Heinz Rein - Berlin Finale

Lassehn sits there in silence.

‘You’ve gone very quiet, son,’ Klose says. ‘What are you thinking about?’

‘About the words of our battalion commander when we first went into battle,’ Lassehn replies.

‘And what did that jolly uncle tell his beloved little kiddiewinkies?’ Klose asks.

‘That war is the father of all things,’ says Lassehn, ‘that only in war does the personality develop and show true human values.’ He laughs, a short, jerky laugh, as if divided into small, mocking exclamations, his boyish face, deeply etched with manly wrinkles, is angry and menacingly tense, his almost gentle blue eyes have the severity of a lowering bird of prey.

‘It doesn’t seem to have got through to you,’ Klose says. ‘Your sole human value probably seemed to have become very questionable, isn’t that right?’

‘Yes,’ Lassehn begins, ‘during the war I discovered I had capacities whose existence I hadn’t previously been aware of, namely the capacity for revenge, murder and homicide. Then there was one of our lance corporals, a so-called ethnic German from the Sudetenland, his words felt like pincers, his orders were like shoves to the back of my neck…’ Lassehn clenches his fists, which have rested quietly on the table until now.

‘He was never off your back,’ Klose finishes his sentence and nods. ‘I know that one, my boy, something comes loose inside you and tautens until one day the spring goes off.’

‘Yes,’ Lassehn agrees a little more calmly, ‘then patience, stubbornness and submission fly away, a feeling of revenge runs through you like a searing pain and makes you unconscious… It was a moment like that, the rage surrounded me like a fog, I threw back my rifle stock and struck out blindly and furiously.’ He takes a deep breath and lets his hands relax.

‘So?’ Klose asks.

Lassehn sits there motionlessly. ‘He skilfully dodged me and I struck air,’ he replies slowly.

‘And after that?’

‘Nothing,’ Lassehn replies. ‘He took a knife from the side of his boot and wanted to lunge at me, but all of a sudden there was a Rata fighter plane above our heads and it dropped a few bombs. You know, Mr Klose, the Russians have this kind of flying bomb, small-calibre but highly explosive, and one of those fell right next to us and a splinter tore the lance corporal’s chest open…’

‘Boy, you were lucky,’ Klose says. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were capable of going for a superior officer with your rifle stock…’

‘I said that before,’ Lassehn says excitedly. ‘I’m a peaceful man, Mr Klose, I abhor all forms of violence, but…’

‘It’s fine,’ Klose says, and rests his right hand on Lassehn’s arm. ‘Now let’s talk about the present again. Where does this beloved spouse of yours reside?’

‘In Charlottenburg,’ Lassehn replies, and sighs deeply.

‘So what’s up with the young husband?’ Klose asks. ‘He’s sitting around here rather than going home. Are you scared to?’

‘Yes,’ Lassehn explodes, ‘that’s it exactly.’ His face is serious, his mouth twists with mute despair. ‘Imagine the situation again, Mr Klose, my wife believes that I am at the front, and now I turn up suddenly as an outlaw, secretly, dirty and in a state of dissolution, a deserter, a traitor to the fatherland. So I know how she’s going to respond to that!’

‘It isn’t good for a person to think too much,’ Klose says. ‘Come on, Joachim, that’s ridiculous… She’s your wife!’

Lassehn jerks his head up. ‘Really? Is she my wife?’

Klose shuts his eyes tight. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? A little while ago you said it was all fine, with the register office and everything, and now you’re saying something different. You have some explaining to do, young man.’

‘You see, Mr Klose, it’s like this,’ Joachim says slowly. ‘Irmgard is my wife, legally and… and in another sense as well, you understand, but apart from that there’s nothing between us, absolutely nothing. I haven’t seen her after the few days of our marriage, and that’s almost two years ago now.’

Klose sucks air through his teeth. ‘So that’s what this is all about. Hm, hm, now I get it, young fellow, all you really know about your wife is what she looks like, how she kisses and what she’s like in bed. Christ, Joachim, this is hilarious.’

Lassehn shakes his head indignantly. ‘I don’t see anything silly about it, Mr Klose, the whole matter is deadly serious, because I am not a superficial person, believe me.’

Klose turns serious again. ‘You’re right, Joachim, forgive my merriment, I meant no harm. But now it’s dawning on me, someone comes home, he’s taken off his grey field uniform, he no longer believes in the final victory, and he doesn’t dare to go home because his wife may be a Nazi witch and she’ll clap her hands in horror over her loyal German cake-hole. Have you never written to each other?’

