Winter Men

by Jesper Bugge Kold

  Hilde! Why hadn’t he thought of Hilde? His behavior had made him forget all about Hilde and Heinz—even his grandchild! They were in the city, and he’d gotten himself drunk. But what should he have done? And what could he have done? Nothing. But he could do something now; he could find them, help them. He consoled himself with the thought that he’d already helped them by persuading them to move out of the loft apartment on Brennerstrasse. Though Hamm wasn’t among Hamburg’s most exciting districts, it was still better than that vulnerable attic apartment. But the move didn’t necessarily mean they were safe. He had to find them.

  As soon as he was out the front door, he smelled it. A thick and dense smoke wafting off the lake. He started walking through Alster Park. This side of the lake appeared to have been untouched by the bombs, but the opposite shore was a broad latticework of glowing flames. That was his destination. He crossed Lombardsbrücke. The courthouse looked to be intact; the tower, too. The same was true of St. Catherine’s Church, though the spire and the roof had splintered just above the clock. The hands had stopped at a quarter to one. As he got closer, his fear of what he’d find in the bombed areas increased.

  He headed down Brennerstrasse and paused in front of the house where Hilde and Heinz had once lived. Fires burned quietly there, slowly consuming the entire house. There were flames behind each window, and fiery tongues shot out occasionally as if someone inside was blowing on them. Flames licked the roof’s spine and devoured the rafters where the apartment had been.

  A gray-black smoke billowed down the deserted street, stinging his nose and throat. He struggled to breathe and was forced to cover his nose and mouth with his hands. A couple of slight gusts punctured the smoke, and he had a clear view of people emerging from a basement farther down the street. They embraced one other, happy to be alive. A gray-bearded man kissed the ground, and the women kissed each other. But just then the house collapsed, and five stories crashed down on top of them like a giant wave.

  His first impulse was to help them, but his body didn’t move. There was nothing he could do. The spot where they had been standing was now just an inaccessible mountain of rubble and wood. He felt a sharp pain in his chest, as if he were about to explode, or as if his body were incapable of bearing such a burden. At the same time he had an ominous feeling that the worst was yet to come.

  He started back, still in shock at what he’d just witnessed. He had to find another way to Hamm. But now it seemed as though he was no longer in a hurry to find Hilde and Heinz. He knew his reluctance was born of fear, a rending terror that they were dead, buried alive under rubble like the people he’d just seen rejoicing. He saw others appear down another street, their eyes red from the burning ash.

  “Don’t go that way. It’s hell that way,” called an old man with a voice made hoarse by the fire.

  A piece of flaming lumber crashed down from a house a few feet from Karl and sent coals flying. Terrified, he began to run and stopped only when he came to where the Luftwaffe’s barracks had been. But they were no longer there.

  On one corner, a building smoldered before his very eyes. Only the glowing red fragments bore witness to what had once stood there. Everything was enshrouded in red flames; all of Hamburg was burning. The smoke carried with it large, hot flakes of ash, which stung his cheeks and burned his face. The dead were everywhere. Charred, stiffened corpses lay on the streets and sidewalks, blackened by the heat, their clothing seared. Some had been pulverized, while others looked like empty shells.

  The survivors were also empty shells. They sat or lay on the ground with vacant, blackened faces and flame-reddened eyes, some barefoot, others wearing only pajamas or nightgowns. They hadn’t even the strength to cry. Screams of horror could be heard from buildings, from basements, but the fire ignored them. It raged on, took a deep breath, then blazed and blustered with renewed vigor.

  Karl continued on. The fire made it difficult to get to where he was going, but he still clung to a small thread of hope; he had to. He needed to believe they were alive. He rounded a corner, then stopped in his tracks, dumbstruck. He brought his hands to his ears. Everything was gone. Ahead of him was a wasteland, a huge burning wasteland like the controlled burning of a field, in the middle of the city. A few lonely house façades remained here and there—a wall, a light pole—but Hamm’s residential neighborhoods were now nothing more than a pile of ruins enveloped in flame. He could not even differentiate between the streets and where the buildings had stood. Hamm was gone.

