The farther south I ride the further the war recedes. Here you can even see whole groups of Germans standing around and chatting. People don’t dare do that where we live. There are even children outside, hollow-cheeked and unusually quiet. Women and men are digging around in the gardens. There are only a few isolated Russians. A Volkssturm barricade is still piled up in front of the tunnel. I dismount and push my bike through a gap in the barricade. Beyond the tunnel, on the lawn in front of the S-Balm station, there is a knee-high mound strewn with greenery, marked with three wooden posts painted bright red and affixed with small handwritten plaques – edged paper under glass. I read three Russian names and the dates of their death: 26 and 27 April, 1945.
I stand there a long time. As far as I can remember this is the first Russian grave I’ve seen so close. During my travels there I caught only fleeting glimpses of graveyards, weathered plaques, bent crosses, the oppressive neglect of poor village life. Our papers were always reporting on how the Russians hide their war dead as a disgrace, how they bury them in mass unmarked graves and stamp down the earth to render the spot invisible. This can’t be true. These posts and plaques are obviously standard-issue supply. They’re mass-produced according to a pattern, with a white star on top – coarse, cheap and thoroughly ugly, but at the same time utterly conspicuous, glaring red, garish and impossible to miss. They must put them up in their country, too. Which means that they, too, practise their own cult of graves, their own hero-veneration, though officially their ideology rejects any resurrection of the flesh. If the plaques were just there to mark the grave for future reburial, a simple sign with the name or number would suffice. They could save themselves a lot of red paint and star-cutting. But no, they envelope their dead soldiers in an aura of red, and sacrifice both work and good wood to provide them with an aureole, however paltry it may be.
I pedal on, as fast as I can, and soon see the former manor house where my firm was last housed. I wonder about the family on the ground floor, if the little baby made it through the milkless time.
No children, no young mother – none of them are there. Finally, after much knocking and shouting, an elderly man appears, unshaven and wearing an undershirt. It takes me a while to recognize him as the authorised representative of our former publishing house, someone who was always immaculately groomed from cuff to collar – now in a dirty state of decline. He recognizes me, but doesn’t show the least bit of feeling. Grumpily he tells me how he and his wife snuck over here when their apartment was hit on the last day of the war. The place was deserted, all the furniture carried off, whether by Germans or Russians, he can’t say – presumably both. Inside, the building is ransacked, wrecked, and reeks of human excrement and urine. Even so, there’s still a mountain of coal in the basement. I scrounge around for an empty carton, and pack it full of briquettes, much to the man’s displeasure, but the coal is no more his than it is mine. The idea of helping me doesn’t occur to him. With effort I haul the box over to the bike and tie it onto the luggage rack with my belt and a bit of string I find lying around.
Back home, on the double. I race up the street, this time past endless rows of soldiers hunched on the kerb. Typical frontline men, tired, grimy, dusty, with stubbly chins and dirty faces. I’ve never seen Russians like this before. It dawns on me that we’ve been dealing with elite troops: artillery, signal corps, freshly washed and clean-shaven. The lowliest types we’ve ever seen are the supply-train men, who might have smelled of horses but weren’t nearly as battle-worn as these soldiers, who are far too exhausted to pay attention to me or my bike. They barely glance up, it’s clear they’re at the end of a forced march.
Quickly, quickly, there’s our corner. The old police barracks is swarming with automobiles, that hum with a deep, satisfied drone – they smell of real petrol. The German cars never smelled like that
Gasping for breath, I proudly carry the bike upstairs, along with my load of coal. This time it’s the major who comes running down towards me. He’s all agitated, imagining his bike stolen and me who-knows-where. Meanwhile the Uzbek has drifted in as well. Right away the widow sends him to the pump with two buckets to get water for us. He trots off good-naturedly; he’s become like part of the family.
I’m sun-drunk and exhilarated from riding fast. I feel more cheerful than I have in weeks, practically elated. On top of that the major has brought some Tokay wine. We drink it; I feel good, cosy as a cat. The major stayed till 5 p.m.; after he left I felt rotten. I cried.
