A Change of Skin (41 page)

He listened. Someone had coughed. After the cough, a sound of crawling and then a moan. Slowly he lay face down, defenseless or at least with no more defense than the lucidity brought on by hunger and solitude. There in the loft he was both crippled and protected. He was not seen, but neither could he see. He waited for whoever had coughed and moaned and now was crawling toward a bar of May sunlight that came through the side window above the abandoned forge. Now that someone was nearing him, he felt more alone, alone for the first time in years, alone and without orders to execute, alone and for the first time free to stop and tell himself that we must blame only ourselves, there is only our own guilt, a thought that eased his fear slightly, though probably he was thinking only because he had not eaten for so long; and now his unknown companion was touched by the shaft of light: a gray uniform, a cap that pretended to be military but seemed only what it really was, the cap of a schoolboy, a cap that fell and showed blond hair yellow in the sunlight, loose and silky as the cornsilk that formerly was perhaps to be found here in the loft, in happier times. It's a kid, perception told him immediately. But does reality always speak truth? He got up, leaning against a beam, and saw not only a child but also an innocent who, having fled the light of the fields and the crash of bombardment, had come here into the barn to hide but nevertheless had stopped within reach of the sun, within the fringe of light from the window. Franz yelled down at him. He yelled for him not to stay there where he could be seen, the idiot. And now that the boy rose to his feet, Franz could see that he was wearing the thick, badly made uniform of the last conscripts, those who normally would be dressed in short pants and blouses and squeezing their pimples, and the boy turned and the sun blinded his blue eyes while his weaponless, lost hands in desperation sought for something to grab. Then, his face twisting, he stumbled again and with both hands squeezed his knee. Franz went down to pick him up and move him out of the light, carried him in his arms to the loft, and it had been centuries, the centuries of the past few days, since his flesh had touched the flesh of another human being. And now while his right hand went one way and the left another, and his thought walked out of step with his heart, he climbed to his hiding place carrying the light body of a boy, a body that smelled of young sweat, still childish, the sweat of boarding-school kids who wash too hurriedly after the heat of their games, the blond hair falling over his forehead as if he had just won a foot race and his fatigue were not from a wound but from hours of sports; while he climbed with the unconscious boy, he told him silently that he, a child, was not guilty of anything, he had merely followed orders as he himself, Franz, had, and that was what they all would say: he, Franz, had been an officer yet only an architect attached to the army, and certainly there was no guilt in serving the army, doing one's duty, the army came before everything, it was the very German nation, and the army had had to win the war in order to rid the country of the Party and its leaders, yes, that was how it had been, and this child could not possibly be guilty. He gently laid the boy on the loft floor. The boy had a canteen slung from his shoulder. Franz removed it, uncapped it, put it to his lips. The boy tried to open his eyes. One hand went to the shoulder where the canteen strap had been. He looked at Franz. He saw the uniform first, then Franz's eyes. He took Franz by the hand and said haltingly, his mind still confused, that he was glad to have found an officer, the only officer he had seen all day, all day walking across the fields. He had an order to execute. What order? They sent me to tell the reserves that the Americans are only five kilometers away, that's all. They gave me these hand grenades—he touched the other shoulder and the bag of grenades that hung there. Franz took the bag and told the boy to listen carefully. There were no reserves. There was not even a rear guard any more. There was nothing. Be quiet now, and listen. They listened, the boy lying stretched on the floor and Franz kneeling beside him, and they heard the howitzers very close both to the east and the west. No, it was time to go home now, not to try to deliver orders. Where did he live? In a town a few kilometers away. Good, he must go there at once. The boy's eyes pleaded with Franz and Franz asked himself what he and the boy could do together and answered, nothing, the boy must get out of that uniform and go home. He unbuttoned him quickly, threw the woolen tunic aside, and asked the boy his name. My name is Ulrich, sir. Ulrich Zimmerman. The boy wiped his nose with his open hand and was left in his undershirt and again Franz told himself that the boy must go home, home as quickly as possible, but he did not say this to him; instead he asked, what happened to your leg? The boy laughed and touched his knee. It's nothing, sir. I just fell down in a ditch. I was stupid. I'm good at bike riding and as soon as I started running across that field alone I fell in a ditch and sprained something. But it's nothing, nothing, sir, really. His look was confident now. He expected immediate orders from Franz and that was why he could speak so quickly and securely. The hierarchy had been reestablished, there was order again, he felt secure because he had someone from whom to receive commands. Franz understood and said to him, I have to get rid of my uniform too and find some civilian clothes. The boy did not hesitate, though Franz feared he might be puzzled, might ask why, ask if the war was over, ask if he intended to desert, and if he did, Franz would not be able to explain, this time to a child, what he had become convinced of himself: that everything was pointless now, there was no escape, he must have civvies quickly, immediately. But the boy did not doubt or question. He looked at Franz and said with a smile, Last night I saw two people who were on a motorcycle hide a suitcase in the woods across the field there. They left it and got back on their motorcycle and rode away. Then go, Franz whispered. I can't go, for I don't know the place. Go get that suitcase. How's your knee, can you make it? The boy looked at him as if the question were an insult. He stood up. I'll be all right. I'll be right back, sir. Out of the barn he hobbled. And Franz realized that he had forgotten to ask him to get food somewhere.

