All for Nothing Read online

Then the cat came along to find out what was going on.

  •

  The man sat in the chimney corner, lit a pipe and cursed the day when, at his father’s persistent urging, he had decided to study political economy.

  ‘If only I’d been a cabinet-maker,’ he said, turning to Auntie. ‘But a political economist, of all things!’ he cried, calling on these people to bear witness to the course his life had taken.

  •

  Peter asked him what a political economist was.

  ‘Hmm,’ replied the man, ‘it’s not all that easy to explain. Now if I’d been a cabinet-maker instead . . .’ Could he, he asked, take a quick look through that microscope? He thought that the lens wasn’t properly adjusted.

  •

  He didn’t like the silence in the east, he said – such extraordinary peace and quiet. He put his head on one side, as if listening, trying to catch some kind of sound, and because he didn’t like the silence, he said he wasn’t going on to Insterburg as he had originally intended; he would stay in Mitkau for a few days instead. And then back to Elbing as quickly as possible, and on again by way of Danzig to Hamburg, where a cousin of his lived. He was planning to take refuge with this cousin.

  ‘Did you see the fires burning last night?’ he asked Katharina, who put an oil lamp on the table – for there was yet another power cut – and sat down herself. After all, it was supper time.

  Fires? She knew nothing about that . . . it was all so complicated. Anyone who ever spoke to Katharina found her a total blank. She had never heard of anything at all, she hadn’t even guessed at it. ‘She hasn’t the faintest idea,’ people said of her, ‘but she’s beautiful . . . very beautiful.’ She was the most striking person present at any social gathering, although she hardly ever said a word.

  What else could you say about her? She shut herself up in her own rooms, and heaven only knew what she did there. She read a lot, or rather she made her way through a great many mediocre books. Her reading matter could not be said to include Goethe and Lessing. As a girl she had been a bookseller’s assistant, and since then it had been her habit to skim books; she did not attempt anything too difficult.

  •

  In any case, they had to eat now. The thermometer showed a temperature of minus sixteen degrees, and the barometer suggested that it would get even colder.

  Perhaps they hesitated a little too long before asking the visitor to join them at the table, where the soup tureen was already standing, but then it was done: he was invited to take a few spoonfuls, whereupon he knocked out his pipe and came quickly closer, sat down, rubbed his hands, and repeated again and again that he only wanted to have a little rest and get his breath back.

  He sat opposite Katharina and scrutinized her. A Mediterranean beauty in this bleak wilderness at the back of beyond? He thought of Anselm von Feuerbach, whose classical pictures everyone knew.

  Katharina looked as if she wanted to say she couldn’t help being out of place here. She was holding a key and toying with it; it was the key to her boudoir, which she always kept locked. It was shiny from her constant nervous fidgeting with it. No one else had any business up there.

  •

  He had set out without thinking it over properly; rumour said that the major roads would be checked after tomorrow, so he had slipped through just in time. And he had thought that a cart might give him a lift on the way, but the road had looked deserted – and not an inn anywhere in sight. He had already thought of the Forest Lodge: Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles. Then, at the last minute, he had seen the manor house lying low behind the wall, under the black oak trees, and he had thought he could stop and rest here, warm himself up and then go on the last few kilo metres to Mitkau.

  He’d get there yet.

  •

  The Forest Lodge? Good heavens, yes, the Forest Lodge used to be a good place for an excursion; it had an outdoor café, ideal for families and school classes, the great forest was close to it, and beyond the forest the river, bordered by willows. But now the large windows offering such good views were boarded up. Now the Forest Lodge had become a hostel for foreign workers, Romanians, Czechs, Italians – folk described by the locals as scum. The Romanians never washed their feet, the Italians had already let the German people down in the First World War, and now they had gone and done it again. You couldn’t trust such folk an inch.

  The two Ukrainian women occasionally went down there, and stayed longer than was seemly.

  •

  The Georgenhof: there was something mysterious about the house. Who knows, he had thought, what’s waiting for me there? And now here he was, sitting at this table with such nice, pleasant people. Best of all, although they had never set eyes on one another before, they were already on such familiar terms!

