All for Nothing Read online

  Katharina remembered a pair of brightly painted wooden clogs that Eberhard had given her; folk art. She had never worn them.

  •

  ‘Ah, the Ukraine,’ said Dr Schünemann to Katharina, with much meaning. ‘It’s as well that your husband is in Italy now. That, you know, is very, very good news.’

  With expert fingers he felt the inside of the cabinet, fingering the little compartments. A secret drawer.

  A secret drawer? Perhaps it contained golden guilders or Swiss francs? No, the secret compartment was empty.

  •

  Eberhard’s latest letter lay beside his photograph, with a blue airmail armed forces stamp on it. Schünemann picked up the letter and took it to the table, bringing the oil lamp closer to it. That stamp. Was he mistaken? A misprint? Was the right-hand wing of the plane shown on it disfigured by a notch? A deformity on the plate? No? Ah, well then, no. The shadow of his hands scurried over the walls as he held the letter close to the lamplight.

  •

  It was going a little too far to sniff the airmail letter. He was almost about to take it out of the envelope, but he caught himself in time. ‘How can anyone be so inappropriate?’ he said. ‘But it’s my passion, my enthusiasm . . .’ He turned to Katharina again, and told her about people cast into transports of delight by collecting all kinds of things, old books, coins, and he even knew of murders committed by those who wanted to complete their collections. There was Master Tinius who killed a wealthy widow in Leipzig. All for a few old books.

  He gesticulated with his crutch, and the firelight cast very strange shadows round the room.

  The hunting trophies on the wall, ranged there side by side, they too were bound up with collecting and killing.

  •

  Katharina thought of the consignments of wheat that her husband had dispatched year after year, the freight trains of soil on its way from the Ukraine to Bavaria. A layer of humus sometimes a metre thick on those fertile plains, stripped off and sent to Bavaria in long convoys of railway trains.

  Sometimes Eberhard had also managed to abstract something for the family’s private use, brown sugar, for instance, several hundredweight of brown sugar.

  And now he was in Italy, busily confiscating wine and olive oil to be sent away.

  Katharina rose, her long limbs graceful, patting her hair into place as she stood up. Black jacket, black trousers, boots. She offered her guest a plate of ginger biscuits left over from Christmas.

  Oh, not those, Auntie might well be thinking, those were the good ones, but she let it pass; after all, the guest was an academic.

  ‘Are you a professor?’ she asked.

  ‘No, not a professor. I’m a political economist.’ And he would rather have been a cabinet-maker, or a graphic artist.

  •

  The guest put the letter back and apologized for his indiscretion: when he saw stamps, he said, he forgot everything around him. He was a collector himself, he explained, his passion was philately, and this stamp, if he was not much mistaken . . .

  Reaching for his leather bag, he took out a stamp album packed among his underwear and his shirts. Leafing through it, he said he collected only the finest, only the best. Old German stamps were his special field. And he had bought this album in Harkunen yesterday morning. Now what’s this, he had thought . . .

  He took a pair of tweezers out of his waistcoat pocket and explained the old-fashioned stamps in the album to the boy, most of them with numbers on them, but some with crowns and coats of arms. You could live well for a good month on the proceeds of selling this stamp, he said, pointing the tweezers at a stamp showing John of Saxony.

  Mecklenburg, Prussia, Saxony: how pleasant it had been in the Germany of the past, and he spoke of when measurements were in ells, feet and miles, he spoke of post-coaches in which you travelled from country to country without needing a passport or visa, he spoke of kreuzers, guilders and shillings. And he even imitated the signal of the post-horn.

  But sad to say, the Prussians had eliminated that wonderful variety, insisting on unity, unity, unity! That stamp with the head of Germania – could there be anything less imaginative? Germania in armour? Iron plates covering her breasts!

  People would surely still be interested in the old colonial stamps after the war, he said, they would probably be worth a mint of money. A German New Guinea stamp. ‘After the war,’ he said, leafing through the album and sighing.

