All over England on a summer’s evening as warm and light as this one, men would be at their allotments lifting potatoes, brushing the caterpillars off brassicas, binding over the green tops of onions—many of them in an old battledress from the all-too-recent war. Khaki or blue. Retained, worn, not out of any prolonged sense of pride but out of a pragmatic sense of waste-not-want-not.
To see Germans still in threadbare Wehrmacht jackets was commonplace and never less than thought-provoking. Who could possibly wear it with any sense of pride? Who could possibly wear it without some sense of shame? Who in the country that was all “want” because it had been all “waste” would dream of throwing it away?
Three old soldiers sat in front of Café Unterwelt, sipping distastefully at acorn coffee and smoking God-knows-what in needle-thin roll-ups. One lacked an eye, one an arm and the third a leg. They were the lucky ones. The unlucky ones were still in Russia.
Wilderness always kept what he called his “bribe pack” of Woodbines in his pocket—two or three cigarettes passed around seemed to ease any negotiation and cost him nothing.
He put the packet on the battered tin table in front of the men. A hand reached out for them. No one spoke. No one looked at him.
“You’re wasting time and money on these bums, Joe. They don’t know the meaning of gratitude. Fukkit, we should have shot the lot.”
He pushed open the door of the café. Mercifully without another word.
The one-eyed man spoke.
“He’s right, you know. We’d be better off dead. Tell him to come back and shoot me. But first let me smoke one of your English cigarettes. Most kind.”
Wilderness wasn’t sure if the man had smiled or smirked sarcastically. He followed Frank, drawn to the sudden outburst within.
Frank had Kostya up against the wall, body-slamming him into the plaster.
“Whaddya mean? Whaddya mean?”
Wilderness shouldered him aside.
“Frank, for crying out loud!”
Kostya slumped to the floor.
A trail of blood crept across his chin, but then Wilderness remembered he’d had a tooth out and Frank probably hadn’t hit him—yet.
“He’s trying to scam us. Says he hasn’t got the money!”
Wilderness pulled Kostya to his feet.
“Is this true? Your mother says you hold the purse strings.”
“Shto?”
“That you keep the money for both of you.”
“Тогда моя мать не сказала правды.”
Frank erupted.
“In English, you sonovabitch!”
“He says his mother lied to us.”
“All dollars I ever have I am give to you for first hundred jars. My mother keep other monies.”
“OK. So where’s your fuckin’ mother now?”
Wilderness echoed Frank, used a softer tone, but still one of concern.
“Kostya, where is Volga now? Does she have our money?”
“My mother since three o’clock on road to Moscow. Her … подразделение …”
“Her unit,” Wilderness prompted.
“He says her unit’s been recalled to Moscow.”
Frank kicked over the table. “Shit, shit, shit.”
And Wilderness recalled Krasnaya’s last word to Volga Zolotukhina—“Don’t be late”—and in the mind’s eye he could see a mile-long column of tanks and half-tracks crawling across the dull plain that was Prussia.
“This comes out of your hide, kid.”
“No,” said Wilderness. “Take it out of my hide, or if you really feel you need to hurt someone there’s a bloke outside who’s already asked you to shoot him.”
“Three hundred bucks, Joe!”
“Peanuts, Frank. If you’re really that upset about it … take it out of the stash. Take it all out of my share and forget about it. Kostya hasn’t scammed you. His mother has.”
“What was it you said? I need to know who to trust? I need to know who to trust? It’s you who needs to know who to trust!”
Wilderness sincerely hoped that was Frank’s last word on the matter. His impulse was to walk out, take the jeep and leave Frank to find his way back west on the U-Bahn. But that would mean leaving him alone with Kostya.
Frank’s cap had fallen to the floor in the scuffle. Wilderness picked it up, knocked off the dust and handed it back to Frank. “Here. Take the jeep. I’ll find my own way back.”
Frank put his cap on, with a couple of overly demonstrative, fastidious adjustments. Then he feigned a lunge at Kostya, growling as he did so. Kostya fell back against the wall. Frank laughed and left.
Wilderness held out a hand to help Kostya up and, as he did so, heard Frank encounter the Wehrmacht veterans once more.
“Losers!”