Short Skates: Flanders


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This instalment contains discussions of combat trauma.

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The old psychiatrist, Schäfer, smoked his pipe, his eyes half-lidded. He tapped ash into a ceramic tray, then crossed his legs.

“Explain this to me again, Schmidt,” he grunted.

His German was coarse and rugged, characteristic of the North. He was a military man, first and foremost. But he was old, now, his body worn. So he was tasked with treating the derelicts left behind. Der Weltkrieg, they called it. The World War.

He shook his head. Once, war had been honourable. Now it only seemed to produce madmen. Madmen and cowards. He had studied all the tactics of Old Prussia at school. None of it seemed to matter, in the face of artillery, barbed wire and charges.

“I am telling you, I saw her,” Schmidt replied.

“You think you saw her,” Schäfer said. It was a fruitless exercise.

Schmidt was physically unhurt, but still bedridden. He had a neat moustache, trimmed weekly by a nurse with a straight razor, since he could not do it himself. He had developed a strange, psychosomatic tic in his left eye, left shoulder and left leg, making it impossible to shoot. So they had sent him here. He was, at least, making good progress. The tic was almost gone, but he still could not let go of his delusions, and that meant the threat of the tic coming back.

The young man’s commanding officer had asked that Schäfer bring him back, well-rested and cured, within three months. They could repel those Tommy bastards, the officer said. It was just a matter of waiting.

The three months were almost up. This was Schäfer’s last stand.

Schmidt shook his head.

Herr Doktor,” he said, slowly, frustrated. “I know you do not believe me, but she was there. The Angel was there!”

Der Engel von Flandern, as she had been dubbed, was a kind of collective hallucination shared by a number of German soldiers. They claimed she had the strength of ten men. Some had seen her lifting men out of bomb craters. She could miraculously transfigure herself into a substance like water or milk, others said. Others still claimed they had seen her wielding a sword of gold.

Schäfer had to admit, it was alarming how every man had an almost identical description of the supposed “Angel”: Exceedingly tall, dressed like an Englishwoman, with a long plaid skirt down to the ankles, a black jacket, and a wide-brimmed hat made of straw. All of them insisted that her hair was some shade of violet, and her feet were clad in golden, wheeled boots.

The image was obviously fanciful. It was a conversion of subconscious impulse into a delusional state. These young gadabouts, trapped far away from women, spending every hour of every day living in holes with men. It was only natural that they would create this dream-woman, a hybrid of Other (thus, the Englishness), and Mother (thus, the height). She was simply Oedipal impulse, made manifest as collective hallucination.

That was the working theory, anyway. A spanner had been thrown in the works when a homosexual was sent to work with one of Schäfer’s colleagues, and he also reported seeing the Angel. That had been less easy to explain, but theories still abounded. None of this was public knowledge, of course. If word got out that men in the trenches were telling stories of angels visiting them on the battlefield, it might destroy morale. Every letter home found to have mentioned the Angel was censored.

“It was after an Allied shelling,” Schmidt said. “We had been caught between no-man’s-land and the trench. Suddenly, she appeared. She silently directed us along a pathway we had not before seen. We were following her, when, suddenly, we heard…boom!”

He clapped his hands together, mimicking the sound of the Allies’ guns.

“Yes, you have told me this before,” Schäfer said. “I accept that you survived an attack, I just think that you have filled the gaps in your memory with a delusion.”

Schmidt shook his head.

“No, no! Listen to me! We ran, the shells screaming overhead. I thought it was coming right for me, and then I felt a pair of arms push me. I went into a crater. I poked my head up, and I saw her just standing there…it was as though she was elsewhere, not even paying attention to what was going on. There was this golden light, like a pillar from Heaven. I called out to her…”

“And she suffered a direct hit from a shell,” Schäfer said. “According to you. No other man with you could attest to the same thing.”

“I did not speak for two days,” Schmidt said. “I thought I had seen the Angel die.”

