Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Stefan Heym
From The Crusaders (1948)
It had been difficult enough to adjust himself to the idea that David Yates, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Germanic Languages at Coulter College, was being changed into a soldier, for reasons and purposes which he could clearly perceive, but which did not blot out his belief that war was vicious, a throwback, a degrading attempt at solutions for problems that should never have been allowed to arise.
***
As if to support her point, the watchmaker added, “Mademoiselle Godefroy’s house was burned down completely, in an American air raid. All her clothes were destroyed.”
Yates cast a doubtful glance at his colleague from Isigny. “Of course it isn’t reasonable,” he said. “Neither is war.”
The woman’s face was stern. Yates felt that his words, well-meant as they were, had been repelled. He tried to imagine what he would feel if the buff little house back at Coulter, which he and Ruth hadn’t yet fully paid for, were bombed out and burned – his books, his desk, everything gone.
His tone was conciliatory. “It was we who destroyed your house – that wasn’t reasonable either…”
The woman looked straight at Yates…
“You imply,” said Mademoiselle Godefroy, “that I am welcoming you, and all of us are welcoming you, because now it is you who is here, and you who have the guns?”
***
“I am telling you that, if we ever have fascism in the States, the German form of it will seem like a pastorale. They won’t do anything to me; I’d stand to gain by it. But they’d sure as hell get you. You consider this war as a God-damned crusade. I know that was mimeographed in some order…”
***
A soldier could only be good-natured if he was very stupid or very fatalistic – or, if he was very wise and could see the reason for it all. But even if he was very wise and saw the reason for the war and the good in it, he was confronted every day with finding the reason for many smaller events occurring in the process of the war, events which made no sense whatever. Best not to ask any questions. Best to take the opportunities as they came, reduce life to the minimum essentials: sleep, food, digestion, fornication – and the hell with the rest and the immortal soul.
***
Silently, she pointed. His eyes followed her outstretched hand. And then he saw. Concentrated as he had been on his task, he had been blind to everything else – and now it was as if a veil had been torn from his eyes.
They had arrived a a part of the town which was completely demolished. Only the burned-out walls of the houses were standing. Behind them, the phantasmally white moon was shedding its pale light. The empty windows of the ruins were filled with this light, with a life of their own. The light had a sharp, painful beauty; the jagged outlines of half-broken-down walls showed up with etched clarity, and the whole scene was immersed in the silence of absolute death.
***
“There” – he pointed ahead – “next to that clump of bushes, we’ve had three of our boys killed. We couldn’t bury them for a whole day because each time someone went out to pull back the bodies, the Germans would lay it on. Being dead in that heat – I’m telling you – they swelled up in no time. They looked terribly big and alive, and they moved…the gas in them moved them. They stretched their arms and their legs. Their clothes kept them from bursting; they were like balloons…You don’t want to look at that, but you can’t help it. It has a sort of fascination…”
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