The Violent Century Read online

  The war made old people of everyone. We know.

  – The Warsaw Ghetto uprising? the Old Man says, prompting.

  – Yes. Erich wanted to know many things. Then, I didn’t know why. But now I think I do.

  – Why? the Old Man says.

  – Power, Maria Becker says. That solitary word, like a fog, hovers in the still, cold air of the room. He needed power. He said to me, once, he had been drinking all night, we were sitting in my room, he was naked with his back to me, his buttocks pressed against the thin mattress. He was staring out of the window. It was snowing outside. He said, I no longer believe.

  22. WARSAW 1943

  We assemble this picture from conflicting reports, Maria Becker’s testimony, what Fogg learned later. It is in no way accurate.

  – I no longer believe.

  Erich sits naked on the thin mattress. His skin is pale everywhere. Maria runs her nails down his back but he shrugs her off. On the small bedside table is a bottle of vodka. A taste he’d picked up in Russia, he says. Talks little about the Eastern Front. Even less of Leningrad, which is still under siege. Told her once of dead horses in the streets, frozen, and children hacking flesh from the horses’ sides. There are no more horses in Leningrad. Erich stares out of the window. Raises the bottle to his lips. Drinks. Outside snow rages, snowdrops beat against the glass. Inside it is warm, the smell of their sex fills the air. Maria rises, presses against Erich’s back, her heavy breasts cool against his feverish skin. You can’t say that, she says. He doesn’t reply, does not even appear to know she’s there. She reaches around to touch him, her hand closes around his cock, but he shrugs her off.

  – You’re right, Erich says. Forget I said anything. Now she’s frightened. Think of the future, she whispers. Jumbled images in primary colours. White and red swastika flags waving in the wind; gleaming rockets flying into the air; skyscrapers rise above the Danube, the Thames, the Volga and the Rhine, blond children play under a bright African sun, their uniforms ironed to perfection by their servant-slaves nearby, modern women work at factories assembling Volkswagens, in the mountains in a wood cabin Maria and Erich and their three children go on a skiing holiday, laughing, holding hands, one of the children comes across a strange object in the snow, a six-pointed star made of gold, on a chain. What is it, the boy asks. It is nothing, Maria says. Takes it from him, before throwing it away.

  – I saw the ghetto, Erich says.

  That damned uprising. The Jews won’t leave the ghetto, the trains, ready to depart for Auschwitz, stand empty at the platforms. Maria stirs, uncomfortable. Tries not to look at the correspondence crossing her desk every day. Rumours of the camps. Letters from a Dr Mengele, seeking twins. It’s almost a joke around the office. Later, the requests change. Classified letters, saying the unthinkable. Are there Übermenschen in the ghetto? Can you confirm? Specimens urgently required. Mad. Yet spoken about in hushed tones, almost as if speaking of Vomacht himself. Maria hates Warsaw. Hates the Poles, the way they look at her when she walks down the street, shabby men and women with the reek of the defeated, somehow not quite human, somehow other than her. What did you see? she says. Reaches around to fondle him again. This time he lets her. She feels him harden. I saw them die, he says. It’s war, she says. War. It comes from the throat. Krieg. It is a throaty word. Krrriegggg. War, he says. War. Stares out of the window. The snow storm outside rises in tempo, it swallows everything, it encloses them inside the room, like prisoners. War, he says. She strokes him until he comes.

  23. WARSAW GHETTO 1943

  Children with yellow Stars of David on their arms run down the street, seeking shelter. A nearby building is on fire. The ghetto is ramshackle, buildings crowded into each other, women in shawls peer behind windows, young men stand on the rooftops hurling Molotov cocktails at the tanks beyond the ghetto walls. We watch, we see, we tally. Schneesturm rises into the air above the ghetto, the running boys stop, point to the sky. His uniform is white, the twin lightning bolts of the SS entombed within a giant, umlauted U. A two-man team with a stolen machine gun on the rooftop open fire. The snow grows around Schneesturm, masking him, the boys, excitedly, Is it a bird, is it a plane? No, it’s an honest-to-God German Übermensch.

