Mephisto Aria Read online

  It was as good a reason as any to see what his journal would say about him. She made her own tea, then took up her post on the sofa with a blanket over her legs and resumed her reading.

  March 1, 1943

  So this is what I’ll be doing for a while, at least until they decide they have no need for traitors and cowards. For now, I serve the commander and that protects me from suspicion. When his hands get bad, he summons me. I take him clean gloves and wash his sores. When they start to heal, he sends me back to surgery. The others were wary of me for a while, but now they let me do my job. They don’t seem to think I will desert at the first opportunity. They’re right. What would be the point?

  But I have constant nightmares, all variations on the same thing. Last night it was Zharptitsa, flying over the frozen steppes, tossed by the wind. I tried to catch him, to save him from the cold, but he disappeared into the snowstorm. I knew he would soon freeze, far away from me, and his beautiful wings would lie open and rigid on the snow. I fell to my knees, crying. When I woke up, I ached from the sorrow.

  March 15, 1943

  I finally have a uniform, after a month of living in a padded jacket from a dead Russian infantryman. The supply lines have opened up again so not only do we have fresh bandages and antiseptic, but I have a new gymnasterka tunic, complete with epaulets, medical corps insignias, and the rank of corporal. Probably the only corporal in the Red Army performing surgery. Best of all, I replaced my old wool cap—held by a scarf tied under my chin—with a thick ushanka. What a relief to be able to pull the flaps down when I’m outside. First time in weeks my ears are warm.

  As a doctor, I can usually stay indoors. But in the deadly cold outside, civilians or German POWs work in burial parties to gather the corpses that are lying all over the city. The work parties carry them on sleds or in handcarts and stack them by the roadside. Almost all of the horses have been slaughtered for food, but a few camels are left to harness for the job. The ground is still too hard to dig new graves, but the anti-tank ditches dug last summer are good for burying the dead. Already there are signs of typhus among the work teams.

  The Allies have promised ambulances, but for now we have only old city busses, outfitted to carry wounded. For warmth, they have little metal stoves stoked with scraps of wood, and they all smoke terribly. The wounded men not only suffer from the lurching of the busses over the horrendous roads, they choke on the air inside. Better than freezing, but only a little.

  April 5, 1943

  The spring thaw has started and everything’s turned to mud. Less fighting now since nobody can move artillery on either side. Russian troops are slogging toward Kursk and our medical team is packing up to follow them.

  Still don’t sleep well, no matter how tired I am. Nightmares, again and again. Of birds, of children, of beautiful things that I’ve let die.

  May 22, 1943

  The Stalin propaganda is in full force. Everyone has forgotten the purges of the ’30s and the millions who died. Now everyone parrots “the Stalinist strategy” and “the military genius of Stalin” as the cause of every victory. The younger men seem proud to be one of “Stalin’s soldiers” and hungry for the new medals and distinctions. It’s the older ones who sense that their entire generation has been sacrificed. But all of them are brave, almost suicidal in their courage. The men are talking about a battle where sixty tanks puttied up all their openings and forded a river underwater.

  June 14, 1943

  Red Army medicine is not as good as in the German field hospitals. Only the lightly wounded are saved. The Russians cry for their mothers just like the Germans did. The ones who can still fight are bitter, hungry for vengeance, and there is an almost universal hatred of the German invaders. Fortunately, my Russian conceals the fact that I was one of them. But the hour of vengeance is beginning and the Allies are already wreaking havoc on Germany’s industrial areas. The radio reports heavy bombing raids on the Ruhr, on Cologne, Mainz, Frankfurt. Germany is lost. How many will die before Hitler’s government understands this?

  Fewer nightmares now. It must be the warm weather, the disappearance of snow.

  July 28, 1943

  Hamburg has been heavily bombed and there are reports that the Allies have begun raids on Berlin. My home, my family. All that I thought would stay safe while I was at the front. Has our house been hit? No way to know. And if it hasn’t been hit yet, they’ll be back again. The Allied bombers control the skies.

