The Sommer girls were terrified of him and hid under the stairs, still holding their shoes, which they had hastily picked up, still trying to stop the youngest girl, Gabi, from giving them away with her sobbing. But they were caught. All of them, except for Bertha, who had hidden behind the coat rack instead. They were marched into the front room under the eyes of the warden while Bertha slipped away, out of the house.
It was the most terrifying memory of her childhood. She spent the whole day running through the town, hiding in the park, until evening, when she returned to the house, exhausted and hungry, ready to give herself up.
It was all happening again.
Except that this time she was not running from nothing. This time, she knew what she was running from, even though she had the feeling she would prefer to give herself up. Her legs were stinging her. She must have run through a bank of nettles. There was also that stone in her shoe which she wanted to get rid of. She was close to a stream by the sound of it. Her sense of direction sent her in a wide sweep back in the direction of the farm. Where was Franz, she kept thinking. She wanted to call him. Realized that he was probably looking for her but that neither of them could afford to call each other.
She hid. She moved on. She stopped again and tried to remove the stone from her shoe. When she heard the men approaching, she turned and ran again. They were much closer than she thought; she had actually caught sight of them running, not their faces, but their legs and shoes underneath at ground level. The forest had a visibility of ten metres. Perhaps twenty metres if you looked out at floor level.
Bertha thought of lying down. Instead she ran hard, at first with her foot only half in her shoe, then losing the shoe and carrying it with her in her hand. The men were behind her. She felt an agonizing dart in her leg which stopped her running. They had thrown something at her. She looked down and saw a short pitchfork which had caught her right leg. She fell.
Before she had a chance to stand up again, she felt the pain in her leg. The pitchfork was underneath her. The two men were standing over her. They wore shabby clothes. They were thin. Unshaven. Their eyes had a mixture of fear and hatred. She tried to speak to them, pleading, begging. They didn’t answer. They stared at her. She should not have spoken to them. She realized that anything she said in German would only attract collective revenge.
Bertha tried to move away, half attempting to get up. It almost seemed comfortable there, on the floor of the forest. She was too weak to stand. One of the men picked up the pitchfork, almost like an act of courtesy, almost as though they had come to help her up again. She stood up on her own, in defiance. It was only when one of the men grabbed her and kissed her that she pushed him away, with sheer hostility.
She walked backwards. It’s never a good idea to walk backwards. She tripped again on the pitchfork, which had been held out. She lost the shoe out of her hand. It hopped upwards as though she was throwing it away, lightheartedly. She screamed just before she was gripped around the neck. A large hand closed over her mouth. She could smell the hand, a musty, animal smell.
Bertha struggled. Hands invaded her body, all over. But she was overpowered with real shock when she saw a man’s sexual organ. The man in front of her had lowered his trousers. It was an erect penis. A dark sac dangling underneath. It was as though she had come across a small, venomous creature in the forest. She could smell it. It filled her with fear.
A hand moved inside her dress. Her breasts fell out of her dress in front. She tried to cover them up again with her hands. As soon as she did that, the hand that seemed to come from nowhere behind her once more began to rush up underneath her dress, between her legs. She had too many vulnerable areas to her body. She possessed too much that men desired. She had the idea that they were dirty hands. She couldn’t prevent her dress from being pulled up and her underwear being pulled down. She felt a sudden urge to urinate and couldn’t help a small jet escaping.
She felt thick fingers burst into her vagina. She felt the same wet hand squeeze her breast. She felt a man begin to suck at her breast. She felt her nipple in his teeth, smelled the grease in his hair. She felt a sweaty hand around her buttocks; fingers bursting into her anus.
The men spoke eagerly to each other. She was excluded. They discussed what to do with her, in a language she could not understand, shouting commands to each other in low voices. She fell backwards. The handle of the pitchfork was placed on her neck to prevent her from getting up. She began to cry convulsively. Certain that she would not survive; thinking she would never get home again. She thought of her sisters.
Everyone has a duty to preserve their own life, to the last. Even if it seems futile. Every time Bertha resisted, she was hit. She felt like giving herself up. It felt as though she was caught so badly that she might as well give in. As if it didn’t matter any more.
One of the men kicked at her legs until they were spread out. He stood on her shins. The pain was unbelievable. At times she tried to raise her head up to see what was happening, like a desperate patient claiming the right to know. But the pitchfork across her neck prevented it. Her hands were being held almost with a bedside manner.
From there on, Bertha didn’t quite follow the order of things. She wasn’t sure what happened first or what came after. She felt nothing but fear until she heard an overriding sound fill the whole forest around her; a sound that brought back the whole war all over again. A shot, the clear sound of a gunshot, ripped through the trees, echoing and whistling in her ears. Birds scattered. Wood pigeons and turtledoves flapped away across the top of the forest, like returning distant gunfire.
One of the men fell on top of her. She felt as though her ribs cracked. She was winded and suddenly couldn’t breathe. There were shouts, she heard running. The sound of branches being brushed aside and let go again with a whack. The explosion of the gun still whispered around the base of the trees.
