The Succubus

Succubus
by Duncan Elva
The peasants of Central Europe, believed that the Buhldaemon came to
sleeping men bringing nothing
but pleasure. That which the priest snug in his Federbett and the arms
of a maidservant condemned as a
malign spirit, and which we dismiss as an onanistic fantasy, to the
Bauern and Paysans was real and
uniquely benign. All that she took from her mortal lovers to renew her
vitality was what they gave
willingly. She was the only supernatural visitor in the canon of Contes
and Maerchen never to bring
misfortune.
From the introduction to Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Deutschen und
Franzoezischen Maerchen by
Heinz Kanonenberg (Essen 1951) tr.James Puttock.

With the port outer feathered and the inner banging out black smoke,
they weren't
going anywhere but down. Full left rudder couldn't stop the B-17
drifting towards the
forest. They wouldn't make the fields. He wanted to cross himself, but
he couldn't spare
a hand. The wind screamed through the hole where the plexiglass nose
had been and the
tallest trees began to beat at the aluminum of the belly. "Almighty
God, save and
deliver us from the hands of our enemies. Brace yourself, Joe."
Then below them the uneven forest canopy fell away, and the aircraft's
shadow
straightened out on the even green surface of coppiced chestnut trees.
Their leafy tops
looked like a meadow and Zimmerman gratefully laid the Fortress down
for its last
landing. He glanced up at the last moment and saw glazed roof tiles
wink through the
wood at the B-17 before the racket started and the world turned
green.
He came round smelling hydraulic fluid and oil. Pushing through tangled
metal to what
the cannon shells had left of Joe Levin, he pulled off Joe's dog tags
and stuffed them in a
pocket. The smell of burning insulation was getting stronger and
something was
crackling and popping. Zimmerman scrambled through the open hatch into
broken
little trees. He didn't panic until he saw the pools of petrol and oil
on the dry ground
and found himself tangled in a maze of broken chestnut staves sticking
up like swine
feathers. The more scared he got, the more he caught up on the sharp
spikes. He flapped
his arms like a great bird and moaned as he struggled.
When he broke free, he ran to the trees and threw himself down on a
mossy bank,
winding down his fear. He found himself saying, "Oh, dear! oh, dear!
oh, dear!" like his
mother when something inconsequential had gone wrong at home.
A strong smell like a polecat or a fox took his mind off the plane, a
stink of earth and
animal and wildness. A hoarse voice asked, "Shouldn't you set fire to
it? Isn't that what
you're supposed to do?" It didn't sound like a grown man.
"No," said Zimmerman. He imagined a trigger-happy Hitler Jugend kid
with
undropped balls and a cocked Mauser. Best not to turn round, he
figured, in case it
spooks him. "No. The war's as good as over."
"The young woman on the nose, who is she?" Painted on the B-17 was a
girl in a
summer frock. She was sitting back with her weight on her hands. Her
knees were
raised, her long slender legs were apart and a skimpy frock had slid
down her thighs.
Beside her was a cup and saucer.
"The writing used to say, 'One Hump or Two?'" he explained. "Hence the
cup and
saucer. Hump is American slang. It means..."
"I know what it means. You didn't invent it." The voice didn't sound
like a Nazi or a
kid, so he turned round. Whatever it was sat awkwardly against a tree.
A matted
reddish mane covered its shoulders and, as Zimmerman scrutinised it, a
skeletal hand
came up to pat the hair into shape. It looked him square in the eye and
said, "You'll
have to carry me."
"Why? I'm not going anywhere. Like I said, it's as good as over."
"My friends had to leave me here," said the bundle of rags. Zimmerman
stood up. It
was a mistake. His knees began to shake and he could feel his eyes fill
and his lip
tremble. He nodded to make it look as though he was listening. "We have
to go deeper
into the forest, if I can remember the way."
The landing had used up a lot of the airman. He wanted to be told what
to do. He
wanted someone else to brief him and give him an order. He blew his
nose and was
surprised to find he'd blown little flecks of soot into his
handkerchief. "Remember the
way to what?" he asked.
"Pick me up and I'll tell you while we walk." He bent down and
reluctantly put his
hands under its armpits. It threw its arms round his neck and clung
with unexpected
energy. He turned his face away from the powerful smell. "It's only
dirt and sweat," it
said. "The girl on the nose, you were going to tell me what's written
underneath."
"Hermeline," he said. "It was Joe wanted to change it. The bombardier
got one of the
groundcrew to paint in the name."
"Then that's my name," it said.
"Hermeline is a woman's name." The thing didn't answer but pulled at
his right arm
until it had him by the hand and took it with its own into the depth of
the rags where
Zimmerman found himself cupping a soft breast.
He wanted to apologise but with her skinny legs locked round him and
her nails digging
sharp into his shoulders, they already seemed beyond that, so he just
said, "How do you
do, ma'am. My name is Rudolf Zimmerman. I'm pleased to make your
acquaintance."
