“Get going!” the man beside him shouted. “You gotta help me once you’re up!” Then he bent down, cupping his hands to boost Heller. Heller stepped onto his hands, felt himself being lifted, and spread out his arms to grab hold of something. He was pulled up by the collar. The heat hit him. They carelessly released him, off to the side, and he stumbled and fell into debris. The last man was now being hauled up through the hole.
“Köhler?” someone asked.
“He’s dead,” came the reply, and a woman started screaming.
“Where to now?”
“To the Elbe!” The people were already climbing over the rubble that had once been their building, now piled yards high all around them.
Heller observed them like the stranger he was. He didn’t belong to them, and they didn’t take him along. Before he realized that it would have been wiser to go with them, he was left all alone. Alone in a completely foreign world. This was no longer his city, no longer his part of town, no longer the street he’d just been running down. It didn’t even seem to be his planet anymore.
It was a hell of heat and thunder, of glaring light and dark shadows where black devils squatted and devoured people. The roaring was a relentless thunderstorm, a howling and sucking, a storm tearing at his coat lapels, at his hair, a blazing hurricane that wanted to ignite his whole body. A massive wave of fire was charging through the city chasms, shooting into the sky with wild spirals. Heller tried to shield his face, could feel the blistering air parching his skin, singeing his hair, trying to devour his eyes. It was total madness. No way up or down. No across. No escape. This was hell.
It took him forever to stand up. He dusted off his clothes as best as he could, then felt for his pistol out of sheer habit, as if he had all the time in the world. It was there in his overcoat pocket. He was alive, but the world around him didn’t exist anymore. He felt strangely vacant, as if paralyzed, his thoughts frozen. But he couldn’t stay here alone, with only a dead air raid warden somewhere below him, so he began climbing the mountain of rubble. He had to climb three yards up before he could see beyond the ridge.
Fires blazed everywhere he looked. Stray figures rushed through the inferno, stumbling like startled animals, falling over, pulling themselves up again, crossing each other’s paths, and joining together only to immediately split up again. The flames got one. The person writhed around, turned to the fire, and withered in it like a scarecrow. Others were knocked to the ground by the force of the firestorm and sucked up into a whirlwind of flames. Never-ending mountains of rubble towered all around, immersed in glaring, flickering orange. Isolated dull explosions erupted, like absurdly bursting soap bubbles. The bricks and stones and wood cracked and broke under his feet. Less than a hundred yards from him, a single building wall had survived the bombings but now collapsed without any apparent sound, and the clouds of dust were sucked up by the boiling hot air and mixed with the reddish-brown fire clouds filling the sky. No actual street was visible anywhere. Above him the engines roared on as if the Devil himself were humming a melody.
Heller tasted ash and blood. As soon as he opened his mouth, his tongue seemed to wither. He could see only through the slits between his fingers shielding his face. He yanked his overcoat up over his head and slogged onward. He climbed over the remains of a house, dragging himself upward, skidded down into the void beyond, and landed hard on his ribs.
He then changed direction, helped along by a toppled chimney offering a better foothold, better progress. Crawling along it, Heller managed to make it twenty yards before the mountain of rubble dropped off into a bomb crater. He pushed his legs over the edge, trying to grab hold with his toes, then felt something give way under his feet. The whole slope began sliding away. He let go but was pulled down with it. Glowing hot bits of rubble peppered his collar and sleeves. He screamed and then lay there, on his stomach, at the smoldering rim of the crater. Ripped-out pipes poked out of the ground, and he stubbornly grabbed at them, hauled himself up, and used them as steps so he could reach a street. As he moved on, he suddenly became tangled in burning curtains that had been ripped from the windows and were fluttering around like red-hot birds. Again he fell, flailing to free himself from the fabric, and he rolled onto his side, feeling at cobblestone, then jerking his hands away since the ground was unbearably hot and glittering from millions of glass splinters.
