The Butchers of Berlin (49 page)

Some boys were crapping themselves at the imminence of death’s door. Gersten had a flash of Haager admitting, to general hilarity, on a road in the middle of nowhere, that there was
nothing like a warm turd in the pants to snap the mind into shape. There was only Reitner now. Haager and Baumgarten were conspicuous by their absence, Baumgarten, always expert at bunking off,
looking innocent afterwards as he said he hadn’t realised he was needed. Another thump as a bomb fell. Reitner was screaming for the boys to get on with it. Gersten had to laugh at such a
magnificent and meaningless assembly line to death while the apocalypse banged around them. The boys took their turn. Faster! Faster! shouted Reitner. It was like the old days. An escort to bring
forward. The dispatcher. No pit now, just two boys, anxiously looking up, waiting for the ceiling to fall in, as they dragged the body away. Kapow! The next one. One dispatching kid, more of a
showman, did a Wild West imitation, blowing on the stun gun afterwards while a group stared at the spastic death throes. The next they forced on all fours and put him on the animal conveyor, and
the dispatcher asked for a rifle.

Reitner, in his more lucid moments, was prone to banging on about how he wanted to pass on the crucible of his knowledge to the boys. The difference between when they started out was they were
green, had to make it up as they went along, whereas now he was in a position to educate them in the legacy of the killing fields. Nerveless courage. Inhuman courage. Cruel hunters. The butchers.
Gersten could see most of the boys were too stupid to learn, backward city kids barely in command of the rudiments of education. Where Reitner might once have been the cruellest of the brave, there
was now only psychotic rage accelerated by drink. They were all the same. Sepp, lashings of the stuff, so far gone he had probably fallen into the vat. Haager spent his time trying to replicate
that heady, summer moment when with bodies all around, the result of the hot pistol in his hand, he had stood with his fly undone, copiously pissing, while simultaneously drinking a whole flagon of
beer, and the rest of them wept as they watched, helpless with laughter.

Across the floor, Gersten watched Morgen and Schlegel charge into the room and pause at the carnage, as well they might. Another prisoner fell, poleaxed. Reitner, worked to a frenzy, was
rampant. Drunk and bellowing, he pulled down his tracksuit pants to reveal his erect tool, yelling, ‘The state of hardness!’ No one was paying him attention, apart from Schlegel and
Morgen, who stared in disbelief.

Gersten suspected Reitner’s work was done. He had passed on the killing virus, but badly, because the boys had no respect for their work, or for him. It was like watching the play of cruel
frightened children. They would knuckle under because they were conditioned, but it was the obedience of imminent anarchy.

Exquisite confusion followed as the lights went out, leaving everyone shouting and screaming. One or two came back on, making a shadow play of the scene. Gersten pictured red sky above, huge
flashes. Another round of bombs shook the walls, the perfect chaos outside matched by the internal carnage. They used to laugh at him because he didn’t drink; who was laughing now? He moved
forward, fast and controlled, pistol at his side. He took out one of the more hopeless lads, who looked in danger of scuttling off, shot him because the boy’s head presented itself at an
inviting angle. After that they all started firing. He would be lucky to get out alive; so be it.

He came to Reitner railing at the heavens. If he could see how stupid he looked, thought Gersten, passing behind, pausing to half-genuflect and pull the trigger for the bullet to pass through
the soft hinge of the back of the knee to blow out the bone in front. Reitner gave an almighty shriek and went down, the agony spinning him in circles. Gersten would have finished him except he was
distracted by Morgen and the tall, white-haired one charging around. The latter’s silhouette gave him away. He fired off a shot and saw him hit, would have fired again except the rest of the
lights came on. Another crash.

Schlegel was hit in the left shoulder. There was no blood. It had felt like someone had slammed his feet, leaving him with a puzzled image of fairground tests of strength,
smashing a hammer down on a platform to try to make a bell ring. Someone had started firing, then they were all at it. Had he imagined Gersten slipping away down the tunnel?

Clutching his shoulder, Schlegel watched Morgen drag Reitner to his feet, which left him hopping on one leg, trying to protect his shattered knee. Another bomb, closer, and everyone froze.
Reitner didn’t look so tough now. The boys stood around, gormless.

