All for Nothing
Page 26
She had borrowed Katharina’s radio set; she could take it back to her room any time.
I’ll whistle at your window
Tootle-tootle-too,
And softly, softly, softly
Then I’ll creep in with you.
‘What does it say on the news?’ asked Wagner. But when Herr Hesse was about to tell him he waved him away. What kind of news could there be now?
There was nothing to interest him here any more. Where was the telescope? Shouldn’t he take it back? Had he left it in unreliable hands? It had disappeared, it was no use looking for it now.
The Hesse boys had fallen eagerly on Peter’s model railway. They sent the trains speeding round the curved track.
•
Sonya was standing in the kitchen, the Czech with the leather cap standing in the yard. No, she said when Wagner asked for bread and sausage for him to take for Katharina, no, she couldn’t help him. It was none of her business. The Globigs had taken everything with them. She locked the kitchen door. Katharina wasn’t her responsibility.
•
The cellar fascinated Herr Hesse. He wouldn’t leave it alone. ‘There’s nothing down there,’ his wife had said, but that couldn’t be true. He summoned all his energy to get to the bottom of the puzzle. After all, as a young man he’d been able to swing round in a circle on the horizontal bar and straddle the horse, hadn’t he? So he roused himself and went down the cellar steps, carrying the electric torch. He took off his shoes and rolled up his trouser legs. Down the spiral staircase, climb into the water, go along the passage – it was vaulted, and longer than he had expected. A date: 1605. Was there wine stored here?
‘Oh, do come back out!’ called his wife. Her voice echoed. ‘I’m sure this isn’t a good idea. All that cold water!’ She kept the boys back when they wanted to investigate the cellar as well. ‘Do you want to catch your death?’
Herr Hesse explored the place thoroughly, but there was nothing there. No wine, not anything at all. Just as his wife had said. The end of the passage was bricked up. An escape route from the old days? Did it lead to the ruins of the castle?
The water here had been stagnant for a long time, the floor of the passage was smooth and slippery – there! Hesse lost his footing and fell into the water. He was about to call to the boys and his wife – ‘Helga!’ But it was all over. Did he think of stocks, hollyhocks and phloxes at this, the last moment of his life? Or all his Stone Age axes and scrapers? His mouth contorted, he gurgled for a moment, a few bubbles rose to the surface, and then all was still and the water extinguished the electric torch.
19
Vladimir
Next morning Auntie waited in vain for the Pole. Five on the dot, she had said, but there was no sign of Vladimir. Peter went from cart to cart; vehicles were already leaving the football field one by one. He was looking for the Pole. Then he kept a lookout from the coach, standing on the driver’s box, like a general taking the salute at a military parade, up above the murmuring crowd assembled here, with the light of electric torches and stable lanterns flashing over it.
Surely the Pole must come round the corner soon? Auntie too was asking herself that question. Was he taking his time, stringing them along? He’d be sorry for this, no doubt about it – a man who had been so well off with the Globigs! Fancy making them wait now. She sent Peter off in search of him, but he couldn’t find Vladimir. He couldn’t find the cart, he couldn’t find Vladimir, and there was no sign of Vera either.
Perhaps Vladimir had gone to see a doctor about his injured finger? Was the hangnail infected? That could be nasty – but finding a doctor at this early hour?
He asked the woman at the soup kitchen – Heil Hitler! – whether a man wearing a square Polish cap had been there, and he also asked the Party official who made sure everything was in order.
Some children having a snowball fight asked if he wanted to join in. No, they hadn’t seen a Pole with a square cap either.
Perhaps, it was suggested, the Pole hadn’t been allowed on the football field because he was a foreigner?
‘Yes, imagine letting those fellows run around as they like,’ said the Party man. ‘Such people can’t be trusted for a moment.’
It seemed to him strange for anyone from the east to be trusted. In fact he thought he’d have to find out whether that was legal. He’d come back later and look into the matter carefully.
Peter returned to Auntie. ‘I can’t find him anywhere.’
‘This is impossible,’ said Auntie. ‘I’ll go and look for him myself . . .’ And then the answer occurred to her. ‘Of course, he doesn’t own a watch! He can’t tell when it’s five o’clock!’
But even that got them no further; and after all, you could hear the clock striking in the church tower everywhere. Finally Auntie put on her rubber overshoes and set out herself, and she easily found the third street on the right where Vladimir had left the cart. A pile of horse dung marked the place, and that was all. The cart itself was nowhere to be seen.
She combed the streets of the little town, every nook and cranny of them, but in vain. And when she got back to the football field, where carts were steadily leaving – the gelding was already looking round for her – there was still no Vladimir. Well, he might have been here.
No doubt about it, however, Vladimir had gone.
•
It was clear: the Pole had gone on by himself to who knew where? The man had left them in the lurch. Wanted to go off on his own, with his lover, perhaps to make his way to his native Poland? Get his little lambs into safety and begin a new life? But how could he get back to Poland, with Russians all over the place?