  He hadn’t expected to be so well entertained; they kept the old standards of hospitality going in this house.

  He took some ration coupons out of his wallet to give them to Frau von Globig, but then offered them to Auntie instead, thinking she was more likely to be responsible for such matters. Katharina, her dark hair pinned up on top of her head, put her hand to the brooch that she wore. She seemed to be thinking: ration coupons . . . ? It was all so complicated.

  ‘No, no, put those away again,’ said Auntie, ladling out soup for him. Then she saw that they were coupons for men on leave and would not go out of date; they could be used anywhere and at any time, so she was happy to accept them after all.

  ‘Who knows what may happen yet?’

  Nothing was easy.

  •

  The man thanked her and said to himself: let’s see how things go on. First to Mitkau, maybe straight on to Insterburg, and if not then Allenstein. Then back to Elbing as fast as he could go, from there to Danzig and on to Hamburg. And then on again south. But first to get this soup inside him, and he said repeatedly, ‘Ah, delicious!’, rubbing his hands as he kept a good eye on what was being tipped from the ladle and on to his plate. It was quite rich soup, and had a little meat swimming in it too.

  It occurred to him, just in time, that it would be usual to say grace in a house like this. His parents had preserved that custom in his childhood. He remembered it to this day.

  Busy Auntie, the fair-haired boy, blue-eyed Katharina with her mind elsewhere and a trace of soft down on her upper lip, and the tureen of good rich soup on the table.

  Ding-dong, the grandfather clock struck, ding-dong.

  •

  The soup was hot. The political economist, who had studied at Göttingen University and lived for a long time in the mountainous Fichtelgebirge district of Bavaria, until he had had the silly idea of travelling in East Prussia, blew on his spoonful of soup, making the oil lamp flicker. He weighed up the soup spoon in his hand and said, ‘So civilized!’ Turning round, he showed the boy the hallmark; he had noticed at once that the spoon was sterling silver. ‘Look, what does that say? Eighty per cent silver!’ And he picked up Peter’s soup spoon as well. ‘Every one of these spoons made of eighty per cent silver! And the ladle, a wonderful piece . . . What do you think that’s worth, my boy?’

  The china, too! ‘But that’s – isn’t that . . . ?’ He could hardly turn the plate over here and now. However, as the soup was gradually spooned up a complete landscape was revealed, painted in blue. The boy hadn’t noticed it before. Trees, a pool with cranes, a boat with a fisherman in it pulling his net out of the water.

  •

  Katharina thought of Berlin and Tauentzienstrasse, where she had bought this china during her engagement. The Georgenhof? she had thought. Perhaps they would always be entertaining guests there. Many guests? As far as she knew, people gave large parties on their country estates. In large halls, by candlelight?

  So she had bought the dinner service for twenty-four guests. ‘What on earth do you want with all that china?’ her husband had asked when her dowry arrived at the Georgenhof after their wedding.

  K
atharina came from Berlin, and she had been to East Prussia only once before, to the Baltic seaside resort of Cranz, where she happened to meet Eberhard over coffee and cake. ‘Rise high, O red-winged eagle!’ the band on the beach had played. ‘Hail, land of Brandenburg!’ They had eaten Florentines, and Eberhard had smoked cigarettes in a well-worn meerschaum holder with a man and a woman carved on it. And in the evening they had danced the foxtrot in the seaside dance hall.

  •

  Silver? Fine china? The political economist was astonished to find all these precious things still in use, not hidden away long ago, or sent to Berlin or somewhere else. ‘Suppose the Russians come?’ And with all those foreigners just down the road. His nose was running, so he took out something that passed for a handkerchief, and it could be seen that he wore a diamond ring on his little finger.

  ‘What do you think it’ll be like here if things turn out bad?’

  He did not exactly lick his spoon clean, but it was obvious that he would like a second helping, and Auntie picked up the tureen in both hands and poured the rest of its contents, splashing, into his plate.

