Lieutenant Flachsbauer also received a letter, read it, sighed and placed it under his pillow. So did Lieutenant Kroysing. His letter was from his mother, as his father had delegated letter writing to her some time ago. She was looking forward to him being transferred to a Nuremberg hospital and asked him to hurry the process along. She was having nightmares and clung to every bit of news from him. She felt that he would only be safe from the murderous claws of war when he was in her arms. Kroysing frowned: people at home really knew how to lay it on thick. Claws of war! That kind of talk should be left to washerwomen. He wondered what exactly she thought was going to happen to him here. The Verdun front had lost its importance, and there had been no more talk of long-range guns from the Frogs. And the Red Cross flew its flag and had painted a cross on the roof to prevent air attacks. He decided he’d better wait to tell his parents about his transfer to the air force in person when he had some proper leave.
‘We’re counting on you remaining in Germany from now on, my beloved child, and returning to your profession if possible, hopefully somewhere very nearby. We both very much regret that we weren’t always close before the war. Perhaps that was just part of your growing up, but now, darling boy, now, my dear lanky Hardi, you must remember that you are our only child and help us to take some joy in life again. A family home is only a family home if the children call it home. And we’ve already had to part with our dear Christel. I have to confess that I’m not a heroic mother. I could weep and weep over your dear, kind, talented brother, just as I would have wept inconsolably if it had been you and our tall, proud, manly Hardi were never to dash up our steps again. I don’t cry because it’s useless and it just breaks your father’s heart, and he can’t do anything to help me. If the Fatherland really needs further sacrifices, then other fathers and mothers will have to make them because we have suffered enough. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever lift a grandchild from its crib – that’s the only real joy left to an old woman like me. Yes, thought Kroysing, a grandchild would give her a new lease of life. He should write to her and say that. He’d been right to offer Niggl’s scalp to Father Lochner as they philosophised together earlier – provided Lochner agreed to help with certain difficulties that Sister Kläre would tell him about after dinner. It was a fair exchange, and Lochner seemed to acknowledge that.
And so he replied to his mother immediately. He felt unusually warm towards her. The resentment she’d alluded to was completely forgotten. Tender, cheerful words poured from him as he bent uncomfortably over the table and wrote his forces letter in bold handwriting – his last.
BOOK NINE
Fire from heaven
CHAPTER ONE
A helping hand
FATHER LOCHNER TRIPPED into Sister Kläre’s nun’s cell with excited little baby steps. She’d invited him for a coffee before the end of the lunch break. ‘What’s this I hear, Sister Kläre – and not from you, but from the wild hunter himself!’
The little room smelt pleasantly of real coffee, the one luxury Sister Kläre did not deny herself and her friends. She sat calmly on the bed looking at the agitated priest with a direct, almost stern expression. ‘It doesn’t matter who you heard it from, and if our tall friend exaggerated, then I’m here to set things straight. So, will you condone it or not?’
The chaplain had lowered himself on to the stool and was stirring his sugar with a small spoon, his pinkie delicately raised. ‘That’s what I call taking the bull by the horns. That’s vintage Sister Kläre. Do you know, you could have been abbess of a great convent. A thousand years ago, you might have shed light and consolation upon a whole area or province.’
‘Now you’re just talking rubbish, Father Lochner, complete and utter rubbish, and you’re doing it to avoid answering. But you must answer.’
‘Do you like him?’ asked the priest carefully.
‘Yes,’ replied Sister Kläre. ‘I like him. I like that tall young man a lot. But I also like my husband and children. I’m not some daft wee girl. My liking for him is not so ingrained that I couldn’t cauterise it like a granulated wound if need be. If you think that the practical difficulties are too great and that it would be too painful for my husband and children, I’ll tell Kroysing we can’t have what we want and that we’ll have to form a different kind of friendship if we survive the war or go our separate ways.’
Father Lochner raised his eyebrows, secretly shocked at the down-to-earth way this lady from the highest echelons of society, in nurse’s uniform with the face of a lovely nun called Klara, expressed herself. ‘Do you think then,’ he fumbled, ‘that Colonel Schwersenz will ever get better? Do you think you’ll ever be able to live with him properly again and mean something to him?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Sister Kläre. ‘My mother writes from the house in Hinterstein that he sits there surrounded by maps and papers, more shut away than ever. He’s completely obsessed by his role in the Battle of the Marne and is dead to everything else. He only takes the vaguest and most distracted interest in what’s going on around him and hardly ever asks about the children, whom he calls his grandchildren. But he’s strong physically and has a healthy appetite. He goes for long walks – route marches – and sees nothing but sectors and strategic, tactical problems. The old lady, who’s the wisest person I know, says she’s become quite a military expert. Her main concern is that Schwersenz will try to leave so he can explain his role in the Battle of the Marne to the Kaiser and the Reichstag, or even try to address the nation from a public square, in which case he’d be transferred to a closed institution.’
‘Dreadful,’ said Father Lochner. ‘O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!’
‘That’s Hamlet, isn’t it? It’s only too true. What if I can never really connect with him again?’
‘Then a Christian marriage with him is no longer possible,’ said the priest, draining his cup. They were both silent.
Sister Kläre wondered whether she should say any more. Then she did: ‘It’s not that I’m complaining. But neither do I particularly care what people think. What I would like to say is that the current state of affairs is just the last stage in a process that began years ago and always looked like it might end this way. My husband lived for his work like a scholar or a monk. He was a soldier body and soul. Otherwise a man of his class would never have embarked on such a career. No living creature was ever good enough for him, me included. Before the war I thought that was just how it was, particularly as my father and brothers were no different. Now I don’t think that any more.’
‘I understand,’ said the priest, as he watched the steaming coffee fall on to another cube of sugar and began to look forward to a second cup. ‘The war has shown you humanity in all its myriad forms. It has revealed the kingdom of the world to you in all its abundance and misery, as well as the relief work you perform. You no longer want to lie fallow. But, Sister Kläre, how do you think a new marriage would affect your children?’
Sister Kläre took off her head covering and smoothed her hair into shape with her strong hands. ‘I’m convinced,’ she said, ‘that a younger, more active stepfather such as Kroysing would be good for them – as far as one can humanly tell. But children are passionate, impulsive and unpredictable, and so you never know how they will react. I know only too well that growing children are people in their own right, inscrutable to a certain extent and not easily swayed. That needs to be taken into account.’