“Johann?” Anja called above the noise. They were all well above the water now, although it remained a menacing presence below. “Johann, are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Johann said, forcing himself back into the world. He was certain that he could have fallen asleep clinging to the ladder given the opportunity.
“The trains, Johann, the trains,” Anja shouted after him. Johann’s sodden clothes pulled upon him like lead weights. His fatigue had such depth that he felt it to be interminable. No matter how long he lived, there would never be sleep enough to satisfy his exhaustion.
“Come on, Uncle,” Nadine said. Her tone wasn’t chiding—she could see that he was having a moment of repose.
With gargantuan effort, Johann began to climb again. He worked carefully, ensuring that he had a firm handhold and that his feet were properly positioned before stepping upward. Each of them was doing the same thing. To fall now wouldn’t just be disastrous; it would be foolish—they were so close to being back on solid ground.
Johann reached the top of the ladder and examined the manhole above him. He had never lifted one of them in his life. Was there a technique, or special tools, that were needed? Fearful of letting go of the ladder, he positioned himself directly beneath the object, lowering his head and raising himself so that the top part of his back and his shoulders were pressed against it. He tried a gentle push and felt resistance. He wondered what was above. Perhaps they had happened upon a place where a building had collapsed or a vehicle was parked. Any kind of obstruction on the roadway would make the metal cover impossible to move. They would be stuck.
He heaved his body against the manhole cover, thrusting upward. His legs shook and his knees ached, but the object wouldn’t budge. He relaxed for a moment and tried again. He could feel the anxious eyes of Nadine and Anja upon him. They all knew that if Johann wasn’t able to move the manhole cover then this was the end: There would surely be no more chances for them to escape their subterranean prison. Johann glanced down at his wife and niece and pressed again, forcing the object with all his might.
What was that? Johann felt a shower of dirt or sand fall upon him from above. He must have moved the cover enough to release some of the debris that had collected in the gap between the road and the cover—proof that the metal disk could be shifted.
“Can you open it, Uncle?” Nadine called from below. Her voice was still patient and controlled. He heard her take a sharp intake of breath as a shiver passed through her.
Johann didn’t reply. He paused again and summoned his energy. For a third time he pushed his body against the manhole cover. On this occasion he tried a different approach: explosive power. He would knock the object free with abrupt and concentrated exertion.
“Uncle?” Nadine asked again.
Johann counted down: three… two… one.…
His drove his body upward as hard as he could, his legs powering him and his back slamming against the iron of the manhole cover.
And there it was: movement. He felt the object shift. Swiftly Johann leaned forward to lift the plate onto the ground above. His back burned, but he felt the edge of the metal lid scrape against the street. His body was spent, so he set it down, praying that he had done enough for it to rest on the ground. He looked up, fearful of what he might see.
There was a slice of light. The gap wasn’t more than two inches, but a part of the manhole cover was resting on the surface above. Johann gasped, sucking air into his lungs. There was a lick of breeze from above. He looked down at Nadine and Anja and experienced a moment of release. Their faces—filthy and soaking wet, but relieved—were illuminated by daylight for the first time since they’d entered the U-Bahn at Friedrichstraße.
“Give me a second,” Johann said, clinging to the ladder. Dust blew down from above, collecting on his damp face. He pushed upward again, thrusting his body to the side. This time the cover shifted more easily, and he heard it scrape against the grit on the roadway. He looked up and saw clear daylight above him. There was enough of a gap to squeeze through. Johann clambered up the ladder. He reached up and placed his hands on asphalt before hauling himself from the hole. He cast a glance around, trying to work out where they were, before reaching down and helping Nadine then Anja—blinking and drenched—up into the daylight. All three of them sat, shattered, in the roadway. Water dripped from their clothing onto the road, forming dark puddles.
“You did it,” Nadine said to him. “You pushed it open.”
Johann hugged her before reaching over to Anja.
“We’re still here,” Anja said flatly. She looked at Johann. “I didn’t think you would be able to do that.”
There was no relief in her voice. It was simply a statement of fact.
Johann wanted to tell her that neither did he.
He loosened his belt, pulled up his tunic, and released the briefcase.
“What’s that?” Nadine asked.
Johann’s eyes met Anja’s. From his gaze she knew immediately that its contents were important.
“Just my stuff,” he said to Nadine breezily. He could tell that the girl didn’t believe him. He extended his hands to the women. If he sat any longer he would never be able to get up.
“We need to warm up,” he said, hauling them to their feet. “We need to move around.”
“We need to get to the train station,” Anja added, taking off her coat. “Grab one end of this,” she said to Johann. The two of them twisted the coat, squeezing the excess water from it. They did the same for Nadine.
“We’re not far from the station,” Nadine said.
Johann looked around. Almost every building around them had been damaged irreparably. It appeared that they had arrived in an unknown city, not somewhere he had spent most of his life. Johann spun around, searching for a familiar landmark. There was nothing; the city was a homogenous ruin. The remaining buildings had become merely the residue of what had once existed. Johann didn’t recognize any of it. The city was alien. How odd, he thought, to find a place so integral to the notion of oneself to be utterly foreign.
