A Fight in Silence

by Melanie Metzenthin

  Paula took the envelope from her daughter and hungrily searched for clues. Richard had a new military mail number. She felt weak with relief. He hadn’t ended up a prisoner of war. He was alive.

  My dearest Paula

  I haven’t heard from you for a long time and fear my recent letters haven’t reached you either. The final weeks in Tunis were disastrous. It was clear we would have to surrender. All the field hospitals were dismantled and made ready for travel. Fritz had arranged for us to accompany one of the last hospital ships bound for Italy. Together with all the wounded men in our care, we reached Sicily in May, only for Allied troops to capture the island in early July. Our leaders decided the wounded should be left in the care of Italian civilian doctors, while all military medical staff were promptly shipped off to the mainland. So here we are in Rome, awaiting orders. They may send us to France. I don’t know whether we’ll keep this mail number or get a different one. I must admit, it’s wonderful to be back in Rome. And guess what? Luigi’s little shop is still there! His eldest son runs it for him these days and still has stocks of photographic film. I told him how we’d been there in September 1928, and he actually remembered something of our visit because it was the only time anybody had ever bought their entire stock of film! Just like before, the people here are very friendly and open, but there’s growing unrest within the country. Many have had enough of Il Duce but will only say so off the record. I’m afraid things will soon erupt here and Mussolini won’t know what’s hit him. The people here are so weary of war, they’re desperate for peace, but while their government goes on preaching conflict there are only two choices: victory or downfall. And most people here no longer believe in any glorious end to all this. There are, of course, always the eternal optimists who believe in miracle weapons and final victory, but anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that after what has happened at Stalingrad and Tunis only the long-drawn-out path to the inevitable remains.

  But rest assured that Fritz and I are in a safe place and enjoying Rome. As ever, I’m enclosing some photos.

  With all my love

  Richard

  Paula studied the three photos closely. Richard and Fritz, in uniform, standing in front of the Colosseum. Luigi’s shop, looking much the same as it had fifteen years ago. Then one of the Roman Forum with a comment from Richard written on the back: ‘Ruins are only beautiful if they’re at least two thousand years old.’

  On Saturday Paula phoned Dorothea from the hospital line and told her about Richard’s letter.

  Dorothea’s joy almost bounced down the line. ‘Wonderful! That means I’ll hear from Fritz soon. I’d love to be in Rome right now! What I’d give for some decent sleep and just one night without the bombing. The main thing is that our menfolk are safe. Everything else can carry on as normal in the meantime.’

  Rudi started barking in the background and Paula could also hear the sound of Henriette and Harri squabbling.

  ‘Sorry, I’ll have to stop now,’ said Dorothea. ‘Sounds as though our own war has broken out here! Shall we talk again on Monday?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll call you as soon as I can then. Perhaps your letter will have come by then too!’

  For just a moment a ray of light seemed to break through the gloom and Paula permitted herself the luxury to hope that the worst was over.

  Chapter 49

  Rome was paradise for Richard and Fritz after so many months in North Africa. They both worked in one of the hospitals dedicated only to military staff and could continue to do so, provided they were not deployed elsewhere. This meant that Richard could devote himself to psychiatric work again, and as they had fixed working hours, they could take time out to enjoy the Eternal City. Richard had started an Italian course every Monday and persuaded Fritz to go along with him.

  ‘The war’s got to have some use,’ remarked Richard, ‘even if it’s just learning a new language.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll have us learning French if we get sent off to France, won’t you?’ Fritz still teased his rather serious friend at every opportunity.

  ‘Let’s see if there’s time!’ Richard said with a grin.

  During their Italian class on 9 August Richard’s thoughts were taken up with his children even more than usual. Today was the twins’ eleventh birthday. It was the third birthday they’d had to spend without him. He hoped it would be the last time he’d be so far away on their special day.

  Fritz noticed how quiet and subdued his friend was. ‘Are you thinking about the children?’

  Richard nodded. The class helped distract them both.

