Audrey Magee - The Undertaking

They didn’t talk to her, and she no longer expected them to. She just wanted to be among them, ordinary women with ordinary sons and husbands, the women of the infantry. Elizabeth, Mrs Weinart and all her new friends were married to officers, their husbands either still in Berlin or in places safer than Stalingrad.

The women in the queue whispered to each other, and passed around sheets of folded newspaper that carried thousands and thousands of names and black crosses. They pointed out the names of their loved ones, quietly sobbing, muffling their grief as they were supposed to be proud of the men’s sacrifice.

Katharina had already pored over every newspaper until her hands were black with ink, but had found no trace of him. Nothing. His mother had replied, a short letter, to say that she too had heard nothing. He had disappeared.

She bought sausage and went home.

Her father was on the sofa, holding Johannes, tickling his toes. Katharina put the sausage in the fridge and told Natasha to make coffee. She sat down beside them.

‘Any news, Father?’

‘About what?’

‘Stalingrad, Father. Is there anything else?’

‘It’s over, Katharina. Time to move on.’

She took her son from him.

‘As you did with Johannes, Father. You moved on quickly. From your own son.’

‘I get enough of that from your mother, Katharina.’

Natasha placed the coffee on the table in front of them. Katharina poured.

‘Your husband is a hero, Katharina.’

‘How can you be a hero when you lose? They lost, Father. We lost.’

‘They sacrificed themselves for the greater good. That is heroism.’

‘Where’s the greater good in losing?’

‘It has given us time to regroup, Katharina. To take Moscow.’

‘And then what? They encircle us there too?’

‘That’s defeatist talk, Katharina.’

‘How much do we have to give, Father? First my brother, then my husband.’

‘Germany is bigger than you, Katharina. Bigger than all of us.’

‘A monster that we feed with our men? Is that what it is, Father, this Germany of yours?’

‘That’s dangerous talk, Katharina. Talk that will land you into trouble. Are you quite well?’

‘I’m fine, Father.’

‘You have to get over Peter. Accept that he’s not coming back.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re a mother.’

‘And a wife. And a sister.’

‘We need good, sensible mothers, Katharina. For our future.’

‘A future that has obliterated its past. Its present.’

‘It’ll be worth it, you’ll see. For Johannes.’

‘Growing up without a father. It’ll be worth that?’

‘We will be the most powerful country in the world.’

‘Filled with children without fathers. Wives without husbands. Is that it? The great plan?’

‘Just wait. It’ll work out.’

‘No, no, it won’t. It already hasn’t.’

Faber would not look at the Russians standing on the banks of snow on the edge of the road. They spat at him and scanned the prisoners for the weakest soldier, the one next to fall, the one whose boots, blanket and coat, whose tin cup and bowl might atone for his presence there. Faber pulled his scarves further up his face, and stared down at his feet shuffling through the snow, his lips mumbling that they would never get him. That he had done no wrong.

He walked until dusk, stepping around the dying, stumbling over the dead, muttering, cursing, swearing, weeping, his head so cold that he was uncertain as night came whether he was even alive, whether the breath in and out of his scarf was real or remembered. They corralled him into a huge barn with wooden doors that shut out the wind, enveloping him in the sweet, musky smell of stored wheat. He fell to the floor and scrambled for kernels, but the shed was empty, swept clean by rats. He slept where he had fallen, kicked awake by men surging forward for soup, meatless and watery but littered with chunks of potato that he could scoop up with his fingers and shovel into his mouth. He got two portions.

The following day there was no food, the day after that only bread and sausage, but still his wiry frame persisted. They reached the railway track that had no beginning and no end, no station, no platform, nothing to mark why they should be standing at that particular spot. He felt the sun’s warmth on his face for seconds, minutes or hours; he again lost any sense of time until a rifle butt pushed him towards a train that he had neither seen nor heard arriving. He hauled himself into a carriage, panting from the effort, his head spinning, and lay exhausted on the loose-fitting wooden slats smeared in cow dung. The dung was frozen until the space was packed with emaciated men, the little heat they produced thawing it to release a suffocating stench that lasted until the train moved off, until the wind cut through the gaps and refroze the dung.

Faber found a place against a wall that backed onto the carriage in front, sheltering him from the worst of the wind and giving him a full view of the other men, their hollowed eyes and cheeks, their filth and feebleness. He shut his eyes and rested his head against the wood, relieved to be sitting, to be out of the snow, to be moving somewhere, anywhere, away from Stalingrad. He began to shiver, his teeth, arms and legs jerking in a confusion of cold and relief.

Katharina folded the newspaper, her hands again covered in ink.

‘Still nothing, Father. Maybe he surrendered.’

‘Let’s hope not.’

‘How can you say that?’

‘He’s better off, Katharina, to have died as a hero than surrendered as a coward.’

‘As a hero, he’s dead. Surrendered, he might still be alive.’

‘Not in his soul, Katharina.’

Natasha brought them coffee and cake, the sponge lighter than it used to be, her improvement in baking a source of pleasure to the Spinells. Katharina gave some cake to Johannes. The boy smacked his lips and waved his hands for more.

‘You’re better off without that kind of husband, Katharina.’

‘What kind of husband should I have, Father?’

‘A brave one. One who can look after you.’

‘I had that.’

‘If he surrendered, he wasn’t brave. Not the man you thought.’

‘He is the man I think he is, Father. The man I want him to be.’

‘You need to build a new life for yourself and your son, Katharina. Find a new husband.’

‘I can’t do that. I can’t think like that.’

‘You have to, I’m afraid.’

‘But the generals surrendered and are still alive. Peter might be among them.’

‘Then he is as cowardly as they are and unworthy of you.’

Her father stood up, walked once around the sofa and sat down again beside his daughter, his arm on hers.

‘Listen to me, Katharina. Stop all this talk of surrender. Act as though he is dead, as he most likely is, even if he surrendered. They’re up to their necks in snow.’

‘He’s stronger than he looks.’

‘If he has surrendered and is alive, there will be no pension.’

‘I don’t want a pension. I want Peter.’

‘Your mother was right. You should have married the doctor’s son. You wouldn’t care whether he was dead or alive.’

‘That’s unfair.’

‘You have a child. You have to take care of him. You need that pension. That was your deal with Peter, remember. His death. His pension.’

She lifted Johannes, burying her nose in his hair, breathing in his softness.

‘But what if he’s alive?’

‘He’s not, Katharina. He can’t be.’

The train stopped, the door was dragged open and they were ordered off. Faber got down, slowly, clumsily, to stand in the middle of nowhere – nothing to see but a train on a track surrounded by snow. He stuck close to the carriage, suddenly attached to its squalor, and watched as the Russians climbed in and kicked at the men still inside, their legs bent at the knee, frozen grasshoppers. They picked up the bodies and threw them off the train, the bones cracking in the winter air. Faber decided not to urinate with the other men. He was frightened of frostbite and anyway enjoyed the momentary warmth of piss running down his leg.