The Kindly Ones Read online

  At the foot of the Mashuk, I sent Hanning back to the AOK and went by the Academic Gallery to the Pushkin baths, which the Wehrmacht had partially reopened for its convalescents. There I stripped naked and plunged my body into the scalding, brackish, sulfurous water. I stayed in it for a long time and then rinsed myself off in a cold shower. This treatment reinvigorated my body and soul: my skin was mottled red and white, and I felt more awake, almost light. I returned to my quarters and lay down for an hour, my feet crossed on the sofa, facing the open French window. Then I changed and went down to the AOK to find the car I had requested that morning. On the way, I smoked and contemplated the volcanoes and the soft blue mountains of the Caucasus. Night was already setting in; it was fall. Entering Kislovodsk, the road passed the Podkumok; below, peasants’ carts were fording the river; the last one, just a board on wheels, was pulled by a camel with long hair and a thick neck. Hohenegg was waiting for me at the Kasino. “You look fit,” he said when he saw me.—“I’m a new man. But I had a strange day.”—“Tell me all about it.” Two bottles of white wine from the Palatinate were waiting next to the table in ice buckets: “I had those sent to me by my wife.”—“You’re in a class by yourself, Doktor.” He uncorked the first one: the wine was cool and bit the tongue, leaving behind it a fruity caress. “How is your conference going?” I asked him.—“Very well. We’ve gone over cholera, typhus, and dysentery, and now we’re coming to the painful subject of frostbite.”—“It’s not the season for that yet.”—“It will be soon enough. And you?” I told him about the old Bergjude. “A wise man, this Nahum ben Ibrahim,” he commented when I had finished. “We can envy him.”—“You’re probably right.” Our table was placed right against a partition; behind it was a private booth, from which laughter and bursts of indistinct voices were emanating. I drank a little wine. “Still,” I added, “I have to admit that I had trouble understanding him.”—“Not me,” Hohenegg asserted. “You see, in my view there are three possible attitudes faced with this absurd life. First the attitude of the mass, hoi polloi, which simply refuses to see that life is a joke. They don’t laugh at it, but work, accumulate, masticate, defecate, fornicate, reproduce, get old, and die like oxen harnessed to the plow, as idiotic as they lived. That’s the large majority. Then there are those, such as me, who know that life is a joke and who have the courage to laugh at it, like the Taoists or your Jew. Finally there are those, and if my diagnosis is correct you are one of them, who know that life is a joke, but who suffer from it. It’s like your Lermontov, whom I’ve finally read: I zhizn takaya pustaya i glupaya shutka, he writes.” I knew enough Russian now to understand and complete the phrase: “He should have added: i grubaya, ‘an empty, stupid and dirty joke.’”—“He certainly thought of it. But it wouldn’t have scanned right.”—“Those who have that attitude do know, however, that the other laughing one exists,” I said.—“Yes, but they don’t manage to adopt it.” The voices on the other side of the partition had become clearer: a waitress had left the curtain of the booth open as she went out. I recognized the coarse intonations of Turek and his lackey Pfeiffer. “Women like that should be banned from the SS!” Turek was screeching.—“That’s right. He should be in a concentration camp, not a uniform,” Pfeiffer replied.—“Yes,” said another voice, “but you need evidence.”—“We saw them,” said Turek. “The other day, behind the Mashuk. They left the road to go do their things in the woods.”—“Are you sure?”—“I give you my word as an officer.”—“And you recognized him?”—“Aue? He was as close to me as you are now.” The men suddenly fell silent. Turek turned slowly around and saw me standing in the entrance to the booth. His flushed face drained of blood. Pfeiffer, at the head of the table, went yellow. “It is very regrettable that you should use your word as an officer so lightly, Hauptsturmführer,” I said clearly, in a measured, neutral tone. “That devalues it. Yet there is still time to withdraw your despicable words. I warn you: if you don’t, we must fight.” Turek had gotten up, abruptly pushing back his chair. An absurd tic was deforming his lips, giving him an even more spineless and lost look than usual. His eyes sought out Pfeiffer, who encouraged him with a sign of his head. “I have nothing to withdraw,” he squeaked in a monotone. He still hesitated to go all the way. I was filled with a strong exaltation; but my voice remained calm, precise. “Are you quite sure?” I wanted to push him, to inflame him and slam all the doors shut behind him. “I won’t be as easy to kill as an unarmed Jew, you can be sure of that.” These words provoked a commotion. “You’re insulting the SS!” Pfeiffer roared. Turek was pale; he looked at me like a mad bull, without saying anything. “Very well, then,” I said. “I will send someone soon to the Teilkommando offices.” I turned on my heel and left the restaurant. Hohenegg caught up with me on the steps: “That’s not very smart, what you did there. Lermontov has decidedly gone to your head.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Doktor, I believe you are a man of honor. Will you be my second?” Now it was his turn to shrug his shoulders. “If you like. But it’s idiotic.” I patted him amiably on the shoulder. “Don’t worry! Everything will go well. But don’t forget your wine, we’ll need it.” He brought me to his room and we finished the first bottle. I spoke to him a little about my life and my friendship with Voss: “I like him a lot. He’s an astonishing man. But it has nothing to do with what those swine are imagining.” Then I sent him to the Teilkommando offices and began the second bottle as I waited for him, smoking and watching the autumn sun play on the large park and the slopes of the Maloe Sedlo. He returned from his errand after an hour. “I should warn you,” he said point-blank, “they’re plotting something.”—“How’s that?”—“I went into the Kommando and heard them bellowing. I missed the beginning of the conversation, but I heard the fat one say: ‘That way we won’t run any risks. Anyway he doesn’t deserve anything else.’ Then your enemy, the one who looks like a Jew, right? replied: ‘And what about his second?’ The other one shouted: ‘Too bad for him.’ After that I came in and they shut up. In my opinion they’re getting ready to simply massacre us. Talk about the honor of the SS!”—“Don’t worry, Doktor. I’ll take my precautions. Did you settle on the arrangements?”—“Yes. We’ll meet them tomorrow night at six o’clock outside of Zheleznovodsk and we’ll go find an isolated balka. The dead man will be chalked up to the partisans lurking around there.” “Yes, Pustov’s gang. That’s a good idea. Shall we go eat?”

