by Therese Down
Marguerite, Hedda’s maid, duly arrived at the children’s ward, Brandenburg hospital, with a bag containing a change of clothing and other essentials for an overnight stay, and asked for Hedda. She found her employer in a highly agitated state, pacing Agnette’s room, biting her fingers in impatience and anxiety. As soon as Marguerite was shown to the room, Hedda shut the door on the receding nurse, took the bag from her, then took Marguerite’s hands in hers and looked straight into her eyes. “Please, Marguerite, listen very carefully. There is something I must do and I have to know I can trust you absolutely. I cannot tell you, or anyone, what it is, but it is…” She struggled for words that would convey the life-and-death importance of her mission without terrifying the maid. She decided to exploit what she knew of Marguerite’s loathing of Walter. “Walter has done something… something terrible, and I have to try and put it right.” It was not difficult to allow her eyes to fill with tears as she pleaded with Marguerite, and the immediate heartfelt sympathy evident in the maid’s eyes encouraged Hedda’s own emotional expression. “I have told the staff here that Anselm is unwell, as I explained to you on the telephone. I shall tell them that you have had no contact with Anselm; that he is being looked after by the cook. You tell them the same if they ask, OK?”
Marguerite nodded, but she looked confused, waiting for Hedda to explain how this was necessary to the righting of Walter’s terrible wrong.
“I must stay with Agnette tonight. I don’t want to come home in case Walter turns up.”
Marguerite nodded.
“Then tomorrow morning, no later than seven o’clock, you come straight to the hospital, OK? You come here – seven o’clock?”
The maid nodded again, still waiting for the final pieces.
“You need to stay with Agnette tomorrow until I get back to you. And listen, Marguerite, this is so important! Please don’t leave her side. Don’t let the staff take her anywhere – scream at them if you have to, but don’t let anyone take Agnette anywhere. Do you hear me?” Hedda was crying freely, her eyes wide, desperate.
Marguerite was frightened and thoroughly confused.
“It’s OK, Marguerite. It’s just that I don’t let them do anything with Agnette without my permission. Don’t let them take advantage of my not being around. Tell them I am coming back very soon.”
The maid looked less alarmed, nodded again.
“When you get home this evening, tell Cook she will be looking after Anselm tomorrow. Tell her I’ll explain everything when I see her.” Hedda let go of Marguerite’s hands, took a handkerchief from her sleeve, wiped her eyes, and sat down in a chair near Agnette’s bed and put her face in her hands.
“Don’t worry, Frau Gunther, I will do as you say. I understand what to do.” Her tone was full of sympathy for Hedda’s evident distress. “I brought you some food. It is in the bag. And a flask of coffee – how you like it. Anselm is… well.” Marguerite lowered her voice for this last word and Hedda looked up. They both laughed briefly. “And I will see you tomorrow, here, seven. You go and do what you have to do. God bless.”
“You, Marguerite, are an angel. Thank you.” Hedda smiled warmly at the maid, then added, “I shall pay you – and Cook – double your wages for this, OK?”
Marguerite beamed and nodded delightedly. “It is my mother’s birthday soon, so that will be perfect! Thank you, Frau Gunther.” And she left, having first procured from Hedda enough money to pay the taxi fare.
About an hour after Marguerite had gone, the matron appeared. She was the same one Karl had encountered on Gorden Ward, for she had authority over all paediatric nurses at Brandenburg.
“Frau Gunther, my nurse tells me that you wish to stay with Agnette tonight. Is this correct?”
“It is.” Hedda could not keep all the outrage and loathing out of her eyes when she looked at the matron. She knew this woman had to be complicit in the deliberate harming of children. But she managed a brief smile.
“This is irregular, Frau Gunther. Only in very exceptional cases do we allow a parent to remain with a child. And Nurse Berning also tells me you have a child at home with an infectious disease. Is this also correct?”
“It may be – it may not be infectious. In any case, I have not been exposed to him lately and neither has the maid, who will remain with Agnette tomorrow, while I attend to some important business. I do not like Agnette to be without company during the day and I do not know how long I shall be busy. I like to feed her myself – it takes a long time, as you know. I am sure your nurses are glad I do it. And she likes me to read to her and talk to her. Agnette relies on me, Matron.”
