by Heinz Rein
‘… at the gong it will be two minutes past two. Here is the air report. Over Reich territory there are no hostile fighting units. I repeat. Over Reich territory …’
‘The impudence of it,’ Klose says, ‘over Reich territory. That should be over what’s still left of Reich territory.’
‘… no hostile fighting units. The army report follows. Führer’s headquarters, fourteenth of April. Wehrmacht Supreme Command …’
‘Let’s see what they’re going to serve us up with today,’ Klose says.
‘The most important bit is the front line at the Oder,’ Lassehn says, ‘the calm – there …’
‘Shut up!’ says Klose. ‘Just listen!’
‘At the front leading to the Stettin Lagoon, in the Bay of Danzig and in Kurland no particular combat operations have been under way.
On the Elbe the enemy managed to gain a foothold after violent battles with weakened forces south-east of Magdeburg on the eastern shore of the river. In central Germany the Americans have advanced further with attacks to the north and the south-east. Reconnaissance units have explored the zone around the Saale near Halle and the zone around Zeitz.’
Klose contemptuously switches off the radio. ‘We know the rest,’ he says furiously, ‘we know it all too well. “The attack was victoriously repelled, but sadly the town was lost.”’ He turns again to Lassehn, who is propped up on arms spread wide on the table and looking stiffly down in front of him, and taps him on the shoulder a few times with an outstretched index finger. ‘Don’t let yourself go, son,’ he says, ‘don’t go soft on me.’
Lassehn looks at him through glistening eyes. ‘It’s over, Mr Klose.’ Klose sits down again.
‘Have you absolutely no relatives in Berlin?’ he asks.
A small, hesitant smile plays on Lassehn’s face.
‘Relatives? No, or rather I do, in fact …’ He pauses noticeably. ‘A woman, in fact.’
‘Please don’t beat around the bush, Joachim,’ says Klose, smiling sympathetically. ‘You mean a fiancée or a girlfriend, a little sex kitten for cuddles. Am I right?’
‘Not this time, Mr Klose,’ Lassehn says seriously. ‘As I said: a woman. I’m actually married.’
‘Lad, lad,’ says Klose, and shakes his head. ‘Whatever for?’
‘A strange question, Mr Klose, and a difficult one to answer.’
‘Great love and all that, I get it.’
Lassehn shakes his head very slightly. ‘Great love?’, he says thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know if it was great love. A few months before I was injured I went on leave, I was very alone. I have no friends and have always been a bit of a loner, my friends were Bach and Beethoven and Chopin. Until then women played no part in my life at all, then I met her, and all of a sudden I was overwhelmed by loneliness and the hateful duty of having to go back to the front … You know, Mr Klose, when you’re that far up the creek in the end you don’t care about anything, but when you’ve wiped it off and reacquainted yourself with cleanliness, the idea of having to go back into it … So I just needed someone for me who could be something like a target for my thoughts, desires and longings, within me there awoke a burning desire for female tenderness, the desire to disappear entirely into another human being, it was …’
Lassehn breaks off and looks quizzically at Klose. ‘I hope I’m not boring you, Mr Klose, I’m sure you’re not used to …’
‘I’m used to all kinds of things! Just go on talking, my boy,’ Klose says encouragingly. ‘You speak almost like a poet, it’s different and I’m enjoying it, so keep going.’
Lassehn nods gratefully. ‘It’s good to be able to express myself for once. Yes, so it wasn’t just that, it was also to some extent a desire to have somewhere for one’s thoughts to go, when you were lying out in snow and dirt and ice again, when life seemed more worthless than everything else in the world, when the only words you ever got to hear were rough yokel conversations, about scoffing and boozing, about women and about … Come on, you know yourself, Mr Klose, you were a soldier. Yes, then I met Irmgard and fell in love with her, as I would probably have fallen in love with any other girl, simply because I was ready. I should imagine she felt something similar, and the same evening we had agreed that we would marry while I was still on leave. Things like that go through quite quickly when they’ve got the papers to hand, and they didn’t look too closely at leave marriages. Well, we got married, and it didn’t change much in either of our lives, I went back to the front, my wife stayed living with her aunt and went on doing her job … Yes, that’s it in fact.’
