Iron Gustav (16 page)

‘Don't cry, Otto,' said Father Hackendahl. ‘You'll be back soon.' And very loudly, for the train was moving off fast now: ‘You've always been a good son.'

Bubi ran alongside Otto's carriage the longest, right to the end of the platform. He saw the train disappear, all the handkerchiefs waving, a bend, the round, red disk on the last wagon – and away!

Heinz returned to his family.

‘Now, be quick!' said Frau Hackendahl. ‘I must see that I can still catch Gudde. It's interesting to see who exactly she is and who she saw off.'

Gertrud Gudde, however, had already disappeared, with her Gustäving.

The head of the surgery department stood, tired, in his consulting room and washed his hands, as he always did when he was exhausted. Out of pure habit, he scrubbed his nails with a hard little brush, washed them with disinfectant, rinsed and dried his hands.

He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, went to the window and looked, deep in thought, seeing nothing, at the hospital garden. Tired and exhausted, he'd been on his feet for eleven hours, and still couldn't see the end of it …

But, he thought, this is just the beginning. Just the beginning … he thought slowly, and without being very upset or despairing. This is just the beginning …

Four days' mobilization had cost him three-quarters of his doctors. They'd gone. ‘Good luck!' they said, and went. Three-quarters of the doctors gone, not to speak of the nursing staff, and more would be required. So this was just the beginning …

He put his cigarette in an ashtray. He'd only taken one draw. Without thinking, he went back to the basin and began for the thousandth time the ritual washing and scrubbing of his hands. He didn't know he was doing it. Sometimes a colleague pointed it out to him, or a surgical nurse said: ‘Herr Professor, you're washing yourself again. You were at the basin only two minutes ago.'

But now no one was there who could remind him. Carefully, he brushed his nails …

‘Good luck!' they'd said, and went. But how could one have luck
with barely a quarter of the normal number of doctors? It would have to be done badly, eyes closed, neglecting the worst faults …

It would cost lives, he thought sadly. As long as he had practised his profession, and stood around so many sickbeds, he'd never lost the sense that people's lives were at stake, not medical cases: mothers whose children at home were crying, and fathers on whose lives depended the fortune and welfare of little communities.

It's going to cost lives, he thought. But nothing will be as cheap as human life in the immediate future. And it will not only be the sick, the exhausted and the old who will die. The young will have to go too, the young and the healthy. The strength of the people will be systematically reduced, day by day, week by week, perhaps for months … And here I stand complaining that I'm half an hour late for a burst appendix!

He looked around and listened. Once again he stood at the basin and washed his hands. His cigarette burned in the ashtray, but that didn't bring him to consciousness. Gradually he became aware that someone might have knocked on the door, and when he said ‘Come in', the door really did open and a nurse entered, rather embarrassed.

‘Well, sister, what's happened?' he asked distractedly and dried his hands on the towel. ‘I'm about to go on a round. Or is it a new patient?'

The nurse shook her head and looked at him. She had strange eyes, a little shy, yet defiant. She also had a pleasant face, young but bright. She probably hadn't had an easy life.

‘I've a personal request, Herr Professor,' said the nurse quietly.

‘If that's the case, you'd better go to your superior, sister. You're aware that you are under her.'

‘I've already been to her,' said the nurse quietly again, ‘but she refused me. And then I thought, Herr Professor …'

‘No, sister, no,' said the doctor emphatically. ‘First, I never get mixed up in the affairs of the nursing staff. Second, I really have so much on my plate.'

He looked at the nurse as if in conclusion, sighed, rolled up his sleeves and went to the basin.

‘Herr Professor had just finished washing when I came in,' said
the little nurse bravely. (His obsession was naturally known throughout the hospital.)

‘Thank you, sister,' said the professor. ‘You can tell the operation nurse – you know, Sister Lilli – that I'll be beginning again in ten minutes.'

And he let the water run over his hands.

‘Yes, Herr Professor.' She looked at him hesitantly, with a worried look. ‘Herr Professor, forgive me for bringing it up again … Earlier today they decided who can go to the Front … And I – I'm not allowed.'

