Chapter Eighteen - Downfall
Into the dark woods.
Katka ran ahead. Out of breath and with a mind that buzzed, jumped like a loose electric cable.
What have I done, she asked, what monster have I become? She threw her gun into the undergrowth in disgust and then stumbled forward, wanting to put as much distance as she could between herself and the bloody deeds she had just committed.
But it was only a short distance into the woods that she realised the others had not followed. They were still by the van and Rudi was shouting at Petr, screaming at him, ‘Come on, we have to get you to shelter. Come on!’
But he would not move. He had fallen and now he lay on the ground, propped on one elbow. Rudi was trying to help him up, but he would not let him. He swiped with his arm to knock Rudi away. ‘Leave me.’ he was shouting, ‘My wounds are too deep. I won’t make it, I’ll only hold you back.’
Katka hadn’t noticed how badly he was hurt, but she saw now, saw the red stain that had spread across his chest, the ash white of his skin.
‘Please, we have to get into the woods.’ Rudi was crying as he struggled to get hold of Petr’s arm. But Petr would not be saved and together they tumbled on the ground, flailing like an upturned beetle. They rolled across the grass and finished with Petr getting hold of Rudi by the head, gripping his face with a hand on each side like a vice. ‘Stop it.’ he said, his words hushed but forceful. He shook Rudi and told him again, ‘Stop it, please.’
‘But, father -’ Rudy began.
Father? Katka thought, and the realisation was like a jolt. Petr was Rudi’s father, it seemed so obvious now, the bond between them was strong and it was tearing Rudi to pieces. Katka could see it by the way Rudi gripped hold of his father, refusing t let him go.
Katka had to look away. She looked towards Jan and Paul. Both were standing back and staring. Jan with a grim face, at Paul awkwardly looking away, unwilling to get involved. But the drama playing itself out before them, on the edge of the dark wood and almost too painful to watch, continued.
‘Enough, please. I can’t go on.’ Petr demanded, ‘I’m losing blood. If you take me with you, i’ll only slow you down. And,’ he paused, swallowed, looked away, ‘I’m -’ but he was unable to finish his words. Instead he held tightly to Rudi, pressing his face into his shoulder. He held his son still as each sob convulsed his thin frame.
It was then that Jan stepped forward and put his hand on Rudi’s back, ‘Your father is right, Rudi. He has to stay behind.’’
When Rudi looked up his face was contorted into an ugly shameful mask, wet lipped and wet eyed. ‘Jan, no, please.’
‘There is nothing we can do for him.’ Jan said, and he reached forward and gently pulled Rudi from his father. ‘I am sorry.’ he said as he helped Rudi upright.
Rudi did not resist. He allowed himself to be led away without speaking a word. And in that moment no one dared to speak either, not until Petr broke the spell and said, ‘You must leave me now, all of you. You need to get away and I can give you cover.’ It seemed an effort to speak these words. He was out of breath and he spoke quietly, barely loud enough to be heard.
‘When the Germans come,’ Petr went on, ‘I’ll fight them off for as long as I can. But they’ll know you’re in the woods and they’ll come after you. Just know that when you hear my gunfire, they’ll soon be coming after you.’
At these words Rudi turned from Jan, who was still holding him. Rudi pushed him away and said, ‘But, -’
‘Just go!’ Petr shouted, and with a sudden strength, the last he would ever have, he turned himself so he was on his front and propped on one shoulder so his gun was aimed away from the wood and along the road that led back towards the town.
‘But, Father -’ Rudi said.
‘I said go!’ Petr shouted again. ‘Get out of here’ and he spoke with such force the others were forced to obey too. With two firm hands on Rudi’s shoulders Jan stepped backwards and together they stepped silently and slowly away from where Petr lay and moved into the darkness of the woods.
They did not say goodbye. ‘Because this is war, we must economise on our grief.’ Jan told Rudi once he had led him away and they were in the full darkness of the woods. He spoke to Rudi for a long while as he walked by his side, speaking in a low, solemn voice and sometimes holding him for support. ‘There will be time to mourn later,’ e went on, ‘when the fighting’s done, when we’re safe from danger. You can remember then, remember what a great man he was.’
