Armageddon In Retrospect (7 page)

“What the hell got into him?” said Kniptash.

“All I did was show him a picture of a cake and he blows his stack,” complained Coleman. “Nazi,” he said under his breath.

Donnini slipped the crayons into his pocket, and scrambled out of the way of Kleinhans’ terrible swift sword.

“The Articles of the Geneva Convention say privates must work for their keep. Work!” said Corporal Kleinhans. He kept them sweating and grunting all afternoon. He barked an order the instant any of the three showed an inclination to speak. “You! Donnini! Here, pick up this bowl of spaghetti,” he said, indicating a huge boulder with the tip of his toe. He strode over to a pair of twelve-by-twelve rafters lying across the street. “Kniptash and Coleman, my boys,” he crooned, clapping his hands, “here are those chocolate éclairs you’ve been dreaming about. One for each of you.” He placed his face an inch from Coleman’s. “With whipped cream,” he whispered.

It was a genuinely glum crew that shambled into the prison enclosure that evening. Before, Donnini, Kniptash, and Coleman had made a point of half limping in, as though beaten down by terribly hard labor and unrelenting discipline. Kleinhans, in turn, had made a fine spectacle, snapping at them like a bad-tempered sheep dog as they stumbled through the gate. Now, their semblance was as before, but the tragedy they portrayed was real.

Kleinhans jerked open the barracks door, and motioned them in with an imperious sweep of his hand.

“Achtung!”
cried a high voice from within. Donnini, Coleman, and Kniptash halted and slouched, their heels more or less together. With a crackle of leather and the clack of heels, Corporal Kleinhans slammed his rifle butt on the floor, and stood as erect as his old back would permit, trembling. A surprise inspection by a German officer was under way. Once a month they could expect one. A short colonel in a fur-collared coat and black boots was standing, his feet far apart, before a rank of prisoners. Beside him was the fat sergeant of the guard. All stared at Corporal Kleinhans and his charges.

“Well,” said the colonel in German, “what have we here?”

The sergeant hurriedly explained with gestures, his brown eyes pleading for approval.

The colonel walked slowly across the cement floor, his hands clasped behind his back. He paused before Kniptash. “You pin a pad poy, eh?”

“Yessir, I have,” said Kniptash simply.

“You sorry now?”

“Yessir, I sure am.”

“Good.” The colonel circled the small group several times, humming to himself, pausing once to finger the fabric of Donnini’s shirt. “You unnerstandt me ven I talk Enklish?”

“Yessir, it’s very clear,” said Donnini.

“Vot part von Amerika I got an agsent like?” he asked eagerly.

“Milwaukee, sir. I could have sworn you were from Milwaukee.”

“I could be a spvy in Milvaukee,” said the colonel proudly to the sergeant. Suddenly, his gaze fell on Corporal Kleinhans, whose chest was just a little below his eye-level. His good humor evaporated. He stalked over to stand squarely before Kleinhans. “Corporal! Your blouse pocket is unbuttoned!” he said in German.

Kleinhans’ eyes were wide as he reached for the offending pocket flap. Feverishly, he tried to tug it down to the button. It wouldn’t reach.

“You have something in your pocket!” said the colonel, reddening. “
That’s
the trouble. Take it out!”

Kleinhans jerked two notebooks from the pocket and buttoned the flap. He sighed with relief.

“And what have you in your notebooks, eh? A list of prisoners. Demerits, maybe? Let me see them.” The colonel snatched them from the limp fingers. Kleinhans rolled his eyes.

“What is this?” said the colonel incredulously, his voice high. Kleinhans started to speak. “Silence, Corporal!” The colonel raised his eyebrows, and held a book out so that the sergeant could share his view. “‘Vot I am going to eat de first ting ven I gat home,’” he read slowly. He shook his head. “Ach! ‘Tvelf pangakes mit a fried ek betveen each von!’ Oh! ‘Und mit hot futch on top!’” He turned to Kleinhans. “Is that what you want, you poor boy?” he said in German. “And such a pretty picture you drew, too. Mmmmm.” He reached for Kleinhans’ shoulders. “Corporals have to think about war all the time. Privates can think about anything they want to—girls, food, and good things like that—just as long as they do what the corporals tell them.” Deftly, as though he’d done it many times before, the colonel dug his thumbnails beneath the silver corporal’s pips on Kleinhans’ shoulder loops. They rattled against the wall like pebbles, down at the far end of the barracks. “Lucky privates.”

