Tin Sky (25 page)

Early Wednesday morning, during a stop at Borovoye on his way back to Merefa (officially to see Lattmann before he left with the Platonov papers for the Kiev Branch Office, unofficially to hear if he had news about the medic’s reassignment), all Bora could do was note Lattmann’s words. “Hell, Mantau was right on the mark. I still don’t understand how exactly they managed it, and I’d have wagered the UPA would get to Khan first, given his long Bolshevik career. But Ukraine is becoming more acronym-ridden than Spain six years ago. I wonder how long the NKVD knew Tibyetsky was in Kharkov.”

Lattmann kept his outlook philosophical. “They must have found out where he’d crossed over early enough. Count your
blessings the babushkas got to him when he was no longer at your place.”

“That’s puzzling, too. Whoever diverted them to Mantau’s supervision did it
before
the defector was taken from us. Either Sydir Kovpak’s Moscow-run partisans have a crystal ball, or they have a mole inside Mantau’s SD, which would be egregious. I would
love
that. By the way, does
Narodnaya Slava
mean anything to you?”

“‘National Glory’, or ‘Glory of the People’ – what is it, a slogan?”

“I don’t know. Khan pencilled it behind a photo of himself standing in his tank, wearing an impressive array of medals.”

“It might refer to the T-34.”

“Or to himself, knowing the type. See what else you can find out about those claims, Bruno.”

“Won’t be easy; I’ll do what I can. The communiqué doesn’t specify the names of the ‘patriots’ who carried out the punitive action. It means nothing per se, but you’d expect it.”

“Yes, especially since we had a list including the women’s patronymics to begin with. If they were operatives, theirs could have been aliases. Still, why not identify the two who were publicly hanged, at least? Language-wise, I can’t argue with the authenticity of the claim –
Down with the brown plague to mankind and culture! The hangman hordes shall perish!
The rhetoric is all there.” It was warm out here; both men were perspiring heavily. Bora removed the camouflage smock he used on patrol, and unbuttoned the neck of his summer shirt. “Have there been any official German reactions thus far?”

“I’ll say. The Ukrainian railway personnel were brought to task for the arrival of the babushkas at Pokatilovka instead of Merefa. Yesterday the Security Service shot them all: at both stops, from the assistants to the German stationmasters to the last signalman and switchman. At Pokatilovka some resistance was attempted, understandably, and an SD man was wounded. Now they’re dragging people out of bread lines at random and
machine-gunning those who try to escape. And since some Ukrainian gendarmes are lending a hand here and there, there’s got to be some heavy-duty settling of old accounts going on.” Lattmann followed Bora as he hurried to the personnel carrier, and watched him toss his smock on the front seat. “They’ll stop you north of Khoroshevo if you continue from here. I wouldn’t go to Kharkov if I were you, Martin.”

Bora shook his friend’s hand, where every other fingertip was bandaged. “You would, Bruno, and so will I.”

Lattmann had been conservative in his estimate. Entering the city was impossible from all sides; not even the usual dirt lanes between dismantled factories could be traversed. Trying his fortune from Merefa, Bora found that roadblocks began at the
Kombinat
; vehicles were being turned back regardless of their business in Kharkov. He decided to walk inside and ask the Commissioner’s permission to phone the 161st Division headquarters for last-minute information. The suite of offices was deserted, however, with the exception of Stark’s assistant and piles of medical supplies no one had been able to pick up. Bora was permitted one call. When von Salomon’s phone rang, the colonel’s answer came husky and anguished. “I have no time to talk to you, Major. This is appalling – right below my windows! Appalling, appalling.”

Bora couldn’t get anything else out of him; other extensions at headquarters rang out. Without knowing whether von Salomon’s hesitation was due to actions by German troops or directed against them, he tried unsuccessfully for an hour to be let through at the checkpoint. At mid-morning, in the wake of a staff car whose provoked passengers prevailed, he was finally allowed past the heavily armed patrol, but the journey lasted only until the next security stop, five kilometres from the city limits. While those in the staff car – one of them a general’s aide – took up a heated confrontation with the Security Service men, Bora stealthily backed up a good way, put the camouflage
smock back on, left the personnel carrier at the side of the road and went around the roadblock on foot, at his own risk.

