The Undertaking (8 page)

‘Faber, before you went to Berlin, you barely knew what a communist was.’

‘But it’s important.’

‘It’s rubbish. What’s important is to stick together and get out of this hellhole in one piece.’

‘It’s important to me.’

‘Why is it so fucking important to you?’

‘We’re here for a reason, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, because we’re soldiers.’

‘No, Fuchs, we’re here to clear the communists and Jews from Russia. So that my wife and child have a better future.’

‘We’re here because we’re soldiers, Faber. That’s it.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Make it that fucking simple.’

16

Katharina read the letter a second time, her mother curled into her.

‘It doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with him, Mother. You should be happy. He’s coming home.’

‘They’d never send him back, Katharina, unless there was something wrong.’

‘So he injured his arm, his leg? He’ll recover. The main thing is that he’s coming.’

She kissed her mother on the cheek.

‘We should prepare for him, Mother. Decorate his room. We still haven’t hung up those badges and certificates. Come on. We’ll do it now.’

She helped her mother to her feet and they went to his room.

‘He’ll be fine, Mother.’

17

There was no shelter the following evening and they stood stranded on the steppe, only thirty-five of the ninety miles behind them.

‘We should walk through the night,’ said Kraft. ‘Keep moving and stay warm.’

‘It’s too cold and we’d lose each other,’ said Reinisch. ‘We’ll camp here.’

Faber stuck his rifle down through the snow, but found no earth for pegs, only thick sheets of ice.

‘What do we do now?’ he said.

‘Dig into the snow,’ said Weiss. ‘We’ll make a cave for the tent.’

‘I’m exhausted,’ said Kraft.

‘Let’s just pitch them on the surface,’ said Faber.

‘We need shelter from the wind,’ said Weiss.

‘There is none,’ said Kraft.

‘There might be. Start digging,’ said Weiss.

‘Nobody else is bothering, Weiss,’ said Faber.

‘That’s up to them.’

They burrowed for twenty minutes, until they had created a cavity deep enough for the tent ropes and pegs.

‘We’re like bloody Eskimos,’ said Faber.

‘I can’t believe this is happening to us. That they are doing this to us,’ said Kraft.

‘Who?’

‘Those bastards in Berlin. The ones who sent us out here.’

‘Have you been listening to Faustmann?’ said Faber.

‘No.’

‘You sound like him.’

‘Like Faustmann?’

‘Yes, he talks like that. Like a communist.’

Weiss’s laughter exploded in the tent.

‘Kraft’s too rich to be a communist.’

‘So why is he talking like one?’

‘I’m not,’ said Kraft. ‘I’m just wondering what the hell we are doing out here. What purpose does it serve?’

‘See, that’s communist cant.’

‘No, Faber. It’s me wondering what the fuck I am doing in Russian snow when I should be at home in front of the fire, looking after my mother.’

They slept, until brutally cold air filled the tent. It was Fuchs, Faustmann and Gunkel, forcing their way inside.

‘Ours is fucked,’ shouted Faustmann. ‘Ripped apart. Everybody’s out there, scrambling for shelter.’

‘But there’s no room in here,’ said Faber.

‘There has to be,’ said Fuchs.

Faber, Weiss and Kraft squeezed their knees against their chests and the other three pushed their way in, dragging packs and guns after them.

‘It was the wind,’ said Fuchs. ‘Cut through us like a knife.’

They hunkered, backs against the tent, knees pressing up against each other, six men compressed into a space created for two. Fuchs coughed for most of the night, spitting up phlegm in a tent already full of sweat and stale breath. Faber woke at dawn, gasping for fresh air. It was bitterly cold outside, but still. He lit a cigarette and watched the sun climb into the sky, its strengthening light rinsing the snow pink, illuminating three men wrapped in their collapsed tents. Faber walked towards them. They were dead.

‘Poor bastards,’ he said.

He finished his cigarette, threw the butt to the snow, and went back to the sleeping men, nudging them to open up the space that had been his. He slept again, woke with the others, and ate.

