He hesitated. ‘I like whittling wood. Carving things.’
‘And here we are with all this wood round us. You could borrow my knife, it’s good and sharp.’
He said, ‘I’m too tired.’
‘You won’t be one day.’
They lay down under two blankets tonight. Back to back again.
*
Hanno was carving wood with an enormous chisel, he was carving men, women and children, it went really fast and as soon as each figure was finished it became a real live person, a Jew, they were all leaping out of the big piece of wood he was working on and marching up to a huge pit that other Jews were digging out of the ground. One of them was the old gentleman Emil had slapped. The old gentleman had to take his clothes off before he was killed, and he was trembling. Hanno felt how much he didn’t want to die, as if he was the old gentleman, and then suddenly he was there, taking his clothes off, and a German police officer stepped behind him and put a gun to his neck. He felt a terror that was cold, cold as ice. He looked down into the pit and saw Wolfgang lying dead there already. He turned round to face the officer who was going to kill him and saw that it was Father – or was it Otto? It was both of them together. ‘I have to kill you,’ said the police officer. ‘You deserted and stole from a German soldier, you’re an enemy of the Reich.’ Then he was furious, ragingly angry, he turned round and fought the officer, the gun went off but it was Father who fell into the pit, and Hanno was shouting: ‘What did Wolfgang do wrong? Tell me that.’ Father wouldn’t answer, he was dead. Hanno shouted: ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’
He thought he was awake. He was still angry with his father. Effi had gone from beside him. He pushed himself up on one elbow and saw her stealing from the other refugees, who lay asleep on the forest path, a little way apart from each other, bleached by the white moonlight. He couldn’t see what she was taking, only how graceful she was, silent and clever. She seemed to know when her victims were going to turn over. She moved with them as if they were partners in a dance, as if this was some slippery music she was making with them. When she’d finished she lay down with Hanno again, facing him, and started to stroke his nose, his eyes, the place where his moustache was just beginning to fuzz. He lay still, he didn’t dare move, but just when she kissed him he woke up properly.
Chapter Ten
It was very early morning and the air ought to have felt fresh and clean. It didn’t. A terrible stink had come down with the dew. Effi wasn’t in his arms, she was curled up with her knees against his side. Her cheeks were pink now, and she looked very young. The other people were asleep in their wagons, not on the ground. It must still be very early in the morning but you could still hear the noise of battle – had they been fighting all night? The outside of the rough grey army blanket was damp and cold.
A squirrel came bouncing across the branches, sending woody scraps down on his face. Effi stretched and woke up.
‘How’s your arm?’
‘Better. OK, it hurts a bit, but I slept well, that helps. Those are planes I can hear, aren’t they?’
‘Yes. Not close, though.’
‘Good.’
They drank some of the water from their milk can and ate half a potato raw, sliced thin. It’d have been horrible if they hadn’t been so hungry.
They were rolling the blankets up when the old woman got down out of her wagon and went into the trees to do her business. Coming back, she called out to them.
‘Good morning. Are you off already?’
On the off-chance, Hanno asked: ‘Have you got any sausage? For another fag?’
Frau Rupf hesitated, then she winked at Hanno – she had a soft spot for him, he did right to be cheeky. Stealthily, she walked to the wagon, fished about among the sacks, did something in there and came to him with her hands behind her back. She winked again.
‘Which side?’
‘Either,’ said Hanno. He wasn’t going to play children’s games.
She showed him a good piece of sausage, about two centimetres thick, ten centimetres wide, real meat, pocketed with fat. Worth a fag, there was enough for him and Effi both. But old Rupf wasn’t after cigarettes this morning.
‘Give me a kiss.’ Her voice had gone soft, sentimental. He kissed her old dry cheek, thinking he was only doing it for the meat, but then he found himself half-liking her. She had guts.
‘Now go away,’ she said. ‘I don’t want my daughter to know what I’ve been up to.’
They ate the sausage on the way back to the westward road. It was wonderful.
‘I’m not going to look like that when I’m old,’ said Effi.
‘How can you get out of it?’
‘Face-lifts.’