“We’re on Lüneburger Straße,” Nadine said eventually. She pointed to a row of buildings. “That’s where the post office used to be, and that’s where we went to get a birthday present for Tante Anja once, remember?”
Johann squinted. He remembered the day. He had picked Nadine up from school to enlist her help in buying a pair of gold earrings. The exterior of the shop had been vandalized by the SA; large Stars of David had been painted on the window and posters were pasted to the glass. A member of the Hitler Youth had been stationed outside to intimidate potential customers into going elsewhere. Johann remembered fixing the boy with such an intense glare that he shuffled away meekly, not daring to say a word. Johann and Nadine found a pair that Anja loved, but Johann had never enjoyed seeing her wear them. The street as it had once been reformed in his mind’s eye. He could see what Nadine was showing him now.
“Come on,” Anja said, stumbling over a pile of brickwork. “If we hurry we’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Hey!”
The voice appeared to come from nowhere. Johann whirled around and saw a man sitting inside a ruined shop. He must have been watching them all along. Instinctively Johann moved so that he was shielding Anja and Nadine from potential danger. He realized there was little cause for concern when the man moved toward them—he limped over with a crutch under one arm to compensate for a lost leg and then looked down into the subway.
“That’s a first,” he said.
They didn’t reply. Each of them was too tired to expend the energy necessary to manage this encounter.
“You’re all wet,” the man said. He was unshaven and dressed in—Johann estimated—at least three coats. He swayed slightly on his crutches as if he had been drinking. “Do you need clothes?”
“You have women’s clothes?” Anja said skeptically.
“Of course,” the man laughed. With a crooked arm, h
e gestured to the building he had appeared from. “This place I’m living, it was once a women’s clothes shop. There are boxes in the back. Come…”
The man hobbled back toward the store. Anja, Nadine, and Johann exchanged glances. Who knew if he was telling the truth?
“What do you think?” Johann said quietly.
“I want dry clothes,” Nadine said. Anja nodded.
The man stopped outside the former shop and waved his hand again. “Come,” he said. “I won’t eat you, I promise.” He chuckled to himself.
“Let me go first,” Johann said to Anja and Nadine, and followed the man inside the building. At the back of the ruined shop was an open door. The man hopped inside and pointed to a stack of cardboard boxes, which were piled next to a makeshift bed and kitchen.
“Help yourself,” the man said. “I have no use for them. I have no idea where the owners of this place are, but I doubt they’ll be back soon.”
Johann exited the shop and waved to Nadine and Anja that it was safe.
“We’ll be quick,” Anja said on her way inside. The man followed Johann back into the street while the women went to work, searching through the boxes.
“You were at Friedrichstraße, Sturmbannführer?” the old man said to Johann. The inflection in his voice made Johann think that the man doubted he was an officer in the SS.
“We were,” he said.
“My friend just came past,” the man said. “He told me that they killed hundreds in there. Filled it with water. Apparently they’re destroying anything that is useful to the Soviets. Will they leave us with nothing?”
“We were lucky,” Johann said.
“It’s true then?” the old man said. “We’re not waiting for the Soviets; we’re finishing the old girl off ourselves?”
“The old girl?”
“You know, Berlin.”
Johann nodded. “There’s no ‘we’ about it,” he said.
“How bad will it be?” the old man asked.
“Who knows?” Johann replied. “You’ll be okay. They’ll leave someone like you alone as long as you’re unarmed.”
“I’m ahead of you there,” the old man said, chuckling. “I had a Luger. I buried it in the garden only this morning.”
Johann started. He needed a weapon—his had been taken from him when he’d been captured.
“Sir, you’d be doing me a great service if you’d let me have the Luger,” he said.
The old man considered the request for a moment before gesturing with his thumb. “It’s out back,” he said. “You’ll see a couple of large pots—it’s in the dirt behind them. You’ll find a box of ammunition too, if you look hard enough.”
Johann retrieved the weapon, checked that it was still functioning, and fully loaded the magazine.
“It’s well cared for,” he told the old man, who nodded. The two of them sat in silence waiting for Anja and Nadine to appear. Moments later they were leaving the shop wearing completely new outfits. To Johann, it was like seeing different people.
“Thank you,” they both said to the old man, who acknowledged them with a half smile.
“Good luck,” Johann said to him as they departed.
The man just grunted.
Johann wasn’t sure what was worse, the stench of human effluvia beneath the ground or the choking smoke above it. The three of them trekked toward the station, coughing as they went. They came upon Washingtonplatz, and the air cleared to reveal that the station was still standing. Dozens of wounded people were lying outside, ignored by the hundreds of others hurrying past into the station, their numbers swollen by the lull in the bombing. Johann felt guilt, remorse, and a degree of shame. He should be tending to these people, not leaving them to die. He watched as soldiers distrustfully prowled the crowd looking for deserters and malingerers.