They tugged at the dead men’s clothing. Everything was frozen. Their hats glued by ice to their heads, their packs sealed shut.

‘The snow will bury them for us,’ said Kraus.

Fuchs coughed and spat green phlegm onto the snow.

‘I hope you’ll bury me, Sergeant,’ he said.

‘You’ll be fine, Private.’

Fuchs wiped the sweat dribbling from his forehead and the bridge of his nose.

‘Let’s hope you’re right, Sergeant.’

They gathered around the dead, said some prayers and moved out, heading north-east, following the map and compass, supporting Fuchs when he stumbled, then taking turns to carry him through the snow. When evening came, there was again no village, no shelter, only the never-ending whiteness. Kraus leaned his head against Fuchs’, the eyelashes of both men shrouded in ice.

‘I’m sorry Fuchs.’

Fuchs opened his eyes, then closed them again.

‘It’s not your fault, Sergeant.’

‘We should have disobeyed him.’

‘Then you’d be dead too, Kraus.’

‘I may be, anyway.’

Weiss put a hand on the shoulder of each man.

‘We’ll rest for the night,’ he said.

‘I can’t dig,’ said Faber.

‘We’ve got to,’ said Weiss.

‘I can’t. I’m worn out.’

‘Nor can I,’ said Kraft. ‘Let’s just pitch on the surface.’

‘What if there’s wind, like last night?’ said Weiss.

‘It can’t happen two nights in a row,’ said Faber.

‘I suppose not.’

They fell into deep, consuming sleep, oblivious to the high-pitched whistle of wind across the steppe. It kicked their tent as though it were a football, sending it into the air, dropping it again and rolling it over and over, their hips, knees, heads and guns
crashing into each other. They tumbled over and under one another, screaming, howling, Kraft sobbing that they would fall off the edge of the earth. And then it stopped. Suddenly. The men untangled their limbs and tried to still their rasping breath.

‘A ride at a fucking Russian funfair,’ said Weiss.

They laughed, grateful for the release. They were bruised and grazed, but no one was cut. Nothing seemed broken. They shoved their way out of the tent, through the ropes and fabric. Kraus, Gunkel and Faustmann were beside them, their tent pushed the same direction by the same wind.

‘Some fucking country,’ said Gunkel.

They gathered their belongings and walked the quarter-mile back to camp where the others still slept undisturbed under the early morning moon. They tried to pitch the tent again, but the fabric was torn, and ropes and pegs were missing.

‘It’s almost dawn, anyway,’ said Weiss.

‘We should just huddle together,’ said Kraft.

Faustmann laid his tent across the snow.

‘Stand on this,’ he said, ‘and we’ll drape the other one over us.’

‘And put Fuchs in the middle,’ said Gunkel. ‘Breathe on him to keep him warm.’

Fuchs looked lost. He was no longer coughing.

‘Are you all right, Fuchs?’ asked Faber.

‘Yes. You’re all very kind.’

They fell silent in the thin, brittle air, listening to Fuchs’ breath, the plaintive wheeze of a man drowning in his own lungs. Faber rubbed his gloves over Fuchs’ face, knocking off the icicles, breaking the ice spreading across his nose and lips. He was determined to stay awake, to be with his father’s old pupil, but at dawn a wave of sleep
dragged him under, holding him down until he felt something fall against him. It was Fuchs, already freezing. He held him briefly, but then let him fall further, face first, into the snow.

‘He’s dead,’ he said.

They all woke and looked down. Weiss bent over the body.

‘I’ll take his paybook and tag,’ said Weiss. ‘For his wife.’

They bent as Weiss did, taking things no longer of use to a dead man – a knife, a torch, a hat, scarf and gloves, moving quickly before the corpse froze any further. They covered him with snow and left.

‘So, what do you think now, Faber?’

‘About what, Faustmann?’

‘Are we cannon fodder?’

