The Undertaking Page 6

  I am well, Katharina, although missing you greatly. I want this whole thing to be over so that I can come home to you. In the meantime, could you do something for me? Could you send me a lock ofyour hair? As close to the full length as you can manage. I adore your hair. I wrap myself in it as I go to sleep. And a photograph; one of you smiling. I will keep them against my heart.

  We have seen a little of the infamous Russian snow. It is already cold, Katharina. Colder than I have ever known it in November. How is the rest of winter in this godforsaken place?

  We are marching again, obliterating all the enormous work that you put into my feet. It’s such a huge place, Katharina. We march and march, but seem to get nowhere.

  It helps me so much to know that you are waiting for me, although I do wish you hadn’t moved apartment. I want you still in the bed we shared, in that room, as that is how I remember you, how I know you.

  Wait for me nonetheless. I will be back soon.

  Your loving husband,

  Peter

  11

  The driver sat on the step of his cab, passing round chocolate and cigarettes. Faber took both and handed in his letter.

  ‘How do I get your job?’ he said.

  The driver sniggered.

  ‘You’re too skinny. Too fit. You have to be fat and wheeze a lot.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘It takes years of practice.’

  They watched as he hoisted himself back into the cab, revved the engine and headed back west, his wheels churning at the already churned earth.

  ‘Lucky bastard,’ said Faber.

  ‘But no chance of a medal,’ said Weiss. ‘Of Iron Cross fame and glory. His picture in the newspaper, women fawning over the hero.’

  ‘I’ll take the chocolate, cigarettes and warm feet.’

  Faber was wearing all his socks, but still the cold penetrated his feet, exacerbated by the steel across the toe of his boots. He walked a little faster to catch up with Kraus.

  ‘How much further, Sergeant?’

  ‘About sixty miles.’

  ‘Three days?’

  ‘Hopefully, Faber.’

  ‘What did the driver have to say?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Our progress.’

  ‘Struggling outside Moscow, but doing well around Kharkov.’

  ‘So how does it look?’

  ‘You know as much as I do, Faber. Judge it yourself.’

  ‘But how long more will it take?’

  ‘As I said, three days.’

  ‘I meant the war.’

  ‘I only know, Faber, about this march to Poltava. That’s what I’m in charge of. Not the war.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘There’s a place three miles from here where we can spend the night. Go and tell the others.’

  The town square was quiet, and scattered with corpses. Some were German. Most were Russian. Faustmann bent down and rummaged through a Russian backpack. He pulled out a mink hat, the earflaps tied up.

  ‘It’s not that cold,’ said Faber.

  ‘It will be.’

  ‘But we won’t still be here.’

  ‘So you say. No harm in being prepared though.’

  ‘I don’t know if I could do that,’ said Faber. ‘Wear dead men’s clothes.’

  ‘Up to you, Faber. But they’re not using them.’

  Faber squatted beside a corpse, its eyes already scavenged, peck marks on its cheeks and forehead. He took the felt boots from the man’s feet, and put them on. They fitted perfectly. He kicked the corpse, hard, in the ribs, and moved on, his back bent over, picking at the dead. He found a mink hat of his own, as well as gloves, cigarettes, Belgian chocolate in an envelope, and two lengths of sausage. The houses, however, had already been stripped. He carried his booty to a small, wooden church. Weiss was there, at the front. They sat beside each other under gold-framed paintings and shared the sausage and chocolate.

  ‘Do you think it’s real?’ said Faber.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The gold?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘We should take it with us.’

  ‘I’m not carrying any of that shit.’

  ‘We’ll pick it up on the way back then. It must be worth a fortune.’

  ‘It’s kitsch, Faber.’

  They slept in the church. It was cold, but drier than their tents. When they woke, a light layer of snow covered the ground. They buried the Germans and moved out, their boots breaking a crust of ice as they walked. Faber pulled his scarf over his mouth and nose, his breath condensing where the warmth of his body met the cold of the steppe. Weiss was beside him.

  ‘How cold do you think it’ll get?’