  That evening they returned to their lodgings and the latest military mail delivery. There was nothing for Richard this time, but a letter had come for Fritz.

  ‘At last!’ he shouted, but then faltered. ‘This is from Professor Wehmeyer?’ He was puzzled. He ripped open the envelope and read the letter in silence. Richard saw the colour drain from his face and his body start to tremble. The letter fell to the floor.

  ‘Fritz, what is it?’

  Fritz couldn’t speak. His face was completely without expression. He stared straight in front of him.

  ‘Fritz!’

  Still no reply. Richard bent to pick up the letter. Fritz didn’t react so Richard started reading. Still no reaction.

  My dear colleague, Herr Ellerweg

  It is extremely difficult for me to have to be the one to bring you this news. I fear, however, that nobody else here has felt able to take this on. Starting on the night of 24 July, Hamburg has experienced the worst bombing raids imaginable. British bombers pounded our beloved home city with incendiaries until 3 August, targeting our residential areas. We still don’t know how many people have died. The streets are littered with charred bodies, and early estimates speak of forty thousand dead. With the greatest of sadness I have learned that your wife and two children, Henriette and Harri, all fell victim to this cowardly attack. Your father managed to save himself at first but the shock led to a major heart attack and he died two days later in our hospital. Please accept my deepest and most sincere condolences. I always considered your wife, Dorothea, to be one of the best theatre nurses I had ever worked with. Your father was a most empathetic colleague. It breaks my heart to think of your children’s happy laughter, now forever silenced. I wish I could find the words to ease the terrible pain in some way, but the tragedy that has befallen our flourishing city is too dreadful for any words.

  In deepest sympathy

  Your colleague, H. P. Wehmeyer

  ‘My God, my God, Fritz, I am so very sorry.’ Richard could do no more than whisper.

  Fritz was still staring straight ahead, his face expressionless, but then he suddenly let out a cry of such pain and torment that Richard’s blood ran cold. Before he realised what was happening Fritz had seized a bedside lamp and hurled it against the wall, where it shattered into pieces. Someone flung open the door to their shared room.

  ‘What’s going on?’ This was Dr Buchwald, who shared the room next door with another colleague.

  ‘Get away from me!’ Fritz roared, seizing a chair and flinging it against the wall.

  ‘Fritz, calm yourself. This won’t help!’ Richard urged his friend, but in vain. Fritz was raging like a madman.

  Dr Buchwald brought Franke, his room-mate, to help Richard, who swiftly put them in the picture.

  ‘He’s just heard that his wife, children and father have all died during the latest air raids.’ Richard was trying to hold Fritz.

  ‘Oh God, how terrible.’ Dr Buchwald himself had gone white.

  ‘I need Evipan!’ Richard looked straight at Dr Buchwald. ‘Quickly!’

  ‘No!’ roared Fritz. ‘Don’t inject me!’

  ‘Keep still, Fritz,’ said Richard, using all his strength to hold his dear friend down on the floor. He feared the despair could drive him to destroy everything in the room. Dr Buchwald hurried back with the Evipan at the ready and helped his colleague hold Fritz long enough for Richard to
administer the injection. It took only a few seconds for Fritz’s muscles to slacken and relax. They lifted him on to the bed.

  ‘This is strictly between us,’ said Richard. ‘He’ll be his old self tomorrow, you have my word.’

  The two colleagues nodded and left.

  The effects of the Evipan lasted about an hour and then Fritz slowly came round. ‘You just drugged me,’ he groaned.

  ‘That’s right. You gave me no choice.’

  Fritz stared at the ceiling. ‘Tell me it isn’t true, Richard. Tell me someone’s playing some terrible joke on me.’

  ‘You know that would be a lie,’ said Richard quietly.

  ‘Can you explain why it’s always me? Why it’s always my children? First Gottlieb, now Henriette and Harri. Why? And Doro, and my father . . . They’ve never harmed anyone. They were all completely innocent, had nothing to do with the war. Can you tell me why the Royal Air Force would deliberately target residential areas, murdering countless innocent people?’