  The sound of enraged flames was deafening. Weary firemen fought desperately to save people until they threw up their hands in defeat and collapsed, exhausted, right where they stood. Karl saw an emergency vehicle that had melted into a gnarled, blackened lump. A woman rushed toward him, but suddenly her dress ignited, and she fell screaming to the ground. He wanted to help her, but at that instant he was sent flying.

  A powerful blaze had knocked him off his feet, and he landed heavily on his back. The flames were everywhere—above him, below him, behind him, ahead of him. He flapped and beat at his arms to knock back the blazes, but it was pointless. Drained of breath, he managed to leap into an entranceway where a man began pounding on him. Confused, Karl tried to wriggle free of the blows raining down on him. Now he was trapped between the omnivorous fire and a madman. He shouted at him, but the man kept at it, and then a woman appeared to help. Karl fell to the ground. Only when they began to roll him around on the hard stone floor did he understand that they were trying to put out his burning clothes.

  When the flames had finally been extinguished, he lay on the floor, his head spinning. The man helped him to his feet.

  “I’m sorry we had to do that to you.”

  “It’s all right, I was on fire,” Karl said, still confused. “I was on fire.”

  “My name is Dieter,” the man said, adding quickly, “We’ve got to get away from here before the whole thing comes down.”

  He grabbed Karl’s and the woman’s hands, and they began to run. Karl knew the man was guiding them to the harbor, but that route was blocked off. They had to find another way. They were surrounded by an enormous sea of flames, and he soon noticed that the soles of his shoes had begun to melt on the scorching asphalt.

  The woman was quickly depleted of energy, and the two men had to support her. Their mouths and throats were raw and dry, and it hurt to breathe the scalding air. On a street corner some men tried to tap a fire hydrant to get a drink of water. The three of them stopped to help, but it was soon clear that it wouldn’t budge.

  They were exhausted by the time they reached the harbor. Dieter dove into the water, and Karl and the woman followed suit. The water soothed the stabbing pain on Karl’s parched skin. For a moment he forgot where he was and began to sink. In a panic, he beat the water with his arms and legs, then gasped for breath when he reached the surface.

  The woman hadn’t emerged, and Dieter screamed miserably, “Lotte! Lotte!” He dove, came up, gasped for breath, dove again, came up, dove.

  Karl didn’t have the strength to help. Approaching his own limits, he struggled to clutch a large iron ring bolted to the side of the pier; the water he’d swallowed came up in a thin stream of diluted vomit. On land the flames continued to rage, and others leaped into the canal, which was soon more crowded than Alster Lake on a summer day. Several times, his exertions nearly caused him to let go, and his arthritis jolted through his hands. A young woman crying in fear struggled to keep herself afloat. He reached out to grab her, but she flapped her arms wildly. With great difficulty he pulled her to him, and they both clung to the iron ring.

  Karl wasn’t sure how long they were in the canal. Although the water wasn’t cold, he was freezing. The intensity of the fire had abated, and people appeared on the pier to help, including firemen, boys in Hitler Youth uniforms, and ordinary folks. He made sure the woman was the first to get assistance, and that’s when he realized she was pregnant. She said nothing but gave him a grateful, sooty smile
as a fireman wrapped her in a blanket and led her away.

  Shaken to the core, he headed slowly and uncertainly toward home. He was thirsty, tired, and weak. He looked down at himself. His clothes were soaked, tattered, and filthy, but he’d survived; he was alive.

  Flames continued to burn everywhere, and where they had already been put out or gone out on their own, blackened, soot-covered buildings bore witness to their visit. People lay all over the streets, half-burned or simply transformed into ashes; it was like walking through a morgue. It was already evening by the time he got home. He remembered that it was his birthday.

  After spending a sleepless night in his bed, Karl got up and once again set off to navigate the sooty ruins. He stopped at the end of the block where Hilde and Heinz had lived. The façade was still standing. He could see the blue summer sky through the windows, which no longer held glass. He entered the hole where a door had once stood; all that remained of it were the metal hasps. Behind the façade was a vast open area that looked like a construction site full of trash.

