place.'
Michael stared at Noah. Noah was looking coolly and soberly at Captain Green, his face calm, remote.
Captain Green had not looked up. He had stopped writing, but he was sitting with his head bent over wearily, as though he had fallen asleep.
'There has never been a religious service for us in this place,' the Rabbi said softly, 'and so many thousands have gone…'
'Permit me.' It was the Albanian diplomat who had been so useful in carrying out Green's orders. He had moved to the side of the Rabbi, and was standing before the Captain's desk, bent over, speaking rapidly, diplomatically and clearly. 'I do not like to intrude, Captain. I understand why the Rabbi has made this request. But this is not the time for it. I am a European, I have been in this place a long time, I understand things perhaps the Captain doesn't understand. I do not like to intrude, as I said, but I think it would be inadvisable to give permission to conduct publicly a Hebrew religious service in this place.' The Albanian stopped, waiting for Green to say something. But Green didn't say anything. He sat at the desk, nodding a little, looking as though he were on the verge of waking up from sleep.
'The Captain perhaps does not understand the feeling,' the Albanian went on rapidly. 'The feeling in Europe. In a camp like this. Whatever the reasons,' the Albanian said smoothly, 'good or bad, the feeling exists. It is a fact. If you allow this gentleman to hold his services, I do not guarantee the consequences. I feel I must warn you. There will be riots, there will be violence, bloodshed. The other prisoners will not stand for it…'
'The other prisoners will not stand for it,' Green repeated quietly, without any tone in his voice.
'No, Sir,' said the Albanian briskly, 'I guarantee the other prisoners will not stand for it.'
Michael looked at Noah. The pensive expression was sliding off his face, melting slowly, and violently exposing a grimace of horror and despair.
Green stood up. 'I am going to guarantee something myself,' he said to the Rabbi. 'I am going to guarantee that you will hold your service in one hour in the square down there. I am also going to guarantee that there will be machine-guns set up on the roof of this building. And I will further guarantee that anybody who attempts to interfere with your service will be fired on by those machine-guns.' He turned to the Albanian. 'And, finally, I guarantee,' he said, 'that if you ever try to come into this room again you will be locked up. That is all.'
The Albanian backed swiftly out of the room. Michael heard his footsteps disappearing down the corridor.
The Rabbi bowed gravely. 'Thank you very much, Sir,' he said to Green.
Green put out his hand. The Rabbi shook it and turned and followed the Albanian. Green stood staring at the window. Green looked at Noah. The old, controlled, rigidly calm expression was melting back into the boy's face.
'Ackerman,' Green said crisply. 'I don't think we'll need you around here for a couple of hours. Why don't you and Whitacre leave this place for a while, go out and take a walk? Outside the camp. It'll do you good.'
'Thank you, Sir,' Noah said. He went out of the room.
'Whitacre.' Green was still staring out of the window, and his voice was weary. 'Whitacre, take care of him.'
'Yes, Sir,' said Michael. He went after Noah.
They walked in silence. The sun was low in the sky and there were long paths of purple shadow across the hills to the north. They passed a farmhouse, set back from the road, but there was no movement there. It slept, neat, white and lifeless, in the westering sun. It had been painted recently, and the stone wall in front of it had been whitewashed. The stone wall was turning pale blue in the levelling rays of the sun. Overhead a squadron of fighter planes, high in the clear sky, caught the sun on their wings as they headed back to their base.
On one side of the road was forest, healthy-looking pine and elm, dark trunks looking almost black against the pale, milky green of the new foliage. The sun flickered in small bright stains among the leaves, falling on the sprouting flowers in the cleared spaces between the trees. The camp was behind them, and the air, warmed by the full day's sun, was piney and aromatic. The rubber composition soles of their combat boots made a hushed, unmilitary sound on the narrow asphalt road, between the rain ditches on each side. They walked silently, past another farmhouse. This place too was locked and shuttered, but Michael had the feeling that eyes were peering out at him from between cracks. He was not afraid. The only people left in Germany seemed to be children, by the million, and old women and maimed soldiers. It was a polite and unwarlike population, who waved impartially to the jeeps and tanks of the Americans, and the trucks bearing German prisoners back to prison stockades.
Three geese waddled across the dust of the farmyard. Christmas dinner, Michael thought idly, with loganberry jam and oyster stuffing. He remembered the oak panelling and the scenes from Wagner painted on the walls of Luchow's restaurant, on 14th Street, in New York.
They walked past the farmhouse. Now, on both sides of them stood the heavy forest, tall trees standing in the loam of old leaves, giving off a clear, thin smell of spring.
Noah hadn't said a word since they had left Green's office, and Michael was surprised when he heard his friend's voice over the shuffle of their boots on the asphalt.
'How do you feel?' Noah asked.
Michael thought for a moment. 'Dead,' he said. 'Dead, wounded and missing.'
They walked another twenty yards. 'It was pretty bad, wasn't it?' Noah said.
'Pretty bad.'
'You knew it was bad,' said Noah. 'But you never thought it would be like that.'
'No,' said Michael.
'Human beings…' They walked, listening to the sound of their composition soles on the road deep in Germany, in the afternoon in spring, between the aisles of pretty, budding trees.
'My uncle,' Noah said, 'my father's brother, went into one of these places. Did you see the ovens?'
'Yes,' said Michael.
'I never saw him, of course. My uncle, I mean,' Noah said. His hand was hooked in his rifle strap and he looked like a little boy returning from hunting rabbits. 'He had some trouble with my father. In 1905, in Odessa. My father was a fool. But he knew about things like this. He came from Europe. Did I ever tell you about my father?'
'No,' said Michael.
'Dead, wounded and missing,' Noah said softly. They walked steadily, but not quickly, the soldier's pace, thirty inches, deliberate, ground-covering. 'Remember,' Noah asked, 'back in the replacement depot, what you said: 'Five years after the war is over we're all liable to look back with regret to every bullet that missed us.''
'Yes,' said Michael, 'I remember.'
'What do you feel now?'
Michael hesitated. 'I don't know,' he said honestly.
'This afternoon,' Noah said, walking in his deliberate, correct pace, 'I agreed with you. When that Albanian started talking I agreed with you. Not because I'm a Jew. At least, I don't think that was the reason. As a human being… When that Albanian started talking I was ready to go out into the hall and shoot myself through the head.'
'I know,' Michael said softly. 'I felt the same way.'
'Then Green said what he had to say.' Noah stopped and looked up to the tops of the trees, golden-green in the golden sun. ''I guarantee… I guarantee…'' He sighed. 'I don't know what you think,' Noah said, 'but I have a lot of hope for Captain Green.'
'So do I,' said Michael.
'When the war is over,' Noah said, and his voice was growing loud, 'Green is going to run the world, not that damned Albanian…'
'Sure,' said Michael.
'The human beings are going to be running the world!' Noah was shouting by now, standing in the middle of the shadowed road, shouting at the sun-tipped branches of the German forest. 'The human beings! There's a lot of Captain Greens! He's not extraordinary! There're millions of them!' Noah stood, very erect, his head back, shouting crazily, as though all the things he had coldly pushed down deep within him and fanatically repressed for so many months were now finally bursting forth. 'Human beings!' he shouted thickly, as though the two words were a magic incantation against death and sorrow, a subtle and impregnable shield for his son and his wife, a rich payment for the agony of the recent years, a promise and a guarantee for the future… 'The world is full of them!' It was then
