All for Nothing

by Walter Kempowski

  She described the present peace and quiet on the front line as a pause to take breath. At this moment the entire front was breathing in deeply, and the resulting silence might deceive many. Then, one day, it would let that breath out again, as if to sneeze, and the sound would be a great, vengeful roar. The enemy would be blown away like chaff on the wind.

  Did they have any hunting guns in this house, she wondered, so that they could defend themselves if necessary?

  Peter went to fetch the triple-barrelled gun, and showed her that if you had already fired the first barrel but had missed, you could still fire the other two at the same target.

  Fräulein Gisela thought that was fantastic, and asked whether the guns at the front also had three barrels.

  •

  After supper, the fire on the hearth was stirred up again, and Fräulein Strietzel put her feet on a footstool. She talked about the wounded men in the Mitkau field hospital – ‘the disabled’, as she called them – the amputees, the crippled and the sick. There were even blinded men among them, a whole section of them. She described the kind nurses who took such good care of them. The poor lads had to be spoon-fed. And one of them was both blind and deaf. A few days ago a convoy of severely wounded men had arrived, and ought to have been sent straight on to the west, but once again the road was impassable.

  •

  Yesterday evening a variety show had been put on for the soldiers, with a conjuror, a juggler and two women stand-up comics telling jokes. And she had been the high point. She had brought an evening dress especially for such occasions, when she couldn’t very well stand there playing the violin in trousers.

  The wounded men in their ward – what a shattering sight. Many, many beds, ranged side by side, and oh, the way the men looked at her when she began to play. You could have heard a pin drop; the only sound had been a high, rhythmic groaning from the back parts of the building, but someone had managed to shut that noise up quickly. And when she raised her violin, put the bow to the strings and played the first note in that silence, a sigh had passed through the whole ward. You could hardly imagine a more grateful audience. Grown men in tears.

  A blind man had been led forward; he had asked if he could just touch her hand. She would never in her life forget that moment.

  •

  Grown men in tears – she herself wept very easily, in the cinema, for instance. Not that she ever cried when playing the violin; that was more of a matter of technique, you left your feelings out of it. But the cinema was different. Had they seen Friedemann Bach, that wonderful film about J. S. Bach’s eldest son? She had wept buckets watching it.

  •

  What times that young woman had behind her: eight appearances in only seven days. And she showed them her hands, covered with chilblains. Basins of hot and cold water were quickly brought so that she could bathe her hands in them alternately, and a tube of chilblain ointment, which was applied thickly. If something wasn’t done at once, she would never be able to play the violin again. The chilblains would burst, and her finger joints would stiffen up.

  •

  Where did she come from? Where was she going? Danzig? Her father was a major in the Medical Corps, such a kind man. ‘If there’s anything more forceful than Fate, then it’s the man who bears it steadfastly . . .’ She spoke enthusiastically of the latest batch of young men called up – such splendid material, you could hardly believe it. Where were they coming from? Now it was those born in 1928 – the strength of the German people was inexhaustible. She looked at Peter, still too young, of course, but later he would be good material himself. When it came to the point he too would surely stand his ground.

  Of the seven students in her violin class, five had already fallen, in Africa and Yugoslavia, at Stalingrad and in the Atlantic. Five brave young men. If the same toll of lives was taken in all the music colleges and conservatories in the country . . . oh, it would come to hundreds of young men. She spoke as if the enemy had set their sights on violinists in particular.

  She did not mention the fact that later, when the war was over, that would be all the better for her professional opportunities. Then the time for women would come. They would have to fill the breach, that was obvious to her.

  •

  It was a long time since she had last heard from her fiancé. She wore a locket round her neck with his picture in it. She took it out and showed it to the three of them; they all had a look at it. A soldier in a tank, wearing a black beret. O thou lovely Westerwald. All kinds of things had been going on in the Ardennes. Now it was quiet there. Perhaps – with luck – he was in a prison camp. The Yanks treated their prisoners humanely. The main thing was not to fall into the hands of those subhuman Russians.

