A Woman of War

by Mandy Robotham

  In the camp, I had resisted dwelling on the horrors my family might be facing: whether my father’s asthma was slowly killing him; whether my mother’s arthritis had become crippling in the cold; if Franz had been shot as he stood, for that flash of dissidence his hot temper was capable of; if Ilse’s innocence was making her a target for the hungry guards. Now, amid the quiet, the comfort, the relative normality of where I sat, it cascaded from me, sobbing for the life that I, and the world, would never have again.

  I felt dry as I forced down some of the bread and cheese, still not cured of camp conditioning that dictated where there was food, it must be eaten, right then and there. I gazed longingly at Frau Grunders’ bookshelves for a time, unable to move with a stretched belly and a wave of overwhelming fatigue. I yearned to finger the pages of some other world, a historical drama perhaps, to take me out of where I was. But the next thing I knew there was a gentle knocking on the door, and I opened my eyes to a young maid in her full skirt and pinafore of red and green, telling me it was past two o’clock, and enquiring whether I wanted to go to my room before meeting Fräulein Braun.

  We moved on the same level from Frau Grunders’ room, through a servants’ parlour, out of a side door and onto a short gravel incline, bringing us to a small row of three wooden chalets, built on a slope so that they looked up towards the top of the house on one side, and down towards a sloping garden on the other. Mine was the middle door, with a tiny porch and patio, just big enough for a small table and chair outside the window. It was like a tiny holiday home, a place to relish freedom and the view.

  The clothes Christa had adjusted were laid out on the bed; a toiletry set, fresh stockings and underwear on the drawers opposite. Next door, in the small bathroom, soap, shampoo and fresh towels were set neatly. Also laid out was a working midwife’s kit – a wooden, trumpet-like Pinard to listen to a baby’s heartbeat, a blood pressure monitor, a stethoscope, and a urine testing kit. All brand new. Guilt ran through me like lightning. What else was I expected to sacrifice for this luxury? Not just my skills, surely? Over the last two years I had faced my demons over death; I had strived to avoid it with any careless slips, but resigned, in a way, to its inevitability in all this fury. My biggest fear was in being made to choose, trading something of myself for my own beating heart, of living without soul.

  In the camp, it was an easy black and white decision. It was them and us, and when favours were exchanged it was for life and death. It wasn’t unheard of for the fitter women to barter their bodies with the guards in exchange for food to keep their children or each other alive; an acceptable contract since we already felt detached from our sexuality – it was simply functioning anatomy. But information that might lead to fellow captives being dragged towards a torturous death – that was another matter. It happened, of course, when cultures were pitted against each other, but I had trusted the women around me implicitly. We would die rather than sell our sense of being.

  The maid would return for me just before three, she said. I resented the time alone when she left, when I would have to think. I deeply envied those with the ability to empty their minds for some peace, to enter a blank arena with doors leading to more and more emptiness. Peace? Merely the prospect, either universal or personal, seemed utterly remote.

  I found a blanket in one of the drawers and sat on the porch, basking in a winter sun slowly tipping across my face, warm and comforting. The gardens were quiet, no uniformed guards in sight, so either they were discreet, or not on full alert. I wondered if the Führer was present, and if being near to the centre of evil felt any different – whether I might sense its strength if he were near. What I would do if I came face to face with the engineer of Germany’s moral demise?

  Berlin, March 1941

  It was inevitable, and the one that nobody wanted: the baby of our fears.

  ‘Sister?’ Dahlia’s voice was already unsteady as she found me tidying the sluice.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’ My back still to her.

  ‘The baby in Room 3. It’s, erm—’

  I spun around. ‘It’s what? The baby’s born, breathing?’

  ‘Yes, it’s born, and alive, but …’

  Her blue eyes were wide, bottom lip trembling like a child’s.

  ‘There’s something not quite … his legs are …’

  ‘Spit it out, Dahlia.’

  ‘… deformed.’ She said it as if the word alone was treason.

