The Undertaking Page 12

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Because he’s there, you assume every other soldier has been there too.’

  ‘That must be it.’

  ‘I’ve done the carrot. Anything else?’

  ‘No, thanks, Johannes. Go back and sit beside Mother. She’d like that.’

  Katharina was finishing the soup, removing the frothy brown scum from the surface, when her father returned. He stood in the archway to the kitchen.

  ‘How’s your mother? Has she been asleep long?’

  ‘About an hour. She was very upset.’

  ‘There is nothing we can do, Katharina. Believe me. I would stop it if I could. But I can’t.’

  ‘You have to. He can barely use a kitchen knife, never mind a gun. He can’t go back. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Dr Weinart is a very powerful man, Katharina. We can’t go against him.’

  ‘But it’s your son. My brother.’

  ‘I know that. But we will all be in trouble if he doesn’t go back.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Just soup. We have nothing else.’

  ‘Take this.’

  He handed her two large brown paper bags. She opened both and found a large leg of mutton, sausages, chocolate, coffee and bread.

  ‘This is from Dr Weinart?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I’ll prepare the sausages now. We can have the lamb tomorrow.’

  Her mother woke as the sausages turned a golden brown.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘Sausages. Father brought them.’

  ‘I see. Where’s Johannes?’

  ‘In his room.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Fine. Oblivious.’

  ‘Probably as well.’

  Mr Spinell stood again by the window.

  ‘Did you talk to him, Günther?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You just took the food.’

  ‘Esther, there is no point. He is not a man to change his mind.’

  ‘How do you know if you don’t ask?’

  ‘Please, let’s stop this.’

  ‘Stop? Your son is being sent back to war and you want to talk about something else?’

  ‘Esther, please.’

  ‘I can’t talk about anything else. I can’t think about anything else. You won’t defend your own son.’

  ‘I can’t defend him. Every son in Germany is being called to fight. Ours too.’

  ‘He’s not going. I won’t let them take him. He’s too ill.’

  ‘Have you any idea what you are saying? What they will do to him? To us, if we keep him here?’

  ‘I don’t care. He’s not going back.’

  ‘Esther, he has to go. Dr Weinart said so.’

  ‘“Dr Weinart said so.”’

  ‘Stop mocking me.’

  ‘He’s your only son. Our only son.’

  ‘There is nothing I can do. He has to go.’

  ‘Lamb to the slaughter. And you know it. Talk to him, Günther, please.’

  ‘I can’t, Esther. The decision is made. I can’t start annoying him with our problems.’

  ‘Our problems? You are talking about your son’s life.’

  ‘Please, Esther.’

  ‘Good old Günther Spinell, always in with the boys, no matter which bloody war it is.’

  ‘You didn’t mind until now, Esther.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This apartment. The extra food. The fur coat that you wore all winter. All from the boys, Esther.’

  ‘And this is the price?’

  ‘Every eligible son in Germany is being called up.’

  ‘Ours is not eligible.’

  Mr Spinell slammed his hand against the wall, marched into the hall and took his wife’s fur coat from the cupboard.

  ‘Off you go, then, and tell them that. See if they will listen to you. Here’s your coat. Your bloody fur coat. You go tell Dr Weinart and the army. Go! Go on!’

  She got up, took the sausages from the hob and set the table, tears running down her face.

  ‘I don’t want him to go back. He’s my baby boy.’

  ‘I know, Esther. I don’t want him to go either. But there’s a war.’

  She wiped her face with a napkin.

  ‘All right, Günther. But it’s on your head.’

  He sat down.

  ‘It’s on yours too, Esther.’

  They took him to the train station, the concourse crowded with new recruits.

  ‘They seem younger,’ said Katharina.

  ‘Who?’ said Mrs Spinell.

  ‘The soldiers. Younger than when I was here with Peter.’

  They steered Johannes through the crowds, Mr Spinell carrying his papers, Katharina his food bag filled with bread, salami, chocolate and dried fruit. The train was already at the platform.