  The remains of a four-leaved clover lay on the photograph in the locket; the young couple had seen it at the same time on his last leave. They had both bent to pick it together. It had been so funny.

  She held her locket, for comparison, against Frau von Globig’s, which was larger and heavier. What, she wondered, was in it? It had a small diamond teardrop on the outside.

  Hail, land of Brandenburg.

  •

  After supper Auntie took the dishes out, and as she opened the door to the corridor the two maids could be heard screeching in the kitchen again.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Fräulein Gisela. Ukrainian women? Making such a racket? What did they think they were doing, screaming like that? If she had a say, there’d have been silence at once.

  It was a mystery to her that such conduct was allowed in this house. A Pole and two Ukrainian women, all of them riff-raff? She looked from one to the other of her hosts, wondering if anyone was going to tell her why they let the domestic staff get away with it.

  •

  Eight o’clock. Peter ought really to go to bed, but he was allowed to stay up when Fräulein Strietzel took her violin out of its case. Her idea was to play something for her hosts, to thank them for the blood sausage.

  The instrument had been in the wars itself: the fingerboard was attached to the body of the violin with an ordinary everyday screw. And as there was still no electric light, Auntie lit two candles to supplement the oil lamp. Then the sound of a serenade rang through the house, with sobbing effects and sforzandi, a moving and somehow familiar piece that the violinist had already played frequently in the field hospitals. It went straight to the heart of anyone hearing it, and once its haunting melody had entered their minds it took permanent root there.

  •

  The maids in the kitchen caught some of that sacred sound. They stopped screeching, stole out into the corridor, and listened close to the door.

  Vladimir stood in the stable doorway, his letter P hanging crooked from his jacket, looking up at the glittering night sky. He too was thinking his own thoughts. Was the low rumbling sound in the east louder now? He’d better see to the horses.

  •

  It was a real private concert. Peter sat on the sofa beside his mother; he was on the left, Jago on the right, his mother in between them. The dog barked a couple of times, perhaps wondering whether to give free rein to his feelings and participate in this concert in his own way, but then he fell silent. The cat, who disliked high-pitched sounds, made his escape. They knew about Frederick the Great and his flute concerto at Sanssouci, the ladies of the Prussian court around him. Otto Gebühr had taken the part of The Great King in the film of that name.

  If they had guessed that such a fine musician was coming to visit them, Uncle Josef could have come over from Albertsdorf with Aunt Hanna, or maybe even the mayor of Mitkau. On Midsummer’s Day last year, long ago now, they had all gathered under the copper beech in the park, Eberhard, the Berlin family, Uncle Josef and his family too, to sing the lovely old songs. Beside the well, beyond the gate / There stands a linden tree . . . Dr Wagner had also been there, with his sinewy fingers. If he shaved off his goatee beard he would surely look much younger.

  •

  But this was not a mi
ld midsummer’s night, lit by glow-worms, with a bowl of punch and singing in unison. It was winter now, eighteen degrees below zero, with ice-cold stars sparkling in the black sky.

  Was Katharina thinking of that midsummer’s night herself? Was she remembering how it had been said of her that she was no real good for anything, never lent a hand, didn’t see where there was work to be done? Auntie had even told the two maids in the kitchen that Katharina had two left hands and lived only for the day. Lothar Sarkander had come over from Mitkau. He had been standing behind her that warm night, with one hand on her shoulder.

  Katharina had stepped into the summer drawing room with him; the doors had been open, there had been climbing roses bearing a profusion of flowers on the fence to left and right. And Lothar Sarkander, mayor of Mitkau, had pointed to the little group outside on the lawn, saying, ‘What a picture that is!’

  He had a stiff leg, and duelling scars on one cheek.

  Eberhard had been standing on the outskirts of the wood, grave and silent.

