Nehmann kissed her. She looked radiant and she smelled even sweeter. Shalimar by Guerlain, he thought. The bottle must be nearly empty.
‘Our Leader?’ Nehmann held her briefly at arm’s length. ‘What did you think?’
‘I thought of all those letters you wrote me.’ She nodded towards the bedroom. ‘They’re in one of the drawers. I’ve kept them all. Show them to Goebbels. Make Hitler read them. Maybe there are two Stalingrads and you were in the other one. There has to be an explanation. Might that be possible?’
She smiled at him. She said she had to go. With luck she should be back in Berlin tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, certainly by the weekend. Whatever happened, the weather might be kind.
‘Wannsee?’ She’d half turned to leave. ‘Maybe a sailing boat?’
Nehmann nodded. He told her he needed to find a decent bookshop. He’d been away for a while. Things changed so quickly in Berlin. Any ideas?
‘Ja.’ She paused at the door. ‘There’s a little place called Lies mich. It’s in Kopernikusstrasse, off Warschauer Strasse. It’s easy to miss but there’s a tree outside. I was in there recently. Wiedersehen, ja?’ She blew him a kiss and left.
*
Lies mich. Read me. Sweet. The bookshop was a couple of minutes’ stroll north of the tangle of railway lines that fed the Hauptbahnhof. It was small, dwarfed by the five storeys of apartments above it, but the tree was the clue. Nehmann waited for a horse and cart to pass before crossing the street, enjoying the slant of late afternoon sun on his face. Schultz had asked him to lay hands on a German–Russian dictionary, nothing fancy. We’re going to be here for a while, he’d said. His Russian was barely adequate, and it would certainly pay to learn a little more.
At first, Nehmann thought the shop must have closed. There were a couple of dusty-looking novels propped up in the window, and a much thumbed guidebook to the glories of Potsdam. He lingered a moment, and then tried the door. A bell sounded deep inside as he stepped in. The place smelled musty. Bookshelves packed with titles receded into the gloom. Then he heard the faintest meow and a cat materialised from nowhere. It was plump, old, well-fed, three words you’d rarely attach to any animal in this city.
The cat wound itself around Nehmann’s ankles and he bent to fondle the little bony recess beneath its cheek. The cat responded at once, lifting its head and starting to purr.
‘Can I help you?’ An oldish voice.
Nehmann looked up. A man had appeared beside the little desk that served as a counter. He was in his sixties at least. He wore a pair of old corduroy trousers and a grey flannel shirt loosely tucked in. He hadn’t shaved for several days and the grey felt slippers were fraying at the heel. In the breast pocket of his shirt, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
Nehmann asked about dictionaries. The books here looked second-hand.
‘Which language?’
‘Russian.’
‘Ah…’ The old man had a lovely smile. ‘An accent like yours, I’m surprised you need one.’
‘It’s not for me. It’s for a friend.’
‘But you’re Russian, nein?’
‘Georgian.’
‘Same thing, isn’t it? Your age, you’d speak Russian from the cradle. Or did you say Niet?’
Nehmann laughed. He’d always liked the informality of Berlin, but this ageing bookseller already seemed to regard him as a family friend. Under the regime, conversations like this could quickly become uncomfortable but the old man had a companionable sense of mischief that Nehmann rather liked.
‘You have a choice of dictionaries, I’m glad to say.’ He left Nehmann beside the table and disappeared towards the back of the shop. Moments later, he returned with two books, one big, one small. The smaller one looked brand new.
‘You might recognise this.’ He weighed it in his bony hand a moment. ‘If you want a dozen, I’m happy to oblige. For an order like that a Georgian gets a handsome discount. Please, see what you think.’
Nehmann had seen the dictionary before. The regime had printed nearly a million of them in the days following the start of Barbarossa. In the aftermath of last year’s operation, went the logic, any enterprising German would find themselves in the wake of the invading armies, doubtless keen to make the most of this sudden windfall.
Nehmann leafed through the opening pages. There were cartoons of German troops being nice to Russian peasants. Underneath, three sample questions that might prove invaluable.
