by Roy Jacobsen
“It’s the cold, Herr Oberst, that’s all.”
“As you wish. Spitz is in the mess. By the way, can you ask him to come here? We need him.”
Markus heard a brief snort, continued on out and met a blotchy-faced Jakob on his way to Command H.Q., but the cartographer couldn’t tell him any more than that Hoth’s men had sent reports of the fighting all night, he had no messages direct from division level or lower, but Fiebig had been on his knees begging for reinforcements and…
“Fiebig …is that the Chief of Ops at Tatsinskaya?”
Markus brushed him aside and continued into the mess, had a quick breakfast, standing, took a pot of coffee back to the radio room and sat down next to Kuntnagel and stayed there, without a thought in his head, he tells Robert, but he had a dark spot on his retina and he was also in the middle of a disagreement with Kuntnagel about Hünersdorff, now they were waiting to hear who was right.
“We’re amateurs,” he said gloomily.
“Yes,” Kuntnagel said. “How can they cope, the Feldmarschall and the others?”
“They don’t listen. Now they’re probably having breakfast. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re also complaining about the food.”
Kuntnagel was frowning.
“We should never have started this.”
“No…”
“Now we can’t stop.”
“No …even though it’s over.”
“Yeah.”
Markus glanced at his Pomeranian friend. Kuntnagel didn’t react. They cast envious looks at Beber’s peaceful body, closed their eyes and hung their heads…
“0845 hours: Hünersdorff to Raus. Remlinger’s spearhead at south-east edge of village; Hauschild at the south-west edge.”
One sentence. Kuntnagel jumped up from his doze with a perplexed smile, skipped across the floor and admitted in a flurry of words that actually he had been lying through his teeth two hours before:
“But what does it matter now? He’s alive! I can’t believe it. He’s bigger than the Sistine Chapel, Hebel, bigger than Jesus, he’s the Leonardo da Vinci of war. I can’t believe it!”
Markus laughed nervously and couldn’t stop fidgeting, but his body was divided into two halves:
“You’re crazy,” he mumbled with one part. “I’ve always known it. One day your brain will shut down …How could you lie about something like that?”
“I wasn’t lying. I knew it was true even though I didn’t hear anything.”
“Jesus wept.”
Now Markus had got up, too. “It’s only a deferment,” continued the same half, which was now in full control. “Jesus, why couldn’t he have died last night?!”
“What are you saying? He’s alive, isn’t he?”
“Yes, and what does that mean?”
“That he’s alive!’ Kuntnagel repeated. “All hope is not lost, Hebel. We can still win!”
“Idiot! Don’t you realise that now we’ll have to go through the whole thing again, it’ll repeat itself, once, twice …but then it is definitively finished. We can’t succeed!”
“Of course we can.”
“0905 hours: Hünersdorff to Raus. The first of Zollenkopf’s supply trucks is turning into the village.”
“What did I tell you!’
Kuntnagel banged his fist on the table and the next minute a telegram from Paulus’ staff ticked in, something about “increased pressure on southern front”, contrary to all the German hopes and analyses. Markus read it absent-mindedly, made another superhuman attempt to think, but happily gave up. Then Beber was awake as well. Kuntnagel, waving his arms about, briefed him on the glowing prospects, the fat man brightened up like a burnt-out fire and danced a drowsy jig before becoming pensive and asking the crucial question that the other two had held at arm’s length all night:
“What about Paulus? Is he on the move?”
“Yes,” Markus said before silence killed the little that was left of the good humour, and still with his nose in the telegram from the cauldron. Kuntnagel looked at him in surprise.
“How do you know that?”
“Of course he’s on the move!”
Markus irritably rotated the tuning knob, the telegram was ambiguous, like all coded messages; from the front’s weary left-hand flank guard – Hollidt – came a constant flow of ominous signals; both Morosovsk and Tatsinskaya were under pressure; there was a drone of planes coming from the airstrip, was this the start of an evacuation from the airfields?
He passed the messages on to Kuntnagel, who took them to Stahlberg and shortly afterwards returned with eyes agog. One of Eismann’s people had intercepted “something”, he claimed volubly, something about a corridor having been opened between Hünersdorff’s position and the Don! “Look here.”
Markus snatched the piece of paper and saw that the message was not in code, and from the frequency he could see it had passed between two of the 17th Panzer Division’s lower units, groups which were trying to push forward west of Hünersdorff. Maybe it was two hard-pressed battalion commanders trying to encourage each other? But during a visit to the Command H.Q. Markus overheard something similar himself, and now he could feel that it was slowly beginning to have an effect on him, with nauseating force, a desperate exhaustion caused by the hammer blow that had been Hünersdorff’s resurrection, this pinnacle of soldierly excellence.
