My grandfather’s funeral was on July 24. Too young to understand death, all Alois wanted was to see his uncle Max and me parade with our rifles with the Imperial-Royal rifle guild. But when Jutta found me showing him the weapons, she declared war on me.
Angry with how she had lost her temper over nothing, I left the inn early and joined the other Standschützen in the churchyard. Max Junior and I had transferred to Company Three of the Nauders battalion since we were no longer registered residents of Reschen. From the age of seventeen, we reported to the shooting range at least four times a year. Recently, we were all attending the range weekly. After the assassination of our archduke, conflict was in the air, and we riflemen were preparing to defend ourselves against the Russians should the call come.
The bells of the church tolled, and we filed in, then lined up in the first pews for the service. My brother and I each carried the colors of Graun. I glanced at Max Junior as Father Wilhelm took his position above my grandfather’s coffin.
A week before our grandfather had died, Max Junior and I had been out at the range. In passing and as we aimed at our targets, Max Junior had said, “Opa’s ready to go.”
“To war?” I had been astounded. It was all we ever talked about. And Opa had been a respected old marksman, but he had also been over eighty.
“No,” Max Junior replied. He dropped another bullet into the chamber, then raised the rifle. He took the shot, hitting the target square on before looking over at me. “He’s ready to die.”
Our grandfather passed in his sleep just a few days later. After our grandmother’s death the year before, he had steadily grown disinterested in everything around him. I’d never have calculated that old man for being sentimental. But still waters ran deep and all that.
Father Wilhelm started the Lord’s Prayer, and we all stood. As we took Communion and I watched Jutta pass by with Alois, I thought how the two of us would never pine after the other. On the contrary, I believed she wished me dead. No matter how much I tried, she was never happy. Each time I went to her bed, it was a double-edged sword I lay down with. On the one hand, she was the only woman I could satisfy my urges with, and the only way to do so was to remind her of her duties to her husband. I tried to imagine I was with someone else—Cecilia, more often than not. Sometimes a fine young woman stayed at the guesthouse, and I would think of her in the rooms above.
After a night like that, I usually drank more. And when I drank, I said things I did not really mean. I knew damned well that I was digging my own grave as a father and a husband. How I should do it differently, I did not know. Jutta provoked me.
Father Wilhelm gave the final blessing, then motioned to us Standschützen. We rose and followed the coffin out from the church to the cemetery. I winked at Alois, who grinned back before Jutta stepped between us. I watched as he hobbled on thick legs, his ankles twisting grotesquely. At three, he was still as unsteady as an hour-old colt.
Father Wilhelm blessed the casket, and my mother lay the Graun colors on the coffin. We raised our rifles to the air and pronounced the three-gun salute the old man deserved. I heard Alois, high pitched and excited. When we were finished, the funeral party dispelled to the Post Inn.
Most people sat with their families, but I stopped at the table with the Glockner boys, Hugo and Hans already hunched over their bowls. I was tall too, but these two were giants, and their matching beards made them look more like bears than men.
“Don’t mind if I do, boys,” I said in greeting.
My sister, Lisl, approached with a pot of soup. “Fritz, the family’s got a seat at the table for you.”
Hans and Hugo looked up at the same time, as if they shared the same neck.
“Nah, I’ll keep them company.” I smiled up at my sister. “Jutta’s had enough of me for one day. Started in on me this morning.”
“What did you do now?”
The Glockner boys dropped their heads in unison and went back to slurping their soup.
“What do I know, Lisl? Doesn’t matter what I do—it’s always wrong.”
She smirked. “Knowing you, she probably had every right.”
I sighed and lifted my spoon. “Should’ve known better than to expect any sympathy from a woman.”
When she’d left the table, I turned to Hugo. “Weren’t you once sweet on my wife?”
He blinked back at me.
I shook my head. “You can count yourself lucky, is all I wanted to say.”
