Kyiv (Spoils of War)

by Graham Hurley

‘Yes, very.’

  ‘Fast or beautiful?’

  ‘Both. I’m also wondering why.’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why you’ve really brought me up here. This has your husband’s blessing. Am I right?’

  For the first time she paused before answering. ‘I’m serious,’ she said at last. ‘This will be great. I promise.’

  ‘This?’

  ‘You and me.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’

  ‘Then kiss me. Have your way with me. Or if that’s too much to ask just lie back and enjoy it. Pretend I’m Bella. Might that help?’

  Bella. The name killed any prospect of a rapprochement, and she knew it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I’m afraid it does. Blaming your husband isn’t good enough. Mine is a much simpler question. Who told him?’

  Silence. She reached for her sweater and tugged it on. Her bra was still on the floor beside the mattress. She looked up at him, and lightly touched the newness of the scar tissue on his forehead.

  ‘I’m told you had a nasty accident,’ she said. ‘But I’m wondering what did the real damage.’ She paused for a moment, frowning at the bra at her feet, then she looked up again. ‘If you really want to know about my husband, then the answer’s yes. Of course he knows I’ve brought you here. In fact, it was his idea. Two heads are better than one, he’s always telling me. And he says you’re welcome in our bed anytime.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Always. He likes you. He’s normally choosy when it comes to men, but he thinks you’ve got something special. And that matters, Mr Moncrieff, because that’s exactly what I think, too.’

  26

  TUESDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 1941

  It was Andreas who escorted Bella up to the Poster Archive. She left the emptiness of the Leningrad Gallery without regrets, huddled in a Wehrmacht greatcoat that Schultz had liberated from somewhere, grateful for its warmth as darkness stole across the city and the temperature in the gallery plunged.

  The Poster Archive occupied a bare room at the top of the building, five storeys above the street. Bella followed Andreas along the corridor, past framed sepia photographs of Lenin and his wife, pictured in various domestic settings. The door at the end was guarded by two SD men, both in civilian clothes. An exchange of nods produced a key, and the guards stood back to allow Bella into the room. The figure in the corner had his back turned and for a moment she hadn’t a clue who he might be. Then he turned round, faintly curious. Someone must have removed his boots because he was barefoot on the wooden floorboards. There was mud crusted on his uniform and he’d obviously taken a recent beating because his nose was bloodied and one eye was beginning to close but his smile was as warm as ever.

  ‘Ilya.’ Bella crossed the room and held him at arm’s length. ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘Me,’ he turned to Andreas. ‘Can’t they do something about that?’ He gestured up at the single window. It had been shattered by a blast, and the room was even colder than the Gallery. From the street below, Bella could hear the rumble of a passing tram. ‘A hammer, maybe? Nails? A sheet of wood?’ Bella knew what the answer would be.

  She was right. Andreas shook his head and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. Then came the turn of a key and a shuffle of boots as the guards settled down again.

  Bella wanted to know what had happened. What was Glivenko doing here? And why did he smell so bad?

  ‘I’ve been in the woods,’ he said, ‘across the river. No bathrooms, I’m afraid, but plenty to keep us busy.’

  Busy? It dawned on Bella that Kyiv had him and his sappers to thank for the chaos of the last week or so.

  ‘It really was your doing?’ Bella nodded up at the window. ‘It’s your fault that nothing works anymore? That we’re always so bloody cold?’

  ‘Yes,’ Glivenko nodded. ‘Me.’

  ‘So how did it work? How did you manage it?’

  Glivenko shot her a look and shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, he directed Bella’s attention to the posters.

  ‘I’ve been up here a while,’ he said. ‘It’s like looking at family photographs.’

  The posters, like everything else in the building, had been carefully framed and were now stacked against the wall in neat rows.

  ‘I remember this one from those early days in Leningrad. It kept my little brother awake at night, scared him half to death.’

  Bella was looking at a wild-eyed hero of the Proletariat. Dressed like a caveman, he was taking on the giant serpent of Tsarist Russia with nothing but a cudgel. Bella had seen the poster before, a relic of the October Days in Leningrad. Crude, she thought. But effective.

