The Karnau Tapes (26 page)

'But at Lanke you said, "Look, there are strawberries growing in the garden." Why can't we have some now? Aren't they ripe yet?'

'No, they aren't.'

'Can we go outside, outside the Bunker, when the strawberries are ripe? Then we can pick some ourselves.'

Mama starts to cry behind her hand. She gets up from the table and goes into her room. She slams the door, but we can still hear her crying. It's quite quiet for a little while. We can hear her crying through the steel door, through the thick Bunker wall.

'Why do you have to keep getting on Mama's nerves, all of you?' I say. 'She does everything for us. She darns the holes in our clothes and sews on our buttons and cooks our meals every day. Where do you expect her to get strawberries from? Do you want her to get shot out there, just for the sake of your silly strawberries?'

No one wants that. They all stare at the floor and say nothing. Mama is still crying in her room. It's so dreary here. Dreary sugar, dreary sugar bowl, dreary spoon and fork — everything's dreary. You have to live inside yourself down here, there's no room anywhere else. Dreary table, dreary floor. There's nowhere to go. The rooms are dreary too, and so is the lighting. You can't go anywhere, you can only roam around inside yourself, to and fro, back and forth. The dogs are the only ones you could call cheerful. Coco roams around too. He always thinks you've got something in your hand he might like to eat. We'll never get out of here.

Mama comes out of her room. Her eyes are red. 'Well,' she says, 'do you plan to spend the rest of the day sitting here like statues?'

'Could we go and see the garage?' Helmut asks. 'When we got here, Papa's chauffeur said he was going to take the cars to the garage.'

'It's much too far, Helmut, we'd have to walk along miles of passages. Why not ask Herr Schwagermann what the garage looks like, I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you. Listen: the guns have stopped. Perhaps we could go for a stroll in the Chancellery garden. Shall we ask one of the guards if it's all right for you to go and play in the fresh air?'

We all put our jackets on. Hilde and I help the younger ones with them while Mama goes looking for a guard. As soon as she comes back she says, 'Well, are you ready? The sentry says things are quiet at the moment.'

Everything looks quite different outside, we notice that at once. Before, there was just a stretch of grass; now there's a deep, sandy hole where a tree has been blown out of the ground. The little ones dash over to it and start digging. We can shelter from the Russians and the shells behind the root ball, which is huge. Hilde tugs my sleeve.

'Look over there, Helga. You see all that rubble? That's where we walked a few days ago, when we got here.'

'Yes, and the pillars have gone too.'

'They're still lying there, smashed to bits.'

'Look at the holes in the roof.'

'It's bound to collapse before long.'

Mama also sees how much damage the bombs have done. We don't dare look across at our house — we don't even look in that direction. The soldiers defending us are hidden in the buildings all around. Are they really just children, or was Mama exaggerating? The air is still. The sentry sitting up there in the tower will warn us if things get dangerous. We can walk around for a bit, in between the heaps of rubble and debris. How will they ever rebuild this place? The street is completely blocked. Heide, Hedda and Helmut are playing tag. It's wonderful to be able to breathe some fresh air and swing our arms, the Bunker's far too cramped for that. Holde looks up at the sky.

'There's a plane up there, see?'

Helmut stops running around and points at the clouds. 'Yes, it'll soon be overhead.'

'Mama, why can't we get in a plane and fly away?’

*

Herr Karnau's the only grown-up here who isn't crazy. The others are nice to us too, but they all act strange in some way. He's the only one you don't feel is hiding something. He even tells me about his secret chocolate hunt.

'Helga,' he says, 'can we have a quick word in private?'

I follow him into our room. What does he want to tell me? Is the war over? Has something happened to Mama or Papa? No, he wouldn't be looking so cheerful if something was wrong. He shuts the door behind us and produces a bar of chocolate from his pocket.

'That's terrific. Where did you get it?'

'I can't tell you that. Just between the two of us, there'll be hell to pay if someone notices it's gone.'

'You mean you pinched it?'

'Can you really call it that, when it's a question of finding Hedda a birthday present?'

'Maybe not...'

'You see? We won't talk about it any more, but you must promise to hide it somewhere safe. No one but you must know where it is. Not your mother, not the others — no one. And please don't bring it out until Hedda's birthday. Nobody must know about this bar of chocolate. If you leave the Bunker before May the fifth you must leave it behind, understand? That's so no one finds it on the journey. Promise?'