❖
The following Tuesday, Max Junior and I were doing some mowing up in the fields, when all the church bells started tolling. I glanced up at the sun. It was long past the early morning Mass. This was a call for assembly. One look and my brother and I swung our sickles onto our shoulders and sprinted down to the churchyard.
War. We were at war. It could not be anything else.
A good number of folk were already milling about by the time we got there, and Mayor Roeschen was rifling through official-looking papers.
Our company’s second lieutenant was Klaus Blech, the butcher’s son.
“What do you know?” I asked him.
He eyed Max Junior and me. “You going to war with sickles, boys?”
Max Junior grinned at me. “This is it then.”
“We’re mobilizing to the eastern borders,” Klaus said. “The frontier in Galicia. Orders are we’re to only defend her right now. The war is with Prussia, not with us.” He cocked his head. “Yet.”
Max Junior and I dashed off without another word. We had to get our rifles prepared, find something to carry bread in, get better clothes, and find axes, a couple of spades. By that afternoon, we would be heading north to meet with the rest of the battalion in Nauders.
Jutta stood in the doorway to our apartments as Max Junior and I helped one another fashion kits out of what we had and could find. For the first time, the woman was speechless. An hour later, Max Junior left to seek out his sweetheart—a young girl on the other side of Graun Lake. When I was ready, I bent down to Alois. It pained me each time to look at those almond-shaped eyes, the toothy grin, the stubby neck, and the stunted body of my son. This would have been a moment that I, as a father, could tell him he was the man of the house. But my son would require care for the rest of his life.
“Well.” I stood before Jutta. I took her in, felt nothing but a gnawing trepidation. “You might just get your wish.”
“What in God’s name do you mean?”
“I might die. It’s a war.”
Jutta scoffed. “You’re defending a border, Fritz. You’re not allowed to attack.”
I bristled. “It won’t be long before they’ll give us orders to fight.”
“Then you had better take care of yourself,” she said. “And Max Junior. Watch out for him.”
I hesitated before reaching to kiss her, and she hesitated before letting me. Just her cheek. Neither of us could bring ourselves to kiss each other on the mouths. Not since we were married had we ever.
As I gathered my things, I felt her hand on my arm.
“Fritz,” she said. “I don’t want the inn that badly. Understand? Stay alive. Alois needs you.”
I looked at my son. At least somebody did. And that made me only feel worse.
❖
The Glockner boys, Klaus Blech, and Jonas Thaler were just some of the fellows who were with our company. Johi Thaler stood with us, cursing himself for not being able to leave. Being the eldest son on the farm, he had not been called and was to stay in the valley. We were beholden to tradition, tied to our land. What else were we off to protect?
We met more of our friends and colleagues in Reschen as Company Two joined us on the road north. All in all, we were jovial, excited, and happy to be with good friends.
When we arrived in Nauders, we found more of our comrades, Marius amongst them. Max Junior and I pulled him aside and inquired about what would happen with the cigarettes.
Marius nodded. “I’ve been preparing for it. I’ve got a couple of trusted associates.”
We heard him out, but Max Junior and I were pretty nervous about losing our business. What would be left when we returned?
Marius shrugged. “This won’t last long,” he said. “We’ll be in and out and back at it before anyone can take over our territory.”
Our companies were called to order. The battalion’s commander had arrived. An older man in Tracht and wearing the two stars of a lieutenant on his collar called us to attention.
“I’m your commanding officer,” he said. “Eberhardt Müller.”
I started. Cecilia’s husband! Her keeper!
He focused on me right away. “You have a problem, boy?”
I could not look away, though I knew full well I had to. He was maybe in his late forties. Cecilia was about seventeen now. Lieutenant Müller had a full beard and was built like a bull, and though he was at least two heads shorter than me, I knew he was trouble.
He stalked up to me and stared upwards. Max Junior squirmed beside me, and Eberhardt Müller’s eyes shifted to him before glaring at me once more.
“We know each other, boy?”
I shook my head.
“I asked you a question! Do you have a problem with me, boy?”
