All for Nothing

by Walter Kempowski

  He said to Katharina, seeing her tremble and hesitate, ‘It must be done, and today.’

  •

  What kind of a man would he be, she wondered, and would it be dangerous? Aren’t there laws of some kind? And then there was her husband, what would he say when he found out that she was giving shelter to someone, to a man? In her room? Was he an officer, anyway? And was it really to be today?

  •

  ‘Listen,’ said the pastor. ‘Yes, it must be so.’

  •

  After she had said everything she was feeling, she suddenly added, ‘Yes.’ She was impelled to say yes, something in her said it. She would do it, take the man in, in God’s name, and for a few seconds she became another person. Or perhaps she said yes only to get out of that dark room where the pastor sat in front of her, chewing her sausage.

  •

  He drew back the curtain over the darkened window and peered into the yard, penknife in hand, through a crack in the blackout material. He put his forefinger to his lips: a visit from Frau von Globig, who never usually came here, at this late hour? What would the neighbourhood think? Weren’t the neighbours already on the watch? – Brahms had known there to be someone crouching beside the water butt in the yard to listen in on what he had to discuss with the members of his congregation. But surely no one would think of crouching in the yard at this time of night, when the temperature was fifteen degrees below zero.

  ‘All right.’ The pastor took out his handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. So now this woman joined the roster of those who were to save a human life. That life would be handed on from one of them to another. And it would be done this very night.

  How people can rise above themselves. He’d preach a sermon about that one day. Not yet, but the hour would come, and it would come soon, when he could announce that fact. When he could free himself of fear for his own life, like Abraham freeing the ram from the thicket.

  •

  Then they came to what he called the procedere. How and where was the man to be hidden?

  Although Katharina had just said yes, listening to herself and not quite clear what it meant, it turned out that she had a good idea of how to smuggle a man into the manor house and hide him there, in spite of Auntie, the boy and the dog Jago. The Pole and the two Ukrainian girls mustn’t notice anything either, and of course on no account must Herr Drygalski, that snoop who went tramping round the house almost every day, looking up to check the blackout at the windows.

  She told the pastor how the stranger could get to the path that Drygalski had trodden in the park and climb the picket fence with roses growing over it.

  Several times Brahms got confused by her account: Round the house? Through the park? Climb the fence? The question was whether the poor man would be able to climb the fence at all, was he strong enough? And, ‘Trodden path?’ asked the pastor. Where exactly was it? The description was very vague.

  Katharina took the red pencil with which the pastor was annotating his Bible, found a piece of paper and did a sketch. Brahms put it on his desk. Then he thanked her, holding both her hands. So now let matters take their course.

  •

  When she had climbed up to the driver’s box of the coach, the pastor stood in the road for a little longer. Was he going to shake himself and say, at the last minute, ‘Oh, you know, I don’t think we’ll do this, we’ll find another solution!’ Because those who put themselves in harm’s way may perish there.

  No, he didn’t say so.

  The gelding looked back and tugged at the reins. How much longer would he have to wait? The animal was so cold that he too wanted to be back at the warm Georgenhof.

  •

  And as the pastor returned to his copier, Katharina drove away, clip-clop, the dark-haired woman in her white Persian lamb cap. She skirted the inside of the town wall, and branched off through the dark town itself. Should she look in on Felicitas, consult her? Pour out her heart? What would her friend say about this? That what she was doing was great? Felicitas could understand anything. Would she admire Katharina for her courage? But now, in her condition, she had other worries. And there was her husband in Graudenz, with all those deserters being shot every day.

  Or Dr Wagner? Could she go over the whole thing with him, quietly? Wasn’t he a very sensible man? And hadn’t she given him bread and sausage? Couldn’t she discuss matters with him? But the schoolmaster was in his own living room. He had warmed up the sausage broth and eaten a slice of bread and curd cheese with it. He was reading Livy. Perhaps he might venture on a new translation of the historian?

  •

  Katharina drove over the marketplace, past the Smithy Inn. The show at the cinema was just over, and people were streaming out, laughing and linking arms. The film had been The White Dream . . .

  Riding on the merry-go-round

  With her feet above the ground,

  Isn’t she a pretty sight?

  A skating star dressed all in white.

  The prison. The town hall. Might Lothar Sarkander still be at his office?

  She drove past the church again. The desiccated bridal wreath swayed where it hung. Could she still back out? Yes, she could reverse the whole process. There was time for that.

  Should she rush back into the parsonage to see Brahms, weeping, crying out, ‘I can’t do it!’ Surely the man would understand? He might be relieved himself.

  The pastor stopped what he was doing and listened. Was that woman coming back? No, it was too late for that now.

  •

  She was stopped again at the Senthagener Tor. She had to show her identity card once more. ‘Oh yes, Frau von Globig – out and about in this cold weather?’

  She didn’t want to know if there was a man sitting in the back of the coach.

  The church clock struck six. The pastor turned the handle of the copier: the stranger would soon be knocking at his door. So he must wait. He would send him on into the night, that was all agreed; he would feed him first, reassure him, and then send him on. The sketch of the Georgenhof lay on the table. Nothing could happen now.

