Serene Falcon

Universal Doom

January 28th, 2008

Wolfgang Borchert wrote prose-poems rather than short stories, mostly of a despairing and strongly pacifistic tendency, but then he had a bad war, being imprisoned twice by the military for extending his critical faculty on the subject of the war — something not only that many soldiers through the ages have done and shall do, but which was in any case rather prevalent amongst German soldiers. Especially the less enthusiastic on the OstFront.

Stephen Spender, who added so much to the concept of effeteness for English authors, wrote an introduction to the posthumous translations by David Porter: ‘Borchert’s soldiers are the doomed race of the Russian winter of 1941, and of Stalingrad. Nothing existed for them before they went to Russia. They are filled with the sense that if there are other soldiers, they must all feel the same, and be equally passive victims of their time. The Russians are only a background to their own misery and to the German Doom which is regarded as universal doom.‘

Fair enough. Despite passivity not being quite the operative word for a front that was nearly 2000 miles in length, and a 1000 miles in the wild blue yonder.

 
Anyway, one of his short stories…

***

They crouch on the stone-cold bridge parapets and on the frost-hard metal railings along the violet-stinking canal. They crouch on the hollowed, gossip-worn area steps. Among the silver paper and autumn leaves at the side of the street, and on the sinful benches in the parks. They crouch, leaning, lolling against the doorless walls of houses, and on the nostalgic walls and moles of the docks.
They crouch in a lost world, crowfaced, shrouded grey-black and croaked hoarse. They crouch and all abandonment hangs down from them like limp, loose, crumpled feathers. Abandoned by the heart, abandoned by women, abandoned by the stars.
They crouch in the dusk and damp of the shadows of houses, shunning the gateways, black as tar and tired of the pavement. They crouch in the early haze of the world’s afternoon, thin-soled and coated grey with dust, belated, daydreamed into monotony. They crouch over the bottomless pit, held by the abyss, sleep-swaying with hunger and homesickness.
Crowfaced ( and how else ? ) they crouch, crouch, crouch and crouch. Who? The crows ? The crows perhaps. But above all human beings, human beings.
At six o’clock the sun turns the city mist and smoke red-gold. And the houses are velvet-blue and soft-edged in the tender light of early evening.
But the crowfaced men crouch pallid-skinned and white-frozen in their hopelessness, in their inescapable humanity, crept deep into their patchwork jackets.
Since the day before one man had been crouching on the dock, smelling himself full of harbour smell and rolling crumbled masonry into the water. His eyebrows hung on his forehead like the fringe of a sofa, despondent but with incomprehensible humour.
And then a young man came along, his arms elbow-deep in his trouser-pockets, the collar of his jacket turned up round his bony neck. The older man didn’t look up, he saw beside him the comfortless mouths of a pair of shoes and up from the water there quivered at him the tossing caricature of a melancholy male figure. Then he knew that Timm was back again.
Well, Timm, he said, there you are again. Through already ?
Timm said nothing. He crouched on the quay wall beside the other man and put his long hands round his neck. He was cold.
So her bed wasn’t wide enough, eh ? the other began softly after many minutes.
Bed ! Bed ! said Timm angrily, I love the girl.
Of course you love her. But tonight she showed you the door again. So the billet was no go. It’s because you’re not clean enough, Timm. A night visitor like that has to be clean. Love alone isn’t always enough. Oh well, anyway, you’re not used to a bed now. Better stay here, then. Or do you still love her, eh ?
Timm rubbed his long hands on his neck and slid deep into his coat collar. She wants money, he said much later, or silk stockings. Then I could have stayed.
Oh, so you do still love her, said the old man, hell, but if you’ve no money !
Timm didn’t say that he still loved her, but after a while he said rather more quietly: I gave her the scarf, the red one, you know. I hadn’t anything else. But after an hour she suddenly had no more time.
The red scarf ? asked the other. Oh, he loves her, he thought to himself, how he loves her ! And once more he repeated: Aha, your beautiful red scarf ! And now you’re back here again and soon it’ll be dark.
Yes, said Timm, it’ll be dark again. And my neck’s miserably cold, now that I haven’t got the scarf. Miserably cold, I can tell you.