  Watching. Schneesturm does not engage. He is not here in an official capacity. But now a new figure emerges onto the rooftops. A man, bare-chested despite the cold. His skin is tanned, almost green. The boys, behind their shelter, whisper. Gunfire from the German forces but they are being held in check, for the moment, by the Jews. The man on the rooftop begins to run. His feet are bare. He seems to grow as he runs, to expand. The snow dissipates, the white form of the German Übermensch reappears. Erich looks curious, hanging up there, suspended in the air. Watches the Jewish man running, growing larger, skin colour turning greener, feeding on the sun. Huge spikes suddenly shoot out of the man’s skin, from his arms, his legs, his feet.

  He leaps into the air.

  Impossibly high. A roar of rage and defiance shakes the ghetto. A German sniper, unseen, fires at him, but the shot, if it hits, does no apparent damage and the sniper, his location exposed, is eliminated by a Jewish comrade hiding in one of the ghetto’s apartments. But this man, this Übermensch flying across the skies, he seems half plant, he has inhuman power, the boys whisper, Sabra, Sabra.

  Schneesturm looks shocked when the Sabra reaches him, holds out spiked, prickly-pear arms, wants to grab him in a deadly hug. Schneesturm sends a blast of frozen ice at the Sabra who roars, smashing the ice into snowdrops with his arms, the spikes make a sound like a needle against a gramophone when they crack the ice.

  Schneesturm rises higher. Does not want to engage. The Sabra falls down onto the rooftops, the German forces fire at him, a wound opens in his side, green liquid oozes out but the wound closes, cactus-flesh sealing over, the Sabra lands on the roof, bent knee, one hand down on the roof, frozen like this, for just a moment, we see him in silhouette. Then he rises, shouts abuse at the German forces in their own tongue, and the ghetto cheers as one, the boys jump up and down, Schneesturm, watching from on high, wraps snow around himself and disappears, an apparition out of nightmare defeated, perhaps, by this Beyond-Man Jew.

  Perhaps.

  24. THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE the present

  – Schneesturm, the Old Man says. Snow Storm. Turns his face from Fogg, for just a moment. We choose such fanciful names, don’t we, Oblivion?

  – Sir?

  Oblivion stirs. Almost as if he had fallen asleep. Fogg isn’t fooled. Not for a moment. The Old Man, too, shakes his head at such foolishness. Pulls out a folder, lays it on the table. Lets it rest a moment. Drums on it with his fingers. As though listening to invisible music. Opens it. A handsome young man stares out from an old photo. His hair so blond it’s white. Clear, innocent blue eyes. Smiling at the camera. Snow behind him.

  – His real name was Erich Bühler. You remember Erich, don’t you, Fogg?

  Fogg remembers. Doesn’t say a word. The Old Man says, He was a handsome young man, wasn’t he?

  – He died, Fogg says, at last, unwillingly. He died in Berlin, in forty-six.

  Remembers the first time he’d seen him.

  25. LENINGRAD 1942

  And again in the snow and the ice, the Old Man’s two reluctant observers, Fogg and Oblivion, Oblivion and Fogg, walking slowly, dejectedly, across the ice. The sky is dark and clear. The sun sets ahead of them, the last of its rays falling on the snow-covered landscape.

  – Observer mission to Eastern Front, on behalf of the Bureau for Superannuated Affairs, on His Majesty’s Secret Service, bugger me it’s cold, Fogg says.

  – Report concluded? Oblivion says. It is cold but strangely beautiful, too, with Leningrad rising ahead of them in the distance, its rising spires of the Admiralty building and the Cathedral of the Saviour on Blood and Luftwaffe airplanes flying above like bats or eagles, colouring the sky a deep crimson, smoke rising into the sky, making Fogg want to reach out a hand and shape it, mould it
into oblivion.

  – Bugger the Old Man, Oblivion says, and bugger Russia, and bugger the buggering Nazis.

  Fogg is so hungry he could kill a dog. Or something. There are no dogs. Oblivion keeps waving his hand in the air, obliviating snow and ice, as if he could do the same thing to the entire world. The air around him is clear and there are hisses of discharge and the tang of ozone every time he moves his hand. Bugger, Fogg says, agreeing. Goes back to composing the mental report in his mind. We are beyond the Nazi line of attack, he says. Leningrad lies ahead of us, at a distance of about – Oblivion?

  – Damned if I know.

  – Damned if we know, Fogg says, ceremoniously. But anyway it’s there.

