Authors: Ben Pastor
Yes, old matchmaking Nefedovna would never tell me any of this, and probably neither would the sexton
.
Kostya’s hens came in handy. Still, I can’t tell him we should be thankful they shot his pets; he’s surely nonplussed that I’m interested in Krasny Yar
. Bora left the corner of the desk. “You’ve done a good job, Kostya. Keep your ears open, and if you track down somebody who survived going into the Yar, see that you bring him – or her – here for questioning.”
There was still time before evening to receive a politically uncomfortable visit. Bora dealt with it as well as he could. His headache lasted into the night, and he was able to fall asleep only after finishing the aquavit Lattmann had given him.
Sunday 9 May
Jubilate Sunday at the Merefa outpost; Mothering Sunday in the Reich. If I recall well, today’s introit to the Mass reads, “Let all the
Earth rejoice unto God”. Leibnizian optimism about us living “in the best of all possible worlds”. Too sick last night to put down the day’s events, which I summarize below.
1. Regarding Platonov’s wife and daughter, I saw no advantage in dilly-dallying or sweetening the pill, much less in blaming it on orders I’d received. The worst of it was that both of them took the news of their relative’s hasty burial and their future detention as if they expected nothing else of us. Selina Nikolayevna coldly reminded me that I had lied to them all along, first by letting them believe her husband was still alive, then by promising they would remain free. As for Avrora Glebovna, I can’t blame her for the contempt she showed towards me. Within the hour, they were both on a southbound train, under armed escort. Why is it that I get nauseous when I’m under stress? Good thing I’d skipped the midday meal, otherwise I’d have vomited it and half my stomach up as soon as I’d left Nitichenko’s
shatka
with the two of them.
2. My problem then was what to do with the old biddy, the priest’s mother. I specifically asked Avrora Glebovna how much she and her mother had shared with Nefedovna concerning their relative (imprisonment, death, etc). She answered, “Nothing. Possible.” As former “enemies of the people” they must have learnt to hold their tongues with friends and foes alike. The hag, busybody and matchmaker to the end, seems to think I had a fling with Avrora, or at least tried to. Well, she looks so much like my wife that I had difficulty keeping my eyes off her, but I’m faithful to Dikta, and that’s all I have to say about it. I think I’ll let old Nefedovna be, on account of what else I might discover about the Krasny Yar mystery through her, and because I’d complicate my life even more if I had her arrested. I dislike her a great deal, though. If her house stood on chicken legs and rotated at will, I’d say she was the witch from the Russian tale.
3. In this warm climate you soon won’t be able to stand under the balcony where Mantau’s unfortunate babushkas are hanging. If, as he says, one or more of them were Soviet agents, before even gaining access to the prisoner’s cell they would have had
to know he would only eat candy bars and also have managed to plant a poisoned piece among the others – coincidentally, the very one he happened to bite into the following day. If there’s any official Russian responsibility for the incident (here I disagree with Colonel Bentivegni) they will claim it soon, as they always admit to the punishment of traitors and diversionists. In that case, the task given me by the colonel will find an automatic solution, and Mantau will face the blame of losing a prize defector during his watch (and thank God the babushkas ended up going to him and not to me). This would imply: a. Soviet decision-makers knew Khan was in German hands
and
had been forcibly transferred into an RSHA facility, and b. a team of their workers/agents was quickly infiltrated and diverted to the place where the execution could be carried out. We’ll see.
4. Thanks to the set of keys I kept for my own use, I returned to our former detention centre and went through it in detail, to ensure that neither of our prize inmates had left anything others could discover and use. It’s been my experience that detainees (and even special guests on occasion) often idle away the time scribbling numbers or names. They’re seldom of use, but I wanted to make sure. All I could find – and it avails me nothing – were the Platonov women’s initials on the edge of the general’s table, traced by him with the pencil I left him the evening before his death. Khan, who at least three times during our brief conversation looked on the verge of telling me something (maybe only that he acknowledged our distant tie), left nothing behind. But then, why should he? He had every reason to expect he’d be soon transferred with all honours to Berlin.
