him very much at first—but less and less as I got to know him better.”
“What’s the matter with him? ”
“I couldn’t really say. He’s very intelligent, as you say, and beautifully spoken, and very sweet and courteous when he wants to be. But there’s something off about him. In fact I came to the conclusion in the end that he was quite cracked. Perhaps it was the head-wound; perhaps he was like that before, I really don’t know.”
“Were you serious about each other?”
“Oh yes. At least, I was quite taken with him at first. Patients falling in love with you is an occupational hazard in my trade: I used to get at least three proposals a week before I married you and got this ring safely on my finger. But he was different for me. It’s just that he had reservations about me in the end, not the other way round.”
“How did you find that out?”
“It was one evening in the gardens. He was up and about by then, back in uniform instead of a dressing- gown. I’d just come off duty and we were sitting together talking about this and that. And after a while it got around to getting engaged. Not that I think we had any burning passion for each other; just that we rather liked one another, and if he was a little odd I put it down to what he’d been through and I thought that I might be able to spend my life with him. We got on to marriage, and what we wanted to do after the war, and I thought he was going to ask a certain question. Then he asked me . . . something else.” She stopped.
“What did he say? ”
“Oh, it was so stupid, it embarrasses me to tell you . . . don’t ask me, please.”
“What was it?”
“Really something so absurd that I don’t think even now . . . Oh there, you’ve made me get the giggles just thinking about it.” I was fascinated now, devoured with curiosity.
“Please tell me Liserl, what did he ask you? I’ll never rest now until I know. There shouldn’t be secrets between man and wife. I’ve told you about all my old affairs when you’ve asked.”
“Oh well then, if you have to know . . .” She was almost choking now as she tried to suppress her merriment. “. . . The silly idiot asked me what colour my nipples were. There, look, you’ve made me blush even now just with telling you about it.”
“For God’s sake, why did he ask you that?”
“I must say I was a bit puzzled myself at the time. In fact I couldn’t answer him for a while I was so embarrassed. ‘Silly boy,’ I said once I’d managed to stop giggling, ‘you really mustn’t ask nice well-brought-up girls questions like that. But why on earth do you want to know?’ I said, ‘Is it a hobby of yours ? And anyway, what do you mean by colour? Most women’s are more or less pink I believe, so I can’t see that the exact shade matters a lot.’ But he wouldn’t give up: sat there staring into my eyes, ever so solemn, and asked me, ‘Yes, but are they dark pink or light pink?’ ” “What on earth was he getting at? ”
“Yes, I wondered that as well. In fact I was about to call for help in case he went completely loopy and started attacking me. But once I’d got my breath back he asked me again, so I told him that although I’d never had a great deal of opportunity to make comparisons—at convent we had to bathe wearing linen gowns—if he really had to know I thought that mine were quite dark, what with being half-Romanian and fairly brownskinned. And that did it: the silly fool just sat back and nodded to himself as if to say ‘Yes, just as I thought,’ then announced to me that we could never marry. ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘Because science has shown that dark nipples in a woman are a sign at least of Latin and possibly even of Jewish ancestry. No true German of pure racial stock can ever think of diluting the blood by miscegenation with those of other races. Women of pure Nordic race invariably have rose-pink nipples.’ ”
“I see what you mean. And what did you have to say to that?”
“I didn’t cry. Once I’d got over my surprise I just laughed and told him he was either joking or completely mad, and that either way I didn’t want anything to do with someone who sorts the human race into bloodlines like a racehorse breeder. In fact I told him that if he wanted a nice Germanic brood mare with a backside on her like the side of a house and blond plaits hanging down over her rose-pink nipples he’d better go putting advertisements in the local papers in the Salzkammergutt. The impertinent sod! And what’s wrong with Jewish ancestry anyway? I don’t know whether I’ve got any, but the de Bratianus have got a bit of just about everything else, so I’d be surprised if they didn’t have that as well.”
I considered all this for a while. “Yes, I suppose that it does sound a bit odd really, Liserl. But that isn’t conclusive proof of insanity. We’re all of us a little mad about something, and I’ve often seen that even the most reasonable people can have a potty opinion about something or other. When I was a cadet on my first voyage my old captain Slawetz von Lowenhausen was as fine a sailor as you could hope to meet—we’d all have followed him to the ends of the earth. But he had a thing about the crew shaving the hair off their legs: tried to make us do it each month because he believed it prevented malaria.”
“Yes, I know. But I still say he’s completely cracked. It’s just that there are so many cranks in Germany nowadays—weltpolitikers and macht- politikers and Wotanists and sun-worshippers and vegetarians and racial hygienists—that you don’t notice it any more. But believe me, if someone as bright as Svetozar von Potocznik can seriously believe that the worth of human beings is determined by the colour of their nipples, then there’s no hope for any of us. He’s mad I tell you: I’d suspected as much before then but ignored my instinct. It was a good thing I found out when I did—and that I met you the following week.” She turned to me. “You don’t care what colour my nipples are, do you Otto? And I’ll bet you’ve had more opportunity than most for making comparisons.”
“My dearest love, if they’re yours then for all I care they might as well be viridian or cobalt blue.”
She cuddled up to me as we walked. “You are sweet. I thought you’d say something like that.”
We set off to return to Vienna on the last day of August. We had agreed that Elisabeth would hand in her month’s notice when she got back to the hospital, and would then move to live with my Aunt Aleksia in her flat on the Josefsgasse. For my part I would return to my flying duties and hope that somehow, Zugsfuhrer Toth, Zoska and the Blessed Virgin between them would contrive to keep us airborne. So we bade my father farewell. He hardly noticed our departure since he was leaning over a world-map on the dining-room table, engrossed in a pamphlet concerning German plans for building a giant ship canal through the Caucasus and Hindu Kush to the head waters of the Ganges, so that ships would be able to steam overland from Rotterdam to Calcutta. He had asked my professional opinion upon the project as a naval officer, and had not been at all pleased when I had commented that it seemed an expensive way of avoiding seasickness. We took a fiacre to the station, and caught the local stopping train to get us to Oderberg junction so that we could board the Cracow—Vienna express.
We were only a couple of minutes out of the station at Grussbach when the train suddenly came to a shuddering, clanking halt in the middle of a pine forest. For some time there was no sound except the hissing of steam. Then there were shots in the wood, and the unmistakable crash of a stick-grenade. We waited uneasily. After a few minutes we heard the sound of voices and the crunch of boots on the trackside ballast. It was a party of five or six yellow-helmeted gendarmes with rifles slung at their shoulders, leading a captive. He was about nineteen or twenty I should think: tousle- haired, unshaven and with his face streaked with blood. He was wearing a tattered army greatcoat. His hands were tied behind his back and they were pulling him along by a halter around his neck, kicking him to his feet each time he stumbled and fell. They disappeared and the train started to move once more. The conductor came into our compartment.
“What on earth was all that about?” I asked him as he clipped my rail warrant.
“Nothing really, Herr Leutnant, just some trouble further up the line.”
“Trouble with whom?”
“With bandits, Herr Leutnant.” He lowered his voice. “At least, that’s what we’re supposed to say. Everyone knows it’s really deserters.”
“Deserters? Surely not around here, this far from the Front.”
“Deserters sure enough: men who came home on leave and didn’t bother reporting back. There’s a lot of them in these forests now. They live by robbing the farms—though from what I hear there’s more than enough of the villagers who’ll give them food and hide them in their barns. Dirty rotten Czechs—the Bohmes all want shooting if you ask me. There’s not one of them wouldn’t run away if you gave them the chance.”
