Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

She combed the streets of the little town, every nook and cranny of them, but in vain. And when she got back to the football field, where carts were steadily leaving — the gelding was already looking round for her — there was still no Vladimir. Well, he might have been here.

No doubt about it, however, Vladimir had gone. It was clear: the Pole had gone on by himself to who knew where?

The man had left them in the lurch. Wanted to go off on his own, with his lover, perhaps to make his way to his native Poland? Get his little lambs into safety and begin a new life? But how could he get back to Poland, with Russians all over the place?

Auntie went to see the mayor of the town — Heil Hitler! — but his office was closed. She went from there to the police, Heil Hitler, but they were no use either. The police were busy dealing with drunks who were staggering about in the road. Auntie would have to wait until daylight hours began, and then they’d turn to her complaint. They really couldn’t look at the matter now. On the way back she cast another glance at the third street on the right. Still nothing to be seen. There was another cart now where theirs had been, with strangers using the space.

She went to the Party official who ruled over the football field, and he advised her to report to the police next morning. That, he said, was essential. She must report to the police. ‘They’ll find that Polack.’

How irresponsible, letting those foreigners wander round freely. To think that such things were allowed.

Now she must feed the gelding, and the fodder for him was on Vladimir’s cart. What was she to give the poor animal? It was all on Vladimir’s cart: Eberhard’s suits, the bed linen, the milk cans of dripping, their underclothes!

The oats!

Then Auntie saw a bale of hay hanging from the back of the coach. It had not been there before. So Vladimir had at least left that, he had thought of the gelding. And he had even left a sack of oats tied to the coach too. He’d thought of the horse before making off. No one, after all, is bad through and through …

He had probably moved the fodder in Albertsdorf, at Uncle Josef ’s house. When no one yet suspected him of anything bad. So he’d already planned everything ahead at that point.

‘Who’d believe it?’ cried Auntie, and her hands were shaking. ‘We’re none of us a match for such people.’

She began thinking of all the stuff packed on the big cart, now lost for ever! Their clothes! The table linen! The silver … all the silver! The beds, the milk cans full of dripping and sugar. The photographs! And all the business documents of the Georgen hof. Although not the English steel shares, and the agreements with the Romanian rice-flour factory. Auntie had put those in her handbag.

It was odd that the sack of oats was stamped with the name of Albertsdorf. So that was where Vladimir had organized his operation? Or to say it straight out, his theft. Nothing was easy!

She asked the gelding what he thought of Vladimir abandoning them. She would have liked to shed tears, leaning against the horse’s neck. But the gelding swished his tail and rolled his eyes. He might well be thinking: now what? Is the old girl going to make a nuisance of herself?

Peter was sitting in their reserves of straw, while snow came in through the broken window. He was trying to put separate flakes under the lens of his microscope — playing a game of catch with the ice crystals — but it was no use. Any flakes that he caught melted at once.

They were allowed to wash in the gymnasium — Heil Hitler. Hot water was ladled out from the soup kitchen’s supply. Where gymnasts used to straddle the apparatus, swinging up and sideways over the bars, people from the National Socialist People’s Welfare now stood keeping things in order. There were nurses available as well. Heil Hitler. Vladimir’s injured finger could easily have been treated here. But he’d had ideas of his own.

The refugees sat at long tables, and were given coffee. There were not so many as on the day before. A number had gone on again at first light. But others were arriving, tired and frozen. And soon the football field was full again.

Some carts were even coming back from the way Auntie had meant to take, towards Elbing. The police had made them turn round because there was no way back to the Reich now.

*

A Party official went from table to table, Heil Hitler, saying comforting things to the refugees. Just as Pastor Brahms used to go from one to another member of his congregation at the mission party in Mitkau, the Party official too placed his hand on the refugees’ shoulders. Heil Hitler. He spoke words of comfort. The chaos would soon die down. Ways and means would be found. He was acting just like Pastor Brahms, who at this moment was in a single cell in Königsberg with two bolts on the door. He had a black eye; his right eye was badly bruised.

When at last it was eight o’clock, Auntie went back to the police. Heil Hitler. She had to wait, of course; there was a long line of people in search of advice. When her turn finally came, she was treated in a friendly way. A middle-aged police officer even offered her a chair. And then — ‘Von Globig? Von Globig of the Georgenhof?’ — it turned out that he knew Eberhard. He had met Herr von Globig in the course of a delicate case that he didn’t want to talk about here, but the gentleman had given him great support, and it must be acknowledged.

Auntie showed all her papers. Besides signing her permit to leave, Drygalski had written underneath, ‘This woman should be given every assistance.’ That had a good effect, and the officer said, ‘We’ll get the Pole, you can rely on that.’ The case would go straight to the front of the queue, he promised, and he would phone the nearest towns and villages to alert the local authorities: a Pole with a square cap might be coming through on a green farm cart, and had a corpulent woman with him, a worker from the east. They were to stop the man, arrest him at once and get the cart to safety. Heil Hitler!

Auntie signed the record of their conversation, and then she told the police officer, who really had other things to do, about all the stuff packed on the cart: the clothes! The bed linen! The silver — all the silver! After a while people waiting in the long line behind her began to call out, asking what was going on in front there. ‘This could take all day!’

Auntie added that the Pole could also be identified by his finger. ‘The forefinger of his right hand is bandaged,’ she said, and the officer jotted that down.

Meanwhile Peter had got up again and was wandering along the high street, past the carts lined up there, large and small, heavy and light. Single carts left to go back on the road, others were just arriving and were glad to get a good place. There was much lively coming and going. Refugee women went from house to house, asking whether they could wash somewhere, and Hitler Youth boys shovelled snow aside.

Perhaps he might yet find Vladimir, Peter thought. It was possible that he might simply have moved the cart somewhere else. But the air pistol wasn’t likely to impress him much.

Or he might find Uncle Josef. He must surely be here somewhere. Perhaps the cousins would suddenly cross his path. Hello, how did you get here? In his mind, Peter was going through all the questions he would ask them. Why they hadn’t waited for him, and so on and so forth, and he would tell them he was very disappointed in them.

He heard piano music in the town café. Peter had never been inside a café, but he went in, pushing aside the massive curtain that kept out draughts, Heil Hitler, and in the stuffy warmth, among soldiers of all kinds and women in hats, he saw the one-armed man sitting at the piano.