‘Shut up.’

‘No, he’s right,’ said Weiss. ‘What the hell are we doing out here, anyway?’

‘I am doing as I am ordered to do by my leaders.’

‘Where are they?’ said Weiss. ‘Why aren’t they here?’

‘Because we are,’ said Faustmann. ‘On their behalf.’

‘We’ll end up dead or mad,’ said Weiss.

‘Or both,’ said Kraft.

‘I can’t think about it,’ said Faber.

‘You have to think about it,’ said Faustmann.

‘No I don’t, Faustmann. What I have to do is stay alive.’

‘You’re ignoring the facts, Faber.’

‘The facts? The facts are that I am starving and freezing to death thousands of miles from home. For what? For a bigger, stronger Germany free of communist Jews. Those are the facts. That’s why I’m here. Why are you here, Faustmann?’

‘I have no fucking idea.’

The snow began to fall again, the flakes landing on already frozen snow. Faber covered himself in everything he had, glad of his mink and felt, so that only his eyes were visible. But it was hard to see. The snow was thick and the sky was dark. He moved towards the front of the group, exposing himself to more of the wind, but getting closer to Reinisch and the compass.

In the early afternoon, they came upon a village, intact but empty of people and food. Gunkel found nothing to slaughter. They lit fires and drank boiled snow. Kraft began to remove his leather boots, the steel tops cleaned by the snow, glistening in the firelight.

‘I’m not sure you should do that, Kraft,’ said Weiss. ‘It’s probably best to wait until we’re there.’

‘I want to wash my feet. Warm them up a bit.’

Faber helped him with his boots and watched as Kraft removed the left sock. The skin underneath was darker than the rest of his leg, with a scattering of white dust across it.

‘What’s that?’ said Faber.

Kraft brushed at it. It didn’t move. He took off the rest of the sock, lifting it over the ball of his foot and over his toes.

‘Shit! That hurts.’

Kraft’s toenails were gone. All five of them. Faber lifted the sock, turned it inside out and found them, stuck to the material, black and rotten. The flesh of Kraft’s right foot was even darker. Those toenails came away too, and the small toe was blacker, squashed and elongated. Nobody spoke. Everybody stared. Kraft stood up and hobbled to the stove. He filled a pan with lukewarm water, sat back down and put his feet in the water.

‘They’ll go back to normal in a minute,’ he said.

The feet lightened a little in colour, but the little toe remained black and spongy. He dried his feet and applied the frostbite cream
from their first aid kits. Faber found a pair of thick, dry socks in a pair of Russian slippers by the door.

‘Looks like I should have worn dead men’s shoes,’ said Kraft.

‘I’ll see if I can find some for you here,’ said Weiss.

‘Don’t even bother,’ said Faustmann. ‘Russians only have one pair of boots. They’re wearing them.’

In the morning, Faber, Weiss, Gunkel and Faustmann walked with Kraft, moving slowly at the back, ushering him through snow that reached up to their thighs, along a vague path left by the men who had gone before them.

Cold snow seeped in through Faber’s clothes and hot, damp sweat seeped out, his body exhausted and confused, uncertain of its own temperature, of its own strength. He wanted Stockhoff’s beef stew. Katharina’s long hair. He wanted it all to be over. For the stupidity to end.

18

They waited, with cake and coffee ready, listening to the clock tick each irretrievable second of the afternoon.

Katharina went down to the street every half-hour to check that he was not wandering up and down, lost, uncertain of the new address, but found no sign of him.

‘Maybe his train was delayed,’ said Mrs Spinell. ‘Nothing can be relied on any more.’

‘I’ll go and check,’ said Mr Spinell.

‘I’ll come with you, Father.’

‘It’s raining, Katharina. Stay with your mother.’

Katharina sat back down in front of the fire, opposite her mother, and resumed her sewing. The clock ticked on.

‘That damn thing,’ said Mrs Spinell. ‘I don’t know why they ever bought it. It’s so loud.’

