Flight Without End

II

Tunda wanted to reach the Ukraine, Shmerinka, where he had been captured, then the Austrian frontier-post at Podvoloczyska, and finally Vienna. He had no particular plan; the way ahead was uncertain, even tortuous. He realized that it would take a long time. He had only one resolve: to avoid encountering either White or Red troops and not to get involved in the Revolution. He no longer had a home. His father had met his death as a colonel, his mother had been dead for many years. A brother was an orchestral conductor in a medium-sized German city.

In Vienna his fiancée, daughter of Hartmann, the pencil manufacturer, was expecting him. The first lieutenant knew no more about her than that she was beautiful, sensible, rich and blonde. These four qualities had made her a suitable bride.

She used to send him letters and liver pate in the field, sometimes a pressed flower from Heiligen Kreuz. He would write to her every week on dark-blue field-post paper with a moistened indelible pencil — brief letters, terse factual reports, news bulletins.

He had heard nothing from her since his escape from the camp. But he did not doubt that she remained true to him and was waiting for him.

He did not question that she would wait for him until his return. But it seemed to him just as certain that she would cease to love him once he was standing before her in person. For when she had become engaged to him he had been an officer. The world’s great troubles had lent him an air of beauty, the proximity of death had enhanced him, the shadow of the tomb had fallen across the living man, the cross on his breast had called to mind the Cross on the Hill. If one assumed a happy outcome, then, after the triumphal march of the victorious troops through the Ringstrasse, there would be waiting for him the golden collar of a major, the staff school, and the eventual rank of general, all to the sound of the soft drum-roll of the Radetzky March.

But for the moment Franz Tunda was a young man without a name, without importance, without rank, without title, without money and without occupation — homeless and stateless.

He had his old papers and a picture of his betrothed sewn up in his jacket. It seemed wiser to him to travel across Russia under the assumed name which was as familiar to him as his own. Once across the border he could again make use of his old papers.

Tunda felt the pasteboard on which his beautiful betrothed was portrayed firm and comforting against his heart. The picture was by the court photographers who supplied the fashion magazines with pictures of beautiful women. Fräulein Hartmann had appeared as the fiancée of the gallant first lieutenant in a series ‘Brides of Our Heroes’; the journal had reached him just a week before his capture.

Tunda was able to take the cutting with the picture from his coat-pocket without difficulty whenever he felt inclined to contemplate his fiancée. He mourned for her already, even before seeing her again. He loved her twice over: as an ideal, and as one lost forever. He loved the heroism of his far and dangerous journeying. He loved the sacrifice which was necessary to reach his bride, and the futility of this sacrifice. All the heroism of his war years seemed childish to him in comparison with the undertaking he was now attempting. Alongside his despair grew the hope that through this perilous return journey he could once more become desirable as a husband. He was happy the whole way. If anyone had asked him whether this was due to hope or sadness, he would not have known. In the hearts of some men sorrow creates a greater exaltation than joy. Of all the tears one may have to choke back, the most precious are those that one has shed for oneself.

Tunda managed to steer clear of both White and Red troops. In a few months he traversed Siberia and a large part of European Russia, by train, on horseback and on foot. He reached the Ukraine. He did not concern himself with the victory or the overthrow of the Revolution. The sound of this word evoked faint images of barricades, mobs, and the history instructor at the Cadet School, Major Horvath. ‘Barricades’ conjured up overturned black school benches, piled on top of each other. ‘Mob’ could be equated with the crowd which used to mass behind the cordon of militia on Maundy Thursday. Of these people one saw only sweaty faces and crushed hats. They probably held stones in their hands. Such people engendered anarchy and were addicted to sloth.

Tunda sometimes remembered the guillotine, which Major Horvath always referred to as the guillotin, just as he used to say Pari, instead of Paris. The guillotine, of whose construction the Major had an expert knowledge and appreciation, was probably by now erected on the Stephansplatz, where the traffic of carriages and motor-cars was held up (as on New Year’s Eve), and the heads of the leading families of the Empire were rolling as far as the Peterskirche and into the Jasomirgott-strasse. Things were the same in St Petersburg and Berlin. A revolution without the guillotine was as improbable as one without red flags. One sang The Internationale, a song which cadet Mohr had declaimed on Sunday afternoons, the day of the so-called Schweinereien, when Mohr used to exhibit pornographic postcards and sing socialist songs. The yard outside was empty, there was stillness and emptiness when you looked out of the window, you could hear the grass growing between the great paving-stones. A ‘guillotin’, even as it were with ‘e’ amputated, cut off, was something heroic, steel-blue, dripping with blood. Considered purely as an instrument, it seemed to Tunda more heroic than a machine-gun.

But Tunda himself did not take sides. He felt no sympathy for the Revolution; it had ruined his career and his life. No longer a member of the army, he was happy not to be forced to espouse any particular cause when he encountered the historical process. He was an Austrian. He was on his way to Vienna.

In September he reached Shmerinka. In the evening he went into the town, bought bread dearly for some of his last silver coins, and avoided political discussions. He had no desire to reveal that he was unfamiliar with the situation and that he had come from a distance.

He decided to travel on through the night.

It was clear and chill, almost wintry; the ground was still unfrozen, but not so the sky. Towards midnight he suddenly heard rifle-shots. A bullet struck the stick from his hand. He threw himself to the ground, a hoof-blow struck him in the back, he was seized, yanked upright, thrown across a saddle, attached to a horse like washing to a line. His back hurt, he lost consciousness in the gallop, his head was filled with blood, it threatened to spurt from his eyes. He awoke from his swoon and slept just where he hung. The next morning, when he was untied, he was still asleep; they gave him vinegar to smell, he opened his eyes and found himself lying on a sack in a hut, where an officer sat behind a table. Horses neighed loudly and cheerfully in front of the house, a cat sat at the window. Tunda was suspected of being a Bolshevik spy. ‘Red dog!’ the officer called him. The first lieutenant very quickly realized that it was unwise to speak Russian. He told the truth, identified himself as Franz Tunda, admitted that he was trying to make his way home and that he held false papers. They did not believe him. He began to reach towards his breast to produce his proper papers. But then he felt the pressure of the photograph as a caution, a warning, so he did not legitimize himself; after all, it could not have helped him. He was fettered, shut up in a stable, saw the daylight through an aperture, saw a small group of stars scattered like white poppy-seed. Tunda thought of fresh pastry — he was an Austrian. After he had seen the stars a second time round he fainted again. He awoke in a flood of sunlight, was given water, bread and brandy, Red Guards stood round him; among them was a girl in trousers, two large tunic-pockets stuffed with papers hinted at a bosom.

‘Who are you?’ asked the girl.

She wrote down all that Tunda said.

She held out her hand to him. The Red Guards went outside, they left the door wide open, he could feel the glowing sun though it was pale and without power to burn. The girl was robust; she tried to drag Tunda to his feet and fell down herself.

He fell asleep in bright sunlight. Then he remained with the Reds.