The Train Was On Time (6 page)
“Peut-être,” he said before Andreas left, “peut-être une folle, a madwoman from the asylum over there.” He gestured toward the wall, where red-roofed buildings showed among fine tall trees. “A mental asylum. During the battle they all ran away, you see, and they all had to be rounded up again, a tough job.…”
“Thanks … thanks.” On up the hill toward the asylum. The wall began close by, but there was no gate. It was a long, long walk up the hot hill until he reached a gate, and he knew in advance, he knew there would be no one left. A sentry in a steel helmet stood at the gate, and there were no more lunatics, only some sick and wounded and a V.D. treatment center.
“A big V.D. center,” said the sentry, “did you pick up something too, bud?”
Andreas looked across to the big field where the aircraft’s tail with the emblem was sticking in the earth and the steel helmet was glinting in the sun.
“It’s so cheap here, that’s the trouble,” said the sentry, who was bored. “You can have it for fifty pfennigs,” he laughed, “fifty pfennigs!”
“That’s right,” said Andreas … forty million, he thought, France has forty million inhabitants, that’s too many. You
can’t search among all those, I must wait … I must look into every pair of eyes I meet. He didn’t feel like walking on another three minutes and having a look at the field where he had been wounded. For it wasn’t the same field, everything was different. It wasn’t the same road, or the same wall, they had all forgotten; the road had forgotten too, just as people forget, and the wall had forgotten that once it had collapsed with fear and he with it. And the tail of the aircraft over there was a dream, a dream with a French emblem. Why go and look at the field? Why walk those extra three minutes and recall with hate and pain the patriotic poem that he had remembered against his will? Why torment his tired legs any further?
“Now,” said the soldier who needed a shave, “now we’re getting close to Przemysl.”
“Pass me the bottle again,” said Andreas. He took another swig.
It was still cold, but dawn was softly breaking, and soon the horizon would be visible, that Polish horizon. Dark houses and a plain full of shadows, and the sky above it always threatening to collapse because there was nothing to hold it up. Perhaps this was already Galicia, perhaps this plain rising out of the dusk, drab and gray and full of sorrow and blood, perhaps this plain was already Galicia … Galicia … Eastern Galicia.…
“You’ve had a good long sleep,” said the soldier who needed a shave. “From seven to five. It’s five o’clock already. Krakow to Tarnov … all gone; I didn’t sleep a wink. That’s how long we’ve already been in Poland. Krakow to Tarnov, and now Przemysl.…”
What a fantastic difference between Przemysl and the Rhine. I’ve slept for ten hours, and now I’m hungry again, and I’ve got forty-eight hours to live. Forty-eight hours have already gone by. For forty-eight hours this Soon has been suspended inside me: Soon I’m going to die. At first it was certain, but far off; certain, but unclear, and it’s been getting steadily narrower
and narrower, already it’s narrowed down to a few miles of road and two days away, and every turn of these wheels brings me closer. Every turn of the wheels tears a piece off my life, off an unhappy life. These wheels are grinding away my life, whittling away my life with their stupid rhythm; they rattle across Polish soil as heedlessly as they rattled along by the Rhine, and they are the same wheels. Maybe Paul caught sight of the wheel that’s under this door, this oily, dirt-encrusted train-wheel that’s come all the way from Paris, maybe even from Le Havre. From Paris, the Gare Montparnasse … soon they’ll be sitting in wicker chairs under awnings and drinking wine in the autumn breeze, swallowing that sweet dust of Paris and sipping absinthe or Pernod, nonchalantly flicking their cigarette butts into the gutter that runs under that soft sky, that ever-mocking sky. There are only five million people in Paris, and many streets, many alleys, and many, many houses, and from not one of the windows do those eyes look out; even five million are too many.…
All at once the soldier who needed a shave began speaking very rapidly. It was lighter now, and the first of the sleeping men began to stir, to turn over in their sleep, and it seemed as if he must speak before they were fully awake. He wanted to speak into the night, into a listening ear in the night.…
“The terrible part is that I shall never see her again, I know I won’t,” he said in a low voice, “and I don’t know what’ll become of her. It’s three days now since I left, three days. What’s she been doing in those three days? I don’t believe that Russian is still with her—because she screamed like an animal, like an animal facing the muzzle of a hunter’s gun. There’s no one with her. She’s waiting. God, I wouldn’t want to be a woman. Always waiting … waiting … waiting … waiting.”
