After the Downfall

The swarthy man with the hatchet showed admirable presence of mind. He flung the weapon at Hasso just before one more burst from the Schmeisser caught him in the midsection. The Wehrmacht captain ducked. The hatchet spun past, less than half a meter above his head. It splashed into the swamp.

He scrambled to his feet, ready to finish off any of the three who still showed fight. But they were all dead or dying fast. He looked down the road in the direction from which they’d come. Were more like them trotting along in their wake? He didn’t see anybody else, not for a couple of kilometers.

Slowly, he turned toward the woman. She’d stopped when she heard the gunfire. Now she was trying to catch her breath, her head down, her hands on her knees. After most of a minute, she straightened, looking at him with as much curiosity as he felt about her.

Curiosity wasn’t the only thing he felt. She’d seemed striking as she ran past. Now he saw that striking was much too mild a word. She was improbably, outrageously, beautiful. If she was only a product of his wild imaginings in the split second before the pain of a mortal wound seized him, he had more imagination than he’d ever imagined.

She said something. Whatever tongue it was, he didn’t understand a word of it. He didn’t care. He could have listened to her forever, no matter what she said. Her voice was a honeyed caress.

But she stopped and waited expectantly. He realized he needed to answer. “I’m sorry – I don’t understand,” he said in German. A tiny frown creased the perfect skin between her eyebrows – she didn’t follow him, either. He said the same thing in French, remembered from school, and then in bad Russian acquired at the front. She shook her head each time.

She slowly walked toward him. Little by little, he realized what a mess he was: filthy, unshaven, in a wet, muddy, shabby uniform. He would have apologized if only he knew how.

She pointed to the dead men, then to his machine pistol, and said something that had to be a question. You killed them? With that?’What else could she be asking?

He nodded. “Ja. I did for ‘em, all right.” He stuck to German from then on. Why not? At least he’d be sure of what he was saying. He jabbed a thumb at his own chest and told her what his name was.

“Pemsel. Hasso Pemsel,” she repeated thoughtfully. His name had never sounded so good as it did in her mouth. She laid an index finger between her small, upstanding breasts. “Velona,” she said.

He touched the brim of his coal – scuttle helmet, echoing, “Velona.” He couldn’t make her name seem nearly so wonderful as she did his.

“Pemsel. Hasso Pemsel,” she said again, and then something else that had his name in it. When he just stood there, she laughed at herself. She must have forgotten he couldn’t follow what she was saying.

What she did next didn’t need any words. She pulled off the torn and tattered shift – Hasso couldn’t come up with a better name for it – she was wearing, spread it out in the middle of the road, and, naked, lay down on it. She beckoned to him to join her.

His jaw fell. He almost dropped the Schmeisser. What went through his mind was, You’re a hero, pal. Here’s your reward. Beats the hell out of the Knight’s Cross, doesn’t it? Even with Swords and Oak Leaves.

No, his imagination definitely didn’t work this well. He’d saved a couple of German women from death or a fate worse than or both together. They didn’t want to screw him afterwards to say thank – you. They wanted to go off somewhere and have hysterics. That seemed reasonable enough to him.

But Velona was plainly different all kinds of ways. She played by way different rules. When she spoke again, it was with a touch of impatience. What are you waiting for, big boy? Come and get it. In case he was a congenital idiot, she twitched her hips and opened her legs a little.

He looked up the road again. Nobody. He looked down the road. Also still nobody. The two of them were the only live people for quite a ways. It was lay her or jump in the swamp.

“If you’re sure…” He stopped, feeling dumb. If she wasn’t sure, she was auditioning for a stag film. She’d get the part, too.

Awkwardly, still wary, he got down beside her. She nodded, as if to say, It’s about time. When he took off his clothes, he was careful to keep himself between her and them – and between her and the Schmeisser. But she wasn’t interested in the uniform or the weapon, not then.