Book Read Free

Kingdom of Twilight

Page 5

by Steven Uhly


  “The S.S.,” Frau Kramer said tersely. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They ransack abandoned houses for items, furniture, paintings and other stuff they could use, before the new owners arrive. They go mad for valuable things. You could go and offer them the clock.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with that riff-raff.”

  “Then I’ll do it myself.”

  6

  On a cold October morning Herr Kramer set off for town to sell his wife’s grandfather clock to the S.S. The sun had not yet risen, the countryside was bathed in a pale light, and a cold and damp mist rose sluggishly from the fields. Before Herr Kramer loaded the clock onto the two-wheeled cart, with which they had transported all their other belongings here, Frau Kramer made it chime several times. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach the large brass clock face, which displayed bold black numbers in Gothic type. With her gouty index finger she pushed the broad minute hand to twelve and took a step backward. The clock struck eight times. With Frau Kramer’s arm around her husband’s thick waist the two of them stood there as if listening to a concert. Frau Kramer wanted to burn the deep, stately chiming of her grandfather clock into her memory. Her father had said, Never give it away, you won’t find another clock that’s so relaxing. She would try never to forget its sound. “Perhaps,” she had said to Margarita, tapping her broad forehead with her finger, “I can have it chime up here in my mind.”

  Herr Kramer was well aware of her penchant for ritual. She knew how to turn something commonplace into something special, and would do it quite unexpectedly. On those occasions she seemed to him like a wild deer that must not be disturbed if you wanted to see what it did next. So he stood there, mesmerized, observing her every movement. In such moments her body behaved differently, with more elan and grace, but maybe a stranger would not have noticed. Herr Kramer had never questioned why she acted in this way, because for him there was no doubt that it made her and the things she touched more beautiful.

  After the eighth strike of the clock the solemn moment was past. Frau Kramer sighed and let her husband get to work. Herr Kramer opened the door of the clock to unhook the pendulum and detach the two brass cylindrical weights from the chains. He wrapped all the pieces in a coarse linen sheet and placed it on the cart outside. Then he did the same with the clock. Frau Kramer gave her husband a kiss on the cheek, then he tied his scarf around his ears and neck and went outside. He gave the cow a pat, grabbed it by the yoke and set off on his way. In the distance he heard a gentle rumbling, which had been getting imperceptibly louder for weeks. The wheels clattered over the frozen earth, the tailboard rattled loudly. It was better once they reached the main road. For an hour Herr Kramer went across bare fields, through copses, over a stream, past three reconnaissance tanks and was overtaken by Wehrmacht lorries, until he came to an S.S. checkpoint.

  He saw them from a distance. Beyond, in a slight dip, lay the town, only twenty minutes away. A narrow armored car fitted with a machine gun stood on the right-hand side of the road, like a large insect waiting for its prey. On the opposite side of the road was a light military vehicle. There was nobody to be seen. They’ll freeze, Herr Kramer thought, continuing on his way. He had his passport at the ready. He was a certified settler, he knew that he was part of a national project and thus safe.

  He felt anxious nonetheless. The S.S. men would not notice, as Herr Kramer was one of those people who always appeared stoical. Maybe this was down to his grouchy voice and distinct features: the ample, uniform circle of his head, untroubled by too much hair; the dark and low-set eyes beneath thick eyebrows and above cheeks which had been chubby once, in better days. In younger days, Herr Kramer corrected himself, in truth I was too fat in my younger days. The war does have its benefits, he told himself, emitting a short and bitter laugh. Herr Kramer would have been a cheerful individual had the war not come along and taken away his son. That had destroyed his sense of humor, and he no longer felt like imposing it on anybody, not even himself. Once he had told his wife the truth about his feelings, just once. She was peeling potatoes and he said, I’ve been demented since Karl died. She paused briefly and cast him a skeptical look. Get away, she said. You’ve always been demented. To this very day he did not know how to respond to that.

