Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

Hadn’t Eberhard been there that day? Or had he only gone into the woods for a moment to clear his thoughts?

And they had both thought of that other, very secret matter of which so many other people were aware.

If I’d known what I was missing,

If I’d known who I was kissing,

That midnight at the lido …

On that one fine day at the seaside, she had worn a round hat like the sun on the back of her head, and hadn’t he been all in white? The sea had lapped gently against the breakwaters, and there were lights on the fishing boats by night.

Eberhard had gone to Berlin and the Olympic Games, and he hadn’t taken her with him. ‘I’m sure you can understand that, can’t you?’ No, she hadn’t been sure that she could. So she had gone to the seaside with Sarkander.

They sat down, and Katharina crossed her legs — she was wearing riding boots — and lit herself a cigarillo. The delightful summer parties at the Georgenhof … The telegraph connection to high places — Eberhard had always made sure that it worked well — was still working, in spite of telegraphic interference by people of Drygalski’s kind, those proletarians. ‘I’ll get them yet!’ he had told the mayor.

‘Ah, well, Drygalski …’ said Sarkander. ‘Leave those folk alone.’

The two of them exchanged news, whispering to each other although there was no one else in the room. Last night’s column of tanks, the ruined station, the prisoners in the brickworks … And they talked about the Russians on the border, where something unpleasant was brewing.

‘To think it’s come to this!’

Lothar Sarkander in his elegant suit, the Party symbol on his lapel, had moments of insight. He knew which way the wind was blowing.

Was it a good idea to keep Peter here? Sarkander asked, standing up and pacing up and down the room. Wouldn’t it be better to send him to Berlin?

Wasn’t it too late for that now?

Sarkander might have to go to Berlin on duty next week. He could take the boy with him, why not?

But didn’t the Russians behave very decently at the end of the First War?

‘We’ll find ways and means to get the two of you to safety in good time,’ he said. ‘You can rely on that.’ He put his hand on her shoulder, and she moved a little closer to him.

Then he fingered the blood-stained hare and sat down at the desk again, and the young woman went away feeling comforted. What she didn’t know was that Sarkander had sent his wife and children away to Bamberg in the autumn.

Katharina went over to Gessner & Haupt’s bookshop on the marketplace, where the bookseller gave her an art book, German Cathedrals of the Middle Ages . It was in the Blue Books series, a volume that she didn’t yet have. She already possessed Greek Sculptures, The Quiet Garden and Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits. If she kept her eyes open she’d be able to complete her collection.

The bookseller was feeling depressed. In spite of his stomach trouble he had been called up as a reservist. He had been told he must be ready, just in case, and if the sirens went three times he must go to such and such a meeting place. He must not leave Mitkau and they must be able to reach him at any moment. And if you hear the sirens going off three times, then put on your uniform and hurry to the meeting place.

And then what?

He was sixty-two years old, and this was not how he had imagined spending his old age.

The bell rang as she left the shop, and the bookseller watched her go. Those people are well off, he thought, taking a stomach pill. There was an open carton in his back room and he was filling it with rare books. The first editions of Lessing and Goethe had long ago been sent to safety.

Soldiers were hunched over hot drinks in the overheated Café Schlosser. Many had girls with them, who would sit with other soldiers when these had to move on.

Here Katharina met Herr Schünemann the political economist, who immediately swung himself over to her on his crutches, addressed her as ‘dear lady’, kissed her hand and so forth, greatly surprising the soldiers: such gallantries in the sixth year of the war?

By now Schünemann had been to Insterburg, he had visited the little stamp shop here, and had come away with good pickings: old German stamps, quantities of them! He opened his bag and showed her his new acquisitions one by one. What does she think of these? he asks, he would really like to know! His bad breath wafts round her. Katharina thought privately that the stamps were shabby specimens, but she supposed he might be right.

She leaned back, and Schünemann went on talking to her. ‘When devaluation comes — and dear lady, what do you think this war is costing? — then these little things will rise in value enormously. I shall retrieve my entire fortune like this!’ he said, with a mischievously boyish expression on his face, meant to show he was no fool.

Katharina thought of the army stamp that he had torn off its envelope on the quiet and taken away. She wondered how much that would be worth some day. Maybe Schünemann was thinking the same? He quickly paid for his coffee and swung himself away again on his crutches. Off to Allenstein! There were surely all kinds of things to be picked up there.

Katharina paid another visit to her cheerful friend Felicitas, who was always so funny, always so amusing, and told such good stories. There was a hare to be delivered there too. Her friend was heavily pregnant, and the meat would do her good.

The house was beyond the town wall. At the end of the road, with its many sharp turns, freezing prisoners were busy turning the Senthagener Tor into a tank barrier with tree trunks. Others were levering up paving stones to prepare one-man positions for reservists armed with single-shot anti-tank weapons. The earth was frozen solid. Digging holes in it was extremely difficult.

The two women greeted one another loudly, and even the canary sang for all it was worth. The hare was put in a pillowcase and hung in the kitchen window.

‘Just so long as there’s gas,’ they said, for otherwise it couldn’t be roasted. Pickled in vinegar, maybe? But there wasn’t any vinegar either.

Felicitas had been lying on the sofa listening to the radio.

A señor and a lovely señorita

Went happily walking along by the sea …

A glass dish with crunchy oatflakes stood on the table, and Katharina was offered a green liqueur in a little pink glass.

Felicitas with her bright aquamarine pendant, and Katharina with her gold locket.

*

From the window, they could see the prisoners toiling away at the tree trunks, an old non-commissioned officer standing beside them with a long shotgun, hands in his pockets. He had wrapped a scarf round his head.

There were two kind of prisoners at work: Frenchmen in thick coats, and other prisoners in striped uniforms, with an SS man keeping special watch on them from the shelter of a doorway.

The Senthagener Tor, with its snow-capped battlements, looked rather snug. It reminded people of the Napoleonic Wars, when those who got away from the Grande Armée in 1812, hungry and freezing, asked to come into the town. Men from Württemberg and Bavaria had been welcomed in and given hot soup, but not the French. The French were turned away to go elsewhere. Generosity to a defeated enemy is all very well, but while they were still on top the French had gone on levying forced war contributions, had stabled their horses in the church and had burnt down the old Georgenhof castle. The people of Mitkau had not been able to forget that.

‘What do you think?’ asked Felicitas. ‘Will the Russians really get to Mitkau?’ And she ran her hands over her body, sighing.