The Karnau Tapes (18 page)

Strangely enough, however, the authors of such sounds are quick to exhibit symptoms of physical degeneration. Being of their own making, the abominable din proves too much for them and becomes life-threatening if persisted in for an appreciable length of time. Like our test subjects, they slowly but steadily go downhill. How comes it that the human ear draws so sharp a distinction between its owner's voice and those of other people? Why do the staff employed in this acoustic environment remain in good health, generally speaking, whereas our test subjects react to their own phonations by developing rigors and circulatory disorders? Why do our patients shun physical contact with other members of the group but lacerate their own scalps with torn and bitten nails? Why is it that their tactile sense seems badly impaired, and that they soon become incapable of speech even when we administer stimulants?

Moreau's explanation: 'Perhaps they're being eaten away inside by ultrasound. Perhaps the frequencies they produce but are incapable of hearing have a drastic effect on the subjects' bodies, causing their intestines to vibrate and inducing uncontrollable nausea. They're exposed to a sound impossible to locate, an all-pervading, ultrasonic whistle that threatens to burst their eardrums and viscera, adversely affects their blood pressure and reduces their cerebral activity.

Not that they're aware of it, their voices generate ultrasonic frequencies that assail the very core of their being, the core from which those sounds derive as a side-effect of the phonations they're made to utter. Strictly speaking, this is an externally induced, self-destructive process that affects every tissue in the body.'

'You mean we've failed to take that possibility into account because ultrasound is, by its very nature, completely inaudible?'

'Not by its very nature.
We
can't hear it, admittedly, but certain species of animals can. One need only think of the conformation of a bat's head, which many people find so weird: the wrinkled snout and the outsize ears capable of rotating in any direction. Both are aids to better reception.'

'One moment. Are you saying that bats' ears grant them access to a world from which we, as human beings, are excluded?'

'That's certainly true of most bats, though probably not, to the best of our present knowledge, of flying foxes. The world of sounds is very much greater than we can imagine.'

'You don't seriously mean that we're at the mercy of that unknown world and at a disadvantage to other species, as if we were all deaf, whereas those animals are capable of perceiving the whole realm of sounds?'

'There are degrees, of course. Dogs and cats are receptive to a considerably wider spectrum of sounds than human beings, but a bat's sense of hearing is superior by far.'

'And human beings, though incapable of hearing such sounds, continually produce them without being aware of it?'

'It's more than possible. The human voice resonates with sympathetic frequencies that hold no importance for us because our ears are unable to detect them.'

'Do you know what you're saying? Do you realise how greatly it affects our conception of the audible world?'

'You're an expert on acoustics. You must be familiar with the concept of ultrasound.'

'Of course I am, in theory, but it's not a phenomenon that has ever been associated in my mind with sounds proper. When people say a dog hears better than a man, I've always taken it to mean that a dog's hearing is more acute in the sense that it can recognise its master's voice and footsteps in the distance, not that it detects nuances in the human voice which a human being can never hear.'

All at once, my vocal map is falling to pieces in my hands. The lines I've drawn lead nowhere, have always led nowhere, and the whole sheet is suddenly blank and empty. Gone are all my entries, from the silent parade of the deaf-mutes (arms restlessly gesticulating in the misty air, feet tramping across sodden grass), to the Scharführer's barrack-square bellow (autumnal acoustic conditions, drizzle, first light), to the wounded, dying soldiers (early summer heat and night-time), to the distraught figures in their underpants (cold tiles, gaping mouths brightly illuminated). Gone are the cries, the agitated gasps and strident whistles, gone the shouted words of command, the hopeless cripple's laboured breathing and the coward's whimpers, gone the revolting moans and grunts of couples in bed, gone the fading, exhausted voices on the radio from Stalingrad. All are vanishing from my inward ear, all are being sucked back into a silent void because of those never-to-be-heard sounds in the world known only to animals.