The senior doctor gestured angrily. ‘Not everyone can go!' he exclaimed. ‘There's work here too, a lot of work, and necessary work.'

‘But, Herr Professor! I must go. Tell the staff nurse that I can. You only have to say the word, Herr Professor …'

The senior doctor turned around, looked furiously at the young nurse and shouted angrily, ‘For this nonsense you disturb my few free minutes! You should be ashamed, sister! If it's adventures with young men you want, you don't have to be a nurse! You can do that at every street corner. But that would probably be too boring for you – a whole lot of old women … Oh, leave me in peace, sister!'

But if the senior doctor expected the nurse meekly to withdraw after this strong and decisive put-down, he was mistaken. Sister Sophie stood her ground, without flinching or hesitation. Perhaps she had even lost some of the shyness from her expression, which was stronger and more defiant. The doctor observed this not without interest.

‘It's not because of young men that I want to go,' she said determinedly. ‘The staff nurse has just moved me down to the old people precisely for that reason, because I'm not suited to the male wards. I don't like men …'

‘Sister,' said the professor quietly, ‘you shouldn't give me lectures on your preferences. I'm not interested. Just go to your ward.'

‘Yes, Herr Professor,' she replied with unyielding determination. ‘But, Herr Professor, I've got to get out of here, and you've got to help me …'

‘In heaven's name, sister!'

‘Herr Professor, I've never been able to stand other people. I've never been fond of anyone – neither my parents nor my siblings. Nor the patients here either …'

‘Wonderful, sister,' said the doctor sarcastically. ‘Excellent!'

‘No, I've never been able to like anyone, and no one has been able to like me either. I've always thought I was completely useless … And now suddenly – please, Herr Professor, listen to me a moment longer – suddenly war is here. I don't understand politics, Herr Professor. I don't know the how or the why. But I suddenly started thinking that I could perhaps be of use after all, and do some good and not be in the world for nothing.'

She looked at him for a moment.

‘Perhaps the Herr Professor doesn't understand what I mean. I don't myself. But I think the others, the women, my sister and so on – they think they'll one day have children, and a man they are fond of. But I've never had anything like that, Herr Professor! I've never been able to imagine why I was in the world. My father—'

She broke off. Then: ‘Herr Professor, don't think that I think of holding young soldiers' heads all the time, and giving them water … No, I think of marching, and doing work which disgusts me from morning till evening, to destruction and further. And then, Herr Professor, perhaps I'll feel that I'm not in this world in vain.' And then, almost sobbing: ‘It's better to have been a bit more than a nothing in one's life …'

For a while silence reigned between them. The doctor slowly dried his hands, went towards the nurse, lifted her head with its sobbing face, looked her in the eyes and said softly: ‘Sister, do you think that's why a great people goes to war, so that – what is your name?'

‘Sophie Hackendahl.'

‘– so that Sophie Hackendahl no longer feels superfluous in life?'

‘How do I know?!' she shouted, almost out of control, impatiently freeing her head from his hand. ‘But what I do know is that I am now twenty-one years old and have never for a moment felt that I'm of any use!'

‘Well,' said the doctor thoughtfully, ‘perhaps this war has also come so that people once again feel that they are of some use. Perhaps.' He looked at the nurse. ‘I'll see what I can do with your senior
nurse. I gather you are not exactly in her good books. But now I know that, on this at least, you are of precisely the same opinion.'

The doctor smiled. Sophie too smiled weakly, nodded her head in thanks, and left.

The senior doctor resumed his place at the basin.

Eva, the other Hackendahl sister, had hurried her parents and siblings along to get home as soon as possible. Now she sat, empty and exhausted, in her room. No, there was no sign of Eugen. No desk had been broken into, the crazy little parlourmaid Doris had not been attacked or raped. Everything was exactly as it should be.

And that was the worst of it! That Eugen hadn't done anything yet, that was the worst of it. That he could still do everything and that the threat was still there, that one still had to wait – that was the worst of it!