Klose rocks his head back and forth. ‘Lad, lad,’ he says at last and exhales noisily. ‘Just for a bit of … you do know you don’t actually have to get married?’
‘But Mr Klose,’ Lassehn protests, ‘I’ve already told you it wasn’t that.’
‘You aren’t about to change my mind, son,’ Klose says energetically. ‘Wasn’t there another way of winning her over?’
‘That did have something to do with it,’ Lassehn admits, ‘but it wasn’t the crucial thing.’
‘So how old is this little wife of yours?’
‘Twenty-three.’
Klose nods a few times. ‘She’ll have enjoyed being the young bride. And besides’ – Klose looks Lassehn closely in the eye – ‘I can imagine that you’re quite a handsome fellow when you’re clean-shaven and nicely turned out, there’s something of the artist about you, and girls like that. Well, she married you. And what is marriage nowadays? These days people get married the way they used to strike up friendships, it doesn’t even matter. Marriage today is worth just as much as the whole Nazi state. But there’s one thing I’m completely clear about: you barely know your wife, it couldn’t be otherwise.’
‘You’re right, Mr Klose,’ says Lassehn, ‘the few days we still have left …’
‘Yes, I get it,’ Klose laughs, ‘out of bed, into bed and in between honeymoon sweet nothings. You know your wife’s legs, her bosom, her cute little nose and other lovely things, but you haven’t the faintest notion what’s going on in her mind. Is that true or am I right?’
Lassehn looks at Klose in surprise and nods. ‘It’s amazing, Mr Klose, how you can …’
Klose chuckles. ‘Nothing is amazing, but old Klose doesn’t come from Dummsdorf, he comes from Rixdorf, and only clever little boys are born there. I understand you, music student Joachim Lassehn, you wanted to do some proper living before you went back to Vorenezh, before you allowed yourself to be thrown back into the lottery drum of death. I felt exactly the same when I came home on leave from France, I cooked up a storm and threw all my money around till there wasn’t a cent. When life and death are as closely bound together as they are in wartime, you draw on life as if it were a spring, you don’t want to waste a single drop. You’ve probably been a bit more civilized about it than I was, but if you look closely it was the same thing.’
Lassehn sits there in silence.
‘You’ve gone very quiet, son,’ Klose says. ‘What are you thinking about?’
‘About the words of our battalion commander when we first went into battle,’ Lassehn replies.
‘And what did that jolly uncle tell his beloved little kiddiewinkies?’ Klose asks.
‘That war is the father of all things,’ says Lassehn, ‘that only in war does the personality develop and show true human values.’ He laughs, a short, jerky laugh, as if divided into small, mocking exclamations, his boyish face, deeply etched with manly wrinkles, is angry and menacingly tense, his almost gentle blue eyes have the severity of a lowering bird of prey.
‘It doesn’t seem to have got through to you,’ Klose says. ‘Your sole human value probably seemed to have become very questionable, isn’t that right?’
‘Yes,’ Lassehn begins, ‘during the war I discovered I had capacities whose existence I hadn’t previously been aware of, namely the capacity for revenge, murder and homicide. Then there was one of our lance corporals, a so-called ethnic German from th
e Sudetenland, his words felt like pincers, his orders were like shoves to the back of my neck …’ Lassehn clenches his fists, which have rested quietly on the table until now.
‘He was never off your back,’ Klose finishes his sentence and nods. ‘I know that one, my boy, something comes loose inside you and tautens until one day the spring goes off.’
‘Yes,’ Lassehn agrees a little more calmly, ‘then patience, stubbornness and submission fly away, a feeling of revenge runs through you like a searing pain and makes you unconscious … It was a moment like that, the rage surrounded me like a fog, I threw back my rifle stock and struck out blindly and furiously.’ He takes a deep breath and lets his hands relax.
‘So?’ Klose asks.
Lassehn sits there motionlessly. ‘He skilfully dodged me and I struck air,’ he replies slowly.
‘And after that?’