  Tomorrow evening, under cover of darkness, the man would come back again and then be sent on once more.

  What were twenty-four hours?

  And in future he could keep well out of such things, couldn’t he?

  •

  The Georgenhof lay ahead, dark and menacing beneath the oak trees. Katharina got down from the coach and put her arm round the gelding’s neck.

  ‘Oh God,’ she said out loud.

  The horse put his ears back; everything was all right.

  10

  The Stranger

  That evening Katharina sat in the hall with Peter and Auntie. The wind was blowing huge snowflakes round the house and whistling down the chimney.

  Then it suddenly died down, and all was still. The Ukrainian maids were quiet. They had gone over to the Forest Lodge with little gifts from the pig-slaughtering party – tripe, chitterlings, kidneys – so that the lads there could share the sense of plenty up at the house. The girls didn’t want them to go short. Probably they were already frying those delicacies, with the Romanian playing cheerful tunes on his accordion.

  •

  Katharina picked up a cloth and went from picture to picture, dusting the frames, then sat down again with the others, sighing. How much time did she have left? What business of hers was this man who was going to climb into the house? And why was he to do it? Whatever his troubles were, they were probably his own fault.

  •

  She could well understand, said Auntie, why Katharina was moping like that. Dear Eberhard so far away, and all the comings and goings of the last few days, all those people! Visitors had been arriving so thick and fast, it was about time to have peace and quiet in the house again.

  She could really do with a glass of schnapps, added Auntie, and when she said that there was laughter. Auntie and schnapps! Well, why not after all that had been going on: the crazy stamp collector,
the girl who played the violin, the painter yesterday? It would be good to sit back, have a rest and take things as they came.

  On the other hand, she wouldn’t really mind if someone knocked on the door now, and another guest arrived, bringing life into this place. Then they might hear what was going on in the outside world.

  •

  Auntie wondered whether to mention the strange hints that the painter had dropped. Did Katharina know that criminal things were going on in the brickworks, that he’d seen men beaten up there with his own eyes? A pitiful sight they had been.

  And telling her to take down the picture of Hitler. What was the man thinking of?

  Didn’t you have to show something like that? If you didn’t defend first principles everything went down the drain. Wasn’t the Führer their ultimate prop and stay?

  •

  Katharina had heard about the brickworks too. From Felicitas’s window she had seen the Senthagener Tor being barricaded in the cold. And her friend had told her about the men begging for food, but the SS man had sent them packing. Felicitas’s husband knew such characters from Graudenz. He had said, ‘You don’t want to give such fellows anything, or you’ll never be rid of them. Criminals to a man! They’re like burs, brush them off in front and they’ll cling to you behind. Anyway, it’s forbidden. Give them anything and you’re just storing up trouble for yourself!’ Yes, Katharina had heard about the brickworks, but it was no business of hers, was it?

  In a gloomy mood, Eberhard had once mentioned that all was not going well in the east. He had seen certain things when he went there on duty . . . and if the wind turned, heaven knows, he’d said, what might come our way.

  And now duty had landed him in Italy.

  •

  Katharina hadn’t known that Auntie had a picture of Hitler in her room. His book Mein Kampf stood in the bookcase, still unread. Uncle Josef had said, ‘The man’s not as wrong as all that.’

  •

  Auntie definitely wanted a schnapps. Nothing was easy, as she always said. Katharina took a small bottle and two glasses out of the cupboard and poured some for both of them. Perhaps it would make her feel less like moping. Peter was given a glass of water, and they all drank a toast to each other.

  The boy stirred up the fire on the hearth to burn so brightly that you might think the whole house would go up in flames.

  •

  Then Auntie picked up her lute and plucked out the songs of her youth on its strings, singing in her cracked voice. Ribbons hung from the instrument as mementos. Musical gatherings in Breslau. Her dear Silesia; she would never, ever forget her native land. She thought of the day when they were thrown out, and that money-grubber stood in the doorway, hands in his pocket, laughing scornfully. He’d even fired the gardener, saying he had no further use for him, and the gardener had a wife and child. She used to stand on top of his wooden clogs and dance round with him.

  Beside the well, beyond the gate

  There stands a linden tree.

  How many a dream I’ve had of late,

  How many sweet dreams of thee.

  ‘Cheers!’ she said, and the women poured themselves more schnapps. Katharina sighed deeply, which Auntie found somehow comical. They talked about people’s dispositions, and how she always tended to take things lightly. And also, they said, work was a good medicine.

  •

  Katharina looked at the time. She got to her feet and walked up and down the room, then opened the door to the summer drawing room – ‘Brr! It’s cold!’ cried the other two.

  The moon had risen, and its huge disc was standing behind the trees. Moonlight fell through the tall, narrow windows into the room.

  •

  She looked round, and felt as if she had never before seen the pictures in the wallpaper on which the moonlight fell. A couple with a flute and a mandolin, dancing children, a soldier with a girl on a rearing horse.

  She looked at it all as if she had to impress it on her memory for the last time.

  The flute concerto at Sanssouci – domestic music-making.

