The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] (61 page)

Someone pulled the plug? Berlin’s half a day away. Fifty miles! Two full divisions can be across the Elbe in a couple more hours, with another one or two divisions across by nightfall. They can be rolling up gains before dawn, positioned on the outskirts of the capital at sunup with manpower, firepower, supplies. The Russians are bogged down, the Germans are desperate to keep them away from Berlin.

Who pulled the plug?

The closer Bandy gets to his answer, the more certain he is of what he will hear.

“Ike,” a major in the town hall tells him.

“Ike,” Bandy repeats.

“Word came down this morning. We’re to consolidate the bridgehead but not expand it.”

“Why?”

The officer spits. He looks down to see that he has done this indoors, in his own office. He leaves it.

“Mr. Bandy, I’m a soldier. I don’t get to ask why. If I did ask, I wouldn’t get told. Pure and simple.”

Posted on the wall behind the major is a map. Blue vertical lines have been drawn to mark the projected progress and checkpoints of the Ninth U.S. Army between the Elbe and Berlin. There was a plan.

“Mr. Bandy,” the major says, shaking a cigarette from an almost empty pack; he offers one over. “I can’t say what I think of this decision to stop at the Elbe. But I dearly would like to hear somebody else say it out loud.”

Bandy accepts the match to the tip of the cigarette. He takes in the smoke, the major does the same, and they cloud the quiet space between them. Bandy fills it.

“It’s the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard in my entire life.”

The major waits. He rolls the cigarette in his fingers.

“I guess the war’s over for us,” he says.

Bandy brings the cigarette to his lips. It’s something familiar, it keeps his hands and mouth busy while his gut grows queasy.

“But I’ll tell you,” the major says, turning to his map.

He sticks a finger hard into the heart of the city.

“It ain’t over for Berlin. The Reds are gonna tear that place to pieces.”

~ * ~

April 16, 1945, 2:50
p.m.

Goethe Strasse

Charlottenburg, Berlin

lottie hugs her mother lightly. she doesn’t want to betray
herself with a tight embrace. Mutti will ask what is wrong.

“Goodbye,
Liebchen,”
her mother whispers, her mouth close to Lottie’s ear. “Play your best today.”

Lottie straightens from their clasp. She wears a man’s dark suit. Mutti reaches up to align her daughter’s tie in the shirt collar, then smooths her hands down Lottie’s shoulders and arms. In the month since the BPO’s tuxedos were shipped south into the path of the
Amis,
Lottie and Mutti have struggled to learn how to knot a man’s tie. Julius has tried to teach Mutti but she cannot master it.

“Ach,”
Mutti says, unhappy, reaching again for the knot.

“It’s fine,” Lottie reproves her mother, “leave it. It doesn’t matter.”

Freya drops her hands. Lottie notes on her mother’s face a quick lecture rise, then Mutti restrains it, the one about how everything matters. Mutti steps back to signal she will accept her daughter’s appearance and Lottie may leave for her concert.

“Mutti.”

Lottie gazes at her comely mother.

The Russians began their attack on Berlin in the early-morning hours. Everyone knows it. People in the eastern reaches of the city woke to the distant thunder of artillery Immediately they jammed what telephone lines still work into Berlin. The
Mundfunk,
the Berliner “mouth radio,” took over and word spread. Early this afternoon, the real radio officially announced the opening of the Soviet assault from the Oder, forty miles east of Berlin. In the west, the radio trumpets, the Americans have been halted at the Elbe River.

All day Mutti and Lottie have not spoken of the dire news. This morning, on the way to fetch water, the neighbors they passed did not natter among themselves. Everyone strode to their business in steely German reserve. But people did not greet mother and daughter with the usual “Hello” or “Good morning, ladies.” Now Berliners say to each other,
“Bleib übrig.”
Survive.

An hour ago a note was delivered to Goethe Strasse. Lottie read it privately. She’s been summoned again to Dr. von Westermann’s office at the Philharmonie before today’s concert. Lottie lied to her mother about the message, claiming it was to alert her that she’ll be playing second chair today; the elderly second cello has taken sick. Lottie must arrive early to practice the part. Upstairs she got dressed. She packed an extra sweater and a hairbrush in the hard shell case around her cello.

Now Lottie tries to tell her mother goodbye.

“Yes?” Freya prods after waiting for Lottie to finish whatever it was she’d begun to say.

“Mutti, will you ... will you take care?”

Freya breaks into a gentle smile. “Yes,
Liebchen.”

“Have you sold the yellow star yet?”

“No. I’m waiting.”

“Don’t wait anymore. Sell it today.”

“Stop worrying, Lottie. The Russians won’t be here for a while.” Freya presses a hand to her daughter’s cheek.”There’s time for us. We’ll all be fine, you’ll see.”

