‘I didn’t ask for this job.’
‘I couldn’t have done it without you. Survived this.’ Meister gestured at the desolation that had been a city.
‘When you’ve been running from the cops all your life you know a trick or two.’
‘Did you have any trouble getting into the Army? You know, with your record …’
‘I’m not a Jew, I’m not a gypsy. It was easy.’
‘But why’ Meister asked curiously, ‘did you want to fight?’
‘Who said I did? The Kripo had other plans for me if I didn’t.’ Lanz ground out his cigarette end and rubbed his bald patch with his hand leaving behind a grey smudge. ‘And you? Weren’t you too young to be conscripted?’
Meister who was now eighteen said: ‘I volunteered.’
A shelf of trophies, a head full of golden words. For the Fatherland. For the Führer. For Elzbeth.
‘Are you scared of dying?’ Lanz asked.
‘Aren’t we all?’
‘Some people beckon death. They call them heroes. Others dispatch people to their deaths. They call them politicians. But you haven’t answered my question.’
A Stuka dropped out of the sky, bent wings predatory, its pilot looking for Russians burrowing in the ruins, or ships crossing the Volga. An anti-aircraft gun opened up on the other side of the river.
‘I don’t want to die,’ Meister said.
‘Then you must kill Antonov.’
‘Of course.’ He saw Antonov with a ploughshare, its blades turning furrows of wet black earth.
A scout car stopped beside the stricken engine and a young officer with bloodshot eyes climbed out. ‘Are you Meister?’
Meister said he was.
‘The general wants to see you.’
‘The general?’
‘General Friedrich von Paulus.’ The officer looked as incredulous as Meister felt.
***
Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army that was laying siege to Stalingrad, sat at a trestle table beneath a naked light bulb in a command post, a cellar to the west of the city, poring over two maps. He didn’t look up when Meister clattered down the stone steps.
The larger map embraced the southern front. Meister could see the arrow-heads of Army Group A piercing the Caucasus, probing for its oil; above them the arrows of Army Group B trying to cut the Russians’ artery, the Volga, and amputate the great thumb of land that linked the Soviet Union with Turkey and Iran.
But the arrows lost direction at Stalingrad, the once prosperous city of half a million inhabitants. Stalingrad was the smaller map and, standing to attention opposite Paulus, Meister was able to view the plan of battle from the Soviet positions on the east bank of the Volga.
The plight of the Russians became more apparent in the cellar than it did above ground. Stalingrad was on the west bank and the Soviet forces there were encircled and divided. They were ferociously defending the industrial north and their slender waterside footholds, but nine-tenths of the city was in German hands.
At last the general leaned back in his chair and looked at Meister. Paulus had a long handsome face and big ears and his dark hair had been pressed close to his scalp by the peaked cap lying on the table. His uniform was loose on his body but he had presence. He was smoking a cigarette and there was a mound of crushed butts on a saucer.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re our latest hero.’ He appraised Meister as though looking for a hidden feature. ‘Well, we could do with one. Stand at ease, man.’ He picked up a copy of Signal. ‘Have you seen this?’ handing Meister the forces’ magazine.
‘No, Herr General.’ Meister found it difficult to believe that he was alone in a cellar with a general. He riffled the pages of the magazine until he saw Elzbeth and himself. It was the same photograph that he carried in his wallet.
‘Keep it,’ Paulus said. ‘Read it later. Don’t worry, it’s very flattering. I understand from Berlin that most of the newspapers have picked up the story. You, Meister, are just the tonic the German people need. They’ve been reading too much lately about “heavy fighting”. They know by now what that means – a setback. And do you know what that makes you?’
‘No, Herr General.’
A shell exploded nearby. The cellar trembled, the lightbulb swung.
‘A diversionary tactic.’ Paulus pulled at one of his big ears and lit another cigarette. ‘A sideshow. But at the moment the German people don’t know about your co-star.’
‘Antonov?’ Meister’s throat tickled; it was a sniper’s nightmare to cough or sneeze as, target in the sights, he caressed the trigger of his rifle.
‘So far this rivalry – this feud within a battle – has been for local consumption. But not when you kill him.’
Meister cleared his throat but the tickle remained.
‘Then,’ Paulus said, ‘the whole Fatherland will know about Karl Meister’s greatest exploit. It will be symbolic, the victory of National Socialist over Bolshevism.’
The irritation scratched at Meister’s throat. Any minute now he would be racked with coughs.
Paulus unbuttoned the top pocket of his tunic. ‘I have a message for you. It’s from the Führer.’ Paulus read from a folded sheet of paper. ‘I have heard about the exploits of Karl Meister and I am profoundly moved by both his dedication and his expertise. I am led to understand that the Bolsheviks, having forcibly been made aware of Meister’s accomplishments, have produced a competitor. I confidently await your communiqué to the effect that Meister has disposed of him.’
Meister said: ‘Antonov is very good.’ He tried unsuccessfully to dislodge the irritation in his throat with one rasping cough.
‘But not as good as you?’
‘I’m not sure. He comes from the country, I come from a city, Hamburg. Maybe I have the edge, city sharpness … But he has instinct, a hunter’s instinct.’
Paulus said: ‘You are better. The Führer knows this,’ in a tone that was difficult to identify.
‘With respect, General Paulus,’ Meister said, ‘I think we are equal. I think he and I know that.’ He coughed again.
‘Know? You have some sort of communication?’
‘Respect,’ Meister said.
‘How many Russians have you killed?’
Meister who knew Paulus knew said: ‘Twenty-three. According to the Soviet propaganda Antonov has killed twenty-three Germans.’
Paulus said: ‘Do you want to kill him?’ and Meister, still trying to blunt the prickles in his throat, said: ‘Of course, because if I don’t he will kill me.’
‘Tell me, Meister, what makes you so different? What makes a sniper? A good eye, a steady hand … thousands of men have these qualifications.’
‘Anticipation, Herr General.’ Meister wasn’t sure. A flash of sunlight on metal, a fall of earth, a crack of a breaking twig … such things helped but there was more, much more. You had to know your adversary.
‘And Antonov has this same quality?’
‘Without a doubt. That’s what makes him so good.’
He saw Antonov and himself as skeletons stripped of predictability. Anticipating anticipation.
He began to cough. The sharp coughs sounded theatrical but he couldn’t