The all-clear sounded and Katja stood up, brushing dust off her clothes. “Listen, I have to go to work now. I’m covering the midnight shift and I have to take two Strassenbahns to get there. If the bombs have hit any of the tracks, I’ll have to go by foot.”
“Of course. I’ll walk with you as far as the corner stop. It’s the least I can do.”
They strode together, arm in arm, as the fire trucks drove past them. Neither spoke, Katja out of relief and Peter out of shame.
She boarded the Strassenbahn, and although it was crowded as she expected, she did not encounter the sullen lethargy that usually followed a bombing raid. She heard something else, a buzzing, in the air, from all the people who were murmuring to each other. Had the bombs done catastrophic damage finally, and everyone wondered what to do?
She turned to the man standing right next to her, holding to the same pole. “Excuse me, sir. The bombs, did they destroy something big this time?”
“Oh, no, Fräulein. Just the usual damage. But the news came about an hour ago. The Japanese have attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbor.”
America in the war? Katja thought. That changed everything.
Chapter Twenty-four
January 1942
Finally it was 18:00 hours. Katja finished marking the last patient’s chart and retreated to the changing room. Wearily, she removed her cap and nursing smock. With the scarcity of soap, she tried to postpone washing it as long as possible, so it was a relief to find it had survived the day unstained by blood or urine. She hung the smock on the hook under her nameplate and had just slid one arm into the sleeve of her coat when the senior nurse confronted her.
Grete Rumoldt possessed every virtue of the master race. Tall, blond, the mother of three sons and a daughter, she kept a picture of the Führer on her desk, next to the one of her children. She stood as rigidly as a soldier and delivered work orders in such as way as to forestall reply. Katja grimaced; her arrival did not bode well.
“Sommer. Good that I’ve caught you. Heide Kram is sick and you’ve got to take over her shift. There’s no one else.”
“But I’ve just done ten hours and I have a sick father to take care of at home.” She lied, though the ten hours’ part was true. Nurse Rumoldt was not impressed.
“I don’t want to hear any whining. Remember our soldiers are out there fighting for the Fatherland right now. They’re cold, sleepless, and in danger, and ten hours moping around in a warm place like the Charité would be paradise for them. Report back to the nurses’ station immediately.” She left without waiting for a reply.
Sullen, Katja exchanged her coat for her calf-length smock and buttoned it up. Other nurses on the floor could have taken the shift, but Rumoldt had instantly disliked her the day she arrived. Katja wasn’t sure why, though she supposed it was because she never once said “Heil Hitler,” or spoke of the Fatherland, or complained about the Jews. She also seemed to take it personally that Katja, though dutifully married to a man in the Wehrmacht, was still childless, as if she was somehow derelict.
Katja reported as ordered to the nurses’ station where Nurse Rumoldt stood recording the day’s assignments. She looked up briefly, then slapped a clipboard into Katja’s hand. “You’ll do the rounds in wards 12, 13, and 14. Dr. von Eicken is in 12 right now with a patient and may need your help, so don’t stand there. Go do your job.”
Katja marched without protest to ward 12. As reported, Doctor Von Eicken was with a patient at the third bed, so she approached quietly and stood at his side, prepared to carry out any of his directives.
The patient was speaking. “You’re sure it’s not cancer?”
“Almost certain, Frau Möhringer. It has all the signs of a benign growth, the sort that we treat all the time.” The burly, mustached doctor patted her hand. “We’ll take care of that in no time and you can go home to your husband.”
“My husband’s at the front, Herr Doctor,” she answered. He’s a Brigadeführer and they can’t spare him, so he comes home only once every two months.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but of course we all have to make our sacrifices for the war.” He peered down at Katja through heavy glasses. “Nurse, please take a blood sample from Frau Möhringer so we’ll know her blood type for the surgery tomorrow.” He clasped the hand of the patient once more in both of his. “All will be well,” he said, and left the ward.
