A Woman of War

by Mandy Robotham

  Dieter sat back, gazing at the sky and empty of words, and I saw the moon’s silver catch the lines around his eye and the crease of anxiety at his mouth’s edge. The air was so, so still – life totally suspended. In seconds, a small breeze blew up and it gave me the courage, a push. I moved towards him, touching his cheek lightly as I bent my head down and pressed my lips against his soft mouth, gently at first, and then hard. He was taken by surprise, but in a split second had yielded, drawing my own lips into his, and we stayed almost motionless, only the tiniest of muscles rippling. Seconds? Ten or more? Who knows? Eternity has no clock.

  It was me who drew away first, anxiously looking to gauge his expression. It wasn’t one of shock or disgust, but of relief, and – dare I think it – pleasure. Our pupils locked, both of us scanning and judging. Eyes still fixed, he stood up and took my hand, leading me into the chalet, like a girl being invited onto the dance floor for the last waltz. Everything in me gave way, and I let myself be guided.

  There were no words. In the near darkness, we undressed and he draped his jacket around the chair. I watched him do it, and he caught me staring, taking his shirt and covering the slate weave with the white cotton so it was almost unseen, his cap out of sight. Then I saw him as he might have looked in another life: braces by his sides, a lean, taut chest just visible in the shimmer from the window, his lungs pushing breath in and out, hard and fast, ribs like pistons.

  I pulled the curtain across the window before I took off my vest and stepped out of my knickers, ashamed of the body I had lost and only semi-recovered since this other life began. We slipped under the sheets – still no words – and measured each other, inch by inch, hungrily matching each piece of skin so that nothing wanted for contact. I sucked breath from his neck, smelt the nape where his blond hair ran into the bones of his spine and he moved to the place where my breasts had once met, greedily taking solace from the flesh that was there. He smelt of brandy and cigarettes, and that mysterious light cologne, but not of sour filth or hate.

  There was no going back. This was war, no half measures, no barriers, no ‘let’s wait and see’. Love or lust? When there was little time to analyse either; you made up something in between and lived the moment.

  He was tender with the spindle of my body, taking care to hold where I had gained new flesh, and skimming over the flaccid excuse for a figure. By comparison, he was firm and chiselled – naturally so, muscles earned in the football fields of childhood or in his father’s garage, firmly rooted. I took pleasure in palpating every curve, each proud sinew as he held me, and he cloaked himself around me and in me, and I felt as I hadn’t done in so, so long.

  Safe.

  On the Move, February 1942

  A gap between the tarpaulin joins in the back of the truck meant I could see real life whizzing by as we drove away from Gestapo headquarters; army uniforms, cyclists, mothers pushing prams at a pedestrian pace. Life carried on for those at liberty, unaware of the horrors so close to them, as I had before the past few days. There’s nothing like craving freedom when you haven’t got it, and I could just taste it in the chill air billowing through the gaps.

  The tarpaulin was as solid as any prison boundary with the armed guard presence, but afforded little protection against the bitter temperatures. The two guards were stiff and impassive in their heavy coats and boots, while the four prisoners shivered uncontrollably. I was the only woman, alongside an older man, and two younger men opposite. Their faces were noticeably bruised, but the older man seemed unmarked. Unconsciously, we didn’t speak, flashing looks across the truck gangway, and reassuring smiles when the guards closed their eyes with fatigue while we rattled along.

  My lips trembled with the cold, and one of the men opposite began to take off his suit jacket. It sparked a hasty reaction from one guard, who barked at us not to move, and the man gestured at his offering. Finally, the guard nodded it was acceptable. I protested at first but the man’s face showed such willing.

  ‘I have a shirt and sweater,’ he said quietly, pointing to the thin, sleeveless wool under the tweed material.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and realised it was the first time I had uttered a single word in the last day or so. I felt the immediate warmth of fabric and humanity combined, the material heavy on my shoulders. I tried showing real appreciation in a smile, and he looked buoyed by the act of giving. He would never have known how that simple gift saved me from suffering in the next hours, or how often I thanked him from afar, hoping he wasn’t too cold in his own thin coverings.

