Robert Lautner - The Draughtsman

‘Kori of Berlin, sir.’

‘Quite so. We beat a Berlin company because of our price and location.’

Klein lifted his hand for my attention. Spoke proudly.

‘And that when the call came we installed mobile systems into Mauthausen within a day. That is service,’ he said.

‘Mobile systems, sir?’ I had heard this word previously, jumped on it now.

‘Stock items,’ Klein said. ‘For farmers, small abattoirs and such, who do not need their own scale furnace. Petrol fired. The incinerators had broken and they needed an emergency replacement. We fulfilled where Berlin could not.’

Sander raised a finger to me and then to Klein. ‘That reminds. Herr Klein is going to Buchenwald. A site visit. Monday. It would be useful for you to attend.’

I inhaled, stalled.

‘To the prison?’

‘We are measuring for new muffles,’ Sander said as reply. ‘It would be useful for you to see our work first hand. It is important for an architect to see the fulfilment of his task. You will learn much.’

I would like to say that I feigned enthusiasm. But I was curious in that pedestrian way people stare at accidents or listen to a neighbour’s fight or as a child you try to peek a look into the butcher’s back room as he emerges when his bell rings, wiping his hands and beaming at your mother.

And this my work after all.

‘That would be most interesting, sir.’

‘Good,’ Sander nodded again. ‘Be sure to bring your identification.’

Before supper Etta and I went for a walk. The early evening dry and warm, my coat only a little still damp from the morning’s rain. We went arm in arm by the river, towards the bridges and the old quarter. Etta had asked what Sander was like, how my day had been. I volunteered the walk. Easier to tell her outside.

‘The camp !’ Etta stopped walking, pulled her arm away. Stragglers coming home scowled from beneath their caps.

‘The prison , Etta. Buchenwald is well established. Topf has hundreds of workers from the place in the factory.’

‘Slaves you mean.’

‘Labour for their crimes.’

‘But Ernst, it is a camp . People die there. There is disease. Dangerous men.’

I took her arm again and strolled slower.

‘Klein and the engineers go there often. I am sure it is safe.’

‘I don’t like it. Why did you say you would go?’

‘I could hardly refuse on my second day.’ We walked into the cobbled streets, a walk around the block to take us back to Station Street. Quiet here. The Jewish businesses closed and sold to develop into apartments, but that had stopped. The developers no doubt waiting for the war to end any month now and the prices to rise. But even with the boarded-up windows a nice peaceful stroll in April.

‘Do you like this Herr Klein?’

‘I do not know him. Does it matter? He’s the head of the floor. When the war ends a few of those who used to work there may come back. Part of their service is to retain their old jobs. I must do well before then. Everything I can.’

‘Will you have to join the Party?’

‘No-one has mentioned. Prüfer wears a pin. A standard one. Herr Sander did not. Nor Klein.’

‘Would you? Would you join?’

I do not know why I did not think before answering. It seemed natural to say it.

‘If it helped my career. For you. For us. All other business ties are gone. No Freemasons or Rotaries. How else do you get on?’

We said no more on this.

If you live near to your parents you walk slower to meet them for Sunday lunch than if you had to get on a train where at least you can pretend that something enjoyable is happening. The slow walk, lingering around shop windows, all to avoid the dreaded hour. The walk enlivened by the Sunday street all looking to the sky as a squadron of Heinkels flew west overhead. Our skies normally silent.

Etta shielded her eyes to watch.

‘Where do you think they are going?’

‘I don’t know. England? Early for a raid. Where from is more interesting. I did not know we had bases in the east.’

‘Perhaps the Russians have surrendered. And we have taken their bases.’

‘Do they even have bases to take? I thought them all farmers?’

She slapped my arm. ‘Ernst. They are an army. I’m sure they have planes.’

‘We conquered France didn’t we? And they have toilets inside their homes. The Russians?’ I cocked my thumb over my shoulder. ‘Toilet behind the house with chickens in it. That is all you need to know.’

The streets animated again and we came to the old bridge. You may know the Merchants’ Bridge from songs or pictures from a Christmas butter-biscuit box. A fairytale place. One of the last medieval bridges in Europe that still had the colourful houses and shops built right on its stone. Paris and London had lost theirs hundreds of years ago. Erfurt maintained. We know our history. It is still here. England does not know us to bomb. Their bridge fell down, as the song would have it. Because they did not care enough for history.

I was born on this bridge. The vaults and steps above the Breitstrom waters were my hiding places as a boy or where I crouched concealed from the wrath of my father’s open hand.

I thought we were poor to live here, our house so small and ancient, but no, despite the small leaning buildings looking into each other’s lives we were privileged. I would be happy to inherit it, as my father had from his father, if only to sell it and buy a proper home for Etta and our children. My son would not live in a box of a room with straw-packed walls and no window. Our front door would not open onto stairs to take him to a floor above a camera shop.

My father opened the door, his once blond hair now yellow and grey but still thick with vitality, like the whole of him.

‘Ernst! Etta!’ He hugged Etta and scolded me. ‘Why did you not let us know you were coming? What boy does this?’ Neither of us had a telephone. I suppose he wanted me to shout from our window. ‘We have nothing in.’ This my fault, and not true. When my parents died there would be two small plots for them and a mausoleum for their food. They were of the great war. When there were real shortages not just rationed ones. The habit of hoarding jars and cans, pickling everything, not given up. Just in case. I was born the year my father came back from the war. I stacked tins like other children stacked blocks.

The creaking stairs, my mother’s voice howling from the kitchen.

‘Etta! Ernst! Why you not let us know! My hair, Willi! My hair!’ She clutched at her head. It was in exactly the same clipped bun it had been since my youth.

I took off my hat and Etta’s coat as my mother fussed and my father reminded me that I had not joined the church football club for yet another year.

‘I am hoping I won’t have time for football soon enough.’

My mother clasped her face. ‘Oh Willi! She is pregnant! She is pregnant!’

Etta waved her down. ‘No, no, Frau Beck! The news is all for Ernst.’

‘Let them sit, Mila,’ my father pulling out glasses and Madeira. ‘What is it, Ernst? You have not signed for the army?’

The glasses to the white paper tablecloth with the cherries decoration. The same tablecloth as when I lived here. My crayon marks still on it.

‘No, Papa. Better. I have a job.’

He took our coats. ‘A draughtsman? A real job. You hear this, Mama?’

Her hands had not left her face. ‘Oh, Ernst! My boy!’ And then the hands were on my face. ‘My clever boy! When did this happen? How?’

My father poured wine. The Madeira meant it was Mama’s pickled pot roast for dinner. I cannot drink more than one glass of the sickly stuff but I would wait to see if a beer would come. Sunday after all.