New Lives

The Spy

“Don’t we have to make the spy talk if the spy won’t open his mouth? What you say, spy? That’s logical enough. Doesn’t the spy think that sounds logical?”

Edgar was pushing the floor waxer back and forth in the hallway. Inch by inch he came closer again to the pack crowded before the open door of their room. To get a better look some used the shoulders of the man in front to jump or yanked a guy back who was doing the same thing. If it wasn’t a yowl or a bellow, Edgar could understand every word.

“Great idea! Okay, spy, why so tongue-tied?”

“He’s not tongue-tied. If there’s one thing he isn’t, it’s tongue-tied — that he ain’t.”

They were ranting on just like before. Edgar had thought it would last ten, fifteen, at most twenty minutes. Twenty minutes waxing floors is a long time, the whole hallway: from the polit officer’s room and the johns past the doors of the floor leader, supply room, and weapons store, past the stairway and the orderly room, then two doors for the first squad, two for the second, two for the third, washroom, stairway, noncoms, TV room, club room.

“Did you hear what he said, spy? Why’s the spy holding out?”

“He only talks to the polit officer — chooses his words well, pot of coffee, milk, sugar, Duetts, the best of the best.”

“I’ll bet you anything he won’t open his trap, won’t do it.”

Edgar didn’t recognize the voice. The other two had been Mehnert and Pitt — Pitt, the little pink asshole with his jokes.

“Then we’ll just have to cram something in it,” Mehnert says.

“Unzip his zipper,” shouted the voice he didn’t recognize.

Edgar had figured there’d be a lot of talk but no real action. Which was why he had had no problem continuing to speak with the spy. “Don’t do anything to make them suspicious,” Mehnert had said. “If they get wind of it, they’ll transfer him or whatever,” although no one knew what Mehnert meant by “whatever.” Mehnert had gone so far as to borrow money from the spy. As compensation he’d offered to see that he got a pass. The spy had given him thirty marks, but turned down the pass. “That’s proof,” Pitt had said. “Now that all hell’s broken loose in Poland, they need all the eyes and ears around here they can get.” The spy had grown more cautious. He was writing less and then only when he was alone. But just now they had caught him at it again.

Today was the ninth day. For nine days now, Edgar had known what was going to happen to the spy — to the spy in his section, third squad, second section.

“We want to hear your voice, spy, you know so many words, fancy words, real pretty spy man’s words.”

“I told you, spy won’t answer. Spy needs help, spy needs motivation, spy needs us.”

As unpleasant as the affair with the spy was, it kept you from thinking stupid stuff. At least better than the singing did. Edgar couldn’t understand how anybody could volunteer to go from company to company singing Christmas carols, as if this were an old folks’ home. The reserve first lieutenant, who took over the quartermaster’s job at Christmas, joined up — carols in harmony. Then he had gone with them, just picked up and went, as if they were going for a beer, and the noncom on duty had left to go eat, and his second-in-command had put his fingers to the corners of his mouth and whistled, a secret whistle, so to speak. And then he’d turned the radio up loud, some station in the West, and that had gotten them all in the mood — I wanna be a polar bear, up in the cold, cold north — and they’d all walked along the shiny hallway to the door of the spy’s room and waited until the song was over.

Edgar had thought that the way they were standing silently at the door had actually meant they’d come to an agreement. Discipline, Mehnert had demanded it. It had been a victory for discipline, the way the entire company gathered outside the door in silence.

“He’ll start bawling, but that’ll be all he’ll do, you’ll see.”

“There’ll be more to it than that. Just wait and see what all he’ll try.”

Edgar kept on working, with even more regular, more rhythmic strokes, he thought. Like a musician Edgar could close his eyes, concentrating just on the rustle of the brush weighed down with metal plates and on the clicking sound when he changed directions. His arms knew, his whole body knew when he needed to brake the waxer so it wouldn’t bang into the wall. Whenever a corner of the brush hit, it left holes in the plaster, which trickled down and was then evenly distributed by the brush. The only thing that bothered Edgar was how he couldn’t help thinking about Pitt’s stupid joke about waxing and stomach muscles and screwing.