A woman scurried past, blindly stepping on his ankle. She caught herself from falling and rushed onward in a panic, dragging a little girl by the hand. Heller raised his hand. Yet she didn’t notice. Only the little girl turned to him as they headed on. And for one moment, the girl and Heller looked into each other’s eyes.
That brought Heller to again. He wondered where to go. Heading to the Elbe was a good idea; the broad meadows along the river might provide enough shelter. But where was the river?
Was the woman running that way with the little girl? There was no getting through here. The street ahead was blown open. Going around the crater might be possible, but there was fire all around. Heller could barely stand now. The hurricane was pulling at him, trying to tear his overcoat from his body, and only on his knees could he make any progress. But the cobblestones were so hot he had to protect his hands with his coat sleeves. Fires blazed from the few buildings still standing, fanned by the storm winds, the flames stretching far out into the street. He saw streetlamps that had turned soft as butter and toppled over. He’d completely lost his bearings. Was this Holbeinstrasse, or had they climbed out on the other side? Were those trees burning over there? And where was that exactly? He suddenly spotted a figure crawling out from a pile of rubble. After a few yards, the figure rose and staggered toward him with short, teetering steps.
Heller was about to ask where they were, but the firestorm winds ripped the words from his mouth. The woman wore a long winter overcoat with only a nightgown underneath, and she stared right through him, her hair all singed away, even her eyebrows gone. Her coat was smoking. She tried to get by him, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Where was she trying to go? Behind him was all fire and debris.
“No, wait!” Heller shouted and went to touch her shoulder. The woman squawked something in a hoarse voice, turned to him, stiffened, and fell backward. Heller knelt down to help her, but she was dead. He recognized her now. He’d just helped her escape the cellar.
Heller turned away. A wave of nausea and fear surged through him. He didn’t want to die like this. He didn’t want to die at all.
Then he saw a manhole cover. He thought maybe he could hide down there. He crawled over to it, pushed away a chunk of wall with his foot, and grasped at the holes with his fingers. Seething hot air hissed up from the sewer system and scalded his fingers. The pain was so bad it shocked him out of his daze. Now he could feel with every fiber of his being just what had happened, how it was wrenching at him, how the flames kept seeking out more and more fuel. How his hair was frying, how the hot air was trying to shrivel his lungs and desiccate his eyes, how his oxygen was dwindling. All around him more of the remaining walls were giving way, flooding the street with debris and glass, the mountains piling up, insurmountable. But where had that woman with the little girl gone? Following her seemed like his only chance. He was now crawling close to the ground with his overcoat over his head, yet the heat from the road was nearly unbearable. A sudden intuition made him search for his pistol inside his coat, to toss it away. It was so hot the skin of his hand blistered instantly. And when he dared to stick his head out from under his coat, his hair caught fire. He slapped at his head with both hands and yanked his coat back over him. The thought occurred to him that maybe he should’ve kept the gun. He could’ve used it to put an end to his misery if need be.
Then off to his right he saw a street-level cellar entrance. He pulled himself up, ran ducking toward the fire pumping out of the building’s ground-floor windows, threw himself down the stairs, landed hard, and found himself before an open cellar door. He crawled inside, gasping for a
ir, yet all he breathed in was hot gas. He heard a high whistling, shrill like a boiling teakettle, then felt a strong draft, and he didn’t hesitate to grope his way along in the darkness. Crawling toward the whistling, he found a breach in the wall leading to the next building. He got up, stumbled blindly with his arms out in front of him, found another opening, and tumbled over something soft and lifeless.
“Hello? Hello?” Heller stood again, feeling around. After a dozen more openings, he spotted a shimmer of light ahead. He figured he’d gone several hundred yards, maybe a whole block. He reached an exit door, and was completely out of breath. Dark bundles lay all around. As he peered closer, he realized they were dead bodies. They looked as if they were sleeping, the skin of their faces like parchment. To get out, he’d have to climb over them all. But there was no other way, he needed to get back outside. He couldn’t get enough oxygen no matter how much he breathed. Desperate now, he pushed himself onward and crawled over the dead.