  ‘We should get him on, Esther. Find him a seat.’

  ‘It’s over an hour before departure.’

  ‘It’ll fill up fast, Mother.’

  They found a carriage in the middle of the train.

  ‘It’s safer here,’ said Mr Spinell. ‘If the bastards attack it, they’ll probably target the front or the back.’

  They put Johannes in a seat by the window, with a table to lean on, and packed his things around him.

  ‘You’ll be able to sleep here, darling,’ said Mrs Spinell.

  She sat beside him, Katharina and Mr Spinell opposite them, on the other side of the table.

  ‘Nice train,’ said Mr Spinell. ‘Good and clean.’

  They were silent until the other soldiers arrived. A sudden rush of men. Hundreds and hundreds clamouring for seats and space for kitbags and guns.

  ‘We’ll have to go now, Johannes,’ said Mr Spinell.

  They kissed and hugged him, the women’s tears on his dry face. They squeezed their way through the soldiers and stood again on the platform, waving as the train pulled away, Johannes smiling and waving back, the seats around him still vacant.

  22

  Faber was already awake when the shelling started. He had known it would come. Just not when. But there it was. At first light in the middle of May, the earth shaking under the force of the Russian attack.

  ‘That’s our wake-up call, boys,’ he said.

  In the dimness of the Kharkov house, they pulled on their clothes, their battle kit, and picked up their guns.

  ‘They’re heavy weapons,’ said Faber. ‘Long range.’

  ‘And a lot of them,’ said Faustmann.

  ‘Nothing we can’t handle,’ said Weiss.

  ‘But listen to it, Weiss,’ said Faber. ‘It’s organized. Orchestrated.’

  ‘They’re finally learning how to fight a war,’ said Weiss. ‘That’s all it is.’

  ‘That’s bad news for us then,’ said Kraft.

  ‘We’ll piss on them, Kraft,’ said Gunkel. ‘Come on, lads. Let’s get to it.’

  Kraus was already on the street, tucked behind the gable end of a house.

  ‘Let them play with their guns. Then we’ll move forward and teach them some manners.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said Weiss.

  He pointed to the area on the edge of the city where he wanted them to wait until they were ordered to advance.

  ‘Off you go, boys. And keep down.’

  They moved out, the shells arching and falling, felling trees, gouging holes in the earth, into other men’s bodies. They turned their backs on the barrage, leaned against a wall and lit cigarettes.

  ‘I wish we had coffee,’ said Faber. ‘Wake us up a bit.’

  ‘How awake do you want to be?’ said Weiss.

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘How far away do you think they are?’ said Kraft.

  ‘About ten, twelve miles,’ said Weiss.

  ‘Poor bastards underneath it,’ said Faustmann.

  ‘At least it’s not us,’ said Gunkel.

  ‘Not yet,’ sai
d Kraft.

  Kraft took a pipe from his pocket.

  ‘What are you doing with that?’ said Faber.

  ‘My mother sent it to me. It belonged to my father.’

  ‘Are you going to use it?’

  Kraft opened his knife, scraped at the bowl and filled it with tobacco. He lit the pipe and sucked on it, then passed it to Faber who drew on the smoke and coughed.

  ‘I think I’ll stick to the cigarettes.’

  ‘It uses less tobacco,’ said Kraft.

  ‘Too much effort,’ said Weiss. ‘All that cleaning.’

  ‘It keeps you calm,’ said Kraft. ‘The routine of it.’

  ‘Your father was never calm,’ said Faber.

  ‘True.’

  ‘How is your mother, anyway?’ said Faber.

  ‘Much better, thank you.’

  ‘Did you tell her about your feet?’

  ‘No. There’s no need to worry her.’

  They fell silent, listened to the Russians and lit more cigarettes.

  ‘Any news on Reinisch?’ said Faustmann.

  ‘He got what he wanted,’ said Gunkel.

  ‘Which is?’ said Faustmann.

  ‘First lieutenant,’ said Gunkel. ‘With the reconnaissance battalion.’

