Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

He put in an appearance at the Georgenhof, sometimes he even looked in several times a day to make sure all was as it should be there. Heil Hitler. He had to, in his official capacity, although nothing there had changed. He talked to Auntie, and she agreed with him. Nothing was easy! But they all had to pull together. He told Auntie what a responsibility his was, he didn’t know whether he was on his head or his heels, and he wiped the sweat from his brow, even though he was cold. In a casual manner, he gave Auntie a permit to go away on the trek herself, because she had always been so understanding.

He also made a note of the floor space still available in the big house; who could tell how things were going to turn out? The Settlement was full of refugees, every house there had guests, but the Georgenhof — the place was enormous, were things as they ought to be? There must be plenty of room left. That icy drawing room with the crates from Berlin standing there. No one could be expected to put up with it. ‘When is that stuff going to be collected?’

Auntie understood everything, and spoke politely to him. She didn’t think that large numbers of people could be accommodated at the Georgenhof. And to prove her goodwill, she told him about the painter who had spoken of the Führer in derogatory terms.

She also mentioned the Forest Lodge to Drygalski. It had once been a hotel, hadn’t it? She was sure plenty of people could be put up there. Only the side wing had been cleared for the foreign workers, and there was nothing to be done about that. But what about the dance floor and all the hotel bedrooms?

Drygalski had thought of that for himself, of course, but the registration office of the National Socialist Motor Corps was in control of the Forest Lodge. So there was nothing to be done about that either; they had stored spare parts in the former hotel, bicycle bells and car horns. It all had to be put somewhere: wheel rims and transmission systems. The pennants and the parts to build spectators’ stands from the last races held in the Mitkau area were stored there too. The banners saying Start and Finish had been kept since the summer of 1939, and after the war there would be racing again. Mitkau had never yet won the Reich championship, but maybe after the war? If not, it would be a real shame.

Drygalski telephoned the regional authority, where they saw his point, but said that at the moment there was no alternative.

Where living space was concerned, Drygalski was ruthless; after all, higher things were at stake, and something must be done at once. He had to find shelter for people without a roof over their heads, people who were cold and hungry. This was the time for the national community to prove its worth.

Peter must clear his room; he would sleep up in the private apartment with his mother, that was the simplest solution, and the little room there immediately suggested such a conclusion. Surely it was the most natural thing in the world for mother and son to be housed together?

Yes, the next refugees to turn up would be accommodated in the boy’s room. Were there more bedsteads anywhere? It wouldn’t be possible to occupy the attic; snow came drifting in through the gaps between the roof tiles. Auntie carefully folded up the permit that Drygalski had made out for her and kept it safe.

When Drygalski thought of his own home now it warmed his heart. The girl was a quick learner. Who knew, maybe she’d call him Father some day? Or more likely Grandpa ? Well, never mind. He would look after this child whose parents had disappeared. Every thing would be easier to bear now, with her to keep the house nice and clean, and get soup into his wife, and if necessary wash her and so on. How had he managed all this time on his own?

It felt special to come home in the evening, stretch out his legs under the table in the warm kitchen, supper on the table. What a pleasant sight to see the young creature, with her plump cheeks, standing by the stove. Drygalski felt like lingering in the kitchen with her for a little longer, but then he had to go out into the cold again and check the carts driving by.

Perhaps he could find something sweet in Mitkau, as a treat for the child?

Dr Wagner visited every day. He was not to be deprived of his chance to get the boy to practise his vocabulary, and teach him geography, for instance where Heidelberg is, with its famous castle ‘destroyed by the French, remember that, my boy!’ And Lake Constance, that wonderful expanse of water; it was once frozen right over, and a man on horseback rode to the opposite bank entirely unaware that he was riding over ice. Tipped over backwards — and crash! Was he dead?

Or there was that other story, of the miner who suffocated underground, and was dug out decades later, fresh and young as ever with rosy cheeks, and by then his widow was old as the hills.

It was a pleasant little party that assembled in the evenings; the Baltic baron and his wife, Dr Wagner, Katharina, that quiet, thoughtful beauty, and Auntie, who was no fool and was well able to contribute to the conversation. They sat by the fire, telling stories, arguing, whispering. It was as if they had known each other for ever and would always stick together.

Sticking together, that was the order of the day. The baron in his check suit looked as if he were wearing a fur muffler in the evenings, for as soon as he appeared the cat would come running, although usually the baron was already carrying him in his arms.

On these evenings Auntie put on a special dress, hurried into the kitchen and came back with a jar of morello cherries which they passed around, helping themselves from it amid laughter. His dear city of Königsberg, said the schoolmaster as he remembered sitting in a little restaurant on the River Pregel, eating fried flounders and hearing the foghorns of the big ships in the harbour …

The baron fixed his monocle in his eye again and again, thinking of the summer of 1936, the little house in Dünaburg and his young wife jumping into the water from the landing stage. The lake was like liquid silver.

For his part, Wagner recollected a bicycling tour with his mother in the Weser Uplands. She was long dead now.

‘Didn’t you ever think of marrying?’ asked the baron.

‘Well,’ said Dr Wagner, ‘you know how it is. First I kept putting it off, then it was too late.’ And he thought of an expedition with his boys as they ran about wildly, jumping over the bonfire.

He also thought of the First War, and the trenches. It had sometimes been quite romantic there. He thought of the young, and their wonderful bodies, wonderful even if disfigured by their scars. He set about rolling up his sleeve to show the marks left by his own wound.

At the beginning of the war, Dr Wagner told the party, he had received some marvellous letters from his pupils. They had been written on the heights of the Acropolis, in Denmark, from the Caucasus and Burgundy. The flow had dried up now. He had heard less and less from his boys since Stalingrad. But he had kept them all in a folder, and he read them now and then. He intended to add photos of the boys to their letters, and it would be like a memorial to the dead. And after the war he would publish the whole thing in memory of the young blood that had been shed.

Katharina sat to one side on the sofa, with the baroness. In her black pullover and black trousers, you could hardly make her out in the darkness. Now and then the glowing end of her cigarette shone. And the baroness looked surreptitiously at her; maybe she could make a friend here? Help to polish her nails or comb that heavy dark hair? She moved closer to Katharina, but Katharina withdrew. She needed her freedom.

Under the large old pictures of ancestors who were not the Globigs’ ancestors at all, they sat together. And the ancestors looked down at the company with their bright eyes. Were they surprised?