Death in Rome by Wolfgang Koeppen

was the Landsknechts' way, that was the way their song went: he had sung it in the Freikorps, they had sung it round the camp fire with Rossbach, in the Black Reichswehr camp they had bellowed it out, in the killing grounds. Judejahn was a Landsknecht, he was the last surviving Landsknecht, he whistled the tune in the desert, he wanted to guzzle and booze and whore, that was what he felt like doing, something was pinching his balls. Why didn't he take what he wanted? Why the cookshops, the poky bars, why this cellar? He was drawn to it. It was a fateful day. There was paralysis in the ancient air of the city, paralysis and catastrophe. It was as though no one in this city could manage a fuck any more. It was as though the priests had cut the balls off the city. He went down, Pilsener beer, he descended into the Underworld, Czech rats, barrels of Pilsener, he came upon a stone cellar, extensive and vaulted, a few tables, a few chairs, a bar at the back, rusty oxidizing beer-taps, beer-slops like vomit on the aluminium surface. There were two fellows sitting at a table, playing cards. They looked at Judejahn. They grinned. It was an evil grin. They greeted him: 'You're not from this part of the world!' They spoke German. He sat down. 'Hummel Hummel,' {†} said one of them. The waiter came.
    'A Pils,' said Judejahn. The men grinned. With the waiter they spoke Italian. The waiter grinned. The men called Judejahn 'Comrade'. One referred to the other as 'My buddy'. Judejahn felt at ease. He knew their sort: gallows birds, desperadoes. Their faces were like faces in a morgue, ravaged by some horrible disease. The beer arrived. It tasted metallic. It tasted like fizzy lemonade mixed with poison, but at least it was cold. The glasses were frosted. The men raised their frosted glasses with the poisonous-tasting beer and drank to Judejahn. They were the right stuff. Under the table they kept their knees and heels clenched together, and their buttocks. Judejahn did too. He had always been the stuff. The waiter brought food. The men must have ordered it. Fried onions sizzled on large meat patties. They ate. They stuffed themselves. The men liked the onions. Judejahn liked the onions. They got acquainted. 'It tastes just like home,' one of them said. 'Crap!' said the other, 'it's like Barras's. Barras was the only place I got decent grub.' 'Where did you serve?' asked Judejahn. They grinned. 'Take off your glasses,' they said, 'you're no spring chicken yourself.' Judejahn took off his glasses. He looked at the pair of them. They were his true sons. He wanted to drill them. If he drilled them, they'd be useful. He thought: Pair of hard bastards. 'Don't I know you?' asked one of them. 'I'm sure I've seen you somewhere. Well, never mind.' What difference did it make? They gave the name of a unit. Judejahn knew them well, a notorious outfit, trouble, heroes that went in where the Wehrmacht feared to tread. They'd wasted a lot of people. They were under Judejahn's general command. They had solved some of the Führer's population problems for him. They had committed genocide. Judejahn asked after their commanding officer, a sharp fellow, a real animal. They grinned at him. One of them traced a noose in the air, and pulled it tight. 'In Warsaw,' said the other. Hadn't Warsaw been taken, hadn't Paris been taken, wasn't Rome occupied? 'What are you doing now?' asked Judejahn. 'Oh, driving around,' they said. 'Since when?' 'Long time.' 'Where you from?' 'Vienna.' They were no Germans, they were Eastern mixed race, Austrian SS, they'd slipped through all the controls. Judejahn eyed them the way a cobra eyes a toad, and they thought he was just a big bullfrog. But he also looked at them with the calculation and benevolence of a snake-breeder, with the calculation and benevolence of a reptile-house keeper, supplying reptiles to labs for poison and vivisection. Judejahn sent men and boys to the bloody, stinking labs of history, he sent them to the