The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] (21 page)

Bandy steps towards the tents. A cold suspicion rises in him that the bundles on the stretchers are not empty blankets. His approach soon reveals they are dead U.S. soldiers.

On reflex he halts far enough away to encompass the whole scene through the viewfinder of his Speed Graphic. Once the aid station is inside the metal square, he prepares to release the shutter.

These men too have been preserved by the cold. But unlike their fellows felled in the calamity among the trees, nothing comes through Bandy’s lens to suggest that these soldiers are dead. They made it this far, they had a chance. The corpses are in repose, hands crossed over their pulled-up blankets, chests and heads still wrapped in bloody gauze gone black. The fighting must have overtaken them here, in what should have been sanctuary. In the melee the aid station was abandoned. The men could not be moved. They died on their stretchers, alone with each other and the anointing specter.

The canyon rises around him in shambled trees, cluttered with cadavers. The stream burbles poisonously. He feels like he’s in the cupped palms of Death itself. The camera wavers in his own hands. Does history need to see this?

On the stretchers mouths are open. What would they say?

Bandy promised. He is respectful. Always.

He drops to a knee. He opens his camera bag and fills his pockets with film.

~ * ~

February
6, 1945, 11:35 A.M.

Livadia Palace

Yalta, Soviet Union

STALIN NEVER TIRES OF HAVING MEN SALUTE HIM. HE WALKS THROUGH
the preposterous foyer of the palace with strides as broad as his short legs will allow. He swings his arms, too long for his torso. He carries no folders or papers to his meeting. He remembers everything; why carry papers? When he passes, Americans snap straight as though electric currents have run up their legs.

Stalin walks alone. His heels click on the marble floor, little socialist hammer shots against the walls and statuary of Czar Nicholas II. Every echoed step expands to fill the vast cavity of the dead czar’s entrance hall above the Black Sea. Every footfall makes these foreigners watching him rigid. Stalin does not acknowledge the attention he generates. This is as it should be.

They have come to me, he thinks. The two most powerful figures in world politics have done Stalin’s bidding. The President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain have made highly inconvenient journeys, both of them ailing, bringing caravans of three hundred and fifty aides apiece. They traveled to Yalta for no reason other than that is how Stalin wanted it.

The Red Army under Stalin is about to secure the greatest victory in Russian history, grander than the one over Napoleon. Those old Bolsheviks, the few left alive, they remember Lenin. They have never accepted Stalin as Lenin’s equal, regardless of their varnished praise. But now. Roosevelt and Churchill! America and the British Empire! Both come to the Crimea. To curry favor with Stalin. To accept Stalin and the Soviet Union as equals. Lenin never had that.

Stalin rounds a corner, headed for the left wing of the palace, the czar’s former bedroom, where Roosevelt is installed. More Americans whizzing about the halls freeze in their tracks. The President’s pretty daughter, Anna, even bows. That is something.

Smiling, the Marshal raps on the ornate door to Roosevelt’s room. And why should Stalin not smile? So far he’s gotten almost everything he wants at Yalta. No direct interference from the West in Poland. Territory in the Far East in exchange for a mere promise that Russia will enter the Pacific war. Extra seats allotted at Roosevelt’s pet project, the United Nations. The lowly French want an occupation zone; Stalin is opposed, Churchill is in favor, Roosevelt waffles. All typical. War reparations, the dismemberment of German industry, these need more talks. But they’re topics that will be handled later.

Best of all, in the past three weeks two million Soviet soldiers have swamped Poland. They’re massing right now on the Oder River, fifty miles from Berlin. Finally, the Red Army is anchored across all of eastern Europe.

Whoever occupies a territory imposes on it his own social system. That is the political reality of tomorrow, no matter what is decided here at Yalta. Stalin may sit beside Churchill and Roosevelt at the conference table. But today, on the battlefield, in the liberated territories, Stalin towers over them.

The President’s door opens. Chip Bohlen, Roosevelt’s interpreter, greets Stalin in fluent Russian and steps aside. Entering the lavish room, Stalin swells in his approach to the seated President. He prefers these private meetings with Roosevelt, away from the fiery mouth of Churchill. Roosevelt said in advance he wants to discuss France. Fine, Stalin thinks, we’ll settle the French. Privately, he wants also to divine what Roosevelt and his generals intend for Berlin.

Stalin says, “Mr. President. You are looking well.”

Bohlen the interpreter speaks. He follows Stalin to the President. The two leaders shake hands with much muscle, using all four hands in their clasp. Stalin eases into a chair placed across from Roosevelt’s sofa, continuing his morning pleasantries. Bohlen sits in a chair between them, muttering in alternating English and Russian. One of Roosevelt’s women secretaries stands far to the side, she will scribble notes after the real talk begins. When they are all seated, Stalin goes quiet. He glances first to Bohlen’s face, then down at the feet of the man’s chair and the carpet. The interpreter sits as close to Stalin as does the President. Stalin cocks his head. Bohlen slides his seat one pace back. This is proper. Roosevelt should have taken care of it. Logs crackle in the fireplace. There are brandy and treats on a silver server between them.

Roosevelt preens. He enjoys Stalin’s flexing. He envies Stalin’s power. Little wonder. Though his nation is the most powerful on earth, the man himself is an invalid, he cannot even stand when Stalin, enters the room.