Morgen barked at Reitner, ‘Pull yourself together, soldier, and have them fall in.’ Reitner made a feeble attempt to stand to attention. Schlegel heard the whine of stalling engines
and the dive of a plane out of control. The boys lined up. One short of three ranks of six. A few tough ones, including the boxer and the boy he had beaten, trying to hold it together; a couple of
spindly youths, including the ubiquitous shifty one, a fat boy with glasses, the ambiguous one that reminded Schlegel of himself; the rest making up the numbers. An antiaircraft battery went
da-da-da! The explosion that followed was in the air. It must have got the diving plane. Hooray! went one or two of the boys, and the boxer shouted, ‘Death to the enemy!’

Morgen inspected the first rank. The boys instinctively stiffened. Reitner, propping himself on his hands, resting on his good leg, looked like a runner at the start of a desperate race. Morgen
addressed the boxing boy and pointed to Reitner.

‘That soldier can’t carry on. What do you do with a soldier that can’t carry on?’

The boy’s eyes flicked sideways to the one standing next to him, who shook his head.

Reitner shouted, ‘You shoot a soldier that can’t carry on. You do not leave him for the enemy!’

Morgen talked to the boy again. ‘But in this instance, in this place, what do you do?’

Reitner shouted he was forbidden to say. Their work was sanctioned. He was sweating like he was covered in glycerine.

Morgen snapped, ‘Quiet, soldier.’

He changed his register to one of normal conversation, speaking to Reitner. ‘Tell me, one thing I don’t understand. Why did you have to keep the freezer and the morgue in town, not
here?’

Reitner made a noise that Schlegel decided could only be the man attempting to laugh.

Morgen laughed too at the explanation. The premises were subject to regular inspection by the Department of Health and Safety, which had objected to a temporary morgue on an animal site. Morgen
looked at the boys, who giggled too.

He stepped up to the boxing boy and snapped, ‘Is something funny?’

The boy shook his head. ‘No, sir!’ shouted Morgen. ‘No, sir!’ repeated the boy.

Outside all the noise now came from the north.

Morgen told the boys he was in charge. Reitner was incapable of command. He asked again what happened to soldiers that couldn’t carry on. Reitner repeated they must not tell. Morgen told
the boxing boy he wasn’t asking them to say, he was ordering them to show him. The boy bleated about the bombs outside.

‘Do it,’ snapped Morgen.

The pigs were hysterical with fear. In the background the city burned. In spite of all the destruction, Schlegel could see little evidence of immediate damage. They made the
strangest procession. Two lads pulled the trolley on which Reitner lay screaming. The rest straggled behind like boys on a nightmare school outing. Morgen made them pause to ask Reitner who had
killed Keleman. Reitner refused to say, even when Morgen probed his shattered knee with the point of his pistol. Schlegel asked him to stop, saying it didn’t matter now. Morgen addressed the
boxing boy, who told them how Reitner had made them take the body to the pigs.

‘And this one too,’ he said, indicating Schlegel. But they had all been too drunk to finish the job.

‘Not this time,’ said Morgen.

Gersten watched from the room above the pigs, after being warned by his consumptive colleague, who wet-coughed into a handkerchief, complaining of the smoke and dust. People
were below, he said.

Gersten knew he should get out but was unable to tear himself away.

The pigs were thrashing. Sensing human presence, they charged the rails, jumping up, some squealing, others keeping up a furious grunting. The boys were the tamest thing in the
room, cowed. One or two started to cry. Morgen forced Reitner to stand. Reitner hopped around. Morgen offered him the choice of stepping voluntarily into the pigs. Schlegel could never tell when
the man was serious. Reitner stiffened at a sight above him, and Schlegel looked up to see Gersten disappear from the window as Reitner, the veins in his neck jutting, screamed
‘Judas!’

The accusation echoed round the cavernous space as the next wave of bombers rumbled in.

Morgen was already running. Schlegel followed, glancing back at the commotion around Reitner, who raised his hands as the boxer boy stepped forward, drew his fist to his shoulder and gave his
hardest punch. Reitner half-fell under his broken knee. The sharp cry of pain was followed by the crack of the boy’s uppercut, driving Reitner against the fence. He reeled from the force of
the blow, swaying until the boy gave a shove, flipping him back among the waiting pigs.