Wie weit nach Moskau? How far to Moscow?
Ist das Ihr Haus? Is this house yours?
Wir kommen in Frieden. We come in peace.
‘You think that’s funny?’
‘I do, yes.’
‘And your friend?’
‘He’ll think it’s funny, too.’
‘You know the east?’
‘My friend does.’
‘But you, do you know it?’
‘Yes, a little.’
‘Where?’
‘Stalingrad.’
‘You’re in the Wehrmacht, maybe?’
‘No.’
‘You’re homesick for Russians? You miss the language? The food? The music? The good manners?’
‘Of course. But no.’
The old man apologised. He was curious, that’s all. He didn’t want to offend his new customer.
‘Maybe the proper dictionary? This one?’
He offered the bigger of the two books. Nehmann shook his head. The small one was fine. It would keep his friend amused for weeks.
‘Good.’ A nod of approval. ‘Laughter and a new language often go together. A good student is a happy student, didn’t you always find that? In your Russian classes?’
Nehmann ignored the question. For the first time, he’d noticed the small, boxy radio wedged on a shelf between rows of books.
‘You listened to the speech this afternoon?’ he asked. ‘From the Sportpalast?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded.
‘And what did you think?’
‘Me? What did I think about that speech? About every speech that man makes? You don’t think there’s a reason I keep the radio on the fiction shelf?’
Nehmann blinked. The questions were beyond reckless. In Berlin, like everywhere else, it paid to hold your tongue when it came to strangers. Nonetheless he liked this man and viewed the trust he’d vested in Nehmann as a compliment.
‘You know about Stalingrad?’ Nehmann asked. ‘You know the way it really is?’
‘I have a daughter,’ he said. ‘And she has a boyfriend.’
‘In the army?’
‘In Stalingrad.’
‘And what does this boyfriend say?’
‘He says the Russians are good fighters. He says the Russians will never give in. He also says that there are millions of them, billions of them. The city doesn’t belong to us and he doubts that it ever will. If he was here in this shop now, I’d suspect he’d buy the bigger dictionary. Does that answer your question, young man?’
Nehmann laughed. He loved this man’s courage, his refusal to bend to the regime, and above all he loved his wit. The bigger of the two dictionaries, he thought. Perfect.
‘I’ll take them both,’ he said. ‘You’ve been in this shop long?’
‘Just over a year. I bought it for a song. The previous owner had died. His wife turned out to hate him. The sale was a small act of revenge.’
‘For what?’
‘The man had got the shop for free. 1938? Kristallnacht? The previous owner was a Jew. The SA chased him out and the woman’s husband helped himself.’
Nehmann nodded. Kristallnacht: the Night of Broken Glass. Synagogues, shops and other Jewish properties had been smashed up in the wake of an incident in Paris. A young Jew had killed a German diplomat and Hitler had unleased the thugs of the Sturmabteilung to do their worst. At Hitler’s elbow, masterminding this orgy of violence? Joseph Goebbels.
‘He really got it for nothing? This woman’s husband?’
‘Nothing.
Nichts. Nada. Rien. And you know the irony? He hated books. He didn’t even know how to read. She couldn’t wait to get rid of the place. Which made me lucky, too.’ He stared at Nehmann, contemplative, then he nodded towards the window. ‘You know what I still find when I get busy with my duster and my dustpan and brush?’
‘Broken glass.’
‘You’re right, my friend. Tiny fragments. And you know something else? That’s all this war is worth. That’s all we’ll be left with once it’s over.’
Nehmann nodded. He accepted the old man’s embrace and then stepped backwards.
‘So how much? For the books?’
‘A Reichsmark for the big one, my friend.’ The old man was smiling again. ‘And you get the comic for free. You’re going back to Stalingrad?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your choice?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then take care.’ Another embrace, briefer this time.
Nehmann opened the door and was about to step out onto the street when the old man called him back. He had something for him, something he wanted him to have. Not a gift, exactly. More a memento of their conversation.
