Men of Snow (15 page)

‘Of course, but I’m still waiting.’

‘Shit. Shit,’ she repeated before she got up to close the heavy drapes, leaving just enough space between them to let in a narrow shaft of light. On the record player came the usual slow, saxophone jazz. She took another sip of champagne before walking back to the other end of the room.

It was just long enough for her performance to succeed. There had for him to be that distance or the stripping would be too intimate and the sexual tensions would fail. Chantelle throughout her act had to be untouchable. Space intensified the sexual need. The watching become more important than anything else as she started moving languidly to the rhythm of the music. Carefully, enticingly she took off her clothes, crossing the screen of light and then going back into the semi darkness, unzipping her dress from the side, sitting on the edge of the bed to take off her shoes and stockings. When she stood up her dancing slowed, cupping her breasts after removing her bra then rubbing the palms of her hands over her nipples.

Franz would sit on his chair watching and smoking.

The climax was as she pulled her pants tight between her buttocks, turning round and bending down for him to have the full view before she lay on the bed, put her hand down her pants and with her legs wide open started fingering herself.

It had been on his second visit when he had told her what he wanted and since then the routine had never changed.  

‘But you find me beautiful. You want me?’ she had asked several times.

‘You are beautiful,’ he had reassured her, ‘I like to sit here, that’s all.

Finally she pulled her hand away, laying there, her breaths coming fast and deep. The climax was real. With him watching her it was always real.

When she stood up on the bed she almost lost her balance pulling her pants off and tossing them in his direction.

‘You know nothing about me,’ she said strongly, trying to see what affect her performance had had on him. But Chantelle could never tell how aroused he had been. His position on the hard backed chair never changed.

‘I know your name,’ had been his answer before he lit another cigarette.

By now her face was flushed, ‘Stop it! You don’t know anything. You never ask me. It shows you’re not interested.’

‘Not again. I hear you. All this is unnecessary.’

‘And what if I tell you that my mother was Chinese, that I was born in Shangai? You see. You know nothing.’

Franz puffed out smoke and said, ‘And what difference does that make?’

‘It should. Of course it should. How after so many visits can it be like this? Fucking a stranger, fine, but not us, not like this, seeing each other and yet there is so little.’

‘This is not the time it should matter.’

‘I want it to be the best. It has to be that. I wait here day after day so it has to be good. Do you understand? This is for you, what I say.’

‘You can put your clothes on now,’ he said.

She was breathing fast as she asked, ‘Why? Does it bother you now to see me? Don’t you like what you see?’

‘I have seen, so get dressed.’

‘Franz, please,’ she tried as the record finished, the player’s needle swinging side to side.

‘Just piss in your boots as often as you can,’ the wounded sergeant at the hospital had said and Franz remembered again the emptiness in his white face.

His own anger was beginning its gradual course to the surface of his relationship with Chantelle. She was the trap. Now he realised how vulnerable he had become.

‘Have I ever said I hated to come here?’ he asked.

The question pushed Chantelle into getting up to put on her dressing gown, followed by pouring out more champagne and lighting a cigarette.

‘You threaten myself control, do you realise that?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes you do. It’s called weakness. Like your soft spot, I appear to have one as well.’

‘The one you like to see me come with.’

‘Like is not the right word. You can’t understand. The trouble is I do. I spend my time being aware myself. It’s necessary. It always has been because I don’t trust who I am.’

‘I don’t like when you talk like this.’

‘Why should you?’

‘Stop it Franz.’

‘If I could I would have done that a long time ago. Just imagine, the German army has given me the chance to fulfil all that I want to be. It’s absolutely down to me. Nobody else will stand in my way. Nobody will say I am wrong, except you.’

‘Alright, you’re wrong,’ Chantelle quickly answered before she said, ‘I know what this is. You’re always preparing me for when your regiment will leave Paris and this is it again. Why can’t you just tell me, is it because you know I want you to take me with you?’

‘And you know that’s not possible.’

‘But you’ve just said anything is possible. Why not that?’

‘Because you wouldn’t like to go where I and my regiment will be going.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Yes you do.’

She gulped down her drink and stubbed out her cigarette and then added, ‘They will kill me. They will do that.’

He waited, trying to control the frustration that was growing the longer he stayed.

‘Unfortunately the French seem better at killing themselves than anything else.’

‘I love you,’ she tried.

‘No you don’t,’ he said strongly.

‘I want to be with you.’

‘You made a mistake and now you need my protection. That’s all this is.’

‘No,’ Chantelle muttered, ‘I knew what I was doing. I didn’t have to do this.’

‘Yes you did.’

‘Because you wanted it I suppose.’

‘Of course,’ was his answer.

‘No Franz. Just because you and your stupid army are in charge of our city doesn’t....’