Regarding my lie to Mantau about the T-34’s location, still no news from Badger Face, although before nightfall I did receive a visit from a
Leibstandarte
captain who didn’t bother to introduce himself by name. He threatened me (nothing specific: he must know Schallenberg is my quasi-father-in-law), just the usual “You watch yourself”, “Mind your step”, “We know you” and the like, the array of innuendos I’ve collected in the past two years. “For
what?” I replied. “It’s true that I had the tank taken to the Tractor Factory.” He limps and has a birthmark on his cheek, so I’ll be able to track him down, and as God is my witness, I will gather some dirt on him for future reference.
Note: last Friday Metropolitan Aleksei of the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church was murdered, apparently at the orders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), for having withdrawn his support from a treaty with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, its rival in the region. Can we ever hope to make sense of all this?
Major Boeselager sent me a Cossack captain, who came complete with red stripes on his breeches and
shashka
sabre, and potentially brings a squadron (
sotnia
) with him. He’s (according to Boeselager) the touchstone against which the prowess of Russian-born elements is to be measured. His spoken German is so flawless that at first one is enchanted, and then grows suspicious.
Why
does he know our language so well? I wasn’t at my best, so my feelers were only working part-time. I’ll have to do some thorough background checking on him. Not because I don’t trust Boeselager’s judgement (he’s an outstanding officer), but because under Old White Head I learnt to be wary.
When the day was done, I fell asleep doing paperwork (thanks also to Bruno’s aquavit). A chair being worse than a camp bed, I had nightmares all night. This morning, the headache’s gone; no more fever as far as I can tell. I feel shaky like a sick cat, but it’ll pass.
The sound of a car engine interrupted him. Bora rose to his feet, released the safety catch on his pistol and finished writing in haste.
Must close it here: I can see a staff car approaching the schoolyard.
He slipped a sheet of blotting paper into the diary before closing it, and threw it into his trunk.
Wine-red piping identified the newcomer as a member of the judiciary even before he said, “Heeresrichter Kaspar Bernoulli, of the Armed Forces War Crimes Bureau. I think I know your stepfather.”
Bora saluted, and shook the hand the judge stretched out to him. Surprised as he was, he thought,
Ah, yes. The world is divided between those who know my stepfather and those who knew my natural father.
He bowed his head in acknowledgement, as he always did in these cases, because a son necessarily stands for the absent.
“He’d have made Field Marshal, had he not retired.”
The observation made Bora uncomfortable. General Sickingen’s political unorthodoxy was a sore point, although less now than in the past. Ever since the war had started, the old man had learnt to watch his outspokenness in order not to harm his son and stepson’s careers. Still, it was highly unlikely that he would have agreed to become a Field Marshal in the National Socialist army. “My stepfather belongs to his day,” he limited himself to saying. And then he added, so as not to appear discourteous, “Welcome to Merefa, Dr Bernoulli. May I ask on what occasion you happened to meet him?”
The military judge glanced towards the graves at the end of the schoolyard, a quick, acute glance. “Oh, centuries ago. Well, not centuries – twenty years ago, at least. Your stepfather was just back from his anti-Bolshevik post-war duties in Finland and Poland… I’d served in East Prussia, myself.”
Bora made another curt bow of the head. It all kept revolving around those early years somehow: Uncle Terry’s beginnings, the dead at Krasny Yar; Platonov too, who’d reaped his first military successes at that time. A pinch of seconds sufficed for him to conjure up the balalaikas, Cossack ammunition belts and other tasteless souvenirs from Sickingen’s
Freikorps
adventure, stuff his mother graciously agreed to keep – but in the smoking room, where actually no one went, given the general’s aversion to tobacco. For a moment he was standing simultaneously here and in the tall-ceilinged hall, where hunting
trophies from Grandfather Wilhelm Heinrich (who’d made it to Field Marshal, and how!) also decked the walls. It was possible to imagine a military judge in the
Freikorps
, but barely. That venture had managed to prolong the Great War bloodshed by four years at least.