News came in from one of Hollidt’s units that a Russian Chief of General Staff had been taken prisoner and under interrogation had revealed that Vatutin really did have orders to head for Rostov, which meant the airfields were in their path – including Novocherkassk!
Markus rang up again and enquired in a suitably irritated tone how it was possible to knock the “truth” out of a Russian Chief of General Staff when the information was of such crucial importance, from the German point of view. Are you sure it’s not disinformation? No, the C.G.S. was loaded with papers that confirmed his confession, maps, targets, the route and the orders, so Markus wrote a short summary of the conversation, took the telegram and went in to Eismann with them.
“They’re not wasting any time,” was the Head of Intelligence’s only comment. Markus took that as a sign of academic obtuseness.
“Isn’t Vatutin on the runway at Tatsinskaya already?” Markus asked peevishly.
“One of his battalions, yes. They are quite near, but we’ll know, Hebel, when anything happens, don’t you think?”
Markus left him with a covert shake of the head. At 1130 hours Raus was on the air again, this time with an order for Hünersdorff to take “the ridge north of Vassilyevka, securing contour points 110.4 and 109.5. Make contact with Boineburg heading for Gnilo-Akassiaskaya.”
“What’s all this about?” Kuntnagel shouted in exasperation, but Markus now noticed that something as absurd as a smile was threatening to creep across Kuntnagel’s blotchy face.
“The General is urging him on,” Markus said sceptically. “That must mean he’s got the reinforcements he needs and we’re not being bloody told everything!”
“And who’s Boineburg?”
“Battalion commander of the 23rd Panzers, Hünersdorff’s right flank. Beber, go in and see if you can have a word with Jakob. Get him to track 109.5 and take this to Eismann in case Jakob doesn’t like your mug.”
“Just as I thought,” he exclaimed as soon as Beber was back with a sketch of the location. “109.5, the highest point between the Myshkova and Stalingrad. If Hünersdorff can take that, he can look into the cauldron, at least in the dark,” he added as an aside.
Beber looked bewildered again as Kuntnagel furiously twiddled the tuner, picked up a message from Fiebig, who wanted an update on Raus’ positions so that he wouldn’t bomb his own troops south of the Myshkova; they missed Eismann’s answer, but what did it matter, Markus had reached the end of the road: he has collected and kept these telegrams and war diaries as incontrovertible proof through all the years since the war, read and sorted them and fingered them like beads on a rosary, thes
e Madonna lilies are stages on his dismal journey to Stalingrad, and now he has achieved salvation, both Hünersdorff’s and his own, this general from another world he would never meet, never get to know or even learn the tiniest fragment about, a phantom at the end of a nightmare where only the spoken word could reach him, apart from the images which the great heavenly master cast around in his tortured imagination, and he had to go out into the snow to clear his mind, but as usual he ran straight into Jaromil, the Cossack with the broad, inane features, who besieged Command H.Q. with interminable reminders of his people’s bleak fate, were this venture to come to a halt, the people who had fought in two wars and lost both of them, regardless of who won.
“They’re coming!” Jaromil shouted excitedly. “They’re coming!”
“Who’s coming?”
“Paulus! The army’s coming!”’
Markus grabbed him half-heartedly by the lapels and pushed him up against the wall.
“And how do you know that, you clown?”
At that moment the door of Command H.Q. opened and Oberst Busse majestically strode out into the freezing weather.
“My God, Hebel. Are you setting about our allies now? What’s the matter with you?”
“I’m sorry, Herr Oberst,” Markus said, releasing his grip. “This man here told me Paulus had opened a corridor in the west. I wanted to know where he had got his information.”
Puzzled, Busse looked from one to the other.
“The Cossacks can read the stars, Hebel. The rest of us have to use whatever we can. Manstein hasn’t lost his head once in this campaign and he’s not about to do so now, either. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Jawohl, Herr Oberst.”
Markus thought contemptuously that it was easy to keep your head as long as others lost theirs, but he didn’t say as much, he just repeated his facile “Jawohl, jawohl, Herr Oberst” until Busse asked him again if he was alright. Markus composed himself:
“Would it be possible to see the General Staff’s recent messages from Stalingrad, Herr Oberst?”
Busse seemed to consider this:
“The last we’ve heard from Paulus is that he hasn’t got enough fuel for more than thirty kilometres. It’s forty-eight to the Myshkova.”
Markus made a quick calculation:
“Then he’ll have to take fifty tanks, and the artillery, and leave the other twenty behind!”
