Last Train from Kummersdorf Page 4

  Effi shouted: ‘Why did you throw away your gun? Oh, I forgot, there wasn’t any ammo. Couldn’t we make catapults? There are enough stones back in that farmyard. Duck. Duck! Gourmet stuff.’ She accented the gourmet, and drew it out, long and husky. ‘Oh, sorry, Hitler Youth. I didn’t look at you, only at the ducks. I’ll look away now.’

  He made sure she really was looking away before he came out of the water. He thought she’d seen something, anyway, but not the important part, only his bum. He rubbed himself down with the towel and got his trousers on quickly. When she took the towel off him, he startled himself because he wanted to kiss her. Only he didn’t know how to start. He had kissed a girl before, but that was only Trude Streicher – it was easy with her, you just went up to her and took hold of her; she’d kiss anyone back. Wolfgang and Hanno had both done it. And there were stories that she’d go all the way if you tried it, but neither of them had.

  They went among the trees and found forked pieces of wood. He remembered that they’d need elastic if they wanted to make catapults.

  ‘We can use the stuff in my knickers,’ she said.

  He found himself laughing again.

  ‘I’ll take them off and put the elastic back afterwards.’ She made the schoolmistress face. ‘So no bad thoughts, young man.’

  She couldn’t say anything else, because the planes came over, flying lower than they had done before. Hanno dropped flat on his face and lay on the ground without moving, but some kind of little animal – a vole or a shrew – ran over his hand: lucky thing, he thought, on its way to its own private bunker. He could see each separate blade of grass and the pale sandy soil underneath. Then he felt Effi’s hand in his, felt her fingers lock round his: her palms were sweating.

  After the planes had gone, he said, ‘The birds have stopped singing.’

  ‘Maybe they’ve all gone away,’ she said. ‘Maybe the ducks have gone too.’ Her voice was quiet and shaken. Then it perked up. ‘Well, never mind, life goes on.’ She rolled over onto her back and stood up all in one movement. Hanno did the same, and not just to show her. He wanted to. She gave herself a shake, then turned a cartwheel without warning, bowling herself unerringly between two tree trunks. Then she bowed, smiling round her like a movie star; he could almost hear clapping.

  Who is she, he thought, where does she come from? A moment later the first bird began to sing.

  They came back into the farmyard: Hanno saw Effi stiffen and stop. There was a man standing there – waiting for us, Hanno thought, and his throat closed up. That’ll teach you to be happy, a nasty voice said inside him.

  *

  The man was dressed in a come-down suit of clothes, but Effi saw the strength of his back even while he tried to slouch. He took his hat off. He had army-cropped hair. Or police-cropped. It was a squashy civvy hat and he looked at it as if he didn’t recognize it. He waved to them and came over, stumbling round the heaps of wreckage. He was drunk.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘there is life here, after all.’

  Oh, that Nazi sarcasm, heavy as a bomb, any moment now he’d drop it on his toes and swear. And she hadn’t got rid of the boy yet. She didn’t want to think how she’d held his hand when the planes came over; it had been a moment’s weakness, she’d get over it.

  She thought about the knife in her pocket, but this fellow probably had a gun. Of course the boy knew how to shoot. If the man had a gun and if she could get it off him the boy could shoot him and then use it to bag a duck. If only.

  ‘I’ve got a car,’ said the man. ‘It’s on the main road, about a kilometre from here, but the petrol’s given out. There must have been a leak in the tank when I bought it. Any petrol here?’ He smelt of enough booze to tank his car up.

  ‘Mister,’ said Effi, ‘where do you expect us to get petrol from?’

  Then she noticed how the boy Hanno was staring at him.

  ‘Police Major Otto,’ he said.

  The man’s shoulders went up round his neck and his trigger-finger twitched, probably he’d come straight from torturing people and killing them, but now he was scared and angry, a beast on the run, more dangerous because he was drunk – and the boy was staring at him as if he hated him. Effi’s heart raced. Keep calm, she thought. She did the whistling under her breath again, ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’.

  ‘My name’s Braun,’ the man said, giving the boy an evil look. ‘I had a business in Berlin, but an incendiary got it. I’ve lost everything now the car’s gone.’