  We seemed to be going north, judging by some of the streets and buildings we passed. But as we left the confines of the city I lost sight of the geography and fatigue caught hold. I rested my head back, bobbing in a half sleep, lulled by the growl of the engine. I roused to a sharp stop, shouts of men outside, and our guards snapping to attention, rapping their gun butts on the floor of the truck. ‘Listen! All of you! No talking.’

  We – the cargo – were unloaded in some type of goods yard, with multiple train tracks side by side. I was held back as the men peeled off behind a goods train and out of sight. A weak sun sat behind a grey mask of cloud, and I guessed it was around midday, the faint glow tracking sideways while we – six women in total – stood shivering for almost an hour. Only one bored guard stood watch, shuffling his feet and looking anywhere but at our faces, although he didn’t stop us talking amongst ourselves.

  The women whispered similar stories of cultivated fear; I imagined that somewhere, in an office in Berlin, there was a team of beady-eyed psychologists busily devising new ways to break down their own countrymen, devoting themselves to fracturing humanity without a thought for reassembling the soul. The mere notion depressed me more than anything.

  I stood beside a woman called Graunia, a journalist on the wrong side of Goebbels’ thinking. She struck me as bright and stoical amid the grey of the day and I was attracted to her tenacious spirit even then. I often thank fate we were pitched together in that moment, a prop for each other’s future survival that we could never have predicted.

  Eventually, out of the milky distance, a goods train rolled slowly towards us. The brakes squealed painfully to a halt and several guards appeared, forming a semi-circle around one carriage, rifles at the ready. They barked orders loudly, apparently to whatever was inside: ‘Keep back! No noise! Attention!’ The women looked at each other, alarm drowning our features.

  The door to the cattle truck swung open, and an invisible but foul cloud puffed out, desperately seeking clean particles of air. It caught in my throat – the stench of human degradation. The guards looked on in disgust, openly covering their noses, and I struggled not to do the same. The faces that peered out of the darkness looked ashamed of their own filth, then crowded towards the entrance, eager to suck in the air of the yard, heavy with engine oil.

  ‘Back! Back!’ the guards barked, prodding at the air with their rifles, then ushering us towards the opening. A retch rose in my throat and I pushed it down with every ounce of my being. I knew this, too, would soon be my own stench, wallowing for Lord knows how long in my own swill. Another point to those wily psychologists.

  We pushed inside the carriage, and although it wasn’t shoulder to shoulder, there wasn’t enough room for all to sit, so some of the women stood in clumps, as if making small talk at a party. The door clanged shut and my eyes adjusted to the gloom; I saw it was mainly older women who were sitting, and one younger woman who was already skin and bone, as if the spindly limbs folded underneath wouldn’t hold her. Graunia and I were pushed close, no words said. What could we say? There was nothing to justify the sheer bewilderment.

  Instead, one woman next to me spoke. ‘Have you any water? Anything at all?’ Her lips and voice were cracked and her tongue leathery. She kept her mouth to the side, already aware of her own breathy revulsion.

  ‘No, sorry,’ I said. ‘We have nothing.’

  Her eyes died and she turned away, stumbling over some seated bo
dies and collapsing like a puppet, weeping quietly.

  ‘She’s not doing well,’ one of the women murmured. ‘She was one of the first on, and I don’t how long it has been since she’s had a drink.’

  We stood close, Graunia and me, talking to those who had been in the carriage since the last stop. They hadn’t been travelling for long spells, maybe thirty minutes at a time, but the standing time in between had been hours, stretching to most of the night. Just once, the guards had pushed on a canteen of water, but the train lurched violently almost the second it appeared, and half of the fluid had been lost on the floor, the rest shared among those who needed it most.

  Outside, there were occasional shouts, a flurry of voices, silence, then more activity, several gunshots in the distance and then a continual hiss of the steam climbing, the engine breathing its release and building again. My calves ached and my feet burned inside my shoes. It was fortunate I’d never been precious about my appearance, now that I resembled some of the patchwork ladies who stood in a line daily outside the hospital, begging for a pfennig or two, cheeks brown and leathered. The difference was that they smiled. And they were free. Poor and homeless, perhaps, but in charge of their own destinies.

