Part 7: Burned to Ashes

Partita: You and Franz had a fight?
Charon: He was wounded. I brought him back.
He avoids answering the question.
Partita opens her mouth, but her face quickly darkens. Charon turns his head.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: These past few days been treating you well? You'll be busy tomorrow when the hospital clears out.
Charon: Guten Tag, Herr Oberstleutnant. May it pass without incident.
Even Charon, often criticized for his slowness, senses something unusual.
Charon: You are unarmed?
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: Not every day you see an unarmed officer in the trenches, eh?
He smiles.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: The war will be over soon. I'm just waiting for retirement ... my granddaughter's due any day now.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: I'd rather not carry a gun again. Maybe I'll never need to.
Charon: Your wife's letter ... I remember a pub. Laughter and beer to replace bullets and blood.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: Yes, she knows me well. Once I give up this uniform, all I want is to run a simple pub.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: Chatting with regulars, cracking jokes, a few hands of Skat ...
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: I'll waive a tab here and there—give them a reason to bring all their friends and family around.
Charon: Franz would certainly come.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: Tell him to come, then. I'll serve him up a bratwurst, free of charge.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: We've been at war too long. It's time to remember how we used to live.
Charon glances at Partita. She stands quietly nearby.
Partita knows what he wants to say, but she can't stop herself.
Partita: Lieutenant Colonel Wolker, you ordered that shelling, didn't you? Even though the intelligence was wrong. You killed your own men.
Partita: You killed my fiancé, Walter.
Wolker turns slightly to face her.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: A girl who could've attended school alongside my daughter, and yet she looks at me like I'm the enemy.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: Well, I suppose I deserve it. Though, I've rarely had such an encounter.
Partita: There are surely thousands of girls like me throughout the fatherland. You just haven't met them yet.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: Yes, yes, you're right. I've prepared myself for that.
Partita: You'd better have.
The lieutenant colonel's gaze follows every trace of coldness and hatred on her face. He smiles bitterly.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: Walter was young, but he had a good head on his shoulders—a sharp and thoughtful lad.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: When he first arrived, he wouldn't even fire his weapon. Ah, but he certainly was no coward.
Partita: Don't you dare try to play on my emotions.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: We're just the treads on a tank, Partita. We're ordered to advance, and we crush everything in our path.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: On the front, it's win or die, and when someone dies out here, it's never just one person who pays the price.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: I regret Walter's death—more than the men who ordered the advance.
Partita: So you're shifting the blame now? Telling me it's some other bastard's fault?
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: Of course not. War is a river of hatred and death. I stepped into it. I must accept the price.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: If you want to kill me, so be it—but you'll have to step into that river too.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: So, Partita, if you're ready for everything that comes with that, then pull the trigger. I won't stop you.
Partita's lips tremble. She tries to speak, but the words fail to come.
The lieutenant colonel turns and barks the name of a nearby sergeant.
Lieutenant Colonel Wolker: The firearm you asked for has arrived, Partita. I've come to deliver it to you myself.
She takes the pistol and lightly tests its weight in her hand.
Charon watches as the lieutenant colonel leaves, then turns to Partita.
Charon: He's just an old man awaiting his retirement.
Partita: Oh, so you're going to preach to me too?
Charon: Taking his life will only cause you to suffer.
Partita: That's it, Paul. Get it all out. After all, how often do you get the chance to sound so noble?
Charon: Remember our deal? When the field hospital leaves, you leave the battlefield.
She keeps her eyes on the pistol, perhaps studying its parts, or perhaps lost elsewhere.
Partita: With everything that's happened ... is there even anywhere for me to go back to?
Partita: I hunted for the truth behind Walter's death because I needed a reason to live.
Partita: Even if that reason was absurd ... or based purely on hatred.
Partita: But Wolker still gets to go home.
Charon: Partita, you can go anywhere you wish—anywhere but this battlefield.
Partita: I have nowhere to go. Nothing else to live for.
Charon: Why people choose to live is something beyond my grasp, but the soldiers who walk beside me choose it every day.
Charon: Some wait to embrace their family again; others dream of tending gardens after the war.
Charon: For some, even drowning themselves in schnapps from dusk till dawn is a reason to carry on living.
Charon: The living set goals, and death laughs.
Charon: But you must have one, all the same. You simply need to find it.
Partita: Not everyone can bear this kind of pain—or the torment of the endless questions without answers.
Partita: Paul, you know better than anyone that none of this means a thing.
Partita: You already admitted as much. You're only saying this because you pity me.
Partita: Maybe my reason for living is ridiculous, but is enduring suffering purely for the sake of living any better?
With a flick of her wrist, the magazine ejects. She empties it, leaving only one bullet.
She puts the rest into Charon's pocket, then lifts her gaze to meet his.
Her eyes are calm.
Partita: Time for me to go.
Charon: ...
Wilhelm: Why's everyone looking so grim?
The soldier cuts into the conversation.
Charon: The hospital is moving out. The time has come for us to part ways.
Wilhelm: Did you give that photo to Fabien?
Charon: He will see it soon.
Wilhelm: Good. Give my best to him, won't you? ... Have you seen Wolker about?
Charon: He is down in the bunker.
Partita takes a few steps backward as she tries to slip away unnoticed.
Wilhelm: Ah, well, his gun's fixed—good as new. I brought it back for him.
Wilhelm: Seems the lieutenant colonel only trusts his own pistol. He refused to accept any of the spares.
His words hang heavy in the air.
Charon: What do you mean?
Partita: I thought he said he was done with all this! He said he wasn't carrying a weapon because the war was ending and he was going home!
Wilhelm: Eh? What are you two talking about?
He looks like he's just heard a joke he doesn't understand.
Wilhelm: He's not retiring; he's just moving to the rear. Why would he quit now?
Wilhelm: They're putting him up for a medal—he'll be a full colonel by fall.
The fog in Charon's mind thickens.
Charon: You guess at what you don't know, don't you, Willi?
Wilhelm: Charon, I'm the man's orderly, for heaven's sake. I know him.
Perhaps, at this moment, Charon shouldn't be questioning Wilhelm. Perhaps he should be watching Partita.
Partita: That damned liar! That sneaky, two-faced swine!
But would stopping her really change anything?
Charon: Partita—
She slips into the bunker as swift as a breeze.
Words enter Charon's mind in a stampede. The world starts to spin.
"Walter is dead."
"'Friendly fire,' they said. But nothing about it was friendly—not when they dropped it while we advanced!"

"I could've had him—just one more second and he'd still be here!"
"Gott im Himmel ... what do I tell Partita? How do I tell his mother?"

"I lived ... and Walter died?"
"Or should I tell them I'm sorry—that he should've been the one who lived?"

"It's true ... it shouldn't have been him. He was the one who kept us going, kept us smiling."
In the echo of the shot, it all falls silent. The noise, the whispers, the thoughts—everything.
Charon sees the lieutenant colonel clutching his chest, red pouring out from between his fingers.
Partita turns to Charon, her face now calm and distant.
Both the living and the dead fall silent.