Tin Sky (55 page)

Bora sensed an odd relief. “When things come to an end around here, they really do.”

“Uh-huh. As long as we don’t have to memorize
Nyema piva, nyema vina, do svidania Ukraina
. Already there’s scarcity of beer and wine – it’d be too bad to have to say ‘goodbye to Ukraine’ as well.”

“I remain optimistic. Here’s Russki tobacco – best I could do for you.”

“My pipe thanks you. Say, I have a titbit about Odilo Mantau, too, that paragon of brightness: it seems one of his overinflated tyres blew up the other day while he was driving along a ridge road, and he plunged into the ravine with all he had. Well, he didn’t die, but he won’t see action for the remainder of the war.” With a critical grin, Lattmann looked Bora over. “Spurs, leather seat of the pants: off to
Gothland
for keeps, I see.”

“Correct. Nagel will be here in an hour to pick me up. The regiment’s moving out soon.”

Bespalovka, Regimental Camp
Gothland
, 7.29 p.m.

Few things are as beautiful, as deceptively serene as grass fires just before night comes. What breath of wind there is rakes their smoke gently to one side, all in the same direction, close to the ground. Like braids of milk, if milk could be braided. The immensity of this land, where time is absorbed to the extent of ceasing to be, becomes so harmless and tender, I have filial feelings towards it. Was I ever hostile towards it? Not towards this land, per se. I can walk on it and touch it, crumble its soil under my fingertips and recognize its essential goodness. It was the same in Spain, when my boyish fury against the enemy (it was six years ago!) had nothing to do with the mountains and the rock walls among which we killed one another. Riscal Amargo, the
Bitter Cliff
, was sweet to me all the same, and not only because it was there that I first heard about Remedios. And so Palo de la Virgen, so Huerta de Santa Olalla, so Concud, with its heaps of cadavers the wild dogs fought over later on. Poland itself, our foretaste of Russia, resembled my own country too much to despise it. This evening I looked at the Ukrainian grass fires and was at peace for a moment, or at least reconciled with the fact that I will wage war thoroughly against my enemy, without any hatred for the land he lives on.

Has Krasny Yar burnt to the ground? It’s the only question I have. I have no curiosity about the way Stark in his greed must have planned Platonov’s death but only resorted to killing Uncle Terry as a knee-jerk response (which, however, caused me to investigate). I have none about Colonel von Salomon’s capacity to hold out after all (he will), none about the upcoming campaign. The events of the past six months would last many a lifetime, but I no longer wonder about them.

What we underwent last winter in Stalingrad is beyond telling. I couldn’t write it down, I couldn’t convey it to others in words, and yet I couldn’t keep it inside. We all died to ourselves; in that sense none of us will ever go back. Bruno doesn’t need to worry
about it. Those who go back will be strangers to who they were when they left.

That’s why at last the Heeresrichter Kaspar Bernoulli can return where he came from, which isn’t Berlin, or anywhere else in Germany or in the world. I no longer need him, and as I summoned him, I can let him go.

In Stalingrad, week after week, in front of my eyes men lost their minds, killed themselves, fell into idiocy, reverted to a brute and beastly state. I didn’t. I held out. For myself and for others, I held out days, weeks, months. I never gave up. At what cost?

The right cost for a man like Martin Bora.

I limited myself, as late as the past month of May, to conjuring up an alter ego to keep me going – paradoxically to help me maintain my much vaunted and complimented lucidity.

I had to. In order not to hallucinate, I consciously created him. I fashioned Bernoulli as I needed him, as a thinker and a disciplinarian, a magistrate who would bring forward my protests against the evil committed here. What he was in fact made of, I don’t want to know. I do know that the likes of him console men’s loneliness and bolster them in vulnerable times, or else lead them into temptation. Providentially, I am not Faust, and he wasn’t Mephistopheles. Bernoulli simply spoke to me in my own words, listened to me as I alone can when I go out and
listen
. Thanks to him who never existed, whatever happens next I tell myself I can take: even the realization that my efforts to denounce all that is wrong might come to nothing, or soon turn against me. I tell myself I’ve got over Stalingrad, and will not miss the judge.

Standing by the folding table in his tent, Bora reread what he’d written and then tore off the diary page.
One more scrap to burn
, he told himself. He stepped outside, where the sunset paled to grey. Odours were strongest at this hour, including the hale, powerful animal scent of the regiment’s thousand and more horses. Men moved about the camp. Before long, his officers
would arrive for a briefing. From here, the world appeared orderly, laid out according to a readable pattern.

It wasn’t beyond imagining that in such a world, under the conniving silence of the
Abwehr
, Arnim Weller would end up in the
VII Wehrkreis
mental hospital. He’d live, if only because it served others that he should – as it served others yet that Stark should never be found.

Bora pocketed the diary page. This afternoon he’d laid out the marching plan to go across the Donets, and eventually north. Tomorrow he’d gather his senior non-coms, speak to the ethnic Germans, look over the equipment. That was enough anticipation for now: he’d learnt not to look beyond tomorrow.

Yes
, he congratulated himself,
I am impeccably clear-minded
. He unscrewed the top of his canteen.
Dr Bernoulli, to your health
. There was only water in the metal flask, but before drinking Bora raised it to the tin-coloured, summery sky.

THE MARTIN BORA SERIES

by Ben Pastor