All for Nothing

by Walter Kempowski

  •

  Wagner was seeing the boy as he never had before: the black grand piano, the bright pictures on the wall, and the fair-haired boy, still a child, with his thin, grave and merry face. Why hadn’t he taken better care of him when there was still time?

  He would have liked to take Peter hiking, as he used to go hiking with his students in the valley of the Helge.

  Now it was too late.

  Although, come to think of it, he was hiking with the boy at this moment. He had him all to himself now.

  •

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘We’ll go on now.’

  They left the baron’s suitcase behind. The chronicles would be all right here, thought Wagner. If the master of the house came back, the first thing he saw would be the suitcase. ‘What’s this?’ he would say. ‘Old papers? Chronicles?’ A writer could do something with those. He thought of Adalbert Stifter, My Great-Grandfather’s Portfolio, or maybe it was in the works of Gottfried Keller or someone – who was it who wrote about finding a case full of old writings in the attic? Was there anything like that in Herder?

  Peter thought: I’ll build myself a house like this some day, light and airy, not at all like the dark, gloomy Georgenhof. He sat on the sledge and slid downhill, and the old man ran down after him, laughing and holding on to his hat. His own father had never run after him. He had stood in the doorway wearing his white jacket with the Cross of Merit (no swords). Once he had come up to his room after a ride, bending his riding crop into a semicircle. ‘Well, you have a kingdom of your own here,’ he had said, and he looked out of the window and added, ‘But you must tidy up. What a mess it is in here!’

  23

  A Museum

  The little town was full of farm carts. They stood in every street, and more and more kept crowding in. Refugee women went into the houses begging. If the people living in those houses had already fled, they took them over. One house was burning, with flames hissing as they shot out of the windows; no one took any notice.

  •

  In the marketplace, surrounded by pretty little gabled houses with the town hall to the north, carts stood packed close together, but the people had gone off to be ‘transported’ according to regulations. The horses had just been taken out of the shafts, Heil Hitler, they would be handed over to the army. Party officials went up and down between these rows of carts with their shafts tilted upright. They were all being registered, and had numbers chalked on them for the refugees’ return journey.

  For the time being, everyone was camping on straw in a cinema wondering what next. Apparently they were to board ships. If so, they hadn’t needed to come all this way, so far from home, with all their worldly goods. Could he just go and collect his briefcase from the cart? someone asked. No, that wasn’t allowed.

  ‘I have to see to my horses . . .’

  The Volkssturm reservists stood outside the cinema, and wouldn’t let anyone out.

  •

  A man appeared on the balcony above the porch of the town hall, behind the clock that had been shot to pieces. His name was Lothar Sarkander. He was leaning on the balustrade, looking out over the empty carts, and delivering a speech, making large gestures and hoarsely calling out slogans that no one could hear properly. He seemed to be urging his audience to repent and mend their ways, something of that sort.

  If I’d known what I was missing,

  If I’d known who I was kissing,

  That midnight at the lido . . .

  Someone took him by the sleeve and pulled him back into the building. The man had obviously lost his mind. He would have to be taken away.

  •

  A Wehrmacht truck stood in a side street. The former bailiff’s residence, a very old, squat building that had served as a museum, was just being emptied. The back hatch of the truck’s load area had been let down, and soldiers were carefully carrying old chests and paintings out to the vehicle. Demolishing the bailiff’s residence had been suggested in the nineteenth century, but then the towns-folk decided that they could still make use of it as a museum.

  •

  While Dr Wagner went looking for a pharmacist selling ointment for his piles, Peter entered the old building. ‘Wait for me, I’ll be back in a minute!’ A huge First World War cross full of nails hung in the entrance hall. It represented help rendered by the home country to the men at the front; black nails had cost five marks each, gilded nails ten marks. The idea had been to raise money for arms and munitions, not for the dead. It bore witness to better times.

  •

  A framed document hung on the wall. In it, on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, the German author Gotthardt Baron von Erztum-Lohmeyer declared that, in grateful thanks for the freedom of his native town now bestowed on him, he was leaving it his library and all his manuscripts after his death.

  •

  The museum curator, Heil Hitler, an old gentleman wearing pince-nez and a Party symbol, watched the building being cleared. He went from one man to another, wringing his hands. ‘For God’s sake go carefully!’ he cried. But there were no outbursts of anger; they could easily have been misinterpreted.

  •

  In one large hall – it had probably been a law court; iron yokes hung from the wall – glass showcases had already been emptied. They had held rare books on display, and, coins, seals and charters. Querns weighing several hundredweight each and dating from the pre-Germanic period were lined up along the corridors. After all, they bore witness to the meagre lives of our ancestors: grinding corn into flour, mixing gunpowder for firearms. They were to be left behind, however valuable they might be, because of their weight, but the round pestles used with them were taken away. If anyone looted the querns they wouldn’t be much good without the pestles.

  The chandelier made of antlers hanging from the ceiling was left behind as well. It was probably seventeenth century; its day was past.

  But the curator anxiously told the soldiers not to forget the majolica ware. ‘Go carefully with that!’