The old man was flicking through a pile of magazines. Finally, he found what he was after. Nehmann was looking at a copy of Das Reich, Goebbels’ monthly magazine.
‘It’s the May edition. Have you read it?’
Nehmann was trying to remember. He sometimes wrote for Das Reich but did his best not to take the relationship any further.
‘I doubt it.’ He took the magazine. ‘What am I looking for?’
‘The editorial, of course. Self-indulgence is a Goebbels speciality. Feast yourself, young man. And then take it to Stalingrad and show it around.’
*
Nehmann didn’t want to go home, not yet. It was dusk now, but still warm. Street sweepers were out in force on the Warschauer Strasse, tidying up beneath the tall elms, and Nehmann found himself a seat at a pavement café table as the offices along the broad boulevard began to empty out. He ordered a beer and lit a cigarette, watching two women, arm in arm, as they paused at the kerbside, waiting to cross to the tram stop on the other side. They were laughing at some joke or other and one was carrying a tiny bunch of what looked like roses. Half close your eyes, Nehmann thought, and the war might be over.
Goebbels, it turned out, had addressed the same thought. His editorial was headlined What’s It All For? A tall glass of beer arrived, and Nehmann sat back, the magazine open on his lap, thinking of Goebbels’ face on the dais while his precious Führer was in full flow. This afternoon, Hitler had firmly established Paulus’s victorious army on the banks of the Volga. Afterwards, once Hitler had departed, Nehmann had enquired whether he was supposed to return to Stalingrad and Goebbels had nodded. The battle, as the Führer had confirmed, was as good as won. The Russians were beaten, and it was now the Promi’s job to make good on that promise.
Both Goebbels and Nehmann, master and servant, knew that ‘make good’ was a slippery little verb, just short of an outright lie, and there’d once been a time when Nehmann would have been baffled about what he was supposed to do. Could he summon battalions of infantry? Columns of tanks? Squadrons of Richthofen’s heavy bombers? Or was it really possible to marshal public opinion with nothing more than pen, ink and an untroubled conscience? The latter, of course, had now become a way of life and when he and Goebbels had parted on the pavement beside the Minister’s sleek Mercedes, he’d asked whether or not to expect more detailed instructions.
‘Not at all, Nehmann.’ Goebbels was in the best of moods. ‘Do what you always do so well. Make us happy.’
And so, there it was. Happy. A quarter of a million men digging themselves deeper and deeper into the frozen steppe, into the wreckage of a ruined city, into any hole that would offer shelter from Russian fire. Happy.
Nehmann turned his attention to the editorial in Das Reich. The war, in Goebbels’ eyes, was virtually over and now it was time to imagine the kind of world in which the entire nation would undoubtedly find themselves.
‘We are dreaming of a happy people in a country blossoming with beauty,’ Goebbels had written, ‘traversed by wide roads like bands of silver which are also open to the modest car of the ordinary man. Beside them lie pretty villages and well laid-out cities with clean and roomy houses inhabited by large families for whom they provide sufficient space. In the limitless fields of the east, yellow corn is waving, enough and more than enough to feed our people and the rest of Europe. Work will once more be a pleasure and it will be marked by a joy in life which will find expression in brilliant parties and a contemplative peace.’
Nehmann reached for his beer, only too aware of the thinness of the lie. A busy man, he thought, reaching for a handful of straw to toss to his readership. Pretty villages? Fields of waving corn? Brilliant parties? These were clichés. The writing was perfunctory. Neither Goebbels nor anyone else would ever believe this shit. It might draw a nod of assent, and even a smile, from the likes of Hitler and Goering, an important audience for the tricksters at the Promi, but no one else would be fooled for a moment. Certainly not the old man in his bookshop. And certainly not anyone with a moment’s experience, first-hand or otherwise, of life on the Eastern Front.
Nehmann closed the magazine and was about to toss it aside when he had second thoughts. Maria, he thought. When she comes back from Munich.
