Kuraj by Silvia di Natale

Author:Silvia di Natale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2000-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

On 29th January, Berger and Ul’an took refuge in the tractor factory. The Volga was only a little further on but it was impossible to reach it.

On 30th January, the tenth anniversary of the regime, Field Marshal Paulus sent his congratulations to the Führer. The national anthem boomed out from loudspeakers and even reached those living underground in the factory.

That evening Berger remembered the date: ‘My Ilse would have been five years old now, like your children.’ Ul’an pondered for a while and then said: ‘It’s not by chance that our children were born on the same day.’ ‘What does “it’s not by chance” mean, Ul’an?’ ‘It means that no one is born by chance, just as no one dies by chance. If two souls are reborn at the same time, though in different and even distant places and though different mothers have given birth to them, they are sisters. There is an understanding between them. Your daughter is dead, and I have a son and a daughter, both of whom are living. It was destined to be. If we get out alive, and if I am destined to return to my village on the Amudar’ya I want my daughter to become yours. Please accept the blood of my blood as a pledge of friendship and of obedience to fate.’

Ul’an was talking in a calm but solemn voice, and his gaze was serious. The consecration of friendship with blood was an ancient ritual, and it was not uncommon for the Tunshan to give children to be adopted by couples who did not have any. As far as Ul’an was concerned, there was nothing absurd about such an exchange or, rather, gift. Had it been another time, and had Berger been in another place, not shut in with just twenty bullets in their magazines and two biscuits each to survive on, he would have refused and sought gently to dissuade Ul’an. Berger would perhaps have explained how different their customs were, how different his house in Cologne was from a yurt, and how difficult an adoption between such different families would be. But since just then they were, like beggars, dividing up cigarette ends, the notion of dividing up children seemed no more absurd to him than anything else. Normality seemed so distant a thing that consecrating a friendship with the gift of a daughter appeared to be a normal episode, indeed, one which augured well and which was somehow a challenge to fate. Only by coming out of the furnace alive could the pact be fulfilled, and how could anyone have thought that possible, on 30th January 1943, in Stalingrad? ‘OK,’ said Berger. They shook hands and embraced. I was the pledge of their friendship.

On 31st January Field Marshal Paulus surrendered, to the south of Stalingrad. But in the tractor factory the General of the XIth Army still refused to yield. On the night of 2nd February, in the cellar beneath the factory, a rumour spread that negotiations with the Soviets were under way.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.