  ‘This isn’t cold, Faber. Winter hasn’t begun yet. Not properly.’ ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Faustmann told me.’

  Faber looked at the sky, at the clouds heavy with snow. He kicked at the earth, at its muddied whiteness.

  ‘I hate this fucking place.’

  ‘It’s not on my holiday list either.’

  ‘We’re wasting our time here. Let the tanks and planes do the job and we go home.’

  ‘The perfect war. No infantry required.’

  ‘Just bomb them all into submission. It worked in France, why not here?’

  ‘Here they fight back, Faber.’

  Weiss dug some chocolate out of his tunic and broke off enough for both of them.

  In the afternoon, the snow came back, accompanied by wind, rain and hail that stripped it of its softness, hammering at the soldiers’ faces, sharp pricks of pain on their eyelids. Faber wore his mink hat and blindly followed the men in front, glad of the blackness of their clothing, of the authorities’ delay in sending winter camouflage. As darkness came, Fuchs halted and lifted the blanket off his head and face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We’re going the wrong way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’re lost, Faber.’

  Fuchs bellowed at the sergeant, out in front.

  ‘We’ve gone the wrong way,’ he said.

  Kraus trudged on.

  ‘We’re lost, Sergeant,’ said Fuchs. ‘You don’t know where we are.’

  Kraus stopped, turned slowly and lifted his head. His eyes were almost closed.

  ‘You’re right. I don’t know where we are.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Weiss.

  ‘We’re walking north,’ said Fuchs. ‘Into the wind and rain. We have been for hours. Poltava is east, south-east.’

  ‘I realize that.’

  ‘When did you realize that?’ said Fuchs.

  ‘Just now, when you told me.’

  ‘Damn it,’ said Fuchs. ‘You’re supposed to be in charge.’

  ‘I am,’ he said, his eyes fully closing. ‘I am in charge. We’ll camp here for the night and get back on the right road tomorrow.’

  ‘How will we know?’ said Weiss.

  ‘What?’ said Kraus, his eyes still shut.

  ‘That we’re on the right road?’

  ‘Set up camp, Weiss.’

  They dropped their packs and pitched their tents on the sodden earth. Under wet fabric that stank of mildew, Faber and Weiss ate tinned sardines and crackers without talking, and lay down to sleep, burying their bodies under damp blankets and coats.

  ‘Kraus is a fucking idiot,’ said Weiss.

  ‘He’ll sort it out tomorrow.’

  ‘We don’t have a clue where we are, Faber. Or who the fuck is outside, lurking around.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Is your gun ready?’

  ‘Yes, and my knife.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  ‘We should try to sleep, Weiss.’

  ‘Good night, Faber.’

  ‘Good night, Weiss.’

  Faber closed his eyes and unpicked the pins from Katharina’s hair, watching the locks unfurl, his gun across his chest, his finger on the trigger, ready for a dagger through the tent, or a p
itchfork. He didn’t know what he would do with a sniper bullet. Or a machine gun. A rocket launcher, grenade or tank. He moved closer to Weiss and buried his fear in his wife’s hair.

  He woke at dawn and heard Fuchs coughing.

  ‘I never thought I would be glad to hear that bastard.’

  ‘We’re still alive then?’ said Weiss, his head tucked under his blanket.

  ‘Just about.’

  Weiss sat up, plunged his arm into his pack and began to eat, voraciously.

  ‘You’ll run out of food if you keep eating like that,’ said Faber.

  ‘I’ll die if I don’t.’

  Kraus gathered the men. He was rested. Awake.

  ‘I regret what happened,’ he said, ‘but I will get us out of here.’

  ‘How?’ said Weiss. ‘You’re the one who got us lost in the first place.’

  Kraus paused, waiting for the affront to pass. He spread out his map, turned his compass, and pointed at the flat featureless landscape.

  ‘We need to head south again,’ he said. ‘It’s about ten miles back to the main road to Poltava.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’ asked Fuchs. ‘We have no bearings.’

  ‘We came north, and now we have to go south.’

  ‘Due south?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why not travel south-east, towards Poltava?’

