officer. I've entered you on a list of security officers and especially valued friends of the Party. You will receive regular parcels by courier at your divisional headquarters.'
'Thank you,' said Lenard. 'But I'd prefer to eat what everyone else does.'
Chalb spread his hands in helpless surprise.
'What about Manstein?' asked Lenard. 'I've heard he's received some new weapons.'
'I don't believe in Manstein,' said Chalb. 'On that subject I share the views of our commander-in-chief.'
In the hushed voice of a man who for years on end has dealt mainly with classified information, he went on:
'There's another list, also in my keeping, of security officers and valued friends who will be allowed a place on a plane in the event of a catastrophe. I've included your name. In the event of my absence, Colonel Osten will be in possession of the instructions.'
Noticing the questioning look in Lenard's eyes, he explained: 'I may have to fly to Germany – in connection with a matter too confidential to be entrusted either to paper or to a radio code.
'I can tell you one thing,' he said with a wink, 'I'll have a few stiff drinks before we take off. Not to celebrate, but because I'll be frightened. A very large number of our planes are being shot down.'
'Comrade Chalb,' said Lenard, 'I don't want a seat in the plane. I'd be ashamed to abandon men whom I myself have urged to fight to the bitter end.'
Chalb sat a little straighter in his chair. 'I have no right to attempt to dissuade you.'
Wanting to lighten the over-solemn atmosphere, Lenard asked: 'If it's possible, I'd be very grateful if you could help me return to my regiment. I've no car.'
'There's nothing I can do,' said Chalb. 'For the first time in my life I'm quite powerless. The petrol's in the hands of that dog Schmidt. I can't get a single litre out of him. Do you understand? I'm powerless.' His face had resumed the helpless expression that had made him unrecognizable when Lenard first came in. It was quite unlike him. Or did it perhaps reveal his true self?
34
It got warmer towards evening and a fresh snowfall covered the soot and dirt of the war. Bach was doing the rounds of the front-line fortifications. The white snow of Christmas glittered in the flashes of gunfire, turning pink or green in the light of the signal-flares.
The stone ridges, the caves, the mounds of brick, the fresh hare-tracks that covered the ground where people ate, relieved themselves, went in search of shells and cartridges, carried away their wounded, buried their dead – all this looked very strange in the brief flashes of light. And at the same time it looked all too familiar.
Bach reached a spot that was covered by the Russian guns installed in the ruins of a three-storey building. He could hear the sound of a harmonica and their slow, wailing singing. Through a gap in the wall he could see the Soviet front line, the silhouettes of factories and the frozen Volga.
Bach called out to the sentry, but his answer was drowned by a sudden explosion followed by the drumming of clods of frozen earth against the wall. A low-flying Russian plane, its engine cut out, had just dropped a bomb.
'Another lame Russian crow,' said the sentry, pointing up at the dark winter sky.
Bach squatted down, leaning his elbows on the familiar stone ledge, and looked round. A faint pink shadow trembled against the high wall – the Russians had lit their stove and the chimney was now white-hot. It seemed they had nothing to do all day except eat, eat, eat and slurp down huge mouthfuls of hot coffee.
Further to the right, where the Russian and German trenches were closest together, he could hear the quiet, unhurried sound of metal striking frozen earth.
Very slowly, without ever coming up to the surface, the Russians were bringing their trench forward. This slow movement through the frozen, stony earth bore witness to a fierce, obtuse passion; it was as though the earth itself were advancing.
That afternoon Sergeant Eisenaug had reported that a grenade from a Russian trench had smashed the chimney pipe of the company stove and filled the dug-out with dirt. Later on a Russian soldier wearing a white sheepskin and a new fur hat had leapt out from his trench, cursing and shaking his fist.
Realizing instinctively that this was a spontaneous act, none of the Germans had opened fire.
'Hey! Chicken, eggs, Russian glug-glug?' the soldier had shouted. A German had then jumped up and, in a quiet voice that wouldn't be heard in the officers' trench, called out:
'Hey! Russian! Don't shoot! Must see Mother again. You have my tommy-gun, I have your hat.'
The reply from the Russian trench had been curt and monosyllabic. Its sense had been unmistakeable and had enraged the Germans.
Still later a hand-grenade had exploded in the communication trench. But no one had been bothered by this.
All this had been reported by Sergeant Eisenaug. Bach had said: 'Let them shout if that's what they want. As long as no one deserts…'
Eisenaug, his breath stinking of raw beetroot, had gone on to report that Private Petenkoffer had somehow managed to do a deal with the enemy: some Russian bread and lump sugar had been found in his knapsack. He had promised to exchange a friend's razor for a chunk of fat bacon and two packets of buckwheat. For this he had demanded a commission of 150 grams of fat bacon.
'That's simple enough,' Bach had replied. 'Order him to report to me at once!'
It had then emerged that Petenkoffer had been killed that morning while carrying out a dangerous mission.
'What do you expect me to do about it?' Bach had said in exasperation. 'In any case, Russians and Germans have always been trading partners.'
Eisenaug, however, had been in no mood for pleasantries. He had been wounded in France in May 1940 and his wound still hadn't healed. He had then served in a police battalion in South Germany. He had been flown to Stalingrad only two months before. Hungry, frozen, eaten up by lice and by fear, he had lost whatever sense of humour he might once have had.
It was over there, where he could just make out the lacework of ruined buildings, that Bach had begun his life in Stalingrad. The black September sky and its huge stars, the turbid waves of the Volga, the huge walls that were still hot from the fire – and then the steppes of the South-East, the frontier of Asia…
The buildings to the west were buried in darkness. He could only make out the outlines of a few snow-covered ruins.
Why had he written that letter to his mother from hospital? She'd almost certainly have shown it to Hubert. Why had he had those conversations with Lenard?
Why do people have memories? It would be easier to die-anything to stop remembering. How could he have taken that moment of drunken folly for the deepest truth of his life? Why had he finally given in after holding back for all those long, difficult years?
He had never killed a child; he had never arrested anyone. But he had broken the fragile dyke that had protected the purity of his soul from the seething darkness around him. The blood of the camps and ghettos had gushed over him and carried him away… There was no longer any divide between him and the darkness; he himself was a part of the darkness.
What had happened to him? Was it folly, chance? Or was it the deepest law of his soul?
35
It was warm inside the bunker. A few of the soldiers were asleep, their bare yellow feet sticking out from under the overcoats they had pulled up over their heads; the rest were sprawled on the floor.
'Do you remember?' asked one particularly thin soldier, pulling his shirt across his chest and examining the seam with the fierce look characteristic of soldiers the world over as they inspect their shirts and underclothes. 'Do
