Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

‘We’ll go around again,’ said Weiss. ‘One more time.’

They headed towards an orchard at the other end of the village, its branches reaching into the darkness. Weiss stopped and hunkered down to peer through the trees.

‘I think there’s something over there,’ he said. ‘On the other side.’

Suddenly they could all see it. Walls with a roof, unblackened, intact.

‘Saved for another day,’ said Fuchs. ‘Hallelujah.’

They charged at it, guns to the front, packs bouncing against their backs, hurrying in case somebody else got there first. Weiss yanked open the small, wooden door and the five piled into a darkness sweetened by ripened fruit. Kraft switched on his torch, and they cheered, ecstatic at their good fortune.

‘What’s there to eat?’ said Faber.

Kraft swung his torch, across apples, pears, plums and two women wrapped into each other, one old, one young.

‘It’s all right,’ said Kraft. ‘We won’t hurt you.’

He held his hand towards them and the younger woman stepped forward, apples rolling at her feet. Faber was shocked by the beauty of her pale, unblemished skin, by the brightness of her green eyes and the strength of her strong, straight shoulders.

‘She looks German,’ he said. ‘Talk to her, Faustmann.’

‘In Russian, Faber?’

He put his gun barrel on her left breast, over her heart.

‘Speak,’ he said.

She did, so softly that Faber heard the melody of the language for the first time.

‘Russian,’ laughed Faustmann. ‘Go on. Out.’

He dragged the older woman, the grandmother, by the arm and threw them outside, into the snow.

‘What are you doing?’ said Faber.

‘They’re Russian,’ said Faustmann.

He planted them in front of an apple tree and aimed first at the old woman, who held her hands in front of her face, then at the young woman, who held his gaze. He fired into the middle of her face.

‘What the hell did you do that for?’ said Fuchs.

Faustmann shot the old woman too.

‘They’re Russian,’ said Faustmann. ‘I can’t share a shed with Russian peasants.’

‘Jesus, Faustmann,’ said Fuchs, ‘your grandmother’s Russian. It’s like you just shot your own grandmother.’

Faustmann went back into the shed, bit into an apple and dug in his pack for food. Kraus and Gunkel followed them inside.

‘You bastards,’ said Kraus. ‘How did you find this place? Make room for us.’

‘Just you two,’ said Weiss.

‘We’ll fetch our packs. Right, the rest of you men, back to the barn. Incident over.’

Faber sat down to eat, to settle the churn of his stomach. Faustmann leaned into him, and whispered.

‘Now, Faber. Accuse me again. See who’ll believe you.’

‘Fuck you. You shouldn’t have shot her.’

‘She was Russian.’

‘Maybe you shot her because she looked German.’

‘You’re a bastard.’

He moved away, leaving Faber next to Fuchs, a rattling wheeze in his chest.

‘How are you feeling?’ said Faber.

‘I’m glad to be inside. What’s going on between you two?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You and Faustmann. You’re hissing at each other like an old married couple.’

‘I don’t like his politics.’

‘I told you before. There’s no room for politics here.’

‘He’s talking like a communist.’

‘Faber, before you went to Berlin, you barely knew what a communist was.’

‘But it’s important.’

‘It’s rubbish. What’s important is to stick together and get out of this hellhole in one piece.’

‘It’s important to me.’

‘Why is it so fucking important to you?’

‘We’re here for a reason, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, because we’re soldiers.’

‘No, Fuchs, we’re here to clear the communists and Jews from Russia. So that my wife and child have a better future.’

‘We’re here because we’re soldiers, Faber. That’s it.’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Make it that fucking simple.’

Katharina read the letter a second time, her mother curled into her.

‘It doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with him, Mother. You should be happy. He’s coming home.’

‘They’d never send him back, Katharina, unless there was something wrong.’

‘So he injured his arm, his leg? He’ll recover. The main thing is that he’s coming.’

She kissed her mother on the cheek.

‘We should prepare for him, Mother. Decorate his room. We still haven’t hung up those badges and certificates. Come on. We’ll do it now.’

She helped her mother to her feet and they went to his room.

‘He’ll be fine, Mother.’

There was no shelter the following evening and they stood stranded on the steppe, only thirty-five of the ninety miles behind them.

‘We should walk through the night,’ said Kraft. ‘Keep moving and stay warm.’

‘It’s too cold and we’d lose each other,’ said Reinisch. ‘We’ll camp here.’

Faber stuck his rifle down through the snow, but found no earth for pegs, only thick sheets of ice.

‘What do we do now?’ he said.

‘Dig into the snow,’ said Weiss. ‘We’ll make a cave for the tent.’

‘I’m exhausted,’ said Kraft.

‘Let’s just pitch them on the surface,’ said Faber.

‘We need shelter from the wind,’ said Weiss.

‘There is none,’ said Kraft.

‘There might be. Start digging,’ said Weiss.

‘Nobody else is bothering, Weiss,’ said Faber.

‘That’s up to them.’

They burrowed for twenty minutes, until they had created a cavity deep enough for the tent ropes and pegs.

‘We’re like bloody Eskimos,’ said Faber.

‘I can’t believe this is happening to us. That they are doing this to us,’ said Kraft.

‘Who?’

‘Those bastards in Berlin. The ones who sent us out here.’

‘Have you been listening to Faustmann?’ said Faber.

‘No.’

‘You sound like him.’

‘Like Faustmann?’

‘Yes, he talks like that. Like a communist.’

Weiss’s laughter exploded in the tent.

‘Kraft’s too rich to be a communist.’

‘So why is he talking like one?’

‘I’m not,’ said Kraft. ‘I’m just wondering what the hell we are doing out here. What purpose does it serve?’

‘See, that’s communist cant.’

‘No, Faber. It’s me wondering what the fuck I am doing in Russian snow when I should be at home in front of the fire, looking after my mother.’

They slept, until brutally cold air filled the tent. It was Fuchs, Faustmann and Gunkel, forcing their way inside.

‘Ours is fucked,’ shouted Faustmann. ‘Ripped apart. Everybody’s out there, scrambling for shelter.’

‘But there’s no room in here,’ said Faber.

‘There has to be,’ said Fuchs.

Faber, Weiss and Kraft squeezed their knees against their chests and the other three pushed their way in, dragging packs and guns after them.

‘It was the wind,’ said Fuchs. ‘Cut through us like a knife.’

They hunkered, backs against the tent, knees pressing up against each other, six men compressed into a space created for two. Fuchs coughed for most of the night, spitting up phlegm in a tent already full of sweat and stale breath. Faber woke at dawn, gasping for fresh air. It was bitterly cold outside, but still. He lit a cigarette and watched the sun climb into the sky, its strengthening light rinsing the snow pink, illuminating three men wrapped in their collapsed tents. Faber walked towards them. They were dead.

‘Poor bastards,’ he said.

He finished his cigarette, threw the butt to the snow, and went back to the sleeping men, nudging them to open up the space that had been his. He slept again, woke with the others, and ate.