They walked in silence. No noise except the ugly sound of winter crows above the trees, the crunch of rotten leaves beneath their feet. And as they moved further into the darkness, as it surrounded them, it felt to Katka that that none of this was real, that with each step they were stepping further and further into a nightmare. It was as if her mind had been left behind, somewhere it still lingered beside Petr’s dying body as he clutched tightly to the butt of his machine gun. It lingered over the town they had just fled from, which would be buzzing with activity now, as angry as a wasp nest that’s been hit with a stone.
It was as if everything had been shaken, Katka’s whole world, her whole existence. Until now she had been surviving, getting by as best she could, but now she had killed, she become involved and there was no way back, no way out of the dark wood in her own mind, that now clouded and smothered her thinking.
It was as Katka had this thought that she heard the first dog barking.
Jan heard it too. He immediately lifted his head and looked behind, ‘Dogs,’ he said, ‘They’re coming after us with dogs.’ and he didn’t need to tell them that they needed to hurry, nor that the dogs would find them in no time or that they needed to break into a run.
They jogged for hours, until darkness fell and the forest made them as blind as corpses and the only way to move was to feel with every step.
but , ‘Keep on, keep going.’ Jan encouraged them. He lefted them when they fell and eventually they arrived at a stream and Jan told them they could stop. ‘But only for a minute,’ he said, ‘We can rest until we have our breath back but then we must walk through the water. It will disguise our scent and confuse the dogs. It will allow us to change direction and not be followed’ And with the use of a flashlight he then led the way, through water that was so cold it stung like electricity. It flooded about their ankles, which became frozen numb and they stumbling in the dark, breathless, spurned on by fear.
By the time they were out of the water they could hear the sound of voices from behind and the yelp of dogs straining on their leads, eager to taste blood, angry as a pinched nerve. But Jan was right, they had lost their scent and did not know which way to go. Finally the sound of their pursuers subsided and the forest became quiet again.
‘But we must keep going.’ Jan urged them. And so they walked on like zombies, stripped of energy, stripped of all will to keep on and with feet that burned with the ache of a long march. They supported each other and Jan seemed to know where they were going. He led them to a part of the forest that was raised up and Katka thought she could smell water, a great body of water like a lake and eventually they arrived at a cabin that sat in a densely packed piece of woodland.
‘We will sleep here, dry our boots and get warm.’ Jan said, no need to say anything more.
They went inside and Katka felt as if she would drop. She sat down next to the wall and pulled her coat close around herself, fumbling with frozen fingers and with her feet still wet and cold-numb inside her boots.
Jan watched her do this. He smiled, ‘You did well today.’ He said, ‘What you did today you will remember for the rest of your life.’
There was no need to ask why. Katka already knew. The faces of the soldiers she had killed today still burned in her mind and when she looked at Jan, smiling as he loaded wood into the stove in the corner of this basic cabin room, no furniture or glass in the windows, she was suddenly enraged. ‘You tricked me.’ she said.
‘What?’ Jan turned to her.
‘You lied to me. You told me we were there to steal records, that it was just an office, you didn’t say we were there to kill everyone inside.’
At this Jan laughed, ‘So what did you think, that they’d let us take whatever we wanted and not put up a fight?’
‘And how did you know how to find the file on my father so easily?’ Katka demanded, ignoring his question.
‘You won’t understand.’ Jan replied, ‘You really don’t have a clue.’
And they didn’t speak then. No one spoke. They sat in silence, each in their own corner of the room, waiting for the stove to heat the room and for their boots to dry, propped against the metal surface of the stove’s chimney stack and it must have been after midnight before Jan eventually came over to Katka and sat down next to her.
‘I told you already that you part of the resistance now.’ he said, not looking at her but looking directly ahead.
It annoyed Katka that Jan should think this was an suitable explanation for what had happened today, but she knew there was no point in arguing with him. Instead she let out a heavy breath, ‘I do not want to be part of this war.’ she said.
‘And like I said before, you have no choice. None of us do.’
These were words Katka had become tired of hearing. So she asked, ‘Why did Rudi not say that Petr was his father?’
‘Why should he?’ Jan asked.
Katka did not know.
‘This is war, Katka. What difference does it make if two people are related. What difference does blood make when we are surrounded by so much blood in these times?’