  •

  Paintings were carried out one by one, tiny flower pieces, small pictures on rural subjects, and The Battle of Tannenberg, a large battle scene that would probably have been described anywhere else as a frightful daub. It showed mounted messengers on rearing horses, soldiers in spiked helmets firing at the enemy, grenades exploding at regular intervals. Dead Russians and wounded Germans. Two field marshals could clearly be seen in the foreground, one pointing to a map on a table in front of him, the other agreeing with whatever he was saying. Rumpler-Taube aircraft flew against the background of a sky sprinkled with shrapnel, taking part in the battle whenever possible. You could tell which were the enemy planes because they were crashing to the ground. There was a tear in the canvas. ‘We didn’t do that,’ said the soldiers carrying the pictures out. ‘It was already there.’

  To the left of the door hung the portrait of a plump princess in a sky-blue dress, a fur collar, and with many medals on her breast. She was to become the Tsarina Catherine the Great, insatiable in her thirst for love but a good friend of Prussia. She had travelled through this town on her way to St Petersburg, and the people were still telling risqué stories about her.

  That portrait was also taken down, wrapped in a blanket and taken away, although it might have been advisable to carry it in procession to face the furious Russians: ‘Look at her, the German nation’s great friend!’

  The snag there was that she had been German herself.

  •

  The soldiers left The Coming of the Holy Ghost where it was as well. It was a huge panel from the old parish church that had been demolished in the Middle Ages. The disciples had little flames on their heads and a dove hovering over them. ‘We might as well leave this thing,’ said the soldiers. The curator wasn’t so sure. It went against his instincts, but perhaps this or that could be retrieved later.

  They left the stained-glass windows where they were, too; they would probably break in transit anyway.
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  •

  Peter helped to carry things out. The documents in the town archives were to be preserved as well, in a whole series of folders, and with many boxes containing archaeological finds. Didn’t one of the boxes have the name Hesse on it? That country teacher with his Stone Age stuff had had the right idea. Wouldn’t those items help to show that East Prussia was an ancient German land?

  The curator with the Party symbol stood at the exit from the museum, saying, ‘Careful, careful, all this is irreplaceable!’ every time the soldiers carried anything past him. He was holding a little box containing the municipal seal. ‘This is particularly valuable, don’t let it out of your sight.’

  He didn’t even notice how cold he was. Why, he wondered, am I shivering like this?

  •

  ‘I think that’s everything,’ he said in the end. ‘Now we can set out.’ He would just go to fetch his wife and daughter . . .

  Wife and daughter? How old was his daughter?

  ‘Sixteen.’

  ‘Sure, we can find room for her.’

  Peter was asked what he thought he was doing, hanging round here. And what was that box under his arm? A schoolboy’s microscope? Why didn’t he say so before, for heaven’s sake?

  When at last they were ready, the curator of the museum got into the cab of the truck with his wife and daughter. ‘We’ll just have to squeeze up a bit,’ said the driver.

  The soldiers jumped up on the load area, and Peter, coming to a quick decision, swung himself up too. Then they were off. The box containing the municipal seal was left behind on the museum steps, but Peter’s microscope was jammed under his arm.

  Hooting, they drove past the farm carts standing in the streets. Peter looked back over the load area at the long line of carts.

  I wonder, he thought, whether anyone will ever paint that?

  •

  Local police officers stood at the town gate, to check that everyone who wanted to go through it had the right papers. And to stop anyone trying to run away. Heil Hitler. They had heavy pistols in their belts, and badges on chains round their necks. They let vehicles through one by one. When the truck had finally been through this procedure and could go on, and the driver was putting it into first gear and accelerating, Dr Wagner came running along, gesticulating and shouting, ‘Stop, stop!’ Peter knocked at the driver’s cab, asking them to pick the gentleman up, but in vain; there was no time. With one last effort, Dr Wagner jumped up to the back hatch of the load area but missed it, slipped off and fell into the street, where a heavy vehicle ran over him.

  ‘Oh no!’ cried Peter, falling backwards on the load area.

  Was that what Dr Wagner had meant by perfection?

  •

  Outside the town, going down the road lined with wrecked cars, corpses and looted luggage, they were driving past more carts trekking towards the town. When they went round a bend Peter threw his weight against the angle of the truck, to keep the pictures from falling over. The pestles belonging to the querns rolled about on the load area in semicircles, sometimes colliding with each other and setting off sparks.

  For a while Peter counted the carts they were passing. Were there thousands of them? How long had they been on the road? It was always the same, everyone intent on getting away over the ice of the Haff to the spit of land that was the Nehrung, and from there home to the Reich.

  Is Pomerania our fatherland?

  Is Swabia our fatherland . . .

  All Germany’s our fatherland.

  And they would surely be welcome there.

  •

  After a few kilometres, an untidy column of prisoners joined the main road, soldiers guarding it left and right. The prisoners were dragging themselves unsteadily along with the last of their strength. They had wrapped themselves in blankets to keep off the cold.

  ‘Who are that lot?’ asked one of the soldiers in the truck.

  ‘The children of Israel,’ replied a guard.

  ‘They should be made a head shorter!’ And if the speaker had had stones he would have thrown them, but he couldn’t be bothered to pick up the pestles rolling about at his feet.

