The hospital door opened on the other side of the patient cot, but the patient saw his visitor reflected in a mirror.
“Ah, Müller! How nice of you to visit,” von Reinhardt said to Müller’s image. His voice was louder and fuller than the previous day, and he was smiling, even while an American military nurse, a lieutenant, administered a shot. His chest was uncovered and Müller could see the bandages strapping him together like packing material. There was a brownish red stain near the wound site; some oozing was still taking place.
Müller smiled. “You seem to be a lot better today,” he said, sitting down on a wooden folding chair beside the metal-framed hospital cot. “I brought a
little something to eat.” He produced a box containing nearly half a cake he’d purloined from the American mess.
The American nurse interrupted. “No—
nein
. No food.” Müller looked imploringly at her and she repeated the order. With a regretful look, he put it back in the box. The nurse finished the shot, adjusted the IV that hung on what looked like a hat rack on wheels, and made notes on the clipboard that hung at the foot of the bed. Her expression was serious, more serious than Müller liked, but who could interpret what such an expression meant? It could mean something truly terrible, or merely that a temperature was elevated a single degree above normal. The nurse said in English, “I’ll check back in two hours. Two—” She held up two fingers. “—hours.” She pointed to a clock on the wall.
“Zwei Stunden,”
repeated von Reinhardt in German, holding up two fingers and pointing to the clock in response. The nurse patted his hand and left; von Reinhardt turned his attention to Müller and said, “Yes, I am a lot better. The incident is over, the outcome was favorable, even if not by my personal doing, and I am alive. Now it is history, and as the English author of
Tristram Shandy
would have it, ‘The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.’ It is, to be sure, only a partial palliative, but as the alternative is still more pain, I am happy to take comfort in history.”
Müller shook his head. “Günter, I don’t know how you keep all those quotes in your head, I really don’t.”
“It’s a mental quirk, nothing more. I can remember entire pages from books I read as a child, but can hardly keep three practical items together in my mind long enough for a trip to the bakery without writing them down.”
Müller wanted more. “But do you plan for them in advance, all ready for delivery, or do they just come to you?”
Von Reinhardt laughed. “A fine and insightful question! Of course, the desired answer is that each quote springs naturally from the font of my intellect as did Athena from Zeus’ brow, but between you and me—” His voice dropped to a lower tone. “—some quotes I prepare in advance, when I believe certain matters are likely to arise in conversation.”
“I thought so!” said Müller triumphantly. “You have a talent for
le mot juste
—” He paused in pride at his own cleverness in injecting a French phrase into the conversation. “—but sometimes your quotes are just
too
perfect.”
Von Reinhardt laughed, but his laugh turned into a choking cough. Alarmed, Müller reached over for a tissue and handed it to his friend. It took nearly a full minute for the cough to get under control, and when Müller took back the tissue it had flecks of blood on it. “Shall I get the nurse?” Müller asked in concern.
Weakly, von Reinhardt waved the hand not tied down with an IV. “No, no,” he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. His face was drawn tight with pain. “The cough comes and goes, but it tears at the wound, you know. I’m all right.” He coughed again, and with his hand indicated a glass on his
bed stand. Müller handed over the glass and von Reinhardt took a sip of water, which seemed to calm the cough somewhat. He smiled wanly, and whispered. “You talk for a while, Wolfgang. Bring me up to date on the proceedings at headquarters. For as Cicero says, ‘The gods attend to great matters, they neglect small ones.’ Tell me what the general-gods are up to, Wolfgang.” He leaned back against his pillow weakly.
“I’ve half a mind to call the nurse anyway, Günter,” Müller said. “That cough doesn’t sound at all good to me. But if you’ll lie quiet and sip your water, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Von Reinhardt nodded, smiled, and took a sip of water, which seemed to relax him somewhat. Müller watched him carefully, then decided it was safe to bring him up to date on the situation at headquarters.
“Well, everybody seems to be getting along fine as nearly as I can tell,” he said. “General Eisenhower offered Rommel the chancellorship of Germany under a new government.”
“And our good Desert Fox turned him down, I presume?” whispered von Reinhardt, leaning his head back on his pillow and closing his eyes.