“Be that as it may, Frau Gunther, I don’t think it is appropriate that you stay overnight. Why must you stay with Agnette overnight?”
“Well, obviously I do not want to go home to Anselm, my son, in case he is infectious. If what he has turns out to be infectious, then I shan’t be able to come back to Agnette for days, shall I?”
“Quite, but… Forgive me, Frau Gunther, is it not possible to stay in a hotel or a boarding house?”
“Why would I spend the money, Matron, to do that, if I am perfectly happy to sleep on a spare mattress beside Agnette? There is a war on, you know!” And she smiled at Matron, relaxed her tone. “I can’t see what your objection is, Matron. It is hardly a great inconvenience for you to set up a spare bed in here. The room is plenty big enough. What is your objection, beyond ‘irregularity’?”
The matron was not used to being gainsaid and looked icily at Hedda for a moment. She could not, though, summon another objection that would not sound impertinent to this woman whose husband was so senior in the SS. And then there was the other matter, of which Matron was of course aware. Agnette had been designated “unworthy” and the father had signed the paperwork. She could not be sure if this display of sudden maternal agitation were in spite of or because of this fact. For now, diplomacy was the only prudent way forward.
“Very well. I shall inform the doctor of your intention.”
Hedda held her gaze, then smiled sweetly. “Please do, Matron, and thank you. It is not for long. Just until I find out what is wrong with my poor little Anselm – get the all-clear. You do understand?” Another winning smile.
Matron nodded and left. Within an hour, a large armchair appeared, carried by two orderlies. “Matron says this is the best she can do; that there’s a war on,” one of them said, then rolled his eyes complicitly at Hedda.
“Please convey to Matron my enormous gratitude. Tell her it will do very nicely, thank you.”
“I am very sorry, Officer Muller, but His Eminence Nuncio Orsenigo cannot see you,” a formally suited official of the nunciature had announced to Karl in a quiet, gentle voice. The luxuriously decorated and spotlessly clean ante-room in which Karl had waited for a response to his request for a meeting with the cardinal was expansive, hung with portraits of past popes and Berlin nuncios. Gilt and polished silver glinted serenely in the early morning spring light, which seemed to fuse reverently with the peace in the room.
Until this quietly officious man had entered, Karl had been unable to detect a sound of life in the building during the fifteen minutes he had waited.
“Perhaps it is too early? Shall I come back later?”
The man closed his eyes and shook his head, clasped his hands before him. “No, Obersturmführer Muller, sir. It is simply that he cannot see you.”
Karl struggled to understand. “He is busy? I know I should have made an appointment, but my business with him is urgent – absolutely urgent.”
The man nodded, seemed to understand that Karl thought his business urgent. He looked at Karl directly, so there would be no misunderstanding, and repeated what he had already said twice.
Karl fought his anger, contemplated the man and considered begging, shouting, demanding. The room was oppressively still. The authority of hundreds of years of Catholic prelature, captured in the slickly oiled portraits, was stifling. He felt again the weight of
his father’s moral censure; the awe before the mysticism of the priest he had served as an altar boy; the sense all Catholics have that they are serving at the feet of men whose obeisance to the pope endows them with a measure of his authoritative infallibility. Karl’s anger subsided before the implacability of the nuncio’s secretary. In its stead came resolution. He picked up his cap from the elegantly turned table on which he had placed it. Wordlessly, he took his letter from an inner jacket pocket and gave it to the secretary to be handed at once to the cardinal. Then he put on his cap, walked past the man and out of the room.
Outside, Karl reorientated himself in the sunshine and busyness of early morning Berlin, then walked briskly in the direction of the station, where he boarded the first train for Pilsen.
Hedda spent an uncomfortable, cold and fitful night at Agnette’s side. The ward seemed normal enough. She could detect all the sounds one might expect on a children’s ward: whimpering, occasional loud crying and remonstrations between children and nurses; long periods of near silence, the occasional banging of doors, nurses’ lowered voices as they chatted or exchanged information.