  ‘Oh.’ My mind churned instantly. ‘Is it very obvious, at just a glance?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No, he looks perfectly fine otherwise – a gorgeous little boy. Alert, he handles well.’

  ‘Has the mother noticed? Said anything to you?’

  ‘Not yet, he’s still swaddled. I noticed it at delivery, and again when I weighed him. I’m not imagining it, Sister.’

  We both stood for a minute, searching in ourselves for the answer, hoping another would hurtle through the door and provide a ready solution. It was me who spoke first, eyes directly on her.

  ‘Dahlia, you know what we’ve been told. What do you feel you should do?’

  With such knowledge I was already complicit in any decision, but if we covered this up, would I regret it? Would it be me as the ward lead who got a visit from the hospital administrator, and the Gestapo? Or would we both bear a secret and keep it within each other? Sad to say that in war, in among the Nazis’ pure breed of distrust, even your colleagues were unknowns.

  ‘I’m frightened of not saying anything,’ Dahlia said, visibly shaking now, ‘but he shouldn’t be … he shouldn’t be taken from his mother. They will separate them, won’t they?’

  ‘I think there’s a good chance. Almost certainly.’

  Dahlia’s eyes welled with tears.

  ‘Are you saying you want my help?’ I spelled it out. ‘Because I’ll help if you’re sure. But you have to be certain.’

  We locked eyes for several seconds. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said at last.

  I thought swiftly of the practicalities of making a baby officially exist but disappear in unison. ‘Dahlia, you finish the paperwork and start her discharge quickly. I’ll delay the paediatrician, and we’ll order a taxi as soon as possible.’

  Adrenalin – always my most trusted ally – flooded my brain and muscles, allowing me the confidence to stride into the woman’s room. I painted on a congratulatory smile, and in my best diplomatic tones I told her it would be in her best interests to leave as soon as possible, to forsake her seven days of hospital lying-in, to quit Berlin and to move to her parents’ house, where her father was dangerously ill and not expected to last the night. Wasn’t that the case? It was, wasn’t it?

  She was initially stunned, but soon understood why, as we unwrapped the swaddling and she saw with her own eyes the baby who would be no athlete, but no doubt loving and kind and very possibly a great mind. I hinted heavily at his future in the true Reich, and she cried, but only as she dressed hurriedly to go home. We were taking a large gamble on her loyalties to the Führer, but I had seen enough of mothers to know all but a few would lay down their lives for their child’s survival and a chance to keep them close. Looking at her stroking his less than perfect limbs, I wagered she was one of them.

  Dahlia and I took turns in guarding the door, while I forged the signature of the paediatrician on shift. He saw so many babies, and his scrawl was so poor, it would be easy enough to convince him of another normal baby if the paperwork was ever questioned.

  Dahlia’s face was a mask of white, and I had to remind her to smile as we shuffled the woman out of the birth room, as if leaving only hours after the birth was an everyday scenario. The baby was swaddled tightly, with only his eyes and nose visible to the world. The corridor was clear, and we moved slowly towards the labour ward entrance, the woman taking the pigeon steps of a newly birthed mother. Dahlia assured me a taxi was waiting, engine running.

  ‘Are you not tr
ansferring to the ward, Sister? Is everything all right?’ Matron Reinhardt’s distinctive tones ripped through the air, stern and commanding. I swore she could silence the clipping of her soles at will.

  I spun on my heels, but gave Dahlia a gentle tug on her shoulder, which meant: ‘Stay put, don’t move.’

  My face fixed itself. ‘Sadly, family illness means we need to discharge this mother early, Matron. A grandfather who is keen to see the little one, as the doctors think his time is limited.’

  The woman turned her head, nodding agreement, lips pursed.

  Matron stepped towards us, her face unmoved. She looked quickly at the woman, turned up the corners of her mouth slightly and said: ‘My congratulations, and my sympathies.’

  Then to me: ‘Is the baby fit for discharge, Sister, properly checked?’

  I thought I heard a slight squeak escape from Dahlia’s direction, but it could have been the baby, in protest at being held so tightly.