  Katharina laughed a little at that, but she wasn’t sure whether she should. Mightn’t Auntie take her laughter the wrong way?

  How could you laugh at such a moment? How could you?

  If things turn out bad? What did the man mean by that?

  He meant the Russians now stationed on the border. They could strike at any time. ‘And then it will be the worse for us!’

  •

  A bowl of apples was placed on the table, and the guest was invited to help himself from that, too. He praised the fragrant aroma of the fruit. Taking more coupons out of his wallet, he handed them over the table.

  ‘O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious, and his mercy endureth for ever.’ This was the grace at the end of the meal, and he could wholeheartedly agree with it.

  •

  Ah, said the man, how he appreciated this! Family life! ‘I suppose your husband is at the front?’ With his well-manicured hands he peeled the apple he had been given. And when he had eaten it, he was given a second.

  No, said Katharina, not at the front but far away; her husband was in Italy, and he had sent some lovely things home from there. Whenever he went away he phoned them at home.

  ‘First he was in the east, now he’s in Italy.’

  ‘And these fruit plates!’ cried Schünemann. Each was painted with different fruits, pleasingly arranged: bananas with black grapes and almonds; a grapefruit; black- and redcurrants; figs. He showed the boy how carefully the painting was executed, and told him what a pomegranate was.

  •

  Again and again, the man marvelled at the carelessness of keeping these plates and the silver cutlery in use – they should pack it all up, for heaven’s sake! Including the fruit knives with their horn handles. That mob down the road weren’t to be trusted an inch.

  ‘If things turn out bad . . .’

  Who could tell what was going to happen? The Russians? Who knew? At the moment, he said, the front was deep in slumber, but that could change in no time at all. He had a funny feeling. He would be off to Mitkau tomorrow, he said, and then Insterburg, and back again as soon as possible. Perhaps he would visit Allenstein too. He did not say what his business was in Mitkau and Insterburg.

  •

  ‘Pack it all up!’ he cried, as if he himself would be to blame if they didn’t. Packing it in straw in a crate and burying it would be the best thing to do. Or sending the silver to Berlin, piece by piece, or Bavaria, or even better to Hamburg. Maybe he could ask his cousin, he said, perhaps he could store it all at his place?

  Then he put a finger to his lips as if giving away a secret, and whispered that silver would always keep its worth. Send the larger items away, he advised, but maybe it would be better to keep the teaspoons. They could be used like coins. ‘This is cash in hand!’ As a refugee, he said, if you wanted to cross a river you could simply offer the ferryman a teaspoon. Silver! A man like that would grab it with both hands. Who wanted money in times like these?

  •

  Katharina rolled herself a cigarette, and Auntie took the dishes out to the kitchen. She had never looked so closely at the plates before. Silver? Send it away? It wasn’t as easy as all that. They’d better wash the fruit plates themselves in future, instead of leaving them to the maids, who might fool around and drop them.

  The two Ukrainians, Vera and Sonya, were screeching at each other in the kitchen. They quarrelled all day long, heaven knew what about. Or maybe they weren’t quarrelling, it just sounded like a quarrel in their difficult language.

  Or were they fighting over the Romanians in the Forest Lodge? There were strong men among the fellows there, Romanians, Czechs, Italians. You could hear them singing. If you passed their hostel you were bound to hear someone or other singing. And when the maids were in sight they pushed their caps back on their heads. The Italian had even put a feather in his.

  •

  Herr Schünemann looked at the portraits hanging in the hall. They were large and dark, pictures of dignified worthies from Potsdam and the Tuchola Forest area. Dignified worthies, even though no one knew for certain who they were.

  Well, then. Berlin. Wilmersdorf?

  When Wilmersdorf was mentioned, Katharina looked away. She had wanted to send Peter there at Christmas time – for who knew what might yet happen? – but the family in Wilmersdorf didn’t want to have him.

  The family in Berlin got in touch only when they wanted something. Potatoes, vegetables, they’d come to take all that year after year, even a goose for Christmas, but they didn’t want the boy to stay with them. And maybe that was just as well, in view of the devastating attacks on the capital.

