Our heads were suddenly close as he offered a light, a strand or two of hair almost touching. I could smell his skin, a stronger scent of the general aura around him. I noted, too, that his hand trembled slightly in holding the match. The first drag made me cough violently, and Dieter laughed good-naturedly.
‘It’s been a while?’
‘Something like that.’ The taste was of good German cigarettes, rich with pleasure instead of sour from sheer need. Much like the coffee, I decided to enjoy and savour it, knowing it would be my last for a while.
The dark descended and a silence with it. We both stared at the nightfall and the stars for at least ten minutes, watching our smoke clouds consumed by the navy sky.
‘I can never believe it’s possible for the air to be so clear,’ he said at last. ‘So unencumbered.’
‘Why? Because you live in the real world most of the time, down there?’ I chided him playfully.
He considered for several seconds. ‘Because of all the mud being slung.’ He was suddenly serious. ‘There’s so much of it, I can’t fathom how every particle in the world isn’t heavy with filth.’
I didn’t answer. Much like that first day at the Berghof, I had nothing to add.
A sudden chill broke up the evening and I began to shift and shiver. I saw in his face that he would have offered me his jacket but his features weighed up the gravity of such an offer, and he simply said: ‘Time to turn in, I think.’
We carried the dishes in together, stopping awkwardly by the kitchen door.
‘Well goodnight then, Fräulein Hoff,’ he said.
‘Goodnight, Captain Stenz. I take it we’ll continue our business on another day.’
‘Absolutely.’ And he was gone, down the corridor to whichever room he occupied at the Berghof.
I lay on my bed, unable to switch off. Like every pleasurable experience in the last few months, I measured it carefully, heavy weights fighting with each other on a pair of imaginary scales, like the solid set in my mother’s kitchen. As a teenager, I would have considered such an evening my right to experience, and as a middle-class German woman, to be part of transition towards marriage and children.
Now, everything that made me forget the camp or the war, even for a second, injected a remorse so strong I wanted to physically purge myself, drag it from my being, like a wire embedded deep in my brain, tweezered from my soul. Worse still was the enjoyment I gained from the company of a Nazi – by name, if perhaps not by nature. Was I a collaborator? One of those we women had despised so much in the camp? I hated myself for liking him, for wanting his company. What if I was wrong about him? What if he was complicit in the cruelty, first-hand? I considered the possibility he was playing with me for his own enjoyment – a cat who catches but can’t quite kill the mouse. Suddenly, even life in this sky village seemed far too complicated.
24
A Growing Interest
I chanced upon Dieter again the next morning, on my way to breakfast. He had his back to me, towards the vast air between us and the next mountain, and so it was difficult to tell if he had been waiting for me to pass. A thought inched its way into my head: is that what I wanted? For him to seek me out?
‘Good morning,’ I said as he spun around sharply. ‘Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
‘No … I … Good morning, Anke. I hope you slept well.’
‘Very well, thank you.’ I slipped him a small smile as his eyes went back to the landscape. Seconds prickled, though not in an awkward way, more of an accepted space. I almost walked on without another word, but I realised I simply didn’t want to.
‘Are you looking for something in particular?’ I asked finally.
‘No! No, simply watching the changes,’ he came back, eyes still focused. ‘I’m always amazed at how nature is continually shifting, even when it doesn’t necessarily need to.’
‘Isn’t that a comfort?’ I pitched. ‘That the world moves on?’
‘Mmm, sometimes.’ He turned his head to look at me, his features serious. ‘And yet sometimes I crave to look at an edifice in this wild landscape – something solid. Immovable.’
I laughed good-naturedly. ‘So, do you think buildings have more integrity than people or nature? Surely not.’
His eyes widened, pupils black and tiny in the brightness of the morning, amid a sea of blue. Then he smiled, joining the joke. ‘And would you challenge me if I said that yes, I think sometimes they do.’
‘Well, you’d have to prove it before I came on side,’ I said, gently needling.
‘Have you ever been to New York?’ he said.