  Lies, thought Effi, you’ve probably got a dozen numbered bank accounts in Switzerland. Like Schulz.

  ‘I’m a diabetic,’ the man said roughly. ‘I never got called up. I suppose you’re a deserter, boy.’ He pulled a flask out of his pocket and swigged. Effi smelt cognac, worth any amount of food, and he was wasting it getting drunk. But he was used to not worrying about food, he smelt of meat as well as drink – real meat, not blue-stripe sausages made of cereal.

  ‘You used to be in the police in Sternberg,’ said Hanno.

  The man said: ‘What do you know about the police in Sternberg?’

  ‘I’m Johannes Frisch,’ said the boy. What was going on between them? ‘Captain Frisch’s son.’

  ‘Never heard of you,’ the man said, but he gave the boy a really wicked look now and the boy returned it; they stood there eyeing each other as if they were going to fight.

  There was a sound of planes again. No time to get to the stable so she ran for the cook-place. The boy came after her, then Braun-Otto was there beside them, all three of them skulking against the wall. The planes flew right over the yard and went away. They’d be back. There you are, thought Effi, while a small shiver ran all the way up her spine – a girl never has to feel lonely, people always turn up. Armies of them, even.

  What was Otto doing? He was reaching into his pocket – so he did have a gun, what was he going to do with it? He was holding it in front of him and playing with the trigger. Her heart drummed a scary solo. But she must act brainless, that’s what Aunt Annelie always said you had to do if it got sticky. ‘They think women have nothing between their ears, play up to it.’ Aunt Annelie had spent the last twelve years acting the good-hearted dumb blonde barmaid and in the end only the comrades knew how smart she was.

  ‘Herr Braun,’ Effi said. She’d better think of him as Braun, then she’d be less likely to slip up when she talked. ‘Please be nice to me, don’t fire that thing off.’ And rolled her eyes at him like stupid fat Zarah Leander in that Nazi feel-good film, The Great Love.

  Braun’s face turned cheese-white. Suddenly he ran out into the yard and threw up. The wastefulness of it, how could he spare the food? Only –

  ‘Come on,’ she whispered to the boy. ‘Run. Now.’

  He didn’t even hear her. He was waiting for Braun with that furious look on his face. It was too late now anyway, Braun was wiping his mouth and coming back. He was holding his gun properly now.

  He ignored the boy and started interrogating Effi.

  ‘Who are you, girl, what are you doing here? You’re from Berlin, aren’t you?’

  ‘Prenzlauer Berg. My aunt had a bar there. But it was bombed out and we went to stay with my other aunt out in Grunau but then we had to run away from the Russians. We were trying to go to my grandfather in Leipzig and I lost my aunt and – and my father died at Stalingrad, Herr Braun.’

  ‘Otto,’ said Hanno. ‘His name’s Otto. He was a veteran Nazi, he joined before the Führer came to power in 1933, he used to make a really big thing out of that. Now he’s running away.’

  Braun’s finger twitched against the trigger.

  ‘Stop yapping, boy.’

  ‘No,’ said Hanno.

  ‘Do as you’re told!’ Braun threatened him with the gun. At last the boy got the message and he shut up.

  ‘Prenzlauer Berg’s a bad area,’ said Braun to Effi. ‘Too many Communists there. Traitors.’

  ‘Oh, I love the Führer, Herr Braun, so do my aunts. I hate the Comm
unists, they’re in league with the Ivans.’

  He didn’t believe her, she could tell. He said: ‘How do you and the boy come to be together?’

  ‘He just turned up here today,’ she said. ‘His friends were all killed, but he’s not giving up. He’s going off to do werewolf actions. Sabotaging the enemy.’

  ‘Where had you been together when I met you?’

  ‘There’s a pretty lake, with fish in it. And ducks. We were thinking about eating duck – you could shoot us one, Herr Braun, we could all eat it together.’

  ‘A duck?’ Braun laughed. It was a bad laugh. ‘Why not? I might even let you have a bone or two to chew. But I don’t want to waste a bullet. You can catch us a duck, boy. You’d better. Or –’ and he pushed the gun muzzle towards Effi.

  At least now Hanno knew what a fool he’d been.