Katja echoed the doctor’s comfort. “Don’t worry, now, Frau Möhringer. You’re in the very best of hands. Professor von Eicken is an expert.” She swabbed the woman’s arm with alcohol and carefully inserted the syringe into the vein in the curve of her elbow.
“Oh, yes. I know. That’s why I came to him in the first place. My husband checked into his record. What a surprise to learn that he had operated on the Führer’s throat. Obviously, he must be the best in Germany, don’t you think?”
Katja concealed her surprise. “I’m sure he must be.” She drew the blood and slid the needle out of the vein, then pressed another wad of cotton against the perforation. “You just rest now and let Dr. von Eicken take care of you.”
After noting the procedure on the patient’s chart, Katja delivered the blood sample to the laboratory and returned to the ward to tend to the remaining five patients. She washed them, changed bandages, administered medication, whatever was scheduled on their charts, and reported back to the nurses’ station.
As expected, Nurse Rumoldt was there when Katja handed back her clipboard. “Is it true that Doktor von Eicken operated on the Führer?”
Given the chance to show superior knowledge, Rumoldt nearly smiled and bypassed her usual criticism. “Yes, he did. Back in 1935.”
Frau Klotzenberg, the oldest nurse in the wing, nodded. “It was for a lump. You know the fiery way the Führer speaks. It was just his way of reaching the people, but it ruined his vocal cords. Of course he needed to see the best specialist in Germany, but he didn’t want to expose his throat to someone he didn’t know.” Frau Klotzenberg laughed an endearing cackle. “So he sent his adjutant to have his tonsils out.” She cackled again. “Imagine that. Sending someone to test the doctor.”
“Dr. von Eicken passed muster, of course,” Nurse Rumoldt added. “That goes without saying. The next day he was called to the Führer, who was sure he had throat cancer.”
“But obviously he didn’t.”
“Obviously,” Frau Rumoldt parroted. “It was just a little polyp, the kind that singers get. Dr. von Eicken did the surgery right there in the Chancellery.”
“But you left out the best part.” The older nurse was smirking. “About the anesthetic.”
“There’s nothing to tell. They just gave the Führer too much and it took a long time to wear off.”
“You bet it did,” Klotzenberg said, snickering. “Twenty-four hours. And midway through that, the SS began to suspect an assassination attempt. But it was just the Führer, sleeping like a baby. You can just imagine the scene when he finally woke up, all those SS men wiping their brows.”
Nurse Rumoldt did not appreciate their levity. “You should have more respect. It’s no small thing when the Führer must go under an anesthetic. Of course he should have trusted us. A lot of loyal party members work here, even at the highest levels. They are at the very forefront of our new medicine, especially in the fields of Racial Research and Racial Biology. Real pioneers.”
“Racial research,” Katja said cautiously. “Still very theoretical though, isn’t it?”
Nurse Rumoldt didn’t like to sense the wind dropping from her sails, even if they were someone else’s sails. “Well, if you insist on practical gains, our other doctors have developed an inoculation against malaria from experiments at Dachau, and very clever doctors are doing testing at Auschwitz. This hospital will be very important in the future of Germany, so there will be no more mockery.”
Katja was silent. Did they experiment in all the concentration camps? Before Frau Rumoldt could add another anecdote about the Na
zi doctors’ medical miracles, a fourth nurse arrived at the station.
“Did you hear? Leni Riefenstahl, the actress, has been admitted to the hospital. She’s downstairs, just one floor below.”
“What happened? What’s wrong with her?” Katja asked with a degree of concern that surprised even her.
“Something gastrointestinal. She collapsed while filming yesterday and they admitted her here. Dr. Sauerbruch is treating her.”
Nurse Rumoldt glanced back at the work schedule. “Stop chattering, all of you, and finish your rounds.”
Postponing any decision-making about Leni Riefenstahl or her status, Katja finished her extra shift. At two in the morning, she collected her coat and, grainy-eyed with fatigue, was about to leave. But something held her.