The spy’s weapon was a submachine gun. Edgar would have loved to trade with him, although a machine gun was heavier. But his own grenade launcher looked like a bassoon or something. He always felt ridiculous crawling through the sand with an instrument like that on his shoulder, even if it was the only weapon that could take out a tank. So they said, at least. In the APC they sat next to each other on the bench behind the first gunner. They could stretch their legs there or change off lying on the floor. But Edgar was quartered in a different room. Otherwise it might well have been him instead of Teichmann and Bär who had to testify as his victims: Yes, I said that, yes, I said that, in a regular rhythm, so that it took Edgar three swipes with the waxer, left, right, left — yes, I said that, three times across the width of the hall, click, click, click — yes, I said that. The spy had written it all down, word for word. And Mehnert had the proof in his hand, Private Mehnert, a “junior,” driver, room corporal.

Teichmann — who because of his ponderous gait and gray hair everyone assumed was from the reserves — didn’t want to have anything to do with this circus. It was different with Bär, who approved of what Mehnert was doing. But Bär didn’t want any blows struck either, at least that wasn’t part of the plan.

“Nobody said anything about ‘at ease.’ Did some one say ‘at ease’?”

“Hey you, hey spy, that’s a question, did anyone give the order ‘at ease’?”

[Letter of March 4, 1990]

They had kicked the spy’s legs out from under him.

Edgar pushed the waxer up close to the first pair of boots and past some slippers, and Frank — the first gunman from his group, who always said he was the lucky one, because during an attack he wouldn’t have to get out and run across an open field — offered Edgar his stool. “He wants it this way, he’s provoking it,” Frank exclaimed as he ran to the john.

The spy doesn’t know anything about a plan, and so he’s not scared. And you can always tell if someone’s scared or not. They don’t have to say anything. Just a glance will do. And a glance like that is the worst sort of provocation. Or a gesture of the hand. His hands aren’t bound tight, although his wrists are tied even with his head to the cross brace where it joins the frame at the foot of the top bunk. Bär had moved his hands during the dry run, as if he were trying to wave or fly — at any rate it had been so funny that even Mehnert and Pitt had laughed.

That cracking sound was slapping. It was perfectly natural for all this to escalate. Kicking his feet out from under him was childish. If you hit the heel just right, the guy went sprawling. But the spy couldn’t fall, he was bound to the bed. Slaps hurt.

“Stuff his mouth with the shit!”

“Swallow it, spy.”

“Dicks on parade, dicks on parade!”

When the spy didn’t open his mouth, they tried to force him with slaps. Mehnert wanted to rip the page in pieces, three times, not too small and not too big, the spy should have to chew a little.

Edgar had held the page, scribbled full of slanted lines, in his own hand. Mehnert had given it to anyone who wanted to see. But whoever wanted to read it would have to join in, it was as straightforward as that — straight straightforward, Bär had said. Edgar tried to imagine what it looks like when you stuff paper into somebody’s mouth. Crumpled up or in a stack of little slips like a piece of pyramid cake. Edgar had once cut his tongue licking an envelope. But how did you force him to chew and swallow? And what if he spit it all out? Who would pick up the soggy pieces? Did you then start all over again? They were bellowing so loud now it was as if there weren’t an officer anywhere in the whole regiment.

Edgar shoved the waxer along behind the pack of them. When he had room again, it took a while for him to get his rhythm back.

Edgar stopped humming once he noticed that it was the melody of “I Wanna Be a Polar Bear.” He didn’t like the song any better than he liked Pitt’s joke about it. But what with all the noise, he couldn’t come up with another tune. Edgar was working much too fast now, as if trying to get away from the yowling. But he didn’t want to get away. He wasn’t afraid. He knew the plan and he knew Mehnert’s laugh — the way his mouth repeated the curves of his chin, a clownish laugh. Maybe Mehnert would laugh like that when he removed the spy’s belt and pulled down his pants — laugh with pride at how his plan had been no empty promise. With uniform pants all you had to do was unhook the front and pull the suspenders aside, but he’d have to take hold of his own long johns and pull them down. Or were Mehnert and Bär already rubbing the spy’s butt with shoe polish? No, Mehnert would spare himself that — that was dirty work for somebody else he’d call forward, somebody who would make the others laugh. The spy wouldn’t laugh, even if it tickled. Who knows what a shoe brush feels like on your naked ass and if you might not get used to it — or whether the spy’s cheeks would pinch tight in reflex. And if he did laugh? He’d regret it. Or start bawling? What do you do with a bawling spy? He wouldn’t bawl. The spy keeps his eyes down or looks at the ceiling. And what if he looked at the others, looked them in the eye? What would be the point? To memorize their names? To swear revenge? The whole affair was too cut-and-dried for that. If there was such a thing as hard proof, that was the case here. The spy was being served his just desserts, taught a lesson. Edgar wondered how much Mehnert was risking in deciding to do this. Mehnert had guts, he was the ringleader, he’d be the first to be punished.

