The German Midwife: A new historical romance for 2019 from the USA Today best seller.

by Mandy Robotham

  I helped her into the bath, remade her bed with clean sheets, and told her we would simply wait for this baby. There was no hurry: it was healthy and robust, a nice size, and she needed to feel well before she wanted to labour. I did nothing but give her permission to grieve, and then have a baby when she chose.

  ‘Are you sure?’ She looked at me through a mist of disbelief. ‘There’s nothing you need to do?’

  ‘Not right now. I’m sure your baby will come when you are both ready.’

  It took just two days. The wait felt much like a holiday; the weather was chilly but I wrapped myself in the coat Christa had brought for me, and we both walked and talked. There was no visible army presence save for a guard at the gate, and as we moved further from the house, Christa revealed a little of what she knew: information gleaned from talk in the Goebbels’ house, the shops in Berchtesgaden and the letters she received from her father.

  The war was going badly for Germany – the Allies had attacked Italy and were in a strong position, Stalingrad was now in Russian hands, and parts of Germany had been bombed in sustained attacks by British fighters, with huge losses on the ground and in the air. Leipzig had been virtually flattened and Berlin had been targeted many times. I felt so ignorant of what was happening in the real world and angry at our cocooned position up on high. I wondered how much of this was being discussed at the Berghof among the German high command, and how long it could remain a protected fortress. No wonder Fräulein Braun felt ignored. Hitler had an entire war on his mind, a war that we – Germany – might be losing.

  At the Schmidt house, the maids kept the two of us fed and comfortable, but their time was taken up with the children and the young governess. Christa’s adept hands fitted me out with several new dresses, and we revelled in the freedom of being able to talk, the ears of the Goebbels and the Berghof loyalists far away. We even dared to talk of life after the war, what we might do as women in perhaps a stronger position, who we might marry, and what our children could look like. Christa was so full of life – when the war began she’d been about to leave her job and become a student of fashion. Yet we both seemed to sense it would depend on our timing – when to climb down and away from that mountain and to safety.

  We laughed a lot but there was an edge to each topic we broached. I felt the cobwebs clearing towards a real discussion. And then, as we walked, her sweet features became unusually serious.

  ‘And what will you do about the baby?’

  ‘The baby? It’ll come soon, I think,’ I said.

  ‘No, I mean the baby. Fräulein Braun’s baby.’

  I stopped walking and turned squarely to face her. ‘What do you mean, what will I do?’

  Suddenly, Christa seemed old beyond her years. Her face hardened and her eyes flashed. ‘I mean, Anke, that you have a certain amount of power over what goes on. Don’t think you don’t. Have you never wondered how your actions might influence events way beyond the Berghof, way beyond Fräulein Braun?’

  I didn’t want to admit it, but I had. In all those hours of unemployment, my mind had wandered into uncomfortable corners of possibilities. Every fibre of my professional being would move heaven and earth to save any mother or baby, even after what had gone before. But I knew the gravity of this pregnancy, what having an heir would mean to the Reich. Could I contemplate sabotage, as a midwife? I liked to think not, but in truth it had crossed my mind, and there was only one alternative to a happy mother and baby. No baby.

  ‘I … I suppose I have, briefly, but I don’t think, when it came to it … no. It would be suicide for one thing, for me, and certain death to my family. Christa, all of this, I’m doing it for them, you know, for any chance they might have. Besides, I don’t even think Adolf Hitler cares about this baby. Any action I could take might not affect him at all.’

  I felt winded, and walked on again, anything but stand and face the heavy atmosphere between us. Christa moved silently alongside me.

  ‘I think you’re wrong,’ she said finally. ‘What happens at the Berghof could have a big effect. It’s just that what I hear, at the house—’

  ‘At the Goebbels’? What do they say?’ I snapped back. My distrust of Magda was already well entrenched.

  ‘They fight like cat and dog over it,’ Christa said. ‘Hitler might not want to be a father, but Goebbels is desperate for that baby, to use it as a morale booster, as a way of turning the war, towards a “new hope” he says. But the mistress, she wants it to be kept secret forever, for Eva to be like some Rapunzel in the sky.’