  When Herr Kramer had almost reached the S.S. checkpoint, the door to the military vehicle opened and out stepped a man in black uniform. Herr Kramer stopped and waited. The cow flapped its large ears about its head and peered inquisitively at the S.S. man, who approached them with brisk steps. He was so young, Herr Kramer saw, that he could have been his own son. But the young ones were dangerous. Herr Kramer slowly raised his arm, extending his fingers.

  “Heil Hitler.”

  “Heil Hitler! Your papers!”

  Herr Kramer removed his documents from his coat pocket, the cow snuffled at the S.S. man’s elbow, earning a slap on the nostrils. As he took Herr Kramer’s papers a strand of blond hair fell across his forehead. Herr Kramer was astonished by the length of his hair. He took a closer look at the man. His uniform had only appeared immaculate at first glance. Now Herr Kramer saw how worn it was; in some places it even seemed to have been blacked up with shoe polish.

  “What’s your business in town, Comrade?” the man asked without raising his eyes.

  “I’ve come to sell my wife’s grandfather clock to the S.S.”

  The S.S. man gave him a searching look. “Come now, Comrade, you’re pulling my leg.”

  “No, I’m not. My wife says the S.S. is interested in antique furniture.” He paused. “We need supplies for winter.”

  “Don’t you work?” the S.S. man asked, attempting to look tougher than his age warranted.

  “Yes, we do, but the Wehrmacht must have food too.”

  “Do you object to the Wehrmacht receiving its share, Comrade?”

  “No. But if our supplies are to last the winter then we need money. That’s why I’m selling my wife’s grandfather clock.”

  “To the S.S.?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you got only this one cow?”

  “Yes,” Herr Kramer lied, worried that they might confiscate the other.

  “Just you and your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  With a fleeting gesture Herr Kramer motioned in the direction from which he had come. “About an hour’s walk from here.”

  The S.S. man mulled this over briefly. “You ought to have at least two cows,” he said, betraying his rural background.

  “That’s what I think,” Herr Kramer said, trying to look like a man who really believed what he was saying.

  “May I see the clock?” A second S.S. men got out of the vehicle. Pricking up its ears the cow gaped at him. He was barely older than the first. His uniform, too, looked tatty. Herr Kramer had gone to the back of his cart, flapped down the tailboard, and was now unloading the grandfather clock. When he placed it on the ground and unwrapped it, the first S.S. man peered intensely at the clock, as if he were about to estimate its precise value.

  “What’s he doing with that?” the second man asked.

  “He says he wants to sell it to the S.S.”

  The second man laughed. “Listen, old man, the most they’ll give you in town is its value as firewood!”

  “Don’t you think it’s worth anything?” the first S.S. man said.

  “Nonsense. I just think they need firewood more than they do antique furniture.”

  “But the commander buys antiques.”

  The second S.S. man shook his head, looking impatient. “The commander is a connoisseur. He’s not going to buy this sort of peasant stuff.”

  “So you don’t think it’s worth anything, then.”

  “You know what? I don’t care what it’s worth,” the second S.S. man said, turning away sourly.

  “Are his papers in order?” he asked, returning to the car. “If so then let him go on his way.” The first S.S. man hesitated.

  “What
’s in the other cloth?”

  “The pendulum and the weights,” said Herr Kramer, who had remained perfectly calm. The S.S. man gave up. He looked thoroughly disappointed, like a child facing boredom instead of the adventure he had been hoping for.

  “Be on your way now,” he said, returning to his vehicle without uttering another word.

  When Herr Kramer had wrapped up the clock again and loaded it onto the cart, he heard a soft metallic rattling, which rapidly got louder. Nine or ten Wehrmacht tanks emerged from the furthest hill in the distance, approaching at high speed. They would soon be here. Herr Kramer decided to steer the cart behind the armored vehicle, to prevent the cow from becoming agitated. The rattle of the tank tracks became ever louder. If they’re in such a hurry, Herr Kramer thought, and if the fine S.S. looks in such a state, then the overall situation cannot be good. When the tanks drove past the checkpoint the ground quaked and the cow twitched nervily. Herr Kramer calmed it, holding the animal tight by its yoke. Then he went on his way. The tanks must have come right across the field, for their tracks had left hard clumps of earth on the road. The wheels clattered and the tailboard flapped. As he watched the tanks speed away, Herr Kramer thought hard. When he got to town he must inquire about the situation at the front, or maybe listen to the wireless in a tavern.

