The Last Shot. Hugo Hamilton
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wasn’t asking for an explanation, and Anke said little else other than that she had been giving me a lift home. We had met for a drink. The fact that the location of the crash didn’t correspond with my route home from anywhere never came up. Nor did the fact that her injuries were on the wrong side of her body.
I went to visit her at the hospital early the next day, before she was discharged, to see what she had said to Jürgen. She showed me her bruises. She didn’t remember being hit at all. But the proof was there. A massive blue, black, purple cloud under her swollen skin, all along her arm, and down the side of her right thigh. There was a small bandage on her thigh where the skin had burst.
‘Looks lovely, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘I’ve got myself a fine-looking mark there.’
‘Does it hurt?’ I asked.
‘Not in the least,’ she said. ‘I’m quite proud of it. The only thing that bothers me are these endless X-rays.’
She pulled back the sheet and showed me the full extent of the bruising. Everybody has a natural fascination for injuries. You want to see more.
‘Do you want to kiss my bruise?’ she asked.
I ignored her because it made me uneasy. I knew that Jürgen was coming to collect her any minute. She stuck her tongue out at me and covered herself up again. That was Anke all right. She was always sticking her tongue out like that.
‘What are you going to say to Jürgen?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. I’ll tell him everything. The whole thing, if he asks.’
‘Everything?’
‘Well, the only thing he doesn’t need to know is that you were driving his car. I think we should keep that a secret for the moment.’
Jürgen never asked. There was never anything said about the crash. I think Jürgen was glad that nothing worse had happened to Anke. No broken bones. He was concerned for her. He also asked how I was. Maybe it was his medical background, his doctor’s instinct for discretion.
The fact that Jürgen never pursued any questions made me think even more. I slowly began to believe that it was Jürgen who had sent Anke on this farewell trip with me. Maybe they did have a pact. Maybe he had some notion that one final trip up to the Eifel would end it for Anke and me. One last goodbye to a past lover. And the fact that Jürgen, a doctor, a highly intelligent man with an inquiring mind, never noticed that the bruises were on the wrong side worried me. But then, nobody else asked either.
We let the lies stand.
Before Bertha Sommer reported for work that morning she went to her room to pack. She was taking Officer Kern’s advice and decided to have a light bag ready so she could leave at a moment’s notice. She had made no final decision about fleeing that evening; she was still tormenting herself with the choice. Desert, or stay and face the Russians. One way or the other, she wanted to be ready.
She made two selections of clothes; an A selection and a B selection. Clothes she wanted to take with her and those she would simply have to leave behind. Occasionally she would hold up a garment, like the pale blue blouse, remembering the shop in Paris where she had bought it, and then transfer it from the B selection back to the A selection.
She thought about Officer Kern. He had an honest face. A face she could trust. She knew he was married. He had told her that quite openly when they first met in the office in January. He told her then that there was a lady’s bicycle belonging to his wife Monica left behind in the garrison. He and his wife used to go cycling together in the summer. Fräaulein Sommer was welcome to make use of the bike any time she wanted. But the weather in January was too cold for cycling. And when the spring came, the environs of Laun became too dangerous. Besides, then came the directive from Hauptmann Selders, confining everyone to the garrison.
Officer Kern was a calm man. He seemed to know everything. He was a man of predictions. Even back in January he had told her the war wouldn’t last long. And when the war was over, the bicycle would become the fastest mode of transport in the whole of Europe. He would be sorry to leave it behind.
He had a married look about him, she thought, as she sorted her clothes. She packed her bag with her sisters in mind. Then she took everything out again and packed it more sensibly, thinking of the worst. She laid out her russet coat and hat on the bed. It was time to go to the office.
She had gone through all this before, evacuating back from Caen in Normandy, running from the British. Now she was running from something worse. She kneeled down and prayed, silently. She was ready for God. Then she quickly wrote a note in her diary, which lay on the table. The morning of the end of the Reich. Packed my bags. Am I a civilian? How will they treat civilians?
Bertha Sommer spent the morning trying to get through to Berlin. She knew it was useless but she kept trying. Berlin was well lost by now. The Russian flag had flown from the roof of the Reichstag since 30 April. Another officer kept trying to get through to Prague, with no more success. The office had worked itself into a quiet panic. Cups of coffee were frequently started but seldom finished. Hauptmann Selders fought off the constant demands of the Czechs in Laun. He had already made the concession of withdrawing the army from the town. He fought off the almost hourly demands to surrender with the single remaining advantage left to him. In the end, he could bargain with hostages. But there was no question of capitulation or further withdrawal until he got word from the High Command.
Bertha didn’t see Officer Kern anywhere. She knew where he was, in the communications room next door, but she wondered why he hadn’t been seen in the office.
By mid-morning she had become so busy herself that she forgot everything. She had been asked to sort out the files on to a trolley. Ready for incineration. Lunchtime passed without anybody getting hungry. Hauptmann Selders ordered a Wurst sandwich but never touched it when it arrived. The other officers had no appetite either. And when Bertha went to the canteen, she had to force herself to have lunch, telling herself it might be the last. But the logic was no substitute for appetite.
She was thinking too much. She had been put in charge of erasing the records. How to end a war? We know how to start a war, she thought. We know nothing about finishing it.
Early afternoon, Officer Kern came rushing into the office for the first time. He had heard something. At 1.30, the radio signal from Prague was interrupted. A spokesman in Czech appealed to all factions throughout Czechoslovakia to rise up against the fascists. Minutes later the Germans had regained control of the station. But it had become obvious that there was a struggle on for the capital. It became clear why they had also lost contact with Prague on the phone.
Hauptmann Selders called his officers for an impromptu conference. Another phone-call came from the town demanding immediate capitulation.
Everyone looked at Hauptmann Selders, waiting for him to announce withdrawal. He made a brief speech. Bertha Sommer stopped sorting files to listen. But her heart sank. She had expected something else.
‘There remains only one option open to us at present,’ he said. ‘While the German Army is still at war, we must remain firm. We cannot act in our own self-interest and make an escape bid. To do so would be irresponsible and put at risk thousands of German civilians still on Czech soil. We would also put ourselves at risk. You know the terms under which General Schörner operates. We must wait for the command.’
Bertha thought for a moment that he was referring to her. To Officer Kern’s escape plan. She looked at him standing by the window, but he didn’t look back. She felt implicated, even though she had consented to nothing.
‘At the same time,’ Hauptmann Selders said, ‘we should be ready to move out immediately.’
The officers agreed with Hauptmann Selders’s decision. There was no dissent. Arrangements were being made for the inevitable evacuation. One officer put forward a plan to use the hostages.