The Mist Before Our Eyes – extract

R.P.G. Colley

‘Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.’

Voltaire

PROLOGUE

Russia, October 1942

It is autumn, the day bright, but tinged with a cold breeze sweeping across a huge field of burnt wheat and furrows of stubble, some hundred kilometres southeast of Smolensk. The field is dotted with landmines, planted by Russian partisans. A Waffen SS Sergeant and a number of privates point their rifles at Felix Stoltenberg and his doomed companions.

The sergeant makes it clear to them that they have no choice but to walk across this field, from this side to the other, some six hundred metres. They fan out, thirty men, thirty traitors of the Reich. They could simply skirt around it and advance through the adjoining forest. But no, this is a test for those, like Felix Stoltenberg, whose lives are worth nothing; men who, through their foul and traitorous deeds, have forfeited their right to life.

Dark plumes of smoke rise into the air on the horizon, a burning village, its inhabitants killed, every last one of them. A murder of crows flies by, heading for the trees, their raucous cawing mocking the condemned men beneath them. And so they start, these traitors. The walk of death. One fearful foot in front of the other.

To Felix’s left is a boy called Walter, a blond, handsome young lad of about twenty, with a dusting of a moustache, cadaverous cheeks. Perfect Aryan material until he’d done something so awful, so bad, that this, this walk of death, is the result. His face is filthy, streaked with dirt, his eyes rimmed red with fear and tears. The boy, like the others, can’t stop shaking. Death is but a step away; it has reached out its hand for them.

A man with a bandage around his skull to Felix’s far right has already found a mine. He is on one knee, hands shaking, gently removing the soil, muttering to himself – or is he praying? Felix walks on, one careful step after another. Why bother praying, he wonders. God forsook them a long time ago. He has never prayed; he will not start now. The field stretches ahead, skeletal trees on the horizon blurred in the mist, the far end light years away.

Why had he rescued her? Was it love? Was it pity for her daughter? Or atonement for the humiliation he’d heaped on the girl that day in the classroom? He could still visualise her, standing before him, looking straight ahead, trying so hard to be brave. It took him a long time to appreciate just how brave. So many years ago. Had he stopped and thought about it, considered the consequences, he may not have been so hasty. For now, he is to die a traitor’s death. But he tries not to think, it’s best not to; best to keep his memories sequestered in a dark corner of his mind.

A sharp explosion shatters the peace behind him, to his right. The earth shudders. He doesn’t look back. He knows it’s the man with the bandage. The sergeant and his men, watching from the sidelines, laugh and cheer, enjoying the diabolical spectacle.

Walter stops, his whole frame shaking. He has wet himself. The sergeant yells at him, tells him to move on.

Felix thinks of his father, arrested and ‘shot while trying to escape,’ another traitor’s death. His father had been right after all. The difference was, his father had known from the start, had known the folly of dancing to Hitler’s tune. Felix had been ashamed of him, ashamed of having a traitor as a father. He wants to apologise to him. He should have listened. He feels an arm around his shoulder, a gentle, reassuring touch. There is a warmth to it. But no one is there. It is his imagination.

Walter, to his left, stops short again. ‘Fuck,’ he says. ‘Felix, help me.’ His voice is shot through with terror. He is as still as a statue, his left foot clamped on the dry earth. Tears run down his face forming rivulets through the grime on his boyish cheeks. ‘Help me, Felix.’

Felix shakes his head, mute with fear.

‘Felix, no, please don’t leave me,’ he says, his voice splintered, his hand outstretched as if wanting Felix to take it.

Felix steps forward, knows he has to get some distance between them, knowing the next step could be his last, knowing there is nothing he can do for Walter. The boy cries, calls out for his mother, a pathetic sound. He knows death has come for him.

Felix glances back.

Walter is skewered with terror, his left leg shaking, his face in his hands, his filthy hands.

Felix turns around again, concentrates on what’s in front of him, on the misty horizon far ahead. The explosion rips through the air. Felix feels the blast of air on his back.

The far side of the field is a blur; it seems to be receding further and further back. He moves on, step by fearful step, knowing full well he could be next.

PART ONE

Chapter 1

A month earlier: Berlin, September 1942

They’d locked Felix in a cell.

