A Woman of War

by Mandy Robotham

  ‘You don’t think they can give us what they say? Safety for us and the baby?’ I needed to test his thoughts.

  His reply was steadfast: ‘Listen, Anke, I don’t want the Goebbels to have a tool in their hands any more than you do, but this so-called resistance, it’s false hope. They don’t care about you, Christa or Eva. They will leave you hanging.’

  The analogy was painfully visual and reinforced my own belief.

  ‘So what happens we don’t deliver?’ I added.

  ‘I don’t know, but it gives me time to think.’

  ‘Will you tell anyone else? Meier? Radio for troops?’

  He looked at me, his own cogs in furious motion. ‘No. We keep this to ourselves. It may be an elaborate bluff and not come to anything.’ Still, he opened his desk drawer and fingered a pistol sitting on the top. He caught me looking at him, a wordless exchange like that very first day at the Berghof, and his mouth set in a thin line.

  ‘Dieter, now it’s my turn to tell you to be careful. Please.’

  ‘I will. I promise.’ He smiled an assurance, but it wasn’t convincing.

  ‘I need to get back to Eva.’

  ‘All right, but please give a report to the doctors soon. They’re getting restless. I’ll write a note and leave it by the pantry door; it will appease for a while.’

  Our little fingers linked briefly across the desk, and I wanted desperately to lean forward, kiss his knuckles and draw him in to me. Even with the jacket, I wanted to meet with his lips and feel their softness, but it wasn’t safe. Safety was survival now.

  38

  Imminence

  As I arrived back, it became obvious Eva was approaching transition – the tunnel between dilating and pushing stages. Her pitch had changed, and she was thrashing inside her own head, moving it from side to side, a self-directed ‘No, no’ coming from her. Christa was permanently by her side, offering honey water and solace with her own aching hands.

  I took over massage for several contractions, reading the progress at the peak, looking at the crease in her buttocks as I rubbed around her sacrum, noting a distinctive purple line rising nicely. But an early pushing urge was common with back-to-back babies, and I’d need to be sure she was fully dilated before Eva bore down hard. It was half past ten and a good while since I’d checked on progress internally. Had I been truly in charge I would have waited until she showed signs of pushing, but the good doctors would need placating soon.

  My luck was in Eva’s stoicism – in her nether world she agreed to almost anything, and I checked her quickly. The baby’s head was now deep in the pelvis, and the cervix at eight centimetres, paper-thin and working well. I mapped the position, feeling a tiny kite shape under my fingers at six o’clock – a small gap in the baby’s skull bones, which meant he or she was still spine to spine but tucked nicely down. Not perfect but good enough, since the baby appeared to be finding its way through so far. The next two hours would be crucial in making sure Eva didn’t push too early; the noise of her bearing down would almost certainly travel through the house – to the doctors, and anyone with resistance ears. They would be hovering for different reasons, but neither in Eva’s best interests.

  I found Koenig and Langer in the temporary theatre, checking the anaesthetic equipment, like vultures circling. I coughed at the acrid smell of disinfectant.

  ‘Fräulein, is anything awry?’ Koenig was quick to look for problems in his tone.

  ‘No. On the contrary, Dr Koenig, Fräulein Braun is a very strong woman, along with her baby. All is well, and the labour is progressing as expected for a first baby. She’s now seven centimetres dilated.’ I wilfully put her back a centimetre.

  ‘I would have thought she’d have been further along,’ Koenig complained.

  ‘But she’s only been in active labour for seven hours, Doctor. An average first baby is twelve hours—’

  ‘Yes, I know that!’ he snapped. ‘I am all too aware of an average labour, thank you. I want a report in two hours. She needs to be fully dilated by then. If not I will speak to Captain Stenz and we will see then who is in charge here.’ He was red and breathless from the exertion of command. Langer stood motionless, a rictus grin chipped into his chalky skin.

  ‘Very well,’ I said, and turned to go, sensing Langer’s creeping form on my heels.

  ‘Fräulein Hoff?’

  ‘Yes, Doctor?’ I was all innocent curiosity.

  He dropped his voice as his wide, thin mouth and sour breath invaded my space. ‘Don’t imagine that we – or at least I – are not wise to your … particular practices.’