Finally outside, Heller found himself at a large intersection. The fire wasn’t drawing as much fuel here, yet a gust of wind still knocked him to the ground. He crawled to the shelter of an advertising column with its posters glowing and smoldering but not on fire. He had no idea where he was. Nothing around him looked familiar. The column crunched and crackled with heat as if about to burst any second. He crawled away from it. Where was he supposed to head now?
He had to find a better view of things to get some idea of where the Elbe might be. To his right was a collapsed building, the beams of its roofing truss standing every which way among the bricks and remains. Heller began climbing them, on all fours. The loose bricks and rubble kept falling away under him, tumbling down and yanking him back. He held tight to the remains of a wall, balanced along a beam for some yards, then went back on all fours. He slowly made his way like this, passing smashed furniture, shreds of drapery, a single ski. As he went to support himself on a seemingly secure floorboard, it dropped away under his weight. A piece of wall collapsed too, plummeting down through the void, taking everything in its path. Heller threw himself to the other side, searching for something to hold on to and found a busted water pipe poking high up into the air. Suddenly there was a new noise. Like someone yelling. Heller crept toward the gaping hole in the debris. He lowered his head, listening.
Someone was screaming down there.
“I . . .” He had to clear his throat. “Hold on!” he shouted as loud as he could, but only a croak came out.
“Help! We need help!” someone screamed.
Heller couldn’t help them. The people down there were buried under several tons of debris ten yards deep, and it was impossible to do anything for them. He needed to help himself. He needed to get up higher onto the crest of this mountain of rubble so he could get his bearings.
“Hold on, help’s coming soon!” he shouted again. Then he climbed onward, feeling his way along, trying beams and remains of walls. After what felt like an eternity, he reached the top and gazed all around. To his horror, he saw that the entire world was on fire.
He turned away from the sight and stared up into the bloodred sky for a few seconds before he dared look at his city again. He couldn’t believe it. All of Dresden was burning, as far as the eye could see. All around him were only craters and mountains of debris, fires blazing away. Black clouds of smoke climbed up into the sky only to be slashed apart by the hot storming winds. And still the engines kept droning high above him, the flares zooming into the sky, and still the bombs kept bursting into glaring eruptions of light while the sound of their detonation was drowned out by the thundering all around. He shut his eyes, desperately trying to block out the boundless horror of it all. His chest burned hot, and a pitiful sob rose in his throat. He shoved up his coat sleeve and checked his watch through the tears in his eyes.
It had stopped dead. He laughed hysterically. How long had it taken to turn a cold and still wartime winter night into an inferno? He had just been chasing down a murderer through the streets, and now those streets didn’t even exist. Nothing existed around him now. The world was a blazing heap of ruins.
Karin! Heller started. For God’s sake, what was happening with Karin?
He looked around, as if electrified. In the distance, where a huge gust of wind was slashing away at the black smoke, he could make out a church steeple. That could be Trinity Church. So directly behind him must be . . . He whipped around so fast that he lost his grip. He toppled forward and landed hard, but he didn’t care. Somewhere over there in that firestorm had to be Gruna, his neighborhood, his building, less than two miles away.
“Karin! Oh, God, Karin!”
Heller hurried back down the mountain of rubble, obsessed by the notion that Karin needed his help, and that, even worse, she surely thought he was dead. Down to his right he spotted a wide street, the pavement torn up, the cobblestones tossed all over the place, the few cars along the road glowing white. Trees were busted off like matches and lay across the street. He could see streetcar tracks, pulled up, bent like wire. He might be able to get his bearings using them. All he had to do was somehow make his way down to that street. He clambered first to the left, then to the right, found something that appeared to be a cable, and grabbed it. He yanked his hand away in shock—it was a stray power line. But then he reached for it again, since it was unlikely it still had power. He pulled on the line a couple of times, yet when he went to lower himself down, the surrounding rubble gave way, and he tumbled downward. He got hit by debris multiple times and was left lying below.