Once more, Kleinhans cleared his throat for permission to speak.

“Silence, Private!” The little colonel strutted out of the barracks, shredding the notebooks as he went.

III.

Donnini felt rotten, and so, he knew, did Kniptash and Coleman. It was the morning after Kleinhans’ demotion. Outwardly, Kleinhans seemed no different. His stride was spry as ever, and he still seemed capable of drawing pleasure from the fresh air and signs of spring poking up from the ruins.

When they arrived at their street, which still wasn’t passable, even to bicycles, despite their three weeks of punishment, Kleinhans didn’t browbeat them as he had the afternoon before. Neither did he tell them to appear to be busy as he had done the days before that. Instead, he led them directly into the ruin where they spent their lunch hours, and motioned them to sit down. Kleinhans appeared to sleep. There they sat in silence, the Americans aching with remorse.

“We’re sorry you lost your pips on account of us,” said Donnini at last.

“Lucky privates,” said Kleinhans gloomily. “Two wars I go through to be a corporal. Now,” he snapped his fingers, “poof. Cookbooks are
verboten
.”

“Here,” said Kniptash, his voice quavering. “Want a smoke? I got a Hungarian cigarette.” He held out the precious cigarette.

Kleinhans smiled wanly. “Let’s pass it around.” He lit it, took a puff, and handed it to Donnini.

“Where’d you get a Hungarian cigarette?” asked Coleman.

“From a Hungarian,” said Kniptash. He pulled up his trouser legs. “Traded my socks for it.”

They finished the cigarette and leaned back against the masonry. Still Kleinhans had said nothing about work. Again he seemed faraway, lost in thought.

“Don’t you boys talk about food anymore?” said Kleinhans, after another long silence.

“Not after you lost your pips,” said Kniptash gravely.

Kleinhans nodded. “That’s all right. Easy come, easy go.” He licked his lips. “Pretty soon now, this will all be over.” He leaned back and stretched. “And you know what I’m going to do the day it ends, boys?” Private Kleinhans closed his eyes. “I’m going to get three pounds of beef shoulder and lard it with bacon. Then I’ll rub it with garlic and salt and pepper, and put it in a crock with white wine and water”—his voice became strident—“and onions and bay leaves and sugar”—he stood—“and peppercorns! In ten days, boys, she’s ready!”

“What’s ready?” said Coleman excitedly, reaching where his notebook had been.

“Sauerbraten!” cried Kleinhans.

“For how many?” asked Kniptash.

“Just two, my boy. Sorry.” Kleinhans laid his hand on Donnini’s shoulder. “Enough sauerbraten for two hungry artists—eh, Donnini?” He winked at Kniptash. “For you and Coleman, I’ll fix something very filling. How about twelve pancakes with a slice of colonel between each one, and a big blob of hot fudge on top, eh?”

S
ummer is a fine time for a birthday,” said the old man. “And, as long as you have a choice, why not choose a summer day?” He wet his thumb on his tongue, and leafed through the sheaf of documents the soldiers had ordered him to fill out. No document could be complete without a birthdate, and, for the boy, one had to be chosen.

“Today can be your birthday, if you like it,” said the old man.

“It rained in the morning,” said the boy.

“All right, then—tomorrow. The clouds are blowing off to the south. The sun should shine all day tomorrow.”

Looking for shelter from the morning rainstorm, the soldiers had found the hidingplace where, miracle of miracles, the old man and the boy had lived in the ruins for seven years without documents—without, as it were, official permission to be alive. They said no person could get food or shelter or clothing without documents. But the old man and the boy had found all three for the digging in the catacombs of cellars beneath the shattered city, for the filching at night.