She stood up, took a cloth from the kitchen and dusted the ornaments she had already cleaned.

‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ said Katharina. ‘There’s probably some simple explanation.’

‘But he was always so punctual. Do you remember how he raced to school every morning to be at the top of the line under the teacher’s nose so that she could praise his timekeeping?’

‘I remember.’

‘He was never, ever late. You always dawdled and dreamed your way to school.’

‘I know, Mother.’

Mr Spinell returned after two hours, his coat and suit sodden.

‘There was no trace of him. All the trains from the east have come and gone.’

Mrs Spinell picked up the cake, wrapped it in a clean towel, placed it in a tin, and went to her room. Her husband changed his clothes and took the place she had warmed on the sofa.

‘Do you think he’s all right?’

‘I’m sure he is, Katharina. We haven’t been told otherwise.’

‘But who would tell us?’

‘In war, you always hear bad news. I’m sure the explanation is simple. You should go to bed, Katharina. You look tired.’

Early the next morning, at around six, the doorbell startled her out of sleep. She threw back the covers and hurtled to the front door, tying the belt of her dressing gown as she ran. Her parents were already there, talking to a soldier, a young man who was not Johannes. He passed them a letter, saluted and left. Mrs Spinell squeezed her husband’s arm, her upturned face shut tight against bad news.

‘Please, Günther. What does it say?’

His reading was silent.

‘It’s all right, Esther. He’s fine.’

She opened her eyes.

‘Oh, thank God.’

‘He’s in an army hospital in Poland. He was taken off the train for treatment and will be home next week.’

‘We can wait a week,’ said Mrs Spinell.

‘I wonder what happened,’ said Katharina.

‘He was always a strong boy, Günther.’

She brought the cake to the living room table, removed the cloth and began to slice it.

‘It’s a bit early, Mother.’

‘No point in wasting those precious eggs,’ said Mrs Spinell.

They sat at the table and ate the cake.

‘Maybe he has influenza,’ said Mr Spinell.

‘Or a stomach bug,’ said Katharina. ‘On a packed train.’

They laughed.

‘It can’t be anything too serious,’ said Mr Spinell, ‘or we would have been informed.’

A second army letter arrived, telling them to collect Johannes from the station at three on the following Thursday. Katharina went with
her father this time, running her hand across her belly until the train arrived and the doors opened, spewing hundreds of dirty uniforms onto the platform.

‘We’ll never find him,’ she said, ‘they all look the same.’

‘Look carefully. He’ll see us.’

She did look, at the blanched cheeks and hollowed eyes, at the lines of hunger, cold and exhaustion ploughed into the men’s faces.

‘My God, Father.’

‘The fighting in Moscow is hard, Katharina. But we shall prevail.’

A fleck of white distracted her, bobbing along the platform amid the swarms of staggering grey. It was a nurse in a sparkling-white cap, holding the arm of a frail man and steering him through the crowd. He was oblivious to the nurse, to the crowd, to the sliver of drool sliding from the side of his mouth. Katharina put her arm on her father’s sleeve.

‘I found him, Father.’

‘Where?’

‘In front of you.’

‘Where, Katharina? I can’t see him.’

‘In front of you. With the nurse.’

‘Oh no, Katharina. No.’

The young man’s uniform hung in folds. The thin, papery skin of an old man had been stretched across his face.

‘My poor son.’

The nurse walked past them, Johannes with her.

‘Come on, Father. Let’s go to him.’

‘I don’t know if I can.’

‘It’s definitely him.’

She tapped the nurse’s arm and introduced herself.

‘Hello, Johannes. Welcome home.’

He turned towards the voice, but looked through her, his blue eyes seeing nothing. Mr Spinell stepped towards Johannes and took his arm.

‘Come on, son. Let’s take you home. Your mother is waiting.’

Johannes started off again, down the platform, shuffling his feet, unwilling, or unable, to lift them. Katharina stayed with the nurse.

