Opposite Sides

by Susan Firman

CHAPTER 25

  Hunting

  Jan stepped off the train at the Zoo Hauptbahnhof in the western part of Berlin. Together with two other nurses, Jan would be stationed at one of the army hospitals in the city. She had made application to travel to Berlin with the Auxiliary Nurses and had forwarded a letter from Commander Brownless recommending her for post-war service within the British zone. Her term of duty would be brief. She had been given the necessary papers to enter the divided city but they were only valid for a three month stay. Security was strict and getting into the city had been difficult for all personnel had to be flown in through the narrow corridor which linked the western part of the country with the inner city.

  Once they arrived, the nurses found that any movement outside the hospital confines was arduous and restrictive. Jan found she had to wait patiently for her leave to turn up before she could snatch a few days off and begin looking for the man she was to marry. The widespread destruction of the buildings, together with the hopelessness and resignation on the faces of the people was most upsetting and Jan wondered whether they would ever be able to find her way around the ruined city. She thought it would be wise to go to the British Army Occupation Headquarters and speak with someone there to see whether they could help. Normally they didn’t make any personal efforts to locate ordinary people unless the armed forces had some interest in them, but as Jan had gone to the trouble to obtain special documents and had arrived on their doorstep and was determined to stay there until she got answers, she was sent through to the general’s office. She told the general that the last she had heard of Hans, he had been in the American sector, staying with a Frau Mohr. The general listened in silence but as he did so he weighed up everything he was being told and decided that as she was a very determined lady, he would phone through to the American headquarters to see if they could be of assistance.

  “They want to know if you’ll be going alone or not, nurse.” The general lowered the phone away from his ear.

  “There’ll be two of us, general,” she answered immediately. She had already asked Rosie Dawson to accompany her. Rosie was one of the nurses who arrived in Berlin with Jan a few weeks earlier.

  “There will be two,” repeated the general into the mouth piece.

  After some extra formalities down the phone line, the general finally replaced the receiver and addressed Jan once more.

  “How to you intend getting over there, may I ask?”

  “Haven’t figured it out, yet, sir. First, I thought it was important to obtain permission and the necessary documentation.”

  “Well, you’re in luck. We’ve got an army vehicle going that way this afternoon.” He began stamping the documents which would allow the two women to cross from one zone to the other. Within the hour both Jan and Rosie were being escorted into the American sector.

  “We were so lucky to have been driven here,” she told the American behind the counter. “I think it would have taken us days to find our way here. Everything’s been so destroyed. It’s almost impossible to get around.”

  “Yep. Shouldn’t have started it. Do you speak any German, ma’am?” asked the sergeant in a slow, low southern drawl.

  “No, I don’t. Only a word or two. Why, does it matter?”

  “How do you two . . . ” He beamed at Rosie who was much younger than Jan, raising his bushy eyebrows with interest. “think you’re goin’ to get around? No one in this God-damn city speaks much English.”

  Jan thought for a while, before answering.

  “Oh. I’m not sure. I . . . we . . . ” Jan indicated Rosie. “really never gave it much thought. We came because I haven’t heard from Mr Resmel since . . .”

  “Just before Christmas, wasn’t it?”" Rosie had found her voice and had decided to be included in this conversation.

  “Well, ain’t that bad,” the American said shaking his head. He turned slightly to his his right and called to someone in the rear room. “Hey, Donut, come out here a sec. Maybe you could give these two gals a hand.”

  A slightly older man, closer to Jan in age, poked his shaved head around the doorway. the sergeant spoke again.

  “You gotta day or two free?” The other nodded. “Great! How’d ya like to help these two English ladies? They’ve come here to find a Kraut.”

  “Shucks, there’s tons of them around!”

  “They only want one! Missin’, or gone west.”

  The soldier came through the door and joined his sergeant at the desk.

  “Hi. My name’s Private Alan Mannings but my mates call me Donut.” He grinned and pointed to the top of his head. “ ‘Cos of the shaved part. See? Bit like a hole in the donut.”

  Jan warmed towards Private Donut. He came over as out-going and friendly.

  “Would you really help us, Private . . . er, Donut?” She took a step closer towards the bench.

  “Yea, sure. Cripes, why not? Glad to take you around. Now, where do you think this guy of yours was last?” He pulled out a drawer and extracted a large folded piece of paper. “City map.” Donut indicated to Jan and her friend to go with him into the adjacent room where there was a flat surface large enough to accommodate the opened map. “It’s a bit hard gettin’ through all the road blockages and rubbish, Ma’am,” the soldier commented as he slid his hand across the map surface and smoothed out the deep folds.

  “We’ve already discovered that much, haven’t we Janine?”