Soon rapid footsteps headed his way. Someone tugged at him. He struggled to open his eyes. Everything buzzed and ached inside.
“Stand up! Please!” A boy of about twelve wearing a loose army overcoat and a Hitler Youth uniform shook him, his face smeared with tears and soot, a far-too-large helmet hanging over his face. “It’s my mom!” he screamed.
Heller stood and shook his head. “Come with me!” Heller said.
But the boy kept tugging at him. “No, I have to find my mom!”
“She’ll be all right,” Heller said, coming off like a pathetic liar. “I need—we need to get to the Elbe, we’ll be safer on the meadows.” He took the boy by the hand, and the boy clamped on tight, clawing at Heller’s coat sleeve.
“Our building is gone and all of them are lying there not moving anymore!” he screamed.
“I know, my boy, but we must get going. Come on.” And Heller dragged him along like the mother had done with the little girl before.
“Why would they do this to us?”
“This way!” Heller said, and pointed ahead to divert the boy’s attention.
Yet the boy had already seen what he never should have. He started wailing and tried to take a long arc around the charred remains that used to be human beings. So many were lying here, and Heller didn’t have time to avoid them all. He lunged over them taking long strides, holding the boy’s hand tightly.
“Why are they doing this? Those pigs,” the boy howled and gagged as if about to vomit. “What’d we ever do to them?”
Heller stopped and shook the boy until he finally turned his eyes away from the dead and looked Heller in the face. “Stay quiet, and keep walking,” Heller barked. “You think a true German soldier starts blubbering like this when he’s facing the enemy?”
It was idiotic reasoning, but at least it brought the boy back to his senses. He was sobbing hard, gasping for air, and trying to choke back his sobs. His whole body trembled. Heller knew all too well that German soldiers were lying there in the trenches bawling and shuddering with fright, and it disgusted him to be lying to the boy for a second time. Yet the boy had to go with him; Heller couldn’t just leave him behind. They couldn’t be sure more airplanes wouldn’t be coming in the night, dumping their bombs wherever they spotted fires blazing. Heller ran onward without another word, and the boy followed.
Soon they reached another square. A delayed-action bomb exploded. Trees snapped in two, red-hot ston
es flew all around them, and shards of brick and roof tile rained on them. Heller found cover.
“You know where we are?”
“Fürstenstrasse.” The boy gasped for more air, wheezing.
Fürstenstrasse? Impossible. All these ruins, these absurd remains of human dwellings. Grosser Garten park crossed his mind—all those poor animals in the zoo.
“Listen to me, please,” the boy pleaded. “My mom is in the hospital. She’s a nurse.” He wanted to take off, but Heller held on to him.
“What’s your name, boy?”
“Stölzel, Bernhard.”
“Bernhard, we need to . . .” Heller fell silent. What else could he do? He needed to reach Karin, while the boy wanted to find his mother.
“Please! Please. Just let me go.”
Heller let the boy loose, and he ran off, leaving Heller alone again. Hundreds of newspaper pages from a destroyed newsstand swirled in the air, then evaporated in the heat. Thin branches of trees sizzled as they burned out. A small group of people, appearing out of nowhere, silently walked past him. They had blankets over their heads. None of them noticed Heller, each alone in their misery. An old man dragged a handcart down the street. Only the brim of his hat was left on his head, and his whole back was bare, his clothes consumed by fire. If he’d been fully conscious, he’d have been screaming in pain. Grimly determined, he pulled and yanked whenever the little wheels got caught on debris. There was no point. Whatever he pulled along on his little cart, all curled up like an embryo, was gone beyond all hope. He would gain more ground on his own—his only chance of surviving was to leave the cart where it was.
Heller knew that he too could gain more ground all on his own. But he had made his decision. To find the streets of Gruna, he would head farther up the Elbe. When he looked that way, he saw only fire and destruction. Yet he had no choice. He started running now. He was still alive, and he needed to find Karin.
The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1) Page 14