“And don’t do any more silly things. Like that awful horse. What if I hadn’t been there to drag you away?”

“But you were.”

“Well, please, don’t.”

“I’ll try,
Liebchen.
Nothing silly the rest of the day.”

Lottie swells with her departure from Berlin, from this house, from the peril that will descend on both. She wants to tell Mutti the truth: today is the last BPO concert. She will get on a bus at dusk and ride west to the Americans. She will not be here to share the danger, not be here to protect her trusting, good mother. Lottie is to be the one protected.

She swears inwardly she will come back the first moment she can. She careens her eyes around the parlor, at the furniture and walls she leaves behind, upstairs to her room. Down the hall, to the yellow door.

What can he do?

He must look out for himself. He can’t safeguard Mutti.

“Lottie?”

“Yes?”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes, Mutti. I am.”

Freya lays her breast against Lottie’s. She takes her daughter in her arms.

“You’ll play wonderfully. Second chair can’t be that much harder.”

“No.”

“There.” Freya kisses her on the nose. She steps back and takes in the sight of her daughter in a business suit. “I always feel like a little housewife sending you off like this.”

Lottie smiles. Freya—the way she always does—goes further and laughs.

“Mutti.”

“Yes, my husband.”

“Tell the Jew—” Lottie stops. “Tell Julius goodbye for me.”

Freya cocks her head. She grins, figuring this is some small victory.

“Of course, I will. Yes. He’ll be very proud of you.”

Lottie will stand here and continue to let dribs and drabs of farewell and concerns and clues slip from her lips. She has to go.

Lottie lifts the cello. Freya opens the front door and she steps outside. Freya stays inside the hall, one hand high on the door, ready to close it when Lottie turns to go. Mother and daughter stand separated, not moving farther apart.

The day harbingers spring. Blackbirds tweet on the roofs and in the rubble, there are no branches for them to sing from. A vast blue sky invites the birds into it. Lottie feels the tug of the day. Come away.

She turns from her mother’s eyes and takes another step. Behind her the house shuts.

Lottie lugs the cello five blocks to a tram station. Along the way Berliners stand in line for what provisions or clothing are available, they gossip and grouse like always. Folks keep their heads up on the sidewalks heading to offices, shops, and mills. The trance of normalcy is only broken when twice old women smile at Lottie hauling her cello case in her man’s suit. The smiles are sad and concerned. They both reach to touch Lottie passing. The women mumble to her,
“Bleib übrig.”

The tram heads for the Tiergarten and the BPO’s offices. Demolished buildings make up much of the landscape outside her window. On remnants of walls appear painted slogans that were not there yesterday. “Berlin will remain German.”“Victory or Slavery!” “Believe in Hitler.” Painted by children, Lottie thinks, the ones holding a paintbrush in one hand, a gun in the other, and a sack lunch from their mother in their pocket.

At the Philharmonic, Lottie goes directly to Dr. von Westermann’s office. She pulls her cello behind her through the doorway when he calls out to answer her knock.

The orchestra manager does not rise from his chair. His office is stacked high with sheet music. It looks to Lottie like the manager and his staff are preparing to hide it all away.

“Lottie,” he says. “Sit down.”

She sets the cello against the wall, then takes the chair in front of his desk.

“You got my note. Good.”

“I’m ready” is all Lottie says.

“Yes. No doubt you must be. You’ve heard the reports.”

Lottie nods.

“Lottie.”

“Yes, sir?”

“There has been a change in the situation.”

Her stomach jumps.

“What?”

Von Westermann opens his hands and taps the fingertips together. He waits for Lottie to calm. He cannot have a woman raising her voice in his office about a conspiracy.

“I’m sorry,” Lottie says. She makes fists and squeezes both of them between her trouser legs. “Please.”

“I continue to misjudge your reactions, my dear. That is my failing, not yours. In any event, please hear me out.”

Lottie swallows. “Yes, sir.”

“The advertised program for today’s performance is just as you rehearsed. Beethoven’s Egmont Overture. The Brahms Double Concerto. And Strauss’s
Tod und Verklärung!’

Von Westermann motions to the stacks of music on his office floor.

“These have been removed from the orchestra’s stands. The new program for today is at the suggestion of Minister Speer. You will play his favorites, all music the orchestra is well familiar with. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Bruckner’s Romantic Symphony. But first, you will open with
Die Gotterdammerung.”

The death of the gods. The end of the world.

“The signal,” she says.

Von Westermann taps his fingertips again, scrutinizing Lottie’s reaction. She says no more.

“Yes. This afternoon is the last concert of the BPO until the end of the war. You have obviously guessed as much.”