He tries to keep fit. Touches his toes, stretches left, right, up and down. He runs on the spot and imagines he’s running through a woodland on a bright summery day, the sun slanting through the trees, the sound of birdsong filling the air, the smell of the leaves and forest flowers. Or he’s running on a beach, or through the city park, anywhere but here, this tiny cell with its bench, a bunk bed with a threadbare blanket, a bucket in the corner stinking with excrement, and the cold that leaks from these thick, thick walls.

He’s been here just a day or two but already he is losing weight. He can feel his ribcage now. Have they forgotten about him? If it wasn’t for the daily ration of grub, he might think so. Strange, how a person’s perception of food can change. When first confined to this tiny cell, he thought the food awful. And it was and it still is. Now, he is so accustomed to it, he almost enjoys it. He still doesn’t know what it is, has no idea what he is putting in his stomach, but that doesn’t keep him from enjoying it.

Footsteps sound in the corridor outside his cell. Not the usual shuffling steps of an orderly bringing him his food, but the sharper, purposeful steps of three, perhaps four men. Is this it? Have they come for him? He stands up from his bed, stiffens, breathes in and throws his head back, ready to face whatever and whoever is coming to see him.

The cell door swings open. A man stumbles in, pushed from behind. The door immediately closes. The man straightens. He stretches his neck as if trying to regain his sense of decency. He looks at Felix fiercely. But the darkness in his eyes quickly dissipates and instead he offers his hand, saying, ‘How do you do?’ Such an incongruous gesture in a place like this. ‘The name’s Karstadt. You can call me Rudolph, if you like.’

He smiles and looks Felix kindly in the eye; such simple gestures but they tug at Felix’s insides. No one has smiled at him for such a long time; no one has greeted him as a man, a human being. He catches his breath and swallows the emotion down; wouldn’t do to get all tearful now.

‘I’m Felix Stoltenberg. I used to be a lieutenant until…’ He leaves the sentence hanging.

A ghost of a smile passes over Rudolph’s thin, bloodless lips. He’s not young, in his forties perhaps, dark hair, sharp cheekbones, a beard flecked with a dusky red. He shivers and looks around, as if trying to find where the cold is coming from. The man’s tunic is filthy, unbuttoned, revealing his shirt, once white, now heavily stained. ‘Do you mind if I lie down for a minute?’ He stretches himself out across the bench, his gangly legs hanging off the side.

He closes his eyes. Felix covers him with the blanket. Poor man. Felix notices the deep lines on either side of his mouth, the mesh of crow’s feet framing his eyes. They’ve removed the insignia from his tunic’s collar and shoulders but the faint lines of stitching remain. Rudolph Karstadt had been a captain. Felix wonders what catastrophe has befallen him, what dreadful sin he committed against the Reich to have him stripped of rank and thrown into this dungeon.

After a while, Rudolph opens his eyes. ‘Christ, I wish I had a fag,’ he says, swinging his feet off the bench. ‘And something to eat.’ He stands and stretches. ‘Do you think we’ll ever get out of here? Alive, I mean.’

Doubtful, thinks Felix. But he says nothing; instead, shrugs his shoulders. It’s best not to think of the future.

Rudolph starts pacing the cell, head down, hands in pockets.

‘What brings you here?’ asks Felix.

Rudolph hesitates. Felix knows what he’s thinking, can he trust this man he’s only just met? Perhaps he thinks Felix is a stooge.

‘You don’t have to tell me.’

‘What does it matter? I’m as good as dead anyway.’ He sits again. ‘They found out about me. About…’ He pauses. He fidgets with a thread hanging from his shirt cuff. ‘You can judge me if you want, I’m past caring. I’m a man who made the mistake of… liking…’

‘Yes?’

He looks down at his feet. ‘Another man.’

Felix glances away; he can’t look at the man. He pulls at his collar. ‘That’s enough to condemn you,’ he says.

‘Don’t I know it. I’d rather not talk about it. I can’t.’

‘Fine.’ Good, he thinks, he’d rather not know.

‘And you? What about you?’

