The Karnau Tapes (24 page)

The younger ones are scared of all the noise, they're huddled together in the passage on the ground floor. Helmut sees me coming. 'Are they firing at us, Helga?' he calls. 'Have they hit the upstairs yet?'

'No, everything's fine, but we're going down to the shelter with Mama. We'll be really safe down there.'

But they're too scared to move. They don't get up till Mama appears. We always went down in the lift before, but now we use the stairs. We'd be stuck half-way down if the electricity failed, and no one would get us out, they're all too busy. Mama and us are the only ones in the shelter: the others have to stay upstairs and go on working.

Everything down here looks the way it always did. You can't hear the noises overhead. We know the pictures on the walls by heart. There isn't one we haven't looked at a hundred times while waiting for an air raid to end in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep even though we each have a bed of our own down here. Yes, we know every line and speck of colour in these pictures. We also know the patterns on the carpets and the embroidery on the chair covers. There's no need to be so scared down here, but it's boring all the same. We don't feel like playing, we simply want the guns to stop. Mama can't think of anything for us to do. We'll just have to wait.

*

The guns went on and on, but we didn't care to spend all night in the shelter. Mama didn't either. After a while we went back upstairs and slept in our own beds. We're all sleeping in one room because the others are full. It's our old nursery, but it doesn't look half as nice as it used to. All our clothes and toys are packed up in boxes. The water that's leaking from the broken pipes has left brown patches on the flowery wallpaper. That wouldn't have happened in the old days. In the old days the pipes would have been mended right away. At least we've still got our own beds. The other people in the house have to sleep on uncomfortable camp beds without any mattresses. At least we've got our own beds and bedclothes, our nice warm duvets. It's cold in the nursery because it doesn't have any window-panes either, just squares of cardboard. At night the cardboard looks black and the wind makes the curtains bulge. The little ones get scared when that happens, they think someone's trying to get in, but nobody did, not last night. The guns went on firing, that's all.

We see Papa at breakfast, but not for long. He shouldn't go away so often. He goes out nearly every day, makes regular trips to the front line to take the soldiers food and schnapps, but it's dangerous there.

'Papa, you won't go away so often, will you?'

'No, sweetheart.'

'Let's stay together from now on.'

'Mm?'

'I said let's stay together — all of us, the whole family.'

'Yes, you're right.'

But he isn't really listening to me, he's bolting his bread and butter and thinking about his work. It's so dismal here. Being at Schwanenwerder was much nicer. Papa used to come home in the evenings and spend some time with us, even when he was very busy or feeling ill. It was spring-time at Schwanenwerder; here you wouldn't know it for the dust and filth. At Schwanenwerder we could play in the garden, almost like before the war; here we're only in the way.

'Can we watch a film?'

'Afraid not, the cinema's being used as a conference-room.'

'When, then?'

'Maybe tonight, if the Russians don't launch another attack.'

'How much longer will they go on attacking?'

'Not much longer. It'll all be over soon.'

Hedda pretends to be satisfied with Papa's answer, but he and Mama have told us the same thing heaps of times, and the war isn't over yet.

*

It's on fire, the whole garden's on fire. The smoke is drifting into our room. We've taken out the sheets of cardboard. The flames are on a level with our first-floor windows. Papa's staff are standing outside, pouring petrol on the bonfires and lighting them one after another. It's paper they're burning. They go on throwing files into the flames. How easily the paper catches fire, how the flames crackle and roar! Papa isn't down there, he's in his room, recording a speech on tape. It's supposed to be broadcast this afternoon. Are there any radios left in Berlin, I wonder. Another shell bursts. Everyone forgets about the bonfires and makes a dash for the house. Now they're crouching against the wall just below us. Where's Mama? More bangs, lots of them, the guns must be getting quite close. We crawl into a corner between the beds. I wonder if Papa's somewhere safe — if he's stopped recording his speech, with all this noise. Mama comes rushing in: 'Out you come, children, time to go down to the shelter.'