  I cocked my head, a child caught red-handed and yet smiling virtue. ‘I am all too aware of my realm of practice, Doctor. We have laid out the rules in detail.’

  ‘Fine, have it your way.’ His verminous eyes sprayed cunning on his words. ‘But I have a memory for faces, and I remember yours well, despite the good living up here. You are a liar and a traitor, and even if you have the ear of the Führer’s mistress, you remain an enemy of the Reich and cannot be trusted.’

  I matched his look, desperate to blink, but holding my breath and entire self in limbo.

  ‘And yet, despite that, Doctor, I am a good midwife, capable of bringing this baby into the world. Without recourse to butchery.’ On that, my breath failed and I turned before he could see me colour and exhale at the same time, feeling his disgust burn into my back as I walked away.

  The Camp, North of Berlin, June 1943

  Rosa, my invaluable extra hands, was by my side when Dinah went into labour. It was her sixth baby, five of which she had left behind in Munich on her arrest. This new child was just a nugget in her belly as she was prised away from the others. Both Rosa and I were wary of the birth being quick, and arrived in the hut as Dinah began her pains. We brewed what nettles we had, and drank tea; I’d persuaded Mencken that herbs from the camp vegetable patch were effective in contracting the womb, and she allowed me to keep a supply.

  And so Rosa and I waited. Dinah gave up her baby at dusk, in a trickle of fluid and a stream of tears. The baby – only her second girl – was initially quiet, breathing but calm, and we gained an extra half hour or so before her eventual wails meant I was forced to announce the birth. The guard who came in hovered nervously at the door, and had to be reminded to hand over scissors to sever the cord. She edged in reluctantly. We knew she had no stomach for the drowning – that was left to a specialist guard and a prisoner who had been incarcerated for child murder as war broke out, their morals of equal stature.

  The guard took back the scissors and retreated, saying: ‘I’ll call the others.’ Dinah wept as she asked Rosa and I to fetch a blanket she’d miraculously reworked and hidden under the flooring, in readiness for the birth.

  We were gone only five minutes to the other end of the hut, carefully replacing the boards. As we returned, the tears were flowing on Dinah’s face. The baby – Nila – was lost under the thin covering, but her mother had bundled up the cloth around her tiny features, a hand hovering over the fabric.

  ‘I want to spare her that end,’ she sobbed, ‘but I can’t do it.’ Her fingers twitched with the need but were equally paralysed. She would have felt the baby’s subtle breath through the fibres.

  ‘Please help me – help her.’ Her face was molten wax with the pain. It took me an age to understand what she was asking. ‘Help her,’ she said again.

  ‘I … I can’t, Dinah,’ I stuttered. ‘How can I?’ Rosa was silent beside me. I looked at her young face, intent. I knew she was remembering the day her own brother was born and taken, all within hours. She had heard the splash, and many since. I swear I saw her head dip in the tiniest of nods.

  Dinah’s eyes were wide and wet, sporting a sorrow as deep as any well. ‘Please,’ she repeated. ‘For her.’

  I couldn’t hold the baby as I did it, desperate not to feel the last flinch of life against my skin. But I did bundle the cloth and put my hand over Nila’s tiny pout, one eye on the doo
r for the returning guards. She twitched, but with only the slightest of struggles, then yielded as if to make it easy for me. I held firm as Dinah’s head went close to her daughter’s, kissing her damp head. It was the mother who knew the final flinch. When there was no more breath in those rosy lips, we wrapped her in the blanket. She looked at peace, although my body was in turmoil, everything filthy in this world churning in my gut, detritus bleeding into my insides.

  ‘Thank you,’ Dinah said, anger swelling amid her turmoil. ‘Her soul is in here.’ She dug at her bony chest as she spat the words. ‘Not out there, not with them. I wouldn’t give them that. They can’t have it. She’s mine. Always.’