There were hardly any refugees on the road yet, but after a while they heard an engine running behind them and turned round to see a big silver car, dulled with dirt. There was a woman in the back wearing furs, you could see her felt hat inside the ruff of fuzzy darkness, a curl of smoke, a pair of made-up eyes. The driver blew his horn at them.
‘Lucky bitch,’ said Effi. ‘Look at the fur coat. Sable. One day I’m going to have a coat as nice as that. Hey, d’you think it’s Eva Braun?’
‘No,’ said Hanno. ‘They’d get her away by plane.’
‘Of course they would. So this is some Party fat cat’s moll, isn’t it? I bet she’s got a nice lipstick. You know, Hanno, we ought to get ourselves some wheels. You know you love me –’
‘Do I?’ There was something like a flash, a rush of voltage inside him, but he wasn’t going to show it.
‘Don’t you? Well, never mind. Look, get a gun from somewhere, there must be plenty lying around. Hijack me that car. Or the next one that happens along. You fiddled a chunk of sausage, after all – the car would be child’s play. You don’t need a gun, just find another old woman to kiss. Don’t make that face. You did well.’
Hanno looked ahead of him at the changing pattern of cracks along the road. On the outside he was jaunty, pleased with himself for wheedling the sausage out of the old woman, but inside he was all anger and confusion. He’d said last night that he wanted to understand, and then he’d had that awful dream about Father – and now he was remembering how Father had got angry with Mother at Christmas because the dinner was late, then he’d gone into the kids’ bedrooms and shouted: ‘What’s all this filthy mess?’ Just because Heide had left a pair of socks on the floor, and Wolfgang had rumpled up his bed after Mother had made it. He’d given the boys a clip round the ear each and told Heide to stop snivelling.
It was always bad when Father came home on leave; they’d got used to living without him, and maybe he knew himself he didn’t fit in any more. Hanno used to count the days till he went back to the Front. It shouldn’t have been like that. It should all have been like that walk in the snow. Only it wasn’t.
He said to Effi: ‘What was it like, being a criminal?’
‘It was hard work, kid. You had to look out for yourself all the time.’
‘Yes, but you didn’t care about anything – wasn’t that good?’
‘I cared about myself, and my friends.’ Her mouth went up at the corners and he wondered why. She said: ‘At least I didn’t have to be a good Nazi girl, so I saw what other people were shutting their eyes to. And did whatever I could get away with, like listening to the BBC. Did you?’
‘In the end we all did, never mind that we might have got into trouble for it. Everyone wanted to know how far the Russians had got.’
*
The road came out of the woods and met a bigger highway that had once been lined with trees, but only their stumps were left. The trees had been made into a barricade to stop the Russians. It hadn’t worked. You could see the smashed-up bits of it alongside the road for about half a kilometre. There had been a trench behind the barricade, too, but the Russians had filled it up with a mixture of wood and earth. You could see the tank-tracks going over it, and then the tyres of the fur-coat woman’s car. It made it
easier for them to walk, anyway.
The village came next. It had been destroyed. Blackened spars poked up from the house roofs. One of the houses was still smoking. The church tower was a stump. There were dozens of dead German soldiers lying around. The tanks had rolled over some of them. The stink of explosives was strong here; that was a good thing, because you didn’t smell the bodies. Hanno looked away from the corpses on the road and saw a dead soldier in a house doorway. It made him think of Wolfgang, though he tried not to.
There were still dead soldiers lying on the road when they got out into the countryside again. About half a kilometre from the village centre there was a house that had lost part of its roof. A little man came out of the front door, bright and chirpy as if he hadn’t slept in a ruin, knotting a striped tie in front of his chin.
‘Good morning!’ he said. ‘It was lively here last night. But I made it through in the potato cellar. No potatoes, that’s the only trouble. Inhabitants fled. Don’t blame them. But what’s a man to do when he sees a lot of tanks coming? He dives for the nearest shelter, that’s what he does.’