“Why are you shaking?” said the boy.

“Because I’m old. Because soldiers frighten old men.”

“They don’t frighten me,” said the boy. He was excited by the sudden intrusion into their underground world. He held something shiny, golden in the narrow shaft of light from the cellar window. “See? One of them gave me a brass button.”

There had been nothing frightening about the soldiers. Since the man was so old and the child so young, the military took a playful view of the pair—who, of all the people in the city, alone had recorded their presence nowhere, had been inoculated against nothing, had sworn allegiance to nothing, renounced or apologized for nothing, voted or marched for nothing, since the war.

“I meant no harm,” the old man had told the soldiers with a pretence of senility. “I didn’t know.” He told them how, on the day the war ended, a refugee woman had left a baby in his arms and never returned. That was how he got the boy. The child’s nationality? Name? Birthdate? He didn’t know.

The old man rolled potatoes from the stove’s wood fire with a stick, knocked the embers from their blackened skins. “I haven’t been a very good father, letting you go without birthdays this long,” he said. “You’re entitled to one every year, you know, and I’ve let six years go by without a birthday. And presents, too. You’re supposed to get presents.” He picked up a potato gingerly, and tossed it to the boy, who caught it and laughed. “So you’ve decided tomorrow’s the day, eh?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“All right. That doesn’t give me much time to get you a present, but there’ll be something.”

“What?”

“Birthday presents are better if they’re a surprise.” He thought of the wheels he had seen on a pile of rubble down the street. When the boy fell asleep, he would make some sort of cart.

“Listen!” said the boy.

As at every sunset, over the ruins from a distant street came the sound of marching.

“Don’t listen,” said the old man. He held up a finger for attention. “And you know what we’ll do on your birthday?”

“Steal cakes from the bakery?”

“Maybe—but that isn’t what I was thinking of. You know what I’d like to do tomorrow? I’d like to take you where you’ve never been in all your life—where I haven’t been for years.” The thought made the old man excited and happy. This would be
the
gift. The cart would be nothing. “Tomorrow I’ll take you away from war.”

He didn’t see that the boy looked puzzled, and a little disappointed.

It was the birthday the boy had chosen for himself, and the sky, as the old man had promised, was clear. They ate breakfast in the twilight of their cellar. The cart the old man had made late at night sat on the table. The boy ate with one hand, his other hand resting on the cart. Occasionally, he paused in eating to move the cart back and forth a few inches, and to imitate the sound of a motor.

“That’s a nice truck you’ve got there, Mister,” said the old man. “Bringing animals to the market, are you?”

“Brummmaaaa, brummmaaaa. Out of my way! Brummmaaaa. Out of the way of my tank.”

“Sorry,” sighed the old man, “thought you were a truck. You like it anyway, and that’s what counts.” He dropped his tin plate into the bucket of water simmering on the stove. “And this is only the beginning, only the beginning,” he said expansively. “The best is yet to come.”

“Another present?”

“In a way. Remember what I promised? We’ll get away from war today. We’ll go to the woods.”

“Brummmaaaa, brummmaaaa. Can I take my tank?”

“If you’ll let it be a truck, just for today.”

The boy shrugged. “I’ll leave it, and play with it when I get back.”

Blinking in the bright morning, the two walked down their deserted street, turned into a busy boulevard lined with brave new façades. It was as though the world had suddenly become fresh and clean and whole again. The people didn’t seem to know that desolation began a block on either side of the fine boulevard, and stretched for miles. The two, with lunches under their arms, walked toward the pine-covered hills to the south, toward which the boulevard lifted in a gentle grade.

Four young soldiers came down the sidewalk abreast. The old man stepped into the street, out of their way. The boy saluted, and held his ground. The soldiers smiled, returned his salute, and parted their ranks to let him pass.

“Armored infantry,” said the boy to the old man.

“Hmmmm?” said the old man absently, his eyes on the green hills. “Really? How did you know that?”

“Didn’t you see the green braid?”