  When you thought that the British had even considered giving the German colonies lost after Versailles back to Hitler . . . but no.

  •

  Peter ran up to his room, fetched his Schaubek stamp album, held it out to the guest and pointed to individual stamps. Were these worth anything too? That made the gentleman laugh heartily: good heavens, my dear boy.

  How old was Peter? Twelve? Just the age for it, you couldn’t begin collecting too early. But really, these stamps were worth hardly anything.

  ‘You have a great many stamps showing Hitler, my boy.’ If the Russians came and saw those stamps, what would they say? Nothing but little portraits of Hitler. He wasn’t so sure, he said, suddenly turning to Katharina, but ‘Mightn’t they burn the house down over your heads, dear lady?’

  Then he told Peter, ‘Go and get your paint box.’ He asked for a basin of water, and set to work on the Hitler stamps, dabbing a spot of black paint on every face of Hitler. Peter had only to dab all those Hitler stamps with black paint and wash it off again after the war, then there would be no problems. But leaving the stamps as they were . . . Suppose a Russian opens the album and sees the Führer grinning back at him a hundred times over?

  •

  The Russians? Would they be coming here? asked Auntie, putting the cups back in the cabinet neatly. At that moment it may indeed have occurred to her that such a thing was possible. After all, it was during the last war that she herself had come to the Georgenhof.

  But the war of 1914–18 had been very different. Mankind had not been so excitable in those days. The outcome would probably be less civilized this time.

  ‘We Germans are not children of melancholy,’ said Schünemann, raising his eyebrows, hinting at things that no one in the house understood. But all fell silent, and the fire crackled.

  •

  Now the gentleman had an idea. He took the album that he had just bought cheap in Harkunen, weighed it up in his hand – and it was quite a heavy weight – and asked for an envelope. Then he took the stamps out of the album one by one, working very carefully, and put them in the envelope. ‘There was I dragging that heavy album about with me, and this is much simpler.’ Although, he added, it was a pity really.

  Finally, holding a small brown stamp in his tweezers, he showed it to them, placed it on the table, held a magnifying glass above it and called the boy over. ‘See that?’ What did he mean, see that? What was there to see? He asked for an electric torch and held it over the indentations at the bottom left-hand corner of the stamp. ‘Don’t you see anything?’

  Then he showed Peter how the indentations had been repaired. A single missing tooth had been completed. The paper, thin as it was already, had been planed down, and a tiny tooth from an entirely different stamp stuck in place. At this even the two women moved forward, Auntie on the left and Katharina on the right, saying that they would like to see it. And they urged Peter to fetch his microscope, saying that maybe the repair could be seen even more clearly under its lens.

  This opportunity allowed the gentleman to notice that Katharina’s breath smelt sweet, which was more than could be said of Auntie’s.

  •

  The political economist, laughing quietly, talked about the skill of humanity in forging banknotes. Imitation ink, specially prepared paper . . . he still remembered how, as a child, he had once forged his father’s signature on a ‘blue letter’ – one of those informing his parents that his work was not up to scratch, which had to be signed by a parent to show that it had been received. The signature had been
accepted and no one had noticed anything wrong. And he was still alive to tell the tale. He had passed his final school examination, the Abitur, he had studied at university, all with great success. Sometimes he thought that perhaps some day he would be disgraced, just for forging his father’s signature as a child.

  It was a crazy notion of his father’s for him to become a political economist. ‘I ought to have been a cabinet-maker. Or a wood-turner . . . or something of that sort.’

  •

  Now he had put all the stamps in the envelope. What should he do with the empty album? It had an eagle with wings spread wide on the front cover. Put it on the fire? He went over to the hearth and looked at the logs that were crackling as they gave off their warmth.

  He placed the empty album on top of them, and watched as the eagle slowly caught fire and then sank into ashes. Watching it disappear, like the Germany of the good old days.

  After that, he put the envelope full of stamps in his briefcase, and said, ‘Well, then . . .’

  He had a great many banknotes in his briefcase.

