It turned out she’d heard about Onkel Georg’s death and had decided to join me at the Charité. ‘It’s been over a year since Johann died. I have to do something useful and Berlin needs us more than ever.’ She leaned in towards me. ‘I could have gone to the American zone where the facilities are better, but when I learnt how desperately people need us here, I had to come.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘So here I am, and the good news is that we’re working together.’
‘That’s wonderful! I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.’
‘And you too but it seems we have a lot to catch up on.’ She eyed my pregnant belly. ‘We’re a team. Let’s look after these women in true Marika and Susie style until it’s your turn to enjoy the expert care and attention,’ she said, grinning.
* * *
It was already one of the coldest winters I’d ever experienced, but I was determined to make this Christmas special. Marika, Frau Kraus and Hans were joining us and I’d queued for hours since before dawn in the week prior to get the small rations of butter, eggs, sugar and meat that we were entitled to. Marika came home with me after work. As we alighted from the bus, pulling our coats tight against the bitter wind, I noticed a couple of men loitering outside one of the blocks of grey apartments.
‘I don’t like the look of them. Let’s walk on the other side of the road,’ I said in a low voice, guiding Marika onto the street. ‘Leo’s warned me to be careful of bandits.’
Even with the continued Soviet patrols, we’d heard reports of bands of disaffected, desperate, homeless and hungry souls, deserted soldiers or opportunistic criminals, looting homes and businesses and attacking innocent citizens. Petty crime, violent attacks and homicides flourished amid the chaos of the city and people often went missing, many of them among the unidentified dead from disease, violence, and the collapse of derelict buildings.
In the American sector, which encompassed the south-west of Berlin, resources had been brought into the city to aid its recovery. Food was more available, buildings were being made safe to live in and I knew that disease was better managed through stringent public health measures, properly trained staff and the availability of medicines and lifesaving equipment that hadn’t been stripped from their hospitals. But I couldn’t leave the Soviet sector when I knew how much we were needed here.
‘It’s not the Berlin I recognise,’ Marika said as we walked down the other side, both of us keeping an eye on the men until we reached the door of my apartment building. And I had to agree. Berlin would never be the same again.
I was able to make a small batch of biscuits and served a tasty meat and turnip stew with potatoes. It was a far cry from the Gut Birkenhof Christmas feasts, but we were better off than many others in the city. The coal didn’t last long and we had to wear our coats, but at least it was warmer than outside. A couple of the bigger cracks in the kitchen had widened and travelled down the wall and I had stuffed them with more newspaper to keep out the cold. Leo played Christmas carols and Russian folk tunes on the balalaika and we all sang along. It was difficult celebrating without Onkel Georg and Tante Elya, but we felt grateful for what we still had and for the people around us.
‘This time next year, you’ll have your little one,’ said Frau Kraus as I shifted in my seat. I was six months pregnant and beginning to get a little uncomfortable.
‘This time next year, they’ll probably be in America,’ said Marika, pouting.
‘Then you’ll have to come and visit us,’ said Leo, smiling.
‘Give me your hand,’ I said to Marika, resting her hand on my protruding belly where the baby was kicking. ‘See, the baby agrees. Maybe you should join us in New York.’
‘Maybe I will,’ she said, her eyes suddenly misty. It hit me that I didn’t know how we would cope separated by an ocean from the three people dearest to us. My heart ached for Marika. I wanted her to be happy again, as Leo and I were.
Leo squeezed my hand reassuringly. ‘Nineteen forty-six is a new year, the war is over and anything is possible. Let’s toast to the future,’ he said, raising his glass.
* * *
It was early February and I was trudging home through the snow, glad that I only had another week at work. I had intended to stop work around Christmas but the hospital was short-staffed and, as we needed to save for our new life in America and I was still feeling comfortable, I had stayed on for as long as I could. But now the long hours on my feet were taking their toll and Leo, Marika and the matron had persuaded me that it was time for me to rest and get ready for the baby. We already had a crib in the corner of our bedroom and a few baby blankets and tiny nightgowns, as well as the booties, jackets and pants that Tante Elya and Frau Kraus had knitted.
