Tin Sky

by Ben Pastor

  Bora shook his friend’s hand, where every other fingertip was bandaged. “You would, Bruno, and so will I.”

  Lattmann had been conservative in his estimate. Entering the city was impossible from all sides; not even the usual dirt lanes between dismantled factories could be traversed. Trying his fortune from Merefa, Bora found that roadblocks began at the Kombinat; vehicles were being turned back regardless of their business in Kharkov. He decided to walk inside and ask the Commissioner’s permission to phone the 161st Division headquarters for last-minute information. The suite of offices was deserted, however, with the exception of Stark’s assistant and piles of medical supplies no one had been able to pick up. Bora was permitted one call. When von Salomon’s phone rang, the colonel’s answer came husky and anguished. “I have no time to talk to you, Major. This is appalling – right below my windows! Appalling, appalling.”

  Bora couldn’t get anything else out of him; other extensions at headquarters rang out. Without knowing whether von Salomon’s hesitation was due to actions by German troops or directed against them, he tried unsuccessfully for an hour to be let through at the checkpoint. At mid-morning, in the wake of a staff car whose provoked passengers prevailed, he was finally allowed past the heavily armed patrol, but the journey lasted only until the next security stop, five kilometres from the city limits. While those in the staff car – one of them a general’s aide – took up a heated confrontation with the Security Service men, Bora stealthily backed up a good way, put the camouflage smock back on, left the personnel carrier at the side of the road and went around the roadblock on foot, at his own risk.

  Cutting unseen across the field, he traversed a wet, deeply furrowed area just the distance needed to get back on the tarmac to the north and out of sight of the patrol. Here he soon managed to get a lift from the driver of an army truck, which had originally been travelling southbound and had been forced to turn back at the same checkpoint. The driver’s depot was at Jassna Polyana. Bora got off there, crossed the tracks to the park beyond, and twenty minutes later reached downtown Kharkov. Behind him were desolate, empty streets. Here and there a small shop in the traditional Russian style – below street level and reachable by climbing down a few steps – had broken windows and no one inside.

  Under the sun, in the canvas camouflage garment that heightened the heat of day, Bora dripped with sweat. Rifle shots – a dry pock, pock sound that echoed between buildings – guided him to the curving avenue and square that until the Stalingrad disaster had been named after General von Paulus, near the marble-striped Cathedral of the Annunciation. A round-up was in progress there. Bora couldn’t say he wasn’t used to the scene. He wished he could say it troubled him; in fact, nothing seemed to trouble him any more. It was all already seen, done, experienced. Crowds lost individuality; it came down to shoves and rifle butts pushing or dividing or striking, quick turns on the heel as someone sprinted to get away and the weapon was righted, aimed and fired without missing. Everyone played their role perfectly, victims included. Bodies lay around, blood pooled under them. Only his anger (which was something other than a feeling of pity) was stirred, like a thick liquid that needed mixing and scooping but in the end agitated on its own. Principle, not people; not feeling what he didn’t feel. Virtue had nothing to do with it. Bora stepped up to the SD non-com directing the operation, who looked over impatiently even before he was questioned.

  “Who authorized this?”

  “Gruppenführer Müller’s orders, authorized by the Gebietskommissar.”

  “Aren’t these Ukrainian nationals? The assassination was claimed by Russian Soviets.”

  “It was Ukrainian rail workers who attacked a German soldier. And anyhow, Major, check your sources. UPA counterclaimed the terrorist action this morning.”

  That was news, but not to be looked into now. Von Salomon’s office not being far away, Bora walked there. He couldn’t see anything in the street overlooked by his windows that was “appalling” or that justified the colonel’s anguish, so he changed his mind and decided not to waste time on someone else’s squeamishness. It was when he turned into the lane near the cathedral, between the textile works and the old Palace of Labour, that he understood. There Army units were deployed alongside the Security Service and were corralling terrified men and women into waiting trucks for deportation, or worse.