VI

ALL
QUIET
.
IT
'
S
REALLY
QUIET
AT
THE
MOMENT
.
I
PEEP
through a crack in the curtains: nothing but darkness. It's as if all the soldiers in the world were having a rest, too tired to go on fighting. It's so quiet, even a night creature mightn't be able to hear anything. And the sky's dark for once, there's no red glow over the city, not a glimmer, no shadows in the night. They've turned off all the searchlights. No bombs falling, from the look of it. The sky is dark, the way Herr Karnau always wanted. No lines on the sky to lighten the darkness, none of those flares that look like strands of flaming seaweed, none of those jagged Christmas trees that make the night as bright as day.

It's nearly dark here too, in Mama's bedroom. Only her dressing-table light is on. Heide's talking to her quietly and watching her putting on her make-up. Mama's bedroom is the only place in the house we can escape to, nowadays. I don't know how she stays so calm — she's always so incredibly calm when she's doing her face. She was just the same in peace-time and she's never changed all through the war. When Papa gave a party in the old days, she sometimes let us stay with her while she did her face, before we had to go to bed. She would quickly remove her day-time make-up and paint her face for the evening. It only took her a minute or two. Papa would be waiting for her downstairs with the guests, but she always seemed to have masses of time. Mama's bedroom is her kingdom, and Papa never dares walk in on her uninvited. Us children are the only ones allowed to come in while she's getting ready.

She still insists on being left in peace while she's making up, even though everything else has changed so much lately. 'Mama,' asks Heide, tugging at her sleeve, 'why are there so many people in the house these days? How long will they be staying? They're strangers, after all.'

'They're refugees, Heide. We're putting them up because they've nowhere else to go. It won't be for much longer.'

'They look different from us — they're dirty, a lot of them. Don't they ever wash?'

Mama has always made a point of telling us how important it is to wash properly and comb our hair. It's the same with make-up. Make-up is a kind of protection against other people, she says, and the older you get the more you feel you need it. That's why, for quite a while now, I've been allowed to have a bath on my own. I'm even allowed to lock the door so the others can't disturb me. They used to come running in when I was sitting in the bathtub — they couldn't understand that I wanted to be left in peace, no matter how often I told them. The little ones would bring their wooden boat, which is really only meant for the lake, and insist on sailing it in the bath, even though it was plastered with duckweed. And when I forbade them to get in with me they'd horse around in front of the mirror. We always had a shouting match before they finally left.

'The refugees wash quite as thoroughly as you do,' Mama says, putting on some rouge. 'If they look the worse for wear, Heide, it's because they had to leave their homes before the enemy got there. They've lost everything they possessed, that's why they can't change their clothes twice a day the way we do. Right now they're simply glad to be safe here with us, a long way from the fighting. And now, leave Mama in peace for a bit.'

She outlines her left eyelid, concentrating hard so the little pencil doesn't slip off the edge and go in her eye. I don't suppose she realises why Heide is asking so many questions about the refugees. She wasn't there when one of them gave Heide such a shock without meaning to — an elderly man who'd taken a fancy to her and showed her a conjuring trick. He held up a coloured handkerchief and made it vanish into his hands. Heide thought she'd seen through the trick. She laughed and pointed to his sleeve, but it wasn't hidden there. Then the man produced the handkerchief from his mouth and ran it through his fingers again. Heide was looking so hard at the handkerchief she didn't notice he only had two on each hand — fingers, I mean. He looked a bit grubby, too, and his lungs made a funny rattling sound when he breathed. When Heide finally saw the stumps of his missing fingers she shrieked and ran out of the room.

Mama has finished powdering her nose. She smiles at us in the mirror, but you can tell her face still hurts. You can tell it from her mouth and the way it droops sideways when she speaks. It's that nerve on the right-hand side, even though the operation was months ago. Sometimes she spends the whole day in bed with cold compresses on her face and can't move. I doubt if it'll ever get better.

These days Heide trails around everywhere with that rag doll Hedda used to have when she was little. Mama makes another attempt to get rid of the thing. 'It's all tattered and dirty,' she tells Heide. 'You've got some nice new dolls of your own.' But Heide refuses to be parted from it. She stomps out of the bedroom sucking the doll's ear.

'Mama?'

'Yes, Helga?'

'The war, will it really be over soon?'

'Yes, this year, definitely.'