  Rosie came closer to where the map lay. She nodded as she tried to sort out the areas she had been but on the map everything looked a jumble of strange-looking streets that criss-crossed a cityscape which was no longer recognisable. The street names, she could not read. They were in a script she had never seen before, similar to old writings but somehow different. The man must have noticed the puzzlement on her face, for he said,

  “Don’t worry about trying to read those names. It’s the old way of writing. It’s the only map we’ve got at present. Found it in one of the government buildings.” He looked up and grinned. “Aw, gosh. Didn’t catch your names.” He grinned again, so widely that Jan noticed he had a gold crown on one of his top molars. He stared at Rosie who was nearest to him.

  “I’m Nurse Rosie Dawson.” She waited for a second or so. “That’s Staff-Sister Janine Turner.”

  “Hi!” He smoothed the map out flatter with his arm. “Now, who’s this ya lookin’ for?”

  “Janine’s fiancé,” said Rosie in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Donut was confused. He looked at Jan and then back at Rosie.

  “Her guy? Don’t get it. Your both English, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” It was Rosie who answered.

  Donut shook his head.

  “Sorry. Thought he was a Kraut. Didn’t get that he’s English. Is he with the British forces in their zone, then?”

  “No. He is a Kraut as you say but he’s my Kraut!” Jan was brusk and to the point.

  “An’ he’s here in Berlin?”

  “That’s right. Any problem with that?” Jan was showing her annoyance.

  Donut’s eyebrows raised so high they almost met his hairline.

  “OK. OK. Well, is he living here?”

  Jan’s lips tightened to a firm red line. She adjusted her glasses before she spoke to him again.

  “No. He came here to find his son. A young child. He’s missing.”

  Donut thought this was becoming very involved and confusing. He turned to Rosie.

  “Is this for real? She really wants to find this guy? And he’s not one of us?”

  “No. He was in the German army and yes, she does want to find him.”Rosie was pleased with herself for backing up her friend but Jan was becoming rather impatient.

  “Look, Private Donut, can we get on with it? I do not have that much time.”

  “He was really in the German forces?”

  Donut ran his fingers over the top of his short-cropped hair and stared intently at both Rosie and Jan.

  “Yes.” Jan answer
ed firmly and curtly. She was itching to get out of here and to begin her search.

  “What, during the war?”

  “Look if it’s going to make it easier for you. Yes, he was in the Afrika Korps. A major. Major Resmel. That’s who I’m looking for.”

  “Jeez!” exclaimed Donut with a slight whistle between his teeth. “But you’re English. You’re a nurse. Did you treat him in one of your hospitals? Is that where you met this guy?”

  “No. I knew him before the war.” Jan was becoming rather fed up with all this questioning. This was worse than the questioning when she had found herself a prisoner near Tobruk. “It’s complicated. He’s got a daughter in England who’d love to get to know her father now the war’s over and now he’s somewhere in Berlin.” She instinctively reached up and adjusted her glasses. “I haven’t heard from him for over a month. And he always writes.”

  “Jeez,” whistled Donut. “An’ he’s got an English daughter?”

  “Yes, he has. It’s all very complicated.” She drew in a deep, slow breath that allowed herself just enough time to re-focus. “I’ve come here to find him. And that’ll be with, or without your help.”

  Donut stroked his the top of his dark brown hair and shook his head.

  Some woman, he thought. She’s taken on quite a task.

  “I suggest I drive you over to the French sector. You’ve checked with the British, I fathom?” Jan nodded. Donut relaxed. “If there’s nothin’ there, then it’s the Soviet sector. Could be awkward.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re not exactly on buddy terms with them Reds now. Things have gone sour over the last few months. Commies. Can’t be trusted.”

  Never mind all that, Jan thought as she turned her head in Rosie’s direction and threw her eyes in the direction of the ceiling. Rosie understood.

  “Staff-sister will have to trust them, sir. Her options are that limited.”

  Rosie emphasised her point by bringing her hands close together before Donut’s nose. Jan shot an acknowledging nod in her friend’s direction before she addressed Donut again.

  “Will I be able to get into that sector?”

  “Not sure. You’ll have to apply through your own authorities. As you’re not an American citizen, there’s little I do. Sorry.” Donut folded up the map and popped it into a briefcase. He took note of the great disappointment that had fallen over Jan’s face. “But I can help. Not as an American soldier but as an individual. I know a few things, or two.” He picked up the briefcase and shoved it under his arm. “Coming? Let’s go!”

