The Kindly Ones

The men climbed back up, and the wagon moved slowly away down the birch lane. Busse’s words had no effect on me, I couldn’t manage to think about the Russians’ arrival as a concrete, imminent thing. I stayed there, leaning on the frame of the large door, and smoked a cigarette as I watched the wagon disappear down the end of the lane. Later on in the afternoon, two other men presented themselves. They wore blue jackets made of coarse cloth, big hobnail boots, and held caps in their hands; I understood right away that they were the two Frenchmen from the STO that Käthe had told me about, who carried out maintenance or farm work for von Üxküll. They were the only personnel, along with Käthe, who still remained: all the men had been drafted, the gardener was with the Volkssturm, the maid had left to join her parents, who had been evacuated to Mecklenburg. I didn’t know where these two men were staying, maybe with Busse. I talked to them directly in French. The older one, Henri, was a stocky, broad-backed farmer in his forties from the Lubéron, he knew Antibes; the other probably came from a provincial city, and seemed still young. They too were worried, they had come to say they wanted to leave, if everyone else was leaving. “You understand, Monsieur l’Officier, we don’t like the Bolsheviks any more than you do. They’re savages, we don’t know what to expect from them.”—“If Herr Busse leaves,” I said, “you can leave with him. I won’t hold you back.” Their relief was palpable. “Thank you, Monsieur l’Officier. Please give our respects to Monsieur le Baron and to Madame, when you see them.”