‘Nothing,’ Lassehn replies. ‘He took a knife from the side of his boot and wanted to lunge at me, but all of a sudden there was a Rata fighter plane above our heads and it dropped a few bombs. You know, Mr Klose, the Russians have this kind of flying bomb, small-calibre but highly explosive, and one of those fell right next to us and a splinter tore the lance corporal’s chest open …’
‘Boy, you were lucky,’ Klose says. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were capable of going for a superior officer with your rifle stock …’
‘I said that before,’ Lassehn says excitedly. ‘I’m a peaceful man, Mr Klose, I abhor all forms of violence, but …’
‘It’s fine,’ Klose says, and rests his right hand on Lassehn’s arm. ‘Now let’s talk about the present again. Where does this beloved spouse of yours reside?’
‘In Charlottenburg,’ Lassehn replies, and sighs deeply.
‘So what’s up with the young husband?’ Klose asks. ‘He’s sitting around here rather than going home. Are you scared to?’
‘Yes,’ Lassehn explodes, ‘that’s it exactly.’ His face is serious, his mouth twists with mute despair. ‘Imagine the situation again, Mr Klose, my wife believes that I am at the front, and now I turn up suddenly as an outlaw, secretly, dirty and in a state of dissolution, a deserter, a traitor to the fatherland. So I know how she’s going to respond to that!’
‘It isn’t good for a person to think too much,’ Klose says. ‘Come on, Joachim, that’s ridiculous … She’s your wife!’
Lassehn jerks his head up. ‘Really? Is she my wife?’
Klose shuts his eyes tight. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? A little while ago you said it was all fine, with the register office and everything, and now you’re saying something different. You have some explaining to do, young man.’
‘You see, Mr Klose, it’s like this,’ Joachim says slowly. ‘Irmgard is my wife, legally and … and in another sense as well, you understand, but apart from that there’s nothing between us, absolutely nothing. I haven’t seen her after the few days of our marriage, and that’s almost two years ago now.’
Klose sucks air through his teeth. ‘So that’s what this is all about. Hm, hm, now I get it, young fellow, all you really know about your wife is what she looks like, how she kisses and what she’s like in bed. Christ, Joachim, this is hilarious.’
Lassehn shakes his head indignantly. ‘I don’t see anything silly about it, Mr Klose, the whole matter is deadly serious, because I am not a superficial person, believe me.’
Klose turns serious again. ‘You’re right, Joachim, forgive my merriment, I meant no harm. But now it’s dawning on me, someone comes home, he’s taken off his grey field uniform, he no longer believes in the final victory, and he doesn’t dare to go home because his wife may be a Nazi witch and she’ll clap her hands in horror over her loyal German cake-hole. Have you never written to each other?’
‘No, we have,’ Lassehn replies, ‘although not very often, but I didn’t get an image of her from those letters. Irmgard only wrote about small everyday matters or refreshed memories of our brief time together, otherwise her letters were always rather short. But apart from all that, there is something else.’
‘Something else? Yes, good grief, what is it?’
‘You said before that all I really knew was what my wife looked like.’
‘So?’
‘I don’t even know that, Mr Klose,’ Lassehn says gloomily. ‘It’s about two years ago now, I’ve never seen her before or since, over two years her picture has been completely covered over with war and injury, misery and death. At first I still had her face clearly in front of my eyes, but the picture faded more and more, I tried desperately to recall it, but it was in vain, I simply couldn’t do it. And it may have been the same for her. It’s quite possible that we could walk past each other in the street and not recognize each other. I know the score of the Moonlight Sonata off by heart, I could write out every note of the Appassionata, but I don’t know what my wife looks like. So now you know everything.’
Klose listened, his face frozen. ‘Lad, lad,’ he says after a while. ‘That is quite something. What am I supposed to do with you two pretty little doves?’
‘I don’t know the answer to that myself,’ Lassehn replies, ‘but one thing is clear to me, that I have to be careful, I have to approach my wife as a huntsman approaches a dangerous creature which, if startled, can become a murdering beast. Not a pleasing simile, but a fitting one.’
Klose has been listening, shaking his head. ‘Lad, lad,’ he says. ‘What’s your wife like? Is she good-natured, or a harridan? Do you think she’s the kind who would grass you up?’
‘I really don’t know, Mr Klose,’ Lassehn replies, ‘and that’s why I didn’t go straight to her.’ He pauses and thinks. ‘She is good-natured, at least that’s the impression she made on me, but what her actual essence is like … I really have no idea.’