They were here at last. Surely he should be joyful that there was a possibility of escape. But the sight of hundreds of others crowding the station filled him with dismay. The very idea that they had held so dear—that had sustained them through great darkness—now seemed utterly implausible. He felt Nadine waver on seeing the mass of humanity and took her by the arm. He would smother his own doubts to protect those he loved. He stepped forward, leading his loved ones.
“Coming through, mind your backs…,” he declared as he maneuvered them through the bewildered hordes and into the station itself. The three of them paused at the entrance, taking in the scene. There were hundreds of people, all of them in varying states of desperation. Almost everyone carried several bags or suitcases. Some simply had bundles of belongings tied up in blankets. Frightened elderly people sat on abandoned armchairs. Order was being kept by policemen and harried railway officials in navy uniforms.
Above the chaos huge metal girders arced over the station with a latticework of smaller metal supports woven across them. Each square had once been filled with a pane of glass; Johann remembered the station was once encased in a semitransparent shell—smoke on the interior and the effects of the wind and rain had caused the glass to become milky and translucent. Now barely a pane of glass remained. Lehrter was now almost entirely open to the elements. The steam of a train drifted upward, crossing the threshold of the roof before blending with the smoke and clouds outside.
They walked on, passing a woman pleading with two soldiers to be let through to the ticketing area, which had been sealed off by security personnel.
“All the trains are full,” one of them said. “If you don’t have a pass then you should go home.”
“But I don’t have a home!” the woman cried, gesturing to a young girl standing, dazed, next to her. The child was wearing a canvas backpack stuffed with her belongings and was hugging a large toy bear.
“There’s nothing we can do, madam,” one of the soldiers said. “You’ll have to look for other arrangements. There is an NSV tent outside. They will find accommodation for you and make sure your daughter eats.”
“Please, sir,” the woman continued.
The soldier turned his back, muttering, “There’s nothing I can do.”
Johann nodded at the soldiers, his uniform—sodden as it was—guaranteeing him and the others safe passage to an area reserved for those who had the right documents to be able to travel. They struggled through the throng to reach an information board. Each of them stared upward.
“There are no trains,” Nadine said. “Look, no destinations, no times, no nothing…”
“But there are trains on the platforms,” Anja said, turning and looking behind them. “This makes no sense.”
A man carrying a large suitcase barged past Johann, knocking him back a step. At first the man appeared blasé about the mishap. His demeanor changed when he realized who he had bumped into.
“Apologies, Sturmbannführer,” he said, tipping his hat obsequiously. “My mistake.”
Johann nodded. From the corner of his eye he noted Nadine and Anja watching the exchange. He had grown used to the power of the uniform over the past days. To his wife and niece, the garb was still that of the enemy, someone to be feared. There had been such terror over the previous twelve years that it had become the default setting for existence. It was what people had come to know, because if they weren’t fearful, they would end up dead.
Johann looked around the station. The place was full of people frantic to escape. Each was likely to be willing to offer his or her worldly goods to board one of the two trains that idled beyond the barriers, engines belching out sudden bursts of steam as if agitated.
He would have to make the fear work for them.
“Come,” he said to Anja and Nadine. “Let’s find out what’s happening here.”
They battled their way through the swarming, restless crowd until they chanced upon a besieged clerk, his back to an information kiosk. The three of them approached, jostling with others to overhear what was being said.
“I keep telling people,” the clerk said, his uniform somehow immaculate, a silver watch chain dang
ling from his waistcoat pocket, “there are two trains going west as far as we know. This is not guaranteed. There could be an air raid at any moment.”
“Where are they going?” Johann asked over the head of a man in front of him.
“Who cares!” someone else shouted. The clerk persevered, his face demonstrating that he very much cared where the train was going, as the railway company was not in the businesses of simply sending trains into the beyond without a clear destination.
“That’s what is being decided by management,” he said. “We are trying to ascertain the extent of track damage in various areas.”
“But you think that there will be more trains leaving at some point later today?” Johann pressed him.
“We have every intention of running a service today,” the clerk said.
“What about tomorrow?” asked a woman wearing a maroon hat, her face drained. The clerk gave her a weary look and shrugged his shoulders.
“Who knows?” he said. “We hope so, but matters are not in our hands I’m afraid, madam.” Then he added, as if he was explaining that a tree had fallen on the line and there would be a minor delay to a journey, “I do apologize for any inconvenience caused.”
Others began to bark out questions while Anja, Nadine, and Johann slipped away.
“So the trains are running?” Nadine asked eagerly.
“Yes, there are two,” Anja said.
The three of them had to keep twisting their bodies to allow people to pass by.
“But what about the paperwork?” Anja asked.
“We’ll find a way on board,” Johann said.
“Let’s try one of the platforms,” Anja said.
They forced their way through, stepping over people who had taken to sitting on the station concourse. A large scrum of people was huddled against the entrance to one of the platforms, their bodies tightly pressed together.
“We’ll never get through,” Anja said to Johann.
The Nero Decree Page 33