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Back The Black Earth Save as PDF
Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. THE BLACK EARTH
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. BOOK I
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. BOOK II
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. BOOK III
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. BOOK IV
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  54. About the Author
  55. By Philip Kazan
  56. Copyright

Zoë, if you are alive, do whatever you can to stay safe. I often think, these days, that the conscientious objectors had it absolutely right after all: humanity has turned on itself, and being a soldier just perpetuates the horror. I’m not really a soldier any more, but I am in uniform. What does that make me? A professional voyeur? I write this, and the corpse of the SS man – a corporal, probably eighteen or nineteen, stares at me through his filmy eyes. I don’t mind him at all. I’m so used to the dead that I give him no more thought than someone behind me at a bus stop. But you would say that this has all happened before. You saw it, didn’t you, my darling, when you were a little girl? And you survived. So I hope – I would pray if I had anything to pray to – that you will survive. The dead woman in the black dress has There are so many dead around here that sometimes one finds oneself talking to them. The dead are quite solicitous: they listen, and they don’t scrounge your cigarettes. I think that is what my job is, to some extent: a dialogue with the dead. I can’t bear the thought. We have to keep talking to the living, though. We have to keep writing.

I am going to get out of here. I’m almost at the end of this commission and there must be something further east for me. What, I don’t know. This world has no love in it, Zoë. But I still love you. More than life itself: certainly a thousand times more than I love my own life. I am going to go east. I’ll tell you more when I have my new orders. Keep yourself as safe as you can, my darling. Surely to God this is almost over.

All my love,

Tom

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Cannes, 25th August 1944

Dearest,

My Thomas Cook itinerary continues. I’m writing to you from, of all places, the Croisette in Cannes. Beyond the palm trees is the beach, currently empty of Hollywood starlets and minor European aristocracy, but honestly, it doesn’t feel as if there’s been a war here at all, and all the bright young things have just slipped into their hotels for a quick siesta. The Croisette itself is an endless parade of Citroëns and Renaults filled with young French men and women waving sten guns and flags: Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, but most of all the lovely old Tricolour. Liberation is a word that makes sense here, as it didn’t in Normandy.