Officer Factory. Hans Hellmut Kirst

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СКАЧАТЬ me home—a clean, well-kept home, a decent place. Her parents are away. Wonderful carefree hours. A strangely intoxicating sense of happiness. And as I make my way back late, very late, to barracks, I feel an overwhelming desire to sing at the top of my voice. I'm so happy! But the night has no sequel, not for me at any rate. “Don’t let's get sentimental," she says. “But I love you!" I cry. And it's the first time in my life I've ever said such a thing. “That’s what the others say, too," declares Eva-Maria. Then she goes off with one of the others.

      I stand at night in the street of our little garrison town and listen into the darkness. And I raise my eyes to where a soft light shines behind a curtained window. When I close my eyes I see her before me, I see everything she does and everything that happens to her: I see her smile, radiant with happiness and, pleasure and at the same time dread. I see her quivering mouth tortured with desire, see her breasts as she covers them with her hands, see the rounded curves of her body. And I close my eyes, and now it is myself who am with her in that one night I spent with her.

      And I say to myself: “I’ll never again tell a woman I love her. Never."

      Then comes the war. A man ducks down in front of me behind the rim of a well, all cramped as if doubled up with pain. His hair sticks out from under his cap. He's frightened and his body and clothes are covered in filth. I get him in my sights at a range of about sixty yards and raise the barrel of my rifle towards his temples where he has an unruly tuft of hair. Slowly I curl the forefinger of my right hand round the trigger, but I can't bring myself to shoot. I can't do it. The man behind the rim of the well shoots, though. And a fellow beside me shudders, stares for a second into nothingness, then blood spurts from between his eyes and collapses.

      “Here’s an extra loaf for you," Sergeant Taschenmacher tells me. “I don't want it," I answer. Sergeant Taschenmacher has pinched two dozen loaves from the ration truck for his own private consumption. “Come on," he says amiably, and he can be very amiable when he wants, “don’t be a wet, go ahead and pocket the loaf, it may come in handy. You can even get yourself a real virgin with it if you feel like it—I'll throw in a suitable address for nothing. You see how generous I am!" “Sorry," I say. Now he's much less amiable. “Look here," he says, "are you out of your mind? What is it you want? Two loaves? Well, all right then." “No," I say. “Well, three loaves, then," he says angrily, "and that's my final offer." “I insist that the two dozen loaves go where they belong," I reply. “And that's my final offer. If they don't I'll report the matter." Cursing, Sergeant Taschenmacher loads the two dozen loaves up on to the truck again all by himself.

      The child wants to come to me; it raises a hand and opens its little mouth. But the officer chases both mother and child away. Then he sets light to the farm, theoretically to give a better field of fire. The smoke billows softly, nauseating, towards me, wreathing itself in foul, thick, yellow and green waves about my face. And I stand there motionless, trying not to breathe and listening to the choking sobs of the woman and the gasping of the child. But I neither move nor breathe. “You have to kill to prevent yourself being killed," says the officer. “That’s the law of war; you can't get away from it."

      “Please go and see my wife," one of my comrades asks me. “Take her this parcel; I've saved a few rations. Give her my love and tell her I think about her all the time." And then I find myself sitting beside this wife of his. I've got a lot to tell her and she's very happy as we sit there having a drink together. I make a move to go, but she won't let me. “It’s so nice here," she says. It's warm in the room and getting warmer all the time and she says: “Make yourself at home; it's so nice together here." Well, fine, so I take off my tunic. But why does she then have to take off her blouse and stockings? Ah well, it is warm, and it's very nice being together, as she says, and besides she has utter confidence in me. I like this and we have some more drinks. She comes closer and suddenly says: “Do you always take so long or have you just forgotten how to do it? Or is it that you just don't like me?" “That’s it," I say, “I don't like you." And I hit her in her beautiful, stupid, wanton face.

      “You’re an officer now," says my C.O.,” and I hope you'll prove worthy of your commission, Second Lieutenant Krafft." “I’ll try to, sir," I answer.

      A hundred and twenty men are delivered into my hands, entrusted to my care. I march with them, sleep with them, and share my food with them. We also share our cigarettes, perform our natural functions together, and kill together, shoulder to shoulder, day and night, month after month. Some of them leave me to be replaced at once by others—quite a few die. Some die accidentally, others as a result of an order, others because they no longer want to live. Death is with us all the time. But it always passes me by. Am I being spared, and if so, for what?

      “You’re a lieutenant now, Krafft," says my commanding officer,” and I hope you'll prove worthy of your promotion." I hear him say this but I make no answer. What does it mean: to be “worthy "?

      Home again, or rather what's called home, for the once-enchanting little town is now barely recognizable. A hydroelectric works has sprung up apparently overnight, with huge pipes and boilers covering an area of several square kilometers, and there are lots of little houses for the engineers, wooden barracks for the workers and office employees, and houseboats on the Oder, old barges, floating barns for the slave-laborers and others. From time to time some of these can be seen in the distance dangling from a gallows on deck —hanged for sabotage, espionage or various other things. Police and security units are interspersed among them. Finally there are twelve anti-aircraft batteries in the vicinity. But worst of all are the bombs. In exactly thirty-five minutes one night my little home town ceases to exist, and my parents are dead.

      Looking back down the years there seems just an endless series of battles and corpses and copulation, murder and sex. In Poland, in a western suburb of Warsaw: a half-charred, stinking house, and in it a woman called Anja—two days. In France, in Paris: some hotel or other in Montmartre near which I found Raymonde—four nights in six weeks. Russia, Jasnaja, Poljana, near Tula, where Tolstoy lived: in the museum there, a girl whose name I never knew—twenty minutes. And all for food, or for schnapps, or for passes of one sort or another. Almost always followed by remorse and disgust with oneself. Never once anything like real love, even when the girls were German, as for instance on some night train journey, or on a truck transporting members of the Women's Auxiliary Corps, or in an operating tent while the doctor slept off his drunkenness.

      But then comes a girl who disturbs me profoundly, a girl whom it's a pleasure to be with and into whose eyes I can even look afterwards. She has a wonderful, redeeming sort of laugh which banishes all remorse or disgust. I find myself emotionally involved, or at least become aware of a deep need in which lust is strangely unimportant. The whole thing is rather worrying, after all that's happened down the years, and the most frightening thing of all is that I sometimes feel tempted to say what I've determined never to say again: "I love you!" But I won't ever say it again, not even for her. This girl's name is Elfrida Rademacher.

      4. AN EXERCISE POSTPONED

      “Gentlemen," said Major Frey to the assembled officers, “I have to inform you that the General intends to work out a tactical exercise at the conclusion of dinner this evening."

      “All alone?" asked Captain Feders immediately, with an amiable grin.

      The Major amended his statement with certain sharpness. “The General with the rest of his officers!"

      Frey didn't like being interrupted by subordinates, particularly when they put him right. This fellow Captain Feders sometimes behaved as if he were the only person who knew anything about soldiering. Still, one had to show him a certain indulgence. In the first place Captain Feders was unquestionably the finest tactics instructor in the school, and secondly he had a very sharp СКАЧАТЬ