‘He’s in shock,’ said the nurse. ‘It happens a lot. The doctors have given him three weeks’ leave, so take him home and put him to bed for a few days. He’ll be fine then. His gun and pack are back in Poland, but his documents are here. They tell you everything you need to know.’

She handed over an envelope.

‘The sedation should wear off in a couple of hours. Have him asleep in bed before that happens.’

‘Why?’

‘He’ll be easier to manage.’

‘Oh.’

‘He’ll be fine. It’s really very common.’

‘How long does it last?’

‘It varies. But he should be better within the three weeks. Contact your own doctor if you need to.’

‘Thank you.’

Katharina followed her father and brother, and caught up quickly, easily. She took Johannes’ left arm, lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it.

‘Hello, Johannes. It’s me, Katharina.’

They led him down the steps to the underground and onto a train, all three silent until they stood in front of the door to their apartment.

‘I need to talk to your mother first. To prepare her a little.’

He tried to put the key in the lock quietly, but his wife heard him, opened the door abruptly and pushed past him to greet her son.

‘Johannes,’ she said, reaching out her arms.

She stopped, her body stilled, her arms outstretched.

‘Johannes. My darling, handsome son.’

She stepped towards him, took his face between her hands and kissed him on both cheeks.

‘Welcome home, my sweetheart. Mama will look after you. You’re safe now.’

She took his hand and led him into the living room, plumped up the cushions, sat him down and took off his boots.

‘Katharina, fetch a blanket for him. Günther, bring the coffee from the kitchen. It’s on the stove.’

They did as she bid, each relieved to have a task that distracted from the mangled shape on the sofa. Katharina tucked the blanket around Johannes’ legs and Mr Spinell handed his son the coffee, but Johannes’ hands remained inert and the cup tipped to one side, spilling coffee onto the blanket.

‘Günther, what are you doing?’

‘I didn’t realize.’

‘Pour another cup. Give it to me this time.’

She lifted the cup to Johannes’ mouth and tipped a little of the coffee between his lips. Some went in, but most dribbled out of the right side of his mouth, mottling the white linen napkin draped across his chest. Cake followed, crumbs that she fingered through his lips, gently, refusing to accept his failure to chew and swallow.

‘I made it this morning, my love. Especially for you.’

‘The nurse said the sedation would wear off soon,’ said Katharina. ‘That we should have him in bed before it does.’

‘What nurse?’

‘At the station.’

‘I’m giving him a bath first. The water’s hot.’

‘I’ll get it ready,’ said Katharina.

She turned on the taps and looked at her reflection, tracing her fingers over her weariness.

Mr and Mrs Spinell raised Johannes to his feet and steered him to the bath.

‘Now, ladies, out please. I will take it from here.’

‘No, Günther. I will bathe him.’

‘Esther, he is a twenty-year-old man, far too old to be bathed by his mother.’

‘I need to check his skin, for lice, for infection. I want to see him, Günther. He’s my son.’

‘We’ll do it together, then. But not Katharina. That’s too much.’

She left them and sat back on the sofa to alter a maternity summer dress, in blue silk. The man in the pawnshop had kept it aside for her.

Her mother left the bathroom, hurried to the kitchen, opened a cupboard, closed it and headed back to her son.

‘He has lice. Though only in his hair. And no infections or frostbite, thank God.’

She closed the bathroom door, then snapped it open again.

‘Oh, Katharina, could you get his pyjamas?’

She rose slowly, her lower spine and pelvis feeling the strain of the day as she moved to his room. She ran her fingers over his awards, lingering over the brass horse on its wooden plaque, the city boy’s triumph over the country riders. She left his clothes on the floor outside the bathroom and knocked.

‘Pyjamas.’

He emerged, washed and shaved, blue cotton sagging from his shoulders, a parent holding each arm as he was led to the sofa.

‘I’ll make him something to eat,’ said Mrs Spinell.

‘Mother, we really need to put him in bed before the sedation wears off.’

