Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

‘You were there, Johannes. Outside Moscow.’

‘Must be a different brother, Katharina. I was in France.’

‘But after France?’

‘I came here. To Berlin.’

She rubbed his thigh and dropped her head onto his shoulder.

Mrs Spinell started to shiver, her teeth to chatter.

‘You need to rest, Mother.’

She covered her mother with two woollen blankets and went to the kitchen, to bake, to create something warm, something soft and sugary. But there were no eggs. She began to peel and chop vegetables. She would make soup. Johannes came from the living room.

‘Let me help.’

She handed him a carrot, already peeled.

‘The knives are in that top drawer,’ she said.

He picked his way through every piece of equipment, testing each one before settling on a small, wooden-handled knife.

‘This will do.’

He placed the carrot on a round chopping board and set to work, moving the knife slowly but meticulously along its length. He measured one piece against the next, matching their widths.

‘Is this all right?’

‘Perfect, Johannes. You’re doing a fine job.’

She diced two onions, a turnip and two parsnips in the time it took him to cut one carrot.

‘Johannes?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you remember using a gun?’

‘Of course. I used one in France. Why?’

‘But what about in Russia? Did you use your gun in Russia?’

‘You must miss your husband very much, Katharina.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Because he’s there, you assume every other soldier has been there too.’

‘That must be it.’

‘I’ve done the carrot. Anything else?’

‘No, thanks, Johannes. Go back and sit beside Mother. She’d like that.’

Katharina was finishing the soup, removing the frothy brown scum from the surface, when her father returned. He stood in the archway to the kitchen.

‘How’s your mother? Has she been asleep long?’

‘About an hour. She was very upset.’

‘There is nothing we can do, Katharina. Believe me. I would stop it if I could. But I can’t.’

‘You have to. He can barely use a kitchen knife, never mind a gun. He can’t go back. It’s as simple as that.’

‘Dr Weinart is a very powerful man, Katharina. We can’t go against him.’

‘But it’s your son. My brother.’

‘I know that. But we will all be in trouble if he doesn’t go back.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Just soup. We have nothing else.’

‘Take this.’

He handed her two large brown paper bags. She opened both and found a large leg of mutton, sausages, chocolate, coffee and bread.

‘This is from Dr Weinart?’

He nodded.

‘I’ll prepare the sausages now. We can have the lamb tomorrow.’

Her mother woke as the sausages turned a golden brown.

‘What’s that smell?’

‘Sausages. Father brought them.’

‘I see. Where’s Johannes?’

‘In his room.’

‘How is he?’

‘Fine. Oblivious.’

‘Probably as well.’

Mr Spinell stood again by the window.

‘Did you talk to him, Günther?’

‘No.’

‘You just took the food.’

‘Esther, there is no point. He is not a man to change his mind.’

‘How do you know if you don’t ask?’

‘Please, let’s stop this.’

‘Stop? Your son is being sent back to war and you want to talk about something else?’

‘Esther, please.’

‘I can’t talk about anything else. I can’t think about anything else. You won’t defend your own son.’

‘I can’t defend him. Every son in Germany is being called to fight. Ours too.’

‘He’s not going. I won’t let them take him. He’s too ill.’

‘Have you any idea what you are saying? What they will do to him? To us, if we keep him here?’

‘I don’t care. He’s not going back.’

‘Esther, he has to go. Dr Weinart said so.’

‘“Dr Weinart said so.”’

‘Stop mocking me.’

‘He’s your only son. Our only son.’

‘There is nothing I can do. He has to go.’

‘Lamb to the slaughter. And you know it. Talk to him, Günther, please.’

‘I can’t, Esther. The decision is made. I can’t start annoying him with our problems.’

‘Our problems? You are talking about your son’s life.’

‘Please, Esther.’

‘Good old Günther Spinell, always in with the boys, no matter which bloody war it is.’

‘You didn’t mind until now, Esther.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This apartment. The extra food. The fur coat that you wore all winter. All from the boys, Esther.’

‘And this is the price?’

‘Every eligible son in Germany is being called up.’

‘Ours is not eligible.’

Mr Spinell slammed his hand against the wall, marched into the hall and took his wife’s fur coat from the cupboard.

‘Off you go, then, and tell them that. See if they will listen to you. Here’s your coat. Your bloody fur coat. You go tell Dr Weinart and the army. Go! Go on!’

She got up, took the sausages from the hob and set the table, tears running down her face.

‘I don’t want him to go back. He’s my baby boy.’

‘I know, Esther. I don’t want him to go either. But there’s a war.’

She wiped her face with a napkin.

‘All right, Günther. But it’s on your head.’

He sat down.

‘It’s on yours too, Esther.’

They took him to the train station, the concourse crowded with new recruits.

‘They seem younger,’ said Katharina.

‘Who?’ said Mrs Spinell.

‘The soldiers. Younger than when I was here with Peter.’

They steered Johannes through the crowds, Mr Spinell carrying his papers, Katharina his food bag filled with bread, salami, chocolate and dried fruit. The train was already at the platform.

‘We should get him on, Esther. Find him a seat.’

‘It’s over an hour before departure.’

‘It’ll fill up fast, Mother.’

They found a carriage in the middle of the train.

‘It’s safer here,’ said Mr Spinell. ‘If the bastards attack it, they’ll probably target the front or the back.’

They put Johannes in a seat by the window, with a table to lean on, and packed his things around him.

‘You’ll be able to sleep here, darling,’ said Mrs Spinell.

She sat beside him, Katharina and Mr Spinell opposite them, on the other side of the table.

‘Nice train,’ said Mr Spinell. ‘Good and clean.’

They were silent until the other soldiers arrived. A sudden rush of men. Hundreds and hundreds clamouring for seats and space for kitbags and guns.

‘We’ll have to go now, Johannes,’ said Mr Spinell.

They kissed and hugged him, the women’s tears on his dry face. They squeezed their way through the soldiers and stood again on the platform, waving as the train pulled away, Johannes smiling and waving back, the seats around him still vacant.

Faber was already awake when the shelling started. He had known it would come. Just not when. But there it was. At first light in the middle of May, the earth shaking under the force of the Russian attack.

‘That’s our wake-up call, boys,’ he said.

In the dimness of the Kharkov house, they pulled on their clothes, their battle kit, and picked up their guns.

‘They’re heavy weapons,’ said Faber. ‘Long range.’

‘And a lot of them,’ said Faustmann.

‘Nothing we can’t handle,’ said Weiss.

‘But listen to it, Weiss,’ said Faber. ‘It’s organized. Orchestrated.’

‘They’re finally learning how to fight a war,’ said Weiss. ‘That’s all it is.’