Volk (20 page)

He smiled. “I believe in the truth. Yet I live a life of deceit. I have no need to practice deceit with you.”

“A life of deceit,” she echoed. “I hate myself for ever deceiving another person, yet at times it seems I have to. I feel degraded, yet I alone am responsible.”

“I am sure Lane feels similarly about killing. He does not like it, but circumstances compel him.”

“My understanding is growing. But not my ease of conscience.”

“War is not kind to conscience.”

They were at the hotel. They went to the room. Ernst checked the closet and found extra blankets there. He laid these on the floor, and set his bag on them. “I will accompany you to the bathroom and check it before you enter,” he said. “Then I will wait outside it until you are done, and see you back to the room. I will lock you in, and then use the bathroom myself.”

“Yes.” She understood why. In this war-devastated region it was necessary to be extremely cautious. There could be a man hiding in the bathroom, or ready to jump out on a single woman passing in the hall, or to enter her room while her man was away.

When he returned and unlocked the door, she was already in the bed. He turned out the light and she heard him get into his blanket-bed on the floor, and heard him set the gun beside his head. He settled down to sleep.

“I thank thee, Ernst.”

“Welcome, Quality.”

•  •  •

Next morning Quality surprised herself again. “Thy gun—I have not seen one. Only the damage they do.”

He was surprised. “I mentioned this only in passing, not to cause you distress.”

“I am embarrassed to confess this, but the knowledge that thee has it makes me feel safer. May I see it?”

“If you wish.” He brought it out. “This is a Walther P-38, the HP model—Heeres Pistol. One of the finest service pistols available in Germany. It has an eight round magazine and automatic reloading.”

She stared at the thing. It seemed huge and menacing, like the German army. “May I—?”

He reversed it, holding it by the muzzle and extending the butt to her. She took it, and was impressed by its weight; it was over two pounds. What a terrible instrument!

She quickly gave it back. “I hope the day comes when no things like this exist, anywhere in the world.”

“I have never used it in action,” he said. “Only in target practice. But I can not claim innocence, because I would use it if the need arose.”

They said no more about it, but the matter remained in her mind. She felt as if she had done something forbidden, yet she was not penitent. What was in her mind?

They reached the town of Guernica. Most of the bomb damage had been cleaned up, and it was now much like any other town. But not in their eyes.

“I have made a certain study of this situation,” Ernst said as they drove, seeking the address of Quality's former friend. “In America it was represented as an innocent hamlet with no strategic or military value. They said it was obliterated during a market day when it was swollen with country people. That it was an experiment in terror bombing by the Kondor Legion.”

“Yes, I saw those reports,” she agreed tightly.

“But in fact the Basques were rugged fighters. They gave ground grudgingly. It required a lot of force to make them retreat. So air power was necessary, to avoid unnecessary sacrifice of lives.” He glanced at Quality. “I am speaking tactically, not morally.”

“I understand.”

“By late April, 1937, the main Basque defensive line had been turned. Guernica was one of the two principal routes of retreat for the Basque forces. It was a communications center. There were three military barracks and four small arms factories there. So it was a legitimate target. That particular raid was given no special importance by the units involved. The primary objectives were a nearby bridge, and any transportation and communications facilities. The town itself was bombed as well, to block any possible retreat of Basque troops.”

“And some outlying residences.”

“The assault was carried out by three Italian medium bombers, that dropped approximately two tons of explosives, and twenty one German bombers, eighteen of which were obsolescent JU 52's, which dropped thirty tons of explosives. The German contingent amounted to only a third of the Kondor Legion's force, and only one bombing pass was made. It was not fully effective; they failed to take out the bridge. But many bombs struck the town, where fires spread rapidly because of wooden construction, narrow streets, loss of water pressure and the lack of fire-fighting equipment.”

“But what of the human cost!” she exclaimed.

“It was just one small, routine action. It is coincidental that we know some of that human cost. I do not think my friend was even listed among the casualties; I learned of it through mutual friends. The cost was great, to us personally, but small in terms of military matters.”

“And that human cost is echoed all over the world,” she said bitterly. “Wherever there is war.”

“Wherever there is man,” he said.

They searched, but could not find where her friend had lived. There were several similar outlying residences, deserted; some were in rubble. There was no sign of the downed airplane; the remnants had probably been scavenged for other uses.

They started back. “I can't even say I am disappointed,” Quality said. “I just wanted to see whether there was anything to see. To pay my respects to my friend, in my fashion.”

“I, too, to mine.”

“It is so hard to believe that this is God's will.”

“According to Nietzsche, the Christian conception of God is corrupt.”

She glanced sharply at him. “Nietzsche?”

“Friedrich Nietzsche, a German who lived from 1844 to 1900, but was said to be insane in 1889 until his death.”

“I should think so!”

He smiled. “No, he was an able philosopher, and is held in high regard in my country. I understand that his writings influenced the
Führer
.”

“I rest my case.”

“Perhaps you should read him. It is said that it is impossible for a person to read him carefully and remain a Christian.”

“Then why should I want to read him?”

“Perhaps merely to test your faith. Perhaps to ascertain whether the God you serve truly exists. If he does not, then you have your answer: this destruction is not God's will.”

“Why is he so certain that God does not exist?”

“He shows how the Christian God has been adapted from the Jewish God, but refined to make man feel sinful even when he has done nothing wrong, and to give man hope for an afterlife where justice shall be done. Thus man both needs the priest, and has no chance of fulfillment in this life. His hope in the beneficence of the afterlife is vain. Thus it is hope which is the evil of evils—the one thing left in Pandora's box.”