  I did my sobbing later in the hut with Graunia and Kirsten, spewed what little food was in my stomach, poured repentance and guilt on their laps as they held me. What I did know, the thought kept close to me every day until then, was that the taking of a life still amounted to murder. Even in this vile excuse for a war. I held on to it, each time I heard the shot, or the splash. It was cold-blooded homicide, carried out by minions but engineered by that man who had promised to be our father, to look after the fatherland. He’d pledged, for those who believed his ranting at Nuremberg, to give us a better life, and here he was, robbing everything that was close and precious to us. Our lives. Our families. Our humanity. How dare he? Adolf Hitler was no father.

  And what about me? I had crossed that line, taken a life, for whatever reason. Was it murder, or mercy? Would I – could I – ever come back from that?

  39

  Strength of the Web

  In Eva’s room, her telltale growl signalled she was pushing. Low, rasping and primal, it came from deep within her, as if every woman was born with a tiny fire pit nestled in their being, ready to ignite for such occasions. I was thankful the volume was manageable for now, and I watched intently as Christa rubbed hard into her sacrum, my eyes focused on Eva’s buttocks and the tiniest of movements. There it was – at the peak of the contraction, the rounds of her skin parted, the line between her buttocks moved upwards and the skin flattened and became shiny, almost translucent. Spine to spine or not, this baby was moving down.

  Encouraging Eva to breathe through each contraction, I timed half an hour before I suggested checking her internally again. If she really was fully dilated, then her labour was proving quick despite the baby’s position. If she wasn’t, we had to somehow stop her pushing.

  My heart sank as I felt a definite ridge of cervix in front of the baby’s head: a common but irritating ‘anterior lip’. The tissue was thicker than previously – too thick to push away – and if Eva continued bearing down, it would swell even more, leaving us no choice but to wait. And I knew Koenig wouldn’t be willing to do that.

  ‘Eva, you’re nearly there, just a tiny bit more work to do before you push,’ I said, her coppery labour scent obvious as we came face to face. Tears sprang automatically.

  ‘How long, Anke?’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t think I can do much more. I need it to stop.’

  ‘I know you do, and it will, but for now just breathe as much as you can. For your baby.’

  She nodded with resignation, slipping back into her role at the Berghof – the dutiful, obliging mistress.

  Christa and I spent the next half hour moving Eva around, to the bathroom and back, distracting her from the heavy swell in her buttocks, which broke into a brief push at the peak of some contractions. ‘Just breathe through it, Eva, blow your breath out, blow out the candle in front of you,’ we urged through each bout of pain.

  ‘I’m trying, Anke,’ she moaned, eyelids at half-mast. ‘I’m trying so hard.’

  Finally, there was no holding back. Pain erupted and a streak of blood came through like lava as she bore uncontrollably – Christa and I felt its power, and no amount of coaching would dampen this brute force. Perhaps it was Eva’s former fitness that showed through again, because I could feel no more cervix as I eased inside. The baby’s head was low, just half a finger’s length away, and moving further forward under my fingers with a contraction.

  ‘That’s amazing, Eva!’ I couldn’t help the joy and relief in my voice. ‘You can push your baby.’

  She looked at me, as if I was an apparition. ‘Really? I thought it was too early. I thought I shouldn’t yet.’ Her face was flushed and sweat had gathered at the roots of her hair. Now, though, she looked more alive than in recent weeks, ready to receive her child. Just that news had galvanised her, and she visibly gathered energy.

  I was prepared for a lengthy pushing stage and I told Eva simply to ‘go with urge’ for now. It was noon; without the doctor’s knowledge we weren’t yet on a timeline, and the baby’s heartbeat was normal. By one o’clock, though, I would need to send word that Eva was fully dilated, and the clock would be ticking. We had less than an hour to make some progress and get a head start. I sent Christa for some air and to gather more tea and supplies, as we settled ourselves in.

  Through the bathroom window, I glimpsed a uniform moving about the grounds, a black shape against the midday glare – Dieter’s lean, upright frame, prowling the back of the house. My heart skipped beats at the very sight of him, looking out for us. He turned and I signalled for him to come to the window, his eyes constantly sweeping the landscape.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he said, gaze still distracted.

  ‘Yes, Eva’s beginning to push, but the doctors don’t need to know that yet. Can you knock at one, and I’ll send a message to Koenig via you? Hopefully, we’ll be well on the way to seeing the baby by then.’