  He looks ahead. Imagines what’s inside the walls of this ancient city, this St Petersburg, this Leningrad. Starving children chasing a rat for their supper, skeletal men armed with guns patrolling the streets, women like emaciated storefront mannequins joining the fight, and thinking, can they hold on, thinking, this is something out of a bad novel, before the Revolution happened, before a man called Hitler rose to power and rewrote the world like a lurid paperback. Thank God we’re not inside there, Fogg says.

  – I’m hungry, Oblivion says.

  – To conclude we believe the Nazis have made a mistake invading Russia, Fogg says—

  – A big bleeding mistake, Oblivion says—

  – And suggest leaving the Huns and the Ivans to slug it out amongst themselves while we go home to merry old England. Bugger me it’s cold.

  – Report concluded, Oblivion says. Fogg?

  – Yes, Oblivion?

  – Get down!

  Fogg slips in the ice as Oblivion pulls him sharply by the arm, face down into the snow, he curses, but quietly.

  – What!

  – Look.

  Lying on their stomachs they nevertheless raise their heads, looking at the sky:

  And rising, from behind them, and heading towards the city, a fleet of rocket-men, spread out like a flock of black birds against the darkening sky, plumes of fire erupting from their backs, their metal helmets shining in the dying light of the setting sun.

  Flying past, more and more of them, a horde of flying men, and the sound of their machines breaks the silence, there is a burst of gunfire, surface-to-air, and one of the men explodes, a bright flash of flame and a quick, dying scream, a Nazi Icarus dropping from the sky, his flame extinguished as he hits the snow and is still. And yet more of them come, until the sky is filled with these not-birds, not-planes soldiers of the Reich.

  – My God, Fogg says.

  – And his servant, Dr Vomacht.

  Fogg breathes out. Look …

  Rising from the city, into the air. The Union of Socialist Heroes, the dreaded Sverhlyudi of the USSR, taking to the air, defenders of the Motherland against the invading Hun:

  Rising, growing larger in the sky, and Fogg can see their leader rising, the Red Sickle, and behind him all the rest, Rusalka and Koschei the Deathless and Baba Yaga in her green-grey colours, and the Molotov Cocktail, and the Great Soviet; and they unleash their powers on the hapless rocket-men, and the sky fills with the sound of tearing and explosions, and the dead rain down on the white snow; Luftwaffe planes arrive but the Red Sickle flies at an aircraft and grabs the pilot out of the cockpit, the man screaming and twisting, trying to escape, his face filled with horror. The Red Sickle lifts him easily, like a child, and flies away from the plane, which veers down and plunges, hitting two rocket-men too slow to get out of its way; and the Red Sickle, holding the captive pilot for a long, tender moment, drops him, in mid-air, and the man plunges down, screaming, down and down and down into the waiting ice and his cry is cut clean and there’s a sick wet sound, like splat.

  The sky is filled with planes and men and tracer bullets and eldrich lights and, down below, Fogg and Oblivion can see tanks moving, and foot soldiers, as if the apocalypse has come early; and Oblivion says, This damned war, and Fogg summons the mist to settle around them like a blanket, hiding them from view, This damned war, the fog wraps itself around them and the ice is their shared bed and for a moment they are together again, together and alone.

  FOUR:

  THE FARM

  DEVON

  1936

  26. THE FARM, DEVON 1936

  The wheels of the bus go round and round. Fogg sits pressed against the window of the bus, looking out. It’s a beautiful day. Green fields lie under deep blue skies in which white clouds like swans drift past. The startling yellow of daisies breaks through the rolling green hills like a mirage. Music on the wireless. Cliff Edwards, ‘I’ll See you in My Dreams’. Fogg feels faintly ridiculous in his clothes. Khaki shorts, a blue shirt too tight, white socks, black shoes. Like a bleeding boy scout, what. Not alone on the bus. Others there. Collected early in the morning in London’s Smithfield Market with the cries of butchers in the air, the smell of blood, the cold of refrigeration. Racks of pork ribs hanging behind displays. Cleavers rising and falling. Sausages like entrails. Standing there, still cold, that morning, breathing on his fingers to warm them, feeling faintly ludicrous. Eight or ten of them gathered. Waiting for the yellow bus – which comes, at last, the driver a hunchback, black thinning hair parted to one side, rough bristles covering his cheeks. Well, what are you lot waiting for? he says. They climb on board. No one talks to anyone else. No one looks at anyone else. Fogg stares out of the window, hypnotised by the motion of bus over road. Out of London, the sun rising, the fog he takes such comfort in stripped away. Not sure who the others are. Faceless boys and girls and one old lady, she seems out of place. Some strange ones on that bus, that’s for certain.