“Yes, but those things change. I can remember when armored infantry was black and red, and green was—” He cut the sentence short. “It’s all nonsense,” he said, almost sharply. “It’s all meaningless, and today we’re going to forget all about it. Of all days, on your birthday, you shouldn’t be thinking about—”

“Black and red is the engineers,” interrupted the boy seriously. “Plain black is the military police, and red is the artillery, and blue and red is the medical corps, and black and orange is…”

The pine forest was very still. The centuries-old carpet of needles and green roof deadened the sounds floating up from the city. Infinite colonnades of thick brown trunks surrounded the old man and the boy. The sun, directly overhead, showed itself to them only as a cluster of bright pinpoints through the fat, dense blanket of needles and boughs above.

“Here?” said the boy.

The old man looked about himself. “No—just a little farther.” He pointed. “There—see through there? We can see the church from here.” The black skeleton of a burned steeple was framed against a square of sky between two trunks on the edge of the forest. “But listen—hear that? Water. There’s a brook up above, and we can get down in its little valley and see nothing but treetops and sky.”

“All right,” said the boy. “I like this place, but all right.” He looked at the steeple, then at the old man, and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“You’ll see—you’ll see how much better,” said the old man.

As they reached the top of the ridge, he gestured happily at the brook below. “There! And what do you think of this? Eden! As it was in the beginning—trees, sky, and water. This is the world you should have had, and today, at least, you can have it.”

“And look!” said the boy, pointing to the ridge on the other side.

A huge tank, rusted to the color of the fallen pine needles, squatted on shattered treads on the ridge, with scabs of corrosion about the black hole where its gun had once been.

“How can we cross the water to get to it?” said the boy.

“We don’t want to get to it,” said the old man irritably. He held the boy’s hand tightly. “Not today. Some other day we can come out here, maybe. But not today.”

The boy was crestfallen. His small hand grew limp in the old man’s.

“Here’s a bend up ahead, and around that we’ll find exactly what we want.”

The boy said nothing. He snatched up a rock, and threw it at the tank. As the little missile fell toward the target, he tensed, as though the whole world were about to explode. A faint click came from the turret, and he relaxed, somehow satisfied. Docilely, he followed the old man.

Around the bend, they found what the old man had been looking for: a smooth, dry table of rock, out by the stream, walled in by high banks. The old man stretched out on the moss, affectionately patted the spot beside him, where he wanted the boy to sit. He unwrapped his lunch.

After lunch, the boy fidgeted. “It’s very quiet,” he said at last.

“It’s as it should be,” said the old man. “One corner of the world—as it should be.”

“It’s lonely.”

“That’s its beauty.”

“I like it better in the city, with the soldiers and—”

The old man seized his arm roughly, squeezed it hard. “No you don’t. You just don’t know. You’re too young, too young to know what this is, what I’m trying to give you. But, when you’re older, you’ll remember, and want to come back here—long after your little cart is broken.”

“I don’t want my cart to be broken,” said the boy.

“It won’t, it won’t. But just lie here, close your eyes and listen, and forget about everything. This much I can give you—a few hours away from war.” He closed his eyes.

The boy lay down beside him, and dutifully closed his eyes, too.

The sun was low in the sky when the old man awakened. He ached and felt damp from his long nap by the brook. He yawned and stretched. “Time to go,” he said, his eyes still closed. “Our day of peace is over.” And then he saw that the boy was gone. He called the boy’s name unconcernedly at first; and then, getting no answer but the wind’s, he stood and shouted.

Panic welled up in him. The boy had never been in the woods before, could easily get lost if he were to wander north, deeper into the hills and forest. He climbed onto higher ground and shouted again. No answer.

Perhaps the boy had gone down to the tank again, and tried to cross the stream. He couldn’t swim. The old man hurried downstream, around the bend to where he could see the tank. The ugly relic gaped at him balefully from across the cut. Nothing moved, and there was only the sound of wind and the water.

“Bang!” cried a small voice.

The boy raised his head from the turret triumphantly. “Gotcha!” he said.