‘No, not yet, but I’d like to.’
‘Then if you do, you must see the Chrysler Building in Manhattan.’ His eyes were suddenly alight at the memory of his pre-war travels. ‘It’s a thing of great beauty – tall, shining, imbued with the love of its designer, and yet functional. Most of all, it does not waver. Each side sustains its beauty, through all weathers.’ He smirked with thoughts of our previous conversation. ‘It remains solid, day in, day out. I find that comforting.’
He looked towards the vista again, lips pursed. ‘There are no nasty surprises tucked in corners.’
Another pause, a lawyer resting his case.
‘Then I have to say I can see your point,’ I conceded. ‘Though I am still resting my own hopes on human nature – it may be labile, but it has a good record of triumph.’
‘Each has its good and bad sides,’ he added wistfully. ‘I can see now that change isn’t always bad.’ He looked directly at me as he spoke, intent. Then his face brightened instantly. ‘So there! You seem to have won me round again.’
I smiled broadly as I turned. ‘And equally, New York and the Chrysler Building are now top of my list,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘Good day, Captain Stenz.’
Odd how I could best think, talk and imagine a future beyond this world in his presence.
Dieter drove away soon after breakfast and Gretl departed later in the day. The bride-to-be left in characteristic style, even daring to flirt with the reliable Daniel as he helped her into the car. Eva waved her away with tears, affecting the telltale waddle of late pregnancy as she contemplated another stretch of boredom and loneliness.
Daniel returned with a parcel, clearly from Christa, with no evidence of tampering. Inside were a dozen or so napkins expertly sewn, a knitted hat and several linen cloths we might use at the birth itself. In the folds was a small sewing kit and thread, and a note that said: Just in case you need to make adjustments.
Christa wouldn’t have missed an opportunity to communicate, and I fingered each garment carefully, eyes closed, like the blind grandmother I once watched at a birth. She had been sewing baby clothes during the labour, palpating each section for stray dressmaking pins, letting her finger pads walk over the fabric and making it safe and soft for her grandchild. Above her dead pupils, her eyebrows danced with the labour rhythm, up and down, knitting together as the noises wavered. The old woman’s cues for action fitted exactly with mine, with the strength of the contractions, the despair and the need, and it wasn’t long before I swung my own eyes from the labouring woman to her, forcing my ears to sense the changes as she did.
I closed my eyes and pulled each napkin close, feeling in the padded gusset, manipulating the same material Dieter and I had bought in town. On the tenth or eleventh napkin, I sensed the faintest of crackles. Picking at the delicate stitching with the needle, I carefully manoeuvred a sliver of paper towards the opening. It was gossamer thin, yet the weight of it translated as concrete contraband. This was me – us – breaking the rules. With consequences.
I had never been a determined rebel, either at school or in the hospital, but in the camp I had learnt to shift the boundaries and taken great satisfaction in fooling the guards, securing that extra carrot or potato for someone who really needed it. I hadn’t lost a second of sleep abusing their so-called trust. Up here, I reserved the same hatred for the Reich. Loyalty to Eva
as a mother? I still wasn’t sure. But with Christa’s safety, with her life, I knew I couldn’t play games. She had too much of a future. So, was it my poor judgement that had led her into this? Passing notes between desks was innocent enough at school, drawing a reprimand from the class mistress at worst, but in this war it would get us killed. Stone dead.
I unfolded the note with deep regret, reading her young hand.
They found me again. Made an offer. Need to talk.
I sighed heavily. Ignoring this other interested party looked to be harder than I had imagined. Why had I ever thought this might be simple, a straightforward trade? The war was like a sea creature, an octopus with countless tentacles, sucking in everyone who tried to hide on the calm of the sea bed. Birthing Eva’s baby safely was rapidly becoming the least of our problems.