  Heading south. A folly of stone rising on a hill in the distance. Cattle in a field, chewing placidly. The giant in the seat behind Fogg sneezes. Almost takes Fogg’s bloody head off. So sorry. A mumble from behind. A small voice for such a large guy. Where did they find these people?

  – I’m here to take you to a special school. For special people. People like you. Where you will be happy, the Old Man says.

  Fogg, wanting to believe. Hope in his eyes. How easily it’s taken away. But wants it to be true, so badly it hurts. Says, Really?

  – Of course not, boy, the Old Man says. Don’t be bloody stupid.

  Still. Hopes. They pass a sign for Exeter.

  – Devon, the giant behind him says. They pass country lanes and mazes of hedges which open, suddenly and unexpectedly, and they come to a valley and descend the hill and there is a small brook and fields of grass and several long, single-storey white stone buildings dotted around, a fence surrounding the enclosure, some cows in a meadow and a guard hut at the gate and the bus comes to it and stops.

  The guard looks bored, a thin man with skin the colour of nicotine stains. Comically wide ears. Talks to the driver, briefly. Nods. Opens the gate. The driver starts the engine, drives into the enclosure, follows the path to a large L-shaped building and stops before its wide stone stairs.

  Other cars parked nearby; amongst them, a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

  – Get off, you lot, the driver says.

  Fogg hikes his bag on his shoulder and joins the others in the awkward shuffle off the bus. The giant is behind him, breathing heavily as he tries to fit his enormous frame through the narrow corridor between seats. They reach the door and Fogg hops down. Stands in the sun. Blinks against the sudden glare of sunlight. The others follow. The driver, climbing out from the other side, stands in the shade of the bus and rolls himself a cigarette. The air smells clean here. Fresher than the city. And it is very quiet. The hum of trains and people and carts is missing. Fogg can hear birds. A butterfly chases another butterfly towards a long building in the distance. Fogg sees other people standing there. Dressed in the same fashion, or lack thereof, as himself. The others are all off the bus. Mill around. Stretch. Fogg looks at them covertly. The giant, he stands well over seven feet tall, must be more like eight, Fogg thinks – wide, too, thick chest and arms, when they were standin
g in Smithfield he was drawing stares, more than anyone else, quite rightly, too. The man’s eyes are green and watery. His face is soft, a strange contrast to his body, his enormous frame. He must be young, Fogg suddenly realises, he can’t be any older than him.

  Also in their group is the old lady. She wears the same clothes as the rest of them, the khaki shorts and a blue blouse and white socks over veined legs. She looks as out of place as Fogg feels. He’s not sure what’s supposed to happen next. Feels the attention of unseen eyes. Beside the bus the driver finishes his cigarette. Climbs back into the bus. Revs the engine to life. Drives away, down the path, out of the gate. Disappears in the distance, the sound of the motor slowly fading. Leaves them, stranded there.

  The Farm.

  A sound catches his attention. Fogg turns. Three men step out of the building. He recognises one of them. The Old Man.

  The second: a young thin-faced man in a white smock, fresh-faced, clean-shaven. Early twenties. The third: a grizzled military man, in uniform, in his fifties, a thick moustache, eyes a startling green. Holds himself ramrod straight. The three of them standing there, on the steps, looking down. Examining them. Fogg and his companions turn, this way and that. Don’t know what to do. The three above, as though having reached a decision, walk down to their level.

  – Settle down, the Old Man says. I said, settle down! Form an orderly line.

  Fogg joins the others. Line up. They each carry a single bag, and place them at their feet. Stand there, like on parade. The three men watch them and the man in uniform walks slowly up and down the line, glaring at each one in turn.

  – I’ve never seen such a sorry bunch, he says.

  The man in the white smock smiles. The Old Man says, Welcome to the Farm, boys and girls!

  Looks at them. And lady, he says. Nods at the old woman, who nods back. The Old Man points at the man in uniform. This is Sergeant Browning, he says. He’s in charge here.