  Reaching the dip in which the town stood, he stopped briefly, as he did every time. It was not a particularly large town, it reminded him of Lübeck with its medieval round shape and numerous pointed church towers. He remembered Lübeck well. It had been the only major trip he had made before their resettlement. They had left two days after their wedding, How long ago was that now? Twenty-five years and a few months. At the time Germany had just lost a war and they had toyed with the idea of moving to the new republic, to Lübeck, a town they had both liked. But then his wife fell pregnant and everyday life buried this idea in their minds. Later the republic became the Reich again, and the Reich had approached them and said, Come join us. This time they obeyed the call. He had been pleased at the time, for now they were no longer in the minority, but Germans amongst Germans. When his son died, however, his pleasure evaporated, and instead he began to wonder whether it might not have been better if nothing had changed, if everything had stayed as it was.

  Now he was standing here, looking at a town which would always remain alien to him, whose only connection with his own life was its similarity to another town that was not home either. Similar in its beauty, too. Although there was not as much water as in Lübeck, a river meandered its way through the town, dividing it into two almost equal cake halves. Beautiful old stone bridges stretched from one side to the other, and in winter the townsfolk skated on the ice.

  Visibility was poor. The mist must have lingered in the dip for a long while, now it lay on top of the roofs like a cold veil. The sun was a smudge on the horizon, like a runny egg yolk, emitting a diffuse light that was beginning to blind him. In ten minutes he would reach the outlying houses. He moved on.

  The town was already a hive of activity. Shops were open and people hurried through the streets and alleyways, going about their business. Shutters were folded back, and in the occasional house he could see bedding hung out to air over first-floor window sills. The cart made a racket on the cobbles and the cow had difficulty walking on them. The air was fresh and Herr Kramer took deep breaths.

  He knew the way to the town hall square, where the local S.S. had its headquarters. He led the cow through winding streets, only just wide enough for the cart, and past the Church of St. Joseph, where he had once prayed for his son. The closer Herr Kramer came to the town hall square the more S.S. men he saw. They were striding down the streets or marching past him. Nobody paid him the slightest attention, everybody seemed in a great hurry. Many of them were strikingly young. Herr Kramer decided to tap the next civilian he came across for information: an elderly lady, who had stepped out of her house to empty a white, enamel pot into the gutter. She looked emaciated and exhausted. In a broad dialect that he recognized from his homeland, she outlined the situation at the front, saying that the Wehrmacht needed reinforcements, how the S.S. were recruiting every man they could, how the population was gradually being divided up—women, children and old people here, men there, every single one of them in uniform, and how she couldn’t care less, because her three boys were already lost, she’d done her duty for the Fatherland, done it good and proper, certainly more than some of them who never stopped complaining, she said, darting a scornful glance at one of the neighboring houses. She proceeded to tell him a good deal more, all the while her gaze wandering over the cow, which stood beside Herr Kramer, chewing patiently. Kramer noticed this, but he could not find a break in the conversation to bring it to an end. Without looking at him for more than a few seconds, her eyes returned to the cow, and now the cart too, as she spoke of the places where her sons had fought: one had died in France, another in Africa, and she had not had news of the youngest for over a year. If you only knew the sort of things people like us have to suffer in these times, she said, casting a conspiratorial look around her, lowering her voice, then confiding in Herr Kramer that the little people have always had to make sacrifices for the greater cause, haven’t we? I’ll tell you one thing, if we hadn’t starved, the eastern front would have crumbled long ago, and that’s God’s own truth, she said, all her senses focused so squarely on the cow it was as if she were addressing it rather than Herr Kramer. In all probability she would have carried on talking just to keep the cow there, if Herr Kramer had not interrupted her with a thank you and goodbye, before leaving. But he did not get far.