“What brings me here,” Bernoulli went on, “I believe you know, as it was your report that called our attention to the Merefa schoolyard matter.”
Almost too good to be true. “Consider me at your complete disposal,” Bora said. “I can show you the site at once if you wish – it’s right here. Or, if you prefer, I can first share the additional photographs and notes I’ve taken since the bodies were discovered early in April.”
The schoolyard matter, of course, meant the shallow mass grave where executed German prisoners had been buried, some of them apparently still alive; Bora’s men had found them in the process of cleaning up rubble to set up the outpost. From under those bodies, two packed layers of civilian victims had been unearthed, still unidentified save the highly decorated remains of the Alexandrovka schoolmaster, whom a local peasant had recognized thanks to –
Georgji, Vladimir and Anna
– his Great War medals.
Bernoulli, who had come alone with nothing but a briefcase, driving a small car, displayed a rare lack of officialdom. He courteously said, “Show me the evidence first, please,” adding, “The Bureau takes all reports very seriously,” perhaps to explain his errand in Russia at this stage of the war, when millions had already perished. “This instance in particular – two distinct cases of mass execution – could not be ignored. I was sent directly from Berlin: Dr Goldsche’s office. You seem surprised, Major Bora: why?”
Leading the way to the burials, Bora explained. “I hardly dared hope the Bureau Chief himself would send an enquirer.”
“Yes? Did you not repeatedly notify us of violations committed by the Soviet Army and the NKVD? Your name figures on
reports you have written ever since your headquarters days in Cracow. The Soviets’ massacre of Polish officers at Tomaszow, the Skalny Pagorek incident at the hands of our own Security Service – you see I have a good memory. It struck me when in one case you mentioned the principle of
actio libera in causa
. It’s not often that a young company commander recognizes a soldier’s responsibility for his acts even when the man’s under the influence of alcohol.”
“If he chose to become intoxicated, he’s doubly responsible as far as I’m concerned.”
An enigmatic expression appeared on the judge’s face. “The voice of one who cries in the wilderness, eh?”
If those deliberate words weren’t underlined by discouragement, then it was pity, or else impotence: Bora didn’t dare wish for doggedness. Having reached the row of graves, he stated the obvious. “I could not wait to have our men’s bodies re-buried. We had an early thaw, and it had to be done.”
“I understand. Dr Goldsche sent me as soon as he heard, but I was delayed on the way. I should have been here two weeks ago.”
Bernoulli had a severe, narrow-chinned face, somewhat sad. Shaven-headed, dark-eyed, he seemed to Bora for some reason the kind of controlled man who is not ashamed of shedding tears in private over what moves him. If he thought about how he’d learnt in the past two years to show less and less, even though he felt more and more…
We all have our ways of coping
, he told himself. He watched the judge put down the briefcase and take out his spectacles as he stood by him near the graves, in the shade of the trees at this hour of the morning.
“Well, Major Bora, I think it was Goethe who said, ‘The highest thing man can achieve is wonderment.’ Wonderment as an astonished state, beyond which one is not to reach. The Romantics’ Sublime, maybe, to be found in extreme beauty as well as in horror. My legally trained mind rejects extremes, plays literally by the rules, but it’s whatever informs the rules – the
Principle
– that brings me here.”
“I imagined as much, especially as the Soviets did not sign the 1929 Geneva Convention.”
“You knew that as far back as Poland.”
“I knew that as far back as Spain, Dr Bernoulli, which is when I first faced the Reds as enemies. In Poland – well, the truce with them was mutually agreed upon.”
Fourteen markers delineated spaces like beds in a dormitory; the narrow interval between one and the next was just enough to rest one’s boots in. Dirt had been packed onto the mounds with the backs of shovels; pebbles lined their perimeter. On each neatly cut pinewood cross a shingle was nailed, reading “German Soldier” on it, but not the dead man’s helmet; helmets were more useful these days to preserve those who were still living. Bernoulli leant over to pick up a storm-tossed leaf from the ground.