  They searched throughout the French sector, but in vain. There was a long list of missing people but Hans’ name was not among them. Jan felt dispirited and frustrated. It was good that she had Rosie for support. She was going to have to find something soon or she would have to return to England empty-handed. Before Hans had come to the divided city, life for he and Jan had been filled with hope and love. Now there were only memories of the happiest days of her life, together with a burning ache within her body for the man she had fallen deeply in love with. He had promised not to do anything stupid and to return to her by the end of the year but it was now 1946, almost twenty years to the month when Erwin Hans Resmel had walked into her life. Surely, this couldn’t be the end? Jan had to push her feelings to the back of her mind, for Andrea’s sake she had to remain strong but the pretence was beginning to tear her apart. She could not sleep, tossing throughout most of the night, waking fitfully and shedding silent tears into her pillow. Her frustration, together with the destruction of the surroundings, weighed heavily on her, affecting her far worse than her wartime experiences in the desert campaign. There, she’d been able to cope even with the dreadful wounds, death and destruction but at least she’d been occupied and had the knowledge that she could make a difference between life and death. In her present situation, she felt trapped and helpless. If only there had been a clue, even a trivial clue, anything.

  Donut was as true to his word as anyone she had known. When Jan told him of her continuing plight, he threw everything he could into helping her and three days later he arrived at the hospital with a pass for her into the Russian sector.

  “It’s better that you go alone,” he told her as he handed it over. “Only got it by the skin of my teeth. I know it’s forbidden to fraternise with any of the locals but I did manage to find you a contact.”

  Jan glanced down at the pass card that could be her lifeline.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sorry, but I could only get it for four days.”

  “Doesn’t give me much time.”

  He could feel her desperation.

  “He must be quite a guy, this Kraut of yours.”

  “He is. Very special. You’d never understand.”

  Her eyes were moist and Donut noticed she was beginning to tremble. He decided not to press the subject further.

  “Look, I’ll take you to the crossing point in the morning. It’ll take near on twenty minutes to get there. Then, I’m afraid, you’ll be on your own.”

  “I’ve prepared myself for that. And thank you so much, Donut.”

  Jan offered him her hand. Her handshake was warm and sincere. He felt sorry for the lady and wished he could have helped her more.

  “Good luck. See you at ten hundred hours.”

  Crossing through the barrier in Friedrichstrasse with a large package of brown paper wrapping which she had been told to take with her was nerve-racking. There was a narrow stretch where Jan was neither in one sector, nor quite in the other and for those footsteps she felt vulnerable and alone. She reached the Russian guard house and stood in silence as the Red Army soldier closely examined her passport and authority pass and then stamped them both in stony silence. She walked on through.

  This central part of Berlin had been hit far harder than the west where she had just come from. Almost all of the buildings had been burnt out and they stood blackened, like gasping goldfish, gasping their last breath, their wide, gaping mouths turned silently upwards towards the sky. The enormity of it made her shudder as she turned a full circle unable to find a complete building for as far as her eyes could see.

  She had been given instructions to wear her nurse’s uniform and follow the marks on her map that would lead her across Leipzigerstrasse and over to where the cathedral, Der deutsche Dom, had once stood as a symbol to the city. Today it looked like a sandcastle that had been stamped on by some giant foot. Jan had been told to stand exactly at its eastern corner and wait until she was approached by a young woman wearing a small brown felt hat which would be tilted just off centre to the left. It all felt like the meeting between spies she had read about and she felt uneasy. What if her contact refused to come? How would she get the large food parcel back across the border? She would have no option but to abandon the whole lot, leave it for others to find, and return to the American sector in the west. The few people who passed near by glanced only briefly at the solitary figure wrapped up against the cold. She continued to wait.

  It had been just over an hour when a figure from the distance made a definite pathway towards her. It was a young woman in her mid-twenties. She wore a brown felt hat slightly tilted to the left. As she got nearer, Jan smiled a little uneasily and picked up her large parcel. The woman spoke to her in very good English.

  “Guten Tag. Staff-sister nurse Turner?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Ilke Horsch.”

  They shook hands.

  Very formal, thought Jan.

  “Sorry I’m late. Come with me. You can stay with my family. But we have to be very careful. There are so many spying eyes and talking tongues. It’s dangerous. There are soldiers and guns everywhere.” Ilke handed over a grey coat for Jan to put on over her British nurse’s jacket. “This makes you look like one of us. It makes you a lot warmer. Hopefully, we won’t be stopped and checked.”

  “What do we do with this?” Jan indicated the parcel.

  “I hold it. S
ee, very close.”

  “It’s food for you and your family. I hope I did the right thing.”

  “Danke schön! It is most kind. We have not much food. Thank you.”