  •

  Fräulein Strietzel wondered aloud, lowering her instrument, whether she should stop. No, no, it was delightful, said Katharina, and took a cigarette. Fräulein Strietzel understood Katharina’s present mood. Immensee, ‘Bee Lake’, based on Theodor Storm’s story, and the water lilies in it. The film had just been shown at the Mitkau cinema. She raised her violin again and found her way back into the melodies; you should finish what you have begun.

  •

  Auntie, too, thought her own thoughts. She got to her feet and went back and forth; there were things lying about everywhere. Music was certainly beautiful, but she might as well take the opportunity of tidying up a bit. When was that Christmas tree going to be taken away? Was it to stand here for ever? Honestly, wasn’t it enough to make you despair?

  And since there were candles burning, surely she could put out the oil lamp.

  •

  Fräulein Strietzel played piece after piece: Handel’s Largo, Heicken’s Serenade. Now and then she went to the window and looked out into the dark night. After all, she had been told she would be collected and taken to Allenstein. She should have been there long ago. They were waiting for her.

  Not a car on the road, nothing moving. What you promise, you should see through. She couldn’t go on playing the violin here for ever.

  The dark field outside was like a lake in the night.

  It was quite late when there was knocking at the door. Not the car – never mind culture, petrol costs money, after all – but a soldier on foot, a lance corporal from the Mitkau field hospital. He hadn’t shrunk from walking such a long way through the night to tell Fräulein Strietzel that she wouldn’t be able to go any further tonight. Maybe tomorrow; they’d see. He had been going to phone, but there was no connection, so he had just come himself. He came from Bavaria, his name was Alfons Hofer, and he addressed the young woman standing in front of the fire on the hearth, violin in hand, as Fräulein Gisela. Looking at her like Jago when he was waiting to be fed. It was a miracle, he said, that he had found the manor house at all in the darkness. Nothing could freeze any worse now, he said, they’d have to let time take its course and see what happened.

  •

  Auntie heated some mulled wine for the man, made him liver sausage sandwiches, and the soldier told them how wonderful the variety show in the field hospital had been. They were all still talking about it, about the conjuror, of course, and the stand-up girl comics telling jokes – their act had been on the vulgar side, and why you had to wear such short skirts for telling jokes he didn’t understand. The juggler tossing plates into the air, and then the high spot, of course – he addressed this part of his account to the Globigs – ‘was her playing, Fräulein Gisela playing the violin’. The medical director of the hospital had emphasized that in his speech, he said, and all his comrades had been talking about it, saying again and again that they had never heard anything so delightful, they all agreed, they had all said the same. And it had been really special for him, he added, that he had been allowed to accompany her.

  He sat down at the piano, and began to play something very lively, and although they had just been listening to serious classical music it turned out that Fräulein Strietzel had pieces quite different from serenades in her repertory. She played hits, old and new, sensitively accompanied by Alfons. They played all kinds of things, whatever came into their heads. ‘Do you know this one?’ ‘How about this?’

  The young man accompanied her, and the remarkable thing was that he played only with his left hand. His right arm had been amputated.

  With you it was always so good,

  It’s incredibly hard to go now . . .

  They played this song again and again, and then Auntie had an idea. She went into the billiards room, came back with a gramo-phone, and started it up. It immediately played the waltz song:

  I’m dancing to heaven with you,

  To the seventh heaven of love.

  The young people couldn’t resist. They danced round the table, followed by the dog, round and round it, dancing sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, always just missing the Christmas tree. The lance corporal took the gentleman’s part, and Fräulein Gisela, enchanted, danced in the circle of his arm – to think she could do that too, dance, and wasn’t entirely devoted to melancholy. That was what she conveyed as they danced round and round. A Lovely Night at the Ball: The Life and Loves of Tchaikovsky – they knew that film, starring Zarah Leander. The fire on the hearth cast the shadows of the young people over the ancestral portraits on the wall, flickering over His Nibs of Nibs Castle, and Auntie poured more and more mulled wine until Fräulein Gisela’s face was flushed red.