  ‘And this one?’

  Glivenko stepped back to reveal the tribune of the Revolution exhorting the faithful against the billow of smoke from a thousand factory chimneys. Like everyone else in Russia, Bella had lived with this image for years: Lenin’s body bent against the winds of history, daring the future to prove him wrong.

  ‘Strange, isn’t it?’ Glivenko was shaking his head. ‘We were nothing but kids at the time and this is the way they spoke to us. I loved this artist. He made me laugh.’ This time, Bella was confronted with a series of cartoon capitalists: fat bellies, waistcoats, evil leers, and just a hint of a Jewish nose. ‘We used to call them the jelly-men. They were spineless, flabby, just the way capitalists should be. They told us each drawing was based on soldiers’ telegrams from the front during the civil war but I’m not sure that’s true. I remember seeing them plastered on walls and shop windows in the rougher areas of the city. Stuff like this was everywhere. They were telling us what to think, of course, but we never minded.’

  ‘Exciting times?’

  ‘The best. Wonderful days, truly.’

  Bella nodded. Glivenko would doubtless have to pay for his sins against the Greater Reich but looking at him now, awash on a tide of memories, it was hard not to remember the moment her own convictions began to harden. She was looking at another poster Glivenko had cherished from his days in Leningrad. It was dominated by a group of workers in red overalls. They were stern, fiercely socialist, unyielding. To their right, another fat capitalist and his nest of lackey bankers. And holding the ring? A soldier from the front line, feet solidly planted, cap askew, rifle in hand. The question across the foot of this image couldn’t have been blunter: Who Are You With?

  Who was I with? Bella shook her head, drew the greatcoat a little tighter, tried to ignore the icy draught through the broken window. Her boyfriend at university had voiced questions like these, never personal, never bothering with the messiness of trying to find someone to love, but always addressing the bigger issues. Poverty. Exploitation. How wealth, and power, and corruption always went hand in hand.

  To be on the right side of history, he’d always told her, was a duty as well as a challenge, and the days they’d collected small change for the Jarrow marchers had made her feel very good about herself. The army of sturdy derelicts had walked the length of the country, through pretty villages, past shops and country markets brimming with goodies. These men were desperate for work. She and Matthew had spent three days with them on the road, and those conversations had made her feel ashamed, as well as angry. Then Matthew had disappeared to Spain, taking the best of her with him, and the day she got the news that he’d died in some battle outside Madrid was the day she knew she had to honour his memory.

  ‘We never had posters like this,’ she told Glivenko. ‘Which is a shame.’

  Glivenko didn’t seem to be listening. His feet, she noticed, were filthy and he had a deep cut on his right hand that was still oozing blood. He sucked at it from time to time, and then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his uniform. When she asked whether he, too, was cold he nodded.

  ‘The window,’ he murmured. ‘We have to do som
ething about the bloody window.’

  *

  In the late afternoon, Andreas drove Schultz to settle things with Kalb. The meeting had been brokered by the Military Governor, who was keen to keep the peace between his warring tribes. At Schultz’s insistence, the two men would talk in private at the Governor’s headquarters. Schultz had no taste for conducting business on SS turf, and neither did he accept the Governor’s offer to chair the meeting. The Babi Yar operation had been put together with some care over a period of days. The site had been prepared, troops assigned, announcements broadcast, proclamations posted. Tens of thousands of Jews weren’t dying by accident, and Kalb, in Schultz’s view, was at the heart of the killing machine.

  They met in the Governor’s personal quarters. There were nests of family photographs, a half-finished letter to his wife, even a piano. The Governor, Schultz noticed, was trying to master a Schubert sonata. A blizzard of pencil marks on the first page suggested that so far it hadn’t been easy.

  Schultz had no interest in sharing the sofa with Kalb. Instead, he took the other chair, harder, more upright. Kalb studied him a moment. Schultz had met him on a number of occasions, never a pleasure, and each time he’d looked a little madder. Now, the cast in his eye seemed to have developed a life of its own. A child might have drawn a face like this, he thought, if only to amuse his mates.