Then they both looked at the water in front of them and their legs hung sadly from the quay wall. A launch shrieked, white-steaming, past them and the waves followed, fat and chattering. Then it was still again, only the city hummed monotonously between heaven and earth, and crowfaced, shrouded blue-black, the two men crouched there in the after­noon. When after an hour a scrap of red paper tossed by on the waves, a gay, red piece of paper on the lead-grey waves, then Timm said to the other: But I had nothing else. Only the scarf.
And the other answered: And it was such a wonderful red, d’you remember, eh, Timm ? Boy, was it red !
Yes, yes, Timm mumbled dejectedly, it was that. And now my neck’s damn well freezing, my friend.
How’s this, thought the other, he still loves her and was with her for a whole hour. Now he won’t even be cold for her. Then, yawning, he said: And the billet’s a goner, too.
Lilo’s her name, said Timm, and she likes wearing silk stockings. But I haven’t got any.
Lilo ? exclaimed the other, don’t tell me that, man, she’s never called Lilo.
Of course she’s called Lilo, replied Timm indignantly. D’you suppose I can’t know one called Lilo ? I even love her, I tell you.
Timm slid angrily away from his friend and drew his knee up to his chin. And he held his long hands round his skinny neck. A web of early darkness laid itself on the day and the last rays of the sun stood lost on the sky like a lattice. Lonely, the men crouched over the uncertainties of the coming night and the city hummed, big and full of seduction. The city wanted money or silk stockings. And the beds wanted clean visitors at night.
I say, Timm, began the other and was silent again.
What is it ? asked Timm.
Is she really called Lilo, eh ?
Of course she’s called Lilo, Timm shouted at his friend, she’s called Lilo, and she said when I have anything, I’m to go back.
I say, Timm, his friend managed after a while, if she’s really called Lilo, then you certainly had to give her the red scarf. If she’s called Lilo, in my view, then she can have the red scarf. Even if the billet’s no go. No, Timm, forget the scarf, if she’s really called Lilo.
The two men looked across the misty water away to the mounting twilight, fearless, but without courage, reconciled. Reconciled to quay walls and gateways, reconciled to homeless-ness, to thin soles and empty pockets, reconciled. Inescapably idled away into indifference.
Thrown high, startlingly, on the horizon, blown hither from who knows where, crows came tumbling, their song and their dark feathers filled with the presentiment of night, reeling like inkspots across the chaste tissue paper of the evening sky, tired with living, croaked hoarse, and then, unexpectedly, a little further off, swallowed by the twilight.
They gazed after the crows, Timm and the other man, crow-faced, shrouded blueblack. And the water smelt full and mighty. The city, a wild towering of cubes, window-eyed, began to twinkle with a thousand lamps. They gazed after the crows, the crows, long since swallowed, gazed after them with poor, old faces, and Timm, who loved Lilo, Timm, who was twenty, said:
The crows, man, they’re all right.
The other man looked away from the sky straight into Timm’s wide face, floating pale-frozen in the half-dark. And Timm’s thin lips were sad lines in his wide face, lonely lines, twenty-year-old, hungry and thin from too much bitterness too soon.
The crows, said Timm’s wide face softly, this face made up of twenty bright-dark years, the crows, said Timm’s face, they’re all right. They fly home at night. Just home.
The two men crouched there, lost in the world, small and dejected in face of the new night, but fearlessly familiar with its frightful blackness. The city, million-eyed and sleepy, glowed through soft, warm curtains at the night streets emptied of noise, their pavements deserted. They crouched there hard by the depths, leaning over like tired rotten poles, and Timm, the twenty-year-old, had said: The crows are all right. The crows fly home at night. And the other babbled stupidly to himself: The crows, Timm, hell, Timm, the crows.
There they crouched. Dumped there by life, the alluring, the lousy. Dumped on the quay and the corner. On pier and pontoon. On mole and hollowed cellar-steps. Dumped by life on the dust-grey streets between silver paper and fallen leaf. Crows ? No, human beings ! Do you hear ? Human beings! And one of them was called Timm and he’d loved Lilo for a red scarf. And now, now he can’t forget her again. The crows, the crows croak their way home. And their croaking hung comfortless on the evening.
But then a launch stuttered, foam-mouthed, past them, and its scattered red light crumbled quivering in the harbour haze. And the haze was red for seconds. Red as my scarf, thought Timm. Infinitely far off, the launch chugged away. And Timm said softly: Lilo. Again and again: Lilo Lilo Lilo Lilo Lilo.

Wolfgang Borchert : The Crows Fly Home at Night