Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

My parents are well, and very much enjoying their first grandson.

My father tells me that Stalingrad will be ours within a few weeks, that the war will end quickly after that and that you, my darling husband, will be home by Christmas. For ever.

Good luck on your road to Stalingrad, my love. Go speedily so that you come home faster.

PS I will have a second photograph taken of Johannes very shortly and will send it to you. You will see how much he has grown, in such a short space of time. All my love, again. K.

She sealed the letter and put it on the hall table, ready for posting. But then picked it up again. The table was dusty. So was the mirror. The bust. And the floor was grubby. She wiped the end of her apron across the table surface and set the letter down again.

She was exhausted by it all – by the night feeds and day feeds, by the queuing for food, cooking food and the laundering, increasingly with cold water. She went back to the living room. Her mother, her skin pasty and flaccid, lay on the sofa, reaching for another cigarette.

‘Mother, I’ve asked you not to. I want Johannes to have fresh air to breathe.’

Mrs Spinell lit her cigarette and inhaled, throwing her head back to look at the ceiling.

‘How long is this going to last, Mother? I can’t do everything.’

There was no reply. Katharina went to the kitchen and made coffee, aware that she had only a short time before her son would wake, wet and hungry. She sat on the floor at the end of the room, and wrapped her hands around the cup. It was a sunny afternoon, but she was cold. The apartment was cold.

Her father came home, sweating.

‘I’m going to Russia,’ he said.

‘God, we must be in trouble,’ said Mrs Spinell.

‘Are you not too old, Father?’

‘I’m not fighting, Katharina. I’m going to look after the harvest.’

‘You know nothing about farming, Günther.’

‘I’m security, Esther. Making sure we reach it before those bastard partisans.’

‘It’s their wheat, Günther.’

‘It’s our wheat, Esther. It’s on German soil and German families need it for the coming winter.’

‘I expect Russian families do too.’

‘That’s enough from you, woman. I’m going in an aeroplane, Katharina. With Dr Weinart.’

‘That’s so exciting, Father.’

‘We’ll be gone for about a month, and Mrs Weinart has asked that you visit her, to keep her company.’

‘We’d love to, Father. Wouldn’t we, Mother?’

Mrs Spinell said nothing.

‘And I have some other news,’ he said.

He went back to the hall door, opened it and brought in a young woman, his hand tugging at her arm.

‘Cleaning is no longer a job for a German woman. She will do it for you so that you ladies can go off and enjoy yourselves with Mrs Weinart.’

Katharina hugged her father.

‘That’s marvellous news. Will she be able to mind Johannes sometimes?’

‘Of course. Whatever you want. She doesn’t speak German, so you will have to show her things.’

‘Is she Russian?’ said Mrs Spinell.

‘Call her Natasha,’ said Mr Spinell. ‘They’re all called Natasha.’

Mrs Spinell sat up.

‘I’m not having a Russian in my house.’

‘She’s here to help you, Esther. And she’ll sleep in the basement.’

‘I don’t want her.’

‘I do,’ said Katharina.

Mrs Spinell went to her room and closed the door. Katharina took Natasha to the kitchen.

His feet were sore and his face was sunburned. He flopped onto the ground.

‘How much longer?’

Weiss hunkered down beside him and lit two cigarettes.

‘Kraus says one more day. The bombing is already under way.’

‘They shouldn’t have started without us.’

‘Well, they have.’

Kraus shouted at them and pushed them on until the city spread out in front of them, a mass of white-painted concrete shrouded in black cloud.

‘That place is finished,’ said Weiss.

‘Let’s go home now, then. Leave them to it.’

‘And miss the big show?’

Stockhoff gave them pea soup and bread. They stared as they ate, at the planes weaving in and out of the clouds, at the explosions of fire and trails of smoke across the sky.

‘We have them,’ said Weiss. ‘Their backs against the river.’

‘I can feel the vibrations,’ said Faber. ‘How far away are we, Kraus?’

‘About ten miles.’

‘It’s the longest river in Europe,’ said Faustmann.

‘The longest in the German Empire,’ said Weiss. ‘What’s it called again?’

‘The Volga.’

‘Oh yeah. I remember,’ said Weiss. ‘I’ll swim in it. To mark our new frontier.’

‘And freeze your balls off,’ said Faustmann.

They laughed.

They sang and marched all day. That night Stockhoff fed them beef and carrot stew, the meat so tender that even Gunkel was pleased.

‘It’s almost as good as what you’d get in my shop,’ he said.

Kraus told them to rest, to prepare for the next day when they would move towards the north of the city. Kraft drank, more than he should have.

‘You’re lucky, Faber, to have a wife and son,’ he said.

‘Why’s that, Kraft?’

‘It’s something to fight for, Faber.’

‘You have your mother.’

‘She never wants me to leave her. To go out on my own.’

‘She’ll have got used to being without you now. You’ve been away so long.’

‘I have no life. Nothing of my own.’

‘Kraft, you’re not even twenty-five. Something will turn up.’

‘Maybe. She’s ill, you know.’

‘I know, Kraft.’

‘No, really ill. I got a letter from a neighbour.’

‘She’ll be fine. She always is.’

‘Kraus won’t let me go home. To see her.’

‘This won’t take long.’

‘I hate it.’

‘What?’

‘Killing. Watching people die. I hate it.’

‘You’ll be fine.’

‘I’ve always hated it. Killing. Hunting. My father called me a coward.’

‘I have a photograph of my son.’

‘He was always mocking me. Maybe he was right. That’s what I am.’

‘Do you want to see it?’

‘What?’

‘The photograph of my son?’

‘I should sleep, Faber.’

Faber reached into the inside of his tunic for the picture that had been taken not long after the birth, his son asleep, a loose fist resting against his right cheek. He kissed the child, and his wife’s hair.

At dawn, they began their march towards the city, hundreds of thousands of them.

‘This is it, Faber,’ said Weiss.

‘Home by Christmas, Weiss?’

They both laughed.

‘We’ll be heroes, Faber. Feted for generations to come.’

They stamped their feet into the ground, claiming it as their own. The planes rolled and dived over their heads, owning the sky, thrilling the soldiers underneath, schoolboys on the winning team. They fell quieter on the outskirts of the city, silent but for their steps and breath as they moved along streets of mud and wooden houses, past neatly curtained windows. Inside, the tables were set for breakfast, but everyone was gone. Shoes and bags littered the roads.

They turned left onto a boulevard, its tar blasted and cratered, concrete strewn across the middle of the road, fires smouldering, apartments razed, shops blackened and burned, a thick veil of smoke and dust hanging over it all. He could now identify the smells of death – the initial stench of copper and shit, followed by the suffocating sweetness of rotting blood that lingered for days. He pressed on, past the infant boy, his body charred, only his fingernails still white. He found Kraus, crouched behind a chimneystack that no longer had its house. Weiss, Kraft, Gunkel and Faustmann were with him.