  I had seen Christa full of fun and smiles, mischief even, but I had never seen her so animated, so hardened. Her eyes were fiery dots, red with passion.

  ‘But why does she want the baby hidden?’

  ‘Jealousy,’ said Christa squarely. ‘She has seven fine examples of Germanic blood, but they are not Adolf Hitler’s children. She would have done almost anything to be his woman, if she hadn’t already been married. And he knows it, the master. Joseph Goebbels knows it.’

  ‘And so why did she bring me here, to care for Eva?’

  ‘It wasn’t Magda, but her husband. She wanted Eva sent to Austria, out of sight, but Goebbels insisted on bringing in the best. He wants to keep it discreet, to keep her out of hospital until he reveals the baby in his own good time.’

  ‘And you’ve heard all of this? It’s not just tittle-tattle?’

  ‘With my own ears,’ Christa said. ‘They don’t hold back, and the walls, they’re not that thick. Frau Goebbels may look like the perfect German wife, but she can wield the power within that house.’

  I was silent in absorbing Christa’s revelations. I thought of Eva, of her stupid naivety, but also of her yearning to hold her baby. The fact that it was his baby shouldn’t come into it. Or should it?

  ‘I just don’t think I could do anything other than care for her in the best way I know,’ I said finally. ‘It’s the baby who holds all the cards now. If the baby survives, or not, it won’t be because I played God or anything else. I’m a midwife; I don’t have that right. No one does.’

  Christa looked at me, her silence needling, as if she knew. That she could tell. It was her eyes that said: Don’t you?

  ‘I hate this war, Christa, I really hate what it’s done to Germany, to Germans, and everyone else – the pain it’s caused. And yes, that man – that loathsome man – is responsible. But I can’t be held to account for the direction of this whole war. It won’t be turned by a birth – something so small.’

  ‘Can you be sure about that?’ Christa’s eyes flashed again.

  ‘Where has this come from, Christa? I’ve never seen you like this. Why are you suddenly so angry?’

  ‘It’s my brother,’ she said. Her voice was barely audible, the liquid fire of a volcano breaking free.

  ‘Yes, I know, he was blinded in the war. It’s tragic and—’

  ‘He’s dead.’ Her words sank like stone into the air. ‘Two weeks ago, he hanged himself in the barn – he couldn’t face a life depending on my father. It was Papa who found him, who had to cut down his own son, and then bury him. Bruno would have been twenty-five next month.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know. Why haven’t you said? You gave no hint, you seemed so, so … normal.’

  ‘Because this is war, Anke. I don’t want to think of myself as suffering more than anyone else, but it has to stop. It has to.’ Her granite gaze gave way to pear-drop tears and she looked small and vulnerable again. I pulled her towards me and she sobbed her pain into the coat she had so kindly fixed for me.

  ‘Oh Lord, Christa, where will it end?’ I said into her glossy hair. ‘When will it end?’

  13

  Life and Death

  After our second restful night in the house, I checked on Sonia. She had spent time with her children, dressing in the afternoon and coming downstairs for tea. She was moving with impromptu squeaks and groans and her eyes were dark and troubled, but she was holding herself to
gether for the family, despite her increasing discomfort.

  ‘How long do you think, Anke? How long before I can birth this baby and tell my children?’ she pleaded during our check, desperate to purge herself of the double burden within her.

  ‘I don’t know, but my guess is not too long,’ I said. ‘You look different now and your body is ready. Your mind simply has to let go.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ she said, ‘I really am.’

  ‘Just don’t try too hard and it will happen.’

  The maid woke me at midnight. Sonia was pacing in her bedroom, flushed and agitated. This was labour, although I left Christa to sleep until her hands were really needed. The baby’s heartbeat was good, and Sonia was having to stop and breathe every three to four minutes, so likely to be in the first, or dilating, stage of labour. In between, she smiled for the first time since we had met.

