Sunday Journal

By FERNANDO ARROJO

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 4, 2001

The last mission

Many years ago, a good friend of German and Catalan parentage told me the story of a terrible event he had experienced in Europe during World War II, when he was a forced recruit in the armies of the Third Reich.

If he seemed to act normally in his everyday life, this was because of the pills he took, he told me. His existence was, in fact, precarious: He slept badly, he drank to excess (as I knew firsthand), his childless marriage was going badly, psychotherapy did not seem to help.

Having heard his story, I resolved to write it up someday. But time went by and, for one reason or another, I abandoned the project. I have now decided to tell it, perhaps giving it a certain literary sheen.

For all intents and purposes, the war was over. The sergeant's orders had been sharp, caustic: The following day, the soldier, "alone, no need for a big production," was to deliver a sealed envelope to the lieutenant of a certain detachment. The mission was urgent and the papers important. He need not return to the village; the lieutenant would give him a full discharge. The sergeant dismissed the soldier with a disdainful wave of the hand.

The soldier snapped to attention and saluted. The hinges groaned, and the door closed behind him. He felt like shouting for joy. He had forgotten that feeling of being alive that gushes outward and seems almost to rush out through one's pores.

The civil war had lasted a year and had been fought in the old fashion, almost hand to hand. It was a war in which cunning and knowledge of the terrain had prevailed. Nothing, however, had disturbed the calm of this village embedded in the mountains. The soldier's military tasks had been daily cleaning of weapons and dreadful guard duty, during which he endured the wrath of nature and felt again, as he had in his infancy, the disquieting presence of the lurking darkness.

The first month of the war had gone by, and no one had attacked them. The sergeant, exasperated by inactivity, decided to stage frequent and rigorous maneuvers; these soon acquired the ferocity of real battle. Many of the soldiers, bored by the constant expectation of what did not come, threw themselves into the exercises with savage determination. "Eliminate the enemy before he eliminates you" was the constant admonition of the sergeant. A false step could cost one's life. Two soldiers had died in defense of an imaginary outpost.

The soldier ran out of the barracks, to the village square. Night was falling. The sound of voices, laughter and the gaily sentimental music of an accordion persuaded him to spend his last night in a tavern, where they were celebrating the end of the war.

As the night wore on, the accordion grew harsh. Someone spilled a glass of red wine. The spill spread across the dirty tablecloth and made a large, blackish stain.

"Those wine stains do not come out," the soldier said.

"Hell, they'll just get another tablecloth, that's all," another soldier answered.

The soldier left the tavern and returned to the barracks.

The dawn was overcast. The soldier had overslept, but no one had bothered him. He put on his uniform quickly, leaving his tunic unbuttoned. He took out one of the jeeps and tossed onto the back seat his skimpy luggage, the sealed envelope the sergeant had given him and a machine gun. He slipped the regulation knife into its holster at his waist.

The village was left behind. High up in the mountains, it had now the beauty conferred by distance. The road was in bad shape; he figured it would take three hours to reach his destination.

A year ago the country had been a tangle of ideologies. Religion and politics were drafted into the service of a cause. Which cause? Whose? War broke out. He was ordered to appear at the Town Hall to enlist. "Tomorrow at 9, no excuses."

The wait was long but the process brief. He was now a soldier, and he immediately thought of deserting, not out of cowardice but because violence repelled him. He would run away, into the mountains, someone would hide him, in some house. The war could not last. Ana, sweet Ana, the girl of his childhood games, the girl with the dolls who had turned into a woman, dissuaded him: "If they catch you, they will shoot you on the spot."

He thought of her oval face, her dark eyes (which always looked surprised), her small mouth, her smell of roses. The last time he had seen her, she was standing by the fountain in the village square. The new conscripts, assembled in the square in ragged formation, were leaving early the next morning on their way to war. The last time he had seen her, her moist eyes were fixed on him.

They would be together again in just a few hours. The lieutenant's headquarters weren't far from his own village. Afterward, he would go to his own house. He imagined his parents' surprise. Hugs, kisses, reproaches, "But why didn't you let us know?" "I wanted to surprise you." Later, he would go to Ana's house, without the uniform.

The road grew narrow and made turn after turn. He turned on the radio. They were talking about some mercenaries, fugitives from a concentration camp. He didn't want to hear any more about the war and changed the station.

The jeep began to shudder. He got out, opened the hood and inspected the engine. A preliminary check proved that he could repair the trouble. The engine was soon working well. He turned it off, got out again and reached under the hood. It was now just a matter of replacing the top on the carburetor pan.

"Got a light, comrade?"

The soldier was startled but did not move. The man had a foreign accent. The soldier regretted not paying more attention to the radio report about the mercenaries.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the sneakers and the jeans of the man standing behind him. He also saw the stick behind the man's slightly parted legs. He could not see the man's hands. He thought that he was trying to hide them.

"Just a moment, I have to cover the carburetor," the soldier said in a loud voice.

He began to bang on the carburetor cover, to justify his words.

"It's all right, I'm in no hurry," the man replied with a calm that sounded suspicious.

He hasn't struck me because I have the hood over me. He's waiting for me to straighten up. It's one of the mercenaries; he wants to steal the jeep. He is going to kill me.

He remembered the sealed envelope. It probably held important documents that should not fall into strange hands, the man's hands, the enemy's.

He gauged distances. A false move could be fatal.

"Here, take it."

Still crouching, the soldier turned and plunged his knife, avidly, to the hilt, into the man's stomach.

The soldier thought he heard noises coming from the woods. He couldn't tell if it was the noise of broken branches or of footsteps on dry leaves. They were coming to get him.

He avoided looking at the man on the ground. He put the hood down, climbed into the jeep. He seized the machine gun. He still couldn't see anyone. Peering into the woods, he slowly moved the gun to the front seat. He started the car and drove off rapidly.

He drove for a few miles. Confused thoughts gave him no peace. He was torn between two opposing forces. Was the man one of the fugitive mercenaries? Had he really intended to attack him? To kill him?

The morning began to clear. The road was now straight. He could see white houses scattered throughout the countryside, flocks of sheep, fields well tended despite the rigors of the war.

He was no longer able to hold back the flood of remorse, the painful doubts. He was crossing a bridge over a swollen river. Full of rage and hatred, he threw the sealed envelope and the machine gun into the water. The knife had been left behind, stuck in the body of someone whose face he hadn't even seen. He looked at the hands gripping the steering wheel and stretched out his right arm. That hand was his own. He braked, turned around and stepped hard on the accelerator.

When he arrived at the spot where they had met, the man had disappeared. A large puddle of dark blood gave evidence of the terrible truth of the events. Perhaps his accomplices took him away still alive, he told himself. But the soldier knew that, even so, the man could not survive in those woods. And he thought that the mission the sergeant had given him would never be his last, that he would live with the torment of remembering for the rest of his life.

Fernando Arrojo is a writer living in Dunedin. He is an emeritus professor of Spanish language and literature at Oberlin College. This article was translated from the Spanish by Olga Markof-Belaeff.

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