She descended one flight of stairs and went to the fourth floor nurses’ station. The night nurse was tending to someone, but the patients’ clipboards hung in a row behind the empty station. It took only a moment to find the chart marked Riefenstahl. There it was, on the end. Her attending physician was Sauerbruch, and she was in room 34.
The corridor was empty but for the janitor who was pushing his wide broom along the polished floor. She waited until he passed her, then hurried down the hall.
Room 34 was a single room, a luxury even in peacetime. Katja pushed open the door soundlessly and stood for a moment in the doorway, letting her eyes adapt to the darkness.
Leni Riefenstahl lay on the bed on her side in the fetal position. She looked small, pathetic. When the light from the corridor shone on her bed, she stirred.
“Nurse,” she called out. “The pain’s back. Can you give me some more morphine?”
Chagrined at being caught in her voyeurism, Katja approached the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m not the nurse on duty. But I’ll tell her. What did the doctor say?”
Riefenstahl’s expression wasn’t visible in the dull light, but her hesitation revealed puzzlement. “If you’re not the night nurse, what are you doing here?”
“I work on the floor above. Don’t you remember me?”
Her voice registered impatience. “No, who are you? What do you want?”
“It’s me. Katja Sommer. I’m sorry to show up in the middle of the night, but I just got off my shift.”
“Ah, so this is where you ended up. I wondered,” Riefenstahl said in a voice made tense by pain.
“Yes, I suppose filmmaking wasn’t for me.”
“Well, it’s killing me. Can you get me more morphine?”
“I’ll tell the night nurse as soon as I leave. I just wanted to stop by and…I don’t know. Comfort you a little, I suppose. I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t. The fire in my guts already did that.”
“Did Dr. Sauerbruch tell you what it is?” Katja’s eyes had adapted to the darkness and she could see the suffering in Riefenstahl’s face. Her hair lay wet and limp around her head.
“He wasn’t specific and said if the medication didn’t bring me around I should take a couple of weeks’ rest in the Alps. But that would play hell with the production schedule.”
“Well, at least it will get you away from Berlin and the air raids.”
“I don’t care about the air raids. I have a job to do. I’ve managed so far through sheer brute will, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.”
“You may have to stop driving yourself that way, at least for awhile, and let your body recover,” Katja suggested, surprised at her own formulation. “In any case, see what Dr. Sauerbruch—”
“Hello?” the night nurse said quietly, her voice full of suspicion. “Are you supposed to be here?”
Riefenstahl spoke up. “It’s all right. She’s an old friend who stopped by after her shift.” To Katja, “Thank you for your good wishes. I’ll struggle through. I always have.”
Katja touched her hand with a light tap and turned to leave, nodding at the nurse on duty. Once in the corridor, she felt the irony of the situation. The powerful Leni Riefenstahl, friend of Hitler, curled up like a colicky baby. “The Lord sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust,” she muttered, and wondered how Rudi Lamm was doing on the Eastern Front.
Chapter Twenty-five
May 1942
Rudi Lamm kept to the rear of the group as his twenty-man unit clambered out of the troop truck and fast-marched into the Byelorussian village of Kliczów. He wasn’t afraid of being shot. The local population had surrendered and been disarmed. But the others in his troop were far more ready to take out their anger on the local people than he was, empowering themselves by brutalizing a population even weaker than they.
The entire regiment had been recruited like himself, from the edges and dredges of society. Poachers, petty criminals, Russians and Ukrainians who hated Stalin more than Hitler. Then political prisoners, homosexuals, gypsies, all given the choice to fight for the Reich or turn to crap in a concentration camp. Where other troops might have felt loyalty to the Reich, his regiment was united only by cynicism and unfocused rage. When patients from the psychiatric hospitals joined the ranks, lunacy was added to the mix.
Desertions had been frequent until an iron hand kept them in place. But the regiment was effective in cleaning out partisan activity behind the lines, not because they were clever but because, uninhibited by a military pride or code of honor, they were ruthless.