For three hours, he carried her with her thighs chafing his hips and
her claws
scratching his shoulders raw. He saw the setting sun heliograph blood
red from the tiles
he had glimpsed before he landed. "It's a castle," she told him.
"Schloss Gemen. Such
times we once had there." Near the forest edge, the trees were mature
oaks and ashes.
But as the ground rose, Zimmerman walked in the dark of an ancient wood
of beech
trees stretching to the light like great animal limbs, veined and
sinewed beneath smooth
skin. Ridiculous great trees with trunks so massively architectural
that they ought to be
immortal, but with roots so shallow that every century or so a greater
wind than usual
would come and blow them all down. Wrecks of trees stretched horizontal
rotting into
mulch. Drifts of beech mast hissed beneath his feet. The lane became a
path and began
to meander as though the feet which made it had lost all interest in
direction.
They passed a poached and muddy crossroads lined with ramparts of sawn
logs. They
walked upon carpets of saw dust and beech chips and he asked, "There
must be
foresters. Won't they see us?"
"Taken as factory fodder," said Hermeline. "Or called up to serve in
the Landwehr."
Forest gave way to farmland and he saw that they had been skirting its
edge. They
climbed between young thorn hedges laden still with last autumn's haws.
The path ran
along a hog's-back and on to the knuckles of a hill overlooking a
valley of peacefully
grazing cattle. Spread upon the hillside opposite was a wilder wood of
tangled yew trees.
The sun was fading and Zimmerman wondered if the Lancasters would come
over in
the dark. "Over there," said Hermeline. "A charcoal burner's
hut."
The night was cold. Even covered with the sacks he'd found, Zimmerman
shivered. He
was too polite to push Hermeline away and he didn't know quite what to
do when she
kept gently but constantly moving against him. The ripe smell of her
body seemed
muskier and less repellent. As her fingers undid the buttons on his
fly, his breath began
to come in shallow little puffs that made his belly go in and out as
fast as his pulse. He
screwed his eyes shut and took one deep determined inhalation breathing
in Hermeline
and squeezing her in his arms. He felt horny and powerful; all cock and
balls. Hermeline
wound herself around him like a woodbine.
After, he lay happy in the dark warmed and comforted by the perfume of
their bodies.
Later, after they had deliquesced into one another again, Zimmerman's
mind took him
to another place. He was in a box with walls that leaned in like the
pinch at the end of a
slaughter house run. From outside came a roaring like water rolling
large stones over
and over, or like a terrible storm. It was the sound of four thousand
Wright Cyclones,
the din of five million horses. The uproar swelled to the tumult of a
hurricane
surrounding him but not touching him and he knew that he was in the
eye, in the still
centre. But it was not physical movement out there. It was the white
noise of chaos and
dissolution, of an end to all things.
The bed began to lean and roll over. It yawed clockwise and the
starboard wing dipped.
He tried to move the controls, but he couldn't. All of his energy was
bent to that but
nothing moved. He called Denny to help him shove, then he heard the
cannon fire. The
walls opened up to slide him out into the dreamless void. Then there
was a face looking
up at him. It was the navigator, Joe Levin. The face in the swirling
grasping darkness
was saying something. The roaring became the wind blowing through the
holes in the
aircraft. Now the face was above him and he was below, looking up. The
mouth grinned
and he heard the words. "Go to it, boy," shouted Joe. "Give her all
your best shots."
He woke when the sun was high. He didn't stir when the door opened and
Hermeline
came in with two rabbits. "Lazybones, up! Get a fire going in the
hearth there. If you've
got a knife, I'll gut these and clean them." He had no knife and he was
constantly
distracted from his fire-making by the sight of Hermeline's strong
white teeth tearing at
the rabbit skin. With a smooth piece of half-burnt wood, she stripped
the rabbits to
foetal bareness.
"Hermeline," called Zimmerman, and he paused until she looked up and
caught his eye.

She slit the rabbits' bellies with a long sharp thumbnail and paunched
them on to dock
leaves. When he had the fire going, he called to her and waited for her
nod of approval.
"We'll have to wait for the fire to get hot enough," she told
him.
She seemed to have no trouble squatting on the hard earth floor but he
was constantly
fidgeting. Her eyes were half closed as she looked into the fire, but
his were wide with
trying to see her more clearly in the gloom. He found a half
comfortable position with
his right leg under him and his hands clasped round his left shin.
Hermeline still looked
dirty and skinny but the life that had been absent when he carried her
was back now.
Her leanness was like a gypsy long dog's, functional and utile; a
likeness heightened by
the white of healed wounds as though she too had chased hares through
hedges and
wire fences. He wondered how she had caught the rabbits.
There were faint sounds of engines in the distance. Zimmerman walked
out to the path
and listened. From far away there came the squealing and grinding of
the twentieth
century. Tracked vehicles might be the Abwehr in retreat but he had a
feeling inside
that it was Bradley and the Twelfth Army. They went on and on in that
Yankee way. If
at first you don't succeed, throw in more men and money until you wear
the other guys
down. He walked back slowly. Squatting opposite Hermeline, he screwed
up his resolve.