  •

  The political economist prepared to leave, but they urged him to stay. Was he going away through the dark at this hour? Out of the question, they were not going to push him out into the darkness and the cold. The wind was howling round the house. And somewhere or other a solitary aeroplane could be heard. He could easily spend the night here on the sofa, they told him. That was only ordinary hospitality. How many people had spent a night in this house already? Or there was Elfie’s room up on the first floor? But that was cold as ice just now.

  Peter asked Herr Schünemann whether he could swing himself through the hall on his crutches – ‘You must say Dr Schünemann, Peter,’ said Auntie, ‘Dr Schünemann.’ Then the gentleman made himself comfortable on the sofa. Katharina brought blankets for him, and pillows that he put under his head. The family stood around, asking whether he felt comfortable, and was there anything else that he needed? They said goodnight, and when he was alone at last the man wrapped himself in the blankets, and watched the fire on the hearth slowly dying down.

  •

  Was there a shop in Mitkau, he had asked, selling stamps to collectors? Yes, said Auntie, so far as she knew.

  •

  Next morning he had disappeared.

  Katharina had been going to take him some breakfast. Of course there was nothing else missing, but the stamp had been torn off the army envelope sent from the front by the master of the house. The man hadn’t been able to resist it. In return, several sheets of ration coupons were lying on the table.

  ‘Think of that!’ said Auntie. ‘Just think of that!’

  The door was open. He might at least have closed it.

  And of course Jago the dog had seized his opportunity to go off again.

  3

  The Violinist

  The next guest could be seen coming from far away, silhouetted against the horizon and crossing the fields, enveloped in swirling snow. Crows with ragged wings dived down on the fluttering figure. This visitor was a young woman, and she was pulling along a sledge with two suitcases on it. The sledge kept tipping over as she hauled it across the snow-covered clods of earth. She had difficulty standing upright in the violent gusts of wind, which blew the skirts of her coat apart, and it was some time before she finally reached the manor house that lay, like a last refuge, behind the black oaks. The young woman had a violin case on her back, and that, too, made the people from the Settlement stare at her.

  •

  She knocked the snow off her shoes, straightened her knitted cap with both hands, took a deep breath and opened the door of the house. Jago jumped up at her with a friendly welcome, and since no one else appeared she called ‘Heil Hitler!’ into the house.

  She was petting the dog a little too boisterously, and the noise brought Auntie out of the kitchen, where the two Ukrainian girls were quarrelling again – couldn’t they keep their voices down? A strange woman with a violin case in the middle of the hall? She had wiped her shoes, Auntie could see, but all the same. Peter came running downstairs, taking three steps at a time. A visitor!

  Now Katharina appeared too, all in black: black trousers, black pullover, black boots, and an oval locket round her neck, gold with a diamond teardrop on it. She had just been lying down for a little rest, and was curious to discover what was going on.

  •

  The young woman, it turned out, came from Mitkau. Her name was Gisela Strietzel – ‘I’m Gisela,’ she introduced herself. She had been entertaining the wounded in field hospitals for weeks, and now she had to make her way to Allenstein. She had spent three days in Königsberg, three days in Insterburg and two days in Mitkau, playing music to grateful injured soldiers, whose arms and legs were encased in white bandages, while many had bandaged heads.

  Now she had to get to Allenstein and spend a week there, and then at last she could go home to Danzig, where Papa was expecting her. But a bomb had hit the railway line, and the car that was supposed to be coming for her was delayed: no petrol. She didn’t feel like hanging about, so she had borrowed a sledge for her suitcases and set off across country. Would it cost the earth? The sledge would have to be returned to the field hospital some time or other; that was another problem. Perhaps the kind folk here could help her?

  After that she would have to find out how to get to Allenstein. This journey was giving her a hell of a time!

  •

  It remained a mystery why the young woman hadn’t taken the ordinary road. Why had she struck out across country? ‘I like to go my own way,’ she said, and they had to accept that.