  ‘You were in the Storch this morning?’ Kalb had no time to waste. ‘Over the Yar?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Why?’

  Schultz didn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. When he’d slipped the photographs into his briefcase, the prints had still been wet and even now they smelled of the fluids in the developing bath.

  He arranged them carefully on the low table.

  ‘From two hundred metres, this was what we saw. Your men must have left their souls for God to mind. Are we here to fight the Russians? Or is there another plan no one’s bothering to share?’

  ‘We have our orders,’ Kalb said stiffly. ‘As a soldier, I imagine you’ll understand that.’

  ‘Orders from whom?’

  ‘From Berlin. Come back here in five years, maybe ten, and every field, every meadow, every hectare will be farmed by our people. German farmers. German Hausfrauen. German Kinder. The grain will go back to the Heimat, oil, too, from the Caucuses. We’re here to make things better, Schultz. As you well know.’

  ‘But no Jews.’

  ‘No Jews.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  ‘You know why. Jews infest us. Jews are parasites. Ask any doctor how you fight disease. First you identify what’s wrong. Then, for the greater good, you eliminate it. We’re here to make a better world, Schultz, and if the logic of that mission escapes you, then I suggest a conversation with people wiser than me might be in order. Courage in this respect starts at the top. Never underestimate the power of will.’ He nodded at the photographs. ‘The men down in the Yar have occasionally had difficulties with the task at hand, I won’t deny it. But they’re good Germans, steadfast, determined. They have belief in the mission and they know they’re in the brotherhood of the Chosen Ones.’

  ‘The Chosen Ones? That’s what the Jews think, too.’

  ‘So I’m told. Unfortunately for the Yids, we do the choosing. Is the work tough? Of course it is. Should we be kinder? Gentler? Should we take account of their feelings, Schultz, before we put a bullet through their empty heads? This, I doubt. Why? Because it would be grossly dishonest. These days, my friend, the best outcomes require the harshest measures. Few are given to lifting a burden like that, but the Schutzstaffel are proud to offer their services, and I – likewise – am honoured to be one of those tasked to lead them. Does that answer your question? Or do you have more time to waste? The rest of the photographs, please, from that briefcase of yours.’

  Kalb reached for the prints on the table, but Schultz got there first. Kalb looked up. He seemed genuinely surprised.

  ‘These are the property of the Reich,’ he said. ‘Ours to keep safe. Ours to file away. What possible use could you have for them?’

  ‘This war won’t go on forever,’ Schultz said softly. ‘Has that occurred to you?’

  ‘Of course. Like it or not, every war has consequences, and we in the SS have known that from the start. In victory, forgiveness. In defeat, oblivion. After the Ivans have surrendered, we may take a broader view, show a little mercy, help them to their feet, brush them down. In the meantime, alas, the killing must go on.’

  ‘But the Jews don’t fight back.’

  ‘Of course they don’t. But that’s because we’re stronger, fiercer, more committed. Belief, Schultz, is worth a hundred divisions in the field. Belief and attention to the smallest details. The Jews don’t fight back because they can’t. And by the time they realise where all this is heading, there won’t be any left.’

  ‘No Jews at all?’

  ‘None. All gone. Every last Yid. The stain on God’s earth eradicated. In our line of work, Schultz, we have to think the unthinkable. Until we’ve made it happen, no one will credit us with the miracle of deliverance.’

  The miracle of deliverance.

  A tiny pulse deep in Schultz’s head was beginning to quicken. The last time this had happened, he’d beaten a man to death. He was up in the air again, crouched in the tiny Storch, the Leica raised to his eye, the viewfinder full of bodies. Even from two hundred and fifty metres, you could still hear the murderous soundtrack as this man’s machine guns sent thousands more toppling to their deaths. Rat-tat-tat, he thought. Accelerando. More and more bullets. More and more bodies. Some twitching. Some not quite dead. The devil’s concerto. Scored for tens of thousands of Yids.