  ‘This is it, I know it is,’ she panted. ‘This is like before, with the other tw—’ and she went into another contraction, blowing hard to climb the mountain peak of sixty seconds before respite again.

  I sat rubbing Sonia’s back, murmuring reassurance in the half light. During my time at homebirths in the Berlin suburbs I had learnt to work in near darkness, in contrast to the brightness of the maternity ward, where we could see everything yet not feel the progress. Here, I was in my comfort zone. In the gloom, I stared at the opulence shining through, the expensive furniture, and thoughts of my last birth in the camp hung heavily. Of Irena, and her baby born onto dirty paper instead of the thick, carefully woven blanket waiting for this baby. And yet stripped of all but her nightgown, Sonia could have been Irena or any other woman I had known; uncomfortable, scared and needing reassurance. And equally strong.

  It was only thirty minutes or so before the pitch in the room changed. A momentous contraction caused Sonia to drop down on the floor and crawl like a heavy-bellied cat towards a corner. As she reached the peak, her body let out a distinctive bray, which seemed to surprise even her. For me, though, it was the familiar call to birth. I signalled the maid to wake Christa, and asked for the hot water to be brought upstairs. Christa was with me in minutes, eager and with no hint of anxiety. She busied herself in the corner, quietly laying out any equipment we might need, and then sitting and watching – another who would make a great midwife.

  Sonia quickly appeared to be in transition, that half world between the need to hold on and the body’s desire to purge itself of everything grown in the intense months of pregnancy. With each contraction now, she breathed, bayed and howled her way through, in between swaying and muttering to her dead husband: ‘It’s coming, Gerd, it’s coming, darling. It’s nearly here for you …’

  I mouthed reassurances, but she wasn’t hearing much beyond her own noise.

  Christa sensed her cue, silently taking her place at Sonia’s head end, her fingers clasped at greedily by Sonia, whose eyes were closed in deep focus. I stayed at the bottom end, feeling she wasn’t too far from pushing this baby. Her waters broke in the next contraction, but instead of a clear gush, it was a thick, grainy brown soup – signs of meconium, the baby’s first bowel movement. The pregnancy was overdue, but it was also a signal of distress, the baby’s ‘fight or flight’ mechanism for survival. If we were in or near to a hospital, midwives would normally call in a paediatrician, but we were thirty minutes from the hospital, a local doctor our only other back-up. As a midwife, I was unfazed by meconium – it was a natural reaction and caused problems only if the baby inhaled the dirty fluid on its journey out. Most emerged kicking and screaming with no treatment needed, other than a good bath.

  It was impossible to check the baby’s heartbeat given Sonia was kneeling on all fours. She was pushing with the next contraction, and her skin began to stretch and mould in the normal way, with a little tuft of hair soon pouting through. She was in that nether world, calling her husband’s name constantly, while Christa tried to calm her anxiety, stroking her hand and talking next to her. My main concern was in slowing down the progress of the head – third babies often emerged with one huge push, as the mother couldn’t hold on any longer.

  ‘Sonia, just breathe for me,’ I tried over her constant rambling. ‘Small pushes, take it slow.’

  In the next minute, she let out a whelp as the baby’s crown breeched and slipped through the skin in one sudden leap forward, bringing her back into the here and now. Suddenly, the room was silent.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ I told her, moving to get sheets under her for the final arrival. ‘The baby’s head is born, you’re nearly there.’

  In most births, there’s a minute or two’s pause when nothing much happens, the baby’s bluish face peering and pouting, its neck clamped in the mother’s opening, sometimes fluttering eyelids and making a small bid to cry, but not yet a person in the world, the umbilical cord still being the lifeline for oxygen. With most mothers, confirming the head born was a way of rousing one last effort to birth the shoulders, in the moment when they were ready to give up. But in hindsight, it was the wrong message for Sonia, a woman who was almost afraid of meeting her baby. She may have wanted to meet her last-born, but her in-depth fear, her psyche, did not.

  We waited, in the silence. One minute crept into two and still no contraction. The prickle on my neck increased as the baby’s face turned a mottled purple.