  Eberhard had never been a man for going on holiday, the pleasures of dancing were not to his taste, and now there he was in Italy and must surely be doing something or other there. Perhaps there was a pretty child with him? One of those delicate, dark girls who put flowers in their hair? Who knew what was going on there at this hour of the evening?

  She imagined Eberhard in a plainly furnished country inn, with a girl pouring wine for him. Perhaps he was telling her about the Georgenhof, and perhaps she didn’t believe a word of it.

  •

  It was a long time ago since she had stood here with Lothar Sarkander. It had happened quite unexpectedly, in summer, when the doors of the drawing room looking out on the park had been standing open. They had seen the family sitting on the grass, and he had said, ‘What a picture!’

  Then there was that secret trip to the seaside.

  They had been seen sitting in the beach hut, she wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, he in a pair of white trousers.

  Had Eberhard never heard about it?

  She kicked the crates containing the worldly goods of the Berlin cousins and said, ‘What a pity. We could have had lovely parties here. With dancing.’

  •

  Peter followed her and put on the light. A broad beam fell on the snow outside, and the magic was gone.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, the planes! The blackout! Suppose Drygalski sees it?’ cried Auntie.

  So they switched off the light, closed the drawing room door, and sat down in front of the hearth again.

  •

  Before Auntie could go back to playing her lute, Katharina went to the telephone and dialled Sarkander’s number. Nine o’clock, it wasn’t too late for that. She let the phone ring for a long time, but no one picked up the receiver. Just as well – what would she have said to him?

  •

  She went into the billiards room, took a board game out of the corner cupboard and put it on the table by the hearth: a polished ashwood board with maple intarsia work, and a little box containing the turned wooden figures that went with it, shepherds, shepherdesses, sheep. Did they all belong together?

  ‘How do you play this?’ she asked. But Auntie didn’t know either. ‘It looks like a very old game,’ she said. You probably had to stand the pieces on the board, thought Katharina, setting them out at random.

  There were three white dice in a leather cup, and Katharina shook the dice and cast them on the table. A one, a three and a five.

  That made nine. Did it mean anything?

  ‘Nein for no, perhaps?’ said Auntie.

  Well, the dice were cast anyway, thought Katharina. She sighed so heavily that Auntie laughed.

  •

  Heinrich, the carriage is breaking. Katharina thought of the story of the faithful coachman tacked on to the end of the Grimms’ tale of the Frog King. But no, there wasn’t any iron band around her own breast breaking. She breathed in deeply.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ said Auntie. ‘If you ask me, you smoke too much.’

  •

  Katharina dropped a kiss on the tip of the boy’s nose and said goodnight. Then she went to the kitchen to find things to eat. This could be a very long night.

  •

  When she opened her door upstairs, she briefly felt something like relief. Her little armchair, the table with the fruit plates, her books – it was all as usual.

  But this was not a refuge for ever and ever; an adventure was going to take place here in the next hour, and it wouldn’t be a game.

  Katharina went into the conservatory and looked out. The moon was as small as a burning glass now, and its light cast the barred shadows of the oak branches on the snow.

  Katharina lay down on the bed. She hadn’t taken her boots off yet, and she looked through a photo album of the winding railway line over the St Gotthard Pass, with a view into the deep, rocky valley. She had always expected something to go wrong
, but the railway made short work of the mountainous journey. Over there in Italy it had been raining. Sunshine here, rain there. And she had thought it was the other way round. Eberhard blinking in the sunlight. ‘Got it wrong!’ she had written in white ink under the photo.

  •

  She listened for sounds in the house. The others were going to bed now, too. Peter let the dog out briefly, then his door closed, and so did Auntie’s.

  Katharina listened for sounds in the house and for sounds outside. She didn’t know that Auntie was standing at her own door, also listening, and looking through the keyhole, but everything was dark.

  •

  Katharina put the album aside. She was afraid. I am feeling naked fear, she thought, looking in the mirror. It was a feeling she had last had in her schooldays in Berlin, when her young girl’s diary had been found. She had been going to write something in it, and it was gone.

  •

  Her wedding in the dark church. Until death do you part? Would she be able to last a whole lifetime with Eberhard? Rise high, O red-winged eagle.

  Pastor Brahms hadn’t smiled, he had been in deadly earnest. Until death do you part.

  And that dream the night before the wedding. She had dreamt of Eberhard. He had been wearing long gloves, lady’s gloves, and he had said, ‘I must go and see to the cows now.’

  •

  She stood up again and went over to Peter’s room. She never usually did that, but now she sat on his bed and looked round the little room. The model railway going through tunnels, socks and trousers on the floor, boots thrown around at random. Paper planes under the ceiling. What a poor little life!

  The toy castle stood in the middle of the room, with knights behind its walls. The drawbridge was up.

  •

  Once she used to pray with the children every evening, as she remembered goodnight prayers from her own childhood, but when Elfie died the prayers had stopped. Now she would have liked to say one of those prayers for children with Peter . . . the angels spread their wings, to you creation sings, O Jesus my sweet joy . . . But it was no good. She neither folded her hands nor opened her mouth.

  She had no words at her command, and magic spells wouldn’t have been right. And she had never made the sign of the cross.