  ‘I don’t know how,’ he said.

  ‘Not so cocksure now, are you? You’d better have an idea. Quickly.’

  Effi said: ‘We were thinking about a catapult … Herr Braun, I’ve got to pee.’

  ‘Go round the back there. If you run for it I’ll know. I’ll shoot you.’

  She went behind the chimney and got the elastic out of her knickers. It wasn’t easy because her hands were trembling. How had she come to be the hostage in some kind of police feud? At least Braun wouldn’t know where the elastic came from. She stuffed her knickers in one pocket, kept the elastic out.

  ‘I’ve got this,’ she said. She took it to Hanno. ‘That’d do for the catapult, wouldn’t it?’

  Hanno’s eyes opened wide for a moment. He knew.

  There was the distant sound of planes again. Braun shut his eyes and muttered. There was something nearer. The sound of an explosion on the ground. Braun didn’t seem to hear, but it must be his car. And there was a rattle of bullets. Fighting on the main road.

  ‘We can’t stay out here,’ said Braun. ‘You, boy –’ he grinned, jeering at Hanno – ‘go for the duck and the girl can come in that stable with me. If you’re not back in forty-five minutes, I’ll shoot her.’

  Hanno went. Please, boy, she thought, don’t run out on me and leave me to die without my knickers on.

  When they got into the stable she couldn’t see anything because the sunlight had made a blue fog in her eyes. She sat down by feel. Slowly her vision cleared. She couldn’t hear the fighting any more, only the planes. It was dreadful not to know. She strained her ears in case people were running into the farmyard. Oh, why had Braun come? And the boy?

  Keep your head, Effi, she told herself. And make yourself look as if you had nothing but fluff inside it.

  Chapter Five

  The wood was full of frightened animals. Deer jumped away from Hanno, rusty squirrel tails shot up the trees and two foxes slid into the undergrowth. Somewhere quite close by there was more firing. Now even the trees stood still, fearful, listening. They could be killed, too.

  He had three-quarters of an hour to catch a duck, and no watch to time himself with. He’d been such a fool. When he’d seen Otto he’d got angrier than he could ever remember in his life because Otto was running away from the fighting when Father and Wolfgang were dead. He’d felt he could do anything. Even when he’d seen Otto’s gun it hadn’t made him careful. And now he’d put Effi’s life in danger. He should have done like her, sweet-talked Otto, pretended not to know him. He thought – he’d no idea why – that he ought to have known how vicious Otto was.

  He was almost at the lake. He had a pocket full of stones from the farmyard; now he had to find a piece of forked wood for his catapult. He thought he’d get it off one of the broken trees that were lying in the water. He ran, and all the time he saw Otto’s face, the fleshy jaw thrusting forward at him when he’d said whose son he was. He’d looked as if everything that had gone wrong for him was Hanno’s fault.

  He waded into the water and looked up and down one of the fallen trees for his catapult, but all of a sudden he couldn’t make himself concentrate. He wanted Wolfgang. It felt as if he couldn’t make the catapult properly without his twin to help him. He shook himself. It was worse than useless, mooning around like this.

  The firing moved away. How much time had he got left? But there was a thin forked branch and after all it was easy to break it into the right shape. He fetched out the elastic – Effi’s knicker elastic. His throat felt tight again.

  The ducks were still there, puttering around and quacking, their faces smug as ever, they looked like park ducks, ducks from a past he could still remember, when people used to stroll around in nice clothes on a Sunday and push sun-bonneted babies in prams and had bits of bread to spare for birds. They were just too far away, maybe they’d come if he pretended to throw food to them.

  He pulled some crumbly bark from a willow tree and scattered it on the surface, putting the elastic round the catapult’s fork and pulling it back. The ducks were too clever. They glanced at the bait and left it alone. Then he thought he’d wade into the water and see if he could get closer to them, but however gently he went, they swam away. One of them even took off and landed clumsily in a tree, but the rest only paddled out of range, squiggling the water behind them. Suddenly the thought of Wolfgang twisted in his stomach like a bayonet and he didn’t want to kill anything. He remembered how he’d aimed at a Russian and shot. The man had put his arms out and fallen down. Dead. I killed a man, he thought, maybe more than one. So why don’t I want to kill a duck?