Cutting unseen across the field, he traversed a wet, deeply furrowed area just the distance needed to get back on the tarmac to the north and out of sight of the patrol. Here he soon managed to get a lift from the driver of an army truck, which had originally been travelling southbound and had been forced to turn back at the same checkpoint. The driver’s depot was at Jassna Polyana. Bora got off there, crossed the tracks to the park beyond, and twenty minutes later reached downtown Kharkov. Behind him were desolate, empty streets. Here and there a small shop in the traditional Russian style – below street level and reachable by climbing down a few steps – had broken windows and no one inside.

Under the sun, in the canvas camouflage garment that heightened the heat of day, Bora dripped with sweat. Rifle shots – a dry
pock, pock
sound that echoed between buildings – guided him to the curving avenue and square that until the Stalingrad disaster had been named after General von Paulus, near the marble-striped Cathedral of the Annunciation. A round-up was in progress there. Bora couldn’t say he wasn’t used to the scene. He wished he could say it troubled him; in fact, nothing seemed to trouble him any more. It was all already seen, done, experienced. Crowds lost individuality; it came down to shoves and rifle butts pushing or dividing or striking, quick turns on the heel as someone sprinted to get away and the weapon was righted, aimed and fired without missing. Everyone played their role perfectly, victims included. Bodies lay around, blood pooled under them. Only his anger (which was something other than a feeling of pity) was stirred, like a thick liquid that needed mixing and scooping but in the end agitated on its own. Principle, not people; not feeling what he didn’t feel. Virtue had nothing to do with it. Bora stepped up to the SD non-com directing the operation, who looked over impatiently even before he was questioned.

“Who authorized this?”

“Gruppenführer Müller’s orders, authorized by the Gebietskommissar.”

“Aren’t these Ukrainian nationals? The assassination was claimed by Russian Soviets.”

“It was Ukrainian rail workers who attacked a German soldier. And anyhow, Major, check your sources. UPA counterclaimed the terrorist action this morning.”

That was news, but not to be looked into now. Von Salomon’s office not being far away, Bora walked there. He couldn’t see anything in the street overlooked by his windows that was “appalling” or that justified the colonel’s anguish, so he changed his mind and decided not to waste time on someone else’s squeamishness. It was when he turned into the lane near the cathedral, between the textile works and the old Palace of Labour, that he understood. There Army units were deployed alongside the Security Service and were corralling terrified men and women into waiting trucks for deportation, or worse.

If hierarchy meant precious little to the SS and SD, it did carry weight with Army ranks. Bora remembered he still had a copy of the babushkas’ name list with him. He eyed a fairly young artillery lieutenant busy lining up civilians on the sidewalk, approached the line and without a word jerked a woman at random out of the long row.

Unhesitatingly, the lieutenant pushed the woman back in line. “What are you doing, Herr Major?”

Bora flashed the sheet in front of him with the women’s names on it, rubber-stamped by Stark’s office. “No: what are
you
doing, Lieutenant? You have my five female labourers. I’ll hold you accountable if I can’t collect them.”

The subordinate read the Commissioner’s signature – not the date, because Bora’s thumb was concealing it – and took a resentful step back. “Well, sir, pick them up quickly, then. We have work to do.”

Striding along the line of civilians Bora reclaimed the first
woman he’d chosen and pulled out four more instinctively, not knowing why he selected this anguished face, that unresisting wrist instead of another. No kindness whatever was in his gestures; he was simply angry and uncomfortable.
Is this how we die, at random? Is this how we are chosen to be born in the first place? What role am I playing before God as I mindlessly reach to save one and condemn the others
?

Afterwards, on foot as he was, he didn’t know what to do with the women. He forbade himself to become emotionally involved, to the extent that he couldn’t have said what their ages were or described their faces. It was not relevant. He pushed them ahead of himself around a corner, down a narrow street lined with tram tracks, until he came to a crossroads, where he stopped. Because his pistol holster was unlatched, the women stood before him in a knot, weeping, and only when he shouted at them, “
Davai!
” did they understand they should run for it.