The little man was male and had four limbs, so he should be in the army, but there was something about him that contradicted the whole idea of the army. He dragged a handcart out of the door behind him: it was made out of an orange box mounted on the wheels and pushing handle of a pram. Behind the handcart came a large dog on the end of a piece of string. The dog tried to run towards a dead soldier who lay a metre or so away.
‘Cornelius!’ the little man said angrily.
The dog was a long-legged comedy of an animal, muddy-cream-coloured with a curling tail, a pink-brown muzzle and tangled floppy hair. He fought and whined till the little man slapped him, then he gave in, but you could see he didn’t understand. The little man fetched out a raggy grey handkerchief and wiped his face with it. ‘Of course,’ he said as if he was ashamed of himself, ‘of course the dog was interested. He’s hungry, like the rest of us, but there are decencies, aren’t there? My name’s Sperling, by the way.’
He started to walk along the road beside them.
‘Hanno Frisch,’ said the boy. ‘My friend’s called Effi.’ He didn’t know what her surname was.
‘Effi Mann,’ she said. ‘Are you short of food?’
‘Well,’ said Sperling, ‘Fräulein Effi, can’t be wasteful with what we’ve got, can we? And he’s always been a greedy mutt.’
Cornelius wagged his tail, grinning.
Sperling said: ‘So, kids, the thousand-year Reich is over already. It only felt like twelve years. Doesn’t time fly? Well, everything’s short at the moment: it’s such a short distance between the Eastern Front and the Western Front, the fare has gone down to ten pfennigs. Thanks for laughing, pretty Fräulein, that’ll be another ten pfennigs for the joke – you might as well, after all, you won’t get anything serious for hard cash, not nowadays.’
‘Are you from Berlin?’ asked Effi.
There was a rattle of wheels behind them.
‘Soldiers,’ said Sperling, smiling, nervous now. ‘Trouble.’
But the little cart, drawn by two hairy ponies, went past them without stopping.
‘On the run,’ said Sperling. ‘I’d really like to get off this main road, it’s too serious for me.’
‘I think we should head for those woods,’ said Effi, pointing ahead where the land sloped upwards again.
Now other refugees were coming up behind them, going at a good pace and overtaking them. Hanno saw the Czekallas in their wagon with the old woman, her daughter and granddaughter, and the man in the Homburg hat was riding too. Probably he’d bought the ride with coffee beans. He saw them with his sideways glancing wolf-eyes but he didn’t greet them.
‘I’m not from Berlin, no,’ said Sperling. ‘I’m from Zossen, I was a ticket clerk at the station there. I always fancied a career in cabaret but the times weren’t right for the sort of jokes I wanted to tell. Couldn’t go into the army, you know. Chronic bronchitis.’ He coughed at the thought of it. ‘They tried to get me in at the end, though. They were sending people out in wheelchairs. And I saw the Home Guard commandant going to the graveyard with a spade – this is God’s truth, I swear – I said to him, Where are you going, Herr Kommandant? and he says to me, “Oh, just digging out a few more slackers, some people’ll bed themselves two metres down to get out of doing their bit.” But he had to stop halfway down the first grave because the Russians were coming.’
Hanno had heard this joke before, but Sperling told it well.
‘You’re right,’ said Effi. ‘You should have been in cabaret. Maybe when the war’s over there’ll be an opening for you.’
There was a faint grumble in the sky, planes coming. Russian planes, there were no German planes, no Luftwaffe left. It was the worst possible place, flat fields all around, no cover at all.
‘The ditch,’ shouted Hanno. ‘There must be a ditch.’
There was, and they got down into it. Hanno just remembered to keep the milk pail upright so that the water wouldn’t spill out. Luckily there was no water down here to speak of, only a damp silty bottom. The planes came down low. Hanno put his hands over his head; somehow he felt safe with his hands over his head, and he shut his eyes tight. Please God, he found himself thinking, please. He heard bullets bouncing off the hard surface of the road.
*
Ida Rupf and her family ran for the ditch, too; Herr Hungerland ran with them. There was no time to do anything about the animals. Ida felt the silt seeping into her clothes, felt it squish between her fingers as she tried to grab hold of it, she wanted something to hold. She found a tree-root and grasped that. Then she was calling out, she was ashamed of herself, for her mother, for Felix. She wanted Felix. She couldn’t believe it. After all those years.