In her side room, however, Hedda could see nothing and so could not see how the children were treated; could not tell if any were rolled away silently in their beds or in wheelchairs to a place from which they would never emerge alive. The thought terrified her. It seemed that every time she began to nod off, she started awake. Twice she jumped, startled by the door to Agnette’s room being opened. Each time, a nurse entered, put on the light at the head of Agnette’s bed and checked her breathing, her catheter and the sheets for cleanliness, and wrote down her observations on the chart at the foot of the bed.
Hedda watched these procedures intently, reading what had been written as soon as the nurse exited the room. One of the nurses, a young one, smiled kindly at Hedda, offered her tea. It was so tempting to question her, to seek solace or assurance that those who cared for her daughter were not all monsters. But she dared not. She refused the tea, although her flask of coffee was long since emptied. She would trust them in nothing.
Hedda watched her daughter sleeping. On inestimable occasions Hedda wondered what was going on in her daughter’s head. For the first five weeks after the bombing, Agnette had fought for her life, slipping in and out of consciousness then falling precipitously into a deep coma. For a month, she lay still with her eyes closed, and Hedda had talked to her, sung to her, read to her, wept over her daily.
And then one day, Hedda had come in to see Agnette at the Rudolf Virchow hospital in Berlin and her eyes were open. The doctors had said there was very little reactivity, the pupils hardly responded at all to direct light and Agnette certainly showed no signs of recognition of her mother, but it was progress, they had said. At that stage, Agnette could not swallow anything on her own. Even water simply pooled in her mouth and dribbled down her chin onto the sheets. So she had been fed through a tube into her stomach. But gradually, over weeks, Hedda’s persistent attempts and gentle cajoling seemed to work. Agnette rediscovered her swallow reflex, and though the tranquil, doll-like expression in her eyes did not change, she started to swallow water, then soup, then finely mashed food.
The process of feeding her was painstaking, but Hedda was infinitely patient, finding a reserve of selflessness and love she hardly knew she had. The doctors had agreed this was more progress, but still Agnette remained motionless; made no attempt to move her limbs or speak. On just a very few occasions, though, Hedda had witnessed signs of life from her daughter that she regarded as miraculous indications of healing but the doctors dismissed gently as wishful thinking: neurological “spikes” of brain activity that were simply random.
Once, Agnette’s lips had moved and she emitted a small sound, different from the occasional sighs or low moans she sometimes made. It was an obvious attempt to say “Mutti”. So convinced had Hedda been of this acknowledgment of her presence that she had cried out, run for the medical staff and made them come and check her daughter for signs of new life.
That was a month ago. Other signs indicated to Hedda that Agnette was coming back. She was sure her daughter had returned the grip of her hand on at least two occasions in the last few weeks and sometimes, Hedda was certain, Agnette registered her mother’s entrance to the room with definite flickers of her eyes.
Each night, Agnette’s eyes closed in sleep, and every morning they opened to stare and blink upon a new day. Nothing the doctors said – no matter how often they looked into Agnette’s eyes and shook their heads as they lifted her hand, then let it drop limply again – nothing would convince Hedda that Agnette was not making progress. She just knew her daughter was looking for a way back, trying doors within her head, exploring avenues, until one day she would turn the handle on the door that led to recovery and freedom. It was Hedda’s job to be there when she arrived.
Ernst Schroeder was sipping his morning coffee from a china cup with such precision his moustache remained dry. One hand held the morning paper before his face. Then the maid admitted his daughter. He looked up mid sip and his eyes widened in surprise behind his glasses. “Hedda!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here so early? We are not expecting you, are we?”
Mathilde came into the dining room, both hands busy with the application of an earring to her left lobe, her hair elegantly swept into a small beehive, figure hugged smugly by a Schiaparelli suit. The effect was finished by immaculate Italian shoes. “Darling!” she exclaimed upon seeing Hedda. “I thought I heard the door, and wondered who could be here so early. Is there something wrong?” She approached Hedda and almost recoiled in horror at her daughter’s pallor, unkempt hair, the soupçon of body odour. “Hedda, whatever is the matter? Not another crisis, surely?”