The man on top of her heaved and gasped for air. His limbs shuddered, reaching for help. The man kept trying to move, trying to reach, trying to drag himself away from her. It was as though she was choking him. She tried to move away herself, but his weight pinned her down. Finally the man gave three quick bucking movements and died. She felt him go limp. Blood began to flow across her breast.
She felt herself get cold and weak. The blood was warm. She tried to remove the pitchfork from her neck. She sat up and leaned over to get sick, vomiting on the brown carpet of pine needles. Her hair was full of pine needles. It was only now that she felt them.
She heard another shot whip through the stagnant air of the forest. It seemed at once near and far. Only when it faded could she tell how far away it was. It was followed by a further shot, even louder, singeing the air and drowning out the sound of the stream near by. She pulled herself up. Once the sound of the shot faded away, the whisper of the stream took over again. She walked away, backwards. Moving towards the water? She was shivering, trying to pull her clothes together around her before Franz came back.
She was moving away from the body of a dead man. His eyes were open. They seemed to be looking at her feet. She kept moving backwards until she was stopped by a tree.
38
Franz came running through the trees. He saw Bertha, and his crazed eyes raked the surrounding trees. He was holding out the gun. Still a soldier.
‘Where are they?’ he shouted. ‘The others, Bertha, where are they?’
‘No, Franz, there were only two,’ she said.
Bertha was as much afraid of him at that moment, until Franz relaxed his grip on the gun and went over to her. He placed his arms around her and held her very close, with the gun still in his hand.
‘It’s all right, Bertha. Bertha, mein Schatz. It’s all right. I’m here now. I’m here with you now.’
Franz kept on repeating the words, comforting her with his best phrases. She began to cry properly now. It was release. She tried to talk through her tears, but he spoke for her.
‘It’s all right. Don’t speak about it now. L
et’s go. Let’s leave all this behind.’
He kissed her again and again. He kissed her crying eyes and stroked her hair. He moved his head back and smiled at her.
‘Look, Bertha, I’m here with you now. You have nothing to worry about now. It’s all over now. Come on, let’s go.’
He held her chin in his hand gently and extracted a tiny smile, as though from a crying child. He pulled her towards himself again. His shirt had taken up some of the blood from her clothes. He led her away towards the stream.
At first Bertha felt only glad to be alive, glad to be safe. The fear she had experienced had numbed her whole personality, so much that she did everything with an automated sense of precision. Fear turns people into machines.
At the small stream, Bertha first knelt down to pray. It gave her the strength to go into the water and wash herself, to forget what happened and to carry on. All of this is God’s will, she told herself. The sun lit up the brown flowing water all around her. The water made her feel strong. Her hands splashed the water upwards, mechanically.
Franz stood on the bank with his back to her, allowing her to wash in privacy. It restored her dignity. He still had the gun in his hand. He still scanned the surroundings for signs of attack.
Bertha began to feel the security of Franz’s presence. She felt human again. Her courage came back. She would have to forget what happened. She was still in great shock. But she told herself to put it all behind her. She began to feel clean again.
Franz helped her to step out of the stream and placed his arm around her.
‘Bertha, mein Schatz,’ he kept repeating as he led her away. ‘What did they do to you? Are you all right?’
‘Yes, Franz. I’m so glad you’re here.’
She had no injuries. She was alive. She was safe. But then the reality broke in on her.
‘What have we done, Franz?’ she asked, looking in the direction of the dead body. The fear she had felt earlier had now turned into a heightened sense of guilt. The feeling of total security made her lightheaded with compassion. ‘Franz, we have killed somebody here,’ she said.
Franz was shocked that Bertha could feel anything for her attackers. He stood in disbelief, almost in anger, when she stopped to look around once more at the man lying face down on the ground. As though she wanted to see the expression on his face, to see who had died on her behalf.
‘My God, Franz, what have we done here? Is he dead? Are they both dead?’
‘Yes, Bertha. Don’t think about it. There was no way out. They would have killed you. And me. We had no choice.’
‘Where did you get the gun?’ she asked, as though it all had to be made clear in her mind before she could leave. ‘I thought you left it in Eger.’
‘Lucky I didn’t,’ he said.
She pulled herself towards him. Little by little, they both realized that they had extended the war.
‘We must get out of here,’ Franz urged.
It sounded like a military command. She went back to the corpse with him to find her shoes. They were in two different places. The second shoe was right beside the dead man. Franz picked it up for her. She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help glancing down at the man who had threatened her own life so recently. Secretly, she knew that seeing him dead was a comfort. The blood had seeped into the dry brown pine needles. The man’s eyes stayed open. Ants had begun to claim his head, running across his oily hair, ears and face. As she put on her shoes, Bertha guessed how old the man must have been; no more than twenty-five, maybe thirty: no older than Franz.
Once the threat to herself had disappeared, Bertha began to feel the strangeness of rational thought. She wanted to talk about it. She wanted Franz to keep telling her it was over.
Franz pulled her away and led her quickly through the wood back towards the farm. There, Bertha got another shock when she saw the dead dog lying motionless in the yard. She realized then exactly how close to death she had come.
Franz picked up his haversack and pulled Bertha along by the hand. It was as though she was reluctant to leave. As though she wanted to let everything sink into her memory at a slow pace. This had all happened too fast for her. Too shocking to remember.
