Hugo Hamilton - The Last Shot

And some people didn’t sleep at all. They walked on, desperate to find out what happened at home, anxious to restart their lives, longing to reunite with their sweethearts, of whom they still had a small, torn, black and white photograph, or families and children who had grown out of recognition since they had parted. And some people were going home to nothing. Nobody. Just ruins.

There were Polish and Russian exiles who had a long way to go. People who would never even get home. There were men who had escaped from their factories in Nuremberg or Stuttgart and taken to the woods and the mountains, knowing that the war was near the end. Men who had been on the run from the SS and from the inhabitants who would have pointed them out. Men who were angry at the time which had been taken from them by the Reich, who were angry and ready to avenge the stolen years. There were no rules. No code of conduct. It was every man for himself.

The men on the far side of the lake settled down for the night. They had assumed that Bertha was a local girl. After dark, they heard nothing. They saw no more cigarettes lighting up. They assumed she was gone.

They were left listening to the sound of the lake; the fish, the occasional bird winging across the surface. They were tired, like anyone else on the move. They had already raided some houses, ordered the outraged and terrified occupants of remote farm-houses outside while they took with them the smallest, most precious, valuables.

They were aware they had come close to the Czech border. From there on they would have to behave under new laws. Until then, they used the lawless twilight of Germany’s defeat. They settled in the post-war chaos and fell asleep.

While all of Germany slept, the chaos of the forests receded. Sometimes an owl broke the silence. Or a frightened dove clattered away across the trees. Fish still broke the surface of the lake where the stars were reflected. Everybody slept. A land that had become used to the noise of sirens and planes was now getting used to the silence.

In the middle of the night, the two men awoke with a fright. They sat up. Perhaps it was already close to dawn. They both heard it at the same time. It was clear. A piercing shout which startled the environment. The sound of it still echoed in their ears like the cry of some unknown animal.

‘Did you hear that?’ one of them asked.

But they both knew what it was. It was as though every bird and every silent fish in the black lake had heard it too.

It was the shout of a woman.

A piercing cry, somewhere between pain and pleasure. They knew where it came from across the lake. At first it frightened them. Then it filled them with desire and wild excitement; an intimate feeling, as though they were right there with the woman. As though they had participated. As though there was no distance between them and no lake. After that, they began to feel an angry desire. They held their breath, listening for more.

They knew it was her. The German girl across the lake. The woman they had seen swimming. They could still hear the echo of her love-shout receding in the trees, in the widening rings on the surface of the lake.

They couldn’t sleep.

It was already bright when Bertha woke up. Franz had his arm around her, underneath her neck. She was still half asleep, but she was aware that everything had changed. She looked at Franz beside her, half covered by her russet coat, breathing quietly through his nose. This can’t be wrong, she thought to herself. If anything, this was a new start. It was the first day of her life, her new life with Franz. She couldn’t wait. One moment she was afraid of what the future would bring. Next minute she was completely unafraid.

She sat up and looked out at the lake. She saw Franz waking up. His eyes and his deep voice banished all fear. They smiled at each other. They talked. They were together.

It was a morning for dreaming. The sun was already beating down on to the lake, throwing a strong white glare back into their eyes. The brightness brought tears to her eyes.

At first, Franz misunderstood. She wasn’t sad. On the contrary, she was crying because she was happy. The war was over. She had a life ahead of her. And Franz Kern. The slightest thing would have tossed her into tears. She wasn’t worried. She was surprised that nothing worried her. She didn’t want to think what her mother would say. All she wanted was to stay on that shore of the lake and not move.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m just happy. Am I allowed to say that?’

‘Why not? You’re only saying what the sun is already saying.’

Franz said the most perfect things. Nothing old-fashioned, nothing rehearsed. They paused and looked at the water, wincing in the reflected light. He kissed her gently on the lips, on the side of her face, and then drew back.

‘America,’ he said.

She embraced him. After a long time she slowly let go. Franz stood up and walked to the edge of the water while she sat and looked at his broad back. That was the way they were for a long time, maybe up to ten minutes. He knew she was looking at him. She knew he was thinking about her.

Bertha went to bathe again. She went to the same place where she had been the previous evening. He could hear her splashing and singing. This time he spoke to her, in shouts which echoed back across the lake.

‘You’re not going to spend all day swimming, are you? We want to get to the USA today…’

She laughed. But she felt shy. She still couldn’t make herself talk back to him while she was naked in the water. The water was cooler than the night before. She was shocked by it. She was also shocked by the thought that Franz might be so close that he could take a peek at her through the trees. Maybe she half wanted him to look.

If only her sisters could see her now. But then it occurred to her that it was all too illicit and she stepped out of the water again. The soap had shrunk to half its size. She would have to ration it from now on. Who knew when she could bathe like this again?

They had breakfast, what was left of the black bread and the stale cheese. They laughed about it. They ate everything they had. The Breakfast of Lovers. They kept looking each other in the eyes. They talked about America again.

‘We’ll have to make our way to Hamburg first,’ he said.

‘But I’ll have to go and see my family first. I’ll have to tell my sisters and my mother about our plans. And then say goodbye. They probably think I’m lost anyway.’

‘Of course,’ Franz said. ‘We will do this calmly. We’re not running away from anyone. We will get married in America, as soon as we arrive.’

‘My mother will win back a daughter and lose her again on the same day. But I think they’ll all be happy for me.’

There were practical things to think about. Money. She said she would be able to get some money together. Her aunt would help. And her sisters. They had little, but somehow they would scrape the fare together.

‘Two of my older sisters, Frieda and Maria, were meant to emigrate to Brazil. They had it all planned in nineteen forty. They weren’t the only ones. Lots of girls and their husbands were going together. But Frieda and Maria didn’t go because they fell out with their boyfriends…

‘Anyway, my mother didn’t want to see them go. She would have let them. But she was glad when they didn’t.’

‘And where are they now?’

‘They’re married. The eldest is living in Salzburg. Maria is living in Frankfurt. If there’s anything left of that city.’

‘I’m sure it’s like Nuremberg,’ Franz said. ‘There was little left of it when I saw it last. We were probably the luckiest ones, to be in Laun, in the middle of nowhere.’