Hedda began to cry. She was aware that her arrival and evident need of attention was hugely inconvenient. It was barely eight-thirty in the morning. When Marguerite had arrived at the hospital at seven a.m. promptly as promised, Hedda had rushed to her car in the hospital car park, applied some face powder and lipstick, and brushed her hair hurriedly in the windscreen mirror. Then she had driven the forty kilometres from Brandenburg to her parents’ house in Tiergarten as quickly as she could in the new Audi DKW Walter had bought for her to replace the one destroyed in the August bombing.
“Hedda, sweetheart, whatever can it be?” Mathilde looked at her husband with an expression beginning as concern and ending with a confidential widening of her eyes that denoted exasperation. She could not understand why her daughter’s life was so complicated and overemotional. If Walter was beastly, then Hedda should dress up and spend his money. If he was unfaithful, well, that was not necessarily disastrous. Guilty husbands were often indulgent of their wives. Hedda should stay out of Walter’s way, hire an excellent nanny, divert herself. The pain and indignation of neglect, Mathilde had discovered after a few years, dulled to indifference. It was simply a matter of finding ways to fill one’s time after that.
“Inge!” Mathilde called the maid, who appeared almost at once. “Be a dear and tell Cook to bring Hedda a nice breakfast and some coffee, would you?” Then, to her daughter again: “You look absolutely dreadful, darling – and so thin! Have some food and cheer up. There’s a good girl.”
Hedda closed her eyes and smiled ironically to herself at her mother’s practical encouragement. She accepted a proffered lavender-scented handkerchief and wiped her eyes.
“You are obviously just about to go out, Mutti. Don’t let me stop you. It is Father I came to see.”
“Really, dear?” Mathilde’s voice was tinged with relief. “Well, I was just about to go and breakfast at the Kaiserhof. A number of your father’s work acquaintances are in town and staying there – some very senior men in the government. We dined with them last night – it was simply wonderful, Hedda.” Mathilde was suddenly in her element, had found a wall mirror in the dining room and was primping her beehive, ensuring her lipstick hadn’t smudged. She grimaced to stretch her lips, running a pe
rfectly manicured middle fingernail along the edge of her bottom lip. “I am meeting the wives for breakfast at nine, then we are going shopping – the men are in meetings all day. I am going to suggest they dine with us here before they go home – that would be so lovely!” She was satisfied with her appearance, and eager to leave. “I can’t be late, Hedda. If I had known you were coming, well… Will you be here when I get back? Probably not?”
“Probably not. Goodbye, Mutti. Enjoy your day.” Hedda watched her mother cross the dining room and pause briefly at the door.
“Do try and cheer up, darling,” enjoined Mathilde finally. “Life need not be so grim – war or no war. Goodbye, Hedda.” And she was gone.
The cook, anxious to see Hedda, brought the breakfast tray in herself. She beamed, then her face fell as she took in her unkempt appearance. Hedda greeted her as warmly as she could manage, eyed the scrambled eggs dubiously but thanked her anyway. When the cook was gone, Hedda poured herself some coffee and looked at her father. He had sat silently through the flurry and bustle of the last eight minutes or so and wondered what, precisely, his daughter could possibly want with him. Money? It was likely Gunther didn’t give her enough. Did she want to consult with him about getting a divorce, moving back home? That would be too inconvenient. Hedda and Anselm were noisy and he liked his life quiet. Then there was all that to-ing and fro-ing to hospitals, and tears at dinner.
By the time Hedda was ready to speak, Ernst had decided to buy his daughter an apartment, wherever she wanted to live. He didn’t blame her for wanting to divorce Walter Gunther. Personally, Ernst couldn’t stand the man. But neither did he want to get involved. The last thing he needed was Oberführer Walter Gunther breathing down his neck about divorce settlements and access to his children. He hoped Hedda wasn’t going to take too long or get emotional. Ernst needed to be at work by nine-fifteen, latest. He was entirely unprepared for what his daughter said next.