  He nodded a yes and went back to his vigilance.

  Eva’s steadfast grit increased with every contraction, and I watched in genuine admiration. Instinctively, she seemed to listen to her body – no longer moaning but waiting for the intense urge and using its energy. Instead of howling wolf-like into the air, as so many women did until they harnessed the power, she pushed deep into her own self and her pelvis, with only a low, sustained grunt. Eyes tightly closed, she willed her baby into the world. With Christa encouraging from the top, Eva rocked back and forward on her knees, and I kept watch from below. I wasn’t expecting to see the baby for at least an hour, just signs it was coming. We kept her going with a steady stream of banter.

  ‘That’s brilliant, Eva, you are moving your baby.’

  ‘Is it coming? Are you sure? Can you see anything?’ she panted in desperation.

  ‘Not yet, but it all looks fine. Keep going. You and your baby are so strong.’

  Increasingly agitated from the strain on her buttocks, Eva moved to the toilet, with an undulating soundtrack of strong pushes and squeaks of surprise as the baby entered into new areas of its mother’s anatomy. I was relieved the noises were pitched low and wouldn’t be travelling through the house, alerting friends and foe alike. Unwittingly, Eva was proving a saviour to her own baby and its future.

  Back in the bedroom, Eva couldn’t replicate the pushing power she had on the toilet, so Christa and I did our best to engineer a human birthing stool, Christa sitting on the bed and Eva spooning into her, astride her chair-like legs. I stayed in front, watching for signs of the head. Had I not witnessed Christa’s own strength first-hand during Sonia’s labour I might have worried at the strain on her body, but she was more than equal to the task. Pumped on adrenalin, the room was hellbent on having a baby.

  At 12.30 p.m. precisely I could tell Eva what she needed to hear.

  ‘I can see your baby!’ This time, it was me who needed to temper my voice at the tiny, welcome glimpse of a dark, wet head.

  Her own head fell back in relief, but only for a second. As the next contraction took hold, she wanted to see more, propelling her energy downwards, every vessel and sinew in her neck proud with the effort. Each push, each contraction nudged the baby just a millimetre forward.

  Dieter’s light knock came at one, and I opened the door slightly. ‘Just tell them she’s fully dilated, the heartbeat is normal, and I’ll report again in an hour,’
I whispered.

  ‘What’s really happening?’ he said, already with the measure of a midwife’s stealth.

  ‘I can just see the head. Hopefully, we’ll have news soon, so keep close. Any activity out here?’

  ‘Nothing that I can see. I’ll do another sweep soon and come back. If you need me, leave a coffee mug just outside the door.’

  All three of us worked that labour in the next half hour. Having shown itself, the baby was static for a good twenty minutes, despite Eva’s huge efforts; a coin-size piece of the head sat tantalisingly at her opening, while I willed it forward: ‘That’s the one, Eva, that’s the spot, just a little bit more, you can do it. Just one more.’ My own muscles, lungs and ligaments were at full stretch with every contraction, but Eva was tiring and not even spoons of honey could coax more effort.

  Just as Eva began another push, I heard it. A crack in the air – short, sharp and familiar, my brain taking seconds to locate the origin. Then another. A motorcycle backfiring, or a gunshot – as we’d heard daily in the camp. Was that the resistance making their move, come to take what they thought had no right to exist? Would there be scuffles and an exchange of bullets, with Dieter at its centre? One ear tuned beyond the window, and the other on Eva, I couldn’t detect raised voices outside or anything disturbing the still air. My battle was concentrated in the room, and I had to trust Dieter would shield us. I heard nothing and focused on little else but the force of energy crackling between the three of us.

  We moved into a range of positions – kneeling, a full squat, onto Eva’s left side, and back onto Christa’s human chair – with little progress. I glanced at Dieter’s watch, the hands ticking too fast towards two o’clock. Would this baby need the help of a doctor’s forceps, like a lot of those back to back? Would we run out of time and Eva’s energy? The baby’s heartbeat was holding strong, but it wouldn’t forever. Babies tire eventually and Eva was already exhausted. We needed to pull something out of the bag – and soon.