  ‘I can’t explain any of it.’ Richard felt helpless. He seized his friend by the hand. ‘You’ve had the worst time any man could have. I beg you not to give up, Fritz. I need you. You’re my closest friend. I don’t want to lose you.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to shoot myself or jump out of a window. Doro was a practising Catholic, after all. She’d have no truck with suicide.’

  In the weeks following his loss Fritz was desolate and became very introverted, but Richard knew his friend was trying to fight back and finding refuge in his work. He saw how Fritz took on extra shifts and pushed himself to the limit and beyond, as he had done in Tunis and Tobruk. The difference this time was that he was doing it more for himself than for the wounded men. The more he worked, the less space there was for the pain.

  Richard heard from his own father that they too had been bombed out of their home and that the workshop had been completely destroyed. At least no one had died. Margit and her family now lived at the Moorfleet allotment garden, while Richard’s parents had moved in with Paula’s father, whose house remained untouched.

  Meanwhile, in Italy, the political unrest continued to grow. Mussolini had been toppled by his own people but Hitler had helped him suppress the rebellion and he came back to power. The Italians no longer felt themselves to be a united nation and the Germans were an occupying force who propped up Mussolini. Both Richard and Fritz noticed how the mood was shifting, how disgruntled locals now gave them and their uniforms contemptuous glances instead of the previous open and friendly reception.

  The expected posting to France, to Cherbourg in fact, came at the end of November 1943.

  ‘I’d have gone for Paris myself. What are we supposed to do in a seaside resort out of season?’ Fritz had recently regained his sense of humour, but it wasn’t without a cynical edge.

  ‘Yes, the weather could be better,’ said Richard in wry agreement. ‘But at least this way we’re getting closer to our home country.’

  ‘What’s left of it. Come on, let’s look at what passes for a field hospital here and make ourselves useful.’

  When Christmas came Fritz decided to forego his leave. ‘I’ve got nowhere to go back to,’ he said.

  ‘You could come to us!’

  ‘Thanks. I know you mean well, Richard, but it would remind me too much of what I’ve lost. No, I’d rather stay here.’

  Richard travelled home to his family with mixed feelings that year. On the one hand, he was looking forward to seeing them, but on the other, he was extremely worried about Fritz. He knew how little joy his friend now found in life.

  Chapter 50

  Christmas that year was the most cheerless Paula had ever known. For the first time in their young lives, Emilia and Georg understood death. It was no longer an unknown that happened to other people. The deaths of Fritz’s children had torn a huge hole in their lives, more than any other wartime death. When Jürgen had fallen early in 1940, the twins had been seven and had simply accepted it. They hadn’t seen their older cousin that often and so didn’t have a strong attachment to him, but they’d grown up with Henriette and Harri. On top of all this, Frau Heiroth was still in mourning for her son and constantly full of bad tidings. Paula hated this dismal atmosphere and would have preferred to move out, but accommodation was in short supply. She was relieved when Frau Heiroth announced she was planning to spend Christmas with her sister.

  When Richard arrived home his mood was not a great deal better than that of their landlady. He was deeply concerned about his friend and feared that he was taking risks with his safety. He mentioned this over the Christmas meal. There was only a basic meatloaf this year, with potatoes and a bit of red cabbage.

  ‘Will Uncle Fritz die too?’ Emilia asked.

  ‘What makes you ask that, poppet?’

  ‘Well, if he’s not paying attention to his safety, and he’s stayed at the Front . . .’ She hesitated. ‘But you’ll pay attention, won’t you, Papa?’

  ‘Always, poppet. And I always look after Uncle Fritz too.’

  ‘What happens when someone dies?’ chipped in Georg. ‘Where do we go when we’re dead?’

  Paula was about to talk about all the souls going to heaven, but Richard got in first.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ he said.