In the confusion, Bora was twice more able to pull the stunt of the name list with Army patrols in the reticule of streets and ruinous public buildings between the cathedral and the Trade Guilds Park. A fourth time would have been far too risky. By the time he climbed the stairs to von Salomon’s office, he had little desire and no patience for an earful of gloomy recriminations.

The colonel’s restless pacing was audible at the end of the hallway. It did not cease when Bora appeared on the threshold and saluted. On the contrary, it widened to include the window in its path.

“This is all very bad, Major. Very bad.” Von Salomon didn’t enquire how Bora had managed to enter Kharkov, and Bora said nothing whatever. “At this time, very bad.”

Sporadic shooting continued outside; the window panes rattled feebly in their frames. Bora was still angry. Concealing it was not the difficult part; getting rid of his anger was. He watched von Salomon press his hands to his cheeks as he paced. “Psychostasis,” he heard him mutter. “Psychostasis. The dreadful weighing of souls after death. Can anyone escape it?”

The guilt-sharing words sounded elegant and empty. To Bora, the colonel’s resemblance to a large unhappy dog was more evident and credible than his inner turmoil. Lowering his eyes, he noticed now that in pulling one of the women out of one of the round-ups a small length of yarn from her frayed blouse had become stuck to his right sleeve. Quickly he removed it, pushing it with his forefinger out of sight, under the buttoned tab of his cuff. Whether von Salomon’s question was rhetorical, Bora answered it. “If one believes in psychostasis, Herr Oberst, no one may escape it.”

“Yes.” The colonel halted by the window, and leant against the sill. “My opinion as well. You know, I have it from reputable sources that SS and Police General von dem Bach-Zelewski, who led special operations in Riga, has been having hallucinations about Jews ever since. Some say instead that it’s because his sisters married Jews. Both circumstances would – eh? What do you think?”

The dilemma sounded sincere, insofar as von Salomon might wonder whether mass executions or marrying into Jewish blood could have caused the SS general’s mental strain. Bora kept his eyes on the occasionally trembling window glass, beyond the colonel. Years before he’d got wariness down to a fine art. And even though of late there were moments when without reason he abandoned it altogether, this was not such a time. He said, impassively, “I think I needn’t remind the colonel of the Führer’s 13 May 1941 decree regarding the summary nature of collective reprisal measures on this front. And may I also point out that General Erich von dem Bach renounced his Polish surname Zelewski two years ago.”

Most security checks had been raised when Bora left Kharkov in the company of a supply officer headed for the commissioner’s office. The checkpoint north of the
Kombinat
, still manned, was now being dismantled, and they were allowed through. Beyond, Bora asked to be let off where his personnel carrier
was still parked as he had left it, but for the folded piece of paper stuck between windshield and wiper. It read, above an illegible signature in green pencil,
A note has been made of this vehicle’s licence. Abandoning
Wehrmacht
property unguarded in occupied territory is not only unadvisable, it violates rules. The driver may expect disciplinary measures
.

Of all the things that had happened during the day – perhaps because he was objectively responsible for it – the admonition was the one that came close to making Bora blow his top. Because the Security Service men were looking on he did no more than accurately refold the paper along its creases and pocket it, but he was fuming as he drove without other incident towards Merefa.

Merefa, 7.15 p.m.

The words that come to mind are “vicarious” and “metonymy”. In moments of stress, substituting one sentiment for another, or taking something for something else, allows us to appease and tranquillize anxiety. The object that crosses our path then is invested with a larger meaning, and triggers a response proportionate to its role.

The Nitichenko priest, Father Victor, couldn’t have chosen a better way of precipitating events half an hour ago, although from the outside it merely looked like the return procession from whatever superstitious mumbo-jumbo he started out for two days ago. News travels much faster in this countryside than the supposed elimination of all radio apparatuses would lead us to believe; when the peasants filed past, they were singing and shouting their joy for the reprisal enacted in Kharkov during the past twenty-four hours. Communists, Russians, Jews, it’s all the same to that primitive, bigoted Nitichenko: God wants them dead, and good riddance.