Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

Would he perhaps take the semi-circular path trodden down below as a signal, as a message, incomprehensible and mysterious?

Or perhaps he would see the solitary man stealing along now beside the road, a note in his hand. A man cursing himself.

Katharina stood at the window, pale in the moonlight. Who would he be?

A distinguished elderly gentleman who had been involved in the July plot, an officer in civilian clothes, with duelling scars on his cheek? A gentleman of the old school, who had gone riding in the Grünewald Park in peacetime. Had fought in the First World War, in the Second World War, wounded three times. A man like that probably wouldn’t be able to climb the picket fence. And would an officer then want to crawl into the cubbyhole on all fours?

A young officer would be welcome. Two in a Big City — that romantic film featured a young lieutenant, a blameless character, he has won the Iron Cross, he is passing through Berlin and drinks coffee with the girlfriend he’s known for only three days. Katharina remembered the song in the film.

Two in the city who seem

To be living a golden dream …

Perhaps a young lieutenant who had deserted for some honourable reason? In trouble and on the run, that kind of thing can happen to young men. He just had time to throw on a civilian coat over his uniform and disappear into the darkness … on the run against his will, because at heart of course he was for the war. Had it all been for nothing? The columns of tanks, side by side and one after another, moving through the wheat fields of the east along a broad front, and the lieutenant himself standing in the turret of one of the tanks. Those had been the days!

Or perhaps a civilian would come, a man in a shabby suit? Wearing darned, fingerless gloves. Perhaps an artist who hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut. Or an organist. Someone who couldn’t stand the killing any longer, who had confided in false friends and now had to save his skin. A man with a wife and children at home.

Or perhaps it would be someone seeking refuge who had been offered a different place to hide? In a different kind of case.

She sat down at the desk. For the first time in her life she wanted to write something that concerned only herself. But she couldn’t think what to say. What did concern her? First she had to get this behind her, this experience that perhaps no one would believe later! And then she’d write it all down. Every detail. Her feelings, the suspense — yes, or disappointment, because perhaps it would all be quite different from anything she imagined.

She picked up her scissors and tried to cut a flower out of black paper, something she always did to calm herself down. But it turned into just a tangle of paper strips, and she threw it away.

Should she somehow or other get things ready? Do her hair? Light the candles in the candelabra? Katharina wiped the washbasin in the bathroom clean — would there be any problems of hygiene? After all, a man here. And she kept crawling into the cubbyhole, fussing about the place, trying to make it more comfortable. She pushed the cigarettes, the cocoa and the Italian red wine, the seventeen bottles of Barolo Riserva, as far as she could to the back of the cubbyhole. ‘That’s something special,’ Eberhard had said of the wine. ‘We’ll drink it when the war is over.’

Inside the cubbyhole she moved a suitcase in front of these secret treasures, and put another mattress on the makeshift bed. The man would be able to sleep there easily enough, wouldn’t he? Just for one night. It was nice and warm beside the chimney. And definitely romantic. No one would find him here.

The cubbyhole could be locked. Maybe he should be locked inside it? So many questions to ask, so much to bear in mind.

*

Katharina listened to the news on the radio, softly, softly. The newsreader mentioned defensive battles in the west, disengagements, terror attacks. Not a word about the east. Not even on the BBC. But there was something in the air, you could feel it. The Russians would attack, a roaring horde demanding revenge! But when? Tomorrow? The day after tomorrow? In a week’s time, two weeks’ time? When? Must it be expected any day now?

This little song shall bind us two

Together through all space and time,

This little song from me tells you

That I am yours and you are mine.

The dog barked at around midnight — after walking up and down, Katharina had just sat down in the conservatory again. And when she was thinking, with relief: he won’t be coming, he couldn’t find the way, thank God it was all a false alarm — at that moment she heard the dog and saw a man on the semi-circular path. His shadow, cast in the moonlight, was like the hand of a clock pointing on the snow.

Katharina moved the cacti on the windowsill aside and opened the window. She flashed her electric torch once, twice. Then she heard someone climbing over the picket fence, which bent slightly under his weight. The dog was running around in the hall barking frantically. He never usually did that unless a rat scuttled past, or a hedgehog in summer.

Cautiously but nimbly the man climbed up to Katharina, and he was already swinging himself up to the windowsill and over it, bringing some snow with him. Then he was standing there on both feet. If he had fallen down to the garden it would all have been up. ‘It was a thief,’ she could have said. ‘A thief in the night. No, I don’t know the man.’

*

Katharina closed the window — cold air had come in — and he was already walking round her room. A small man, unshaven, with the black stubble of his beard showing and a bold expression on his face. ‘Done it,’ he said, putting his cap down on the Crouching Woman . He looked down at her black boots. And smiled: a woman wearing boots?

Then he showed her his hands; the thorns of the old roses on the fence had scratched and torn them until they were blood-stained.

Not an old gentleman, not a smart young lieutenant, not an organist. An ordinary but well-made man. He was wearing a rustic jacket, he had a kind of knapsack under his arm, and he brought the cold in with him. He stood in the middle of the room, listened to the dog barking downstairs and showed her his bleeding hands. Katharina fetched sticking plaster and a pair of scissors and put plasters on his injuries. As she did so, she felt his breath on her.

When the dog had calmed down at last, he walked round the room once more, checked the doors and windows, and then stationed himself by the stove.

His name was Erwin Hirsch, he was Jewish, he came from Berlin and he was cold. Yes, from Berlin, he was trying to get away to the Russians. He had almost been caught in Mitkau by the guards at the Senthagener Tor. Pastor Brahms hadn’t warned him of that, hadn’t said a word about the guards at the gate there.

It had almost been the end of him then. Obviously an unworldly man, that oddity the pastor … he’d had to haul himself up and over the wall, like Joshua’s scouts getting into Jericho.

Then all the way here from Mitkau. It had taken over an hour, keeping to the side of the road, flinging himself into the ditch when any vehicle came along, so that no one would see him.

Katharina was shivering too, but not with cold. She stood looking at him, thinking: this is a nice mess.

The man didn’t seem to mind the idea of sharing the room with a young woman. He had been through worse than that. Crouching in cellar cupboards, hiding in laundry troughs. He told her about it. He had been on the run for four years. But he didn’t laugh at all his adventures. ‘Imagine,’ he whispered, and Katharina gave him cigarette after cigarette and was not surprised that he used the informal du pronoun in talking to her.