.
a.v. =
arbeitsverwendungsfähig
= fit for work duty. Usually skilled labourers, often slightly disabled.
Designations for those rejected from service:
Z.U. =
Zeitlich untauglich
= temporarily unfit for duty. Designation for someone with one or more temporary ailments at the time of examination who will soon be fit for active duty.
Sub-classification:
z.b. = Currently unfit for duty. To be examined again after two months. If they were still deemed unfit after two months, they were given the designation ‘
zeitlich g.v
.’ or ‘
zeitlich a.v
.’ (re-examined after two months and found permanently unfit for military duty), or w.u. =
wehruntauglich
(unfit for military duty).
Those found unfit for military duty were further classified according to the reason for rejection under the designations ‘vU-
fehlern
’ (ailment) and ‘L-’ and ‘U-
fehlern
’. vU-ailments, plus U 15,2 and U16 meant unconditional rejection from military service. After treatment the rest could often be designated fit for ‘g.v.H-’ or ‘a.v.’ duty. A large number of these designations dealt only with physical ailments. The designations for psychogenic ailments, such as those suffered by the patients of the Alphabet House, were basically classified as follows:
| w.u.: | | Unfit for duty (although suited to joint the reserves from the fall of 1944). |
| A15,1: | | Inherent elated nervous agitation. |
| A15,2: | | Low intelligence. |
| A15,3: | | Psychologically deviant (usually considered fit for active duty). |
| Z15,1: | | Temporary nervous exhaustion caused by external circumstances. |
| Z15,2: | | Alcoholism or other ailments caused by habitforming drugs. |
| L15,1: | | Neuropathy (nervous condition), psychasthenia (phobia or anxiety symptomized in particular by tiredness, which in turn could be symptomized by loss of sleep, concentration and memory, and the increased feeling of pain). A condition where normal bodily functions that are usually automatic and unconscious become consciously irritating, symptomized by pounding heartbeat or shortness of breath, for example. The patient is often also anxious, unsure of himself and likely to evade difficult or demanding situations. |
| L15,2: | | Mental retardation to a lesser degree, debility (often considered fit for duty). |
| U15,2: | | More advanced mental retardation, imbecility. |
| U16: | | Mental retardation and epilepsy. |
| vU 15,1: | | Designation for both past and current mental disease. |
| vU15,2: | | Severe mental retardation, idiocy. |
| vU15,3: | | Deals with morbid, extreme mental deviation, like compulsion neurosis, extreme congenital depressions or phobias. |
| L,U/vU17: | | Suffering from chronic brain and spinal marrow conditions with effects such as continued paralysis following infantile paralysis. |
| A18: | | Minor chronic paralysis in the peripheral nervous system. |
| k.v.U/vU18: | | Serious chronic paralysis in the peripheral nervous system. |
| A19: | | Healed cranial fracture, or concussion without after-effects. |
| Z19: | | Same as A19, before possible after-effects have been established. |
| L19: | | Abnormal cranial shape, including bumps and indentations, tissue damage and past concussions that make the use of a helmet or other headgear difficult, whose effect is otherwise limited to stupor or dizziness. |
| U/vU19: | | Deals with the same kind of case as L19, but with occasional effects of dizziness and approaching unconsciousness. |
These are some of the letter/number combinations that gave the nickname Alphabet House to the ward in which this novel’s two main characters were hospitalized.
