Читать книгу The Flight - Bryan Malessa - Страница 15

Chapter 4

In late spring, although all civilians had been ordered over the radio to remain at home, refugees occasionally arrived in the village – but sometimes a week went by without one appearing on the square, in search of the road to Pillau. Unfortunately, few civilian ships were sailing, so their best chance of moving west was to return to Königsberg and follow Reichsstrasse 1, which connected the city with Berlin.

Near midnight on 20 July, Ida sat alone in the living room, sewing as she listened to the radio. Suddenly the programme was interrupted by the Führer. That morning an army commander had placed a bomb in his meeting room, he said. It had exploded, killing a secretary, but he himself had escaped virtually unharmed.

By now, many officers who had once supported him no longer trusted his leadership: he had destroyed Germany’s much admired General Staff system by demanding to see almost every major order and strategic plan, then revising it before sending it on, without recourse to trained officers. Also, he placed his favourites in high-ranking posts they were ill equipped to fulfil. Now, although the army was still winning minor battles, it was losing ground. The officers who were conspiring to kill him had no intention of surrendering to the enemy when he had gone, but planned to reassert Germany’s military supremacy.

As Ida listened to the Führer’s angry voice, she realised for the first time that her own family might be in danger if the war did not soon turn back in Germany’s favour. She knew the history of the peninsula almost as well as her father did. No one had occupied it successfully since the French in June 1807 and it had been nearly fifty years before that when the Russians had carried out their only successful occupation of the peninsula during the Seven Years War.

Early the next morning when Karl came downstairs, he found his mother asleep on the davenport. On the radio a woman was singing about summer. He went to Ida, wondering if he should wake her, but before he reached her she opened her eyes.

‘Were you up all night?’ he asked.

‘Come here,’ she said, patting the seat beside her.

Karl sat down and she kissed him. ‘I must have fallen asleep while I was sewing. Why are you up so early?’

‘I heard the radio. I thought you were listening to the records Father brought from Paris.’

‘I haven’t put them on since he left.’

His father had bought the radiogram before the war when they had a contract to deliver meat to the nearby military base, Karl remembered. Before Paul’s departure for France, the neighbours had come to listen to it.

‘Would you like to play a record?’ Ida asked.

‘Now?’

‘Why not? Do you know how to put it on?’

Karl jumped up and grabbed his favourite from beneath the sofa, where the records were kept. Perfectly circular and flat, he loved its feel and solid, heavy weight. He knew it would shatter if dropped, so he carried it carefully across the room. Ida knew which one he had chosen. It was the only one he ever listened to – a Hot Club de France recording, with Django Reinhardt, the guitarist, and Stéphane Grappelli on violin. Ever since Paul had bought it, Karl had begged her for a guitar. She had told him that if he learned to play the piano well enough, she’d consider it after the war. The piece Karl liked best was ‘Nuages’, and now, as the unusual chord sequence that opened it filled the room, he came back to sit beside his mother. She held out her arms and Karl snuggled into her as Reinhardt played.