Where the hallway opened onto the stairwell, Edgar gave the waxer more of a free rein. He could in fact feel his stomach muscles. The second-in-command stood up from his desk as if to make way for Edgar, and then headed to join the pack.

Why hadn’t the spy yelled for some noncoms? Two of them had watched, Detchens and Freising, the good-looking Spaniard. Someone brought them a stool. But even if they were to say something, give the order to cease and desist, it wouldn’t have made any difference. It would only impair their authority. And if the spy begged for them to help free him? Let him try it, just a simple “Comrade officer, help me!” That would put Freising and Detchens on the hot seat.

“Mehnert’s painting his dick,” the second-in-command said as he passed Edgar on the way to the john.

They were really into it now. Mehnert dabbed the tip of the spy’s cock with a brush. Like an animal trainer Mehnert would get the spy’s cock to rear up. And every one of them wanted to see some other guy get hard, since his was the only dick he’d ever had in his hand. Edgar forced himself to think of soccer, school, hiking trips. “I wanna be a polar bear, up in the cold, cold north, wouldn’t have a single care…” Mehnert in the role of his life. The spy’s cock would rise above right angle, like an obscene salute. Mehnert planned to hang the spy’s belt over his hard-on and then count how long it would hang there, like a boxing referee. Then it would be time for photographs — of the woman the spy claimed was his girlfriend, although he never wrote to her. The spy hadn’t thought about that. The only letters he gets, Mehnert said, are from his mother and some other guy.

Maybe the best thing the spy could do would be to start bawling or fight back, really fight back, screaming and spitting — whatever he could still manage. The pack suddenly closed ranks, everything got quiet, then whistles, applause.

Edgar let the waxer swing back and forth between the polit officer’s door and the john. He’d have to turn around soon. Mehnert wanted to “milk the spy.” But maybe the spy was so intimidated that his cock wouldn’t give any milk, no matter how Mehnert went about it, with gloves or without.

Edgar tried to think of something else. But not of home.

Actually Teichmann and Bär were to blame. If they had just punched the spy out, they wouldn’t have had to tie up a guy lying writhing on the floor, or blacken his ass or milk his cock.

Edgar reversed direction and saw the pack up ahead. That’s our Christmas party, he thought — and the moment he saw them and thought of the Christmas party, Edgar knew that from now on there would never be a Christmas when he didn’t think of this Christmas party. He realized it was like the sentence of a condemned man: he would never be able to celebrate Christmas without this pack, without Mehnert, without Pitt, without Bär and Teichmann, without the spy and the plan. Step by step, word for word, the plan was imprinted in his mind — he’d thought of it too often. The plan would stick with him just like this polar bear song and Pitt’s joke about stomach muscles. Just as he would never forget the moment when all this had become clear to him — even though he hadn’t joined in, wasn’t even watching. All he could hear was the steady barrage of roaring laughter. Should he clamp his ears shut? There was no way he could keep the whole thing from being imprinted on his mind.

He wanted to do something else, fix his mind on other things. But he couldn’t stop now, what else could he do? It was absolutely impossible to stop now.

At first he didn’t realize that boots had ended up in the path of his waxer. But then it was like a herd in flight — slippers, gym shoes, socks, boots, leaping and hopping in front of the waxer, and those that didn’t leap or hop got bumped. It was like a children’s game, like tag. The faster he worked the more he hit. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo! I wanna be a polar bear. He gave the waxer its head. The “mo” hasn’t landed on you yet, up there in the cold, cold north.

He heard shouts, but those were part of the game. And somebody punching the spy and pulling him from the bed frame — it was all in the plan. Just like kids. If they lose, they tear everything up. But he had to keep working. Here, where the pack had stood, there was still lots to do, countless heel marks in an unusual and complicated pattern.

And suddenly he saw him — the spy. The spy came out of the room. The spy didn’t look upset or angry, not even sad. The spy hadn’t screamed, he hadn’t cried. The spy had his kit under his arm and a towel over his shoulder. He was holding tight to his pants with one hand. A couple of steps, and the spy had vanished into the washroom.

And Edgar went on working. He now realized that he had been standing still, still and erect, the waxer at his feet, the handle clamped perpendicular under his arm.

But first he had to memorize the patterns of the heel marks — at the very same moment that his waxer passed over them. It wasn’t easy, but he worked hard, he could feel his stomach muscles. And at last he got his reward too. The faster he swiped back and forth with the waxer, the more clearly he could see the heel marks under the shine, locked in permanent ice.