  ‘We may lose this war,’ Schultz was returning the prints to his briefcase. ‘What then?’

  Kalb had no answer. For a long moment, Schultz wondered whether this possibility had ever occurred to him, that victory was taken for granted, immutable, part of the New Order, but then his mood abruptly changed.

  ‘You have a prisoner, Schultz. That man belongs to us.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Glivenko. First name Ilya. He’s a sapper with the Soviet 37th Army. You captured him last night. That operation is already the talk of the Wilhelmstrasse. You’ve earned yourself a great deal of credit, Schultz. Berlin will be generous. With your medal, I hope, will come a little common sense, but that man nearly brought us to our knees and the Ivans need to understand the consequences. So, tell me Schultz. When can we expect to see him?’

  Schultz took his time. The thunder in his head was receding.

  ‘You have another prisoner. Her name’s Krulak. Larissa Krulak. She’s a journalist.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘The Governor is demanding an account of last night’s operation. She’s a fine journalist. She has many followers. People in this city trust her. We believe she is the one to do justice to last night’s little outing.’

  ‘Then send Glivenko along. You know where we are.’

  ‘It needs to happen at SD headquarters. Our place. The Governor insists. He’s also adamant that the SS should share the credit. You should talk to him more often. He has this quaint belief that we should all be marching forward as one body,’ Schultz offered the ghost of a smile, ‘in lockstep.’

  Kalb pondered the proposition for a moment or two and then looked up.

  ‘We get her back?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘With Glivenko?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kalb frowned, staring at the briefcase, and then he nodded. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘We just hope you’re a man of your word, Schultz.’

  He got to his feet and offered the Hitler salute before turning on his heel and making for the door. Schultz, his big hand on the briefcase, hadn’t moved.

  *

  Andreas was waiting in the Mercedes. Kalb’s car, badged with SS markings, was already accelerating out of the courtyard.

  ‘Follow him.’ Schultz pulled the pass
enger door shut.

  ‘You want me to hang back? Tail him?’

  ‘On the contrary, get up his arse. He needs to know we’re serious.’

  ‘About what?’

  Schultz didn’t answer. He was starting to boil again. Andreas, carving a path through the late afternoon traffic, sensed his mood. Alone, he always called him capo.

  ‘You got what you wanted, capo?’

  ‘We’ll see. Just drive.’

  Andreas knew when to shut up. The SS car was fifty metres ahead, held up in a queue of traffic behind a horse and cart. He could hear the driver hammering the klaxon and waving a uniformed arm out of the window. When the peasant on the cart finally edged closer to the kerb, Kalb’s driver nosed out to overtake.

  ‘You go, too,’ Schultz grunted. ‘Put your foot down.’

  ‘But there’s a truck coming.’

  ‘Ignore it. He’ll get out of the way.’

  Andreas did Schultz’s bidding. The oncoming truck swerved to avoid them, mounting the pavement and scattering a group of soldiers. As they passed the horse and cart, the peasant was laughing.

  ‘Bravo…’ Schultz muttered.

  ‘Is that for the peasant, capo?’

  ‘No, it’s for you. You know where that bastard’s going? The new SS headquarters? We need to be there first.’

  ‘You want me to overtake him as well? Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Andreas shrugged. The SS car, another Mercedes, was a newer model, more powerful. The driver knew his business on the wet cobblestones, and chose a perfect line through bend after bend. As the city centre approached, he eased back behind a tram and Andreas spotted his chance. He knew the oncoming intersection was always busy but he was beginning to enjoy himself. After yesterday at the Yar, he’d no faith left in God but he dropped a gear, floored the accelerator and muttered a silent prayer.

  The traffic, as expected, was thick, cars, bicycles, lorries untangling themselves in every direction. As they passed the other Mercedes, Andreas caught a brief glimpse of Kalb’s face in the back. He was leaning forward, urging his driver to hold this impostor off, but there was fear in his eyes as well as madness and, as they hit the intersection, the two cars were nearly abreast.