  If hierarchy meant precious little to the SS and SD, it did carry weight with Army ranks. Bora remembered he still had a copy of the babushkas’ name list with him. He eyed a fairly young artillery lieutenant busy lining up civilians on the sidewalk, approached the line and without a word jerked a woman at random out of the long row.

  Unhesitatingly, the lieutenant pushed the woman back in line. “What are you doing, Herr Major?”

  Bora flashed the sheet in front of him with the women’s names on it, rubber-stamped by Stark’s office. “No: what are you doing, Lieutenant? You have my five female labourers. I’ll hold you accountable if I can’t collect them.”

  The subordinate read the Commissioner’s signature – not the date, because Bora’s thumb was concealing it – and took a resentful step back. “Well, sir, pick them up quickly, then. We have work to do.”

  Striding along the line of civilians Bora reclaimed the first woman he’d chosen and pulled out four more instinctively, not knowing why he selected this anguished face, that unresisting wrist instead of another. No kindness whatever was in his gestures; he was simply angry and uncomfortable. Is this how we die, at random? Is this how we are chosen to be born in the first place? What role am I playing before God as I mindlessly reach to save one and condemn the others?

  Afterwards, on foot as he was, he didn’t know what to do with the women. He forbade himself to become emotionally involved, to the extent that he couldn’t have said what their ages were or described their faces. It was not relevant. He pushed them ahead of himself around a corner, down a narrow street lined with tram tracks, until he came to a crossroads, where he stopped. Because his pistol holster was unlatched, the women stood before him in a knot, weeping, and only when he shouted at them, “Davai!” did they understand they should run for it.

  In the confusion, Bora was twice more able to pull the stunt of the name list with Army patrols in the reticule of streets and ruinous public buildings between the cathedral and the Trade Guilds Park. A fourth time would have been far too risky. By the time he climbed the stairs to von Salomon’s office, he had little desire and no patience for an earful of gloomy recriminations.

  The colonel’s restless pacing was audible at the end of the hallway. It did not cease when Bora appeared on the threshold and saluted. On the contrary, it widened to include the window in its path.

  “This is all very bad, Major. Very bad.” Von Salomon didn’t enquire how Bora had managed to enter Kharkov, and Bora said nothing whatever. “At this time, very bad.”

  Sporadic shooting continued outside; the window panes rattled feebly in their frames. Bora was still angry. Concealing it was not the difficult part; getting rid of his anger was. He watched von Salomon press his hands to his cheeks as he paced. “Psychostasis,” he heard him mutter. “Psychostasis. The dreadful weighing of souls after death. Can anyone escape it?”

  The guilt-sharing words sounded elegant and empty. To Bora, the colonel’s resemblance to a large unhappy dog was more evident and credible than his inner turmoil. Lowering his eyes, he noticed now that in pulling one of the women out of one of the round-ups a small length of yarn from her frayed blouse had become stuck to his right sleeve. Quickly he removed it, pushing it with his forefinger out of sight, under the buttoned tab of his cuff. Whether von Salomon’s question was rhetorical, Bora answered it. “If one believes in psychostasis, Herr Oberst, no one may escape it.”

  “Yes.” The colonel halted by the window, and leant against the sill. “My opinion as well. You know, I have it from reputable sources that SS and Police General von dem Bach-Zelewski, who led special operations in Riga, h
as been having hallucinations about Jews ever since. Some say instead that it’s because his sisters married Jews. Both circumstances would – eh? What do you think?”

  The dilemma sounded sincere, insofar as von Salomon might wonder whether mass executions or marrying into Jewish blood could have caused the SS general’s mental strain. Bora kept his eyes on the occasionally trembling window glass, beyond the colonel. Years before he’d got wariness down to a fine art. And even though of late there were moments when without reason he abandoned it altogether, this was not such a time. He said, impassively, “I think I needn’t remind the colonel of the Führer’s 13 May 1941 decree regarding the summary nature of collective reprisal measures on this front. And may I also point out that General Erich von dem Bach renounced his Polish surname Zelewski two years ago.”