“I completely agree with you, Hebel,” the Oberst said with a wry grin, turned his back on him and strode off to Manstein’s railway carriage.
“How much do they know?” Markus mumbled.
“Eh?”
He faced the Cossack.
“Can you get me some vodka, Jaromil?” he said. “A few litres, right, shouldn’t be a problem, should it?”
“We–ell, I…”
“Three litres maybe then, yes, that’s the way, Cossacks like clear orders, am I right? Three litres, let’s say that then – Christ, Jaromil, how can you go round with a face like that? Looks like you don’t know whether there’s a war or a party going on?”
The Cossack stared at him sullenly, careful not to attempt a new smile. Then it slowly dawned on Markus that the man didn’t care two hoots about what this German Belgian might think about either him or the war so long as he translated what Busse said.
“O.K.,” Markus said in a milder tone. “Let’s celebrate Paulus’ corridor. You can bet your boots it’ll all be over soon now, Jaromil. Have you seen Yadviga…”
25
Markus read and interpreted the reports with apathetic composure, his hopes neither rose nor fell, when you watch a landslide you don’t expect it to stop in the middle of the slope if someone blows a horn, even if he is a general, but perhaps it might run into a rock on its way and change course? But would he ever be able to sleep again? Hünersdorff definitely wasn’t going to pull this one off even if God were to bestow on him two or three extra lives, they will be left out on the battlefield, they will become addicted to it and will never come home, they will be transformed into unreal and unlikely ghosts, the bodies will eat and go to work, they will water flowers and kneel before a bowl of holy water, they will look at their children and at an old aunt with warts on her chin, at a mouse darting across the floor and a magnificently decorated birthday cake, and this is the Myshkova, all of it, a river it might be possible to cross, it depends, and in our minds we list all the things it depends on, and finally we are left with all the provisos in the world: stasis.
“Leutnant Hebel, there’s some fool here that wants to talk to you. Shall we let him in?”
Markus looked up lethargically and saw Jaromil’s eager, frost-reddened face behind the shoulder of the young man to whom he had explained the difference between a T-34 and an armoured car.
“Was I right?” Markus asked.
“Yes,” said the young man, “they were all tanks. General Badanov or someone. He’s no more than twenty kilometres from Tatsinskaya. It may take them twenty-four hours. Or perhaps twice that. Richthofen has given Fiebig orders to prepare to evacuate.”
Markus nodded.
“Let him in,” he said. “And he’s not a fool.”
“Sorry, Herr Leutnant.”
Jaromil came in, stamped the snow off his boots and confidently held out a canvas bag, as though expecting applause or a substantial payment. Markus grabbed it, loosened the string around the top and looked down at the three “medicine bottles” containing a relatively clear liquid, buried for the most part under frozen apples. He got up and asked the Cossack to go with him to his quarters.
“Judging by your face, Jaromil,” he said with confidence when they were alone, and staring straight at him so as not to miss the slightest movement in this inscrutable Steppes expression, “I would guess that Yadviga’s son has managed to escape from the cauldron?”
The Cossack’s eyes were evasive.
“She had only one son, Herr Leutnant,” he stuttered. “And he has five children!’
“I’m sure he has,” Markus said. “But so that we don’t have any misunderstandings here, let’s do it like this: I’ll tell you what I believe and you say nothing if there’s nothing to say, O.K.?”
Jaromil, after a short pause for reflection, appeared to consider the suggestion a good idea, maybe. “If he’s got out,” Markus continued hesitantly, “then he’s either hiding here in the village or else you’ve arrested him?”
The Cossack eyed him calmly. “He got out,” Markus concluded. “He discovered that his mother didn’t need any help, she was dead, and he wanted to go back to the cauldron, but the duty officer was far-sighted enough to arrest him …Is that right? And he also made sure he removed his uniform and put on some of your clothing, right?”
The Cossack smiled weakly, but showed no sign of agitation.
“I’ve got nothing to say, Herr Leutnant,” he said with composure, “except that no-one has a bad word to say about the duty officer. He’s got a difficult job and…”
Markus nodded.
“I know all that. But now I want you to do something for me.”
He put his hand in his pocket, took out the cross he had been given by Yadviga and was about to hand it to him, but stopped and stared at it instead.
“There’s something not right here,” he mumbled.
“What, Herr Leutnant?” Jaromil said, not overly interested. Markus braced himself.
“I want you to give him this,” he said, handing Jaromil the cross. “Tell him it’s from his mother and she wants him to keep his head down until it’s all over. Tell him he’s done his duty and that his job now is to concentrate on staying alive – can you do that?”
“That might be difficult, Herr Leutnant.”
“I see. Then let’s say that I give you the cross in memory of …whatever you want, of me if you like, and then you can do what you want with it?”