Roosevelt natters about his accommodations, marvelous, magnificent. The view of the Black Sea from his porch is spectacular. On and on. Those czars really knew how to live it up. Yes, Stalin thinks, they did, and that is why the last of them was shot in the back of the head along with his family. Stalin makes agreeable noises, mentions that someday he would like to see the White House in Washington, D.C., he is certain that their poor Russian palaces pale by comparison. Roosevelt guffaws at this, waves his cigarette holder about like an ingenue.

Unlike Roosevelt, Stalin is ill at ease in the Livadia. He is equally uncomfortable in the splendor of Churchill’s mock Scottish castle at the Vorontzov villa and in his own accommodations at the Koreiz Palace, former home of Prince Yusupov, supposedly the assassin of Rasputin. Stalin listens to Roosevelt extol the virtues of a comfortable bed, the President believing that by doing so he is playing the grateful guest. Roosevelt does not know that this is the crux of why their two nations can never be friends. The Soviet Union is pledged by Marxism and Leninism to destroy capitalism. To burn the West’s plush beds so long as Soviet peoples sleep on straw. Roosevelt speaks always of peace. Doesn’t he know that the Communists are committed to war, either of men or ideology, against the West? Too much of the world’s power has been held in their sway for too long. Too much of the world’s wealth stuffs their mattresses to make them cozy. But those unfortunate arrangements have already begun to change.

Stalin is the one who is grateful to Roosevelt, for this dying man’s generosity. After the President is gone, and from the looks of him it will be soon, his successor will surely be of a different mold. Stalin takes what he can, while he can. This is plunder.

He laughs in the middle of one of Roosevelt’s sentences, before the translation. Stalin can’t help himself, he is in a grand mood.

This is politics.

Bohlen tells him the President has said, “I’m glad I could give you a good laugh, Joe.”

Stalin inclines his head. This nonsense again with his name. But he is too merry to grimace at this vulgarity. No one dares call him “Joe” or “Iosif.” He goes years without hearing any address but “Comrade” and “Marshal.” Stalin, man of steel, is not “Joe.” Now twice the President of the United States has done it. But Roosevelt is tickled that this informality is finally allowed. A small thing for what Stalin receives in return. He leaves it alone.

Stalin’s chuckle goes on while Roosevelt waits. Stalin recalls his quick meeting that morning with Churchill in the Prime Minister’s mobile map room, where he invited Churchill to transfer a portion of his British troops now stationed in Italy up to Yugoslavia and Hungary, to link with Soviet forces already there and go after the Germans in Austria. This was a subtle slap in Churchill’s face and, clever fellow, he caught it. The Red Army has advanced so far that those nations will be under Soviet dominion in a few more days. There is no time for the English to get involved! Insulted, red-faced, all Churchill could say was, “The Red Army may not give us time to complete this operation.” Stalin enjoyed that immensely. Ah, even Churchill is good for a laugh on occasion.

The jocularity settles inside him. Stalin knits his fingers. Enough.

“Tell me what you are thinking about France, Mr. President.”

“Well.” Roosevelt shifts on the sofa cushions as best he can. Stalin sees how stranded the man is atop his legs. He guesses that Roosevelt has changed his mind on the French. Churchill has gotten to him. The President hesitates always before telling Stalin he disagrees with anything Stalin wants.

“Winston has made some good points to me lately about France.”

Stalin waits. He twiddles his thumbs to express displeasure.

Roosevelt explains that he still agrees with Stalin that the French do not deserve much in the way of generosity after the war. After all, they did collaborate with the Germans. But France is Germany’s largest neighbor. And Churchill makes a good case that a weakened France will be less of a deterrent to future German aggression than a strong France.

Stalin shakes his head. “It is not postwar Germany which Mr. Churchill worries about. It is me.”

“Joe, no.” Roosevelt swats this assertion aside. “Winston, you, and me, we’re all on the same team. England knows what a strong ally they have in the Soviet Union. Sure there are differences. But none so strong that our joint commitment to world peace isn’t stronger. Am I right?”

Stalin cannot always believe that the President speaks candidly when he says these things. You do not go from a world of international rivalries suddenly to a world of international cooperation.

“Yes, Mr. President. Of course.”

Roosevelt turns to Bohlen and says something that goes untranslated. The secretary does not record it. Stalin suspects it was nothing more than a “There, see?”

Stalin holds out a palm. “So you are saying that you wish for the French to be allowed an occupation zone.”

“Yes. Winston and I both feel it’s important for French prestige.”

That is an odd phrase, Stalin thinks, to ascribe prestige to a people who threw up their hands rather than see their Eiffel Tower in ruins. Russia could build an Eiffel Tower from the bones of Stalingrad alone.

“Then I must agree. But the French zone has to come from the American and British zones. We will cede no territory.”

Roosevelt anticipated this and says it poses no problem.

“This is to include a zone in Berlin?”

“Yes.”

Stalin has set the city’s name out for discussion like a new piece at an auction. Roosevelt speeds past it to another topic, how much money Germany should have to pay in reparations after the war.

Stalin waits for Berlin to come around again. He addresses Roosevelt’s choice of topic; he wants to set a reparations figure now, of twenty billion dollars. Roosevelt agrees that this sum can be the basis for future discussions. This means the President is not ready to take a position.

After another half hour, Roosevelt appears finished. The French question is the only one put to rest. Let Churchill win that one, thinks Stalin. No matter. The Western Allies will withdraw from their zones in a few years. The Soviet Union has no intention of doing so.