  August 20, 1943

  In Kursk now, treating the wounded from the great tank battle.

  I thought Stalingrad had hardened me, but this was a different sort of horror. A soldier doesn’t shrink from the thought of death from gun or explosion. But no one imagines being crushed under a churning tank tread. The battlefield is a butcher’s block, with scraps of meat that a day ago were men. It was no better to die by fire inside the tanks either, the still-living ones pulled out without faces or hands. Fortunately we still have morphine for them.

  The commissars have called the battle a great victory for Russia.

  September 17, 1943

  Most of the field medics are women, and they are unbelievably tough. In Stalingrad I saw them carry wounded men on their backs. Not much like the German Mädels, who are supposed to stay home and bear children for the Führer.

  There is a shortage of cotton for bandages. We manage at the field hospital by tearing up bed linen and boiling it, but the medics at the front can’t do that. They’re re-using bandages and sometimes even moss or linden tree shavings as absorbent. Infection is rampant.

  Italy has capitulated. Italian faschisti in the German-held territories will be put to work for the Germans. Doctors like me, working for new masters, treating soldiers of a different nationality.

  What was the reason for this war? I can’t remember.

  Katherina set the journal aside and rubbed her face. She wanted to read on but her eyes burned, and though she read and reread the last page, her sleep-starved mind wandered off each time in the same place. Revelations overwhelmed her, and every new entry brought as many questions as answers. What was Zharptitsa? A bird, obviously, but why did losing it cause a soldier to break down and cry?

  Why the large gaps between the entries? Presumably he was simply too busy at the surgeon’s table to have the leisure to write. She knew that 1943 was a decisive year in which the German army was slowly pushed back toward the homeland. Embedded with the Russians as he was, did he think of that as defeat or victory? Did he care who would win the war?

  Katherina was nodding off, but she did not want to go upstairs. Her childhood room, across from her father’s empty bedroom, seemed even more desolate than the living room. She also could not bear to lie in the darkness and so she tilted the shade on the lamp away from her and left it burning, a sphere of comfort in the night.

  Her sleep was troubled. The light shining on her face and the narrow sofa cushions kept her in shallow sleep, and she dreamed fitfully. Scenes came to her in patches, fraught with anxiety. Her father, in Russian uniform, seen in the distance through wind-blown snow. She struggled toward him with weighted feet, as he disappeared into a long black line of men winding toward the horizon. Then something fluttered in the snow just ahead of her and she clambered toward it. A bird, she thought with horror, with broken wings. But no, it was a glove, a black gauntlet, lifted slightly by the wind. She woke, shivering, in the unheated living room, her blanket on the floor.

  V

  Carmina Burana—Vivace

  Joachim von Hausen was rehearsing the chorus and the pas de deux of the dancers when Katherina arrived at the stage entrance. He was slight of build, but the energy of his person and his stature in the music world lent him height. She had taken to him immediately at the first rehearsal.

  From the stage-left wings, she watched admiringly as the two lead dancers executed their most strenuous leaps. Carlo’s tight musculature, vaguely Greek features, and long wavy hair made him the object of nearly everyon
e’s desire. And the press adored him. Sabine, who partnered him, was just as striking, even in rehearsal, when she left her mane of red hair loose. As she leapt and spun, it flew around her like a flame in a breeze.

  Part of the dance brought her sweeping far stage left. Scarcely a meter away, Katherina could see every taut muscle in the dancer’s body. Unlike the other ballerinas, Sabine had visible breasts, and as she arched her back they swelled provocatively under her leotard. She curled forward, then straightened and danced in open-armed pirouettes back toward her partner.

  “Nice, huh?” someone said at Katherina’s elbow.

  “What? Oh, Ulrich. I didn’t hear you arrive. Which of them are you admiring, Carlo or Sabine?” she teased the baritone.

  “Our lovely ballerina, of course. I wouldn’t mind having a go at her. With muscles like that, it’d be like screwing a leopard. I’ve heard they call her the ‘man-eater.’”