  ‘Sonia, just tell me when you feel a contraction,’ I said, trying to temper a rising concern.

  ‘It’s not coming,’ she said, now lucid and aware. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Just give me a push, a good one, really low,’ I told her.

  Her body attempted to bear down, but the effort was pathetic compared to the mammoth, unrelenting efforts a few minutes before.

  ‘I can’t,’ she moaned. ‘It’s just not there.’

  In a split second I was up at Christa’s side, whispering urgently. ‘We need to get her upright,’ I said, the flash in my eyes doubtless evident even in the half light.

  Christa understood immediately, and we both hauled Sonia from her knees, and into a squat, her dead weight of fatigue making us breathe heavily, me guiding to protect the baby’s head.

  ‘Christa, can you hold her?’ It was a big request given Christa’s small frame, but a natural shot of adrenalin had injected untold strength in her limbs.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said.

  As she cradled Sonia from the back, I scooted around the front. The baby’s head was hovering only inches from the blankets on the floor, and I didn’t like to guess at its colour, let alone look. It needed to be born – now.

  Sonia’s head was lolling, back in her half world.

  ‘Sonia! Look at me!’ I was direct and she snapped up, wide-eyed. ‘I need you to give one really big push. Please, Sonia. For me, for the baby.’

  One look at my face and the urgency was apparent – her own features contorted and she bore down without the aid of a contraction. The baby’s shoulders moved a little as I put a hand on each side of its head and pulled down with firm traction, but it sprang back as she ran out of breath and the effort stopped. I knew instantly what the problem was: shoulder dystocia, the baby’s shoulders wedged behind the pubic bone of the pelvis. No amount of pushing or pulling would move this baby until they were free. It was among the midwife’s worst nightmares, since the baby had to come out, and there was no reversing and delivering by caesarean, even in a hospital. We had to free this baby, or it would die half born.

  ‘Christa – on her back, now!’ She caught my tone and instantly lowered Sonia onto the floor. I forced Sonia’s legs up and backwards towards her head, as far as they would go, all moves designed to dislodge the baby’s shoulders. Sonia was moaning, slipping in and out of reality but thankfully not resisting our forced gymnastics.

  ‘Over here,’ I said to Christa, urgent but restrained. I took her left hand and placed the heel just above Sonia’s pubic bone, with the right hand on the top of Sonia’s still proud but flaccid bump.

>   ‘Now rub firmly on her belly, in circles,’ I said. ‘When I say, push backwards towards her belly button and down with your other hand. And, Christa?’

  ‘Yes?’ Her eyes were saucers.

  ‘Push hard.’

  I came back to the baby’s head, hanging limply without much sign of life. Christa was rubbing furiously and Sonia’s increased groan told me a contraction was brewing.

  ‘Sonia,’ I said loudly. ‘Sonia! You need to push, give me a huge push.’

  Somehow, through her confusion, she did. I placed my right hand inside her vagina and found the front of the baby’s right shoulder, ready to screw the baby round. In unison, we pushed and pulled – the light caught the sinews on Christa’s arm as she bore back and down, the effort from Sonia I could feel as the baby’s shoulders tried to move forward, and my own muscles stung as I rotated the shoulders. After what seemed like an age, yet was only a few seconds, the shoulder popped free, descended suddenly and I swiftly grabbed under the baby’s arm, literally hauling both shoulders through, followed by the torso and legs. Sonia whelped again and Christa exhaled loudly in relief.

  The baby was a good size, but completely flaccid, a blue head and white body that was never a welcome sight for any midwife. Oxygen had been severely limited in the last five minutes and he wasn’t breathing. He looked lifeless, and I was glad Sonia’s eyes were cast towards the ceiling; no mother should see this. Again Christa – brilliant Christa – was there in seconds with my stethoscope and a towel. While she vigorously rubbed life into the baby, I listened for the heart rate. Thankfully, we had one, but it was weak and slow, under sixty beats per minute – we needed to physically move more oxygen around the baby.