The unshaven soldier screamed softly, but it was a scream all right, a terribly soft scream. “She’s waiting … she can’t live without me. There’s no one with her, and no one
will ever go to her now. She’s waiting only for me, and I love her. Now she’s as innocent as a girl that’s never thought of kissing, and that innocence is all for me. That ghastly, terrible shock has completely cleansed her, I know it has … and no one, no one on earth can help her but me, no one, and here I am on a train heading for Przemysl … I’m going to Lvov … to Kolomyya … and never again will I cross the German border. That’s something no one would ever be able to understand, why I don’t take the next train back to her … why don’t I? No one would ever be able to understand that. But I’m scared of that innocence … and I love her very much, and I’m going to die, and all she’ll ever get from me now will be an official letter saying: Fallen for Greater Germany.…” He took a long, deep drink.
“How slowly the train’s going, mate, don’t you think? I want to get away, far away … and quickly, and I don’t know why I don’t change trains and go back, I’ve still got time … I wish the train would go faster, much faster.…”
Some of the men had woken and were blinking morosely into the false light rising from the plain.…
“I’m scared,” whispered the unshaven soldier into Andreas’ ear, “I’m scared, that’s what, scared of dying but even more scared of going back, going back to her … that’s why I’d rather die … maybe I’ll write to her.…”
The men who had woken up were combing back their hair, lighting cigarettes, and looking contemptuously out of the windows, where dark huts stood among what seemed to be barren fields; there were no people in this country … somewhere over there were some hills … everything was gray … Polish horizon.…
The unshaven soldier was silent. There was hardly any life left in him. He had not been able to sleep all night; the spark in him had gone out, and his eyes were like blind mirrors, his cheeks yellow and cavernous, and what had been the need for
a shave was now a beard, a reddish-black beard below the thick hair on his forehead.
“Those are precisely the advantages of the 37 antitank weapon,” came a clipped voice, “those are precisely the advantages … mobility … mobility.…”
“And no louder than a knock at the door,” laughed an equally clipped voice.
“Not really?”
“Yes, he got the Knight’s Cross for that … and all we did was shit in our pants.…”
“They ought to listen to the Führer, that’s what I say. Get rid of the aristocrats. Von Kruseiten he was called. What a name. A damned know-it-all.…” Lucky fellow, that one with the beard, asleep now when the nattering starts up and able to stay awake when everything’s quiet. I must be grateful, I’ve still got two more nights, thought Andreas … two long, long nights; I’d like to be alone then. If they knew I’d prayed for the Jews in Cernauti and Stanislav and Kolomyya, they’d arrest me on the spot or stick me in the madhouse.… 37 antitank weapon.
The blond fellow rubbed his narrow, hideously filmy eyes for a very long time. There was something scaly in the corners of them, something disgusting, but it didn’t stop him offering Andreas bread, white bread and jam. And he still had some coffee in the flask. It felt good to eat; Andreas realized he was very hungry again. It was almost a craving, and he could no longer control his eyes as they embraced the great loaf of bread. That white bread was unbelievably good.
“Yes,” sighed the blond fellow, “my mother baked it for me just before I left.” Later on Andreas sat for a long time in the john, smoking. The john was the only place where you could be really alone. The only place in the whole world, in the whole of Hitler’s great-and-glorious army. It was good to sit there and smoke, and he felt he had once again got the better of his depression. Depression was only a bogey that haunted you just after you woke up; here he was alone, and he
had everything. When he wasn’t alone he had nothing. Here he had everything, Paul and the eyes of the girl he loved … the blond fellow and the man who needed a shave, and the one who had said: Practically speaking, practically speaking we’ve already won the war, and the one who had just said: Those are precisely the advantages of the 37 antitank weapon—they were all there, and the prayers were alive too, very close and warm, and it felt good to be alone. When you were alone you didn’t feel so lonely any more. This evening, he thought, I’ll pray for a long time again, this evening in Lvov. Lvov is the springboard … between Lvov and Kolomyya … the train was getting closer and closer to the goal, and the wheels that had rumbled through Paris, the Gare Montparnasse, maybe through Le Havre or Abbeville, were going as far as Przemysl … till they got quite close to the springboard.…
It was full daylight now, but the sun didn’t seem to be coming through today; somewhere in the thick gray mass of clouds hung a pale spot with a soft gray light streaming from it that lit up the forests, distant hills … villages and the dark-clad figures who shaded their eyes to follow the train out of sight. Galicia … Galicia.… He stayed in the john until the deafening thumping and swearing on the other side of the door drove him out.