One, two, three bombs. A proper appreciation of violence took time and control. No chance of that. Sybil and her friend sat on the floor clutching each other like babes in the
wood. Catatonic. The friend not so pretty now, the job half-done. The plan – too late for that now; the plan had been to make a present of her to Sybil, as a sample of work in progress,
before letting her watch the rest. He had never let anyone do that before, not by invitation, to see him do to her friend what he would then do to her. In fact, the friend didn’t look so bad.
He had kept himself under control. No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t meant to go to her in the first place. It had been after Schlegel and the tower. He had visited with the best of intentions,
the bearer of good news. Sybil had kept her end of the bargain and delivered Grigor, so he would keep his, and as an extra surprise he would put them both on the train. Their strange love was love,
after all. He wasn’t narrow-minded. No, honestly, he said, seeing she didn’t believe him. She spoiled it with that little hissing noise, made with teeth and tongue, more than her look
of contempt, which he could have forgiven on its own. He hadn’t meant to cut her, had meant to stop after a quick couple of signature marks. The punch spoiled it. By the time he was done
there was no question of putting her on a train.

He had said to Grigor, ‘There are some stories people are willing to tell and some they aren’t. I am interested in you telling me all the stories you don’t wish to tell.’
He couldn’t remember the name of the Jew actor who had once put his hand on his knee, who played the bug-eyed killer running around picking up kids and was reduced to screaming how drive
overrode desire. Gersten wasn’t so sure. Desire was everything. He had fancied exploring these thoughts with Sybil and her friend. He badly wanted to see if he could rouse Sybil into giving a
decent account of herself. The other one he didn’t care about, but Sybil he wanted to fight him, to die well. Had he really intended to let them both go? Yes, he had. Or at least he knew he
would have no trouble convincing Schlegel. Some people were born to twist around your little finger.

Footsteps on the stairs, obliterated by the crunch of another bomb. Seconds only now. No time for fond farewells. Gersten took in the room. His colleague rooted in the corner, praying a bomb
wouldn’t fall on him, handkerchief across his face, stifling the hep-hep of his wet cough. Sybil and her friend pressed together, almost comic, so immobile they could have been garden
statues. Perhaps he should sell novelty items after the war. The thought amused him as he shot his consumptive colleague, who gave a final cough wetter than the rest, spraying his handkerchief red.
He was sorry to drag the girls apart. Sybil put up such a struggle that he was forced to kick her, hard. There was no time to explain that he was sparing her life. It was his present to her. The
other one was past caring. He yanked her up and she came easily into his arms, to make a nice cushion as Morgen came blundering in. Gersten fired, off balance from the weight of the girl. The shot
splintered the door frame, millimetres from Morgen’s ear; a brief, fond memory of Lazarenko’s body jitterbugging from the velocity of bullets. Gersten fired through the empty doorway to
keep Morgen quiet. He dragged himself and the girl back towards the window. She was like a dead weight in his arms, hardly worth killing. He was about to discard her when Schlegel spoiled the
moment by charging up the stairs, like an actor coming in off-cue, resulting in a scramble of frantic improvisation. Gersten switched to the blade, desperately sought the carotid artery with the
hand he had around her throat and plunged.

Schlegel didn’t recognise Lore, so terribly beaten, her face a horrible clown’s mask. The nose was broken, teeth smashed, eyes swollen to slits, and someone had scribbled lipstick
over her face and put make-up on, turning the face a ghastly, floury white.

Lore was like Gersten’s marionette, tottering forwards as he gave her a huge shove and she came at Schlegel, desperately trying to raise her arms, the blood spurting from the tear in her
neck. They collided in a terrible embrace, then got tangled up with Morgen, who was struggling to get past them to Gersten.

Schlegel glimpsed Gersten, who caught his eye, looking both appalled and amused by his destruction, before he turned and threw himself out of the window.

As the smash of glass filled the room, Lore’s eyes fluttered open. It was like she was looking at something very far away.

Schlegel automatically ran and launched himself out of the window. He fell, hoping, and seconds later landed on the angled roof of the Jewish barracks, winding himself. He had remembered right;
the roof was hard under the window. He had his gun where Gersten had chucked his aside for the blade.