BRANDT SAT in one of the armchairs in the sitting room at the farm. They had been positioned beside the low window that overlooked the valley by his mother, many years before – one for her and one for his father. The view took in most of the reservoir – from the dam at the northern end to where it disappeared from sight amongst the higher southern slopes. Even in the daylight, it was hard to make out where the reservoir ended and the land began, now that snow had fallen on its frozen surface. Immediately beneath the window, the white fields and farms of their neighbours fell away towards the road that ran along the reservoir’s edge while, to his left, from where he was sitting, Brandt could see the lights of the SS hut. He thought about Agneta sleeping in the freezing bunker, ice on the walls. He prayed she dreamed of happier times and that in her dreams the sun shone and its heat warmed her shoulders.
He sighed and turned his attention to the other side of the valley. The Red Farm stood over there, in the darkness, close to the tree line that marked the end of the higher fields – where the shoot had taken place earlier in the day. The memory was still raw. He closed his eyes and ran his hand over his stubbled scalp, then pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling his taut skin stretch at its scars as he did so. He recognized the sound of his father’s footsteps coming down the staircase. He heard him cross the sitting room – the matching armchair, alongside his, sighing as it took his weight. Brandt didn’t need to open his eyes to know that he was already aware of the killings. He heard him reach for his pipe where it stood on the windowsill, then fill it with tobacco. He listened as his father opened the door of the small iron stove that warmed the room, heard him tear a page out of the ancient medical magazine that stood waiting beside it. He would roll the page into a taper now and use the flame from it to light his pipe.
Perhaps his father wouldn’t say anything – perhaps they’d sit there until the last of the light disappeared. They might even be able to convince each other that it was a companionable silence. He opened his eyes and glanced across. He could see the distress in his father’s downturned mouth. Maybe it would simply pass – like the muscled, dark clouds that had moved across the sky before the last of the sun had disappeared.
Perhaps it was just as well that his mother was no longer alive. His memory of her was fragmented and, he suspected, unreliable. Occasionally, something he saw or heard would bring with it a vivid image of her. He’d be able to see each crease that formed around her eyes when she smiled, the dimples that had dented her round cheeks. The green and blue flecks in her wolf-grey eyes. He would have liked to have seen her one last time before she’d passed on. To have a fresher memory. To be able to recall the soft warmth of her hand small in his. To remember what they spoke about. She would have understood what he was doing with the SS. He would have been able to explain it to her.
His father cleared his throat. ‘I heard they shot three prisoners in the woods today, over near the Red Farm,’ he said. ‘I heard you were there. Were you?’
‘I was – I saw it.’
His father nodded.
‘I heard Weber shot one of them – a Jewish prisoner.’
His father gave a hacking cough, as if to get something foul out of his throat.
‘He thought it was part of the sport,’ Brandt said, hearing the anger in his voice – at the banal, half-hearted evil Weber represented, at himself for being a part of it.
‘He boasted about it in the village,’ his father said. ‘Ernst heard him. He came to tell me.’
‘How is Ernst?’
Brandt listened to himself. Did he think he could avoid the conversation by asking about his uncle’s health?
‘He’s well enough.’
His father tapped the bowl of his pipe empty into the ashtray beside him, reaching for his pouch to refill it.
‘I didn’t think Weber was capable of something like this.’
‘I think it was a misunderstanding, not that I want to defend him.’
‘He shot a man for sport, how could that have been a misunderstanding?’ his father said.
Brandt considered this. The problem – the terrible reflection of the times they lived in – was that Weber probably hadn’t even thought before he’d fired.
‘Others were shooting and he shot as well. He didn’t know it was wrong.’
‘Explain that. Explain how he could not know it is wrong to kill a human being.’
Brandt could hear the anger in his father’s voice but he was tired of all this. He was tired of his own anger as well. The anger was no longer useful to him.
‘He’s not exceptional – you must see how brutalized people have become. We have forgotten what’s right and what’s wrong. In the army you don’t think for yourself – you are directed by your superiors and the will and cohesion of the group in which you fight. Personal feelings of morality, right and wrong, pity, compassion – they all fall away. When everyone else is doing something, you end up doing it too – without thinking about it. Sometimes terrible things. It’s the same here. With the Party. With the farmers who use prisoners as workers. It’s almost as if . . .’
Brandt stopped speaking. He realized he was talking about himself, not Weber. He looked across at his father. It was nearly dark outside now – it was difficult to make out his expression in what was left of the light. When his father spoke, he appeared to choose his words carefully.
‘I know something of war. From the last one.’
‘You were a doctor, Father. You saved men’s lives. I took them away.’
There was a silence between them. Brandt knew it wouldn’t last.
‘What did you do? Out there – in the east? You did something, didn’t you?’
His father’s voice was little more than a whisper.
The glowing tip of Brandt’s cigarette now provided the only light in the room – just enough to remind him of his surroundings and to be grateful that he was sitting here in comfort and not up to his neck in snow in some trench overlooking the Vistula, his face frozen stiff as wood, cold piercing each pore. The Wound Badge in Gold hadn’t felt like much compensation when they’d pinned it on his chest – but sitting here, being warmed by an iron stove, in a comfortable chair and with an SS cigarette in his hand – well, he might not have both arms but he’d see the morning.
‘I asked a question.’
‘Do you really want to know the answer?’
‘Of course not. But that isn’t the point.’
Brandt found his fingers had clenched tight enough that his nails were digging into his palm. He must ask Monika to cut them for him.
‘If you’re asking about the Jews, I have nothing to confess. I saw things, of course. I took no part. I made my unhappiness clear by my silence, as did others. No one forced the matter. But I know some of the men in our unit went to the place where the Jews were being shot, and watched, and perhaps joined in. And I know that amongst themselves they shared around the photographs they had taken. Perhaps I should have said more, done something. But back then I was an ordinary private – with a political background that would have meant trouble for me. I kept quiet. I should have said something. I should have done something. Whatever the consequences.’
‘Thank God you weren’t involved in that. And what could you have done?’
‘Something,’ Brandt said. ‘But perhaps it’s not too late.’
‘Is the reason you’re working for them worth it?’ his father asked, indicating with a nod the direction in which the hut lay, further along the valley. ‘Are you certain?’
‘It’s worthwhile. Believe me.’
His father said nothing in response, only turned towards him in the darkness, his head inclining forward as if he was expecting more – but Brandt allowed the conversation to lapse. The electricity was rationed now, and even when it was scheduled to be on, it often wasn’t, so they looked out across a dark valley. There were, however, two sources of light – the small power station attached to the dam was lit and, through the trees, the glow from the hut, where a generator kept the perimeter illuminated.
‘Father?’
‘Yes.’
‘The Russians only stopped in the summer because they needed to regroup – not because of anything we were able to do. When the time comes – when they attack – when it’s a choice between staying and leaving, you must leave. Everything we did to the Russians will be done in return now.’