  ‘Bastard,’ said Faustmann.

  ‘Will Kraus do the same?’ said Kraft. ‘Use us to get promoted?’

  ‘Kraus is loyal,’ said Weiss. ‘We’re not a tool for his career.’

  ‘So he won’t care if we sit out this battle?’ said Faber.

  ‘He has no interest in being shot either,’ said Weiss.

  Kraft cursed at the pipe and threw it to the ground.

  ‘Has anyone got a cigarette?’

  They laughed, momentarily masking the sound of the planes. Faber looked around the wall. He saw a mass of aircraft coming from the east, flying low, bombs already falling. They were Russian.

  ‘I thought they had no fucking planes, the bastards.’

  They ran, scrambling back towards the city, towards the already blasted houses. Kraft was in front, but stopped suddenly.

  ‘Move,’ shouted Weiss.

  ‘I don’t want to be in the lead.’

  The bombing and strafing was almost above them, the bullets cutting into the soldiers behind them, scattering bodies across the earth, a fresh crop of death. Weiss bellowed at Faustmann.

  ‘Where do we go?’

  ‘Over there,’ said Faustmann. ‘We need a roof.’

  They lunged at the remnants of a house. But there was no roof, only an overhang barely big enough to cover them. They huddled tightly into each other. Kraft was whimpering.

  ‘Don’t move, anybody,’ said Faustmann. ‘Don’t attract attention.’

  Faber looked up at the sky, tracking the planes as they flew overhead, as they travelled west towards Germany, willing them onwards, horrified when they banked and turned back towards them, flying even lower than before, even closer. Kraft started screaming

  ‘We’re going to die. We’re going to die.’

  Faber pulled his knees to his head, making himself as small as he could. Kraft was babbling. Pleading for his mother. Weiss shouted at him.

  ‘Shut the fuck up. I want to listen.’

  ‘Why do you want to listen to that?’ said Faustmann.

  ‘Because I can’t fucking listen to him crying for his mother.’

  Faber closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see the pilots, or find out whether they had seen him. He covered his ears with his hands but the thunderous roar drilled into his head anyway. Prayers flowed from his lips, one after the other, prayers from his childhood, when he stood in church beside his father, his big hand enveloping his own small hand. He wanted to go home; to retreat behind the laurel hedge, into the garden where the earth did not shake. He opened his eyes, briefly, and saw the planes mowing the earth, cutting down men, over and back, over and back, the movement as methodical and thorough as his father mowing the grass on a Saturday afternoon.

  After twenty minutes, the planes left, flying back east, their bellies emptied. The men stumbled to their feet, unable to speak, their trousers wet. Kraus yelled at them to move forward. They started to run, over the bodies of the dead and the not yet dead; charging and scurrying across open ground towards the Russians, their backs bent, shoulders rounded, as though that might protect them from the storm of bullets and bombs.

  Faustmann dived into a freshly formed crater.

  ‘We’ll set up here. Use it as our trench.’

  ‘Their weapons reached here,’ shouted Faber.

  ‘Their weapons reached fucking everywhere, Faber.’

  Faustmann slid the machine gun off his shoulder, opened it up, locked it in place and began firing, Faber feeding in belts of ammunition, Weiss pointing out targets, Kraft preparing the next round. They threw grenades, fired their rifles and moved on to the next crater, staying longer in each newly held position, fighting even harder, battling until night fell, when they took turns to go back for food, cigarettes and ammunition. They dug into the ground, and crawled into their holes, Faber and Weiss together.

  ‘Any idea how many we got?’ said Faber.

  ‘I lost track.’

  ‘It’s pretty stupid, isn’t it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Running like that,’ said Faber. ‘At a machine gun. It seems so pointless. And terrifying.’

  ‘They seem intent on using up all the men in Russia.’

  ‘And women, Weiss. We shot them too.’

  They slept, woke and began again, covering the ground with another layer of bodies.

  ‘Death to Bolshevik Jews,’ shouted Faber.

  He had slept well.