  They walked through the damaged streets, making their way down Unter den Linden where, Ilke told her, they could help from another contact who would help them to get to one of the suburbs where Ilke and her family lived. Jan noted that many people walked so wearily, dragging sorry little wooden carts behind them. They picked their way between the narrow pathways of cleared rubble, making their way past damaged buildings and tortured wall remains shrouded in a thousand pitiful notices together with the mute, staring faces of the missing and dead.

  “We are at our next meeting place . . . almost there.” Ilke pointed ahead. “My brother has made already inquiries for you.”

  ‘Has he found out anything? Anything at all?”

  “Not yet. We will try still.”

  A young man, guarding three precious bikes, was seen leaning against one of the street lampposts. He waved to them as they approached. After a short introduction, the young man led them through Mitte and on to Berliner Strasse where Ilke and her family were living.

  There were tanks and soldiers everywhere but luck was on their side, for they were able to make the journey without the customary checks. Ike’s brother, Odo, spoke hastily with his sister for several minutes. Ilke reported that Odo had stressed that Jan should take great care moving around anywhere within the ruined city, for every day there were more stories of people disappearing, never to be heard of again. Jan’s English papers might help but, on the other hand, she should not have risked crossing the border into the Russian sector at all.

  Early next morning, Ilke took Jan to one of the damaged office buildings which had become a headquarters of sorts for information regarding lost people. As this was not an official site, Ilke felt that they would receive more sympathy for Jan’s plight. The woman behind the desk wrote down details, shook her head and pinned yet another name on the crowded wall. One more missing person among the hundreds, even thousands. One extra person trying to achieve the impossible: to find a friend, relative or loved one; the same drama taking place throughout any of the big cities of Europe as people try to repair their shattered lives. Jan had not realised the enormity of the problem: almost a half of the city’s population trying to find friends or relations. It was worse than trying to find that needle hidden in the haystack.

  Every day was the same. Bread with some sort of warm drink for breakfast and then out, Ilke asking, asking, asking until utterly exhausted and cold, the pair returned home to the warmth and safety of the little ground-floor apartment. The top of the building had been damaged and nobody was able to occupy most of the rooms that were there. Ilka had spoken to the others in the building and each one had promised to mention anything that may prove of help.

  On the last day Ilka took Jan back to the streets around Unter den Linden, so that she was close enough to make the return border crossing that afternoon. They had decided to take shelter inside the museum, when they were approached by an elderly man in a thick, black woollen overcoat. He had been studying them for some time, listening to their hushed conversation. He spoke softly to them in very slow English, taking great pains to find the foreign words.

  “Excuse, lady . . . you English?”

  Ilke motioned to Jan to remain quiet. It could be a trap. The man switched to German.

  “Are you looking for a man who came here from the west?”

  Ilke spoke in a low, quiet voice.

  “Why? Do you know something?”

  The man continued. He did not speak loudly and kept glancing over his shoulder as he spoke to them.

  “A man ¨C had the mannerisms of a military man, an officer. He told me he’d come from the west. He was trying to find his child.”

  “We are looking for a man who is looking for a child. His name’s Herr Resmel. Did he give you a name?”

  “Maybe. I think he did.” The man rubbed his chin. He looked around for a minute or two before facing Ilke again. “Sorry, I can’t be sure. But he did say he’d come here from the west. Been a prisoner of war. His wife and child lived around here for a time. His child’s missing.”

  Ilke translated for Jan, then questioned the man further.

  “When did he speak with you?”

  The man looked beyond both of them as he tried to recall the moment.

  “It was . . . it was . . . er, just before Christmas. Yes, then. Not so long ago.”

  “What did he say? Can you remember?”

  “We met here. Near the bridge. Like this. He said he was looking for a little boy . . . three or four years old. He showed me a photo of a child not more than two. Said his name was Siege . . . ”

  Jan interrupted. She did not wait for a translation. There was excitement and urgency in her voice.

  “Siege. Siegmund Resmel. It must have been Hans!”

  The man in the dark coat looked at her in surprise. He spoke directly to Jan in English once more.

  “Yes. Siegmund. Yes. I . . . ”

  The man tapped his forehead and nodded. Jan implored Ilke to ask him more.

  Was he staying in Berlin?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  Again, Ilke translated. The man made some wild gesturing movements and pointed northwards. Then, he spoke quickly so quickly, Ilke had trouble keeping the translation going.

  “He said he’d heard a rumour that a child of that name had been seen on a notice board somewhere, north of the city. Angermunde, I recall. He said he was heading off in that direction.” Ilke frowned as she looked directly at Jan. “You said that when he was a baby he and his mother lived in Neubrandenburg?”