“That is not what you saw,” Schäfer snapped. “A field report from the day says that a tree in a copse near the trench line suffered a direct hit. Two soldiers sustained shrapnel wounds during the same attack. You must have somehow conflated the two incidents in your mind, trying to rationalise it. You were fortunate, soldier. Nothing more. There is no shame in it.”

“But that was not the end of it,” Schmidt said. “A week later, I saw her again.”

“Yes,” Schäfer said. “Because she was a hallucination. Schmidt…”

Schäfer grunted, repositioning himself, and took another puff on the pipe.

“…forgive me for being gruesome, but if a woman had been hit by a bomb, we would have found her all over that field. You and I both know this. Body parts from shell-victims have been found up trees, on the roofs of barns. She would have been obliterated. All we found were splinters of wood. You saw her again, Schmidt, because she never existed to begin with.”

Schmidt sighed.

“I asked her how she survived,” he said. “She spoke German with a strange accent. I could not place it. She only said she was sorry, and that I would not see her again. She left…and I cried.”

“Inconsolably,” Schäfer said. “That is why you are here, Schmidt. Do you remember? You cried to the point that you could not carry out your duties. A medic thought you had lost your mind. We are trying to help you move past it.”

“She is still out there,” Schmidt said. “Herr Doktor, if you could have seen her…if you could have looked at her eyes…I cannot explain it, but there are thousands of lifetimes inside her. A thousand faces, a million names. She was there when we crawled out of the mud. She will be there when we crawl back into it.”

He seemed to deflate, putting his chin on his chest.

“I imagine that will be sooner than later, the way this war is going.”

“That is unpatriotic talk,” Schäfer said.

“I am sorry, sir, but that is how I feel.”

Schäfer shook his head.

“The Angel has not been seen by any man since your last ‘encounter’ with her,” he said. “My theory is that it is simple exhaustion and hysteria, of which you are almost cured, on both counts. You shall be allowed to stay here for two more weeks, then you are going back to the front.”

Schmidt nodded, defeated.

“It might do me some good,” he said, distantly. “Certainly better than being in here, treated like I am insane.”

Schäfer gritted his teeth.

“Like it or not, Schmidt, in two weeks, I am putting you down as cured, and then you are going back out there.”

Schmidt was silent, sullen.

“It is for your own good,” Schäfer said. “By all accounts, you are a fine soldier. We will win this war yet.”

Schmidt still said nothing.

“Now, then,” Schäfer said, patting the bedspread. “Get some rest. We shall be round with dinner soon.”

“Thank you,” Schmidt said, in a voice so low as to be almost a whisper.

Schäfer put his pipe out, stood, and left the room.

*

June, 1922.— COMMOTION of an unusual kind to-day broke out at a popular eatery in Lyon. With no intermediate warning, a gentleman leapt from his seat and pounced on a young lady seated at another table. The girl made her escape as other patrons rushed to keep the brute from giving chase. Gendarmes told reporters that the fellow was well-known to other patrons and that he served with the French Army on the Western Front during the Great War. Friends say that this occasion does not reflect his usual good nature. A doctor called to the scene at once diagnosed the poor fellow with nervous disorder. The gentleman was escorted away by motorcar to a psychiatric hospital, where he is to be kept under watch. Gendarmes wish to speak with the young lady molested, but she has not been seen since.

*

Télégramme – Telegram

MONSIEUR
CHRISTOPHE ARNAUD
119 RUE DU CHEMIN VERT PARIS
23 JUIN 1922

DEAREST TOTO WEATHER WAS HOT TODAY LUNCH AT LITTLE PLACE IN LYON VERY NICE THOUGH SADLY SPOILED MAN JUMPED UP POINTED AT WOMAN RAVING CALLED HER AN ANGEL VERY FRIGHTENING WILL RELATE DETAILS LATER AM OTHERWISE IN GOOD SPIRITS LOVE YOUR SWEET RITA


Another time, another place…


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Illustration created using elements of an image by Dominik Kempf on Unsplash

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ARC FOUR: BLOOD MOON
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII