Assentierung (Part III)

At this time, on stage a group of artists arrived to heavy applause. A concert was supposed to begin, the purpose of which, among other things, was to culture the not so cultured country prospectives, who did not have daily access to concert halls, theaters, art galleries or museums. I noticed that two of the female singers were capable not only of compensating the poor prospectives for the lack of concert halls, but were so old as to compensate for the lack of museums as well. 

The music began with a song to the words of the work of a seventeenth century poet, Szymanowski, a reflection on the sad lot of a serf. One of the two museum girls attempted to sing in coloratura soprano. It could’ve induced vomiting. 

I walked away from the stage, because I loved music but only under the condition that it was American jazz. Hanging about, too, was some local painter, very friendly with the officials there, drinking buddies, even, and with whom I was acquainted, but for whom at this moment I was thoroughly embarrassed. 

Between the stage and the entrance, there was space enough for an exposition of several medium-sized works and the artist hanged his there. Two themes dominated, that of battle, meaning naive scenes from the last war, where the artist depicted, in dirty, whitened colors, always some soldier, national eagle on his military hat, always under the command of some powerful officer with an emblazoned red star, beating away some German fascists. 

The other was a rustic theme, scenes of the gently compelled collectivization of the countryside, the only righteous and correct path for the peasantry. The artist, very happy for himself and his collection, was constantly around his work, correcting something here, straightening something there, striking up conversations with passers-by. He left the impression as if among these poor, unlanded prospectives, he would find a potential buyer, or even a sponsor, which was, on its face, a complete and delirious misunderstanding.

The field kitchen was already working at full steam. Three staff manned the thing, two women, a younger one and an older one, and a corporal. The prospectives were served FREE bean soup, in soldier’s rations, which the corporal brought in buckets from an army truck parked in the back of the building. 

The bean soup was ready, prepared beforehand all at once. The contents of the bucket were poured into a chamber in the field kitchen, and when the soup was running out the corporal schlepped with the bucket to the truck for more. When he was not doing this, he sat in an uncomfortable squatting position on a low square stool, cutting banner black bread with a razor-sharp knife that appeared to be taken from a German bayonet. 

As if these responsibilities were not enough, the corporal was also charged with keeping the field kitchen running, putting coal into the stove as necessary. Being really very busy, he nevertheless made time to court the younger woman at the field kitchen. 

Dressed in a white smock that buttoned from the back and wearing felt boots, she stood with a wide stance, turning from the field kitchen to the line of prospectives as she needed, and with ladle in hand pouring the soup into the waiting soldiers’ trays. These trays were post-German; after the war the retreating Nazis left all kinds of artifacts behind, which were regularly taken up for use by the locals. 

The trays were inscribed with a swastika-wielding eagle and a number. Some of them showed signs of determined but futile attempts to shave and remove the hated Nazi emblem, which after all was always, in a sense, indestructible, and for this reason the failed attempts to remove it made it appear even more menacing and ominous. 

The older woman handled the trays. She handed them out, and a deposit was taken, otherwise the trays would all be stolen before everyone even had a chance to eat. The tray came with a cheap aluminum spoon which tended to cause infection of the lip. The bean soup and the bread were free, paid for by the army, which desired to instill from the beginning a barracks atmosphere among the men here. 

Preoccupied at the field kitchen with a really dizzying multitude of tasks, time and again the corporal tried to pounce at the young girl from behind and massage her more attractive parts. Time and again she brushed him off, though she seemed unsure of herself, and when at last she struck him quite hard in the arm with the ladle, he jumped back as if burned and, wiping off the bits of soup on his sleeve, with a quiet hiss called her to whores. 

In fact no one had as much fun as the old one. She wore a full length white apron, her sleeves were rolled up, and she had on a blue-gray padded jacket in the style that the Soviet army wore. When she had the time, she went into the huddle of recruits, steering herself to the slowest-looking one, which actually was not a big problem, and this would rile the others up, who knew what was coming, and she in a formal way, like an official, with a very serious face made very intimate and personal queries on subjects related mainly to the sexual notions of the cursorily accused. 

The line of questioning became progressively more shameless and the recipient of it found it increasingly difficult to give any sort of response, and when at last he was overwhelmed by the guffawing colleagues around him, when his eyes betrayed that he had been nailed against a wall and no more answers would come, with wholesome satisfaction the old woman calmly returned to her field kitchen work until at some point she would return to her fun with a new mark.