  “Yes,” Jan replied. “"Her parents lived in Ang-mung, or something. I sort of know the name as there’s an Angmering in Sussex and the names are quite similar.”

  “That could be it!” Ilke was finding that Jan’s building excitement was contagious. She threw her arms into the air with enthusiasm and then took the stranger’s hands and began to shake them most violently. “Danke schön! Thank you! Thank you so much.” She let his hands go but did not notice how the bemused man shook and rubbed his fingers to get some sort of normality back into them. Ilke turned to Jan. “What extraordinary luck bumping into someone like this.”

  The man smiled and had relaxed somewhat again. He was prepared to practise his English some more.

  “I walk here often. Before the war I work in the university.” He pointed to a building across the road. “There it was I worked. I like here stand to think over the good days. I visit since then the museums. A great pastime of mine, er, before the war. Now, it is much difficult. We are watched.” His eyes swept past the two women again before he continued the conversation. “ I wish you both luck.”

  “Thank you.” Jan smiled and nodded slightly.

  The man reached into the depths of one of his deep pockets and pulled out pen and paper and began writing. This time he reverted to German and spoke only to Ilke.

  “Here is my name and address. Tell the lady I can be contacted at this address. I’d like to know what happens, especially if she finds them.” He faced Jan and touched her gently on her arm as he dropped into English again. “You are careful. Watch all the time. Things are here yet very, very danger.”

  He glanced furtively around in all directions before handing his note to Ilke, wished them both a fruitful search again and scuttled away to merge into the greyness of the cold, winter city street.

  In a couple of hours Jan would have to return to the west. The two women wandered for a while along the banks of the river. Ilke took Jan to one of the few remaining places where they could buy a hot soup. As they stood sipping the hot liquid, Ilke promised Jan that she would head north of the city and find out what she could. Meanwhile, with east-west relations deteriorating further, Jan’s only hope of hearing any more news, was to apply f
or a second pass into the eastern sector a few weeks before her service in Germany came to an end.

  “If you’re intending returning to the eastern sector,” the Commander of the British Occupying forces told Jan, “we’d better make sure the Russians understand that you’re one of our personnel and that we expect you back in one piece. There have been really nasty stories floating about regarding their treatment of some of the civilians. The way their lot treated the Ruskies, I’m not really surprised but, all the same, we don’t want you getting messed with any of that. We’ll make things very official. It’ll be safer that way.”

  The paperwork increased as permission was sought for the second excursion. This time Jan had asked for six days in the hope of making a journey deeper into the Soviet zone. She was briefed on the risks and also given papers which would enable her to bring either Hans or Siegmund out from behind the Iron Curtain. Everyone hoped the papers would be honoured and that her mission would prove fruitful.

  Jan, in her nurse’s military uniform, stood at the border anxiously waiting for her papers to be verified and stamped. This time, things would be more official and her time the other side would be constantly monitored by the Russian authorities. She had agreed to meet with Ilke at the damaged museum and catch up with any extra information Ilke had managed to find. But there had been a few weak leads and Ilke apologised for her failure. This time the two would not be left alone, for the Russians had demanded a military escort. All arrangements had been made.

  “Sorry. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t get to Angermunde. People are still disappearing. But, I’ve been told that a major was making inquiries around the town. Sounds like your Herr Resmel.”

  “Thank you, Ilke, for trying. I could ask to be taken there. I just hope he’s still around.”

  “I hope so, for your sake.” Ilke removed her gloves and held out her arms. The two women hugged each other as though they had been friends for many years “Good luck with your search, Nurse Janine.” Ilke smiled deeply. “Do call for me, if I can again help you.”

  Jan handed over another food parcel and the two parted. Jan stood watching as her new friend hurried down the steps, and with a wave of her hand, merged into the moving backdrop of Berlin’s survivors. Her Russian escort, a military man in his thirties, opened the back door of the car which had been commandeered for the journey, and immediately settled himself down into the driver’s seat. It was an official journey. The small red flag above the bonnet fluttering gently in the light breeze indicated that this was an official vehicle with the authority to travel unheeded throughout the occupied zone.

  “It take little time,” he commented as he turned his body slightly in her direction. “But, I get you there.”

  Jan settled back into her seat and gazed, submerged in her own private thoughts, as the car wound its way through the streets and headed north-bound away from the city centre. They were forced to stop several times to make way for troop convoys or small groups of manoeuvring tanks. The entire countryside had the feeling of one huge armed camp and even though Jan was under escort, she still felt apprehension. Her driver had not spoken since she had entered the vehicle and without some form of communication, she felt vulnerable and alone.