The train arrived in Przemysl on time. It was almost pleasant there. They waited until everyone had left the train, then woke up the man with the beard. The platform was already empty. The sun had come through and was beating down on dusty piles of rock and sand. The man with the beard knew at once what to do.
“Yes,” was all he said. Then he stood up and cut the wire so they could get out right there. Andreas had the least luggage, just his pack, which was very light now that the heavy air-raid sandwiches had all been eaten. He had only a shirt and a pair of socks and some writing paper and his flask, which
was always empty, and his steel helmet, since he had left his rifle behind in Paul’s clothes closet where it stood propped up behind the raincoat.
The blond fellow had a Luftwaffe rucksack and a suitcase, and the bearded soldier had two cartons and a knapsack; both men also had pistols. Stepping out into the sunshine, they saw for the first time that the bearded soldier was a sergeant. The dull braid showed up now against his gray collar. The platform was deserted, the place looked like a freight yard. To the right lay army huts, hut after hut, delousing huts, cookhouse huts, recreation huts, dormitory huts, and no doubt a brothel hut where everything was guaranteed fully sanitary. Huts wherever you looked, but they walked to the left, way over to the left where there was a dead, overgrown track and an overgrown loading ramp by a fir tree. There they lay down, and in the sunshine behind the army huts they could see the old towers of Przemysl on the River San.
The bearded soldier did not sit down. He merely set his baggage on the ground and said: “I’ll go and pick up our rations and find out when the train leaves for Lvov, eh? You fellows try and get some sleep.” He took their leave passes and disappeared very slowly down the platform. He ambled along at a terribly slow, maddeningly slow, pace, and they saw that his blue work pants were soiled, full of stains and torn places as if from barbed wire; he walked very slowly, with almost a rolling gait, and from a distance he might have been taken for a sailor.
It was noon, very hot, and the shade of the fir tree was already drenched with heat, a dry shade without gentleness. The blond fellow had spread out his blanket, and they lay with their heads on their packs, looking toward the city across the hot steaming roofs of all those army huts. At some point the bearded soldier vanished between two huts, walking as if he didn’t care where he was going.…
Alongside another platform stood a train about to leave for Germany. The locomotive already had steam up, and bareheaded soldiers were looking out of the windows. Why don’t I get on, thought Andreas, it’s really very odd. Why don’t I find a seat in that train and go back to the Rhine? Why don’t I buy myself a leave pass in this country where you can buy anything, and go back to Paris, the Gare Montparnasse, and comb the streets, one by one, hunt through every house and look for one little tender gesture from the hands that must belong to those eyes? Five million, that’s one eighth, why shouldn’t she be among them … why don’t I go to Amiens, to the house with the pierced brick wall, and put a bullet through my head at the spot where her gaze, very close and tender, true and deep, rested in my soul for a quarter of a second? But these thoughts were as leaden as his legs. It felt great to stretch your legs, your legs got longer and longer, and he felt as though he could stretch them all the way to Przemysl.
They lay there smoking, sluggish and weary as only men can be who have been sleeping and sitting in a cramped railway car.
The sun had made a wide arc by the time Andreas awoke. The bearded soldier still was not back. The blond fellow was awake and smoking.
The train for Germany had left, but already there was another train for Germany standing there, and from the large delousing hut on the other side emerged gray figures with their parcels and knapsacks, rifles slung around their necks, bound for Germany. One of them started running, then three ran, then ten, then they were all running, bumping into one another, knocking parcels out of hands … and the whole gray weary wretched column of men was running because one of them had begun to panic.…
“Where did you put the map?” asked the blond fellow. These were the first words spoken by either of them in a long while.