That night, he listened to her on the radio. Since he’d been away, she’d added to her repertoire. She played Liszt and Mozart, as well as a Beethoven sonata, and he smiled when the moment of silence at the end of her performance was swamped by applause. Acclamation like this, thought Nehmann, was genuine, a response to the music, something way beyond the reach of the Third Reich. This afternoon, so different, had been orchestrated for the groundlings in the Sportpalast, a very different audience, almost a sub-division of the Promi. They wanted to be lied to. They thrived on fantasy. Hence the near-hysteria in the hall at the end and the sour reek of the Führer’s efforts backstage afterwards. Brilliant parties, he thought. And the blessings of a contemplative peace.
Maria returned two days later. Nehmann, alerted by the Promi, was about to leave once again for the long two-stage flight back to Stalingrad. He’d harvested a couple of handfuls of chillis from his pots on the windowsill, a present for Schultz, and he was about to pack the three remaining bottles of Bordeaux from Guram’s cellar when he heard Maria’s key turning in the door. He met her in the hall. She looked exhausted. He tried to hold her close and said he was proud of the performance in Munich. She could see his bag readied by the door. She understood at once what he was really saying.
‘You’re going back?’
‘I am.’
‘Because you have to?’
‘Partly. Partly not.’
‘You want to go back?’
‘I have to go back.’
Nehmann was looking at her. The question he expected was ‘why?’ but it never happened. Instead, she wanted to know whether he’d managed to lay hands on a Russian dictionary.
‘Yes.’
‘At the bookshop I mentioned?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you met the bookseller?’
‘I did. Fabulous man.’
‘Good.’ At last she kissed him. ‘That’s my father.’
27
STALINGRAD, OCTOBER 1942
Schultz was delighted with both dictionaries. He and his tiny staff were still occupying their basement quarters in the bus depot, and when Nehmann enquired about the state of the battle the Abwehr man simply shrugged. The young Georgian prisoner, Kirile, was now part of the team. With his help they’d been monitoring Soviet command transmissions and it was obvious that the Russians, like Sixth Army, were exhausted. They’d fired too many bullets, too many mortar bombs, too many artillery shells. They were running out of targets, as well as munitions, and the following day – as if by some psychic act of collaboration – the shooting more or less stopped.
A sudden silence descended on what remained of the city, punctuated by occasional small-arms fire and the sharp bark of exploding landmines, often triggered by horses. In the aftermath, as Nehmann discovered, ration parties would descend on the corpse of the dead animal, men with axes and combat saws, everything muffled against the cold but their eyes. They’d kneel over the still-steaming entrails, hacking at the body, stealing away at the half-crouch, a foreleg or a haunch on each shoulder. At moments like these, Nehmann longed for a camera. This strange hiatus, this moment of frozen calm, had an almost biblical quality and in the long evenings he tried to do justice to it with words on paper.
Schultz read his work from time to time, puzzled by the intended readership.
‘You’re going to waste this stuff on Goebbels? You think that piece of shit will know what you’re trying to say?’
The answer, of course, was yes. Like it or not, the Minister of Propaganda was deeply cultured. He understood the impact of an arresting image or a well-turned phrase, but Schultz was right, as well, because the Reich had turned its collective back on the developing catastrophe in the east and didn’t want to be bothered with truths either large or small.
‘I’d be wasting their precious time,’ Nehmann admitted. ‘I’m here to write fiction.’
Next morning, after soundings around a tepid bowl of wheat and corn syrup porridge, Nehmann wrote a seven-hundred-word despatch about lice. He wanted, he said, to let the nation into one of Sixth Army’s more closely guarded secrets. Its real enemies weren’t the Ivans at all. It wasn’t even the cold, which was starting to make life a little difficult. It was lice, those tiny little presents from the devil.
Like the men themselves, lice loathed the weather. Lie in the snow all day, hunting for targets, and they’d never bother you. Come back in from the cold, with your reddened hands and your chattering teeth, and they’d wake up at once and make themselves known. In the words of a Feldwebel from Essen, they were like the Russians. Kill one, and ten more appear.
Last Flight to Stalingrad Page 24