‘Yes it does. So stop talking nonsense. You had no choice, none at all. But I agree, I don’t think your countrymen will see it that way. They’ll just see another tart who slept with a Nazi, who became his mistress and accepted his presents and let herself be housed in the apartment of some Yid who we removed with the help of your countrymen. Full of contradictions are the French. They want it all and don’t really manage any of it, except treason, except revenge. They seem to be talented at that.’

‘Well fuck it,’ she said angrily, ‘But you can’t so even that’s wrong.’

‘It’s all wrong.’

‘And who made it like that?’

‘You did of course. You and the rest of the French who have turned round and shoved their arses in our face ready to be shafted.’  

‘Vive Le France,’ she muttered, ‘Vive monsieur Petain, the country’s hero. Is that what you want to be Franz? Is that why you talk all this shit about control and being yourself and going to the extreme?’

She bent over to the bedside cabinet to take another cigarette as her dressing gown slipped open so he could see her smooth thighs like shiny roads to the place he refused to go.

Momentarily he saw his grandmother’s open mouth with no teeth, sucking in air as she took her afternoon nap.

Trees flickered across his memory then with figures hanging from their branches, black shapes suspended on frost glistening arms that had stuck in his consciousness before he looked up at her.

‘Have you ever ready any Proust?’ he asked.

‘Oh I’ve got lots of time, lots of time waiting for you. I never stop reading, hour after hour, day after day,’ was her sarcastic response.

‘Like a true Frenchman he started writing about himself just after millions of his fellow countrymen had been blown to bits. It hardly entered his brain because it was full of his own pathetic aristocracy and his belief that art was more important than life, except his own of course.’

‘So unGerman I suppose?’

‘Very sad really.’

‘I’m sorry we’re yet again disappointing, sorry that I interest you at all. But it’s alright now, now you’ll be leaving soon.’

‘I want to leave,’ he said.

‘You always have, ever since you got here. That’s how it’s felt. I’ve just helped pass the time.’

‘And I have to go,’ he sighed as he stood up.

‘You have to leave.’

‘Yes.’

She looked up at him as he picked up his cap and placed it carefully on his head.

‘That’s right try and hide it. How did you ever allow yourself to get such a blemish for somebody who wants to be perfect?’ she asked of his scar.

‘You have to be careful Chantelle.’

‘No I don’t. You’re leaving remember?’

‘But not all of us.’

‘Of course not, some of the conquerors have to stay. So go. Go now.’

‘There’s an envelope I’ve left in one of the shoes I gave you. Don’t open it until my regiment has left Paris.’

‘What envelope? What’s in it?’

‘It’s your way out of all this. That’s what it is. I seem to care for you more than you realise.’

‘Franz.’

‘Just follow the instructions. That’s all you have to do.’

‘You’d do this for me?’

‘Apparently.’

Chantelle came up to kiss him.

‘I’ll be safe?’

‘Yes.’

‘This only makes things worse.’

‘No it doesn’t. Now I have to go and this might be for the last time, so remember what I said. And don’t bother reading any Proust. He’s too French,’ were his last words.

She got up to open the curtains, knowing that any attempt to stop him would only make things worse.

He waited outside the door, imagining her inside. She was part of Paris, her city. He could still smell her and her room and her clothes. He felt empty. Nothing had happened, something he had worked hard to experience. Now he could only imagine her at the other side of the door. For a moment he touched his scar, stepped away and then stopped again. He could hear her moving something inside the apartment and then music sounded, soft jazz again like an echo, a last musical stirring that as he went down the stairs gradually disappeared.

CHAPTER  7

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Within two weeks his regiment was on trains moving east.

The carriage was cluttered and cramped full of the growing stench of unwashed soldiers, cigarette smoke and toilets that quickly stopped working. The passageways were stacked with kit bags and other belongings, booty from Paris that soldiers hoped to sell or take back home. Outside as they crossed Europe the wet October days made the journey like a weakly lit tunnel through a constant night with no views, only dribbles of rain slanted across filthy windows.

Franz was cramped up with five others, Steinhof and Uptmann had been with him for the last months, the other three were new to the regiment.  They sat with knees almost touching, each one in turn getting up to stretch his legs. The train was so full it was a struggle to take a step down the corridor. Only the infrequent stops allowed the men to get out and piss and shit where they could, a thousand soldiers stinking out a forlorn stretch of countryside as they were drenched in the perpetual rain.

‘Christ Paris smells like a fucking million miles away already,’ was Steinhof’s comment after they had been travelling for a night and day.

‘What speed are we going so I can work out where the hell we are at the moment?’ Uptmann said.

‘I think this is the Fatherland,’ Lham, one of the new officers, tried.

