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not weep. When a breath of unseasonably cold wind swept over the cloister, round yellow leaves, no larger than coins, rained in from the trees outside. No coherent sounds came from the staring group until Hofer stammered to himself, glassy-eyed.
    “She’s dead, she’s dead - the saint is dead.”
    With his eyes, Bora followed the trail of blood to the lacy edge it formed at his feet. It had already happened to him in Aragon, two summers ago. The dirt had drunk it all, but small black ants were racing towards it, and back and forth surveyed the bank of what must be a nourishing, drying river bed to their infinitesimal size.

2

25 October
    “What is your professional opinion of Colonel Hofer’s state of health?”
    SS Captain Salle-Weber stood planted behind the colonel’s desk like a roughly hewn, insignia-strewn tree. Bora looked ahead of himself rather than directly at him.
    “I have only served with the colonel two weeks, Hauptsturmführer . As a subordinate, my opinion is by necessity limited, perhaps even irrelevant.”
    Salle-Weber had Bora’s folder in front of him. He glanced through it. “How long have you been a captain, Captain?”
    “Three weeks.”
    “Well, you’re a big boy now. Leave aside the matter of hierarchy and give me a dispassionate assessment of your commander. We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t feel it were relevant.”
    “I believe the colonel is under great stress.”
    “Aren’t we all?”
    “He has personal reasons, I’m sure you know.”
    “All I know is that he’s got no nerve.”
    Bora glanced at Salle-Weber, and then once more ahead of himself. “He must have some nerve, given that he volunteered for Spain two years ago.”
    “What of it? So did you and a shipload of airmen. So did Schenck, and even your jug-headed interpreter.”
    “Well, then. With all that we’re in hostile territory, Colonel Hofer doesn’t bother to carry a gun, unlike you and I. How’s that for nerve?”

    “That’s not nerve. It’s idiocy.” With pretended indifference Salle-Weber opened the top drawer of Hofer’s desk, started rummaging with his hand in it. He pulled the prayer book out. There was a packet of letters, and he took those out as well.
    Bora followed his movements with a needling sense of being personally intruded upon. “Is this an investigation?”
    “Just answer the questions, Captain. Hofer had a total breakdown two days ago, and this is hardly anything we can afford in the middle of a campaign. You were with him when he took sick, so be good and report accurately on it.”
    Bora did.
    Salle-Weber listened in silence, without taking notes, keeping his eyes nailed on the younger man. “You’re an observant fellow,” he said in the end, not in the way of admiration but acknowledging the fact. “It’s a virtue, you know.” He finally removed his eyes - like Bora, he was green-eyed, but the measure of eagerness was different in his glance - and put Hofer’s things back into the drawer. “What’s the nun to him? What did he expect to gain from visiting her every day?”
    “She had the reputation of being a saint.”
    Salle-Weber laughed. “A stone-dead one! There’s no such thing as saints in Germany today.”
    “We’re not in Germany.”
    “There’s no such thing as saints in the General Government either.”
    “I said she ‘had the reputation’, Hauptsturmführer .”
    “Well, good enough. Don’t go anywhere after work tonight: I want you back here to give me a detailed account of what you saw when the body was discovered.”
    Bora resigned himself to the thought. “What will happen to Colonel Hofer?” he asked before leaving the office.

    “Oh, he’ll return to work when he gets his nerve back. We’ll have you keep an eye on him from now on, how’s that?” Salle-Weber locked the top drawer of Hofer’s desk with a key, which he pocketed. “Your interim commander is Lieutenant Colonel Emil Schenck, and I believe he has orders for you