  Last summer they’d sent their two daughters here, Elisabeth and Anita. The girls had spent such a nice holiday in the country.

  ‘The Berlin family have broken off their relationship with us,’ said Auntie. ‘Broken it off once and for all.’

  ‘I see,’ said the political economist.

  •

  After supper he set out on a tour of the house, swinging himself nimbly up and down the hall on his crutches, even pushing the door to the next room open. Cold air blew in. It was the summer drawing room, built before the war, paid for with money from the sale of the landed properties, and never really used. Now it was full of chests and crates.

  He went all round the ice-cold drawing room. ‘What are those crates?’ he asked, tapping one of them with his crutch, but then he let them be, closed the door and rejoined the others.

  There was yet another room to be explored. Good heavens, a billiards room! A regular billiards table covered with green cloth. Card tables with polished surfaces by the window, and in the corner a sideboard with ornamental intarsia work on its doors. They probably kept wine and cigars in it.

  •

  The hunting trophies on the walls – horns, antlers, ranged side by side, and the stuffed head of a wild boar – had been old Globig’s. There was even a lampshade made of intertwined antlers under the ceiling. Old Globig had been a great hunter; his triple-barrelled gun and his expensive repeating rifle still hung in a modern glass case that didn’t look as if it belonged here.

  Auntie kept close behind the man, following hard on his heels. After all, they didn’t know each other. She explained that in the old days the gentlemen always used to smoke their cigars and play whist in here. ‘But we’d better close the door now.’

  And parties had been given in the summer drawing room, she said, not entirely accurately; the von Globigs had been going to give parties there, but then the war came, and now the drawing room was full of crates containing the worldly goods of the Berlin family members.

  •

  Auntie propelled the guest back into the hall, and he swung himself all round it on his crutches, looking at the Christmas tree now dropping its needles. He turned a corner of the rug over with his crutch. ‘Genuine?’


  Finally he looked at the cups stacked slantways in a small cabinet, opened its glass door and asked, ‘May I?’ He examined them one by one. Some had a landscape scene painted on them, with boys skating on the ice in the foreground. There were dead flies in many of the cups. Eberhard’s meerschaum cigarette holder also lay here, rather stained, but interesting. Sepia photographs in ornate wire frames stood in front of the cups, photographs of grandfathers and grandmothers. The political economist asked who they were, and on getting no answer looked at Katharina, but she did not rise to her feet, she came no closer, she sat at the table smoking and playing with the matchbox.

  •

  Auntie went over and showed him the photo of a Tsarist officer of 1914, in a laced litevka uniform coat, holding a riding crop. There were all manner of stories about this officer. He was said to have been billeted at the Georgenhof when the Russians invaded in 1914, and he had the reputation of being a decent, well-educated man who spoke fluent French. The Globigs had much to thank him for; he had saved the manor house from being looted, and he had played billiards with them.

  In the 1920s, unexpectedly, he had turned up here again, after escaping from the Soviets by way of Finland. He had looked down-at-heel, all his elegance gone, a fur cap on his head. He had pointed east, groaning, ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ Then he had borrowed money and disappeared, leaving behind the fur cap; it was white, made of Persian lamb.

  •

  A photograph of the master of the house also stood on the folding flap of the casket; he was wearing a white uniform jacket with the Cross of Merit on the chest, although without swords. ‘Is that your husband, ma’am?’ cried Herr Schünemann to Katharina. Yes, she said, it was indeed her husband.

  Eberhard von Globig was one of the specialists helping to keep supplies to the German population going, draining the resources of the eastern agricultural territories for the benefit of the Greater German Reich. This war was very different from the war of 1914–18, when the Germans had subsisted on turnips. This time bad feeling was not to be stirred up among the people unnecessarily; they would be allowed access to an adequate diet. Bread, butter, meat, whole freight trains full of melons. They came from the Ukraine, from Byelorussia – all kinds of good things were to be had there. Wheat, sunflower oil, who knows what else? But now it all lay in ruins, smoke rising from their fields.