A Man Without Breath

The executioner glanced over at Judge Conrad, who was nominally in charge of the execution. He was a stern-looking man who wore horn-rimmed glasses, but all the same, he’d seen enough for one day and he took them off and tucked them into the pocket of his greatcoat; then he nodded curtly. For his sake I hoped he was now seeing a blur of what was happening. He was a thoroughly decent man and I didn’t blame him for the sentence, not in the least; he had done his duty and given his verdict on the basis of the evidence.

The executioner himself wasn’t much more than a boy, but he went about his job with ruthless efficiency, and little more sign of emotion than if he had been about to kick at the sidewalls of a set of tyres. Instead, he placed the instep of his boot on the wooden steps and – almost carelessly – pushed them over.

The two condemned men dropped several centimetres and then swung like coat hangers, their legs cycling furiously on bicycles that weren’t there; and all the time their necks seemed to grow longer, like footballers straining to head the ball at a goal. Both men groaned loudly and steam enveloped their torsos as they lost control of their bladders. I turned away with a feeling of profound disgust and anger that I had been tricked by Corporal Hermichen into witnessing his squalid death.

It makes for a hell of a weekend when you’re obliged to attend a hanging.

*

I went to the Zadneprovsky Market on Bazarnaya Square, where you could buy all manner of things. Even in winter the square was full of enterprising Russians with something to sell now that the constraints of communism had been removed: an icon, an old vase, a home-made broom, jars of pickled beets and onions, some radishes, quilted clothing, pencils, snow shovels, hand-carved chess sets and pipes, portraits of Stalin, portraits of Hitler, unexploded propaganda grenades, cigarette papers, safety matches, lend-lease fuel packs for preparing food, lend-lease meat rations, lend-lease anti-gas goggles, lend-lease first-aid kits, bundled copies of a satirical magazine called Crocodile, back issues of Pravda that were useful for starting a fire, packets of Mahorka – this was Red Army tobacco (so strong it was like inhaling your very first cigarette) – and of course numerous Red Army souvenirs: these were popular with German soldiers, especially RKKA helmets, medals, tobacco tins, butter cans, spoons, razors, liquid polish, TT pistol holsters, wrist compasses, trench-shovels, map-cases, cavalry sabres and – most popular of all – SVT bayonets.

I wasn’t in search of any of this stuff. A souvenir was something you bought to remind you of somewhere, and although it wasn’t yet over, I knew I didn’t ever want to be reminded of my time in Smolensk. After the day I’d just had I wanted to forget about it as quickly as possible. So I went to Bazarnaya Square with something else in mind: a source of cheap oblivion.

I bought two large bottles of home-brewed beer – brewski – and was about to buy a bottle of samogon – the cheap but powerful home-made spirit we Germans were always being warned not to drink – when I saw a familiar face. It was Doctor Batov, from the Smolensk State Medical Academy.

‘You don’t want this stuff,’ he said removing the samogon from my hand. ‘Not if you want to see yourself in the mirror tomorrow.’

‘That was rather the point,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure I do. I heard the thing to do was pour the samogon into the brewski and drink the mixture. Yorsh, it’s called, isn’t it?’

‘For an intelligent man you have some very stupid ideas. If you drink two and a half litres of yorsh you may never see again. I suppose I should be glad if an enemy soldier kills or blinds himself, but I can easily make an exception in your case. What happened? I thought you weren’t coming back. Or is your return to Smolensk a punishment for discovering their dirty little secret?’

He was talking about the Polish intelligence report we had translated in his laboratory with the aid of the stereo microscope.

‘Actually, I decided to keep my mouth shut about that,’ I said. ‘At least for now. My life seems precarious enough without rocking the steps it’s standing on. No, I’m back here in Smolensk on other duties. Although I certainly wish I wasn’t. I just want to get drunk and to forget more than I care to remember. It’s been that sort of a day, I’m afraid.’

And I told him where I’d been and what I’d seen.

Batov shook his head. ‘It’s a curious example your generals try to make,’ he said. ‘Hanging one kind of German soldier for behaving like another kind of German soldier. Do they suppose it will make us dislike the Germans a little less if you execute one of your own for killing Russians – after all, that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To get rid of us so that you can live in the space made by our absence? There’s a kind of schizophrenia working here.’