Eva Luna by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online Page A

gripping the rigid form, started back toward the graves they had dug in the open square. Their load swayed slightly to and fro, and the head lolled backward. Rolf turned and looked at his mother; he saw her doubled over with nausea. He wanted to make a gesture of consolation, but his hands were occupied.
    It was past midnight before they completed the task of burying the prisoners. They filled the graves and covered them with earth, but the time had not yet come to leave. The soldiers forced them to go through the barracks, to enter thedeath chambers, to examine the ovens, to walk beneath the gallows. No one dared pray for the dead. In their hearts they knew that from that moment they would try to forget, to tear that horror from their souls, resolved never to speak of it, with the hope that time would erase it. Finally, slowly, exhausted, feet dragging, they returned home. Last came Rolf Carlé, walking between two rows of skeletons, all equal in the desolation of death.
    *  *  *
    One week later, Lukas Carlé returned. His son Rolf did not recognize him; when his father had left for the front, the boy was not yet at the age of reason, and the man who burst into the kitchen that night did not in any way resemble the photograph on the mantel. During the years he had lived without a father, Rolf had invented one of heroic dimensions. He had clad him in an aviator’s uniform and covered his chest with medals, imagining a proud, brave warrior with boots so shiny a child could see himself in them. He did not associate that image with the person who appeared so suddenly that night and, thinking he was a beggar, did not even bother to say hello. The man in the photograph had a carefully trimmed mustache, and his eyes were as leaden as winter skies—authoritarian and cold. The man who flung open the kitchen door was wearing an oversized pair of pants held up by a cord around the waist, a threadbare jacket, a filthy kerchief around his neck, and, in place of the mirror-shine boots, rags wrapped around his feet. He was a rather small man, badly shaven, his bristling hair cut in clumps. No, that was not anyone Rolf knew. The rest of the family, on the other hand, remembered all too well. When his wife saw him, she clapped both hands to her mouth; Jochen leaped to his feet, overturning his chair in his haste to retreat; and Katharina ran to hide beneath the table, something she had not done in a long time, but which was an instinctive act lodged in her memory.
    Lukas Carlé had not returned out of any nostalgia for the hearth. Being a solitary person without a sense of country, he had never felt he belonged to that village—or to any other. He had returned because he was hungry and desperate; he preferred to risk falling into the hands of the victorious enemy rather than drag himself around the countryside any longer. He had deserted, and had survived by hiding during the day and traveling by night. He had stolen the identification papers of a fallen soldier, planning to change his name and erase his past, but soon realized that he had nowhere on that vast destroyed continent to go. The memory of the village with its pleasant houses and orchards and vineyards, as well as the school where he had taught so many years, held little attraction for him, but he had no other choice. He had won several decorations during the course of the war, not for bravery but for exercising cruelty. He was different; he had explored the murky depths of his soul; he knew exactly to what lengths he would go. After having tested the extremes, having passed the boundaries of evil and pleasure, it seemed a lowly fate to return to his former life and resign himself to teaching groups of runny-nosed, ill-bred children. It was his belief that man is made for war. History demonstrates that progress is never achieved without violence: grit your teeth and bear it; close your eyes and deal it out—that’s why we’re soldiers.