The Scharführer had said partisans were active in the woods all around the village. This time they had ambushed four SS men and strung them up by their feet. Each one bore a sign on his chest that spelled out месть.
Revenge. An ancient, terrible word, as old as war. And revenge sowed and reaped only more revenge. Though the bodies had been found a kilometer away, the commander had decided that this, the closest village, would bear responsibility.
“You there!” The Scharführer called to him. “Move on up. Any man not doing his duty will be shot.” The troop came to what had once been a garden in front of a house. Three men and a woman knelt, surrounded by the first soldiers that had arrived. A few dozen other locals stood in a group under German guard a few-dozen meters away “We’ve got them,” someone said.
Them? Rudi wondered. “How do you know?”
One of the soldiers held up a rifle, an old hunting gun. “We found this on him. The others were with him. Russian scum.” He kicked the nearest man.
“Nyet! Nyet!” the other man kept saying, along with a string of supplications.
Rudi translated. “He says he’s the schoolmaster. The gun was to protect his wife. Someone was trying to rape her.” He turned to his comrade, who was still holding the rifle. “That doesn’t mean he had anything to do with the ambush. It’s just an old hunting rifle.” Rudi argued but already sensed he was too late. All guns had to be surrendered, and keeping one, even worse, threatening someone with it, was enough to seal his fate. Already one of the men was sloshing gasoline from a jerry can onto the wall of the house.
“Shut your face, and let a real man show you what we do to partisans.” The brute of the group fired into the teacher’s face, killing him instantly. The other two men scrambled to their feet and broke into a run. They had not gone more than two meters when they were shot in the back. Only the woman still lived.
She tried to throw herself over the body of her husband but two soldiers snatched her up by both arms. She thrashed wildly and managed to pull one arm free. Leaning back against the man who still held her, she kicked the other man squarely between the legs and he doubled over, clutching his groin.
“Filthy Russian whore.” The soldier who held her struck her on the head and she dropped back down onto the ground. By now the house was ablaze and the soldier with the jerry can had run toward the altercation with the woman. Suddenly the injured man let go of his crotch and seized the can of fuel.
“Fucking whore. Teach you to attack a man like that,” he said, and doused her with gasoline. “No clean death for you.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket for a lighter.
; Most of the men fell back a step, as if in doubt as to whether the Scharführer would stand for it, but he only watched and gave no order to stop.
The brute taunted the woman for a few moments, waving the flame of his cigarette lighter in front of her face. “So, little Russian whore. You’re not so brave now, are you? Not so hot to break a man’s balls. Too bad it had to end this way. It would have been more fun to fuck you.”
He swept the lighter tip across her chest like a knife blade and her entire upper body burst into blue and yellow flames. She gave a single long scream. Without thinking, Rudi rushed toward her, snatched out his sidearm, and shot her through the head.
With open mouth and arms waving reflexively, she dropped like a marionette onto her back. Lying spread-eagle, she continued to burn, giving off a thick, greasy smoke. The crowd of villagers standing nearby broke apart and ran toward the woods, pursued by some of the guards. In the shock of what had just happened, Rudi had barely heard the click of a shutter.
An instant later, the brute turned his rifle toward Rudi. “I’ll blow your ass off for that, you little prick.”
“No, you won’t, Müller.” The Scharführer stepped between them, covering the lens of his camera. “Not now, anyhow. You’ll set a bad example. We’ve got a village to clean out.”
He waved an arm toward the others. “All right, you know how we do this thing: round up everyone in the square, set up the machine guns, and torch the houses. I don’t want anything left moving.”
As the troop dispersed to begin flushing civilians out of their houses, the Scharführer came alongside Rudi. “You’re way out of line interfering with an execution. I could have you shot for that.”
“Soldiers don’t burn people to death,” Rudi grumbled, but the Scharführer seized him by the shirt.
“Listen, you shitty little faggot. We have our orders to torch these villages and we’re going to do it. So if you have any crap ideas about killing them gently, you can just forget about it. You get in my way, and you’re a dead man.”
Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright Page 15