  My beautiful friend adrenalin came to my rescue again, pushing courage into vessels where I needed it most. I smiled broadly, and in my best officious tones, stated: ‘Of course, Matron. Fit and healthy and a confident mother with the feeding.’

  She took a step forward again and aimed a long, thin finger towards the blankets around the baby’s face. Matron – who rarely touched a baby, but who directed, admired and encouraged from afar – pulled at the woollen weave and said: ‘Quite the handsome fellow, isn’t he? I hope time is on your side, my dear.’ She aimed a sympathetic smile at the mother. ‘Perhaps you’d better hurry, if you have a journey ahead of you.’

  Dahlia’s face tumbled with relief, and the woman was pulled in her slipstream towards the exit. I stood with Matron and watched them go, waiting for the third degree, and her inevitable request to look at the file in my hand, to crawl over the paperwork and the fiction within. She of all people would see through my lie. A bell for one of the delivery rooms rang, and I stood unmoved.

  ‘Better see who wants your help now,’ Matron said, gesturing towards the room, and stepped in the opposite direction.

  We never spoke of that baby or referred to him again.

  7

  Eva

  I must have drifted on the edge of real sleep for some time, because the maid woke me gently: Fräulein Braun was waiting. I had just enough time to check my appearance in the bathroom mirror (when was the last time I had done that?) before heading back to the main house. The corridors were eerily empty, with only shadows of bodies moving here and there. I was led into the main drawing room, vast and airy with a jade tinge, where she was waiting, dwarfed by the oversized, dark furniture. Somewhere in the background a small bird twittered, a flash of yellow in a hanging cage.

  Fräulein Eva Braun stood up as I came in, offering a hand and a smile; she was average height but athletic-looking, a healthy sheen to her face and broad lips, with a touch of colour and scant make-up. Her hair was strawberry blonde, crimped and worn free, and she had on a plain, green suit – the skirt of which was strained below the waistband, its jacket barely hiding an unmistakable roundness. My eyes immediately settled on her abdomen, sizing up the gestation, while her hand instinctively went to her bump, a reaction signalling she was already attached to her baby and naturally protective. Lord knows this poor creature would need all the help it could get, a mother’s love being its best ally.

  ‘Fräulein Hoff,’ she said in a surprisingly small voice. ‘I am very happy to meet you. Please, sit down.’

  Almost instantly, I felt that Eva Braun, mistress of Hitler or not, was no Magda Goebbels. She struck me as the girl next door, easily someone who might have worked in any of the large department stores in Berlin before the war, ready to help with a bottle of cologne in her hand. She had a potential and a smile that would have opened many a door. Maybe that’s what had charmed the most powerful man in Europe? Except I wasn’t sure if I should hate her for it.

  She asked the maid for some tea, and we were soon alone. I sat without offering words, simply because I had nothing to say. There was a brief silence, split only by a crackle from the grate, and she turned squarely to face me.

  ‘I gather you have been told that I am expecting a baby …’ The words came out furtively, with a flick of her gaze, as if the dark, wooden walls were on alert.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And that you were requested specifically to become my midwife. I hope that is acceptable to you.’

  Possibly, she was unaware I had no real choice, of the emotional leverage involved, but still I said nothing.

  ‘You probably won’t know that several of my family’s friends have been cared for in Berlin during their pregnancies,’ she went on, ‘and your skills are highly thought of.’

  Again, I only nodded.

  ‘You are also aware that, due to … circumstances, the birth of my baby—’ again she palmed her belly ‘—will be here. I want someone I can trust, who has the skills to deliver my baby safely. And discreetly. My mother was lucky enough to have the care of a good midwife several times, and I would very much like that too.’

  She sat back, relieved, as if such a speech had winded her. Still, I didn’t know what to offer in reassurance. What I did know was that Eva Braun appeared, on the surface at least, an innocent. By design or sheer naivety it was hard to tell, but I couldn’t believe she had set out to sleep with a monster, let alone to carry his bastard child. The Nazi way was the family way; ‘Kitchen, children, church’ was their motto and good German wives were named as soldiers in the home, bizarrely rewarded with real medals for copious breeding. Eva Braun had broken with protocol. Her position was now untenable, her body and life no longer her own, at least while she carried the Führer’s baby – and I had to assume it was his blood, given my treatment since leaving the camp. She looked neither like a soldier nor the accomplice of evil.