  •

  Then they danced over to the summer drawing room and its wide but ice-cold expanses, all white and gold. The windows looking out on the park were frozen, and against the wall stood a row of crates roughly cobbled together and containing all the worldly goods of the cousins in Berlin, who didn’t want to lose their table linen and clothes at the last minute. In fact there was more room here for turning right and left.

  •

  Peter was asked if he had ever danced. ‘Come here!’ said Fräulein Strietzel, showing her bad teeth, and she grabbed the boy and gave him his orders: left, two, three; right, two, three. The boy took hold of her, very clumsily, and felt himself pressed close to her body, which was flat as a board with some protuberances, quite different from his mother’s soft, warm body.

  •

  But it really was very cold in the drawing room, and then the air suddenly went out of the whole thing, like a balloon deflating, and they sat down by the fireside again. The gramophone was turned off.

  •

  Peter said he could go and get his microscope. What about looking at flies’ legs under it? But no one pursued that idea any further.

  •

  Suddenly the ceiling light came on, and they rubbed their eyes. Where were they? What were they doing here?

  ‘Bong!’ went the grandfather clock. ‘Bong!’ And the clock in the billiards room went, ‘Ding-ding-ding.’

  Time for bed. ‘Come along, Peter, it’s late,’ said Katharina. She took the boy’s hand and said goodnight. Peter longed to know what had become of the soldier’s amputated arm. Did you simply throw such things away?

  •

  Auntie sat where she was. Because now the question arose that it would soon be midnight. Could the soldier simply spend the night here?

  Spend the night here? Two young people, full of life and energy, under the same roof? No, of course not, decided Auntie. And she began bustling about the place, putting chairs straight and waiting for someone to make a move.

  And although the man had already taken off his boots, and kept saying that he didn’t like the thought of the way back by night, in the snow, eighteen degrees below zero is definitely nippy, and he thought he’d drunk a little too much, they brought him his coat all the same. It was a case of retreat
! The soldier wrote his army postal address on a piece of paper, so that Fräulein Strietzel could reach him at any time, and said he could take the sledge back to the field hospital with him. Then that problem would be dealt with.

  Wouldn’t he feel silly, a soldier pulling a child’s sledge along? Oh, well, it was dark.

  The soldier put his army scarf round his neck, had another liver sausage sandwich, and Fräulein Strietzel took him out into the cold and the darkness. It was some time before she came back, with snowflakes in her hair. The soldier carried a love token in his pocket, but Fräulein Strietzel had put it back there for him.

  Perhaps they’d meet again some time? When she entertained the troops in Bavaria? Why not? People said Munich was a beautiful city.

  Or after the war, she could simply visit Bavaria, and again why not? There’d be no problem in peacetime, would there?

  Auntie herself thought there’d be no problem about going to Munich or anywhere else in peacetime. Maybe even Switzerland or Italy?

  Perhaps she herself would see her own beautiful native Silesia again some day.

  •

  Fräulein Strietzel put the violin away and lay down on the sofa, and Auntie covered her up warmly with several blankets. Was there anything else she needed? A book, maybe, just in case? Something by Ernst Wiechert, who had been born near here? No, but thank you all the same, she told Auntie; then she’d have had to take her hands out from under the blankets.

  If Fräulein Strietzel was not blissfully happy, she was content to be lying here in the warmth, looking at the flames and hearing the hissing, or sometimes it was more like rushing, that came from the fire. Like the voices of poor souls very far away.

  Who’d have thought she could spend such a nice evening in this starchy aristocratic household? The soldier’s name was Alfons Hofer, and why shouldn’t they meet again some time? Shed no tear, oh, shed no tear / the flower will bloom another year. She sighed. A pity she hadn’t unpacked her long dress; that would have put a finishing touch to the evening. That would have made it unforgettable.