Walter Kempowski - All for Nothing

The bell in the Johann-Gottfried-Herder Youth Hostel went at six in the morning. ‘Stand in line for coffee!’ There were people brushing their teeth in the washroom, and Dr Wagner was shaving. You felt different after shaving.

Then they collected their coffee from the Red Cross, and everyone had four slices of bread and margarine. The watchdogs stood at the counter, Heil Hitler, to see if anyone was trying to get into the queue without proper papers. And they filtered out all men aged from fifteen to seventy. They should go and defend their country, damn it all! One woman screamed and clung to her husband, but they took him away no matter how helplessly he looked Around him.

Wagner and Peter passed muster. ‘My boy,’ said Wagner, ‘I think we should stick together. Fate looks kindly on us.’

Peter with his lightweight rucksack, the microscope under his arm, and Wagner with the baron’s heavy suitcase.

Outside the youth hostel, there was a keen wind blowing round the corner into their faces. The sun was shining but the wind was keen.

A small hand-sledge stood outside the door, its rope lying in the snow like a snake.

Dr Wagner put his case on it, looked round and said, ‘Come on, my boy, quick, before someone takes this away from us.’ And they ran as fast as they could. It was a stroke of luck, after all, and as the phrase to remind you of musical notes goes, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. Dr Wagner even thought it was funny. ‘We cocked a snook at them!’ he cried. Then they were part of the human crocodile winding its way in wide curves through the trodden snow, between wrecked carts and dead bodies, towards the nearby town.

Peter pulled the sledge and Dr Wagner pushed it. ‘Look around you, boy,’ said Wagner. Up there stood the Johann-Gottfried-Herder Youth Hostel, banners waving in the wind, with human beings pouring out of it. It was an impressive sight. But the cry was ‘Go on!’ again.

Dr Wagner held his suitcase down on the sledge like an organ-grinder holding his barrel organ. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember anything by Herder. He was racking his brains for literary references. Weimar, that was no problem. Goethe and Schiller. But he couldn’t remember anything by Herder, nothing at all. The Cid , he thought, but what did that amount to? What did it mean? He used to remember things so well. He would read a poem two or three times, and then he could recite it from memory. You come again, you strange, you swaying figures … that was Goethe’s Faust . He knew half of Faust by heart, but now the poetry in his mind was ebbing away. He and his mother used to go for long walks and played at capping each other’s quotations. In my boyhood a god would often save me … Hölderlin, yes, but these days his memory played him false, and sometimes wouldn’t cooperate at all.

Didn’t Herder have something wrong with his eyes? Maybe an ulcer? That was all he could remember about him just now.

On the other side of a lake — the drooping branches of weeping willows lay frozen in the ice — stood a solitary house, broad and comfortable-looking. A bronze deer in front of it was crowned with snow.

BEWARE OF THE DOG, said a notice.

The double door of the terrace stood open, its two halves swinging in the wind. Three dogs, shot dead, lay beside the door.

No one down below took any notice of the house. Why bother to climb the hill? they must have thought. On, go on was the watchword, reinforced by rumour: ‘The Russians are coming.’

But the two of them pulled out of the convoy, curious. A house on the banks of a lake? With a bronze deer in front of it? The sun was strong, and Peter pulled the sledge uphill. They tacitly agreed to give themselves a moment’s rest.

The procession crawled along the road through the white landscape below. They could hear the cartwheels, the voices, people coughing. But all was still up here. A child’s loud cry broke the silence — it had probably lost its mother. The white house looked like the home of an artist. Would they find more dead bodies here?

*

Was it the house of a painter? A sculptor? No, a writer had lived here. His typewriter was still standing on his desk, with an empty coffee cup beside it. From his desk you looked along an avenue leading to a pavilion on the bank of the lake. It was probably a nice place to sit and write.

There was a landing stage beside the lake, and a boathouse. Beyond it were the towers of the town towards which the long line of people were moving. The inhabitants of this house must have seen beautiful sunsets. And at this moment the sun was shining brightly.

They both looked around them. Sunlight fell on the crystalline snow on the terrace, making it sparkle in the spectrum of rainbow colours. What a sight!

There were family photographs on the desk: the writer himself in thick-lensed glasses, his wife and two small children holding a teddy bear and a doll. There was a mourning ribbon on the wife’s picture.

A photograph of Hitler hung on the wall above the desk, with the sun shining on it. An inscription could be made out under this photo.

To the highly esteemed author

Gotthardt Baron von Erztum-Lohmeyer

on his 50th birthday.

Adolf Hitler,

Führer and Chancellor of the Reich

Should they turn it to the wall to keep it from fading?

The library was next to the study. Its doors were open. When the writer wanted to look something up in a book, he had only to put down his pen and stroll into the room next door. It also held a couch on which he could recline. All very attractive.

And all very tasteful. The walls were covered with clear, bright pictures, ranged side by side. Young people in many different positions, turning towards the future. The young people looked like Peter.

It was a pity that the writer had fled, and was not here any more. He could have looked out of his window at the proud youth hostel down below, and the long line of people in the shining snow spilling out of the hostel to follow the curves of the winding road. What an impressive sight.

From that image, a writer could have been inspired to write a great epic on human nature. When humanity suffers, it should be recorded in literature. The great tales of the Thirty Years War. Verdun. The Children of Israel, always crossing the Red Sea.

Wagner shielded his eyes with his hand. He felt badly shaken.

No one had yet interfered with the books, although the glass panes of the bookcases had been smashed. Why? Perhaps the writer had done it himself, in a moment of despair.

Sucking air in through his teeth, Dr Wagner looked for Herder. The owner of this house, the writer, must surely have the works of Herder on his shelves. He would have kept the classics always at hand. Goethe, Schiller and Körner stood there side by side — but nothing by Herder.

But I myself, Wagner thought now, have no books by Herder on my shelves. Shame on me! He had to smile, and resolved to buy himself Herder when all this was over. Good heavens, he hoped he would survive if only to do that.

Surely it must be possible to get away with his life? Was he to die without ever reading Herder? Didn’t culture contribute to the perfection of humanity?

Meanwhile Peter was looking for something to eat. He walked through suites of rooms with pictures on all the walls.

There was indeed half a loaf on the kitchen table, just where it had been left. But it was as hard as a rock. Peter appropriated it, and a jar labelled SUMMER 1944. HERTHA’S BLACKCURRANT JAM.

He tipped oatmeal into a bowl and sprinkled sugar on it. Then he called Dr Wagener, and they ate heartily.

Peter thought of giving the schoolmaster one of the silver spoons he still had in his pocket. Wouldn’t that be a bond between them?