  It took some time for Peter to understand what kind of prisoners these really were, and then it occurred to him that his mother might be with them. He looked more closely at the women. Her white fur cap . . . could he see it?

  Did he see the white fur cap?

  He took the half-loaf out of his pocket, thinking he should break some off and throw it to the prisoners, like the parents in the fairy tale throwing bread to their children. But the half-loaf was a block of ice.

  That was the last time that Peter saw his mother, although he hadn’t really seen her at all.

  •

  The truck stopped at the Frisches Haff, their journey’s end. There was nowhere else to go. The land and brackish water of the Haff were frozen over. Hundreds of carts were waiting. They were led out separately on to the surface of the ice. The wounded were taken out first, Heil Hitler, and then the vehicles went back. You had to keep your distance – fifty metres apart or the ice would break. Fir trees and bushes showed the path where it was safe to stand. It was risky to stray from it. Horses’ heads looked out of the ice where carts had fallen in. The drivers of farm carts had tried and failed to overtake the trek.

  •

  The museum curator was looking for the local commandant. He wanted to tell him that there were all kinds of valuable cultural artefacts on the load area of the truck. Heil Hitler!

  Cultural artefacts? What did he mean?

  The officer in command of the escort party was fetched, and said they could be accommodated elsewhere.

  The old gentleman with his wife and young daughter stood beside the truck, their coats blowing in the wind. Paintings! Charters! Folio volumes! The truck was taken away. The curator was told that they would be careful with the cultural artefacts, of course they would. Then the daughter took over and helped her parents out on the ice. They must go on on foot. Perhaps they would be lucky.

  •

  The half-frozen Haff. Peter took his mother’s little locket out of his pocket. He had been holding it in his hand, and now he opened it. Maybe it contained a picture of him? Or of Elfriede? Or his father in his white jacket?

  No, Katharina had kept a picture of herself inside the locket. Peter closed it again. And at that moment, far away in Italy, his father picked up his service pistol and shot himself.

  •

  Peter ran out on the ice after a farm cart. A woman was sitting on the box. She had come a long way, and she had put feather beds round her children to keep away the cold.

  Peter jumped up to hitch a lift on the back of the cart, and let it carry him over. Water lay on the surface of the ice and spurted up.

  24

  The Launch

  In other lands and here

  We live in great despair.

  We pray the Lord to heed

  Our misery and need.

  Some time later, early in May, Peter was standing on the quay in a harbour, scanning the horizon through his binoculars, with his air pistol in his waistband.

  •

  The sea! Gulls, and the waves lapping against the wooden breakwaters. ‘Avant de mourir?’

  Large vessels lay at anchor in the roadsteads, gradually filling up with refugees and then steaming away. Motor launches full of people went out to them from the quayside in the harbour, plying out and back again. And ship after ship steamed away. Was there a painter somewhere, recording the magnificent scene for ever?

  •

  Peter was not in any hurry. He slept in abandoned apartments, went to the cinema, got pea soup from a field kitchen, played with a stray cat and ran along the beach. Once, in a back yard, he listened to someone playing the violin. He thought he knew the tune. He meant to go into the building, but it was locked.

  There was an apple tree in blossom in front of the house, and behind it the echo of that violin music.

  H
e wandered along the streets with their front gardens in flower, and when there was an air-raid warning he went into a cellar to join the people with their cases and bags in the shelter. He listened to the anti-aircraft guns and the dull thump of bombs as they dropped, and when it was over he went back to roaming through the streets. He saw sailors with hand grenades in their belts – dating from Kiel in 1918 – and old Volkssturm reservists – Alas, you have destroyed / this lovely world – and SS men too, with their boots as shiny as if they were on parade. If all should turn disloyal, yet we will still prove true.

  •

  A swarm of deaconesses in white caps, holding the hands of children from an orphanage. ‘Where are you going? Where are you going?’ This way or that, forward or back?

  •

  Amidst all the coming and going, Peter saw a hat – a woman with a hat that he knew on her head. It was one of his mother’s hats, black with a red feather in it, and the woman was Frau Hesse. Eckbert and Ingomar were trotting along behind her. She was holding tickets for a ship, waving them in the air. Maybe we will all get lucky some time in our lives.

  Peter took cover in a gateway. He didn’t want to meet these people.

  •

  Among the farm carts where they had been left after the trek, he saw a girl in white knee socks. She was perched on the shafts, rocking back and forth. Later, when he came back looking for her, she had gone.

  Was it Elfie? he wondered, and counted on his fingers; she would be eight now. He remembered his mother running after the howling Elfie. A lot of screaming, all long ago. Had it been like that? Running upstairs. And then one day his sister was lying in bed, not moving, and his mother had not shed tears.

  He would have liked to tell the girl with the knee socks about those hunched figures, brown as earth, and the chamber organ and the crystal chandeliers. And he would have liked to give her the last silver spoon. Had he lost it? And where had the girl gone? He found the dried-up wreath of flowers from the coach in his trouser pocket, and crumbled it to pieces. Only when he had destroyed it did he remember that those were the flowers from the coach.