The Kindly Ones

In the morning I was calmer. In the living room, I tried to resume reading after having some bread and coffee, and then my thoughts drifted away again, detached from the torments of Frédéric and Madame Arnoux. I wondered: What did you come here for? What do you want, exactly? To wait till Una returns? To wait till a Russian comes and slits your throat? To commit suicide? I thought about Helene. She and my sister, I said to myself, were the only two women, aside from a few nurses, to have seen my body naked. What had she seen, what had she thought when she saw that? What did she see in me that I didn’t see, and that my sister, for a long time now, didn’t want to see anymore? I thought about Helene’s body, I had often seen her in a bathing suit, her curves were finer and lither than my sister’s, her breasts smaller. Both had the same white skin, but this whiteness stood in stark contrast to the thick black hair of my sister, whereas with Helene, it continued in the soft blondness of her hair. Her sex too must have been blond and soft, but I didn’t want to think about that. I was seized by a sudden disgust. I said to myself: love is dead, the only love is dead. I shouldn’t have come, I should leave, go back to Berlin. But I didn’t want to go back to Berlin, I wanted to stay. A little later I got up and went out. I set off again through the forest, I found an old wooden bridge over the Drage and crossed it. The thickets became increasingly dense, dark, one could only continue on the foresters’ and loggers’ paths, across which branches stretched and scratched my clothes. Farther on stood an isolated hill from which one could probably see the whole region, but I didn’t push on as far as that, I walked aimlessly, in a circle perhaps, finally I found the river again and came back to the house. Käthe was waiting for me and came out of the kitchen to meet me: “Herr Busse is here, with Herr Gast and some other people. They’re waiting for you in the courtyard. I gave them some schnapps.” Busse was von Üxküll’s farmer. “What do they want with me?” I asked.—“They want to talk with you.” I crossed the house and went out into the courtyard. The farmers were sitting on an open wagon drawn by a scrawny draught horse, which was grazing on the tufts of grass emerging from the snow. When they saw me they bared their heads and jumped to the ground. One of them, a red-faced man, his hair gray but his moustache still black, came forward and bowed slightly in front of me. “Good day, Herr Obersturmbannführer. Käthe told us that you are the Baronness’s brother?” His tone was polite, but he was hesitating, searching for his words. “That’s right,” I said.—“Do you know where the Freiherr and the Freifrau are? Do you know what their plans are?”—“No. I thought I’d find them here. I don’t know where they are. In Switzerland, probably.”—“It’s just that we’ll soon have to leave, Herr Obersturmbannführer. We shouldn’t wait much longer. The Reds are attacking Stargard, they’ve surrounded Arnswalde. People are worried. The Kreisleiter says they’ll never reach this far, but we don’t believe him.” He was embarrassed, he kept turning his hat around in his hands. “Herr Busse,” I said, “I understand your concern. You have to think of your families. If you feel you should leave, leave. No one’s holding you back.” His face cleared a little. “Thank you, Herr Obersturmbannführer. It’s just that we were concerned, seeing as how the house was empty.” He hesitated. “If you like, I can give you a cart and a horse. We’ll help you, if you want to load some furniture. We can take it with us, put it somewhere safe.”—“Thank you, Herr Busse. I’ll think about it. I’ll send Käthe to get you, if I decide on something.”