On August 17, 1916, Romania declared that they would join the Allies. Ten days later, they sent troops into Transylvania to fight Austria. We heard about these developments in the trenches on the Western Front.
Count Silvestri’s homeland had finally joined the war effort.
What would the Count do? He’d coldly told Milos he wouldn’t do anything, even looking annoyed by the mere thought of it, but would he fight to save his motherland if it came to that?
Before that question could be answered, Romania was swiftly pushed back by the Bulgarian Army, Austria’s ally. This happened right at the beginning of September. After that, the Romanians clashed with a multinational army of the Central powers consisting of troops from Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria, which they also lost, ultimately forcing them to abandon their incursion into Transylvania.
It was evident that Romania had attacked without being sufficiently prepared. They had sent ill-equipped, barely trained soldiers to fight generals who were tried and tested in real battle. Victory had only ever been a pipe dream.
The Count must have known that the Romanian Army couldn’t win. He’s spent enough time wandering around the front lines and knows all about the new weapons and tactics that are being used. As much as he says that he detests the idea of helping and that he won’t do anything, he still keeps up-to-date on the latest information. While it’s true that the Count is tired of war, there’s no doubt that his soul has retained some of his original warrior’s spirit.
Recently, whenever I sense that something is about to happen on the battlefield, the muscles in my left cheek and lower eyelid start to twitch. It feels as if a small fish that lives under my skin starts flailing around.
No one notices something like that during the chaos of battle, but when the fighting dies down and soldiers have time to look around at one another’s faces, I feel a sense of shame knowing others can see my affliction. To hide it, I got a bandanna from a medic, which I wrap around my head like an old-timey pirate. I pull it down a little on the left side of my face when I need to, so people can’t see the twitching.
Even when I do that, no one asks about it or teases me. None of us has the extra energy to worry about or make fun of anyone else anymore.
So far, the spasms have stayed contained to just my face. Everything else is fine. I can still move my arms and legs normally. It comes from extreme stress and overwork, so if it gets worse and the spasms spread, my head could start bobbing uncontrollably, or my hands or feet could start shaking so badly that I won’t be able to walk. I’ve seen it happen to other soldiers in my unit. My entire body goes limp thinking that I might end up the same way.
Fritz still treats me exactly the same, even with the bandanna hiding the left side of my face. He acts like he understands my situation without my having to explain it.
Like always, he sits on the ground whenever he can, drawing in his notebook.
Artists are tough. They must face reality with the same passion they devote to their art.
Maybe once Fritz draws the monsters in his notebook, they take shape and protect him from harm. If so, then he might be less an artist than a conjurer.
We’re eating one day when he whispers in my ear, “You’re the only one I’m going to tell this to, but I recently saw a monster in real life. In the trenches.”
At first I think Fritz’s tough spirit might have cracked, so I just sit there staring at him without saying anything. He’s dead serious. Still holding my bread and my plate, I shrug, then stand up and take Fritz somewhere away from everyone else.
After checking to make sure there’s no one around, I say, “Are you sure you weren’t just seeing things because you haven’t been sleeping enough?”
“I’m serious. It spoke German.”
“It spoke to you?”
“Yeah. I saw you standing around talking to it, too.”
“When was this?” I ask with a frown.
“A little while ago. In a corner in the trenches.”
I lean in close to Fritz and lower my voice. “Did you really see it?”
“Yes.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He said he found it amusing that I could see him. He also told me I would die if I stayed here, and I asked if he was the God of death, but he said no.”
“What was his name?”
“He said it was Nil, monster of nothingness.”
I almost click my tongue in irritation. So he hasn’t just been contacting me, but other people? What game is he playing?
“Can you draw what he looked like?” I ask.
“I already have.”
Fritz takes his notebook out of his pocket and quickly flips through the pages.
The moment I see the drawing he opens to, all words fail me.
Countless lines intersect on the page, creating what I can only see as chaotic scribbling devoid of any meaning. I think it might be some sort of optical illusion, so I look at it from different angles, squint, and stare, but the jumble of light and dark lines don’t take on any shape. It differs from the avant-garde style as well, which purposefully bends lines and uses angles to depict people and things. No matter how I look at it, Nil’s wicked grin in the darkness doesn’t come to me.
“I don’t see anything,” I say dubiously.
“I drew him just like I saw him,” Fritz responds. “Nil didn’t have a shape. He was formless, radiating heat and surrounded by what looked like smoke. This is the only way I could depict him in a single drawing. Did he look different to you?”
“He looked just like a person.”
“What?”
“When I met him here, he was a middle-aged man wearing a soldier’s uniform just like you and me.”
“How come we both saw him differently?”
“No idea. More importantly, though, what did you two talk about?”
“He asked me all sorts of questions. Like if I could do other things besides draw, if I wrote poems or stories, if I could sing well, and if I could make things from empty casings and bits of metal. When I told him all I can do is draw, he nodded and said people like me can see monsters. I showed him my notebook, and he reached out as if he had arms and fingers, took my pad, and started flipping through it. Once he’d finished, he closed my notebook and handed it back to me. A gentle breeze brushed my cheek, and he said, ‘Thank you for showing me something wonderful.’ I actually got a little excited by that.”
“You shouldn’t be happy that a monster complimented you.”
“But he’s a real monster…”
“They’re not that rare. He’s the same as all those ones you draw, isn’t he?”
“Every monster I’ve drawn so far was one someone else already discovered and recorded in a book.” Fritz’s eyes take on a strange glimmer. “I was just copying them. If they didn’t provide an illustration, I’d read the description and draw it based on that. None of them is a monster I’ve actually seen.”
“I think everything else you’ve drawn so far has been more impressive.”
“You don’t understand. Something you discover with your own eyes is so much more exciting—even if it is like smoke you can’t grasp the shape of. It was close enough to touch, and I talked to it. It’s not about whether it makes a good picture; what matters is that I met it face-to-face. Why didn’t you tell me about it earlier? It’s not fair for you to become friends with a monster before me.”
“He approached me out of the blue.”
“What did you talk about?”
I can’t tell Fritz about simulacrums, so instead I say we talked about the sorry state within Germany and the social revolution, just as Nil had told me to. But that only makes Fritz more jealous of my relationship with Nil, and he even asks me to let him join in the discussion next time Nil comes to visit me. I give him a noncommittal reply and leave it at that, but, of course, I have no intention of letting him meet Nil. The next time I see him, I’m going to warn him to stay away from Fritz.
Just then, an officer yells out a command. Sentries have spotted the enemy. I clean up my plate so I can go back to my post, then push up my bandanna to see out of my left eye and put on my steel helmet. My lower eyelid twitches violently, but right now, I don’t have time to care. I pick up my rifle and lean against the side of the trench. Fritz lines up next to me.
“What the hell is that?!” the soldier at the trench periscope cries out in a frenzy. “Some kind of giant oil cans are rolling toward us. And British soldiers are marching behind them.”
“What?!”
“They might be carrying some kind of explosive. Surely they can’t be thinking of throwing those things into the trench…”
“Are people pulling them?”
“It doesn’t seem like it. They might be pushing them from behind, but I really can’t tell for sure. They just keep coming. I can see at least twenty from here. What are they going to do with them?”