  I returned to Pyatigorsk after eating and drinking heartily. Hohenegg, during the dinner, had been glum: I saw that he disapproved of my action and of the whole business. I was still strangely exalted; it was as if a great weight had been taken from my shoulders. I would kill Turek with pleasure; but I had to think about how to foil the trap that he and Pfeiffer wanted to set for me. An hour after I got back, someone knocked on my door. It was an orderly from the Kommando, who handed me a piece of paper. “Sorry to disturb you so late, Hauptsturmführer. It’s an urgent order from the Gruppenstab.” I tore it open: Bierkamp was summoning me at eight o’clock the next day, along with Turek. Someone had given the game away. I dismissed the orderly and collapsed on the sofa. I felt as if I were being pursued by a curse: whatever I tried to do, any pure action would be denied me! I thought I saw the old Jew, in his grave on the Mashuk, laughing at me. Drained, I burst into tears and fell asleep crying, fully dressed.

  The next morning I presented myself at the appointed time at Voroshilovsk. Turek had come separately. We stood at attention in front of Bierkamp’s desk, side by side, without any other witness. Bierkamp came straight to the point: “Meine Herren. Word has reached me that you have spoken words unworthy of SS officers to each other in public, and that, to resolve your quarrel, you were planning on engaging in an action that is formally forbidden by regulations, an action that would moreover have deprived the Group of two valuable and difficult-to-replace officers; for you can be sure that the survivor would have been immediately brought before a court of the SS and the police, and would have been sent
enced to capital punishment or to a concentration camp. I would like to remind you that you are here to serve your Führer and your Volk, and not to satisfy your personal passions: if you lay down your lives, you will do so for the Reich. Consequently I have called you both here so that you can apologize to each other and make peace. I will add that that’s an order.” Neither Turek nor I replied. Bierkamp looked at Turek: “Hauptsturmführer?” Turek remained silent. Bierkamp turned to me: “And you, Hauptsturmführer Aue?”—“With all due respect, Oberführer, the insulting words I said were in response to Hauptsturmführer Turek’s. So I believe that it is up to him to apologize first; otherwise I will be forced to defend my honor, whatever the consequences.” Bierkamp turned to Turek: “Hauptsturmführer, is it true that the first offensive words were uttered by you?” Turek was clenching his jaw so hard that his muscles were quivering: “Yes, Oberführer,” he finally said, “that is correct.”—“In that case, I order you to apologize to Hauptsturmführer Dr. Aue.” Turek pivoted a quarter turn, clicking his heels, and faced me, still at attention; I imitated him. “Hauptsturmführer Aue,” he said slowly, in a harsh voice, “please accept my apologies for the insulting statements I made about you. I was under the influence of drink, and let myself get carried away.”—“Hauptsturmführer Turek,” I replied, my heart pounding, “I accept your apology, and present you my own in the same spirit for my wounding reaction.”—“Very good,” Bierkamp said curtly. “Now shake hands.” I took Turek’s hand and found it clammy. Then we turned to face Bierkamp again. “Meine Herren, I don’t know what you said to each other and I don’t want to know. I am happy you are reconciled. If such an incident were to occur again, I will have you both sent to a disciplinary battalion of the Waffen-SS. Is that clear? Dismissed.”