Eva sat listening through the open window to her father talking with Rabause in the stable, and thought: yes, Father has nothing to complain of. He has his business, his stable and cabs. But I …

She heard her mother talking eagerly to Doris in the kitchen; Mother had nothing to complain of, either. Otto, whose lot had been the worst of all, had left, and he was now a respected, an honoured man, one who had something to do in life. And Sophie too had a job. She might carry it out grudgingly – that was just like her – but she had her job. And Heinz had his school and Erich was always up to something new, something different. But what had she herself got? A mere existence, shabby and common – Eugen waiting at the street corner, whistling on his fingers – for her. She belonged to him now. That was her job.

When the day before yesterday he had forced her to drink and she saw he would not relent, that he meant to have her at all costs and immediately – not because he wanted her but merely to make it clear she belonged to him in that way also, and had nothing left of her own – then an idea had occurred to her, a last hope which might tide her over the next terrible hour. She had asked: ‘Eugen, won't
you have to join up too?' (Because she had seen the war as liberation, just like her sister. Eugen would have to go, and when he returned – if he ever did! But people like him shouldn't ever return. Otherwise, what would be the point of war?)

He had looked at her oddly and sneered. ‘You'd like that, wouldn't you, sweetie?'

‘Of course not, Eugen. But all the young men have to go …'

‘You see, my sweet, they won't have me. I'm exempted. My Fatherland loves me too much.'

‘Exempted? But all the young men …'

‘You needn't worry, Evchen, I shan't leave you.'

‘But …'

‘Yes, you'd like me to go to the Front, wouldn't you? Nothin' doing! Let the other mugs get shot to bits if they want.'

‘But if you don't report, you're a deserter. And then …'

‘You're slow on the uptake, what? I'm not a deserter, I tell you – I'm indispensable. My Fatherland don't want me taking part in the war. You still don't savvy? Well, you fool, I've lost my civil rights, ain't got them.'

‘How do you mean?' She hadn't understood at all.

‘Yes, dearest, when they put me in jug they pinched my civil rights for three years. An' now I'm not allowed to wear my Kaiser's uniform and you're pretty down about it, from what I can see.' He leaned across the table, grinning. Remembering him made her shudder. Not that she was particularly sensitive about such things, but that someone could be proud of his own disgrace!

He must have read her thoughts, because all at once he became angry and threatening. ‘Ashamed, are you? Ashamed of your Eugen, eh? Get on your back, and I'll show you what I mean by shame – civil rights and all.' And he grinned again.

Then … it happened.

She sat quite still. Father was still talking in the stable. One heard the pails clatter. Mother was still in the kitchen. Bubi was whistling.

Suddenly she remembered Fräulein Gudde as she had been standing on the platform, a little crippled creature holding a healthy child by the hand, and shuddered at the thought that she too might have a child, by a fellow who was outwardly sound but inwardly
corrupt … the little cripple had something from life that she would never have, because for Eva it was all over.

Taking a length of material from a drawer, she wrapped it up in paper and shouted out to Heinz: ‘If Mother asks, tell her I've gone out for an hour.'

‘Tell her yourself,' shouted Bubi, with maximum fraternal politesse. ‘I'm not your message boy.' But she didn't want to tell her mother herself that she was going to the dressmaker, because her mother would immediately think she was going for
that
reason. But that wasn't why she was going. She was going for herself.

Is she walking there? No, she's almost running. And she's running as fast down the street as is becoming for a young girl in a long dress in 1914. In the street she kept on looking round to see if Eugen were following her; he was a nightmare, an ever-present danger. But she reached the quiet little side street unmolested. She crossed the yard and climbed the steps.

Fräulein Gudde answered the door at once. Her eyes were red and she looked almost hostile. The child was holding onto her skirts. He couldn't be more than two.

‘Excuse me, Fräulein Gudde,' said Eva, somewhat put out by the unfriendly glance, ‘I saw you just now at the station and that reminded me I had this material. It's a summer fabric and if I don't have it made up now it will lie about for another year.' She gave a feeble giggle, quite disconcerted.