  ‘We should get back to the road first.’

  ‘If we can find it,’ said Weiss.

  ‘That’s enough from you, Weiss,’ said Kraus.

  ‘The whole place looks the same, Sir.’

  ‘I realize that, Weiss.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘At least the wind will be behind us,’ said Kraft.

  ‘We should reach Poltava in three days,’ said Kraus. ‘Divide your rations accordingly.’

  Faber had only enough food for two days.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ said Kraft.

  ‘How?’ said Weiss.

  ‘I don’t know. We just will.’

  They set off south, the wind against their backs, a pleasant relief until it grew too strong and pressed them to their knees, over and over again, their feet unable to keep pace with its strength. They slept again in their tents and Fuchs woke with a fever, his skin translucent, his eyes elsewhere. They draped him over their shoulders and trailed the sergeant and his compass, their minds and bodies numbed by the weather, rousing only when they heard Weiss shouting.

  ‘Poltava.’

  Faber and Faustmann surged forward, Fuchs between them, towards the light and the smoke rising from chimneys.

  ‘We’re there, Fuchs,’ said Faber.

  ‘We’re not,’ said Kraus. ‘It’s too small and too soon.’

  ‘But it’ll do,’ said Weiss.

  They knocked the ice from their weapons, loosened the bolts and moved towards the village, a tiny enclave of one barn and ten houses, all in darkness, wisps of smoke seeping from the chimneys.

  ‘Move them out, Faustmann,’ said Kraus.

  The people slowly emerged.

  ‘Tell them to give us their food,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘They say they don’t have any. That other Germans have already raided the village. That the Jews and communists have already been taken away.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck about the Jews and communists, Faustmann. Only food. That’s all we want. Tell them to hand it over.’

  Kraus was agitated, hungry for his men. The villagers were still. An old woman spoke.

  ‘She says they have nothing left,’ said Faustmann.

  ‘Right then,’ said Kraus, ‘we’ll just have to find it ourselves. Let’s go.’

  They crashed into the small houses, ripping up floorboards, emptying cupboards, cellars, vats and wardrobes, unearthing potatoes, sunflower seeds, bread and apples. But no meat. Kraus stormed back into the yard and the men followed, stuffing bread and apples into their mouths. He grabbed an old man by the collar of his tattered coat.

  ‘Where are the animals? Where’s the meat?’

  Faustmann translated the sergeant’s fury.

  ‘We don’t have any,’ replied the old man.

  Kraus pulled a warmed pistol from inside his tunic and placed it against the man’s head.

  ‘Where is it? My men need meat and I am going to find it.’

  ‘We don’t have any. It’s all gone.’

  Kraus squeezed his finger against the trigger and the old man fell to the ground, a puff of body heat and a scarlet flush across the muddied snow. The villagers covered their mouths, frozen, until a young woman with long dark hair hanging from beneath her brightly coloured cotton headscarf stepped forward.

  ‘I will show you,’ she said.

  They followed her past the emptied barn to a small orchard at the end of the village, her plump, rounded buttocks shifting the material of her filthy, torn coat. Faber watched her. As she knelt down. As she scraped back frozen hail and lifted a sheet of wood, her bottom towards them. The chickens clucked, raucously, disturbed by the light. There were about twenty of them, on a shelf of earth scattered with seed.

  ‘Clever,’ said Faustmann.

  ‘But not clever enough,’ said Faber.

  ‘How did they stop them suffocating?’ said Gunkel.

  ‘Who gives a fuck?’ said Weiss.

  Gunkel reached in and wrung the neck of each bird, passing them back to the waiting men. They ran to the houses, kicked the floorboards back into place and sat down, feverishly plucking the chickens with their coats and packs still on, resting only when the dampened fires had been restarted, when the roasts were on. Faber stuffed his mouth with sunflower seeds.

  ‘Never thought I’d eat this bird food,’ he said.

  ‘Hunger is a great sauce,’ said Kraft.

  Faber laughed.

  ‘Old mother Kraft is back. We have survived.’