  After three hours, they arrived at Angermunde. Everywhere there were Russian troops. The inhabitants watched them in suspicious silence. The car pulled up outside the old Rathaus, draped with a large Russian flag and guarded by four Russian soldiers.

  “You come.” Her driver opened the door and indicated for her to follow him through the large wooden doors of the building. “Room for you stay. I find official form and names. You look through.”

  Jan spent the next hour flipping over pages in the missing people file, a long list of names, ages together with photographs when available. Nothing was turning up. She handed the large folder back. Nothing was said. She was handed another, this time much smaller. She returned to the bench top and began going through the files. She ceased hunting, stretched back her aching shoulders and massaged the back of her neck. She turned the next page. With great difficulty she was able to recognise a name. She had seen the same on Hans’s identity card during the war.

  ‘XXXX: Resmel. XXXX: Siegmund Erwin Falko . . .XXXX: 20/10/1942’

  Someone had wanted to find the child. She struggled on with trying to decipher the official writing. She made a guess that the last known whereabouts was at an address in Angermunde.

  “Excuse me,” she called to her driver. “Can you read German writing?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “Blast!” Her frustration made her angry and she found herself shouting. “How am I supposed to read this stuff? I can’t even make out the damn letters!”

  An official came over and looked at the entry. He shrugged his shoulders, muttered something unintelligible and returned to his former place. She had not bargained on this difficulty.

  By the end of that first day, Jan knew she was in the right area but she was still no closer to finding Hans’ trail. Somehow she would need to change her tactics if she was to have any luck. She tried her driver again.

  “Can the officer find someone who can speak English? A little English?”

  “Da. Little English. He find person tomorrow.”

  “Tell him to make it early. Very early.”

  The Russian was as good as his word. When she returned the following morning, an elderly man was sitting on a bench already waiting. She introduced herself. He nodded.

  “I need your help to understand this.” She pointed to the entry in the file.

  “Name says is Siegmund Erwin Falko Resmel. Little boy.” He held his arm out to show how small the child was. “Little young.”

  “I know. Where was he last recorded?”

  The man read out the address for her. Then he wrote it down very carefully so that she could read it.

  “This is the place?”

  “The house address. But . . . Haus kaputt!”

  The man made destruction signs to tell her that the house was no longer standing.

  “Oh dear. Do you know if the child was there then?” The man shrugged. Jan questioned him further. “Does it say here if anyone was looking for the child?”

  The man read further.

  “Father come. No child here. He go on to Altentreptow.”

  “Altentreptow? Where’s that?” Jan felt a sudden lump in her throat as she felt everything beginning to slip away from her. He voice rose into an emotional squeak.

  “Not far away from Neubrandenburg. Little north. Many people walk after to Malchin. Then follow road to Schwerin.”

  “Oh, yes,” nodded Jan. “That would make sense. The papers said they were trying to get to Schwerin. I was told many people were heading that way.” She remembered someone telling her that many refugees had hoped to reach the castle there and turn themselves in to the Americans. So, there was hope. She turned to her escort. “Can we go there today?” she asked.

  “Da. First, I get papers stamped. Then we go to Altentreptow.”

  Her driver had received orders to do everything possible to help this British nurse find a Major Resmel and he had been made to understand that the order had originated from the British Military Occupation Forces.

  The road to Neubrandenburg was not in good condition. The surface had been damaged so that they had to steer around shell and bomb holes. After almost two and a half hours they arrived at the outskirts of the medieval walled town. Everywhere still carried deep scars from the last few months of vicious fighting but finally they drove into the remains of the town centre. Jan climbed out of the vehicle and stood before an ugly, dull-grey stone remnant of wall. The rest of the building had fallen into jumbled heaps of twisted rubble and rubbish, strewn around like a scattered jigsaw. If Altentreptow was like this, finding either Hans or Siege would take a long time.

  Jan spent the morning searching for clues. After an hour in Neubrandenburg, they drove the short distance to Altentreptow. Sh
e showed everybody she met the piece of paper with Hans’ and Siegmund’s name and every time, the people shook their heads or stared at her with a blank, incomprehensible stare. After a bite to eat, she continued her search around the vicinity of another possible address she had been given.

  Have you seen these people? Do you know where this person is? There was no need to translate, for everyone with names or photos was asking similar questions. Sometimes people just stared dazed by hidden memories, their blank staring eyes focussed on another time. As the next hour ticked by, Jan became more and more frustrated and saddened until, like the locals, she would walk up to strangers and plaintively hold up the two small photographs, hoping for someone to say they had seen them.