‘Can you imagine,’ Uptmann sighed, ‘Here and not stopping.’

‘Part of the punishment I think,’ Kalleck, who was another new one to the regiment, mentioned.

Franz hardly listened. He knew his fate was being realised. His life as a soldier was being drawn to a conclusion. It was the deepest part, a core of pride that forced him to the challenge. They had been lectured enough about what to expect. It was what he wanted, the extreme of battles so then he would know.

‘I’m so fucking scared I can’t shit anymore,’ Steinhof had joked as they had stood on the platform in Paris waiting.

At times Franz dozed, but for most of the time he watched the fast pattern of rain streaks and the shadows of countryside and towns they went through, all lost behind the engine’s trail of steam and the incessant rainfall. Around him were the voices of his fellow officers and his men further down the carriage, the sounds of a harmonica, the rattle of the rails, the brakes sounding as they came to another halt. To begin with there had been a few songs but quickly that mood had passed. All the wine and brandy had been drunk. Now the voices were more earnest and questioning, the jokes sounding hollow and misplaced. They all thought they knew what was coming. Only the wounded sergeant in the hospital had said something different.

‘You can’t imagine it. How can anybody have images like that in their head? You can’t describe it. There’s no point because it’ll be worse than anything a soldier can say. Because hardly anybody comes back there are no voices to be heard. But they wouldn’t speak. What I’m trying to say is that you officers are wasting your time being here. My advice would be to put a bullet in yourself, a leg or shoulder so it looks realistic. That would be my advice. But you won’t because you’re officers and officers of the Reich don’t do things like that. Well I would if I were you.’

The stench in the carriage thickened. Franz recognised nothing outside. This was Germany, but it was an alien, rain drenched place.

‘It smells like they’re all shitting themselves,’ was another of Steinhof’s comments.

‘There’s been too many stories, too many,’ was Franz’s response as he glanced at the tall lieutenant buttoning up in his trench coat trying to keep warm.

‘But not exaggerations,’ Uptmann said, yawning at the same time.

‘You never know. We won’t know until we get there.’

‘But you don’t care Brucker either way.’

Franz felt himself pulling back before he said, ‘Caring wouldn’t make any difference.’

‘But you always told us this would happen.’

‘That’s because he put in for it,’ was Steinhof again.

‘And our colonel hates him for it.’

‘I didn’t put in for anything.’

‘That’s because it was bound to happen.’

‘So you say,’ Franz tried to counter, already tired of it.

‘I’m going to vomit,’ came from Kallack, the sergeant, who suddenly jerked up, falling forward towards the window that he slid apart at the top and coughed out a mouthful, most of it splattering down the outside of the rest of the train.

‘Thank you sergeant,’ Hauptmann commented as Kallack slumped back onto his cramped seat, closed his eyes and tried to rest his head back.

Again came the shudder through the carriage as the brakes were applied.

‘Nobody gets out. Nobody gets out,’ was the rushed order of a young officer trying to push his way through.

Steinhof was squashed up against Franz as he had been since Paris. ‘You have had ideas about what’s happening. They can’t have changed that much.’

‘I could want to live,’ he said in a quiet voice.

‘It’s all fucked.’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Maybe it always was.’

‘You’re a soldier.’

‘No I’m not,’ Steinhof answered, ‘I’m a printmaker from Dusseldorf. You can be the soldier. That’s what you want. But don’t think everybody else does.’

‘You can’t avoid what this war has done’

‘You must fucking hate life so much. You must fucking hate it.’

‘It starts with failure and ends in the same way. That’s all.’

‘And that’s where we’re going.’

‘There is no choice.’

‘That’s why we’ve gone for all this.’

‘No,’ Franz said, ‘There’s more. We have to have more, be more. Think of a Yid and compare, that’s what we’re told, and it’s true. It’s the comparison that works.’

‘So we take it all on, again.’

‘This is not like again. This is the opposite. Now there are reasons. You know that. It’s a duty to know that.’

‘That’s what you think, you believe. But not everybody does that.’

‘There are orders.’

‘Which we follow, fuck them.’

‘Now there is nothing else.’

The train shunted forward and stopped again. Franz peered out but there were only shadows of sky and a dark landscape.

‘Why can’t you care for me?’ he heard Chantelle ask, ‘Why do you only want to watch?’

In the East was Stalingrad. It had become the name for all battles. The city was the dark source of blood amidst the white plains of the East, a place that fuelled his mind with the fantasies of strength and darkness and endings. It was the black badge. Stalingrad was the name of all suffering and challenge. Everything of the Reich had been drawn into its shattered outlines. Across the Volga were the furthest distances without end, and the city was the gateway.