  Most security checks had been raised when Bora left Kharkov in the company of a supply officer headed for the commissioner’s office. The checkpoint north of the Kombinat, still manned, was now being dismantled, and they were allowed through. Beyond, Bora asked to be let off where his personnel carrier was still parked as he had left it, but for the folded piece of paper stuck between windshield and wiper. It read, above an illegible signature in green pencil, A note has been made of this vehicle’s licence. Abandoning Wehrmacht property unguarded in occupied territory is not only unadvisable, it violates rules. The driver may expect disciplinary measures.

  Of all the things that had happened during the day – perhaps because he was objectively responsible for it – the admonition was the one that came close to making Bora blow his top. Because the Security Service men were looking on he did no more than accurately refold the paper along its creases and pocket it, but he was fuming as he drove without other incident towards Merefa.

  Merefa, 7.15 p.m.

  The words that come to mind are “vicarious” and “metonymy”. In moments of stress, substituting one sentiment for another, or taking something for something else, allows us to appease and tranquillize anxiety. The object that crosses our path then is invested with a larger meaning, and triggers a response proportionate to its role.

  The Nitichenko priest, Father Victor, couldn’t have chosen a better way of precipitating events half an hour ago, although from the outside it merely looked like the return procession from whatever superstitious mumbo-jumbo he started out for two days ago. News travels much faster in this countryside than the supposed elimination of all radio apparatuses would lead us to believe; when the peasants filed past, they were singing and shouting their joy for the reprisal enacted in Kharkov during the past twenty-four hours. Communists, Russians, Jews, it’s all the same to that primitive, bigoted Nitichenko: God wants them dead, and good riddance.

  Had I not been submitted to three hours of accordions last night, and had the Ukrainians not used the same as an accompaniment blared at full volume, I believe I would have taken things in my stride. As it was, I stormed out of the schoolhouse, halted the procession and commanded that the instruments be turned in. They’ve learnt by now that if my holster is unlatched, there’s no discussion. I got the elders to pile up the accordions in the middle of the uncultivated field flanking the road, and told them to go. They didn’t; or rather, they walked until they were far enough away to dare to stop and look what would happen. The priest, holding a good-sized icon, was stationed midway between them and the place where I was.

  Having prepared things quickly and efficiently, I set the Russian mine from the canal bank in the nice hollow formed by the bellows and the right-hand keyboard of the nethermost instrument. I then packed it with pebbles and dirt, removed the pin from the fuse and paced to a convenient distance from it. By this time, unlike his flock, Father Victor understood what was afoot, dropped the icon and went scampering after the others. It took me a single gunshot to blast the pile sky-high and make even the least dismembered of the accordions incapable of ever working again.

  What will the Merefa peasants think of it? It isn’t as if I care. Don’t they know that according to the May ’41 Führer’s decree, paragraph 4, “suspicious elements are to be brought before an officer as soon as possible”? It is up to me as a German officer to decide not only who is suspicious, but also what is suspicious and how to dispose of it. The sentry has no doubt seen worse retribution visited on Russians, because he didn’t blink an eye. As for Kostya, he’s not one to question officers or Germans. Besides, he wasn’t present. I’d sent him to the village to scout out someone who had actually visited Krasny Yar and lived to tell the tale.

  Speaking of suspicions, when he gets back from the Kiev Branch Office Lattmann may be able to provide me with an update regarding the newest claim by UPA, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. As things are, I secured one of their freshly printed leaflets at the Kombinat, where I met with Commissioner Stark for a few moments after returning from Kharkov with the evidence. He had himself arrived from the city shortly before, begrudging – as he said – having had to authorize the police operation “before having the opportunity to look into the wisdom of such measures.” Uneasy lies the head, etc… I did two things. Kept my mouth shut about his comment, and remarked that there’s no lack of official and clandestine presses in town, so that the Security Service have their work cut out for them in tracking the leaflets to the right printing place. He didn’t bring up Khan Tibyetsky’s death, and neither did I.

