Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

Ours is a great country, Katharina. We are indeed lucky to have been born German. I would certainly feel despair today if I had been born a Russian. I would see myself as being without hope. Without any future.

But we have a great future, Katharina. You, me and our child. We will raise him or her to be proud of our country, not embarrassed as our parents were. As my parents still are. I wish my father could be more like yours and understand what the Germans are capable of. You understand it. I am not sure that I understood it before, but I understand it now. And I have witnessed the Fatherland’s commitment to its people, each planeload dropped onto those men stranded in that village expressing that commitment.

I am so happy today to be German, to be part of all this. To be part of this great living history.

I will be home very soon.

The letter came late one midweek afternoon as Mrs Spinell was preparing a cut of lean beef. Katharina walked into the kitchen, her gait awkward, her body tired from eight months of pregnancy.

‘Mother.’

Mrs Spinell turned to her daughter. Then back to the sink. She vomited. She rinsed the sink, brushed back her hair and went to the sofa, to the place where her son had sat. They opened the letter and huddled into each other as the words assaulted them: death, regret, service, Fatherland. They remained silent, Katharina stretched along the sofa, Mrs Spinell, upright, staring at the ceiling, until Mr Spinell came home. The tears came then, and angry accusations. He read the letter and left.

Mrs Spinell went to bed and remained there under the blankets in her dressing gown.

‘Should we fetch Dr Weinart?’ asked Katharina.

‘She’ll come out of it,’ said Mr Spinell. ‘Just give her time. It is a terrible thing for a mother.’

‘And for a father?’

‘Of course.’

‘Do you feel guilty, Father?’

‘No, Katharina. Should I?’

‘I don’t know. I do.’

‘Why?’

‘That he went back.’

‘There was nothing to be done.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘We have to play our part, Katharina. To follow orders.’

‘No matter what the consequences?’

‘Otherwise it’s chaos.’

‘It’s chaos, anyway.’

‘It will be worth it.’

‘Worth Johannes?’

‘He would have understood.’

‘It’s happened, boys,’ said Faber.

‘What has?’ said Gunkel.

‘The birth. I’m a father.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Weiss. ‘Boy or girl?’

‘Boy.’

‘Fresh fodder for the empire.’

‘His name is Johannes. After her brother.’

They toasted him and his son with their water bottles and resumed lunch in the sunflower field, jaws chewing on stale bread and tinned meat, eyes fixed on the soil burned black by retreating Russians. Faber opened the letter again. His hands smudged the white paper.

‘Apparently he looks like me. Long and skinny, with dark hair and blue eyes.’

‘Poor bastard,’ said Weiss.

‘It was a hard labour. Nineteen hours.’

‘That’s tough,’ said Kraft.

They fell silent then. Faustmann touched the right side of his mouth.

‘That tooth is getting worse.’

‘You’ll have to see the dentist,’ said Weiss.

Faber leapt to his feet and kicked at the earth, showering them in black soil that reeked of petrol.

‘Bloody hell, Faber,’ said Weiss. ‘We’re trying to eat.’

‘Well, excuse me for disturbing your fine repast in this splendid dining hall.’

‘Piss off.’

He bowed, obsequiously.

‘And what will Mr Weiss have for his main course today? Fetid meat from a tin? Or would sir prefer a can?’

‘Shut up, Faber.’

‘No, you shut up. All of you shut up.’

‘Calm down,’ said Weiss.

‘No, I won’t. And stop telling me what to do, Weiss. You’re always telling me what to do.’

‘Act like a child, and I have to tell you what to do.’

‘You fucking don’t.’

‘Sit down,’ said Faustmann. ‘You’re wearing yourself out.’

‘I’ll do what the fuck I like, Faustmann. And I certainly won’t take orders from some half-Russian bastard.’

‘Right, Faber,’ said Weiss. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Out with it.’

‘I’ve just become a father. You could all have been a little more enthusiastic.’

‘Jesus, Faber,’ said Faustmann. ‘We said congratulations. What do you want? Baby booties?’

‘That would be a start.’

‘Fine. I’ll find some at the baby boutique in the next village.’

‘Leave it, Faustmann,’ said Weiss. ‘Look, Faber, everybody is tired. You’ve had a baby, congratulations. Can we go back to our food, please?’

‘You do that.’

‘Jesus, Faber.’

Faber slumped back into his place.

‘I’m fed up of this hellhole.’

‘We all are.’

‘I thought I’d be home by now. Instead I’m still here, chasing tanks across the fucking steppe. I want to see my child.’

‘It’ll be over soon,’ said Weiss.

‘How many times have you said that? You’re wrong every time.’

‘Not this time, my friend. I’m certain of it.’

‘He’s right, Faber,’ said Gunkel. ‘There can’t be much left to do.’

Kraus shouted at them to move out. They stood up, crumbs and burned sunflower petals falling from their uniforms. Faber ran after Kraus.

‘My wife has just had a baby boy.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you. I need home leave. To see him.’

‘Not a chance.’

‘Please, Sergeant. Even a week.’

‘Forget it. No more leave until this is all over.’

He held back and waited for the others to catch up.

‘What did he say?’ said Weiss.

‘Not a chance.’

‘You should write to your parents. Tell them the news. A first grandchild.’

‘Maybe Katharina will send me a picture. So I can see him.’

‘I’m sure she will. It won’t be long, Faber.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

The rhythm of moving feet calmed his nerves.

‘I thought I’d be home by now. There for the birth. I’ll never see him now as a newborn. Never know what that was like.’

‘You’ll have other children. Other newborns.’

‘But never a first one again.’

In the evening they arrived at a village. The locals carried on with the tasks they had to complete before nightfall, moving between their whitewashed houses and the brick well, ignoring the soldiers as though their arrival was normal, or expected. Faustmann went to them.

‘They say the partisans beat us to it. The food is all gone.’

Kraus shot an old man. Nobody moved. Then he shot another. Still no response. He brought a young woman forward, a mother, and shot her, her young boy screaming beside her. The food appeared. They sat in the village square and ate.

‘It’s idyllic here,’ said Kraft. ‘Such a simple life. Mother would love it.’

‘It’s a tip,’ said Weiss.

‘But imagine,’ said Kraft, ‘a big house, a farm with pigs, apples, geese, room to stretch our cramped urban limbs.’

‘You have a big house,’ said Faber. ‘And room to farm if you want to.’

‘But the air here is so clear. You can really breathe.’

‘And winter?’ said Weiss.

‘Tolerable in a house with proper heating,’ said Kraft.

‘I doubt it.’

‘Think of spring and summer – Faber’s little boy running through that orchard over there, reaching up his hands to catch falling blossoms. It could be heaven.’

‘Or hell,’ said Weiss. ‘No matter how many houses we burn, there’ll always be lice.’