Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

‘I heard talk of Poltava first, then Kharkov or towards Rostov,’ said Fuchs. ‘We’ll know when we’re there.’

‘Another grand plan,’ said Weiss. ‘How far is it?’

‘About two hundred miles to Poltava and three hundred to Kharkov. Rostov is too far to think about.’

Lace curtains twitched as they walked through the streets towards the river, hidden eyes tracking them as they passed.

‘When did the others leave?’ said Faber.

‘Most infantry last week.’

‘Why are we so late?’

‘The whole army was waiting for you, Faber,’ said Weiss.

Fuchs laughed.

‘You took a bit of a risk,’ he said. ‘Marrying a stranger like that.’

‘I suppose I did. But it worked out.’

‘What’s her family like? Her parents?’

‘They were kind to me.’

‘And her father?’

‘Not easy to get used to. But a good man. Committed.’

‘To what?’

‘The cause. The party. I had a couple of drinks with him, and some friends of his. They have some good ideas, especially this doctor I met.’

‘About what?’ said Fuchs.

‘Germany’s place in the world. Our future. The doctor pieced it all together very eloquently.’

‘And you were impressed?’

‘Very.’

Fuchs lit a cigarette, inhaled and coughed.

‘You shouldn’t be smoking, Fuchs.’

‘I know that. What do your parents think?’

‘Of what?’

‘Your marriage, your wife’s new family. They must be very different from yours.’

Faber spat at the earth.

‘They’ve met her.’

‘And what do they think?’

‘They like her.’

‘Have they met her parents?’

‘No.’

‘Any plans for them all to meet?’

‘No. God, Fuchs, you’re like an old woman with your cough and your questions. It’s done now, anyway.’

They reached the open plains, where Reinisch, their lieutenant, picked up the pace, forcing a march across ruts left by the tanks. Faber adjusted his pack and gun, and lengthened his stride, his legs settling back into their soldier rhythm. War had made him fit. Katharina had healed his feet. The sun rose, his shadow stretched behind him, and they began to sing.

They set up camp before darkness, Faber sharing with Weiss as usual. At midnight, Kraus shook their tent.

‘You’re on, lads. Faustmann and Kraft take over at two. Berlin time. No messing. No smoking.’

He pulled on his boots and crawled out after Weiss. The air was cold. He slapped his hands together and stamped his feet.

‘You’re supposed to be quiet, Faber.’

‘I forgot.’

Faber walked north, to a corner of the camp shrouded in darkness and silence. He took out a cigarette, cupped it in his hands to light it and inhaled its warmth. He checked his watch. Ten minutes after midnight. He wriggled his fingers, slapped his hands, walked a few paces and hunkered down. One hour and fifty minutes. One hour and forty-nine. He stared at the steppe, willing something to happen. Anything at all. Anything that might distract from the darkness around him. He hated the dark. A twig snapped. Then nothing. More silence. More darkness. He lit another cigarette and reached for Katharina, his mind resting in her body until his shift was over, until he could climb back into his tent and sleep.

In the morning the rains came, thick, heavy sheets that turned the road to liquid mud. Word came down the line that tanks, trucks and half-tracks were stuck ahead. Weiss laughed.

‘The great blitzkrieg,’ he said. ‘Thwarted by a drop of Russian rain.’

‘That would cheer up your lot, Faustmann,’ said Faber.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your Russian friends.’

‘What?’

‘You speak the language so you must be pretty pleased to see us in this mess.’

‘Jesus, Faber,’ said Fuchs.

‘My lot, as you call it, is with Germany,’ said Faustmann. ‘Have you failed to notice which uniform I’m wearing?’

‘It’s hard to tell through the mud,’ said Weiss.

‘It looks Russian to me,’ said Faber.

‘Come on, Faber,’ said Fuchs. ‘You’re walking with me.’

Faber hurried to keep pace with Fuchs’ fury.

‘Don’t bring that here, Faber,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Her father’s politics. Keep it for Berlin.’

‘I wasn’t doing anything.’

‘Have the courage to bloody admit it.’

‘Admit what?’

‘When did you become such an idiot, Faber?’

Reinisch ordered them to dig vehicles out of the mud some ten miles south of the main road.

‘What size?’ said Weiss.

‘Just jeeps and trucks,’ said Kraus. ‘No heavy weaponry. Only task force.’

‘Thank God for that,’ said Faber.

Stockhoff distributed rations.

‘I’ll make you beef stew when you catch up with us,’ he said.

They found forty men in six vehicles, three jeeps and three trucks, the wheels so deeply embedded that only the tops of tyres were visible. Faber sat on the nearest jeep.

‘It’ll take a week to dig this out,’ he said.

‘Your fat arse is sinking it further,’ said Weiss.

Faber looked at the task force men with their black collar tabs. He had seen some of them in Kiev, rounding up Jews. They nodded at him. He nodded back and set down his pack and rifle. He began digging. But the vehicles remained stuck. They pitched tents, felled trees and, after days of labour in the rain and mud, finally released the vehicles and fell to the earth, their bodies shattered by fatigue.

‘We are allowed a few days’ rest,’ said Kraus.

Faber looked around, at the mud and trees.

‘Where exactly?’

‘Those lads were supposed to do a village about five miles south of here. The road is too bad, so we can have it.’

‘Is it worth it?’ said Fuchs.

‘They’re sure it’s untouched.’

‘Jews or Partisans?’ said Gunkel.

‘Aren’t they the same thing?’ said Faber.

It was night when they reached the village, the rain banished by dry, cold air from the north and a flicker of something at their faces that might have been snow.

‘Everybody out,’ shouted Kraus.

The whitewashed houses were still and in darkness.

‘You’d better translate, Faustmann.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

His bass voice boomed and, one by one, the doors of about twenty houses creaked open. The villagers, holding lanterns, stood in the doorways, old women huddling into old men, young children into their mothers.

‘Faustmann, tell them to leave immediately.’

He spoke again and an old woman, wrapped in coats and scarves, yelled back at him. She slapped her chest, coughed and spat at the ground. She pointed at it with her light. Green phlegm.

‘She says that she is too ill to sleep outside, that she has nowhere else to go.’

‘Nor do we,’ said Kraus. ‘Unless she knows of some hotel we can book into.’

The soldiers laughed.

‘Throw them all out, Faustmann. Tell them that they can come back in a couple of days, when we have gone.’

The old woman spat again towards Faustmann and went back into her house. She shut the door. A young child, a boy, started to cry; his distress spread to the other children, then to the women. An old man stepped forward, into the middle of the village, its centre marked by a bench under a cherry tree.

‘We need to get some things,’ he said. ‘From our homes.’

‘Five minutes,’ said Kraus.

The villagers disappeared and re-emerged wearing blankets over their coats and hats, the sick old woman in even more clothing. The old man pulled a rickety wooden trolley, also covered with a blanket. Kraus stamped on the trolley and lifted the cover.

‘The food stays,’ he said.

The old man started to cry.