The Young Lions

"This time," he said, "this time it is not a simple, understandable war, within the same culture. This time it is an assault of the animal world upon the house of the human being. I don't know what you saw in Africa and Italy, but I know what I saw in Russia and Poland. We made a cemetery a thousand miles long and a thousand miles wide. Men, women, children, Poles, Russians, Jews, it made no difference. It could not be compared to any human action. It could only be compared to a weasel in a henhouse. It was as though we felt that if we left anything alive in the East, it would one day bear witness against us and condemn us. And now," Behr said in his low, even voice, "and now, after that, we have made the final mistake. We are losing the war. The animal is slowly being driven into his last corner, the human being is preparing his final punishment. And now, what do you think will happen to us? I tell you, some nights I thank God my wife and my two children were killed, so that they will not have to live in Germany when this war is over. Sometimes," Behr said, staring out over the water, "I look out there and say to myself, 'Jump in! Try to swim! Swim to England, swim to America, swim five thousand miles, to get away from it.'"

They had reached their boots by now, and they stood over the heavy footgear, staring reflectively down at the dull black leather, as though the boots, hobnailed and blunt, were a symbol of their agony.

"But I ca

"I will not say a word," Christian said.

"I have been watching you for a month," said Behr, "watching and measuring. If I've made a mistake about you, if you're not the sort of man I think you are, it will mean my life. I would like to have taken more time, watching you, but we do not have so much more time…"

"Don't worry about me," Christian said.

"There is only one hope for us," Behr said, staring down at the boots in the sand. "One hope for Germany. We have to show the world that there are still human beings in Germany, not only animals. We have to show that it is possible for the human beings to act for themselves." Behr looked up from the boots and stared in his steady, healthy way at Christian and Christian knew the measuring process was still going on. He did not say anything. He was confused and he resented the necessity of listening to Behr, yet he was fascinated and knew that he had to listen.

"Nobody," said Behr, "not the English, not the Russians, not the Americans, will sign a peace with Germany while Hitler and his people are still in power, because human beings do not sign armistices with tigers. And if anything is to be saved in Germany, we must sign an armistice now, immediately. What does that mean?" Behr asked like a lecturer. "That means that the Germans themselves must get the tigers out, Germans themselves must take the risk, must shed their blood to do it. We ca

"Do not think," Behr continued, "that I am making this up myself, that I am alone. All through the Army, all through Germany, the plan is slowly being formed, people are slowly being recruited. I do not say we will succeed. I merely say that on one side there is certain death, certain ruin. On the other side… A little hope. Also," he went on, "there is only one kind of government that can save us, and if we do it ourselves, we can set up that government. If we wait for the enemy to do it for us, we'll have half a dozen little governments, all of them meaningless, all of them useless, all of them, finally, no governments at all.1920 will seem, then, like Utopia compared to 1950. If we do it ourselves, we can set up a Communist government, and overnight we will be the centre of a Communist Europe, with every other nation on the Continent committed to feeding us, keeping us strong. There is no other form of government for us, no matter what the British and the Americans say, because keeping Germans from killing each other under what the Americans call democracy, for example, would be like trying to keep wolves from the sheepfold by the honour system. You don't keep a crumbling building standing by putting a new coat of bright paint on the outside; you have to go into walls and foundations and put in iron girders to do it. The Americans are naive and they have a lot of fat on their bones, and they can afford the luxury and the waste of democracy, and it has never occurred to an American that their system depends upon the warm layers of fat under their skin and not upon the pretty words they put in their books of law…"

What echo is this? thought Christian vaguely. When was this said before? Then he remembered the morning on the ski slope with Margaret Freemantle long ago, and his own voice saying the same words for another reason. How confusing and tiring it was, he thought, that we always reshuffle the same arguments so that we get the different answer we require from them.

"… we can help right here," Behr was saying. "We have co

Behr sat down suddenly in the sand and began putting on his socks. He moved with meticulous care, smoothing the wrinkles out of the socks and brushing the sand off them with detailed, unhurried movements of his hands.

Christian stared out to sea. He felt weary and baffled, weighed down by a thick, nagging anger at his friend. What choices you get to make these days! Christian thought resentfully. Between one death and another, between the rope and the rifle, the poison and the knife. If only I were fresh, he thought, if I had had a long, quiet, healthful vacation, if I had never been wounded, never been sick. Then it might be possible to look at this calmly and reasonably, say the correct word, put your hand out for the correct weapon…

"You'd better put your boots on," Behr said. "We have to get back. You don't have to give me an answer now. Think it over."

Think it over, Christian thought, the patient thinking over the cancer in his belly, the condemned man thinking over his sentence, the target thinking over the bullet that is about to smash it.

"Listen," Behr looked up thoughtfully from the sand, a boot in his hand, "if you say anything about this to anyone, you will be found with a knife in your back one morning. No matter what happens to me. I like you very much, I honestly do, but I had to protect myself, and I told my people I was going to talk to you…"

Christian stared down at the calm, healthy, guileless face, like the face of the man who would have come to repair your radio before the war or the face of a traffic policeman helping two small children across a road on their way to school.