  She took off her gloves, shoes and coat and undid the straps holding her cases to the sledge. The sledge itself could be left in the porch, which had a lock on it. The road had been busy for the last few days: an occasional cart packed high with luggage, while other travellers on the road were riding bicycles or wheeling babies’ prams. All the traffic was going from east to west. And everyone could use a sledge these days.

  •

  It was obvious that she couldn’t be sent straight out on the road again: a young woman who had been entertaining the wounded for weeks on end in field hospitals. A young woman putting her whole heart into giving pleasure to unfortunate men who had imagined a soldier’s life as very different.

  So that she would not be politely shown the door – looking after number one in these hard times – she opened one of the two suitcases and took out a ‘front-line fighter’s package for the great operation’. It had been given to her in Mitkau for her journey. Putting the package on the table, she opened it: chocolate, biscuits, cigarettes and glucose tablets. Katharina von Globig, Peter and Auntie watched. Peter got the glucose candy, and the can of airman’s chocolate was pushed over to Auntie. Katharina immediately lit one of the cigarettes.

  Was Peter a leader of the Pimpfs, the junior branch of the Hitler Youth, Fräulein Strietzel asked the boy. No, he wasn’t, and it was difficult for her to understand that out here in the country they weren’t so interested in service with the Hitler Youth and the Pimpfs. Out in the Settlement, yes – but not here. He had a cold? Was that any reason to hide behind the stove? What would our soldiers out in the snow and ice say about that?

  •

  The boy put a piece of glucose candy in his mouth, and Katharina drew on her cigarette. Fräulein Strietzel went over to the window to see whether the car might be coming after all, but it was getting darker and darker, and in the end they showed her the sofa near the fireplace where she could lie down and get a little rest; there was plenty of time before supper. She did lie down, and fell asleep at once. She did not wake up until Vladimir the Pole brought in firewood, dropped it on the floor beside her, and took his chance to get a look at the new guest. He put a hatchet beside the wood.

  •

  When the smell of fried potatoes rose to her nostrils, she was wide awake. She was surprised to see a Pole walking in and out, just like that. Didn’t suc
h people get above themselves if you gave them so much as an inch, allowing them liberties that they could only dream of out in the steppes? In fact, wasn’t familiarity with them forbidden? Remember the massacre of Germans by the Poles in Bromberg, in 1939.

  •

  By the light of the oil lamp – there was a power cut again – they all had a plate of fried potatoes, pickles, and a slice of blood sausage, and the Globigs sat at the supper table and watched Fräulein Strietzel, who was a real artist, enjoying the meal. She had bad teeth, as they could all see.

  •

  It seemed strange to the young woman that they said grace before meals in this house; she scuffed her feet on the floor, listening. She wasn’t going to bother with all that God-in-heaven stuff and say prayers, not she. Of course there was a higher power, Fate or Providence, whatever you liked to call it, and there was something like that to be sensed in music – but so far as she was concerned the church was just big business. At home, she said, they had a book of maxims from which her Papa would sometimes quote: Goethe, Schiller, Dietrich Eckhart. She asked Peter if he knew any good rhymes? ‘Itsy-bitsy spider, climbing up the spout. Down came the rain and washed poor spider out.’

  •

  She ate heartily, now and then pointing to the dark portraits on the walls with her fork. She didn’t exactly describe them as daubs, but said they must date from the year dot. His Nibs of Nibs Castle, she expected. Then she asked if she could have another slice of blood sausage? She was terribly greedy, she said. It didn’t occur to her to get her ration coupons out of her bag; she hadn’t been asked for them in the field hospitals. In the field hospitals she had always been given second helpings, and no one asked for her coupons.

  •

  Over the stewed gooseberries, she told the Globigs about the new tanks that had moved into Mitkau. She had seen them for herself – here she clapped her hand to her mouth; should she be giving that away? – as well as the fabulous barricades being built there. Ivan the Russian would never get through those! Mitkau was becoming a regular fortress; there were experts at work, and the enemy would certainly break their teeth on the fortifications.