‘Me?’ Felix leans forward, scratches at the dirt beneath his fingernails. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘Isn’t it always? You can tell me if you want to; it’s up to you. Some people find it helps to talk. I wanted to be a priest once.’ He stops for a moment; his eyes gaze up at the ceiling. ‘Instead, I became a soldier. Not your usual progression, I grant you. I was good at listening; people told me things. We all have a story though, don’t we? A story that starts somewhere, that has a beginning. It’s just that we don’t always know the end yet. So, tell me, what sort of house did you live in? No, don’t tell me; a boy like you, you look like you come from a solid, middle-class background.’ He laughs. ‘One of those fine three-storeyed townhouses on a wide street with flower pots on the front steps, that sort of thing? Am I right?’

‘Maybe.’ He’s unerringly right, damn him.

‘And you were an only child.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘So, former Lieutenant Stoltenberg, tell me all about yourself. I’m interested. Anyway, might as well kill some time.’

Felix thinks back. He doesn’t want to, tries to resist. But there’s something about this man with his pretensions to the priesthood that is strangely reassuring. He tries to remember a beginning. And there was a beginning, an exact moment. His beginning lay in his brittle loneliness, a childhood plagued by uncertainties. He didn’t see it as evil, didn’t recognise the evil that seeped through their door and into their home so many years back. But, like a cancer beginning its destructive journey, there was a precise moment when it appeared and the only person to recognise it was his father. His poor father.

‘I guess you were in the Hitler Youth,’ says Rudolph. ‘All boys were, I suppose. It was mandatory.’

‘Not at first, it wasn’t. I wanted to join. I knew if I could I wouldn’t…’

‘Go on. You can tell me. I’m hardly going to be telling anyone.’

‘I was desperate to join but…’

Rudolph tilts his head to one side. ‘Don’t tell me. Your father.’

Felix smiles despite himself. ‘Yes, my father.’

Rudolph brushes the surface dirt off his trouser leg as if it would make any difference. ‘You don’t have to tell me any more. I’d understand.’

Felix realises that his boast is not an idle one – he is a good listener.

‘In the end, even he wasn’t able to stop me. And that, I suppose, was the beginning.’

‘The beginning?’

Felix sighs. Why not tell him, he thinks. He has nothing else to do, and he knows he wants to now, to lay out the sequence of events, to chart the spread of the cancer that brought him here, to this cell, to this moment. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he says. ‘But I can pinpoint it to the hour, the minute almost.’

‘And that minute?’

‘It was the moment that Klaus Beck knocked on the door.’

‘Klaus Beck?’ Rudolph leans forward. ‘You serious? That bastard? The Klaus Beck?’

‘Yes, the very same. The Klaus Beck.’

Chapter 2

Nine years earlier: Berlin, early February 1933

The day Felix Stoltenberg realised he wanted to be like Klaus Beck was the day he first saw him in his Hitler Youth uniform. Felix had always been a little bit frightened of Klaus. And at the same time desperate to be his friend. Klaus, a year older, lived down the street and had a swagger about him. Felix had known him from a distance for as long as he could remember but had never spoken to him. It had never bothered him until just before his fifteenth birthday when, quite suddenly, he became almost obsessed with him. He watched him from afar at school and knew Klaus was everything he was not. Klaus was confident, brash and strong and, with his jet-black hair, his high cheekbones and vivid blue eyes, was attractive to girls. He possessed a certain elegance. Klaus Beck certainly didn’t play chess by himself.

Everyone wanted Klaus as their friend, so what chance did Felix have? Unless, of course, he too joined the Hitler Youth.

Hitler was a constant topic of conversation in the house. Rare was the dinnertime when his name didn’t crop up. Felix’s grandfather, his mother’s father, a headmaster in a mixed school, had come for another of his weekend visits. Father loathed the “Austrian corporal with the stupid moustache” while Granddad, Gottfried, saw him as the nation’s saviour. Father would never allow Felix to join the Youth but if Felix could get his grandfather on his side…

One Sunday afternoon, Felix brought his grandfather a cup of tea and told him outright that he wanted to join the Hitler Youth. Gottfried was making a penny whistle, his sharp knife whittling away at a length of wood.

Gottfried furrowed his brow. ‘Your father will never allow it. You know what he’s like.’

‘It’s not fair. All the other boys on the street are members.’

Gottfried pulled on his beard. ‘We’ll work something out.’