I didn’t risk a return note. Instead, I introduced the idea to Eva that another meeting with Christa would be beneficial, to go over the birth plan. In a stroke of good timing, a package of equipment arrived for me, via Sergeant Meier. He crowed in his authority, making a good deal of the fact he had necessarily reviewed the contents, ‘for the Fräulein’s safety, you understand. You realise you are being entrusted with items not normally afforded to …’ He hesitated.
‘Prisoners?’ I offered.
‘Yes, well. Please do us the courtesy of honouring that trust.’
There was no restraining my sarcasm. ‘Sergeant Meier, I hope that – if I were to be thinking of an escape – I might be creative enough to do it without a pair of umbilical or suturing scissors and some surgical wadding. Besides, if this equipment is of the same quality I am used to in the hospital, these blades won’t be sharp enough to cut through paper, let alone the barbed wire that surrounds me.’
Winded by my sheer temerity, he shuffled some paper to mask his fury. No doubt he was craving to unholster the gun at his side, snap off the virgin safety clip, and shoot me, there and then, for my sheer dissidence. And his pleasure. Instead, he merely sweated.
‘So, am I to take them, Sergeant Meier? Or will you be sterilising them for me, in readiness?’
‘No, no, you may take them,’ he said, willing me out of his sight.
Christa came three days later, and after doing our duty with Eva, we gained permission to go on a walk towards the Teehaus, where Christa said she had spied some camomile, and wanted to pick and dry it to make tea for the birth. Her thoughtfulness caused Eva’s eyes to well up and I was struck by the guilt of our deception.
‘So tell me how they found you this time?’ I said as soon as we judged ourselves to be out of human earshot.
‘There was a note in the laundry pile at the Goebbels’. Someone who knows my daily routine put it there, I’m sure of it. But I don’t remember anyone unusual coming to the house that day.’
‘What did it say?’
‘That the safety of Hitler’s prize was their priority too. They were anxious for it not to become an icon and a jewel in Hitler’s crown.’
‘That’s all very literal,’ I said. ‘Anything else?’
Christa stopped and looked suddenly grave. ‘They say they can get us to safety, Anke. Our families too. They mentioned my father, and your family in the camps. They say they have the power to get us out of Germany.’
‘In return for what?’
‘Alerting them to when the labour is starting, and when the baby is born.’
‘Is that all? Nothing else?’
‘No, just that.’
‘And how are we to communicate with them, if we need to?’
‘To leave a light in the pantry window if we agree.’
I walked on, feet leaden, wishing the Teehaus wasn’t so far away. I wanted to stand on its pretty balcony, look out over the expanse towards Austria and wait for the landscape to give me answers. I was suddenly so tired; the branches were dappled overhead, and the day seemed peaceful, but I was weary of living on the razor-thin precipice of those distant mountains, of the feeling that every decision might be the one towards a wrong turn and inevitable death.
‘Anke? What shall we do?’ Christa had caught up to my side. ‘Do you think they can make us safe?’
I stopped, and looked directly in her eyes, crinkled at the edges with concern.
‘No, Christa, I don’t.’
She looked heartbroken, crushed. ‘But why? If they have influence enough to find us here, to apply to us directly, surely they have influence elsewhere? Surely, we should …’
I took her hands firmly, only just holding back from shaking them, like a mother with a hysterical child. ‘Christa! Think! Your father is hundreds of miles away, my family dotted around two or three secure camps. Even if they have some high-ranking Germans as friends, it would take more than that to spirit us all away. It’s a pipe-dream and they know that war makes us desperate enough to believe in those dreams – they are relying on it.’
Her eyelids drooped, shoulders sagged.
‘I’m sorry,’ I added. ‘But we are dispensable to them, and we deserve not to be.’
She sighed. ‘No, it’s me who should be sorry. I know my war has been easy compared to some, nothing like your suffering, but I just want it to be over. To be away from here.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Me too. What I don’t quite understand is if they think they can get to the baby, why don’t they just target Hitler himself? Wouldn’t that have more effect?’