"We could hide out," he said. "We could survive together until the
war's over. It can't
be long now."
"Zimmerman, are you planning to desert?"
"Not exactly. I could pretend I was hurt in the landing. You know." She
was smiling
and that annoyed him. "I've done enough. They'll send me back to the
States, anyhow."
Smoke blew into his eyes and stung. "I want to be with you," he said.
"Always." And it
sounded as silly as he thought it would. He felt very young. Then he
remembered all the
missions flying into flak and fighters and he felt very old. "What's so
funny about
always?"
"Live for the moment. Love is like the moon. A moon that stands still
and does not wax
and wane is not a moon, Zimmerman. It is a street light. Small and of
no consequence."
"Can't love last forever?"
"No. Not in the way you mean. Love is a game. You can learn its rules
and conventions
like any game. You may never be a grand master, but nobody need be bad
at it. Practice
is fun, isn't it? The game is more important than who you're playing.
The game's the
thing."
Zimmerman scowled. This was like being back in school. Hermeline wagged
a finger at
him. "Remember that love is a serious business."
"That contradicts what you just said."
"Do you enjoy flying?"
Zimmerman blew on the fire to make it blossom. "It's a bad question,"
he said. "I feel
alive when I'm flying. But it scares me and it could still kill me. I
guess I believe I'll
survive, though. And I sure want to go on flying."
"You've answered your own question. Nothing is more important than the
game. It
takes precedence over trivial matters like life or death. The element
of chance is what
you have to have. Skill and chance. Chance and change. Trust nothing
fixed and
immutable. Most of all, distrust yourself if you find you've stopped
changing. Here, take
these rabbit guts outside and throw them well away from the hut."
Pulling roasted rabbit apart with his fingers reminded him of days in
the woods with his
father. When he wiped his chin, he felt the stubble on his cheek and
wondered how it
made him look. After their meal, he found a handleless jug and offered
to fetch water.
"No point you going," laughed Hermeline. "You wouldn't find clean water
unless it fell
on your head. I can sniff it out in a desert." The sun was setting when
she returned and
Zimmerman's appetite for her sharpened. "Food shared feeds more than
hunger," said
Hermeline. "Do you know what 'in yarrack' means? No? Well, it's an
expression that
falconers and austringers use to mean that a bird is fed well enough to
be fit, but
starved enough to want action. You're in yarrack, Zimmerman, and we
have the night
ahead of us."
When he woke next morning, Hermeline was shaking out her rags preparing
to put
them on. When he'd carried her into the forest, she couldn't even
stand. Now when she
stretched the staleness out of her muscles, she looked as though she
could run for ever.
She felt his eyes on her and smiled at him. "I haven't changed," she
said. "You have.
You shared yourself with me."
He frowned and tried to understand what she meant. There were a lot of
things he
needed to ask her. She touched his cheek. "I have to go soon. Listen!"
Above the roar of
truck engines labouring up the hill were voices. You didn't need to
distinguish words to
know that they were American. Something in the timbre and the
intonation. He took
her in his arms but he belonged outside where today's events were. A
man had to do as
he was told and the men with orders were coming nearer. He clasped her
to him.
"One more thing. Are you listening?"
He nodded into the curve of her neck and whispered, "Is it more
advice?"
"Try to remember this one. At least the spirit of it. Are you paying
attention?" She
stroked his hair. "Inaction in love poisons lovers. Drink from running
water not from
still. Doing something often ends badly, but doing nothing always
always ends badly. Do
you understand? Hold nothing back when you love, but don't cling. When
an affair is
over, it is over. Learn to leave with a smile and a fond embrace.
Always with a smile,
Zimmerman. I shall remember your smile."
But he was young enough to want to leave something tangible as a
remembrance. His
jacket would make her too conspicuous. He put his hand in his pocket,
felt Joe's tags
and wondered what he would have done.
On an impulse, he took off his shirt and gave it to Hermeline. She
pulled it on and
raised her eyebrows when a downcast expression came over his face. "You
wanted to
keep the shirt because it smells of us. Is that it?" He nodded. "We lay
on your flying
jacket, too." He picked it up and grinned. "That's something you'll
keep forever if you
survive the next few weeks."
The sounds were very near now. Outside the hut. Zimmerman wanted to
tell her
something but the blunt nose of the first four by six came round the
trees and he
realised that she had slipped away round the back of the charcoal
burner's shelter.
"Say, buddy," shouted one of the men. "What in hell you doing up here?"
He jerked a
thumb over his shoulder to point down the hill. "You from the Flying
Fortress?
Someone sure put that down neat and tidy. Climb up, bud. Grab my arm.
Is it just you
or is there anyone else?"
"No-one else," said Zimmerman. "Let's go."