  I was in a half doze, propped up by the clutch of bodies, when we set off. Light was still coming through the slits in the wood, our only marker of time. There was a small gasp of relief that maybe, maybe the journey was nearer to its conclusion, but no one spoke. Just the mixture of heavy hearts and resignation, twirling with more worldly odours. One unspoken thought united us: where would we end up? And how much more like hell could it be?

  29

  Friends

  I lay in the crook of his arm, watching a tiny sliver of moonlight make an arrow on the wall. He was silent, breathing hard, his other arm stroking my back, tracing over one of my few curves, his chin nestled into my hair.

  At last his breath slowed, and he cut into the moment.

  ‘Well, Fräulein Hoff, you are something of a surprise.’

  ‘Not so predictable yourself,’ I countered. ‘For a captain.’

  We squeezed and giggled under the covers, and took time in kissing, now there was no urgency.

  We didn’t talk of what it meant – what lines we had crossed or the consequences if discovered. There was a time and a place for that, but not now. For those precious minutes, stretched into hours, we drank in the intimacy, fastened together against the cold, hard world outside, amid the warm spring evening.

  He explored my rack of ribs and the horns of my pelvis, and I the scars from his first battle, deep ridges in both shoulder blades, and we neither asked nor explained. It just was. It was war.

  Both of us must have slept for a good while, and woke – Dieter with a start – when the patrol came by at first light. I usually slept through it, but the two young lads were sniggering at some joke as they passed. We tensed against each other and then relaxed, my smaller body curled under his curve, like tiny kittens in the universe of their mother’s limbs.

  ‘I need to go,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘It wouldn’t do for me to be seen tiptoeing out of here – for your sake.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s hope Frau Grunders doesn’t prowl the corridors on her own patrol.’ He laughed as he pulled back the covers, and I rolled into the empty impression, eager to occupy his shape for a few minutes longer.

  He dressed in the half light, just his trousers and shirt, kissing me on the lips before bundling the jacket and cap under his arm and turning towards the door.

  ‘Dieter?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tomorrow – today – no regrets, eh? Don’t let it make us different. We can be friends.’

  He turned to face me again. ‘We are friends, Anke, and we can be more. No regrets.’

  He smiled and was gone.

  I dozed a little more after Dieter left and roused myself for breakfast, taking care to appear no different. I wanted the old Anke to mask the fireworks erupting inside my toes and springing from the top of my head. Dieter wasn’t at breakfast, of course, as he always took his in the dining room upstairs, and I felt relieved to avoid contact. My face would have been a sure giveaway. Lena and Heidi were laughing in the kitchen; I could hear them giggling over the new, young patrolmen, weighing up who they would choose.

  ‘That Kurt, he’s just a boy,’ said Lena. ‘If it’s a man you want, then it would have to be Captain Stenz. I wouldn’t say no to dating an officer like him.’ Her voice peaked in admiration.

  ‘Oh no!’ countered Heidi in mock disgust. ‘You don’t want to get mixed up with the SS—’ she lowered her voice ‘—a dangerous game, that is. Stick with the regulars. More muscle and less brains but at least you stay alive.’

  Their girlish laughter drowned out the rest of the conversation, until Frau Grunders’ gruff rebuke sent them scurrying off to clean the rooms.

  My heart plummeted like a stone in a millpond. Had I been foolish, my desire running rings around any sensible reason? Had I seen too far beyond the uniform, into a man I had moulded inside my head? I guessed it wouldn’t be unusual, or even frowned upon, for SS officers to bed women at will. Perhaps even applauded in some quarters. How much of a hold would he now have over me, if he wanted to extend and exert the power he was used to? Had I, in my moment’s need, been very, very stupid?