‘I think it would be almost impossible,’ said Christa. ‘On the few times he’s been to the Goebbels’, it’s like he wears an armour of people so close to him. No one would get near enough. Besides, the Führer would become an instant martyr, and someone else would step into his place – Himmler maybe. He’s just as determined, perhaps more so. Joseph talks all the time about the Nazi “machine” – he needs the baby to feed the machine.’
I looked at Christa and the understanding in her gentle features. It was fortunate the Reich didn’t know what an effective spy they had deep in their own nest.
I tried to lighten the gloom. ‘I may be wrong, but I think our best chance of getting away, of surviving this, is to stick together, just our little team. What we’re doing isn’t collaboration—’ I had to say it out loud to make myself believe it ‘—it’s what we would do for any woman in need, with a baby to birth. To keep alive, all of us.’
If I said it enough times, would the idea get any easier, the strangulation of my guts any less frequent?
We agreed to do nothing – no spy-like lanterns in the pantry, no courting the resistance. Christa and I would care for Eva and her baby, and hope that good fortune smiled upon us in some way. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the only one we had.
25
New Arrivals
Unlike the majority of babies, reinforcements arrived earlier than planned at the Berghof. Captain Stenz found me early one morning, while I was sweating over a large pan of water in the kitchen, sterilising the birth instruments we would need.
‘Fräulein Hoff.’ He strode in, cap in hand. ‘That looks like hot work.’
I swivelled at the sound of his voice. ‘Captain Stenz!’ I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Yes, it’s never been my favourite job, but a necessary one.’
I wiped at the perspiration on my brow and wondered if I looked as red and broiled as the laundry maids. He shuffled his feet for a second, and then looked to the floor. Apologetic.
‘I’ve come to tell you that the medical staff are following on behind me.’
‘So soon?’
‘I had hoped for two more days, and to send word in advance, but the doctor is keen to settle in. I just managed to drive on ahead to give you some warning.’
‘Well, thank you for that at least,’ I said. ‘I’d better go and tidy myself up. I can try to give a good first impression.’
He caught my arm as I walked past. ‘You look fine. Very well, if I may say.’ His eyes were that fabulous blue, even through the steam. But I made a face that questioned both his eyesight and his j
udgement.
‘Well, all right, perhaps a little grooming for the top brass,’ he joked. ‘But nothing too much needed.’
‘I thank you for your confidence, Captain Stenz, and perhaps some stretching of the truth. But I will go and change.’
A single staff car arrived within the hour, followed by a small truck – more equipment than even I had imagined. Captain Stenz fronted the welcoming party, with Sergeant Meier to his left, rigid and sweating in the early afternoon sunshine. I stood a good pace behind, aware of the hierarchy and the need to maintain Dieter’s position as the man keeping his staff in order. My aim was to attract as little attention as possible, so they would leave us well alone.
Hopes of minimal interference were dashed the moment Dr Koenig stepped from the car, the grey-green of his Wehrmacht uniform showing few creases, and his Nazi cross proudly pinned to his ample breast. He looked army first and a medic second, a man born into his bumptious face and the three-lined crease above his full eyebrows.
‘Welcome, Dr Koenig,’ Dieter said, with a salute that made me wince internally.
‘Thank you, Captain Stenz,’ he replied. ‘Heil Hitler.’
They raised the salute, and Sergeant Meier was introduced, along with the doctor’s assistant, Dr Langer, a slight younger man in army officer’s green. His tiny pupils swept back and forth as he stepped from the car, like a beady-eyed bird about to catch a worm.
I recognised him instantly – he was hard to forget, not so much because of his appearance, which could have been modelled on Joseph Goebbels’, but because of the way he had embraced the ‘learning’ during his short time in the camp. As I remembered it, his speciality in gynaecology was in eliminating babies rather than producing them; new ways to sterilise women, which he approached with gusto. I had heard tales from the hospital block of his practices and witnessed the bloody trauma more than once. His departure from the camp after a month signalled profound relief among the women.
The German Midwife: A new historical romance for 2019 from the USA Today best seller. Page 16