Katka shrugged, ‘I am looking for my father. It used to matter to me’
‘It used to matter?’ Jan asked.
‘I’m not sure I care anymore.’ Katka replied, and then after a moment without talking, filled only with the sound of their breathing, of the crack of wood breaking apart inside the furnace, she said, ‘Those files you took today, what did they say?’
‘Nothing. I’m sorry, but all it mentioned of your father was that they were going to send him east about two years ago, that he did not come back.’
‘So he’s dead?’ Katka asked.
‘This is what they think.’ Jan replied.
On hearing this news Katka felt no emotion at all. She asked nothing more and she did not even ask for the file that she had seen Jan put inside his jacket pocket. She did not care. And instead of feeling sad as she thought she would, because she had known all along that really he was dead, she felt almost a sense of relief. ‘I suppose I can stop looking now.’ she said and feeling even more tired she leant her head against Jan, who in response lifted his arm so that he could put it around her and pull her close to his side.
‘And what about you?’ Katka asked after several moments had passed.
‘About me?’ Jan asked.
‘Why are you doing this? What made you join the resistance in the first place?’
For a moment Jan did not answer. He looked at the ground, and it seemed after a while that he was not going to answer, that he didn’t want to talk anymore, but then he said, ‘I used to be a member of the German army.’
‘Like my father?’ Katka exclaimed, suddenly unable to help herself from being interested. She sat up a little.
‘It was only for a short time.’ Jan went on, ‘It was -’
Katka looked at him.
‘Katka, I promise you, the decision I made was because I thought it was for the best. For my family, for myself. I had no idea in the beginning that it would come to this. I, just like millions of other people in Europe, did not realise what the Nazis would do.’
‘What are you saying, that you left your family to join the German army. Then you left and joined the resistance?’
‘I’m sorry, Katka. I know now that it was the wrong thing to do.’
Katka pulled her jacket tight about herself and closed her eyes. ‘It wasn’t the wrong thing to do.’ and suddenly she felt so tired that she could not speak anymore. She felt the first wave of sleep passed through her.
Within a few minutes she was asleep. And when she woke in the morning everyone was gone.
Katka ran ahead. Out of breath and with a mind that buzzed, jumped like a loose electric cable.
What have I done, she asked, what monster have I become? She threw her gun into the undergrowth in disgust and then stumbled forward, wanting to put as much distance as she could between herself and the bloody deeds she had just committed.
But it was only a short distance into the woods that she realised the others had not followed. They were still by the van and Rudi was shouting at Petr, screaming at him, ‘Come on, we have to get you to shelter. Come on!’
But he would not move. He had fallen and now he lay on the ground, propped on one elbow. Rudi was trying to help him up, but he would not let him. He swiped with his arm to knock Rudi away. ‘Leave me.’ he was shouting, ‘My wounds are too deep. I won’t make it, I’ll only hold you back.’
Katka hadn’t noticed how badly he was hurt, but she saw now, saw the red stain that had spread across his chest, the ash white of his skin.
‘Please, we have to get into the woods.’ Rudi was crying as he struggled to get hold of Petr’s arm. But Petr would not be saved and together they tumbled on the ground, flailing like an upturned beetle. They rolled across the grass and finished with Petr getting hold of Rudi by the head, gripping his face with a hand on each side like a vice. ‘Stop it.’ he said, his words hushed but forceful. He shook Rudi and told him again, ‘Stop it, please.’
‘But, father -’ Rudy began.
Father? Katka thought, and the realisation was like a jolt. Petr was Rudi’s father, it seemed so obvious now, the bond between them was strong and it was tearing Rudi to pieces. Katka could see it by the way Rudi gripped hold of his father, refusing t let him go.
Katka had to look away. She looked towards Jan and Paul. Both were standing back and staring. Jan with a grim face, at Paul awkwardly looking away, unwilling to get involved. But the drama playing itself out before them, on the edge of the dark wood and almost too painful to watch, continued.
‘Enough, please. I can’t go on.’ Petr demanded, ‘I’m losing blood. If you take me with you, i’ll only slow you down. And,’ he paused, swallowed, looked away, ‘I’m -’ but he was unable to finish his words. Instead he held tightly to Rudi, pressing his face into his shoulder. He held his son still as each sob convulsed his thin frame.
It was then that Jan stepped forward and put his hand on Rudi’s back, ‘Your father is right, Rudi. He has to stay behind.’’
When Rudi looked up his face was contorted into an ugly shameful mask, wet lipped and wet eyed. ‘Jan, no, please.’
‘There is nothing we can do for him.’ Jan said, and he reached forward and gently pulled Rudi from his father. ‘I am sorry.’ he said as he helped Rudi upright.
Rudi did not resist. He allowed himself to be led away without speaking a word. And in that moment no one dared to speak either, not until Petr broke the spell and said, ‘You must leave me now, all of you. You need to get away and I can give you cover.’ It seemed an effort to speak these words. He was out of breath and he spoke quietly, barely loud enough to be heard.
‘When the Germans come,’ Petr went on, ‘I’ll fight them off for as long as I can. But they’ll know you’re in the woods and they’ll come after you. Just know that when you hear my gunfire, they’ll soon be coming after you.’
At these words Rudi turned from Jan, who was still holding him. Rudi pushed him away and said, ‘But, -’
‘Just go!’ Petr shouted, and with a sudden strength, the last he would ever have, he turned himself so he was on his front and propped on one shoulder so his gun was aimed away from the wood and along the road that led back towards the town.
‘But, Father -’ Rudi said.
‘I said go!’ Petr shouted again. ‘Get out of here’ and he spoke with such force the others were forced to obey too. With two firm hands on Rudi’s shoulders Jan stepped backwards and together they stepped silently and slowly away from where Petr lay and moved into the darkness of the woods.
They did not say goodbye. ‘Because this is war, we must economise on our grief.’ Jan told Rudi once he had led him away and they were in the full darkness of the woods. He spoke to Rudi for a long while as he walked by his side, speaking in a low, solemn voice and sometimes holding him for support. ‘There will be time to mourn later,’ e went on, ‘when the fighting’s done, when we’re safe from danger. You can remember then, remember what a great man he was.’
They walked in silence. No noise except the ugly sound of winter crows above the trees, the crunch of rotten leaves beneath their feet. And as they moved further into the darkness, as it surrounded them, it felt to Katka that that none of this was real, that with each step they were stepping further and further into a nightmare. It was as if her mind had been left behind, somewhere it still lingered beside Petr’s dying body as he clutched tightly to the butt of his machine gun. It lingered over the town they had just fled from, which would be buzzing with activity now, as angry as a wasp nest that’s been hit with a stone.
It was as if everything had been shaken, Katka’s whole world, her whole existence. Until now she had been surviving, getting by as best she could, but now she had killed, she become involved and there was no way back, no way out of the dark wood in her own mind, that now clouded and smothered her thinking.
It was as Katka had this thought that she heard the first dog barking.
Jan heard it too. He immediately lifted his head and looked behind, ‘Dogs,’ he said, ‘They’re coming after us with dogs.’ and he didn’t need to tell them that they needed to hurry, nor that the dogs would find them in no time or that they needed to break into a run.
They jogged for hours, until darkness fell and the forest made them as blind as corpses and the only way to move was to feel with every step.
but , ‘Keep on, keep going.’ Jan encouraged them. He lefted them when they fell and eventually they arrived at a stream and Jan told them they could stop. ‘But only for a minute,’ he said, ‘We can rest until we have our breath back but then we must walk through the water. It will disguise our scent and confuse the dogs. It will allow us to change direction and not be followed’ And with the use of a flashlight he then led the way, through water that was so cold it stung like electricity. It flooded about their ankles, which became frozen numb and they stumbling in the dark, breathless, spurned on by fear.
By the time they were out of the water they could hear the sound of voices from behind and the yelp of dogs straining on their leads, eager to taste blood, angry as a pinched nerve. But Jan was right, they had lost their scent and did not know which way to go. Finally the sound of their pursuers subsided and the forest became quiet again.
‘But we must keep going.’ Jan urged them. And so they walked on like zombies, stripped of energy, stripped of all will to keep on and with feet that burned with the ache of a long march. They supported each other and Jan seemed to know where they were going. He led them to a part of the forest that was raised up and Katka thought she could smell water, a great body of water like a lake and eventually they arrived at a cabin that sat in a densely packed piece of woodland.
‘We will sleep here, dry our boots and get warm.’ Jan said, no need to say anything more.
They went inside and Katka felt as if she would drop. She sat down next to the wall and pulled her coat close around herself, fumbling with frozen fingers and with her feet still wet and cold-numb inside her boots.
Jan watched her do this. He smiled, ‘You did well today.’ He said, ‘What you did today you will remember for the rest of your life.’
There was no need to ask why. Katka already knew. The faces of the soldiers she had killed today still burned in her mind and when she looked at Jan, smiling as he loaded wood into the stove in the corner of this basic cabin room, no furniture or glass in the windows, she was suddenly enraged. ‘You tricked me.’ she said.
‘What?’ Jan turned to her.
‘You lied to me. You told me we were there to steal records, that it was just an office, you didn’t say we were there to kill everyone inside.’
At this Jan laughed, ‘So what did you think, that they’d let us take whatever we wanted and not put up a fight?’
‘And how did you know how to find the file on my father so easily?’ Katka demanded, ignoring his question.
‘You won’t understand.’ Jan replied, ‘You really don’t have a clue.’
And they didn’t speak then. No one spoke. They sat in silence, each in their own corner of the room, waiting for the stove to heat the room and for their boots to dry, propped against the metal surface of the stove’s chimney stack and it must have been after midnight before Jan eventually came over to Katka and sat down next to her.
‘I told you already that you part of the resistance now.’ he said, not looking at her but looking directly ahead.
It annoyed Katka that Jan should think this was an suitable explanation for what had happened today, but she knew there was no point in arguing with him. Instead she let out a heavy breath, ‘I do not want to be part of this war.’ she said.
‘And like I said before, you have no choice. None of us do.’
These were words Katka had become tired of hearing. So she asked, ‘Why did Rudi not say that Petr was his father?’
‘Why should he?’ Jan asked.
Katka did not know.
‘This is war, Katka. What difference does it make if two people are related. What difference does blood make when we are surrounded by so much blood in these times?’
Katka shrugged, ‘I am looking for my father. It used to matter to me’
‘It used to matter?’ Jan asked.
‘I’m not sure I care anymore.’ Katka replied, and then after a moment without talking, filled only with the sound of their breathing, of the crack of wood breaking apart inside the furnace, she said, ‘Those files you took today, what did they say?’
‘Nothing. I’m sorry, but all it mentioned of your father was that they were going to send him east about two years ago, that he did not come back.’
‘So he’s dead?’ Katka asked.
‘This is what they think.’ Jan replied.
On hearing this news Katka felt no emotion at all. She asked nothing more and she did not even ask for the file that she had seen Jan put inside his jacket pocket. She did not care. And instead of feeling sad as she thought she would, because she had known all along that really he was dead, she felt almost a sense of relief. ‘I suppose I can stop looking now.’ she said and feeling even more tired she leant her head against Jan, who in response lifted his arm so that he could put it around her and pull her close to his side.
‘And what about you?’ Katka asked after several moments had passed.
‘About me?’ Jan asked.
‘Why are you doing this? What made you join the resistance in the first place?’
For a moment Jan did not answer. He looked at the ground, and it seemed after a while that he was not going to answer, that he didn’t want to talk anymore, but then he said, ‘I used to be a member of the German army.’
‘Like my father?’ Katka exclaimed, suddenly unable to help herself from being interested. She sat up a little.
‘It was only for a short time.’ Jan went on, ‘It was -’
Katka looked at him.
‘Katka, I promise you, the decision I made was because I thought it was for the best. For my family, for myself. I had no idea in the beginning that it would come to this. I, just like millions of other people in Europe, did not realise what the Nazis would do.’
‘What are you saying, that you left your family to join the German army. Then you left and joined the resistance?’
‘I’m sorry, Katka. I know now that it was the wrong thing to do.’
Katka pulled her jacket tight about herself and closed her eyes. ‘It wasn’t the wrong thing to do.’ and suddenly she felt so tired that she could not speak anymore. She felt the first wave of sleep passed through her.
Within a few minutes she was asleep. And when she woke in the morning everyone was gone.