  ‘We’re not there yet, Faber,’ said Weiss.

  ‘No. But at least we’re here.’

  He began peeling off his clothing, first examining his fingers, which had turned a dark red.

  ‘Much longer out there and I might have been in trouble.’

  ‘You’re fine, Faber,’ said Faustmann. ‘It’s not cold enough.’

  ‘How are your feet?’ said Weiss.

  ‘They feel fine,’ said Faber.

  He removed his Russian felt boots. His feet were red, but safe. Kraft asked for help in taking off his boots. The leather was sodden, rotting near the heel and steel tips.

  ‘You should have changed boots, Kraft.’

  ‘I won’t wear a dead man’s shoes.’

  Faber tugged at Kraft’s left boot, laughing at the sucking sound as it loosened and came off. Newspaper and socks stuck like wet plaster to his friend’s leg.

  ‘You’re disgusting, Kraft.’

  ‘Just get it off, Faber.’

  He unravelled the paper and fabric, but dropped the foot. It was riddled with lice. Kraft threw his hands over his face.

  ‘Do the other one, Faber.’

  ‘No way, Kraft. I’m not going near you.’

  ‘You owe me. For not going to see my mother.’

  ‘Bastard.’

  Faber pulled off the second boot, tearing everything away as quickly as he could. He filled a bowl with water and placed it at Kraft’s feet.

  ‘There’ll be eggs on your feet. You need to wash them off.’

  ‘Thank you, Faber. You’ve been very kind.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t go to see your mother, Kraft.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m hoping to hear when we reach Poltava. It’s hard.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Being out here. Not knowing how she is. If she is even dead or alive.’

  He looked at the ground, hiding his eyes from Faber.

  ‘I hate this place, Faber. I want to go home. I want to see her.’

  Faber patted his arm.

  ‘We all
want to go home, Kraft.’

  They ate and slept. More snow fell and they stayed a second night. Fuchs slept most of the time, his lungs rattling with the effort of each breath, indifferent as the men tucked into bottle after bottle of home-made vodka.

  ‘They’re still here,’ said Weiss.

  ‘Who are?’ said Faber.

  ‘The villagers.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘They crept into the barn this evening. They must have come in from the woods. Decided we were safe.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Including the woman?’

  ‘Including her.’

  They finished another bottle. Weiss stumbled to his feet.

  ‘Let’s go, Faber. Find out what they’re up to.’

  ‘Are you sure she’s there?’

  ‘She’s there, Faber.’

  Faber turned to the other men.

  ‘Are you coming, Kraus? Kraft?’

  ‘We’ll have a look,’ said Kraus. ‘What harm?’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said Gunkel. ‘Stretch my legs.’

  ‘Come on Kraft,’ said Weiss.

  ‘I’m fine here,’ he said.

  They wore their boots, but left their coats and hats.

  ‘Faustmann?’ said Faber. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘I’ll stay here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Not my thing, Faber.’

  ‘Come on. We might need an interpreter.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  They picked up their guns and stepped outside, into moonlight and sparkling snow. They walked across the village, crashing into each other as they went, loudly hushing each other’s laughter. Weiss and Gunkel started to sing. Kraus told them to be quiet. They reached the barn and cocked their guns.

  ‘All right, boys,’ said Weiss. ‘Who’s first this time?’

  ‘It must be you, Faber,’ said Kraus. ‘Your wedding present from us.’

  They pushed open the door and swung torch beams until they located the huddle of staring eyes. Faber saw her, her headscarf still on. He walked towards her, but then he turned away and went back into the snow. He returned to the house to sleep between Kraft and Faustmann, his wife’s hair and photograph pressed into his cheek.

  12

  Katharina leaned back into the soft black leather chair, took a magazine from the walnut coffee table and angled her legs to the left, her feet crossed at the ankles like those of the other women in the room, although their fur coats closed neatly across their chests. She flicked through the pages, scanning pictures of ball gowns, gas cookers and tips for the perfect family Christmas, listening to the near silence of the other women, the polite coughs, the low whispers to already quiet children.