‘Well, then we’ll have to think about what we need to do, little man,’ Klose says and gets to his feet. ‘Listen, young fellow, if I suddenly turn the radio on for no reason, it means danger.’
II
14 April, 9.00 p.m.
Night has fallen on the ruined city of Berlin. The slender sickle of the moon shines brightly in the deep-blue sky, star sparkles by star, it is a night that could have been made for reflection and contemplation, for peaceful sleep and happy dreams, but those things no longer exist in this city. A suffocating fear of the inescapable creeps from the darkness of encroaching night, a feverish horror of waiting clenches the heart. The great silence of the night, once a gentle hand, has become a terrible threat, people force themselves not to make a sound, not to ignore the calls of the sirens that still ring in their ears even when they are silent, they circle in the brain, they are always there like memories of a terrible dream, because day by day and night by night the terrible dreams are becoming a crushing, fiery reality. Here there is nothing but the fear and horror of nocturnal threat, fever-dreams, anxious waiting, shallow sleep, always listening for the wail of the sirens, extreme recklessness in the fight for their own lives in the pounding of the bomb-proof air-raid bunker, there is no peace here now after the haste and the work of the day, no resting in soft beds. Here tens of thousands of people already sit tightly pressed together in the bunkers and halls of the underground. Millions wait ready to leap for the infernal concert of sirens, suitcases stand ready, steel helmets, gas masks and protective goggles lie within reach, radios blare, but no one is listening to the music or the words. Neither does it matter very much whether it is Beethoven or Lehár coming from the speakers, Rilke or Goebbels, they let everything flow inside them, listening only for the moment when music or language are faded out, the speaker’s voice sweeps aside a curtain and takes the stage and announces its ominous ‘Attention, attention, this is an air-raid warning’, or the triad sounds on the radio and the Berlin division command post delivers its report. Then the city starts up, the ghostly trams driving through the extinct canyons of the houses, and the S-Bahn winds like a ghost train between the rows of ruins, for fifteen minutes of life. People hu
rry to the bunker with suitcases, rucksacks, bags, blankets, bed-rolls, prams, they dash down the steps to the air-raid cellar, crouch on narrow benches along the walls and listen, senses tensed, their whole bodies focused on their ears, their brains are like selenium cells that trigger certain reactions to certain sounds. High above the earth, meanwhile, are the aeroplanes, searchlight arms grab for them, the anti-aircraft guns thunder into the air, red, yellow, green cascades of light fall to the earth, payloads fall bringing death and ruin, constructions of steel and powder, wiping out everything they touch. When the long-drawn-out cries of the sirens ring out above the burning city, people spill from the caves and holes, they sigh with relief at having saved their possessions, preserved their lives, once more escaped destruction for the rest of the night.
In his restaurant Klose stands behind the bar waving his arms around. ‘Come on, come on, gentlemen,’ he calls, ‘That’s enough, there’ll be an air-raid warning in a minute, they’re already in Magdeburg, on their way to Brandenburg. So let’s get a move on, gentlemen.’
‘What’s on the way?’ one of the guests asks. ‘A small squadron?’
‘The usual,’ Klose replies. ‘Couple of dozen fast ones, the unit has turned off towards central Germany.’
‘Well thank God for that,’ the other man replies.
‘What are you thanking God for?’ Klose asks. ‘I expect you were thinking, let the bombs fall on everyone else’s heads, at least my precious life has been spared, isn’t that it?’
‘Charity begins at home,’ the other man insists.
‘Good national comrade you are,’ says Klose, ‘people like you will keep the Führer going.’
‘I’ve had it with national comrades, Klose,’ his interlocutor replies, ‘each man for himself, the National Socialist Volkswohlfahrt for all of us.’
‘Great flying weather,’ says another guest as he pays his bill.
‘Don’t talk rubbish, Krause,’ Klose replies, ‘it’s always flying weather for them, you should have worked that one out by now. They come in broad daylight and when the moon is shining, in rain and snow and the deepest night, no blade of grass, no Göring is a match for them, however many little girls he recruits for the army.’