'Will we being staying here at Schwanenwerder till then, or will we have to move again?'

Mama shrugs her shoulders. 'That's not for us to decide. If it's safer somewhere else, we'll naturally go there.'

It was awful, the journey here from Lanke. We set off in the middle of the night. The cars could hardly squeeze past the columns of refugees. They made room for us and pushed their cart to one side, the poor, ragged people, but we had to drive very slowly. Even in the darkness we could see all the things they were taking with them: suitcases, carpets, lamps — even great big cupboards. Once I saw a horse lying beside the road. I think it was dead.

Mama ends by squirting some perfume behind her ears and under her chin. She squirts a little on my wrist as well. Then she takes one more look at her hair and stands up. 'Come on, Helga, let's go down and join the others.'

Everyone's in the drawing-room because Papa is speaking on the radio today, something he hasn't done for a long time. It's awfully cold in February without any heating, so they're all sitting there in their overcoats. Mama gives me a rug to wrap around me. Someone turns on the radio and everyone stops talking. Then comes the announcer, and then Papa starts to speak. The situation is critical, he says, but there are hopeful signs. Our enemies rejoice too soon, as they've so often done in the past, if they think they've broken our spirit of resistance. The brutal enemy soldiers who lay slaughtered babies at their mothers' feet have taught us an object lesson. Speaking for himself, Papa says, he has an unshakeable belief that victory will be ours, otherwise the world would have lost its right to exist — in fact life on earth would be worse than hell, and he wouldn't think it worth living, neither from his own point of view nor from that of his children. He would happily cast that life aside.

'Mama, did he really mean that? Would Papa really kill himself? And his children? That's us, after all.'

But Mama doesn't answer, she just stares at the loudspeaker. The others don't say anything or look at me either. They keep their heads down and concentrate with their eyes shut or stare past me at the radio. Neither for himself nor for his children . .. 'Maybe it isn't Papa at all? Maybe it's just an enemy broadcaster who's imitating Papa's voice and putting words into his mouth?' But Mama doesn't hear me. All she hears is that voice.

*

I can't hear a thing, not a thing, the sounds are indistinguishable, everything is drowned by this roar, this ear-numbing roar that has taken possession of the air and my trembling body. Is this the end, is this the roar in which all sounds become reduced to a final, fiendish cacophony? Is this the descent into death? No, the plane levels off once more and the stutter of its engines gives way to the whistle of the slipstream as we spiral down towards our destination, a sea of flames. No one knows exactly how far the Russians have advanced, so there's a constant threat of gunfire from the ruins below. We're coming in to land on a runway flanked by shattered buildings. Not the Kurfurstendamm, surely? But it must be, it's the only runway left. Every tree in the avenue has been felled and the tram lines are obscured by a layer of bulldozed, steamrollered rubble. As the makeshift landing strip draws steadily nearer, one detail after another flashes past at lightning speed: a burned-out tramcar, a wrecked vehicle sprawled across the pavement, mounds of debris, splintered wooden doors, bathtubs doing duty for anti-tank barriers, a legless cripple humping himself along on his hands, a string of refugees, the remains of a family, a perambulator piled high with household effects. I can even make out sunken cheeks, bloodshot eyes, a child's runny nose. The images vanish in a cloud of dust as we touch down with a jolt. Are my arms trembling or merely taking on the movements of our plane as it judders to a halt?

Armed men come sprinting out of a ruined store and start unloading the aircraft almost before it comes to a halt. They stand guard, rifles at the ready, while the freight compartment is emptied of its crates of foodstuffs. The whole city is rationed. Everyone is dependent on rape-seed cakes, turnips and molasses. The inhabitants are being encouraged to gather roots and acorns, mushrooms and clover. Any living creature that can still be found among the gutted ruins is fair game — the authorities have even issued instructions on how to catch frogs. All available warm-blooded animals are to be devoured without delay. Conditions at the zoo are disastrous, I hear: two days ago, on Friday, 20 April, it was compelled to close for the first time in its history. Lack of power has immobilised the pumps and reduced the aquatic animals' pools to turbid soup, with the result that cracks have begun to appear in the dolphins' skin.