I looked straight over his head.
“That’s a ‘No, Lieutenant’ then, rifleman. We’re not drinking schnapps on the shooting range! You will learn soldiering right here and now!”
“No, sir,” I barked.
“What’s that? Are you defying me?”
I was confused. “No, sir!”
“You want to cause trouble with me?”
“No, sir!”
I could smell him beneath me. Farmer smells. His feathered cap just reached my throat.
“What’s your name, soldier?”
I swallowed. What did he know of me? “Fritz Hanny, sir!”
The feather tipped to the left. He was squinting at me. “Maximilian Hanny’s son?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Well, well.” He turned on his heel, and I breathed again.
To the rest of the battalion, he proclaimed, “This is war now, boys. And you will learn discipline. Your play days are over. Do you understand me?”
We all barked in the affirmative.
He marched on up and down the lines, preaching about how we were hardly recognized as troops but as patrols. That we’d be conducting drills on a regular basis because—he stopped before me again and eyed me up and down—we were going to learn discipline. Once and for all, discipline!
When it was over, we loaded up, and our journey to the eastern frontier began. It took us three hard days to reach the far side of the Galician border. We were quartered in a small village outside of Chernivtsi, in the Carpathian foothills. It did not take long for Marius, Hugo Glockner, Max Junior, and I to get to work. We charmed the villagers in a heartbeat, for in a brilliant move, Marius had packed enough cigarettes, so for the next two weeks we had one feast after another. We had salo and bread, the bacon fat and rinds greasing our stomachs for the bottles of vodka and samahon that followed. The home-brewed spirits were hellish, but when we were introduced to a honey liqueur, we learned to take down the clear spirits and leave the sweet stuff alone. The locals drank us under the tables, so to speak, as our carousing mostly took place around a bonfire. There was hardly a morning we did not wake up to heads as big—and fragile—as ripe melons.
The war was nowhere near us. The Russian border remained quiet. Besides Lieutenant Müller’s orders to keep us in drills, we were relatively free to do anything we wanted. At first, we rarely saw him, but three weeks in and enough time for Marius and the others to charm the locals, our commanding officer suddenly began appearing at the nightly gatherings. By that time, most of the boys were paired up with local girls.
Marius was the mediator whenever things got heated. He had managed to win the affections of a corpulent light-haired maiden himself. Halyna was pretty and had a loud laugh, and Marius and she were like two peas in a pod. I was not interested in any of the girls, though the dark-eyed beauty in whose house Max Junior and I were assigned to seemed to have me in her sights.
As soon as Müller came to the bonfires, my mood soured. Cecilia’s husband was the worst amongst us. He barely drank, but his hands were everywhere. He got hold of the dark-eyed girl, and I watched as he pulled her into his lap, his hand on her back, the other on her thighs. I bristled, thinking of Cecilia. Thinking of how he must be with her.
My smoldering must have been obvious, because Marius caught my eye and jerked his head at the lieutenant. I shook my head, my eyes burning with the desire to strangle the man. Marius patted Halyna’s rump, and she stood from his lap. He rose and strode over with a bottle to me.
“It’s not worth it, Fritz,” he said and handed me the samahon.
I shook my head and raised the drink to my lips. It burned more than usual, and I choked, wishing I had a piece of bread.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “What is this horseshit?”
Marius laughed, but it was cut short when he stared across the way at Müller. The older man was nuzzling the girl’s neck, the muscles on his forearm bulging as he pressed down on her thigh.
“He’s sick,” I muttered.
“She’s pregnant,” Marius said.
“The girl?” I turned, astonished.
“No. Cecilia.” Marius sighed and took a swig from the bottle. “Second one. You wouldn’t recognize her, Fritz.”
I groaned inside. I could not imagine it. I stood up and stumbled—drunk—to the cottage where I was staying. My body ached, and I found it hard to breathe. My Cecilia. Both of us, ruined. One way or another, I would avenge her.