‘No, we have,’ Lassehn replies, ‘although not very often, but I didn’t get an image of her from those letters. Irmgard only wrote about small everyday matters or refreshed memories of our brief time together, otherwise her letters were always rather short. But apart from all that, there is something else.’

‘Something else? Yes, good grief, what is it?’

‘You said before that all I really knew was what my wife looked like.’

‘So?’

‘I don’t even know that, Mr Klose,’ Lassehn says gloomily. ‘It’s about two years ago now, I’ve never seen her before or since, over two years her picture has been completely covered over with war and injury, misery and death. At first I still had her face clearly in front of my eyes, but the picture faded more and more, I tried desperately to recall it, but it was in vain, I simply couldn’t do it. And it may have been the same for her. It’s quite possible that we could walk past each other in the street and not recognize each other. I know the score of the Moonlight Sonata off by heart, I could write out every note of the Appassionata , but I don’t know what my wife looks like. So now you know everything.’

Klose listened, his face frozen. ‘Lad, lad,’ he says after a while. ‘That is quite something. What am I supposed to do with you two pretty little doves?’

‘I don’t know the answer to that myself,’ Lassehn replies, ‘but one thing is clear to me, that I have to be careful, I have to approach my wife as a huntsman approaches a dangerous creature which, if startled, can become a murdering beast. Not a pleasing simile, but a fitting one.’

Klose has been listening, shaking his head. ‘Lad, lad,’ he says. ‘What’s your wife like? Is she good-natured, or a harridan? Do you think she’s the kind who would grass you up?’

‘I really don’t know, Mr Klose,’ Lassehn replies, ‘and that’s why I didn’t go straight to her.’ He pauses and thinks. ‘She is good-natured, at least that’s the impression she made on me, but what her actual essence is like… I really have no idea.’

‘Well, then we’ll have to think about what we need to do, little man,’ Klose says and gets to his feet. ‘Listen, young fellow, if I suddenly turn the radio on for no reason, it means danger.’

Night has fallen on the ruined city of Berlin. The slender sickle of the moon shines brightly in the deep-blue sky, star sparkles by star, it is a night that could have been made for reflection and contemplation, for peaceful sleep and happy dreams, but those things no longer exist in this city. A suffocating fear of the inescapable creeps from the darkness of encroaching night, a feverish horror of waiting clenches the heart. The great silence of the night, once a gentle hand, has become a terrible threat, people force themselves not to make a sound, not to ignore the calls of the sirens that still ring in their ears even when they are silent, they circle in the brain, they are always there like memories of a terrible dream, because day by day and night by night the terrible dreams are becoming a crushing, fiery reality. Here there is nothing but the fear and horror of nocturnal threat, fever-dreams, anxious waiting, shallow sleep, always listening for the wail of the sirens, extreme recklessness in the fight for their own lives in the pounding of the bomb-proof air-raid bunker, there is no peace here now after the haste and the work of the day, no resting in soft beds. Here tens of thousands of people already sit tightly pressed together in the bunkers and halls of the underground. Millions wait ready to leap for the infernal concert of sirens, suitcases stand ready, steel helmets, gas masks and protective goggles lie within reach, radios blare, but no one is listening to the music or the words. Neither does it matter very much whether it is Beethoven or Lehár coming from the speakers, Rilke or Goebbels, they let everything flow inside them, listening only for the moment when music or language are faded out, the speaker’s voice sweeps aside a curtain and takes the stage and announces its ominous ‘Attention, attention, this is an air-raid warning’, or the triad sounds on the radio and the Berlin division command post delivers its report. Then the city starts up, the ghostly trams driving through the extinct canyons of the houses, and the S-Bahn winds like a ghost train between the rows of ruins, for fifteen minutes of life. People hurry to the bunker with suitcases, rucksacks, bags, blankets, bed-rolls, prams, they dash down the steps to the air-raid cellar, crouch on narrow benches along the walls and listen, senses tensed, their whole bodies focused on their ears, their brains are like selenium cells that trigger certain reactions to certain sounds. High above the earth, meanwhile, are the aeroplanes, searchlight arms grab for them, the anti-aircraft guns thunder into the air, red, yellow, green cascades of light fall to the earth, payloads fall bringing death and ruin, constructions of steel and powder, wiping out everything they touch. When the long-drawn-out cries of the sirens ring out above the burning city, people spill from the caves and holes, they sigh with relief at having saved their possessions, preserved their lives, once more escaped destruction for the rest of the night.