  Anyway, he had to.

  There was a thrashing of leaves. There were deer running towards the lake. They splashed off the further bank and sprang through the shallows. The ducks took off and flew towards Hanno, landing like seaplanes, braking with their feet. They were only a metre or so away from him. He put a stone in the elastic, pulled back, and let go. He wasn’t sure if he’d hit anything, then he saw a duck lying dazed in the water: the rest were up in the air and making for the trees. He reached for the duck and there was a commotion beneath it. Something had hold of the feet. Quickly, he grasped the neck and put his hand under the belly. There was a pike there, it wanted to eat the duck too. He thought they might pull the duck in half between them, and again he didn’t want to kill the duck, but he knew he had to. Angrily, he kicked towards the brute, then remembered Father saying pike sometimes attacked people. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to lose this fight.

  The pike let go. Hanno waded out of the water. Then he remembered the catapult, with Effi’s elastic. He’d dropped it and it was bobbing up and down out there. He waded out to it. The duck was moving feebly under his arm. He was going to have to wring its neck.

  He didn’t know how to do it and it took far too long. He felt sick before he’d finished. Then he ran back to the farm, terrified he’d hear a shot, but when he got back to the stable Effi was sitting there chattering to Otto about how much she loved the Führer. Then she had to pretend to go and pee again. Luckily, Otto let her go.

  *

  ‘Right,’ said Otto when Effi came back. ‘Get that thing plucked.’

  ‘I’ve never plucked a duck before,’ she said, giving a silly giggle. ‘I’ve plucked a chicken, is it the same?’

  She took the duck from Hanno, sat down cross-legged and started tugging at the feathers.

  ‘You start plucking a duck from the tail,’ said Otto, and he got his flask out again and drank. It was a silver flask with engraving on it. ‘You won’t find it easy.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Effi, ‘do you know how to do it, Herr Braun?’

  ‘I’ve watched it done,’ said Otto. ‘It’s women’s work.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Effi, and giggled again. Then she started to attack the tail feathers. Fluffy bits of down flew up and settled in her hair, landed on her face, and drifted through the air. There were filaments of duck-down on Hanno’s dirty trousers.

  Otto stared at Hanno. His eyes were bright blue, but not soft, like forget-me-nots or the sky. They were like blue glass, a hard clear colour without a trace of grey i
n them.

  ‘All right, boy,’ he said, pouring more cognac down his throat. ‘I know who you are. Bernhard Frisch’s son. And stupid as your father, I see. But I’m not Otto, I’m Braun. Have you got enough wits to understand that now?’

  Effi gave Hanno a look. He nodded, and kept his mouth shut.

  The plucking didn’t look easy. The duck-down went everywhere, coming out with the big feathers. Effi sneezed. Hanno felt something hairlike at the back of his throat. He shoved his finger down to try and get it out, but it stayed there. It was disgusting. He coughed.

  ‘Stop that noise!’ said Otto. ‘Both of you.’

  ‘If he went to the pump,’ said Effi, ‘he could get a drink of water, Herr Braun.’

  Otto thought. ‘Go and come back quickly. Or else –’

  Hanno went, and drank. Now at least his throat felt better.

  When he came in Otto was sprawled in the corner, shaking his flask. ‘It’s all gone,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Effi in a prim, mousy voice.

  ‘I should have had more,’ Otto said. ‘It stinks. And here I am with Frisch’s boy, and that really stinks. Where is the fellow, anyway? Has he deserted too?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ said Hanno. ‘He died fighting the Russians.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that? Rats don’t die easily, they know how to get themselves out of trouble.’ Otto laughed. ‘He knew how to make friends for himself, I’ll grant him that. And how to watch his back.’

  Hanno felt the rage flare up in him again. He pushed his lips together.

  Effi stifled a cough. ‘This stuff is horrible, it gets down your throat.’

  Otto pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and tossed it to her. ‘Put this over your face and stop complaining.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Effi. ‘Herr Braun, you’re a real gent.’

  Otto said to Hanno: ‘Your father was a criminal. A bad element. A disgrace to the police force. But a rat. A clever rat.’