‘Katharina, that boy has not eaten properly for weeks. I won’t let him go to bed without food.’

‘Fine, then.’

Katharina lifted his legs onto the sofa and covered him, over-riding his silence with her chatter about her new husband and baby, about the new apartment and the things to be found in the pawn-shops. He said nothing. Noticed nothing. The less he responded, the more she talked, relieved when her mother returned with a bowl of soft, milky, infantile potato. Mrs Spinell spooned it into his mouth, mopping away his spews and dribbles.

‘You like that, don’t you, sweetheart?’

Mrs Spinell scraped the bowl and spooned what was left into her own mouth, reassuring herself that he had eaten well.

‘Good boy.’

Katharina took both his hands.

‘It’s time to get him to bed, Mother.’

‘Katharina, I haven’t seen him for months. Leave us be.’

‘But the sedation will wear off.’

‘And what will happen then?’

‘I don’t know. I never asked.’

‘Just five minutes more.’

Mrs Spinell sang to him and, with her husband’s help, took him to the lavatory and then to bed. Katharina went to bed too, grateful for the rain clouds hanging over the city. The English would not be coming.

In the morning, in a warm, thick cardigan, she went to see her brother. He was motionless, but for his lips, which moved frenetically, feverishly. His eyes were open.

‘Johannes? Are you awake?’

She put a hand to his forehead, but found no fever. She sat on a chair at the side of the bed and folded his papery hand into hers, until her mother came in, a house smock already on.

‘How is he, Katharina?’

‘He’s awake and calm, but muttering to himself.’

‘He’s been doing that all night.’

‘Have you been up?’

‘Your father and I took turns to sit with him.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? I would have helped.’

‘You have little enough rest as it is.’

‘Did he sleep?’

‘Not much. A little at the beginning of the night. For the rest of the time, he just lay like this.’

‘It’s so awful.’

Mrs Spinell sat next to her son’s feet.

‘What do we do, Mother?’

‘We’ll have to wait and see what happens. Your father saw this in the last war. Men tended to come out of it.’

‘Unscathed?’

‘Sometimes. Sometimes not.’

‘How long did it take?’

‘Days, weeks, sometimes months.’

‘The nurse said three weeks.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

‘I forgot about her letter.’

Katharina retrieved the nurse’s envelope from the hall. Inside were Johannes’ paybook, leave pass and a letter addressed to their parents. She opened the paybook and looked at his photograph, taken at the start of the war. He was smiling at the camera. She turned the pages, tracking his clothing allowances, equipment, payments and route across Europe into Russia, the scrawled signatures, entry and exit dates, the institutional stamps. The names of three hospitals.

‘Johannes has been in hospital before, Mother.’

‘What? How do you know?’

She passed over the book and the letter from an army doctor who wrote that Johannes had been treated three times for trauma, without any success. It was decided that he would be better off at home and would, without doubt, recover quickly after a short break from the front.

‘How are we supposed to make him better if the doctors can’t?’

‘We can only do our best, Katharina. You should get ready for work.’

The bank was busy. Many of her colleagues had left the city to live with relatives in the country so she had been moved from the back room to the front desk, answering questions from customers wondering whether their money was safe, whether it could be hit by British bombs. She reassured them, often the same person several times a month.

When she got home, she went to Johannes. He was the same, but there was a sour smell in the room. She pulled back the sheets. He had wet himself, plastering the pyjamas to his skin.

‘My God, Johannes, what has happened to you?’

She took off her coat, opened the window, drew a couple of deep breaths and lifted him upright, stripping him down, exposing what had been hidden from her for over a decade.

In dry pyjamas, she led him to the living room and sat him on the sofa, in front of the fire.

‘What are you doing?’ said Mrs Spinell. ‘He’s supposed to be in bed.’

‘He wet himself.’

‘And you changed him?’

‘I’ll sort his bed out now.’

‘But, Katharina, you shouldn’t have done that. He’s your brother.’