  He’d actually expected to fall apart, but instead he just felt empty. Not the kind of emptiness that meant he felt nothing, but rather an emptiness that made him unable to respond. He felt as though he were witnessing his own autopsy. His internal organs had been removed, his heart scooped out, his lungs and kidneys carefully placed on a metal tray. But he couldn’t lose hope now; it was his fatherly duty to keep the faith. He would find Hilde, and when he found her he would never let her out of his sight again.

  He exited onto what until just a few days ago had been a street. A red-haired woman was writing on the façade of a building with a piece of chalk. She looked up at him with tear-streaked eyes, then handed him the chalk. His hands trembled as he began to write, but his arthritis wouldn’t allow him to form the letters. The woman offered to help, and Karl dictated a short message to Hilde, which she wrote for him.

  He embraced the woman when they parted. He didn’t know her, but they had something in common. On his way back, he noticed that people everywhere had scrawled messages to relatives or friends on walls and on placards mounted on light poles.

  Every day Karl strode around the city searching for Hilde. The city’s parks and green areas had become living quarters for the newly homeless. Although tents and other temporary shelters had been set up, many families were forced to sleep under the open sky. As he walked through the parks, he saw Hilde everywhere. In a red dress, in a nurses’ uniform, or with a ponytail. But he was always disappointed. Every night he aimlessly tramped around his empty house, the echo of his steps following him from room to room.

  A week after the bombing, parts of the devastated areas were cordoned off by high walls. Karl watched as people in prison uniforms were trucked into the areas of the city that were closed to the public. Prisoners from a concentration camp, they were forced to clean up the debris and rotting human corpses under surveillance. His search for Hilde began to feel increasingly futile.

  Karl felt guilty. And ashamed. He’d sat laughing on his balcony. While people had been trapped in an inferno of fire and death, he’d watched the scene unfold as though it were entertainment. He hated himself for that. How could he have acted that way? Was this the kind of man he was without Ingrid? He missed her terribly, and he missed Hilde, too.

  Hamburg, Germany, August 3, 1943

  They clattered down another ravaged street, the suspension squealing and the cab shaking every time the car drove over yet another pothole. It had seemed like a morbid suggestion when young Dietmar Pacholz approached Gerhard.

  He’d been of two minds. A week had passed, and he hadn’t dared learn the truth. He didn’t believe Karl was alive, but he would eventually need to know for a fact. On his way through the city, he grew more and more doubtful; it was a tragic sight. Hammerbrook, once a working-class neighborhood packed with people, was now mostly gone, and several other districts were also badly battered. The fires had simply pulverized everything in their path. Gerhard’s whole body trembled as he studied the corpse-strewn streets. They’d been transformed from flesh and blood to ash in split seconds. Others had suffocated in the very bunkers that were meant to protect them. At least the dead had been convinced they wouldn’t die. A few soldiers had shot themselves when it became clear that the enemy—in the form of fire—was invincible.

  There were flies everywhere, large, fat, well-nourished blowflies that thrived on the open-air cemetery. The smell was like that of the camp but with more decomposition. Many corpses had already been removed, but just as many had melted into the asphalt as a continual reminder of that horrific night. Only the skeleton of the city remained; its skin had been peeled off, its innards removed. In a few places there wasn’t even a skeleton. It was more like entire districts had been cremated. But the urn hadn’t been lowered into the ground yet.

  Once upon a time the buildings had stood as symbols of the city’s progress, but it was all a desert now. From the cab of the truck, he witnessed hundreds of people in prison suits busy with the insurmountable task of cleaning up. He thought of Sisyphus, whose job suddenly seemed meaningful compared to the prisoners’ task.

  The procession came to a halt, and the windows stopped clanking. Gerhard looked up toward the sky. A balcony jutted from the façade above them. One half had been yanked loose from the house and now dangled threateningly. The window box was filled with red flowers.

  The SS guards began directing the prisoners off the trucks once they’d entered the area surrounded by the newly built wall. The subcamp’s task was to clean up, remove fragments, and clear the roads. Like tiny, busy ants, the men in the black-and-white-striped suits immediately began picking up scraps, wood, and whatever else was scattered on the streets.