                                          --------------------------------------------------------------------

‘Do you understand what I’m saying? Do you understand why it has such meaning to our Fuhrer? This is where we are going. This is a map but what you see on the map no longer exists. In weeks the Volga will be frozen. Stalingrad has become essential. These are our preliminary orders. No doubt they will change. But at the moment you are looking at the position we will be taking up when we arrive. Some of you have been wondering. Now you know.’

The immaculate Colonel Strauss had spoken in a slow, resigned tone. There was no emphasis, only a voice that was full of doubts.

‘Do you ever write back home?’ was Steinhof’s question.

Franz was aware of sergeant Kallack having recovered, listening to them.

‘So?’ Franz said to him.

The sergeant shut his eyes.

‘Do you wish to say something sergeant?’

‘No sir,’ was muttered back, the eyes still closed.

There was shouting from further down the carriage. Soldiers were struggling in both directions over  sleeping bodies.

‘I’ve nothing to say,’ Steinhof continued, ‘I don’t know what to say. What do you tell them?’

‘For me my home is never forgotten,’ Franz said.

‘I thought it was in Bavaria.’

‘It is.’

‘You have ten minutes! Ten minutes,’ came the next officer clambering through the carriage.

Outside the rain was turning to sleet, whipping across an open field as most of the men climbed out.

Franz stood peeing with his collar pulled up and his cap tilted down over his face, the cold air a relief from inside the train. He could smell the different atmosphere. It had the tang of frosted grass and hard earth and the coming winter.

The line of soldiers shuffled in the night rain before there was the sound of shots and the whole regiment seemed to twitch into alertness. Men were scrambling up onto the carriage roofs to light up their beam torches and shine them across the sodden ploughed field.

‘What is it?’ Franz asked a corporal who was running past.

‘Men trying to desert sir,’ he called.

The shafts of light picked up a group of soldiers returning out of the darkness, two of them with their hands in the air.

A whistle sounded as the train blew out steam.

                                          ------------------------------------------------------------------

It was the next morning when they finally stopped at a station. Everybody on board started to move their stiffened limbs and taste their dry throats.

The platform was busy with Polish women trundling in samovars and huge baskets of bread and sausages. The soldiers peered out of the filthy windows at them and the ramshackle buildings behind. The women were dressed in their peasant shawls and long coats and boots, peering miserably at the food they were organising.

From the other side of the carriage soldiers had noticed a long line of cattle trucks that were barred and locked. Through some of the broken slats they could see dark eyes peering out, or the shape of a woman’s thin face in a hole in the wood. There were mutterings for water coming from the trucks, their requests repeated constantly.

Two carriages at a time were allowed onto the platform for the hot coffee, bread and thick sausages. When it came to his carriage Franz waited and watched as the rest of his men fed themselves. The Polish women always looked the same to him with their miserable, sullen expressions. 

He could hear the drone on the tracks. It was the sound of distances. They were in Poland and so much closer to their destination. A few guards watched what the women were doing as the food was quickly eaten. Then onto the platform marched a small brass band as the soldiers were told to get back on the train.

The band lined up. The band master jerked out to the front, glanced through some of the carriage windows into the train and in a loud, crisp voice introduced what was going to be played and wished us all an uneventful journey.

‘He’s no fucking idea where we’re going,’ sergeant Lohm muttered.

It was during the second tune that the snow began to fall, just a few flakes to start with. Within minutes it was smearing over the windows until nobody could see anything of the miserable Polish women and the tiny but loud brass band standing on the platform. Steam passed by the carriages as wheels skidded before gripping on the track to move forwards.

‘What was that place?’ sergeant Kallack asked.

Hauptmann pulled out a cigarette from inside his coat as he said, ‘It had no name. The Poles don’t have any country so I’ve been told we are in the process of changing all the names of everywhere, farms, cities, towns so when you look at a map in the future there will be nothing that shows this was ever Poland.’

‘Fuck the Polaks,’ somebody shouted from the next line of seats, ‘Just make sure they are what you think they are or you might get a nasty surprise.’

‘That sausage will fill this place with farts, strong farts,’ was another comment.

‘What happened Brucker to the deserters?’ Hauptmann enquired.

‘They will have been shot as they should have been.’

There was a general reticence for the next few hours as the snowstorm began to intensify. Often now the train would stop it appeared for no reason before slowly setting off again.

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The first sight was a line of bodies laid out along beside the track. The snow crossed the beams of strong lights as they got off the train. There were three large, wooden sheds. A group of trucks was parked up. Behind the sheds the wounded were waiting silently, bandaged figures being covered in the snow. Other troops were crossing the tracks as shouted commands were muffled in the night’s weather. Colonel Strauss appeared for a few moments before going into one of the sheds as two trucks rattled away into the darkness. Another train creaked and shuddered to a stop with more soldiers on board.