And now Franz could sleep. At high noon, using the boy's wadded tunic as a pillow, a pillow that smelled of a child's perspiration, sweet and innocent as the child himself. In the darkness of the barn loft. While outside, in the fields, the woods, there was a desert hunted over by ghosts. He could sleep and dream. He told you that dream once again in Cholula, Dragoness, just as he had told it to you the first time you slept together, and you believed him because you believe only those dreams that have their interpretations within themselves; you have read your Nemerov and know that like a dream interpreted by one still sleeping, the interpretation is only the next room of the dream. Howard Nemerov is great, Dragoness. He is a poet who comes to me when I least expect him and it is thanks to him that I can understand why Franz looks at Javier as the four of you descend from the church by the steep path.

And now he was in bed with Elizabeth and she too would hear the dream. The boy returned with civilian clothing and Franz led him by the hand to a German town with an open square of red-yellow earth surrounded by medieval buildings with high leaded roofs, pointed arches, with atriums and ensigns and standards. At first the scene was like an engraving by a monogrammist, a vertical plane, a flat surface without perspective, everything presented in only two dimensions, horses, stones, trees, lakes, ships, castles. But that was only the curtain concealing the stage and it opened to reveal the sensual games of the Meister mit den Brandollen, lovers surprised, women bathing while preached to by their guardians of good manners, one of whom took advantage of his opportunity and hoisted a naked woman high into the air, and above them flew the bird-beast monsters of Martin Schongauer, goats with the wings and heads of birds of prey. That was a curtain also and it separated and displayed, finally, fusions of that spontaneous art which resolves the tension and conflict between the lives of a folk and the legends of Christianity. Children's games. A carnival in opposition to Lent. Franz came out on the stage led by his young guide named Ulrich, the limping light-haired boy who had been raised here and knew all the secrets of the town: the secret of promised sensuality, be it carnival or Lent or a country circle-dance. Satiation, suppression, and longing were all dissolved by approaches to, presence with, or withdrawal from that sensuality which exorcised first their King of Misbehavior, Momus with eyes of different colors, one blue, the other brown, Momus who, made of a gray stick and a distorted headpiece and crowned by a wicker garbage basket, held a reed scepter from which hung two dead fish and was drawn along by a cowled archivist-priest who repeatedly said heh-heh, was followed by children with rattles who moved forward on the stage and played hoops but then went back and followed sad-faced Momus, the gloomy-eyed monarch with pointed nose and ill-trimmed beard who presided over these days of
fastus,
these days belonging to the legless cripple that rocked painfully along on his buttocks while a cowled figure threw coins at him, belonged to the villain with a monkey in a basket on his back, to the blind beggars with empty bowls, to the dying boy wrapped in a gown and lying in the middle of the street with his false mother squatting beside him receiving alms. Leaning on a rifle that served him as a crutch, Ulrich ascended with long swinging steps to the roof of the central building in order to show Franz the square on the other side, where happy games were played by laughing children. Inflated bladders. Blankets for tossing. Barrels for jumping. Wooden horses. Johnny on the pony. Snap the whip. Franz resisted this scene, although the boy, disconsolate suddenly, pointed to the large open-air table where an old woman kneaded dough for bread. Franz looked back, down the rooftops at the wild boars, the fish, the pigs, at a fat figure in red stockings and blue doublet who sat astride a barrel of beer and with a stiletto pierced the dead mouth of a wild boar's head. Then the carnival lunatics wearing tight cotton masks that showed the shape of their features without revealing their faces. Franz laughed and jabbed the boy with his elbow. Shaking with deep laughter, he explained to him that the elderly dwarfs were really disguised children, children with charcoal wrinkles drawn under their eyes, with carrot noses. Following the children came a troop of court jesters playing the mandolin, swaying cotton paunches beneath their white gowns, and wearing clusters of onions around their necks. Ulrich tugged on Franz's sleeve. Happy children could be seen blowing soap bubbles, making lame birds sound again, making dolls. They ran in circles, costumed, wearing hoods. Franz paid no attention to the boy but went on laughing. A thick-legged cook passed with a pie of black crows and a skillet on his head, and behind him came another, even fatter, carrying on his head a table with golden bread and a dwarf dressed like a king in an ermine cape and an Oriental turban. It's a little boy, Ulrich, Franz said, and so is that devil in red with blue and white stripes down his side. Ulrich released Franz's hand and looked at him with impatience. Franz felt delight as the