'Yes, I promise. The best place to hide it would be — '

'No, don't tell me. No one must know that but you.'

Herr Karnau kept his word, even if he did steal the chocolate from somewhere. He turns his back so as not to see where I hide it. Under my pillow? No, if the others crawl into my bunk again they may notice it. But here, under the mattress, that's a good place, no one will look there. Herr Karnau still has his back turned. Since he trusts me so much, he won't pass on that awful thing Mama said today.

'Herr Karnau? You know that man whose name sounds like a wild animal — Leopard, or something ...'

'Professor Gebhardt, you mean?'

'That's right, Herr Gebhardt. He paid a visit to the Bunker last night, and he asked Mama — I could overhear her and Papa talking beforehand without meaning to, I know it's wrong to eavesdrop, but they were talking so loudly I couldn't help hearing every word — anyway, Herr Gebhardt suggested taking us all out of here. He wanted to save us, he wanted us to leave with him right away, with the Red Cross, but Mama . .. Instead of saying yes, she said we didn't want to go at all, she said we'd much rather stay. But it simply isn't true, we'd give anything to get out of this place!'

'Don't cry, Helga. Come here, that's right. You must have misheard. Why should your mother have said such a thing? She only wants what's best for you all.'

'No, she doesn't.'

'You mustn't talk like that, Helga.'

'We're all going to die.'

'What on earth gives you that idea?'

'We're all going to die very soon.'

'Stop it, Helga.'

'Mama and Papa want us all to die. Mama didn't want us to bring any night things, she didn't even think we'd be alive in the morning.'

'She was confused, that's all. She doesn't want her six darling children to die, Helga, you don't believe that yourself.'

'So why does she act this way?'

'Things aren't going too well at present, as you know, but you can rest assured that everyone in this place will do their utmost to prevent anything bad from happening to you children. They'd lay down their lives for you, every last one of them.'

'Really?'

'Really and truly.'

Herr Karnau looks straight at me, and his eyelids don't twitch. If Herr Karnau says something, you can believe it. Even if no one else was prepared to help us, Herr Karnau would. Hilde knocks on the door.

'Are you in there, Helga?’

*

The lavatory door is locked. There must be someone inside. There always is, when you're in a hurry.

'Hello? Is that you, Mama?'

No answer. I bang on the door, but that doesn't do any good either. How much longer?

Mama still doesn't answer. Perhaps she's feeling ill again. Is there another loo somewhere? Not on this floor, but there must be one downstairs. There must be, because they don't all come up here when they need to go. I'll have to go down there on my own, that's all. It's forbidden, really, but I'm the eldest, I can't do it in my knickers. Mama would be angry, she'd have to wash them. We've brought so few things with us.

I don't meet anyone on the stairs, but I can hear people working down below, they're talking in a room along the passage. Maybe this is the loo, this door at the foot of the stairs. There's no one to ask, but who cares? If there's no one around, no one will mind.

It
is
a loo. It smells awful, but I can't wait. I wouldn't have time to run back upstairs and try our own loo again. What a disgusting place. I need to pee, badly. I can't sit down, the seat's too dirty. You have to hold your breath in here, there's such a stench. Perhaps it's only a men's loo.

Someone's been scribbling on the tiles. We're never allowed to draw on lavatory walls, not at home and not upstairs. There's a girl's face, very rough, just a few lines. She's smiling with her arms behind her head so you can't see her hands under her long hair. She's naked, with huge breasts and big nipples. Her legs are apart, and there are lots of black squiggles between them. They're meant to be hair, I suppose. What sort of person would draw a picture like that?

Any loo paper? Yes, just a little bit left on the roll. Now out of here, quick. Thank goodness, it doesn't smell out here. I can still hear someone talking in the room along the passage, only one man's voice, though he's talking to someone else. The door is ajar. When he sees me peering through the crack he beckons me in and points to a chair and goes on speaking into his mouthpiece. It's the telephone operator.

He puts through one call after another, quickly plugging the cables into the switchboard. An urgent call comes through from outside. The telephonist takes off his head-set and goes into the room next door. A soldier hurries in and speaks into the mouthpiece, the telephonist comes over to me.