  Leaving his office, still very upset, I headed toward Dr. Leetsch’s office. Von Gilsa had informed me that a reconnaissance plane from the Wehrmacht had flown over the region of Shatoi and photographed a number of bombed villages; but our Fourth Air Corps was insisting on the fact that its aircraft had conducted no attack on Chechnya, and the destruction was now being attributed to the Soviet air force, which seemed to confirm the rumors of a rather extensive insurrection. “Kurreck has already parachuted a number of men into the mountains,” Leetsch told me. “But since then we haven’t had any contact with them. Either they’ve deserted, or they’ve been killed or captured.”—“The Wehrmacht thinks that an uprising behind the Soviet lines could facilitate the offensive on Ordzhonikidze.”—“Maybe. But in my opinion they’ve already crushed it, if it ever even took place. Stalin wouldn’t take such a risk.”—“No doubt. If Sturmbannführer Kurreck finds anything out, can you let me know?” As I was going out, I ran into Turek, leaning against a doorframe talking with Prill. They stopped and stared at me as I passed them. I politely saluted Prill, and went back to Pyatigorsk.

  Hohenegg, whom I met again that night, didn’t look too disappointed. “It’s the reality principle, my dear friend,” he declared. “That will teach you to try to play the romantic hero. So let’s go have a drink.” But the business was worrying me. Who could have denounced us to Bierkamp? It was certainly one of Turek’s comrades, who was afraid of the scandal. Or maybe one of them, aware of the trap being prepared, wanted to prevent it? It was hardly conceivable that Turek himself had had second thoughts. I wondered what he was plotting with Prill: nothing good, certainly.

  A new burst of activity made this affair fade into the background. Von Mackensen’s Third Panzer Corps, supported by the Luftwaffe, was launching its offensive on Ordzhonikidze; the Soviet defenses around Nalchik collapsed in two days, and at the end of October our forces took the city while the tanks continued their push to the east. I asked for a car and went first to Prokhladny, where I met Persterer, then on to Nalchik. It was raining but that didn’t hinder traffic too much; after Prokhaldny, columns of the Rollbahn were bringing up food supplies. Persterer was getting ready to transfer his Kommandostab to Nalchik and had already dispatched a Vorkommando there to prepare quarters. The city had fallen so quickly that they had been able to arrest a lot of Bolshevik officials and other suspects; there were also many Jews, both bureaucrats from Russia and a large native community. I reminded Persterer of the orders from the Wehrmacht concerning the attitude toward the local populations: they were planning on quickly forming an autonomous Kabardo-Balkar district, and it was imperative not to damage good relations in any way. In Nalchik, I found the Ortskommandantur, still being set up. The Luftwaffe had bombed the city, and many houses and gutted buildings were still smoking in the rain. I found Voss there, sorting through some books in an empty room; he seemed delighted at his finds. “Look at that,” he said, holding out an old book in French. I examined the title page: On the peoples of the Caucasus and the countries north of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the Xth Century, or, The Journey of Abu-el-Cassim, published in Paris in 1828 by a certain Constantin Mouradgea d’Ohsson. I handed it back to him with an approving look: “Did you find a lot of them?”—“Quite a few. A bomb hit the library, but there wasn’t too much damage. On the other hand, your colleagues wanted to seize a part of the collections for the SS. I asked them what interested them, but since they don’t have an expert, they didn’t really know. I offered them the shelf on Marxist political economy. They told me they had to consult with Berlin. By then I’ll be done.” I laughed: “My duty should be to throw a spanner in your works.”—“Maybe. But you won’t do that.” I told him about the quarrel with Turek, which he found highly comical: “You wanted to fight a duel because of me? Doktor Aue, you are incorrigible. That’s absurd.”—“I wasn’t going to fight because of you: I was the one who was insulted.”—“And you say that Dr. Hohenegg was ready to serve as your second?”—“Somewhat against his will.”—“That surprises me. I thought he was an intelligent man.” I found Voss’s attitude rather annoying; he must have noticed my vexed air, since he burst out laughing: “Don’t make that face! Remind yourself that coarse and ignorant men punish themselves.”