•
Auntie went to see the mayor of the town – Heil Hitler! – but his office was closed. She went from there to the police, Heil Hitler, but they were no use either. The police were busy dealing with drunks who were staggering about in the road. Auntie would have to wait until daylight hours began, and then they’d turn to her complaint. They really couldn’t look at the matter now. On the way back she cast another glance at the third street on the right. Still nothing to be seen. There was another cart now where theirs had been, with strangers using the space.
•
She went to the Party official who ruled over the football field, and he advised her to report to the police next morning. That, he said, was essential. She must report to the police. ‘They’ll find that Polack.’
How irresponsible, letting those foreigners wander round freely. To think that such things were allowed.
•
Now she must feed the gelding, and the fodder for him was on Vladimir’s cart. What was she to give the poor animal? It was all on Vladimir’s cart: Eberhard’s suits, the bed linen, the milk cans of dripping, their underclothes!
The oats!
Then Auntie saw a bale of hay hanging from the back of the coach. It had not been there before. So Vladimir had at least left that, he had thought of the gelding. And he had even left a sack of oats tied to the coach too. He’d thought of the horse before making off. No one, after all, is bad through and through . . .
He had probably moved the fodder in Albertsdorf, at Uncle Josef ’s house. When no one yet suspected him of anything bad. So he’d already planned everything ahead at that point.
‘Who’d believe it?’ cried Auntie, and her hands were shaking. ‘We’re none of us a match for such people.’
She began thinking of all the stuff packed on the big cart, now lost for ever! Their clothes! The table linen! The silver . . . all the silver! The beds, the milk cans full of dripping and sugar. The photographs! And all the business documents of the Georgenhof. Although not the English steel shares, and the agreements with the Romanian rice-flour factory. Auntie had put those in her handbag.
It was odd that the sack of oats was stamped with the name of Albertsdorf. So that was where Vladimir had organized his operation? Or to say it straight out, his theft. Nothing was easy!
•
•
Peter was sitting in their reserves of straw, while snow came in through the broken window. He was trying to put separate flakes under the lens of his microscope – playing a game of catch with the ice crystals – but it was no use. Any flakes that he caught melted at once.
•
They were allowed to wash in the gymnasium – Heil Hitler. Hot water was ladled out from the soup kitchen’s supply. Where gymnasts used to straddle the apparatus, swinging up and sideways over the bars, people from the National Socialist People’s Welfare now stood keeping things in order. There were nurses available as well. Heil Hitler. Vladimir’s injured finger could easily have been treated here. But he’d had ideas of his own.
The refugees sat at long tables, and were given coffee. There were not so many as on the day before. A number had gone on again at first light. But others were arriving, tired and frozen. And soon the football field was full again.
Some carts were even coming back from the way Auntie had meant to take, towards Elbing. The police had made them turn round because there was no way back to the Reich now.
•
A Party official went from table to table, Heil Hitler, saying comforting things to the refugees. Just as Pastor Brahms used to go from one to another member of his congregation at the mission party in Mitkau, the Party official too placed his hand on the refugees’ shoulders. Heil Hitler. He spoke words of comfort. The chaos would soon die down. Ways and means would be found. He was acting just like Pastor Brahms, who at this moment was in a single cell in Königsberg with two bolts on the door. He had a black eye; his right eye was badly bruised.
•
When at last it was eight o’clock, Auntie went back to the police. Heil Hitler. She had to wait, of course; there was a long line of people in search of advice. When her turn finally came, she was treated in a friendly way. A middle-aged police officer even offered her a chair. And then – ‘Von Globig? Von Globig of the Georgenhof?’ – it turned out that he knew Eberhard. He had met Herr von Globig in the course of a delicate case that he didn’t want to talk about here, but the gentleman had given him great support, and it must be acknowledged.
Auntie showed all her papers. Besides signing her permit to leave, Drygalski had written underneath, ‘This woman should be given every assistance.’ That had a good effect, and the officer said, ‘We’ll get the Pole, you can rely on that.’ The case would go straight to the front of the queue, he promised, and he would phone the nearest towns and villages to alert the local authorities: a Pole with a square cap might be coming through on a green farm cart, and had a corpulent woman with him, a worker from the east. They were to stop the man, arrest him at once and get the cart to safety. Heil Hitler!
Auntie signed the record of their conversation, and then she told the police officer, who really had other things to do, about all the stuff packed on the cart: the clothes! The bed linen! The silver – all the silver! After a while people waiting in the long line behind her began to call out, asking what was going on in front there. ‘This could take all day!’
Auntie added that the Pole could also be identified by his finger. ‘The forefinger of his right hand is bandaged,’ she said, and the officer jotted that down.
•
Meanwhile Peter had got up again and was wandering along the high street, past the carts lined up there, large and small, heavy and light. Single carts left to go back on the road, others were just arriving and were glad to get a good place. There was much lively coming and going. Refugee women went from house to house, asking whether they could wash somewhere, and Hitler Youth boys shovelled snow aside.
Perhaps he might yet find Vladimir, Peter thought. It was possible that he might simply have moved the cart somewhere else. But the air pistol wasn’t likely to impress him much.