false Christ appeared, humped over, disheveled, with a dissolute face, dragged forth from a tent of patched canvas and now permitted to perform miracles, to cure the cripple crawling on his belly with his legs in the air in violent opposition to Lent, drawing himself along by grasping posts and corners and followed by a crowd of brother cripples using canes and crutches. They swarmed round the little stalls where eggs, bread, and fish were sold; they moved toward the barrels and the cooking fires, and behind, from the tall gray cathedral, a pile of pious women and black nuns emerged and turned their backs on the carnival. Ulrich threw his rifle-crutch in the air and slid down the red slate roof like sliding down a cellar door and with a pirouette fell among the playing children. He looked back at Franz and stuck out his tongue. But Franz laughed, for he knew that Ulrich was performing for him, capering in his yellow doublet and scarlet hood with gold bells, the black platter with which he was picking up the bread, fish, and papier-mâché masks that the children would need to save themselves. Ulrich ran to the bramble hedge around the garden. The other boys had climbed up there and were standing on their heads while two double files of girls hopped along the road lifting their knees high. Ulrich raced among the children who were playing blindman's buff, among those who were riding on each other's shoulders, among those jousting on stilts. He squeezed between the canes of the blind men. He pulled girls' hair and jerked his hood down to his nose as he stood jeering before a magician who concealed a treasure under three nutshells and challenged him to guess which one. He performed balancing tricks and gymnastics on a hitching rail for horses. He climbed up the legs and arms of the goblins and rode piggyback. He lifted the flying skirts of the girls even higher, as if he wanted to hide among their petticoats. He climbed trees, he threw down a scrap of awning at a group of children who stood watching him. He spun two tops in his open palms and held them up, offering them to Franz, who was still perched high on the rooftop with the wind in his ear. Ulrich had become the leader they all followed and imitated, whether he put on a circus act or swallowed herring or threw himself into the river or leaped off the cliff to fall among the rocks. And now he went away followed by hundreds of children, pale boys, chubby boys, girls with white ribbons, dogs, mountebanks, and magicians with false noses. Franz stretched out his hand to touch that soft face which above its drowsy eyes had no eyelashes. He reached to touch the silver, blue, green, pale-rose bird's wing. To touch the lotus flowers, the lilies, the grasses growing beside the river. But the scene changed. An old woman threw out a bucketful of water and hollow-sounding balls hailed down and a blue belt tied to a stick was lonely as it was shaken by the wind. A boy hid behind a window and peeped out, others dove into the river, a girl ran into a house balancing a broom on one finger, caps were tossed high and the littlest girls walked in single file singing with the staves of their music cut out and hanging from a tree branch. From the square where the carnival was proceeding, mountebanks wearing striped gray uniforms on which yellow stars were sewn began to climb toward Franz. In the other square, boys hid in a sand mountain and a girl holding a broken doll peered through a barrel without ends and with her finger pointed at Franz. Children who had been baking bricks began to throw them up at the roof and the gray-clad gymnasts crawled on all fours across the leads and an owl in a loft observed him and solemnly winked. Then the crawling figures attacked him, grabbed him by the neck, the arms, the thighs, the feet. Franz could only stare down at the square with its patches of light and shadow and its sordid merrymaking, the dry earth of dead branches and empty cartons, eggshells, old placards, bones sucked hollow, gray oyster shells, stones that rolled in circles while to the laughter and obscenities of the two kings, Momus and Christ, his attackers wrestled with him and dragged him down among the dwarfs and beggars, the cripples and minstrels, the nuns and the venders, to the center of the square, to the deep well where a spectacled old man in the garb of a priest, after inspecting the bucket, pushed him off the cliff and he fell away from them lying on his back and looking up at the rectangle of sky blocked by the shaven heads of those looking down at his fall. Then the painted curtain was drawn. A scene of infanticides, dogs and knives and guards in armor who slaughtered children and pursued them across a snowy field toward stumps of trees that were also white, covered with ice, while an orchestra played Viennese waltzes, the trumpet sounding clear and loud over the dead of all lands, gathering them all before the throne of judgment. Death and nature would halt astonished while creation rose from the grave to give its answers to the Judge. A written book would be read aloud, all the words and accusations and confessions by which the world must be tried. And thus when the Judge seated himself, all that had been concealed would be open, nothing would go unpunished. And now, there was Ulrich again.