A Man Without Breath

‘Do you mean money? I can give you money. I can get more money if what I can give you is not enough.’

‘No. Your money is no good. Nor is our money, if it comes to that. There’s nothing to buy with money. Not in Smolensk. You certainly cannot buy the one thing I need most of all – a future for me and my daughter. There’s no future for us here. You see, when the Red Army recaptures Smolensk – as, with respect, inevitably it will – there will be a dreadful reckoning in this city. The NKVD will conduct a new witch-hunt to find all of those traitors who did business with the Germans. And as someone who has been questioned before, whose wife was a spy and a wrecker, then I’m automatically suspect. But if that weren’t enough, then as someone whose hospital is full of wounded German soldiers – which is aiding and abetting the enemy, plain and simple – the fact of the matter is that I will be one of the very first to be shot. My daughter, too, probably. I have less chance of surviving this war than an ant on the floor.’

‘How old is she? Your daughter?’

‘Fifteen. No, our only chance of being alive this time next year is if I can persuade you Germans to take me back to Germany with you as a – what do you call it?’

‘A Zeppelin volunteer.’

Batov nodded.

‘Can you prove it?’

He nodded again. ‘I have the proof. Enough proof for it to seem almost suspicious. But it is proof nonetheless. It is proof that cannot be questioned. Enyoperovezhempe geraenka.’

He glanced out of the window. ‘It’s stopped snowing,’ he said. ‘We could walk, I suppose. It’s not far to the hospital. Me, I walk there every day. But you Germans don’t much like walking. I’ve noticed that when you invade someone else’s country you do it at great speed, and in as many vehicles as you can. You Germans, with your cars and your autobahns. Yes, I should like to see those. Germany must be a beautiful country if people want to get from one place to another at such enormous speed. Here no one is ever in a hurry to go anywhere else in Russia. What would be the point? They know it’s just as shitty somewhere else as the place you are now.’ He grinned. ‘Are you too drunk to drive that car of yours?’

‘I’m too drunk to take proper care of a pretty girl, but I’m never too drunk to drive a car. And certainly not in Russia. If I hit someone or something I’m not likely to care very much. I’m a German, right? So fuck it. Besides, a bit of fresh air will sober me up in no time.’

‘Again spoken like a true Russian. We have plenty of fresh air in Russia. Much more than we need.’

‘That’s why we came,’ I said. ‘At least according to Hitler. We needed the space to breathe. That’s why we hanged those two German soldiers this morning. It’s all part of the master race’s master plan to extend our living space.’ I laughed. ‘I’m drunk. That’s the only reason why it seems funny, I suppose.’

‘In Russia that’s the only reason anything ever seems funny, my friend.’

We left the apartment and I drove us down to the hospital. Despite the fresh snow, with all the cracks and potholes the car had little trouble in gripping the road. I felt like I was bouncing around on the floor of the plane from Berlin.

‘Do you remember I told you about Lieutenant Rudakov and how he fell and cracked his head on the floor, while he was drunk?’ asked Batov.

‘Yes.’ I swerved to avoid a cart and a horse in the middle of the road. ‘I’m beginning to understand how he must have been feeling.’

‘The lieutenant suffered a depressed skull fracture. I was able to repair his skull, but not his brain. The pressure on his brain caused a haemorrhage, damaging delicate tissue – speech centres, mainly. That and the acute insult to his system that was the amount of alcohol consumed was enough to render him an invalid. Most of the time he’s little better than a marrow. Quite a decent-looking marrow actually, as he still has a few moments of lucidity.’

‘Christ, Batov, you don’t mean to say he’s alive – that he’s still here? In your hospital?’

‘Of course he’s still here. This is his home-town. Where better to care for him than the Smolensk State Medical Academy?’

*

The man in the wheelchair did not look like a man who had helped murder four or perhaps five thousand people, but then, as I’d learned from first-hand experience, few men do. There were men in SS police battalions with faces like Handel’s favourite choirboys, who could charm the birds from the trees. Sometimes, for murder to take place, murderers must be full of smiles.