  Today of all days, why did Richard have to be so damnably honest? Couldn’t he just have come up with the usual line about paradise? But there was no stopping him now.

  ‘Life is a great mystery, you know. Medicine can do a lot, but there’s one thing it can’t do, and that’s bring the dead back to life. If someone dies because his heart has stopped beating, we can’t just bring him round again with a new heart. The spark of life has gone out and we don’t know what kindled it in the first place. The Church calls it the spirit. It’s like a car engine breaking down. You get a replacement engine and have it fitted and the car works again, but only with a driver at the wheel. If the driver gets out and goes off, it doesn’t matter how many new engines the mechanic puts in place, the car won’t go on its own.’

  ‘So is the spirit the driver?’ asked Emilia.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it gets out when the body’s broken down, instead of waiting to be repaired. So where does it go, this spirit? Does it look for a new car, like the driver does?’

  ‘Hindus and Buddhists believe that the spirit seeks out a new body that is not yet born and is then reborn as either a human or an animal. Christians believe that the spirit goes back to God and must first go to purgatory to be cleansed of all its bad deeds. If the spirit has been particularly bad, then it has to suffer permanently in hell. I believe anything is possible. Perhaps some spirits drift into nothingness and stop existing because they’ve existed for long enough. Whatever it may be, we’ll only find out when we die ourselves.’

  ‘And what about ghosts?’ asked Georg. ‘Do you think that many spirits turn into ghosts?’

  ‘Ghosts don’t exist,’ retorted Emilia.

  ‘Well, not like in the kind of ghost stories you’ve perhaps heard,’ Richard said, backing her up. ‘But there may be some spirits that float around for a while in the place where their body died.’

  ‘Do you think that Henriette, Harri and Aunt Dorothea are still floating around in the ruins?’

  ‘Definitely not. If they were going to float around anywhere, it would be near Uncle Fritz, and they’d be telling him they’re all right, but they’ve never shown up there. That’s why I think they’ve been in a better place for a long time. In any case, no one knows which way they’ve gone.’

  When Richard and Paula were in their bedroom much later that evening she gently admonished him. ‘I hope the children won’t have nightmares about that conversation. Couldn’t you just have told them the usual?’

  ‘No,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘I had to be perfectly honest with them and tell them what I myself believe. They’re too old now for fairy tales.’

  ‘You think Christian teaching is a fairy
tale?’

  ‘No, I see it as a parable that helps people make sense of the incomprehensible. In times like these I prefer my story about the car.’

  ‘Richard, you’re incorrigible.’

  ‘I know. You tell me often enough!’ He burst into such infectious laughter that Paula couldn’t help but do the same.

  Then she whispered in his ear, ‘Do you know how much I love you?’

  He whispered back, ‘As much as I do you?’

  ‘At least as much as that. And I just wouldn’t know what to do if I were ever to lose you. Promise me you’ll always come back to us unharmed, whatever happens.’

  ‘I’ve promised you that right from the start, and I hereby renew my promise! Please don’t worry. We’re sitting tight in Cherbourg now. No Allied general would dare land in the middle of Normandy. Everything will be fine, Paula. I promise you.’

  The festive season, with its hint of a normal family life, ended all too soon, as it had done every year since Richard’s conscription. At the start of 1944 Paula found herself once again taking care of patients and also looking for a new home tutor for Georg. Emilia had started at the local grammar school the previous autumn, and Paula didn’t want Georg to fall too far behind his twin sister. She hoped that the war would soon end, whatever the outcome, and that Georg would be able to go back to specialist tuition for deaf and dumb children and prepare properly for his end-of-school Abitur examinations. It pained her deeply to see how marginalised his deafness had left him, in spite of his obvious intelligence.

  Spring came and Richard’s letters from the Front served to reassure her. There seemed to be no immediate danger and even Fritz, after everything he’d been through, seemed to be coming to terms with his terrible loss, on the outside at least.

  That was until one day in June when she returned to their lodgings after work as usual only to be met by a distraught Frau Heiroth.