  It intrigues me that the UPA claim keeps the specifics of the assassination (we’re all assuming it is such, but it remains to be seen) under as much silence as its Russian counterpart did. And it follows rather than precedes the Soviet claim. Genuine in the sense that it must originate in UPA circles, it mentions the Prussian-backed coup d’état against the 1917 Ukrainian National Republic, and promises to visit upon General Skoropadsky – who in his younger days headed the coup – the same fate suffered by Khan. This is an obvious reference to the fact that Skoropadsky is at present in Germany, although it should be said that he chose his residence after falling from power.

  At the end of the day, when it comes to responsibilities for Khan’s death, Mantau enjoys an embarrassment of riches. From his point of view it is only right to target Ukrainian and Russian Kharkovians alike, so that no culprit goes unpunished. The fate of the babushkas still in SD custody is not to be envied: the risk is that they’ll say whatever they think Mantau wants them to say.

  A last note: at divisional headquarters there was mail for me. A letter from Dikta, come through the usual army post channels, and an envelope hand-delivered to me by Senior Army Chaplain Father Galette. I’m still sitting on both messages, because I’m not in the right mood to hear from my wife or from my former teacher, Cardinal Hohmann.

  A postscript. The Security Service must think me less equipped for certain eventualities than my training has made me: I carry around spare licence plates, and I’m changing them first thing in the morning.

  THURSDAY 13 MAY

  First thing in the morning, the Merefa peasants came to pick up the pieces of their accordions. Bora’s animosity had considerably abated, so he told Kostya to distribute handfuls of karbovanets. Money being scarce, Kostya returned with the message that if there were other instruments the Major wanted to blow up, they had concertinas and fiddles available as well.

  After changing the licence plates, Bora was rinsing his hands in a dainty washbasin left behind by the Russian schoolteacher. He said, without smiling, “Never mind that. Anyone in the village who might be able to tell me about the Yar?”

  “Da-s i nyet-s, povazhany Major. Yes and no. There’s a man from Schubino to see you.”

  Bora raised his eyes at the mention of a village near Krasny Yar. “Schubino? It’s thirty kilometres from here.”

  “He said he’s from Schubino but lives in Merefa now.”

  Setting aside the enamelled bowl, graced by sprigs of red flowers around the rim, Bora slowly dried his hands with the cloth Kostya held out to him. “And he’s here to talk about Krasny Yar?”

  “He d
idn’t say that, sir.” Kostya picked up the washbasin, avoiding the officer’s stare. “I think he might make you mad, though.”

  Taras Lukjanovitch Tarasov didn’t even have to open his mouth to annoy the German officer. He’d dressed in his holiday best and worn the Soviet Badge of Honour reading Proletarians of the world, unite! Civilians were shot for much less.

  Bora sized up the bony little man who introduced himself as a rakhivnik, finding the idea irresistible of a consumptive-looking accountant who dared to confront an army of occupation. “Well, Tarasov,” he began, “you lived in Schubino. That’s close to Krasny Yar. Are you here to tell me about the woods?”

  The question seemed to annoy the visitor. “The woods? No. I’m here to turn myself in for killing the traitor Tibyetsky.”

  Concealing all that went through him at once (surprise, doubt, disbelief, amusement) forced Bora to exercise self-control so it wouldn’t seem artificial. Old fool, take your place in line: there are others ahead of you was what he wanted to advise, but in all seriousness he said he appreciated the gesture. And nothing more.

  The grey-faced Tarasov stood there awkwardly, with a look of expectation and fear. He watched the German take out a blank sheet of paper from the drawer, and also the UPA leaflet he’d got from Stark, rotated on the wooden surface so that it was readable to the man facing the teacher’s desk.

  Bora waited. He’d learnt not to indulge in small gestures that could give away puzzlement or impatience. No drumming of fingers on the desk, no playing with his wedding band, no open stare. He sat straight in the chair, looking unconcerned at the place between Tarasov’s chin and his chest where the badge pinned on the old suit, nearly three inches across, showed a young couple against a flutter of banners bearing Marx’s call to arms. He scented fear in the sickly man, and some other emotion less overt and understandable. A fly lightly settled on the leaflet where a line in bold read Slava Ukraini: Glory to Ukraine.