'Lost your way, Helga?'

'No, there was someone in the loo upstairs.'

'Well, so now you've seen our switchboard.'

'Is it fun, telephoning all the time?'

'The calls aren't for me, but I overhear a lot of interesting stuff.'

'Could we make a phone call some time?'

'Not today, there are too many urgent calls coming in. Maybe tomorrow will be a bit quieter. Who did you want to call?'

'I don't know, really ...'

The switchboard buzzes, so he has to put his head-set on again. He smiles at me and shrugs his shoulders. 'Back to work,' he says.

*

The Russians are coming, we can hear their boots on the stairs. We get into the kennel and hide at the very back. The dogs don't move, they know they've got to protect us. We crouch down so the Russians won't see us. Coco's fur is tickling my face. Are we crouching down low enough, so the Russians won't even see the tops of our heads? They're quite close now, we'd better hold our breath. Will they shoot us? Is it time for us to die? The footsteps come nearer. The dogs start to fidget, but they stay where they are. The kennel smells, they must have done it on the floor where we're hiding. My hand is all wet, but it doesn't matter, not now. If we hold our breath we can't smell the dog dirt. A man's voice in the passage: 'Come out of there.'

Is he a Russian? Does he know we're in here? Is he going to take us away with him? Where are Mama and Papa? Where are all the others? Why is it so quiet? Don't breathe, whatever you do. Only a little longer. I hope the others manage to hold their breath too.

'Come out of there at once.'

The footsteps are really close. We can hear someone breathing outside. The dogs are getting restless, shifting from paw to paw. He's right in front of the bars, he's bound to notice that the door isn't shut properly. Now we're for it. The kennel door creaks open, the dogs back away, pushing us up against the wall. We don't look, we don't look at the door. The dogs move aside. He's coming in, we can see his black boots. 'Come on out,' he says. 'What are you doing in there?'

I catch a glimpse of his hair. He's so huge, he can see us over the top of the dogs. 'Why are you hiding in there?' he says. 'It's far too dirty.'

It's Herr Stumpfecker. He holds out his arms. Is he going to strangle us? 'Come on, children,' he says, 'this is no place for you. Your mother's looking for you upstairs.'

We can't stand up, we're too scared. Will he really not hurt us? He's found us now, so we'd better come out. 'Come upstairs with me,' Herr Stumpfecker says. 'You can wash your hands up there. Everything's all right, what on earth's the matter with you? Fancy getting in with the dogs. It never occurred to us ...'

He shakes his head and smiles at us in a funny way. There's a big scar over his left eye, it twitches now and then. We scurry past him and run up the stairs to Mama, who's waiting in the passage. We've shaken off Herr Stumpfecker, thank goodness. Mama looks relieved to see us.

'You're all out of breath. Why were you running like that?'

'We were frightened. We wanted to get back to you as fast as we could.'

'Where have you been hiding?'

'Down in the dog kennel.'

'But you're not supposed to go down there by yourselves.'

'We only wanted to telephone.'

'Telephone?'

'Yes. The man said we could make a phone call today, but it's no good now, all the lines are cut.'

'Sit down, all of you, and let me comb your hair nicely. We're going for a walk along the underground passages. Papa's coming too. He only just got up. They were working all night down there.'

'Where are we going?'

'To another air-raid shelter, for a party with some city folk.'

'Will there be children there too?'

'Of course.'

'What kind of party?'

'We're going there to say good — ' Mama stops short. Papa has just appeared in the doorway.

He must have heard us, because he says, 'It's just a little treat for the people in the air-raid shelter, that's all.'

He's carrying a basket filled with presents for them. The shells are landing right above our heads now, everything's shaking. We haven't been allowed outside for days. I hope we don't have to walk very far. The lights in the long passageway flicker suddenly. They'd better not go out or we'd get lost in this labyrinth, but they keep on flickering. We walk quite slowly, so it takes ages to get there. At last we come out in a room where a nurse is waiting for us. There must be an underground hospital here, because doctors walk past in gowns with bloodstains on them. Some wounded men are led in, hardly able to stand. One has his whole head bandaged. His head is so flat at the sides, I can tell he doesn't have any ears. 'Why is he done up like that, Mama?' Heide asks.