Jürgen Stahl. Episode 3: The General.
An Encounter at Someone Else’s Altitude.
We crossed the perimeter of the military base in the dead of night. The gates clanged and parted exactly as the searchlight beam brushed across the metal bodies of the SUVs. After the chaos of the mountain serpentines and the acoustics of the Iron Cathedral, the rigid geometry of the base felt almost therapeutic. Here, the night was different—not a bottomless natural void, but a strictly demarcated space. The lamp light fell upon the asphalt in measured rectangles. The shadows had sharp boundaries.
Getting out of the car, Clara stretched, inhaling the night air, then adjusted her hair and looked around. Hans rolled his shoulders, as if only now gravity had reminded him of the weight of his own body. Konrad mechanically ran his palm over the reinforcement ribs of the equipment cases, checking the safety of the cargo on the level of muscle memory. Jürgen immediately looked up, professionally assessing the load-bearing structures of the communication masts. And I caught myself trying to find an extension of the Cathedral’s Gothic vaults in the standard concrete blocks of the barracks. In vain. There was only utility here.
We were assigned quarters for the night. Jürgen, Hans, and I were placed in the officers' block with its strict minimalism: iron cots and metal lockers smelling of gun oil and bleach. Konrad was moved to the technical sector, closer to the warehouses. He needed to check the equipment first thing. He didn’t even nod; he just took his backpack and dissolved into the shadows of the hangars. Clara was accommodated in the residential sector—in one of the houses for officers' families.
I lay down almost immediately, but sleep wouldn’t come. After the Cathedral, the local silence felt unnatural. There was no weight in it. My brain continued to process the acoustics of the past day until I finally fell asleep.
Morning began not with a wake-up signal, but with the smell of coffee rising from the first floor. The three of us went down to the mess hall. Konrad was already sitting in a far corner, surrounded by notebooks, drawing a circuit diagram directly on a napkin. Soon Clara appeared. A woman escorted her to the doors and said a warm goodbye.
We had just started breakfast when an officer with a cane entered the hall, limping slightly. Tall, fit. In his movements, there was no showy self-importance, only the precision of a man whose life is regulated by code. All the military personnel stood up. It was a General. His gaze slid across the hall and stopped on Jürgen, as if searching for him specifically.
Jürgen rose and took a step forward. They embraced. Short, firm, without pats on the back. It was how safety carabiners lock together. It was the greeting of people who had once passed through a critical point of tension together. Hans froze puzzled with his fork. Konrad looked up from his diagrams. Clara watched Jürgen very intently, fixing this moment as a new, vital fact about her husband’s brother.
After exchanging a few phrases, the officer placed something in Jürgen’s hand, and they bid farewell; it was clear the general was just passing through. A duty officer intercepted Jürgen to sign papers. Hans and Konrad went to load the cases. I followed the general out onto the parade ground. My curiosity literally pulled me from my seat; I had to know the story of their acquaintance. I caught up with him at the checkpoint.
— “Forgive me, ” I said. “Have you known Jürgen long?”
He turned. Looked at me appraisingly.
— “Long, ” he answered evenly. “Since he worked at altitude, when…”
His tone excluded any metaphors.
— “The night the accident occurred, I was on duty at the radio relay tower. I was a lieutenant then. And your brother was a rescuer.”
The officer fell silent, looking somewhere over the roofs of the barracks, toward where the mountain peaks hid behind the clouds.
— “If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be wearing these epaulets now. In fact, I wouldn’t be wearing anything at all.”
The parade ground suddenly seemed too spacious to me. I looked at the massive communication masts piercing the morning sky and realized that the story Jürgen had mentioned only in passing had an entirely different scale.
— “He didn’t tell you?” the officer asked.
— “Jürgen considers words a waste of energy, ” I replied.
The officer smirked.
— “That’s his style. Then perhaps I should tell you. I think we will meet again.”
He got into a black Mercedes S-Class; the engine started almost inaudibly. The car pulled away smoothly and drove past the perimeter. The soldier at the checkpoint snapped to attention.
— “The boss?” I asked.
— “Staff, ” he replied quietly, with respect, saluting the car disappearing into the fog.
Echo of the formation. A rhythm that doesn’t falter.
I watched the communication masts receding into the morning sky. A squad emerged from the far edge of the base—a routine changing of the guard. No showy drilling. Just morning rhythm. Steps fell evenly, almost softly. Heel—asphalt. Heel—asphalt. The sound wasn’t loud. But there was no hesitation in it. Not one out of step. Not one rushing.
As if the steady rhythm of the pulse, by its very presence, reminded me of Clara’s music. Not the stage. Not a concert. But the way she sometimes checks the sound—barely touching the keys. Or how she takes the first note without any intention to impress. She, too, has no fuss. No attempt to outshout the space. Only the confidence that the sound will find its own place.
The formation passed by. The soldiers' boots broke the mirror surface of a puddle, kicking up splashes and leaving circles on the water’s surface. A moment ago, the sky lay calmly within it. Waves scattered in all directions under the rhythm of heavy steps. And the water, silent a minute ago, now reacted to the intrusion, reflecting dark silhouettes and the hems of greatcoats.
The formation moved further down the street. The rumble of steps grew muffled, the ripples on the water—wider and slower. Gradually, the surface of the puddle leveled out, calmed, and again took in the boundless sky. But for a while longer, barely perceptible, fading oscillations lived within it. As if the water carefully preserved the memory of that heavy force that had just passed through it.
Looking at this pulsating surface, you realize: altitude also has its own archive. And it contains more than just protocols of falls or miraculous rescues. Like this water, altitude forever fixes the vibrations of those moments when a person manages to remain themselves—despite the pressure, the rigid discipline, the clang of metal, and the laws of foreign territory.
I stood for a bit longer and returned to the building. Clara was sitting by the window with a cup of coffee. The light fell on her hair, and it seemed the morning had begun not with a wake-up signal, but with her quiet presence. And because of that, the base no longer seemed foreign. I suddenly caught myself thinking that she always knows how to make a space her own—balancing between silence and presence.
(from the notes of Viktor Stahl)