As it was, he didn’t have to. Klaus simply appeared at their door one wet Sunday in early February, just a week after Hitler was appointed chancellor, the day of Felix’s fifteenth birthday. His parents had given him a new chess set, his grandfather one of his penny whistles. Later, if he was lucky, there’d be birthday cake, a light sponge with a nice thick layer of oozy jam in between and a candle or two. No friends though. There were never any friends. ‘Invite some boys over,’ his mother had said a couple of days earlier. He didn’t though. Better not to ask than to hear the excuses, to see the mocking expressions.

Klaus Beck’s unexpected appearance caused an uproar, the reverberations of which would be felt for years to come. It was almost dinnertime, time for birthday cake, the day fast fading away. Felix was in his bedroom setting up the chess pieces, ready to play against himself. He’d ask his father but Papa claimed he didn’t know how to play. Then came the knock on the front door. Felix looked up, feeling a prick of apprehension. Was it a visitor for him, maybe? Someone come to help him celebrate his birthday, perhaps have a game of chess? His mother answered the door.

‘Heil Hitler. Good evening, Frau Stoltenberg,’ said the visitor.

‘Why, hello there,’ said Klara. ‘Heil Hitler. It’s… it’s Klaus, isn’t it?’

Felix’s heart jumped on hearing the name.

‘Have you come for Felix’s birthday?’

Felix hated the desperate tone in his mother’s voice. He crept out of his bedroom and onto the landing, kneeling and peering through the bannister. Klaus stood at the door, wearing his uniform, his Sam Browne belt criss-crossing his chest, his shiny boots reflecting the hallway light.

‘Birthday?’ said Klaus.

Felix spotted the flash of a smile; what a ridiculous thought, he was thinking. ‘No, meine Frau, I have not. I wish to speak to your husband.’ He removed his hat, exposing his greased-back hair.

‘Yes, yes, of course, if you want. Do come in.’ She ran her fingers over her hair, flattening it. ‘But, later, if you have time, do stay for some cake.’

‘Thank you, meine Frau.’ Felix could see Klaus taking in the house – the grandfather clock, the flock wallpaper, the thick hall carpet, the large pot of dried flowers in the alcove. In a flash, he saw it anew, as Klaus saw it – and knew it to be shabby and old-fashioned and that word he often heard at school – bourgeois. Yes, distinctly bourgeois.

Felix’s father appeared from the living room, his newspaper in his hand. ‘What’s this about?’ he said, rather too abruptly, thought Felix.

‘Oh, Peter, love…’ said Felix’s mother.

‘Heil Hitler. Good evening, mein Herr,’ said Klaus. ‘I’ve come to see you about your son.’

‘Felix? What about him?’

Klaus hesitated. The moment stretched.

Felix’s father, perhaps realising that this wasn’t the sort of conversation to have standing in the hallway, invited Klaus through to the living room. Felix heard his grandfather say hello and a round of heil Hitlers as they all settled – Klaus, Felix’s parents and his grandfather. Felix’s father slammed the door shut. Felix skipped down the stairs and pressed his ear against the door. If this was about him, he was damned if he was going to miss out on what Klaus had to say.

‘So, what is it you want?’ he heard his father say.

‘Mein Herr, I am recruiting on behalf of the Hitler Youth. Your son is of age now, and–’

‘So what?’ said Peter. ‘I don’t care how old he is, he’s not becoming a foot soldier for Hitler.’

‘Mein Herr, it is the duty of every German child to–’

‘No, please, don’t come into my house and spout this nonsense.’

Felix could hear Klaus almost spluttering with indignation. ‘S-sir, it is not nonsense. We, the youth of Germany, are heading a revolution.’

‘Oh, so you see yourself as a revolutionary? How quaint. How old are you?’

Felix groaned. Did he not realise you couldn’t speak to the Hitler Youth like that, whatever their age?

‘Sixteen, mein Herr. Almost.’

Gottfried cleared his throat. ‘Most of the boys in my school are members and many of the girls too. It’s harmless stuff, really. It’s just another youth group, just bigger and more organised.’

‘Oh really? You think so?’

‘Felix’s desperate to join,’ said Gottfried. ‘He’s told me himself.’

‘Did he, indeed?’ There was a pause while Peter absorbed this. ‘Do you mind if we have this conversation in private?’ He said it more as an instruction than a question.