  “Hey, Comrade!” she called out after him, every ounce of sorrow having vanished from her voice. “Don’t you have a drop of milk for me? I’ll pay.” Herr Kramer stopped. Although the cow had already been milked, he had left a little in her udders so he would not have to buy anything to drink in town. Now he would sell it for one reichsmark. That was a lot of money and to begin with he would have accepted less. But his instinct told him he could have got twice as much had he insisted.

  “Wait,” the old woman called out, scuttling into her house. Soon afterward she returned with a dirty-looking metal can. Herr Kramer kneeled somewhat awkwardly beside the cow’s udder and began milking into the can. Behind him the old woman sang softly:

  Ladybird, ladybird, fly away far!

  Papa’s fighting in the war.

  Now they’ve called up Grandpa too,

  Must be that retaliation they’ve threatened to do.

  Ladybird, ladybird, fly away far!

  She laughed and nodded to herself. Herr Kramer got the impression she was out of her mind. She’s gone mad, he thought, like me. Except for her it’s three times worse. One son after another. After Herr Kramer had concluded his transaction he continued on his way, reaching his destination a few minutes later. Before him lay the town hall square. To the left stood the tall, slim tower of the Gothic minster and, directly opposite at the other end of the elongated square, was the town hall. It had been built in the same Gothic style and could easily be mistaken for another of the countless churches dotted throughout the town. Herr Kramer liked Gothic architecture, he loved to stand right beside the towers and look up. He would feel dizzy and a shiver would run down his spine when he thought what it must be like at the top.

  But this thought was not in his mind now, as he steered the cart toward the town hall. It was no easy task, the square was teeming with people. Most wore the black uniform of the S.S. Their imminent departure had generated an atmosphere of excited activity. Utility vehicles and armored cars were everywhere, both parked and on the go, although Herr Kramer could not detect any pattern to their movements. Everyone appeared purposeful and determined, orders were barked back and forth, and the hubbub of the soldiers’ voices mingled with the sounds of engines and the dry crunching of boots on the march. It smelled of petrol and horse dung.

  The chaotic procession of S.S. forces orbited a small market whos
e stalls were set up in the very middle of the square, and which slightly resembled a besieged fortress. Hearty voices resounded from the stalls; listening to them it was clear that they were accustomed to shouting. All manner of things were being peddled, but from a distance it did not look as if there was much to buy. In spite of this the market was bustling with customers; women, especially, were moving slowly from stall to stall to purchase food. Herr Kramer was tempted to pay the market a visit, but decided against it. He wanted to conclude his business with the S.S. first. Sticking to the periphery of the square he made satisfactory progress.

  He arrived at the town hall, where an S.S. guard was posted either side of the entrance. They looked as if they would remain standing there forever, as if nothing and nobody could induce them to stir. Herr Kramer led the cow to the foot of the steps and locked the wheels of his cart. He was certain that nobody would dare commit a theft under the eyes of the S.S. As he climbed the steps the two guards came to life. “Halt, Comrade. Where are you going?” one of them asked in a sedate, almost sleepy tone, immediately telling Herr Kramer that here he could not hope to encounter the same amateurishness he had outside the town. This bewildered him, for the sentry was so young that he could not help thinking again of his dead son. He thought about his son each time he saw a young man, but this one even bore a faint resemblance to him, with brown hair and a round face that looked almost innocent. Perhaps it was this likeness that made Herr Kramer slightly more vulnerable than usual. As he went up another few steps he raised his hand in the Nazi salute and said, in his sullen voice, “Heil Hitler. I’ve come to see the local S.S. commander.”

  “Why?” the S.S. guard asked, sounding bored. Now, close up, he was more like a statue of a warrior, scrutinizing Herr Kramer with cold, gray eyes, without betraying the slightest hint of sympathy. The other S.S. guard afforded him no more than a cursory glance, then ignored him. Herr Kramer was unsettled. If he made his request they would surely think him mad. He tentatively offered an explanation:

 

‹ Prev