The Ragged Edge of Night(49)

“Running!” Paul says. “And climbing in and out of trenches.”

Al adds, “And being brave, and doing things no one else can do.”

He says thoughtfully, “I suppose that does often come into it. I would know, having jumped from an airplane.”

The boys are with him now, attuned to his words.

“But you know, there are ways for boys like you to have a good time without bringing grenades into it. And there are ways for a fellow to find more fun than he can ever get from the Wehrmacht.”

“How?” Paul squints at him, skeptical.

“You might go fishing, now that the streams and ponds have thawed.”

“We haven’t any fishing rods.”

“I’ll show you how to make them. It’s simple, and you can dig up worms for bait around the Misthaufen. Muck heaps always make fat, juicy worms, the kind fish can’t resist. Or, if fishing isn’t to your liking, you might hunt.”

“But we don’t have a rifle,” Al says. “Nobody can own one, unless you’re a soldier or a loyalist. You know that.”

The boy speaks the truth. Anton well remembers the Weimar Republic with their registry of firearm owners. They started the registry when he was a young man, freshly ensconced in the Franciscan Order. It had seemed like a wise idea at the time; Anton, committed to the order’s peace, had even praised the registry. But it had run quickly out of hand, as do all things touched by the NSDAP. If all citizens had abided by the law—or if every citizen had broken it—we might not find ourselves here now, a people quivering in the sights of the Party’s confiscated arms. But in ’31, they used the registry to target and disarm the Jews, and in ’33 the constitution was suspended while the NSDAP scoured every home and business, cracking safes and slicing open mattresses, breaking down pantry doors. They took every firearm they found and revoked the legal license of every man and woman deemed not politically reliable. And by that time, what could a few rebels do—that ragged handful who refused to comply with the Weimar registries? Nothing but stand by and watch while their defenses were seized, their right to resist burned to the ground. What can one man do against an army bristling with guns? What can half a dozen do, or a hundred? Now, since 1938, it’s only avowed members of the National Socialists who may own private firearms. What might a thousand men do, or ten thousand, if they had the strength to match their adversaries?

To the boys, he says, “You don’t need a rifle to hunt. What do you suppose people did in the days before guns were invented? You can make slings easily; I’ve a book somewhere that shows how to do it. We’ll need to find some leather soft enough to work with, but M?belbauer might have a few scraps he’s willing to part with, left over from covering chairs.”

“We can’t kill a deer with a sling,” Paul says. “And even if we could, a deer is too heavy for us to move.”

“Deer! Who likes deer meat, anyway? No, boys—I’m talking about rabbit.”

They glance at one another, considering.

“It might be fun to hunt,” Al admits. “But it’s far more manly to be a soldier.”

Anton covers his mouth with his hand, trying to hide his frown. How to tell them—how to make them see, in a world that praises the unfeeling killer as the height of masculinity? We celebrate the man who bristles with arms, who paves for himself a path of violence. But there are other men, other lives, other ways for a man to be. What of the teachers and the priests? What of doctors and artists, who heal and create where other men destroy? What of our fathers? And how do I tell them, he wonders, that the soldiers they revere sweat beneath their helmets and wake screaming in the night? How do I tell them that the Party leaves their soldiers little choice, or none at all? By force, the Wehrmacht commit such acts that destroy their souls, as surely as a bullet destroys flesh. By force, the Führer manufactures ghosts that will haunt forever those who serve him.

He cannot say these things, not to boys so young and innocent. Let them stay this way for as long as fate permits, gamboling and unconcerned, with their heads full of dreams, not nightmares. He says, “It’s most manly of all to do kindness to one another. You remember, Al—you don’t want to hurt anyone, or see harm done to your fellow men. You told me so on the first day we met.”

Al nods. He remembers.

“I must take you both hunting,” he says with finality, though he has seldom hunted in his life, and not since he was a boy himself. When can he do it, busy as he is with the Widerstand network? He must simply find the time—find it, or make it. He must show these boys, entrusted to his care, that there are more rewards to be found in mercy and love than in mindless fighting and killing. We gain more by emulating Christ than his persecutors.

“I would like to go hunting,” Al says.

Paul jumps to his feet. “So would I! Let’s do it tonight.”

“Not tonight.” Anton climbs to his feet, stifling a groan. His legs and hips ache from the run, and there is still a rough, burning sensation deep in his lungs. “We must make our slings first. You boys must promise me with all sincerity that you will never play with any sort of weapon again. And if you see anything of the sort, you are never to touch it, but tell me at once.”

“All right,” Al says, still a little sulky. “We promise.” A darker thought occurs to him, and he grabs Anton’s sleeve in alarm. “You won’t tell Mother, will you?”