  And yet, in the next second, I swung towards the memory of his warmth, his tenderness, the quest in him for affection instead of brutal lust. The way he’d finally said my name as we’d climbed towards the peak reassured me: it was me he wanted, and not a convenient vessel for his own frustration. I didn’t feel used, or bedded out of greed or need. I felt we had come together craving a soft shoulder, some gentleness in the granite shards of ugliness surrounding this bad world. That we’d found more in each other than we had come looking for. Could I have been so wrong?

  Through the window, I glimpsed the cigarette smoke of a guard as he leaned against a fence, perhaps daydreaming about his sweetheart back home, and I wondered how we’d ever got here – both of us, atop the beanstalk, in the middle of a bloody, annihilating war. So much of me craved to be back in Berlin, even if it was reduced to mere dust under a cloud – to be in a stark reality, instead of floating in this bubble of the Berghof. I wanted things to be real.

  30

  Clouds in Springtime

  You know what they say: be careful what you wish for.

  I returned to the chalet, fingering the bed sheets and plumping the pillow, though not before drawing in his scent, still there, and finding a small blond strand attached to the cover. Then guiltily looking about, as if I might be caught. Nothing but my own insecurity for surveillance. Making room on my table, I tried heaving the sewing machine onto the floor. As I shuffled the heavy metal to one side, something other than off-cuts of material flopped down, a light scuff of paper parachuting its way to the floor. It sat at my feet, a small, folded square, pulsing white as a beacon. A pencilled scrawl said only: Anke.

  For a brief moment, my heart leapt teenage beats and I thought it was a note from Dieter. But even in affection, I knew he wouldn’t be so naive as to leave any trail. I watched my fingers tremble as I opened up the folds and read the message:

  You have the power to change everything for our beloved country. The Reich needs an icon – you can deliver it into Hitler’s hands, or to safety in ours. Think of your family and your fate. And of good Germans. You can change lives.

  Real or not? I couldn’t decide. Except it was there in my shaking hands, an increasingly tangible fantasy. I still wasn’t sure what they were asking of me – to betray the baby and steal it from Eva? Or to act as go-between and feign ignorance if they – this unknown group – staged a coup just after the birth? Either way, it was the baby who would suffer. And Eva along with it.

  I pocketed the paper, and went quickly to the door, casting about for any bodies slipping away down the path. But I’d been out of the chalet for a good whi
le and anyone could have crept in, with no lock to my door. Still, I felt invaded, as if I’d clawed back some of my personal dignity and space since the camp, and now someone was picking at its thin crust again.

  I felt angry at their invasion, and then immediately powerless, sapped of any capacity to find out who or why. I could trust no one aside from Christa, but equally I had no power within myself to decide on a definite course. A combination of will and fate had taken me through this war, and though I had never believed in any higher being, I wanted desperately to surrender to something outside of myself. For me not to pluck at any one route, but just to be taken along. Let life choose me for a change.

  The hours until lunchtime dragged, the wisp of paper in my pocket causing agitation, carrying that lead weight of betrayal. I fingered it nervously as I saw Dieter walk towards the porch, his gait stiff and his cap firmly fixed. I smiled at the first welcome thing in my life that day. He didn’t. His eyes flicked up briefly and the expression was stern and devoid of colour; my heart muscle twisted with the knowledge of my own misjudgement. I had read him entirely wrong. He was SS, nothing less.

  ‘Dieter?’ I searched his starched face.

  He came onto the porch, dropped his eyes and took off his cap, placing it dutifully under his arm. He fingered at his gloves, a sign of his own agitation.

  ‘Anke, I’m sorry,’ he began.

  ‘Oh, um, for last night? Listen, we can forget—’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’ He was grave and serious, not angry or embarrassed.

  ‘Then what? Dieter, tell me – please.’

  ‘It’s your father,’ he whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  There was no ambiguity in his voice; a gravelly delivery of the dead. A rolling crest of fear and sorrow welled up into my throat and became something between a cough and a tearful retch. I staggered before him and he caught me by the elbow, lowering me onto the chair. I dissolved into a sea of sobs, my hand trying to hide the contortion of my face. I had learnt over years in the hospital to mask some emotion – it was expected of us – but when it broke free, my floodgates were unbounded.