  “Do you know where this person is?” She pushed the paper under the gaze of yet another stranger. The woman, her head wrapped within a heavy woollen scarf, examined the two names for almost a minute. It was as if a spring in her body had wound down and she had come to a stop like a toy doll. Jan let her hand drop like the disappointed tail of a dog and was just about to walk away when the woman reached out and grabbed her sleeve. The smile was unexpected and Jan almost missed its significance.

  “Jawohl. Jawohl.”

  Suddenly the doll-like creature came to life and the woman began to nod repeatedly as if her head were on some sort of spring. She said something but Jan did not understand. The woman fumbled around until she found the picture she wanted, stabbing over it several times as she repeated the word Kind, Kind over and over.

  “Him? This one? You’ve seen him?” No translation was necessary. The woman nodded even more vigorously as Jan’s excitement transferred to her. “Where? Where? Can you show me?”

  But the woman failed to understand. It was all so frustrating.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t speak German. Oh, blast it!”

  Jan tried once more to make the woman understand by pointing to the name again and holding both hands up in a questioning way. The woman replied with a torrent of language. Jan did not even catch one word. Then, it was as if the woman suddenly grasped the situation for she touched Jan’s arm, pointed to a destroyed house, pointed to the name on the paper and shook her head. She made a sad face. She gestured something falling and then everything being flattened.

  “Oh, God!” Jan exclaimed. “The house where he was taken must have been bombed. Siegie must have been killed! So, where’s Hans?”

  “We go Soviet Office in centre,” said her driver. “I speak to officer there.”

  It did not take long to find the place for it was the only building flying the Russian flag. The building was most likely the old Rathaus but had been taken over by the occupying forces. Jan’s driver spoke to the officer inside who demanded to see her identity papers and authority to enter the Soviet-held territory before they would allow her to enter. When he had satisfied himself that all was in order, he indicated that she could step inside but he also made it clear that she must wait while further checks were made. After twenty minutes, a senior officer in the Soviet army approached them. He asked to see her papers.

  “You are looking for two people?”

  Jan was so relieved when he spoke to her in English that her smile was one of surprise mixed with pleasure.

  “Thank goodness you speak English.” The relief in her voice was obvious. “I’m trying to find either of these two people.”

  She handed over the missing person’s document.

  “One wait. Moment.” The officer spent ten minutes hunting through a pile of documents. Finally he extracted a paper from one of the files with an officious swastika stamped over the centre of the page. “Nazi records up to last day of war. Very thorough.” He read the main points of the document to her. “Siegmund Erwin Falko Resmel. Young child. Killed: May 2nd 1945. Air-raid.” He looked up with a resigned expression. “I see, only child name on paper.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Jan felt sorry for the child she had never met. The officer nodded.

  “Everyone in building killed. No survivors. Sorry.”

  “Did anyone else make inquiries?”

  “When?”

  “Recently.”

  The officer consulted the document again.

  “Yes. It says here child’s father come February this year.”

  “Hans! It must be Hans. He was here?”

  “Name on record says Major Erwin Resmel. It is written here.”

  The Russian officer showed her the document.

  “Yes! Yes! That’s him!” Jan could feel her heart pounding as her hands began to tingle and tremble. She adjusted her glasses several times, trying to calm herself so that she could deal with this new situation. “Do you know anything else? Does it say where he is? Where he went? When was he last in the area?”

  Jan could not stop the questions from tumbling down like the gush of water in a waterfall. Her anxiety did not affect the officer. He calmly stood before her reading further down the page. He looked up again and spoke in a flat monotone.

  “Sorry. Nothing.”

  The words slammed into Jan with the force of a train. She removed her glasses, wiped them and put them on again. Any excitement she had shown earlier had now evaporated.

  “Nothing?” she asked weakly.

  “One moment. Maybe.” The officer briefly held up his hand before disappearing through a doorway into another room. A few tense minutes passed before he reappeared. “We do have information for you. This man you look for is in hospital. This is hospital’s address.”

  “Hospital? Why is he in hospital?”

  “Reason unknown. No information on report. Sorry. But you go there. Wait, please.” The officer picked up a phone and made a quick call. Jan stood there wondering what it was all about and whether she would be removed from the sector or even taken away for questioning. She’d heard so many stories that she was not even sure of her own safety. However, the officers face lit up and it was obvious that he had heard good news. “I am informed you will find him there. I show you on map.” They looked at an old map and the officer drew a line from his office block to the hospital. It was a round-about route. “Much damage in city. These roads are open.” He gathered his papers and handed her the map. “You keep that. That is all I can say. So now you go and find major.”

  “Thank you so much for your help.”

  The Russian brushed aside with his hand.

  “No problem. I understand. We also help find these Nazis. Now you can report to your authorities that military man is found. I have also heard Americans take Nazis for trials.”

  “Trials?”

