Landlocked. Doris Lessing
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your lives. The allies have fought this bitter terrible war so that it will be impossible, ever again, for Germany to threaten the world. So look closely at victorious Germany, look at the Superman.’
The Horst Wessel song, played fragmentarily and in leering, jeering, sliding discord, accompanied the newsman’s voice that went on, with its bought sarcasm, while the small whirling beams of light from the projectionist’s cabin created on the blank uplifted wall of the cinema men, defeated men, men in the last extremity of hunger, cold and defeat, thousands and thousands of hollow-cheeked ghosts, a ghost army, limping, their feet in rags; rags binding hands, shoulders, heads; bits of cloth fluttering in the cold, cold wind of that frigid spring at the end of the European war. They limped slowly, in a frightful ominous silence strong enough to drown the ugly voice of the commentator. They drifted slowly across dark air while a thousand or so of their victorious enemies watched in absolute silence.
‘Take a good look, ladies and gentlemen, we have fought the good fight and we have won. Take a look and never forget: here they are, the Herrenvolk, the master-race, the rulers of the world.’
And the frozen defeated men limped away across the war-torn countryside of Europe, their eyes black with pain and with shock. ‘Yes, that’s the end of it, that’s the end of the dream. That’s the end of the conquest of the world. You have paid for this victory in blood, sweat, tears and suffering. Take a good look for that’s the last you’ll ever see of Germany, and the menace of Germany in Europe. We have fought the good fight together and we have won – the free countries of the world.’
Beside Martha Thomas Stern shifted about in his seat and said steadily under his breath, ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards.’ On the other side, Solly Cohen very softly whistled the Internationale between his teeth. Leaning forward, Martha looked for Anton. How did he feel, the German, looking at his ghost-like countrymen, listening to the cheap easy sneer? His regular profile, like one on a coin, showed beside the pretty upturned profile of the red-head. Neither face said anything, they were people at a cinema, and so, presumably, was she, Martha, though she raged with useless protest which expressed itself: ‘I bet that commentator was making his voice say three cheers for Chamberlain at Munich, I bet he was.’
‘Well of course,’ said Solly, and whistled the Internationale, more loudly. Joss leaned forward to ask Martha: ‘Whose idea was it to bring my little brother to the pictures?’ And Solly laughed aloud as Martha said: ‘Mine.’
‘Shhh,’ said someone in front; and someone else let out a sudden loud raspberry – the whole cinema seethed frustration, anger, resentment, discomfort. Suddenly, from somewhere at the back, there was a shrill whistle, and then a shout: ‘Up the RAF!’
‘Trust them,’ said Joss approvingly, as the tension broke.
‘We shall miss you,’ said Solly loudly to the RAF, invisible tonight in their mufti.
A scuffle. The manager appeared, an outraged presence; torches swung agitatedly; the whole cinema turned to watch a couple of men, their faces the broad you-aren’t-fooling-me faces of the North English, being escorted to the door. ‘All right, I can walk, thank you very much!’ Then a last muffled shout: ‘The RAF for ever, I don’t think.’
When everyone again turned to see what was going on, a small dark aircraft sped, turned, soared across skies lit with fire, while tiny dark eggs spilled into a dark city which flung up great showers of spark and flame.
Solly said, loudly copying the practised jeer of the announcer (who was, however, saying in a voice unctuous with victory that the city – which? – was not without water supplies, sewage or railways as a result of this successful bombing raid) – ‘And see how they run, the filthy vermin, away from the cleansing bombs of our gallant boys.’
A man turned around from the front and said: ‘If you haven’t got any patriotic feelings why don’t you go home where you came from?’
‘Thanks,’ said Solly, ‘I will.’ He unwound his long thin person from the discomfort of the seat and made his way out, whistling the Internationale. ‘Jesus,’ said Joss, moving up to fill Solly’s seat near to Martha, ‘I suppose one day he’ll grow up.’ He was embarrassed for his brother. ‘I don’t know,’ said Martha, ‘I felt the same.’
On the other side of Martha, Thomas Stern sat, silent. But his hands gripping the arm-rests vibrated with tension. He muttered, steadily, ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards.’
When Martha turned to look at him, he said: ‘And you shut up. All of you shut up. You can keep out of it.’
Martha said: ‘Who?’
Joss’s restraining hand came on her forearm and he said: ‘Better leave Thomas alone. A friend of his was with the people who entered Belsen, he had a letter today.’
On the screen now appeared shots of jungle – a lush scene, which might have done for a musical. But flames engulfed it. Flames from a flame-thrower seared the flesh of men, the substance of trees and plants. Black ash crumbled where men, trees, and plants had been, and drifted across the screen in greasy smoke which could almost be smelt in the cinema. An island in the Pacific. After all, it was only ‘the war in Europe’ that was due to end any day. ‘The war in the Pacific’ was being fought from island to island still, while Europe crumbled in famine, cold, and ruined cities. Which island was this? But Martha had missed its name, she would never know which island she had watched being scorched by the flamethrowers, just as she would never know which German city she had seen being pulverized to ruins.
This was the main film now. A thick slow tune began to pulse through the cinema. It was music easy and sexual which would, in a moment, have welded the thousand people in the cinema into a whole. A heavy velvet curtain swirled across the screen and back again, and there appeared the apparently naked back of a blonde woman. She stood in a doorway over which was a sign in electric lights: Stage Door, and when she turned to smile at a group of soldiers (American) and at the audience (in central Africa) it became evident that she was not as naked as it had at first appeared: her dress was held up in the front by a ribbon which tied it around her neck. Sequins flashed and glittered as the flames had flickered a moment before, and her great friendly mascaraed eyes were as close as the hollowed staring eyes of the frozen German soldiers. Her homely breasts bulged almost into the teeth of the audience, and the music intensified as half a dozen GIs filed grinning shyly past the naked shoulders and sequined breasts of a famous film star (acting as hostess for the sake of the war effort) into the club.
‘I thought we were seeing The Seventh Cross?’ said Thomas. ‘For crying out loud. I’ve got work to do.’
It was Martha’s fault – she had brought them to the wrong film. Thomas had already stood up and was on his way out. Joss followed. Anton got up, with the red-headed girl. In a moment they were all on their way out, and people shushed and said: ‘What did you come for then?’
They assured the manager they had only come for the news, so upset was he that six patrons were leaving all at once, and found Solly still on the pavement. Apparently he had known all the time that the main film was bound to send them out of the cinema, and he had been waiting for them.
The seven stood on the pavement. The Cohen boys, Solly and Joss, both finished with uniform, both about to start life in peacetime. Athen the Greek: far from being finished with war, his life was consciously planned for years of war, civil war, revolution. Thomas Stern, frowning on one side of the group, obviously wanting to leave it and be alone with his anger. He saw Martha looking at him. He said in a low violent voice: ‘All right, Martha. But I tell you, I’d torture every one of them myself, with my own hands.’
She said: ‘Some of them looked about fifteen.’
‘Well? They should simply be stamped out – they should be wiped out, like vermin.’ But as he stood, sombre, apart from them, he made himself smile and said: ‘All right then. I’ll shut up. I’ll shut up for now, anyway.’
Anton, the German, who waited day by day for the moment he could go home to Germany, was talking to the red-haired girl. She was