  “It could also just be one of your lust fantasies.”

  “For sure, it’s that too.” He smirked as he moved away.

  “You and every male in the chorus,” she called after him. Suddenly she was not sure she had brought her score. She knelt down and fumbled through her shoulder bag until she found the stapled pages. Relieved, she stood up again and found herself face to face with Sabine, panting from her last pirouette. Droplets of moisture dotted her forehead and upper lip, and she tugged at the cloth of her sweat-damp leotard.

  “Hello,” the dancer said, between breaths. Then she stepped back for a moment and scrutinized Katherina, as if appraising her.

  Katherina tried to think of something clever to say, but at that moment the conductor called her onto the stage for her solo.

  Ulrich glanced at his watch. “I think we were terrific today, and look, it’s only five o’clock. Anyone interested in a beer and sausage across the street? I’ll pay.” His invitation was loud enough for all to hear, but it seemed to Katherina that he intended it primarily for Sabine.

  In fact, she accepted, along with a handful of others. “You’re joining us too, aren’t you?” Sabine caught her eye.

  Katherina thought of what awaited her at home. Nothing awaited her. “Sure, why not?”

  “Let’s go then.” Ulrich threw a quick “See, I told you” glance toward Katherina, then helped Sabine on with her coat. In a moment, everyone was gathered and he herded the cluster of his new friends through the door.

  The group migrated across the street to the Café zum Engel, and Katherina fell in step with Dieter. The tenor was a short amiable man with chipmunk cheeks, who, in spite of his youth, was already losing his hair. His equally amiable and colorless girlfriend was on his other arm.

  They arranged themselves around the large common table. Ulrich was quick to help Sabine off with the coat he had just put on her. She smiled prettily at her unsubtle suitor and sat down between him and Katherina.

  “I just adore Carmina Burana,” one of the other dancers said as the beer and sausage orders went out.

  Ulrich laughed. “Of course you do. It’s work for dancers, right? Besides, nobody doesn’t like Carmina Burana. It’s the rock-and-roll of classical music. You’ll see. The audience will go nuts for it.”

  “I wish the public would go nuts for opera. That would give us more work,” Dieter added. “Sometimes I think it’s just a matter of getting people into the opera house. Once they’ve heard it, they love it, but how do you lure them there in the first place?”

  One of the dancers said, “You should give them prizes the first time they come.”

  “You mean souvenirs? Like a Desdemona handkerchief or a Tosca fruit knife?” Katherina laughed.

  “Well, there could be a whole subcategory of knives.” Ulrich warmed to the subject. “The Madame Butterfly dagger, and the Carmen pocket knife—sort of a Swiss Army knife thing, but Spanish—and then a Rigoletto knife.”

  “No, for Rigoletto they really ought to have a souvenir sack.” Dieter’s girlfriend joined in. “Like the one he carries his dead daughter around in for two days before she sings her aria.”

  Sabine leaned onto the table. “How about a line of clothing? A Lucia di Lammermoor nightgown, complete with bloodstains, a Pagliacci giubba.”

  “What’s a giubba?” a dancer asked.

  “It’s that big clown shirt with pom poms that Pagliacci wears.”

  “Okay, a Pagliacci giubba.” Dieter pretended to be writing a list with his finger on the tablecloth. “And a Don Giovanni address book. Organized by country. With extra pages for Spain.” He paused. “What about Fidelio chains?”

  The beer pitcher arrived and Ulrich poured a round of glasses. “Who’s going to want chains, for god’s sake?”

  “Well, who’s going to want a giubba?” Katherina laughed.

  “Good point,” Ulrich conceded. “Ah, I’ve got one. You want something practical? How about a Salome serving platter?”

  “You mean like the one that holds the head of John the Baptist?” Dieter asked.

  “That’s disgusting.” Katherina feigned horror. Suddenly she became aware of pressure against her left leg. She moved a millimeter away, but Sabine’s leg followed.