Or he might find Uncle Josef. He must surely be here somewhere. Perhaps the cousins would suddenly cross his path. Hello, how did you get here? In his mind, Peter was going through all the questions he would ask them. Why they hadn’t waited for him, and so on and so forth, and he would tell them he was very disappointed in them.
•
He heard piano music in the town café. Peter had never been inside a café, but he went in, pushing aside the massive curtain that kept out draughts, Heil Hitler, and in the stuffy warmth, among soldiers of all kinds and women in hats, he saw the one-armed man sitting at the piano.
When you leave, say softly, ‘See you!’
Not farewell and not adieu!
Words like that can only hurt.
•
No question about it, this was Lance Corporal Hofer from Munich.
Peter put a hand on his shoulder, and the soldier stopped playing at once and went to sit at a table with him.
‘Peter! What a coincidence!’
He had been supposed to organize bandages and distilled water for the field hospital that had moved on long ago, and now that he had all the stuff together he should have been out on the road, following the hospital. People were waiting for him. But – ‘You know how it is. When I see a piano I just can’t resist. And are you travelling with your crazy old auntie?’ he asked Peter, who didn’t like that description. He thought that Auntie was all right, really.
Almost at once, Hofer asked whether Peter had heard anything of the violinist. ‘I wonder what’s become of her?’ said the soldier. ‘She planned to go to Allenstein, but the Russians have been there for some time now . . . I’m afraid she’ll be dead. The Russians don’t beat about the bush; her violin won’t have done her much good there.’
Then he told Peter, who at his age had no idea of such things, that the young woman had had her charms, was amazingly affectionate and so on and so forth, and he even said she had jumped ‘straight into bed’ with the medical superintendent in Mitkau.
‘Wildly sexy!’ was his verdict.
Then he gave Peter advice about women and how to win them over. He himself, said Hofer, could win any woman over, and wouldn’t hold it against his young wife in Munich if she found a replacement for him some day.
‘What use is life if you don’t enjoy it?’
Then he told Peter how much at home he’d felt in the Georgenhof, the fire in the hearth, the summer drawing room . . . and he described all sorts of things that Peter had no idea of. He mentioned a chamber organ, crystal chandeliers and endless suites of rooms . . . which all sounded very nice, but surprised Peter. What was the man talking about? A chamber organ at the Georgenhof?
•
Hofer also mentioned the Ukrainian girls. He described Vera as ‘that fatso’ and Sonya as a ‘pert little hussy’. Sonya with her hair braided round her head and her red nose, yes, he’d have liked to play games with her . . .
‘But at heart they’re all the same.’ And Vladimir had gone off with the cart? That was typical. ‘These eastern folk steal like magpies.’
Then he took a charred meerschaum cigarette holder out of his pocket – you could see a man and a woman carved on it – and lit a cigarette. He told Peter about his time in Poland, about Warsaw and its dark side streets. And about lice and fleas.
•
Peter didn’t bring out the story of the hunched figures as brown as earth here, and how he had crawled through the snow. While Hofer spoke of bumping someone off and putting another ‘away’, he looked out of the window at the street. Suppose Dr Wagner came past now? Not understanding but interested in everything. The moon, filling woods and vales again with her misty light . . . Were they all going to come by in procession out there? One after another. The stamp collector, swinging himself along on his crutches. Drygalski with his heavy tread – Be proud; I bear the banner; his father in his white uniform; and a troop
of prisoners with his mother in the middle of them. All carrying, with difficulty, a huge chain.
Then he thought of the coloured picture on the door of Elfie’s room, and the naked brownies holding up a garland of flowers. Not a chain, it had been made of flowers.
•
By this time Hofer had put the meerschaum cigarette holder back in his pocket, and was sitting at the piano again and playing something jazzy with his left hand. He went on until a man said Heil Hitler, and asked him if, in these hard times, it was right for the street to be full of all those refugee carts, while he sat here playing ‘nigger jazz’.
The man had a glass eye. He had been sitting at the back of the room for some time, shaking his head.
And he asked Peter what he thought he was doing here; sitting in a café, when he couldn’t be more than twelve. The Hitler Youth would have something to say about that; they’d sort him out.
Is that what German young people are like these days, he asked the others in the café who were clinking their coffee cups, is that what the young are like when their native land is fighting for survival?
•
Then Hofer stood up – Heil Hitler – and the man saw that he had only one arm. And Hofer closed the piano and asked the man what he thought he was doing here, sitting behind the stove in a nice warm room far from the firing line. He should be at the front, and so on. He dismissed any protests, asked the waiter for his bill, took his wallet out of his pocket and opened it as the one-armed did, with thumb and forefinger. He was surprised, he said to the ladies in hats sitting around, that a wounded man wasn’t allowed to have the slightest pleasure.
Peter wanted to help him open the wallet. But Hofer wouldn’t let him, and paid two marks fifty for his beer and Peter’s helping of mousse. ‘Good thing I don’t have a stomach wound,’ he said, and he hastily wrote down his military address for Peter, just in case, using a beer mat and a silver propelling pencil. The pencil seemed familiar to Peter as well.