  Jan was thrown into a feeling of uncertainty again.

  “Military authorities are hunting down monsters responsible for all war atrocities. Too many dreadful, dreadful things they have done. Not human. Soviet Republic work together with United States and Great Britain to find Nazis. You are sent here to find this man? He will answer for bad things done.”

  Jan did not give him his answer.

  The following day Jan’s escort drove her to the town’s hospital and after more papers had been stamped and signed, she was finally informed that Major Erwin Hans Resmel was, indeed, a patient there. She was conducted to his room, led along the bare, twisting corridors by one of the hospital orderlies. Jan followed on automatic pilot, her heart beating faster and faster as the orderly led her deep into the body of the hospital until they arrived at a small room.

  “Hans!”

  He lay pale and unresponsive between sheets as white as his face. Jan had seen this many times before during the war but this time it was Hans and it surprised her when she felt her stomach begin to tingle.

  “Hans, it’s Jan.” his eyelids fluttered but he did not open his eyes. She picked up his file notes and began reading, hoping to recognise any of the familiar figures or graphs. She satisfied herself that his bodily signs were normal. She was still reading when a doctor and an Intelligence Officer from the Red Army entered the room.

&n
bsp; “Good morning. I read on your papers you are a nurse, Staff-sister Turner.” It was the Russian who spoke to her. “Doctor says he’s given him morphine for the pain and a sedative. He will be sleepy for a few more days.”

  “I don’t have a few days!”

  “Sorry. His injury is too bad. We must have to wait for nature to work. Injuries are still bad.”

  “Injuries?” There was alarm in her expression. “What injuries?”

  There was a brief exchange between the Intelligence Officer and the doctor. The the officer explained that Hans had received bullet wounds to his lung and back. It had happened when a group of young Russian soldiers had become excited and trigger-happy during a skirmish with ex-Hitler Youth teenagers who had come across a few weapons that had been discarded among some rubble. They were so excited by their find that they had attracted the attention of the soldiers who were patrolling the streets. When the youths began making Heil Hitler signs, the soldiers had taken deep offence. Hans had intervened and tried to calm the situation but when bullets were fired in the direction of the youths, several had hit Hans. The officer told Jan that it was unfortunate but there were still some of their own soldiers who were still so shaken up that they were known to be taking revenge for what had happened to their own friends and families when Hitler’s armies crossed Poland and spilled into the Soviet Union.

  “You see, war makes murderers of us all,” he commented. “Doctors and nurses, like you, have to repair injuries. Even those responsible for the terrible things these Nazi thugs did to populations.”

  “But this man’s not responsible.”

  “The authorities know he was a major. His file says he was fighting on Eastern Front. He was sent to my home country. So far as I am concerned, he was responsible.”

  Jan was shaken yet again. Hans had said nothing of being in the eastern campaign.

  “He was in North Africa. So was I. Then he was captured. Does your file say that?”

  “He was still in Hitler’s army.”

  “That doesn’t make him responsible for everything that happened.”

  “As officer he must have done something.” The Russian was becoming suspicious and wanted answers. “Otherwise, why are you British so keen to get your hands on him?”

  Jan knew she couldn’t answer this. She had to force herself to remain silent. To divulge any sort of information could blow her cover and then she may never see Hans again.

  “I am just following orders,” she said hastily, hoping that such an answer would suffice. “How soon will it be before he can be moved? It is important that he be taken into the British sector.”

  “Ah. Maybe two or three weeks.”

  “No sooner?”

  “No. Not if you people want him back alive to answer questions.”

  Jan knew she had no option but to leave Hans where he was and return to West Berlin. But at least she now knew he was safe and was being well cared for. Even during the Desert war, she had been impressed by how well the army doctors and nurses looked after their sick and wounded. She also knew that she would have to wait and hope.

  On a cold, early Spring morning, under a grey, sombre sky, a man on a stretcher was passed over the border from one world to the other. On the eastern side stood a young woman and her brother, pleased that they had helped in some small way to mend the hate that had overwhelmed the world during the past seven years. In the west, an English nurse was waiting to accept the man she had grown to love, and for whom she had made this journey. Together, they could begin a new life in a world without war.

  Major Erwin Hans Resmel of the Afrika Korps and Staff-Sister Janine Turner of the British Auxiliary Territorial Services were just two ordinary people who became caught up in the dangerous desires of dictatorship. Let us all hope that, never again will the world come to know such grief or where two people who only wished for love would ever be thrown into a world of hate on opposite sides.

  THE END

  Susan Firman

  Discover other books by Susan Firman.

  Time to Remember

  This is a science-fiction story set in Norway in the times of the Vikings.