‘He… he d-doesn’t want to b-be left out,’ said Klara, hesitantly. ‘You know what kids are like, Peter.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’

‘Why don’t we ask the boy?’ asked Gottfried.

Felix ran back up the stairs, two steps at a time, reaching the top just as the living room door opened. His father called him down. Felix walked back down the stairs with as much dignity as he could muster while his father waited at the bottom. His father had turned red; Klaus had rattled him. He followed his father into the living room, conscious of his every move, aware that all eyes were on him.

Klaus was leaning against the mantelpiece, clearly enjoying the commotion his appearance had caused. His grandfather sat on the piano stool, his elbow on the piano lid.

Felix blushed as he said hello to Klaus. Klaus shot his hand out and bellowed his heil Hitler. Felix, rather weakly, returned the salutation. He never thought he’d see Klaus inside his house, looking like he belonged.

Peter picked up his pipe from the sideboard. He set about refilling it as he spoke to Felix. ‘What’s this rubbish about you wanting to join Hitler’s boy army?’

Felix swallowed. The air chilled around him. Like most boys, he was frightened of his father but, even worse, he knew Klaus’ eyes were fixed on him. Felix glanced at his grandfather hoping for an intervention, a word or two to help him out, but Gottfried simply winked at him. He was going to have to do this alone. ‘Everyone’s joining,’ he said, his voice brittle.

‘That doesn’t tell me what you want to do, does it?’

‘I want to join too,’ he managed to say despite the constriction in his throat.

His father slumped a little. He lit his pipe, a huge cloud of blue smoke briefly obscuring him.

‘And so he should,’ said Gottfried.

‘Maybe Felix could join on a trial basis,’ said Klara. ‘Would that be possible, Klaus?’

Klaus smiled a sickly smile. ‘No, Frau Stoltenberg. The Führer expects and demands full commitment.’

‘Fine by me,’ said Felix, emboldened but still conscious of how small his voice sounded.

‘Yes, Hitler would,’ said Felix’s father, smacking his lips against the stem of the pipe. ‘He wants to brainwash a whole generation so that when the time comes, he can spill your blood on the battlefield.’

Klaus stiffened. ‘It is our duty, sir–’

‘Oh, I know all about duty. I fought in the war, young man, the last war. No doubt your father did too. I have an Iron Cross to prove it and a wartime Luger. We served with honour and the one thing I learned is that I know where these things lead, and I don’t want to see my son, or you, for that matter, forced into another war at the behest of a–’

‘It’s just a youth group,’ said Klara. ‘Please, Peter, calm yourself now.’

‘Mein Herr,’ said Klaus. ‘I appreciate this is your home but–’

‘Damn right it is. And it is time for you to leave it.’

Felix wondered how a boy, not much older than himself, could speak to an adult like that. It was that uniform; it gave him an authority of some sort. He couldn’t bear it a moment longer. He had to say something, if only to save his father from saying anything else he might regret but more because he couldn’t appear weak in front of Klaus. ‘I want to join. And I’m going to.’ Never had such simple words been so difficult to say. He resisted the urge to clamp his hand against his heart, to quell its frantic beating. His grandfather winked at him again.

Peter spun to face him. ‘Now wait here, young man.’

‘Your son is right, sir. You have no right to stop him. A boy’s first priority is to the Führer. Felix belongs to us now, mein Herr.’

His words seemed to wind Peter. Klaus put his cap back on.

Klara rose. ‘You sure you won’t stay for a slice of birthday cake?’

Klaus looked at Felix, a look that diminished him somehow. ‘I think not. Thank you, anyway. Goodbye. Heil Hitler.’ He shot out his arm. And with that, he was gone.

Felix collapsed into an armchair. His father glared at him, his face flushed. He stormed out of the room.

Gottfried laughed nervously.

His mother, sitting next to him, patted Felix’s arm. ‘I know that was difficult for you, Bärchen.’

Bärchen. Little Bear. Her nickname for him. ‘Please don’t call me Bärchen.’

He knew his father had fought in the war, knew his father had that Iron Cross and had kept that Luger pistol from that time, but had never given it a moment’s thought. He was, despite it all, rather proud of him but… that was then. This was now, and this time, History, surely, was on their side.

And thus, against all expectations, Klaus Beck had walked into his life, and Felix, by squaring up to his father, had taken his first step on the path to ruination.

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