I shivered, as though someone was watching me, and glanced behind me, then down the street. But I saw nothing to fear, only a car driving by, women carrying the evening’s groceries back home in string bags, children calling to each other as they played in the afternoon gloom.
I was so looking forward to putting my feet up, and to the hot meal that I knew Leo was preparing… and one of his blissful foot massages before bed. It was in bed that I felt closest to him, when he’d whisper his heart’s desires to me.
‘I can’t wait to hold our child in my arms,’ he’d tell me as he’d wrap himself around me, his arms protectively around my belly, sharing his body warmth, until I’d melt into the mattress. If sleep was slow or I sighed and shifted with discomfort, he was attentive. ‘There’s nobody but you and me,’ he’d whisper in our love nest. ‘I want to spoil you, make you understand how much I adore you,’ he’d murmur, nibbling my earlobe, kissing my shoulder and working his way down my body.
‘I love you,’ is all I could say, threading my fingers through his thick locks and surrendering to his touch.
A loud crack pulled me from my musings as I pushed open the door to our building. All the hairs on my arms were on end. Something was wrong. Confused, I stepped into the foyer to the eerie sound of the building groaning before the noise of smashing windows reached me and the cacophony of what sounded like terracotta and glass hitting the ground outside. I stepped back to the arched doorway in consternation. A sudden rumbling and vibration under my feet had me rooted to the spot in terror as dust rained on me from above. I looked up dumbly to find the ceiling of the vestibule shuddering as a roar erupted, growing into an almighty crescendo. I watched, as though in slow motion, as the ceiling bulged towards me like a distended belly and gave way. I realised in horror that the building was collapsing. Somewhere far away I could hear screaming as the internal walls disintegrated around me under the pressure of the imploding building, the impact throwing me to the floor. My last dazed thoughts were for Leo waiting for me upstairs before everything went black.
25
I woke on a soft feather bed, drowsy and limp. A corner lamp cast a subdued light across the darkened room and, from between the partially drawn curtains, I could see that it was night. I tried to move. A groan escaped my lips and excruciating pain rippled through my body. My hands immediately flew to my abdomen as I tried to remember what had happened. I wasn’t dead, but I wasn’t at home or in hospital either. I didn’t recognise the place I was in.
‘Leo,’ I croaked, hoping that he was nearby. A face bobbed into view, blue eyes I knew.
‘Julius?’ I whispered, the past and present colliding in my head, making it spin out of control. I closed my eyes, thinking I was still in a dream, but when I opened them he was there, staring at me in concern. How could it be?
‘You’re awake,’ he said. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘What happened to me? What are you doing here?’
He reached out to touch me, and I recoiled from him in alarm. I could barely move with the pain, but I tried to sit up, wincing at the pounding in my head. It felt like it would split in two and I closed my eyes briefly as I carefully rested back on the soft pillow.
‘You were in a building collapse yesterday.’
The
noise came back to me, the roar of what sounded like a freight train, and the memory of the ceiling bursting open like an overripe fruit. ‘The baby? Is the baby all right?’ Panic bloomed through me, my hands over my skin, feeling for movement, but there was nothing. I looked up at him, fearful of hearing the truth.
‘The doctor said that he could hear the baby’s heartbeat, but because of the trauma you suffered you need bedrest. He’s worried that you could still haemorrhage and go into early labour.’
Dread swirled in my belly. ‘Leo. He was waiting for me upstairs… I have to tell him what’s happened… let him know where I am.’ I tried to focus, feeling disoriented and confused and the thumping in my head preventing me from thinking clearly. ‘Where am I?’
‘Pankow, my apartment.’ Julius sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand. ‘There was nowhere else for you to go and I knew I could get you the best care here.’
‘What?’ I pulled my hand away, repulsed by his touch and wishing I could get out of bed and as far away from him as possible, but the throbbing in my head and my back was crippling. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You were pulled out and rushed to hospital after your apartment building collapsed,’ he said. ‘But with all the terrible casualties, there were no beds for those with less serious injuries. You were very lucky, the doorway protected you: no broken bones, no evidence of internal injuries, only cuts and bruises. After checking you over, the doctor prescribed you sedatives and told me to take you home and keep you on bedrest until the baby arrives.’
I frowned, trying to make sense of it. I remembered flashes then: coming home to Leo and opening the door to our building, the enormous crack and roar as the building came crashing down, the shouting as I lay on the ground, looking up at the leaden sky above me, the bright lights of the emergency department and the screaming and crying that made me retreat into my dark and silent world.
I clutched his arm. ‘Leo? Has he been found?’
He shook his head. ‘They’re still digging and sifting through the debris. It’s only been a day and it will take time to find everyone.’
I stilled for a moment as I took this in. Everything seemed hazy. I struggled to sit up, but a wave of dizziness forced me flat once more.
‘You’re not in any fit state to move. I had my own doctor check in on you this morning and he agreed with the hospital. Doctor Neis is one of the best in Berlin. You need bedrest – if not for you, then for your baby’s sake.’
‘But Leo,’ I said in anguish. ‘I have to find him.’ Nothing was going to keep me away from him again.
‘We’ll have word as soon as he’s found. You rest and recover. I’ll continue to look for him.’
‘Why would you do that?’ I tried to glare at him, but it hurt my face. I felt trapped and the feelings of powerlessness and vulnerability I’d experienced with him before came rushing back.
‘For you. He’s your husband and you need him.’
As much as I didn’t trust him, I had my baby to think of. I grabbed the front of his shirt in desperation. ‘Promise me you won’t stop until you find him,’ I said with clenched teeth. I hated relying on him after everything that had happened between us.
‘I promise.’
I collapsed back against the pillows. My head felt like it was going to explode and hot, sharp pokers of pain shot through my body. I didn’t like it but he was right. I wasn’t going anywhere. He was all I had.
* * *
Something brought me to the surface of sleep. It was light, even behind my closed lids.
‘Leo?’ I murmured, still fuzzy headed with sleep.
I slowly opened my eyes to find Julius placing a tray on the bedside table. I flinched, trying to sink further into the soft mattress. Then I remembered the events of the past few days.
‘Have you found Leo?’
Julius shook his head regretfully. ‘It’s still early days.’
Tears filled my eyes and trickled down my cheeks, dripping onto the silk pyjamas.
‘You have to stay calm for the baby,’ he said, pouring water into a glass.
Doctor Neis had been to see me the morning before, checking on my condition and on the baby. He’d confirmed what Julius had told me, that the next few weeks were touch and go. I’d sustained soft-tissue trauma to my abdomen and pelvis and although the baby seemed fine, bedrest was the best precaution against possible bleeding and early labour. It was too soon for the baby to come. I’d been hysterical during his visit, desperate to find Leo but desperate to keep our child safe too. I couldn’t risk it. This was Leo’s child and he’d already lost so much.
Everything had been hazy since then, enveloped in a fog of drug-induced sleep that the doctor had insisted upon, but the frustration that my body wouldn’t do what I wanted was more than I could stand. I struggled to sit up despite the pain. Julius tried to help me, propping pillows behind me.
‘I can do it myself,’ I snapped, forcing myself upright and lifting my heavily bandaged leg to get comfortable. The pain in my back was terrible after lying down for so long. The curtains had been opened to reveal parkland next to a small river below. Julius’s luxurious apartment wasn’t far from where Leo and I had been living.
My eyes narrowed, giving voice to the question that had plagued me since I’d arrived. ‘What were you doing at our apartment building? How did you find me at the clinic?’ I asked roughly. I couldn’t believe that he’d imagined I’d want anything to do with him ever again.
Julius got up and paced the room, his face unreadable. ‘I… regret what I did to you… and to Leo.’ His face flushed at my outraged expression.
‘You mean his service obligation letter and his transfer to Buchenwald?’ I asked bluntly, wanting him to finally admit it.
His eyes slipped away guiltily from my face and he refused to answer, like the coward that he was. But his expression was enough for me to know the truth and I could barely contain the burst of rage that shot through me.
‘I hate you,’ I hissed. I only wished I could’ve risen from that bed to stab him through the heart before walking away forever.
Julius ignored my outburst and continued to pace. ‘I saw him at Karlshorst, although he didn’t see me, and I heard that you were married. It didn’t take much to find out where you work. But when you wouldn’t see me at the clinic, after weeks of deliberation I decided to visit you and Leo together, I… I owed you both that much. I was waiting near your apartment block that day, waiting for you to come home.’ A look of horror crossed his face. ‘I saw the building begin to collapse just as you went inside… I couldn’t get there quickly enough. I tried to find you, and with the others who came, we dug you out.’
‘You got me out?’
He nodded, raking a shaking hand through his greying hair. ‘I helped. I just wanted to see you to tell you that I was sorry.’
‘You’re sorry.’ I was shaking with rage. ‘You put Leo and my family through hell.’
He dropped his head. ‘I know. I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, but I’m in a position to help now.’
I stared at him a moment. ‘Then find Leo.’
It was then that I glimpsed my reflection in the full-length mirror pushed to the corner of the room.
‘Oh!’ I gasped. I took a tentative hand to my head, lightly tracing the blood-encrusted bandages, one side of my face livid with blue and purple bruises.
‘You were lucky. They’re only minor injuries,’ he said, hovering anxiously by the bed. ‘But I remember how it felt after the Kaiserhof collapsed.’
I pushed the shirt back and gingerly touched the darkened areas across my shoulder before lifting it above my protruding belly, the taut skin bruised around a graze on the same side as my shoulder. The baby was still very quiet and hadn’t moved since the accident, but I’d been told it was to be expected for a few days.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, exhausted, leaning back against the pillows. ‘How did you get this apartment when the res
t of Berlin lives in squalor?’
‘I’m helping the Soviets restore the transportation system in their zone. They’ve given me this apartment and I have access to whatever I need: good food, good doctors.’
‘I expected you to be helping the Americans, or to be long gone.’
He sat in the chair next to the bed. ‘I was going to leave Germany. I had a plan… but I’d left it too late and I was captured by an advance Soviet patrol.’
‘What happened to you?’ I was curious in spite of myself. Although I hated being here, it was strange, disquieting even, being in the same room with him. I didn’t know how to feel, how to reconcile what he’d done in the past with this act of pulling me from the building.
‘I spent a couple of months in a makeshift camp until I was processed,’ he said. ‘The Soviets learnt of my connection to the resistance and my role in the assassination plot against Hitler.’ I shut my eyes briefly and grimaced. Julius always knew what to say at the right time, embellishing the truth if he had to. ‘The condition of my release was that I would assist them in bringing Berlin and the Soviet zone back to working order. They’ve been trying to exert their influence and power on Berlin ever since they arrived. If they control Berlin, they control the future of Germany and affect the rest of Europe.’ He leaned in towards me. ‘But I’ve heard that the Americans and British are going to merge their zones. The Western allies will do all they can to stop communism.’
I shook my head impatiently. I’d heard enough. Julius had landed on his feet, as he always did, while Leo and I had lost everything. I had to know about Leo. ‘I want to see the building for myself.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘Why not?’ A wave of fury rose through me, pushing the cold, dark fear crawling in my veins aside. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood quickly, bolts of pain shooting through my back. Julius jumped to his feet in alarm as I swayed dangerously, the pendant light in the room a kaleidoscope.
Letters from Berlin Page 33