Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

They watched the horse, its legs locked, paralyzed by the cold that spread through its body until it was frozen, until a gust of wind tipped it to the ground.

‘We’re fucked,’ said Faustmann.

‘So it seems,’ said Faber.

The bombardment began in the early morning darkness, while they were still asleep, most of it from the west; thousands and thousands of guns and rockets pounded them for almost an hour. Faber curled himself up, the blanket over his head, and sobbed. He wanted to go home. To kiss his wife and hold his child. Faustmann and Gunkel dragged him to his feet.

‘We can’t stay here,’ said Faustmann.

‘But where is there to go?’ said Faber.

‘I don’t know.’

They staggered out of the school and stumbled towards the centre of the city, across the wasteland, past bunkers blasted open, heads severed from torsos, thighs wrenched from hips, the snow stained by blood. The three men ran faster, scrambling over what had once been streets, until they found an opening into the basement of a department store, its darkness alleviated by candles and oil lamps. Hundreds of emaciated men lay in neat rows, their faces gaunt, their eyes elsewhere.

‘Is it a morgue?’ said Faber.

He could hear their breathing. Just. And pick out the orange, red hair and mottled skin of the starving, of those closest to death. The room stank of faeces and contagion, of gangrenous flesh.

‘We can’t stay here,’ he said.

‘There’s nowhere else,’ said Faustmann.

‘Be grateful,’ said Gunkel. ‘You’re not as dead as they are.’

Faber picked a space between two sleeping men, one of them stick thin and lying on a mattress with the price tag still on, the second difficult to identify under a scattering of children’s clothes. He unfolded his tent, flattened the edges and lay down, his blanket over him. Gunkel was right. He wasn’t as dead as they were. Not yet, anyway.

He slept but woke in the thinning darkness to the sound of the man on the mattress, groaning as he soiled himself in a spurt of shit.

‘Are you all right?’ said Faber.

There was no response, but the man on the other side spoke.

‘It’s what happens at the end. You shit out your insides.’

Faber squeezed his eyes tight, curled his legs and lay still, focused on his breath, its movement in and out through his nose, over the stubble and across the filth of his face, drifting close to sleep until the man shit himself again. Faber sat up. Gunkel was heading for the door. Faber followed.

‘I’m coming too. It’s disgusting in here.’

They pulled scarves over their mouths and noses and went out into the grey dawn light. Faber inhaled, relieved at his relative strength.

‘They’re in a bad way in there, Gunkel.’

‘They haven’t had me to look after them, Faber.’

They slipped down towards the river, hunting for an animal looking for water. The Russians slept on because the Germans were dying anyway.

‘There’s nothing to hunt, Gunkel.’

‘We’ll find something.’

‘Let’s at least wait till the sun rises a bit more. Until it’s warmer.’

‘Then somebody else might eat it.’

Faber crouched as he walked, hiding from the sleeping Russians, his lungs and limbs struggling for energy, his back bent over. Gunkel was almost upright.

‘The further down you go, Faber, the harder it is to get back up.’

‘Fuck off, Gunkel.’

‘Stay positive, Faber.’

‘About what?’

‘Life.’

‘This isn’t life, Gunkel. It’s death. Death on legs.’

‘As long as you’re breathing, it’s life.’

They reached the river.

‘This is ridiculous,’ said Faber. ‘There’s nothing alive out here.’

‘Except us.’

‘We’re half-dead, Gunkel.’

‘Or half-alive, Faber.’

In a yard close to the river, under a tree that had no leaves, they found a pony, shivering, its ribs protruding through its sagging skin. It didn’t move as they approached. Gunkel walked up to the barely conscious animal, held it by the ear and shot it through the temple.

‘Put it out of its misery,’ he said.

‘Cut it, Gunkel. Cut it up.’

‘There’s nothing on it, Faber. The poor bastard was hungrier than we are.’

He walked on and Faber followed, picking his way through frozen corpses. Gunkel whistled.

‘Be quiet.’

‘There’s nobody up. They’re hung over, celebrating their victory.’

‘How the fuck can you whistle?’

‘What else should I do, Faber? Weep?’

Gunkel spotted a dog, thin but alive, and more alert than the horse.

‘I’ll try him,’ he said.

Gunkel shot the animal and rushed over, his knife and steel already out as he fell to his knees beside it. He started to cut, furiously, still whistling, but the blood froze faster than he could cut. He fell silent, and still. Faber tugged at his sleeve.

‘Come on, Gunkel. We should go.’

‘It’s my job to feed you, Faber. It’s what I do.’

‘Get up. They’ll be awake soon.’

‘I can’t feed you any more.’

Faber led Gunkel back up the bank, aware of their vulnerability as the sun stretched its light across the snow. In about an hour, the smell of stewing beef would waft across the river, stirring the senses of those still able to feel hunger.

‘Would you take it, Gunkel?’

‘What?’

‘Their soup.’

‘I like our soup.’

‘We don’t have any soup.’

‘We’ll be rescued soon, Faber.’

‘You can’t seriously believe that.’

‘They can’t just leave us here.’

‘They already have.’

Gunkel fell back.

‘Go on,’ he said. ‘I want to piss.’

Faber took a couple of steps and stopped. He turned.

‘How can you piss? You haven’t drunk.’

Gunkel’s pistol was raised to his head. He pulled the trigger and crumpled at the knees. Faber ran back and fell into the snow beside him, rifling his pockets as he twitched and jerked his way to stillness. Faber found two boiled sweets. He stuffed one into his mouth and fled.

He sat on a stone, his back against a fragment of wall, and stared at the sky, at the white clouds travelling west. He put the second sweet in his mouth and took off his hats, his scarves. He wanted Russia to freeze his brain, to cauterize it so that he could no longer think. No longer feel. He wanted only numbness.

They had started cooking. He could smell the beef frying on pans and the bread baking in ovens just beyond his reach. He looked over the wall. He could see the Russians winding up gramophones, pouring drinks for themselves, shouting invitations at them in broken German to come over, to join them.

They banged on pots, shouting that soup was ready. His stomach cramped. He put his hats and scarves back on. He was emaciated. The muscles in his arms and legs were disappearing. His skin was dry and flaking; his lips bleeding. Much longer and he would be like the man on the mattress. He stood up and went back to the basement. He would tell Faustmann. About Gunkel.

‘They won’t give you any, Faber,’ said Faustmann. ‘Even if you go.’

‘How do you know?’

‘They won’t.’

‘But they’re offering.’

‘You won’t get it.’

‘How can you be so sure, Faustmann?’

‘They starve their own people, Faber.’

‘But we’re German. They wouldn’t starve us.’

‘What are they doing now?’

He slept again but not for long; hunger woke him. He lay still, his legs tucked into his chest, his eyes staring at the dying man’s shit-stained trousers.

Others had already gone over. He had seen them walking across the river to the cheering Russians. He rubbed his fingers over his hand. His skin was itchy. And quick to bleed. More hospitable for the lice. And other infections, lethal ones. He could desert, wait for the war to end and then go home. Be a father to his son. A husband to his wife.