  On the other side of the wall, the world had ceased to move. Gerhard started walking toward the lake. The once-teeming streets were nearly empty. Only a few lost souls wandered about. Gerhard nearly stumbled over the remains of a person, a woman in a half-charred red dress with small white dots. Pretty, not a nightgown. He turned away quickly. Sometimes he had done that himself: slept in his clothes when he went to bed because he knew he would end up in the bunker sometime during the night along with the other residents of Jakobstrasse. For a fleeting moment he considered heading over to his old apartment. Something in him, an inexplicable feeling, told him the apartment was intact still, and in the apartment was his book. His creation, his work. No. If the apartment was no longer standing, he would rather wait to find out. First he needed to find Karl.

  Gerhard paused and gazed across a street littered with thin pieces of foil, the kind bombers hurled down to confuse the radar system. A man came toward him, moving slowly, carrying a suitcase. He was short and hunched, as if an enormous weight were forcing him down or gravity were tugging at him. There was something familiar about him, but Gerhard couldn’t place the face at first. He thought he recognized the man’s characteristically prominent chin, the cheeks that made him look like a Saint Bernard, and the almost-bald pate. He ruled out all the professors at the university and the residents of his apartment building. Gerhard rifled through the various photo albums in his head. When the man was right beside him, he finally found the image that matched: Detective Superintendent Kögl.

  The other man recognized him at the same time: “Gerhard? Gerhard Strangl?” he said in a whisper.

  Gerhard wanted to ignore him, but Kögl’s pathetic countenance made him suddenly feel a pang of sympathy for the man.

  “Detective Superintendent Kögl.” Gerhard made sure to contain his voice.

  “Not anymore,” said Kögl. “The Gestapo kicked me out long ago. Can you believe I wound up sitting in the same cell as you?” He gave off a caustic grunt.

  Gerhard was struck by the notion of revenge. Kögl had ripped his life apart. It was all his fault. Kögl’s, and no one else’s. What would his life have been like without this pitiful man’s meddling? Kögl was the one who’d thrown him in the cell. And what had he done to
Weinhardt? A single glance at Kögl, though, and Gerhard knew the man couldn’t possibly sink any lower. His life hung in tatters. Revenge was superfluous. The detective superintendent was but a shadow of his former self. He’d lost his power; he was nothing.

  “Is that what you managed to save?” Gerhard asked, straightening his uniform.

  “No, these are the remains of my family.” Kögl clamped the suitcase to his chest, sounding confused. “They’re in here.”

  “In the suitcase?”

  “Yes,” he said. “My son died in Russia, and I have the rest here.” He tapped the suitcase lightly with his palm.

  They stood for a moment without uttering a word. Kögl stared at the ground, while Gerhard looked directly at Kögl. Then Gerhard cleared his throat, and the former detective superintendent stuttered a tentative good-bye before going on his way. Gerhard turned and watched him. Only then did he notice that Kögl was wearing pajama pants and slippers on his feet.

  “Wait.”

  Kögl stopped.

  “Tell me who reported me to the Gestapo.”

  “Does it even matter now?”

  “It does to me.” Gerhard stared at him firmly.

  “It was Heinz.”

  “Heinz?” Gerhard eyed Kögl in disbelief.

  “He hates you. That’s what he said. You and your intellectualism and your arrogant demeanor. And he probably wanted to make a good impression on the Gestapo.”

  Gerhard stared straight ahead. “It wasn’t Weinhardt, then?”

  “No, he had nothing to do with it.” Kögl started down the street.

  Heinz. Dear god, it had been Heinz. He couldn’t believe it. Which meant that Gerhard had delivered Weinhardt to Kögl for no reason at all. In reality Gerhard had been the informant. He’d done the Gestapo’s bidding, had reported an enemy of the people. Where was Weinhardt now? Was he alive? Dead?

  He pressed forward on shaking legs until he came to what had been the Alster Pavilion. All that remained was ruins.