“Hope is evil? And what of love?”

“God was made a person so that it would be possible to love Him. The saints were made as handsome young men or beautiful young women, to appeal to the romanticism of the worshipers of either sex. Love is the state in which man suffers great illusions, seeing things as they are not. Thus when man loves God, he deludes himself, and tolerates much more evil than otherwise.” He paused. “Or so Nietzsche says.

“Does thee believe that, Ernst?”

“I got in trouble for declining to abandon the Church! But I must say that was because I did not like having my faith or lack of faith dictated to me. I have encountered people of faith who are good. People like you. I do not know what my belief may be, other than my faith in the power of my swastika.”

“Thy swastika!” she exclaimed, appalled. She had forgotten that he wore it as a silver icon, his most cherished possession. No matter how nice he seemed, he remained a Nazi.

“For me it is an object of veneration. It has helped me, perhaps as your faith helps you.”

“What a parallel!”

He shrugged, not arguing, and she felt ashamed for her narrowness. She might disagree with him, but she had no right to disparage his faith. “Now we must go to Madrid.”

“Madrid?”

“Where I can seek a contact, and facilitate the shipment of your parts.”

“But I haven't even answered thy questions about what we are doing here!” she protested.

“Surely you will, before we return.”

So it turned out. They drove to Madrid, where she waited in the car while he saw some people and shopped for some fruit to eat along the way. In due course he brought her back to Barcelona, and the shipment of the necessary parts was being facilitated.

“If I may, I will give you this,” he said, handing her a small package.

Quality was surprised. “I have not asked anything from thee, Ernst, or given thee anything. I don't—”

“About that I differ. You have given me the pleasure of your company and your trust. But this is merely a book I found in Madrid. It is in French, which I can not read, but I know what it says. I fear you will not like it—”

“A French book? I can read it, of course. But why would thee assume I wouldn't like it?”

“It is Nietzsche. One of the last he wrote before his madness overcame him. But his logic is persuasive. You do not have to agree with him, and surely you will not, but you should understand what he says.”

Quality was touched. She accepted the book. “Thank thee, Ernst. Thee is right: I must not condemn without understanding. I will read it.”

He smiled. “I doubt we shall meet again, but if we do, we can argue Nietzsche's case.”

“I say this with a certain bemusement,” Quality said as they separated. “But I rather enjoyed our trip together.”

“I, too.”

Then he drove away, leaving her by the front of the office. She waved to him with the book.

•  •  •

“I have good news and bad news,” the director told her. “The good news is that we have received word that the parts for the truck are on the way, just when we had almost given up on them. The bad news is that we need someone to go to Vichy France. A trainload of refugees is supposed to be crossing into Spain, and arrangements have to be made in Spain and in France. Since you speak French—”

“Yes, of course,” she said. She was surprised and glad that Ernst's word had been so immediately effective; her trip with him had justified itself, though that had not been her reason for it. But to go to Vichy France—that was distinctly nervous business. France had fallen only last month, and the horror of the German advance remained fresh. It had seemed as if the panzer divisions were never going to stop, and that they might plunge right through the mountains to Spain. Fortunately they had stopped, and then the Vichy regime had been set up, and things had stabilized for the time being.

So it was that she found herself using her repaired truck not to go out on a route, but for driving alone to France. She had to go to Paris to make the arrangements, and the state of transportation was such that it was best to drive across the border and to Toulouse in France, where she could catch a passenger train. There were risks, such as possible confiscation of the truck by the French, but there were risks in any other course of action too.

The thing was that she had to take along a considerable amount of money in both French and German denominations, because it was a reality of warfare and of travel that nothing could be done without local currency, but no money was allowed to cross international boundaries. So it had to be smuggled across. She had not been involved in this aspect before, and had for some time been naive about it, but she had learned. Her pangs of conscience had settled down to low-grade distress; there just wasn't any other way to function here. The truck's spare tire was stuffed with the money. With luck the border inspection would not be thorough enough to expose it.

The truck had been fixed, but it remained balky on hills, tending to overheat. The road to the border was mostly uphill, because the border ran along the heights of the Pyrenees. She had to drive slowly, and stop frequently to let the motor cool. She was used to it. While she waited, she thought about what she was getting into, for France was now more dubious territory than Spain.

Apparently the swiftness of the German panzer advance was deceptive: the Germans lacked the personnel to occupy the whole of France directly. Probably they were still digesting Poland, and preparing for the invasion of England. There were rumors that they were preparing to mount a phenomenal air attack on the island, to bomb it into submission so that there would be no effective resistance to occupation by troops. This might explain why they were to let roughly the southern half of France be administrated by a French puppet government whose capital was at a spa town named Vichy.

The Vichy regime had come into existence on June 16, 1940, under the leadership of Marshal Philippe Petain. He was eighty four years old, and venerated by the French population as a hero of the War—now being termed the First World War, the current one assuming the status of The Second World War. He sometimes pretended to be senile as a political ploy, but he was in excellent health and in full command of his faculties. France had not yet surrendered, but the French had evidently concluded that it was better to have one of their own in charge, than to have the Germans do it. Even spread thin, the Nazis would be vicious.

Petain was given to simple statements of the obvious, such as “The family is good. Alcoholism is bad.” His first act as leader was to declare his intent to negotiate an armistice with the Germans. The French troops of the region began laying down their arms immediately. General de Gaulle made a radio broadcast from London, vowing to continue the battle against Germany, but he received almost no support. The predominant mood in France was that German victory in Europe was inevitable, and the Vichy regime was attempting to solidify a favorable position for France in the new order.