  Katherina was confused. What did it mean? She moved away a second time, but the touch was there again a moment later. Above the table too, Sabine’s well-muscled upper arm brushed against her. Was she simply trying to get Katherina’s attention?

  Katherina leaned toward the arm and spoke quietly under the din of the group laughter. “Is there something you want to say to me?”

  Sabine pressed closer in response, but was silent. Katherina could smell her perfume. Then Sabine whispered, “I saw the way you looked at me. The way you’ve been looking at me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Katherina’s throat was tight.

  Ulrich made some bawdy remark about dancers’ derrieres, and the group burst into laughter again. Sabine said under her breath, “Do you want to see more?”

  Someone held the pitcher over Katherina’s glass and she raised her hand to signal no. Her heart was pounding. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she whispered. Her left leg where Sabine’s knee was pressed against it began to tremble. The sudden tightness in her sex was unwelcome, frightening.

  “Of course you do. I know you. You’re just like me.”

  Katherina slid her chair away from the table so suddenly that the table shook. The laughter stopped and a dozen eyes focused on her.

  “I…uh, I’m sorry. I just remembered I have to be at home this evening. A visitor arriving. So stupid of me to forget. Thank you, Ulrich. I…uh…I’ll see you all tomorrow at dress rehearsal.”

  Half a dozen heads nodded and murmured polite agreement. Swinging her coat over her shoulders, she left the Café zum Engel without looking back.

  VI

  Lamentando

  Katherina sat at her father’s desk. Though she had been home for half an hour, she still felt slightly breathless, as if she had fled something terrifying and only just found refuge. She felt foolish now, having left the café so abruptly and run back to her father’s house. The people in the restaurant must have thought she was crazy. What was she running from anyhow?

  She shook her head in a sort of internal dialogue. Two weeks before, she had been so sure of herself. She knew where she had come from and where all signs indicated she was going. But the floor seemed to have dropped away from under her. The man who had been the rock on which she had built her identity had been living a lie before he killed himself, and now a woman she had just met claimed to know her deepest desires. What were her deepest desires, anyhow? She wasn’t ready to explore that darkness.

  She glanced around the room, at Sergei Marow’s books and records, and the journal of his life, and laughed bitterly. Her plight was so trivial, so banal compared to his. He—his whole generation, in fact—had looked into the abyss, had seen cruelty and evil in its pure, uncompromised form, while all she had to anguish over was flirtation. She felt sudde
nly ashamed, wallowing in her silly fears when in front of her lay his chronicle of cataclysm. She owed him her respect and her attention, so she opened the journal again to where she had left off.

  January 29, 1944

  The Russians have broken through to Leningrad. Incredible, that the Germans besieged the city for nearly 900 days. I get sick thinking of what it was like to be locked inside, trying to survive on the tiny trickle of food brought across Lake Ladoga. There are stories already now of people living on snow and sawdust, and Moscow reports that some million people died of starvation. What has happened to my cousins, I wonder. Kyril and Irena, I think they were called. Most likely they’re soldiers now, but what about the others? Strange, you go to war thinking that the people back home somehow stay safe.

  The retreating Germans wrecked the Catherine and Alexander Palaces and destroyed most of the other historical structures in the Tsar’s park at Tsarskoe Selo. Even the Bolsheviks didn’t do that.

  February 2, 1944

  It’s been a year exactly since Stalingrad. Hollow nausea when I remember, and yet I can’t get the images out of my mind. Karlovsky tormenting me with a cruel choice. Then the devil’s gauntlet on the floor. Accusing me. Will this weight ever be lifted from my chest?

  February 14, 1944

  Headquarters has moved the medical staff again, following Commander Chuikov’s troops westward. I’m slowly heading back to Germany. Back to what, I wonder.

  There are round-the-clock bombings of Berlin now. The US Air Force bombs during daylight and the RAF at night. Dr. Tchelechev was gleeful at the news. I keep thinking of my parents. Are they still alive? Joining the Red Army, I have betrayed them too. Will Berlin surrender? Probably not, and so I will be part of a military storm that may destroy it.