The planes went away. She was still alive. She had to get out of the ditch.
One of the Czekallas’ horses was dead and the other bleeding to death because they’d got him in the throat. The wagon was keeling over, one of the big rear wheels had gone. The air was full of flour from a burst sack, so everything, even the horses, was covered with white powder. She couldn’t help thinking about Botho and Fred, maybe they were lying like this. Oh, please, God, no. She’d rather the Russians kept them than that they were dead.
Magda started to scream. ‘Oh, Lord Jesus. Oh, Lord Jesus.’
‘Calm yourself, girl!’ she said.
Magda was screaming about Czekalla and Lisbeth, who hadn’t got to the ditch. They lay dead on the road. The cow was still alive. The spray of bullets had pushed Czekalla across the road; his schnapps bottle lay intact a short distance away from his corpse. Herr Hungerland was alive, he’d come out of the ditch with his smart clothes plastered in mud. The rest of them were just as filthy.
Magda went to pray over Lisbeth. She even prayed over Czekalla, but not so long.
There was no discussion about what they had to do next. They all knew. They’d have to work quickly, though, nobody wanted to stay here in the open, after what had happened. They started to rifle the wagon for what they could carry away with them. Barbara worked too, wordlessly, her grey eyes darting here and there. She reached for the boy baby doll she’d got for her third birthday, held it close to her for a moment, then saw her mother looking at her. Magda didn’t say anything, but Barbara put the doll back again. Poor child, thought Ida, poor child. But Magda’s right.
‘Empty half the potatoes and the porridge,’ she said, ‘and we’ll carry the sacks with the rest.’ It made her feel better to give orders. She put her silver-fox heads round her throat, she wasn’t leaving them behind, even if they made her sweat in the daytime, and she’d keep her coat too. ‘And the sausage,’ she said.
Magda said: ‘Give me the knife. I’m going to get some meat. And we’ll take that cow along with us and have her milk.’
Ida looked at the horses. They were both dead now, but for the life of her she couldn’t face chopping them up for meat. She scolded her
self for weakness. Anyway, Magda was going to do it. But when Magda got to the horses she hesitated, wondering how to start. Then Herr Hungerland walked over to stand beside her, putting his hand out for the knife.
‘Let me,’ he said. ‘I have some knowledge of physiology. I am a doctor.’
The planes were gone, still Hanno wasn’t sure if he could open his eyes or get up. Then he heard the dog whining, looked and saw him nudging Sperling, who had a bloody hole in his belly.
‘Poor Cornelius,’ said Sperling, and managed to grin. ‘You got some water, kids? I’m dreadfully thirsty.’
He was going fast. Hanno got behind him and held the milk pail to his mouth. He managed one gulp. Hanno stroked his thinning brown hair and his temples, Effi came alongside him. She took his hand and crooned over and over again: ‘Poor Sperling, poor darling.’
Sperling opened his eyes wide and again he managed the grin. ‘Give me a kiss, will you?’ he asked Effi. ‘Cheer a poor man up on his death bed? Oh, and listen, take the dog, kids. And the cart, if it’s still alive.’ As if the cart had been keeping him company. Effi bent over and kissed him.
‘I love you,’ she said, ‘just remember that where you’re going.’
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘have you heard this one? There was a Russian, a Frenchman and a German, all standing in an aeroplane, waiting to jump – give me another kiss, Fräulein Effi –’ his voice was quiet now, and slurred. ‘And a bit more water, Frisch. Don’t think I don’t appreciate you looking after me, like a brother, Frisch, only if Fräulein Effi gives me one more kiss I’ll just go from her arms to the angels’ and I won’t notice the difference –’
He was gone. It was too late for any more kisses.
They laid him out in the ditch with his arms by his sides. Hanno shut his eyes and fastened his chin up with the necktie. The dog sniffed his master, crying. Then Effi took a few handfuls of silt and scattered them over his face.
Last Train from Kummersdorf Page 10