Everything was rushed from there on. Franz said it was getting late. They walked up the hill again. Bertha thought it must have been hours ago that they had started off from the lake. When they reached the top, they decided not to say anything to the old man in the house. They stopped only long enough for Franz to fix the puncture. Bertha was thirsty and wanted a drink of water from the well. Before she went in, she put on a new dress, discreetly, behind a tree. It was the navy blue pleated dress, not exactly the right thing for cycling or for the summer. It was really more of a winter dress, bought in Paris. But it was just the thing to put the ordeal behind her.
The old man gave her some tea. He also gave them some bread and jam, proudly telling them that the jam was from 1943. He had a hearty laugh and Bertha felt how strange it was to be back among ordinary people again. She began to feel at home and talked to the old man about various things. Irrelevant things, it seemed to her. She accepted a jar of jam which the old man offered her. It was for their journey, the old man insisted. She remarked on the extraordinary kindness as she gave it to Franz to put in his haversack.
They told the old man nothing of what happened. It would have been unfair to burden him with these details. The poor old man wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, thinking about the bodies in the forest. They kept the nightmare to themselves.
It was late afternoon by the time they left to resume their journey. Once more, there was a sense of urgency. They had to get away from the area by nightfall. When they rejoined the road on their bikes, Bertha took one more look at the lake. It looked just the same as it did the day before. A deep blue unbroken surface. For a blind moment, they stopped the bikes and stared, wishing they could erase the day and start all over again from the beginning.
They freewheeled down the hill into the next valley. At the bottom, Bertha asked Franz to stop so that she could throw away the dress she had been wearing earlier. It was torn and stained with blood. It could have been washed and mended, but she was anxious to discard any association with that day.
‘I want to forget that anything happened,’ she said, looking into his eyes.
‘Yes, Bertha. We will say nothing about it. Ever.’
‘We’ll put it all behind us. When we get to America, it will be only a tiny thing in the past.’
She rolled up the dress with a hint of courageous ceremony. Before she went to the ditch along the road, she stopped and turned around again.
‘Do you want to put the gun in as well?’
Franz looked at her. He was reluctant. He thought for a moment, as though the forests were full of enemies. But then he agreed. He placed it in the dress she held out with both hands. Bertha rolled it up and concealed it under a bush.
They cycled on through the evening, for almost seven hours without stopping. Without talking. Without remembering. By the time they got to Bayreuth, it was already dark. Bertha was exhausted. Hungry. Still frightened, but safe. They felt the comfort of reaching such a civilized and cultured town. Wagner’s town. Drowned in culture and peace.
39
Anke and I kept meeting. Almost every Wednesday, she either came down to Düsseldorf or else we met somewhere else along the way. Sometimes we had lunch and just talked for an hour or two before we parted at the train station again. She had less and less time because of Alex. She was always anxious to get back and pick him up early from the school. He was getting worse.
Once she brought Alex with her, though he was clearly unwell. She thought Alex might enjoy the train journey, it might make him glad. It wasn’t a long trip, only as far as Gelsenkirchen. I was there to meet them. Nothing of what Anke had told me in the past weeks had prepared me for the shock of seeing him arriving in a wheelchair, so weak and thin. He was listless. All his energy had disappeared. I could
see he was dying.
He didn’t recognize me. He wouldn’t respond to anything I said.
‘You shouldn’t have brought him,’ I said, when we sat down in a café close to the station. ‘I’m sure it’s too much for him.’
‘I thought the train would make him happy,’ she repeated, stroking Alex on the head. ‘I thought he would like to see you.’
Alex wouldn’t eat anything. He had lost interest in cake, juice, everything. He just sat in his wheelchair, rocking his head from side to side, looking up at his mother. His tongue had gone slack and kept falling out of his mouth. His eyes were red. He didn’t know who I was. He just sang, or moaned, or hummed, with his tongue dribbling saliva down his chin. He stared and ignored the clatter all around him in the restaurant.
Anke couldn’t stay long, obviously. I’d have liked to have taken them somewhere, maybe shown Alex some things, but he wasn’t seeing anything. He didn’t know where he was. And Anke talked urgently about Jürgen, how things had become unbearable at times in the house. They were having these arguments late at night.
‘Does he know you come down here to meet me?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe he does. He’s never said anything.’
‘Maybe he’s suspicious. Maybe he has followed you once.’
‘Maybe,’ she said, dismissing it. ‘I don’t think that really is the problem…
‘It’s Alex,’ she whispered. She leaned across the table and explained that Jürgen had rejected any active treatment for Alex’s illness. It was terminal. ‘So now Jürgen is talking about euthanasia. He has nothing against it. He’s positive about it. But I’m not.’
‘But what does he suggest?’
‘I don’t know. He explained it to me, but I couldn’t give you the details. My attitude is that Alex should be given a chance, no matter what it costs. No matter how hard it is on us.’
Anke was clearly upset, whispering to me like this. It was breaking one of her closest principles to talk about Alex while he was present. I asked her more questions. I had dozens of things to ask, but Anke stopped talking.
The Last Shot Page 13