“How did you know?” said Müller. “It came as a surprise to everyone else. Has somebody been here before me to tell you what happened.”
“No, no,” von Reinhardt replied. “It was logical. As our new führer says, ‘My honor is my loyalty.’ Even though it’s just an SS motto, it’s something that weighs all too heavily on Rommel. His feelings of personal disgrace are running very deep right now. He could not possibly accept such an honor unless he felt worthy, and how can a traitor and surrendering coward possibly feel worthy?”
Müller was shocked. “He isn’t either of those things!”
“I know that, and you know that, but right now he doesn’t know that. There is war in his soul, because every choice leads to betrayal of at least one of the ideals he has held throughout his life. It’s difficult. As Montaigne says, ‘Any person of honor chooses rather to lose his honor than to lose his conscience. ’ But that does not make such a choice easy.” Von Reinhardt’s voice began to crack, and he took another sip of water.
Müller thought for a minute. “I guess that’s right, but it’s unfair.”
“So it is,” replied von Reinhardt. “What else?”
As Müller began to provide a rundown of the morning’s other events, a voice interrupted in American-accented German. “Excuse me, gentlemen.” It was Porter, the American newspaperman.
Müller stood up. “He’s not very well; he can hardly talk.”
Porter nodded. “I came by mostly because I had never thanked him properly for capturing me a few days ago. This has been the most important few days of my life, and if Oberst von Reinhardt hadn’t thought I’d be of some use
as a translator, I would have missed the whole thing and be stuck in a cage with a bunch of American soldiers waiting for release.”
“You’re welcome,” whispered von Reinhardt. “If you wish to repay me, I feel cut off from the world here in my hospital bed. My friend Wolfgang has been filling me in on the various discussions and meetings in headquarters. If your reporter sources have provided you with additional information, I would love to hear it.”
Müller shook his head. “He can’t stop being an intelligence officer, you know. He really should be resting.”
“I think I understand him, though,” replied Porter. “I feel the same way about being a newspaperman. In fact, your friend would make a great reporter if he chose. When the war is over, if you’d like to join the Associated Press, look me up in Berlin, okay?”
“Thank you,” whispered von Reinhardt. “When the war is over, I’ll have to think about earning an honest living.”
“I didn’t say anything about an
honest
living,” laughed Porter. “I’m talking about the news game. So, friend Wolfgang, what news have you heard? They’re starting to bar the doors against me in case I snoop in areas they aren’t yet ready to make public.”
“Watch yourself carefully, Wolfgang,” added von Reinhardt. “You don’t want to inadvertently tell top-secret information to the enemy.”
Müller was startled—for a moment he found himself looking at Porter suspiciously—and then he realized his leg was being pulled and he laughed. “I was going to say that we were all now on the same side, but then I realized that what you meant was that the press itself was the enemy.”
“That’s not fair,” replied Porter, half in jest. “We of the press only report the facts!”
“Beware of facts,” von Reinhardt interjected. “As Nietzsche says, ‘There are no facts, only interpretations.’ Right now, it’s hard to say what exactly the facts happen to be.”
“You’re in the hospital with a wound,” retorted Porter. “That’s a fact. Rommel surrendered. That’s a fact.”
“Interpretations. Did Rommel actually surrender? Certainly not in a traditional sense. And I am in a hospital and I have a wound, but it was not a hospital but a battle zone just a short while ago. That’s the trouble with newspapers. They deal only with now. ‘Now’ has no permanence and no meaning other than that which history gives it—and history is even more about interpretation than is ‘now.’”
“Forget what I said about a job after the war, von Reinhardt,” snorted Porter. “I can just see sending you on a story and getting back a philosophy dissertation instead. And I bet you’re hell on deadlines.”
“Perspective, my dear Porter, perspective is everything. And now, my friends, I think I hear the rustle of the nurse, and that tells me I must rest.”
“Good-bye, Günter. I’ll come back tomorrow,” said Müller solicitously.
“Hey, I was only kidding, von Reinhardt,” added Porter. “You’re a good guy, and I’m grateful.”
But von Reinhardt’s eyes were closed, and neither visitor could tell whether he had fallen asleep or was merely feigning.