The guns keep firing all day long. We're not allowed back into our room. We sit around, either in the shelter or the passage downstairs. Papa's staff are also down there now. It's impossible to talk, the noise is too bad, just a word or two now and then. Nobody feels like lunch. Things can't go on this way, we won't be able to stand it much longer. Papa goes out, even though he promised we'd stay together for once. The first thing he does when he comes back is have a quick word with Mama, who takes us up to our room. 'Get the children ready,' she tells the nursemaid. I wonder what she means. Then she says, 'We're going to join the Führer.'

'Will we get some cakes at the Führer's?' asks Hedda.

'The Führer is bound to have some,' Holde says.

'You're talking rubbish,' I tell them. 'Why would he have any cakes?'

'Because he's the Führer.'

'Nobody has any cakes these days. How would they get here?'

'By plane, maybe.'

'Nonsense.'

'Why nonsense? Planes keep landing here all the time.'

'Yes, but they don't fly all the way to Berlin to deliver cakes for us.'

'Not even for the Führer?' Hedda turns to Mama. '
Will
we get some cakes, Mama?'

'Anyone would think you were starving,' Mama says.

The nursemaid starts packing our things. She lets me help her to get it done more quickly. Should we only take summer things or warm things as well? 'Night things too?' the nursemaid asks Mama.

'No, they won't be needing them any more.'

What does she mean by that? She looks at us. 'You can take some toys with you, but only one each, do you hear?'

Heide searches desperately for her rag doll, but it's nowhere to be found, neither in her bed nor in the toy box. Did she leave it behind in the shelter? Is it downstairs in the passage? No.

The nursemaid shrugs her shoulders. 'Can't be helped,' she says.

But Heide absolutely insists on taking her old rag doll.

Mama gets a little impatient. 'Put in another doll for her,' she tells the nursemaid.

Heide is almost in tears by now. Mama picks her up and gives her a little cuddle. 'What do you expect us to do?' she says. 'We've got to leave here right away, and your doll has simply vanished.'

Heide pretends to be happy with the other doll, but she isn't really, you can tell from the look on her face when the nursemaid puts it in the suitcase. Then we go downstairs. Papa comes downstairs too, looking very pale and walking very slowly. What will become of us now, I wonder.

There are two cars parked outside. Mama says, 'Helga, you come with us in the first car. The others can go with Herr Schwagermann.'

We get into the limousine the Führer gave Papa for Christmas one time. It's armoured and the windows are bulletproof, so nothing can happen to us, but what about the others? Their car doesn't have bulletproof windows. Mama sits beside me, crying softly. Papa doesn't say anything, neither does the chauffeur. We haven't been outside once since we got to Berlin three nights ago. At last we can see what a mess it's in. Just ruins, walls with great big holes in them, shattered buildings on the point of collapse, mounds of rubble everywhere, shell craters in the middle of the road. 'What's that over there — a dead body?' Mama doesn't answer. Is it really a dead body, that lifeless bundle of clothes? How can you tell when you've never seen one before? We've passed it already.

We turn into Voss Strasse. We always walked here in the old days, it isn't far. The cars pull up. Lucky we didn't get shot at on the way. Papa goes on ahead, the chauffeurs take our bags. The little ones come tumbling out of the car behind. They look as if they've been crying. Little Heide comes running up to me.

'What were all those holes in the road and those heaps of stones? Are they building something?'

'Could be.'

'But where are all the workmen?'

'They've finished for the day. It's gone five o'clock, and anyway, it's Sunday.'

Heide takes my hand and won't let go of it. We follow Papa. There's rubble everywhere. We find the entrance and set off down the stairs to the cellar. The Bunker, I mean.

Four little rooms, and not a window anywhere. At home we've got nearer forty rooms. It was nicer in our nursery, even with cardboard over the windows. It's always dark down here unless you switch the light on. You can't see a single ray of sunlight coming through the cracks, and you can't hear any birds singing. The air never moves in spite of the air-conditioning. The rooms are for Mama and us. Papa walks on down the passage, he says he's got to go downstairs. We're a long way down already, but there's an even lower level. Papa's office must be down there. I wonder how long we'll have to put up with this place. The others all start talking at once:

'Will our nursemaid be coming too?'

'Why didn't we bring any night things?'

'Why don't we need them?'