“That’s much too big a gift, Herr Leutnant,” came the tentative reply.
“If you said no I would be
all the more insulted.”
The Cossack squirmed but finally took the cross and began to examine it, like a short-sighted jeweller who has just been handed an obvious fake.
“I can give it to my eldest son,” he said, testing the waters. “But in that case it has to be a gift, Herr Leutnant, which you have the right to claim back whenever it suits you.”
“Thank you,” Markus said.
“Nothing to thank me for. What about the apples, if I may take the liberty of asking? It wasn’t easy to get hold of them.”
“We’ll come to that in a moment. First, I’d like you to do me another favour.”
Jaromil’s eyes wavered again. His sceptical nod was barely perceptible. “I want you to stick around,” Markus said.
“I’m always around, Herr Leutnant.”
“O.K. That’s alright then.”
Markus sighed and looked down at the camp bed, the canvas bag and the vodka. “O.K., O.K.,” he repeated distractedly. And the Cossack hurried out before the Belgian could get any more bright ideas. But Markus stayed where he was. Lost in thoughts he had never thought before. There was something wrong with Jakob, it struck him, the cartographer’s red face in the snowdrifts outside the officers’ mess, it was redder than ever, as though there was something he wanted to tell Markus, but then the thought vanished from Markus’ mind again.
26
Another night was approaching. Markus had begun to polish his glasses, he did this often and thoroughly, they took turns to sleep and listen even when they were not on duty, but there didn’t seem to be any difference. Beber started on a new letter, scribbled down a few reminders about necessary maintenance to be done on the farm, whitewashing, painting, fence posts …slowly but surely worked his way into a last will and testament over a transfer of property he and his closest neighbour had discussed, because the man was now in the Balkans, and what if he, Beber, was killed, were his sons bound by the agreement, which was verbal?
It was all a question of the future of the family, Beber said, he had two sons, not one, and it was a crying shame that his writing was so poor. Kuntnagel had to step in and write instructions to the widow, which seemed both easier and more natural – he said with barely concealed contempt – than trying to convince this bonehead that he was not going to die. And at midnight Markus went to bed, without noticing, was woken by Kuntnagel, without having slept, it was past two o’clock – no, his comrade hadn’t heard anything, neither from Hünersdorff nor Raus nor Hoth, and Markus took his place at the tuner again, but heard nothing from his fictive saviour either, not even “rumours”. He woke Kuntnagel at half past four – it was now December 22 – but remained at his side, silence spread, heavy and inexorable like a shroud, because of course this is how it will happen, once you have been finally lulled into the coma of expectation, and have been made blind to the border between what is and the destruction of what is, and after Kuntnagel had fetched some coffee they said goodbye to their adventures in the snow by the Myshkova and engrossed themselves in Beber’s papers – Beber was asleep – began speculating in hushed tones about Pomeranian land law and kept at it until Kuntnagel felt the time was ripe to avow that if he got out alive he would transfer the family farm to his sister and brother-in-law without a second thought and head for Italy with the proceeds, a free man, and down there beneath the radiant Mediterranean sun – surrounded by magnificent art on all sides – he would plumb the depths of art history and the human soul, explore the most intricate questions regarding our existence here on earth, roam like a free spirit along hot, sandy beaches while the stars in the sky are lit and extinguished – how, by the way, had a weed like Beber ever managed to get married when he, Kuntnagel, hadn’t? – that was what he was missing in life, a marriage and offspring to worry about (he didn’t mention love), but he hadn’t seen himself as one of the others, who in the summer nights of their youth strutted off to dances in the garlanded resort on the Baltic coast, he was a bit above them, he admitted, anyway Beber definitely wasn’t a role model for anyone …Of course, there would be stirrings in a farmer’s body like Kuntnagel’s when spring came and the meadows released their fragrances, but that would pass, the smell of seaweed is probably nothing to turn your nose up at, no, Markus had been to the seaside once, to Ostend, on a belated honeymoon with his Nella, the weather had been grey but the sea was no less appealing for all that, and the heavy air redolent of sea-weed and birds and the creatures that from time to time are washed ashore had permeated his memory and later re-emerged in the strangest of contexts, even when he was strolling around in the forests at home and his senses were suffused with soil and birdsong, but he especially remembered the tall posts of the breakwaters sticking upright out of the Channel coast like the smooth teeth of beasts of prey, at right angles to the waves, dividing up the sea into many small seas before it hit land, as it were, so that it couldn’t damage the dykes and promenades and buildings …By then they had reached a new day, December 22, and a shrill discordant tone interrupted the gentle foregoing musings: