“What matters most, Herr Bernhard, is that we are alive, and in that we are indeed fortunate. For right now, at this very moment, somewhere in Russia, someone is meeting his undeserved end at the hands of the MVD. Even as we speak, a poor Russian is being led to the edge of a pit and thinking his last thoughts about home and family before the pistol fires and a bullet is the last thing to travel through his mind. So who cares if the work is hard and the food is poor? We have the sun and the air in our lungs and this moment of companionship that can’t be taken away from us, my friend. And one day, when we’re free again, think how much more it will mean to you and me just to be able to go and buy a newspaper and some cigarettes. And other men will envy us that we live with such fortitude in the face of what only appear to be the travails of life. You know what makes me laugh most of all? To think that ever I complained in a restaurant. Can you imagine it? To send something back to a kitchen because it was not properly cooked. Or to reprimand a barman for serving warm beer. I tell you, I’d be glad to have that warm beer now. That’s happiness right there, in the acceptance of that warm beer and remembering how it’s enough in life to have that and not the taste of brackish water on cracked lips. This is the meaning of life, my friend. To know when you are well off and to hate or envy no man.”
But there was one man at K.A. whom it was hard not to hate or envy. Among the Blues were several political officers, politruks, who had the job of turning German fascists into good anti-fascists. From time to time, these politruks would order us into the mess to hear a speech about Western imperialism, the evils of capitalism, and what a great job Comrade Stalin was doing to save the world from another war. Of course, the politruks didn’t speak German and not all of us spoke Russian, and the translation was usually handled by the most unpopular German in the camp, Wolfgang Gebhardt.
Gebhardt was one of two anti-fascist agents at K.A. He was a former SS corporal, from Paderborn, a professional footballer who once had played for SV 07 Neuhaus. After being captured at Stalingrad in February 1943, Gebhardt claimed to have been converted to the cause of communism and, as a result, received special treatment: his own quarters, better clothing and footwear, better food, cigarettes, and vodka. There was another anti-fa agent called Kissel, but Gebhardt was by far the more unpopular of the two, which probably explains why sometime during the autumn of 1945, Gebhardt was murdered. Early one morning he was found dead in his hut, stabbed to death. The Ivans were very exercised about it, as converts to Bolshevism were, despite the material benefits of becoming a Red, rather thin on the ground. An MVD major from the Stalingrad Oblast came down to K.A. to inspect the body, after which he met with the senior German officer and, by all accounts, a shouting match ensued. Following this, I was surprised to find myself summoned to see Colonel Mrugowski. We sat on his bed behind a curtain that was one of the few small privileges allowed to him as SGO.
“Thanks for coming, Gunther,” he said. “You know about Gebhardt, I suppose.”
“Yes. I heard the cathedral bells ringing.”
“I’m afraid it’s not the good news that everyone might imagine.”
“He didn’t leave any cigarettes?”
“I’ve just had some MVD major in here shouting his head off. Making me into a snail about it.”
“Show me a Blue who doesn’t like to shout and I’ll show you a pink unicorn.”
“He wants me to do something about it. About Gebhardt, I mean.”
“We could always bury him, I suppose.” I sighed. “Look, sir, I think I ought to tell you. I didn’t kill him. And I don’t know who did. But they should give whoever did it the Iron Cross.”
“Major Savostin sees things differently. He’s given me seventy-two hours to produce the murderer, or twenty-five German soldiers will be selected at random to stand trial at an MVD court in Stalingrad.”
“Where an acquittal seems unlikely.”
“Exactly.”
I shrugged. “So you appeal to the men and ask the guilty man to step up for it.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” He shook his head. “Not all of the plenis here are German. Just the majority. And I did remind the major of this fact. However, he’s of the opinion that a German had the best motive to kill Gebhardt.”
“True.”
“Major Savostin has a low opinion of German moral values but a high opinion of our capacity for reasoning and logic. Since a German had the best motive for the murder, he thinks it seems reasonable that we should have the most to lose if the killer is not identified. Which he believes is now the best incentive for us to do his job for him.”
“So what are you telling me, sir?”
“Come on, Gunther. Everyone in Krasno-Armeesk knows you used to be a detective at Berlin’s Alexanderplatz Praesidium. As the SGO, I’m asking you to take charge of a murder investigation.”
“Is that what this is?”
“Maybe none of this will be necessary. But you should at least take a look at the body while I parade the men and ask the guilty man to step forward.”
I walked across the camp in the stiffening wind. Winter was coming. You could feel it in the air. You could hear it, too, as it rattled the windows of Gebhardt’s private hut. A depressing sound it was, almost as loud as the noise of my own rumbling belly, and I was already reproaching myself for not exacting a price for my forensic services. An extra piece of chleb. A second bowl of kasha. No one at K.A. volunteered for anything unless there was something in it for him, and that something was nearly always food.
A starshina, a Blue sergeant named Degermenkoy, standing in front of Gebhardt’s hut, saw me and walked slowly in my direction.
“Why aren’t you at work?” he yelled, and hit me hard across the shoulders with his walking stick.
Between blows I explained my mission, and finally he stopped and let me get up off the ground.
I thanked him and went into the little hut, closing the door behind me in case there was anything in there I could steal. The first things, I saw were a bar of soap and a piece of bread. Not the shorni that we plenis received, but belii, the white bread, and before I even looked at Gebhardt’s body I stuffed my mouth full of what should have been his last meal. This would have been reward enough for the job I was doing, except that I saw some cigarettes and matches, and as soon as I had swallowed the bread I lit one and smoked it in a state of near ecstasy. I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in six months. Still ignoring the body on the bed, I looked around the hut for something to drink and my eyes fell on a small bottle of vodka. And finally, smoking my cigarette and taking little bites off Gebhardt’s bottle, I started to behave like a real detective.
The hut was about ten feet square, with a small window that was covered with an iron grille meant to keep the occupant safe from the rest of us plenis. It hadn’t worked. There was a lock on the wooden door, but the key was nowhere to be seen. There was a table, a stove, and a chair, and feeling a little faint—probably from the cigarette and the vodka—I sat down. On the wall were two propaganda portraits—cheap, frameless posters of Lenin and Stalin—and, collecting some phlegm at the back of my throat, I let the great leader have it.