  Rather than feign a false delight, I focused on the pregnancy – how far along she was, when the due date would be, what types of checks she had already gone through. She had seen a doctor to confirm the pregnancy, but no one since. The dates of her menstrual cycle suggested the baby was due in early June.

  ‘But I’m feeling the baby move now, every day.’ She smiled, almost like a child pleasing its teacher, the hand paddling again.

  ‘Well, that’s a very good sign,’ I replied. ‘A moving baby is generally a happy baby. Perhaps, if you would like, I could gather my equipment and do a check, just to see if everything is progressing normally?’

  ‘Oh, yes! I’d like that. Thank you.’ She exuded the glow of a thousand pregnant women before her.

  Confusion draped again like a thick fog, twisting the moral threads in my brain. I was supposed to feel dislike towards this woman, hatred even. She had danced with the devil, created, and was now nurturing, his child. And yet she appeared like any woman with a proud bump and dreams of cradling her newborn. I wished there and then I was back in the camp, with Rosa by my side, where the world was ugly, but at least black and white. Where I knew who to seethe against, and who the enemy was.

  I collected the new equipment from my room, and Fräulein Braun led me through a maze of corridors towards a bedroom. It was mid-size, comfortable but not ornate, family pictures on the mantel – holiday snaps of healthy Germans enjoying the outdoors. In all, there were three doors to the room: one we had come through, another leading to a small bathroom, and, on the opposite side, one linking to a second bedroom. I glimpsed a double bed through a crack in the doorway, a heavy brocade covering. She caught me looking and closed it quietly. And then it hit me. Was that his room? The leader of all of Germany, engineer of my misery, all misery at this point? Instantly, I wanted to find an exit from this surreal normality, but Fräulein Braun – my client – was already standing by her own bed, waiting.

  ‘Do you want me to lie down, Fräulein Hoff?’ Her face was full of expectation, of hope.

  There were times in my career when I hated the automatic elements of midwifery. Early on, some
of the labour wards in the poorer district hospitals had seemed like cattle farms – one abdomen, one baby after another. But now, I was thankful to my training, piloting my way through the check. With her skirt lowered, Eva Braun was any other woman, a stretching sphere to be assessed, eager to hear her baby was fit and healthy.

  I pressed gently into the extra flesh she was carrying, kneading downwards until I hit a hardness around her navel. ‘That’s the top of your womb,’ I explained, and she gave a small squeak of acknowledgement. I pressed the Pinard into her skin and laid my ear against its flat surface, screening out the sounds of the house and homing in on the beating heart of this baby. She remained stock still and patient throughout – and I finally caught the edge of its fast flutter, only just audible, but the unmistakable rate of a galloping horse.

  ‘That’s lovely,’ I said, bringing myself upright, ‘a good hundred and forty beats per minute, very healthy.’

  Again, her face lit up like a child’s. ‘Can you really hear it?’ she said, as if Christmas had come early.

  ‘The baby’s still quite small,’ I said, ‘so it’s very faint, but I can hear it, yes. And everything feels normal. It seems to be progressing well.’

  She stroked the bump again and smiled broadly, muttering something to the baby under her breath.

  We talked about how often she might want a check, when we would start planning the birth, if she might take one last trip to see her parents – a good day’s drive away. I realised I would be redundant for much of my time at the Berghof, amid this luxury, and the intense guilt rose up again. As I turned to go, she called behind me: ‘Thank you, Fräulein Hoff. I do appreciate you coming to care for me.’

  And I believe she meant it, innocent or not. I didn’t know whether to be gracious for my life chance, or angry at her naivety. A thought flashed, ‘a child within a child,’ and I forced a smile in response, while every sinew in me twirled and knotted.