We do need them, of course, we can see that now, but Mama doesn't answer. She puts us to bed. We're to sleep in our vests tonight, without cleaning our teeth. Everything's going from bad to worse. We don't even have our own beds, just air-raid-shelter beds — uncomfortable double-decker bunks like little children have, the room's too small for any other kind. At Lanke we had the woods to play in, and the lake and lots of animals, though it wasn't very nice when we came across women's things there, like a lipstick in a colour we'd never seen Mama wearing. That's when we realised that Papa didn't go to Lanke by himself, even though he said he did. There were other women at Schwanenwerder too, but they used to visit Papa at the guest-house. Schwanenwerder was the nicest place of all, actually, because we could invite friends home from school. We went for boat rides there and learned to swim. Our rooms at the town house were lovely, too, and we often saw Papa during the day when we were staying there. We had so many toys at the town house, they wouldn't all fit into the nursery. Here we've got nothing. There weren't any cakes after all. It's been another miserable day.

Mama has just gone out. Our door is ajar and we can hear her in the passage, talking to someone. It's a man. Not Papa, but his voice sounds familiar. The first thing we see is a little black dog: Coco! He nudges the door open with his nose, and all at once Herr Karnau comes in. We recognise him right away, even though he's covered in dust and dirt. His hair is matted and his clothes are torn. He comes straight over to our bunks and laughs because we're so pleased to see him. Why did he come? Because of us? What's he doing in the Bunker? Is he here to work?

Herr Karnau says he'll have a wash first, then tell us how he got here. Coco jumps up on my bunk. Helmut and Holde, who are sharing the bunk overhead, reach down and pat him. Coco wags his tail so hard he rumples the bedclothes. He licks my face, wanting to be petted. Herr Karnau is scrubbing his neck at the wash-basin.

'How did you manage to get to Berlin, Herr Karnau?'

'By plane, believe it or not.'

'You mean there's still an airfield?'

'Not an airfield, no. We had to land on the Kurfurstendamm. Talk about bumpy! My tummy was full of butterflies.'

'I always feel sick when I fly,' I say.

'Maybe it was your plane we saw in the sky,' Hedda says. 'Earlier on, in the middle of the day. Was that you?'

'If it was a little plane, yes, it could have been. Why, did you see me waving?'

'Of course not, it was too far away.' Hedda can't help laughing. Herr Karnau starts combing his hair.

'Why are you so dirty?' Holde asks.

'It's the dust. The air is thick with it, and you have to scramble over mountains of debris to get anywhere. No wonder I'm so dirty.'

Coco goes on snuffling and licking. He recognises us all, even though it's so long since we saw him and Herr Karnau. Hilde asks what Herr Karnau has been doing all this time.

'No, you first. How are you all, anyway?'

'Not too bad.'

'Have you only just got here, like me?'

'Yes, a couple of hours ago.'

'And before that you were at Schwanenwerder?'

'Yes, but we've spent the last three days here in Berlin, in Hermann Göring Strasse. It was nice at Schwanenwerder.'

'But not as nice as it used to be,' says Holde.

'Why not?'

Holde doesn't know how to put it. Helmut says, 'There were so many people staying with us.'

'And sometimes the lights went out all over the house,' says Heide. 'We got scared once, when Mama and Papa were out. It went all dark suddenly, but none of us had touched the light switch.'

'A power cut?'

'Yes, something like that. And Papa didn't come home till late.'

Herr Karnau has finished washing. Now he looks the way he used to. He gives his trousers one last flick with the clothes-brush and perches on the edge of my bunk. He went to the zoo today, he tells us.

'The zoo? Wasn't it shut?'

'Of course.'

'How are the animals?'

'In a pretty bad way. They could do with some peace and quiet at last, like us.'

'Is there a lot of damage?'

'The staff are trying to salvage as much as possible. The keepers are still looking after their animals. Just imagine, they're combing the city for things to feed them on.'

'Are many of the animals sick?'

'Yes, or injured, and there's a shortage of water.'

'When the war's over, let's help the poor animals.'

Heide: 'The fishes first of all.'

'And the lions.'

The others suggest various ways of rescuing the animals. They all want to look after their favourite ones when the war's over. They must think Herr Karnau is a vet, because they ask if he'll make the animals better. It doesn't occur to them that many of them must already be dead, and Herr Karnau doesn't mention it.