  ‘We really are invincible,’ said Faber.

  ‘We’ll have to be,’ said Faustmann.

  Word came that the Russians had surrounded a village occupied by German soldiers, cutting them off.

  ‘They’re not capable of that,’ said Faber.

  ‘They obviously are,’ said Weiss.

  ‘They’re copying us. What we did at Kiev.’

  ‘We should be flattered. They won’t be there long.’

  German planes flew over from the west and dropped food, fuel and ammunition to the stranded soldiers, loud cheers erupting from the battlefield. The tanks and heavy artillery followed, breaking through to free the men.

  Stockhoff cooked beef stew.

  ‘You see, Faustmann. They do care about us.’

  Faustmann lit a cigarette.

  ‘We’re crucial, Faber. Absolutely crucial.’

  23

  Kharkov, May 23rd, 1942

  My dearest Katharina,

  You would be so proud of us. We fought so hard and have pushed the Russians back again, further east, beating their attempts to take back control of land that is no longer theirs. They seem to struggle to accept this basic fact.

  As you may have already heard, they surrounded some of our troops, but Berlin sent in wave after wave of rescue missions until every man was freed. It was marvellous to watch, Katharina. The planning and precision of the operation, the elegance of it all. It is marvellous to know that we have so much support from other regiments and from Berlin. It warms me to know how much you care about us all out here, because I have to admit that sometimes it is hard to know whether anybody back home is concerned about what we are doing.

  Ours is a great country, Katharina. We are indeed lucky to have been born German. I would certainly feel despair today if I had been born a Russian. I would see myself as being without hope. Without any future.

  But we have a great future, Katharina. You, me and our child. We will raise him or her to be proud of our country, not embarrassed as our parents were. As my parents still are. I wish my father could be more like yours and understand what the Germans are capable of. You understand it. I am not sure that I understood it before, but I understand it now. And I have witnessed the Fatherland’s commitment to its people, each planeload dropped onto those men
stranded in that village expressing that commitment.

  I am so happy today to be German, to be part of all this. To be part of this great living history.

  I will be home very soon.

  Your loving husband,

  Peter

  24

  The letter came late one midweek afternoon as Mrs Spinell was preparing a cut of lean beef. Katharina walked into the kitchen, her gait awkward, her body tired from eight months of pregnancy.

  ‘Mother.’

  Mrs Spinell turned to her daughter. Then back to the sink. She vomited. She rinsed the sink, brushed back her hair and went to the sofa, to the place where her son had sat. They opened the letter and huddled into each other as the words assaulted them: death, regret, service, Fatherland. They remained silent, Katharina stretched along the sofa, Mrs Spinell, upright, staring at the ceiling, until Mr Spinell came home. The tears came then, and angry accusations. He read the letter and left.

  25

  Mrs Spinell went to bed and remained there under the blankets in her dressing gown.

  ‘Should we fetch Dr Weinart?’ asked Katharina.

  ‘She’ll come out of it,’ said Mr Spinell. ‘Just give her time. It is a terrible thing for a mother.’

  ‘And for a father?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Do you feel guilty, Father?’

  ‘No, Katharina. Should I?’

  ‘I don’t know. I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That he went back.’

  ‘There was nothing to be done.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘We have to play our part, Katharina. To follow orders.’

  ‘No matter what the consequences?’

  ‘Otherwise it’s chaos.’

  ‘It’s chaos, anyway.’

  ‘It will be worth it.’

  ‘Worth Johannes?’

  ‘He would have understood.’

  26

  ‘It’s happened, boys,’ said Faber.

  ‘What has?’ said Gunkel.

  ‘The birth. I’m a father.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Weiss. ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘Boy.’

  ‘Fresh fodder for the empire.’

  ‘His name is Johannes. After her brother.’

  They toasted him and his son with their water bottles and resumed lunch in the sunflower field, jaws chewing on stale bread and tinned meat, eyes fixed on the soil burned black by retreating Russians. Faber opened the letter again. His hands smudged the white paper.