She crouched, waited for an opportunity, then dashed to the next semblance of cover. In fifteen minutes, she was sore and exhausted, her knees and palms scraped raw, and she had only reached the Behrenstrasse. She saw open fire between tanks and Volkssturm men on the Unter den Linden and had to wait until the Soviet tanks rolled past her toward the Brandenburg Gate. Then she crossed the wide avenue and in a few minutes she could see the bridge over the Spree. Still intact, though it seethed with Volkssturm and Hitlerjugend rushing south to face the Soviet tanks.
Frederica huddled out of sight as some dozen fighters came past, men in civilian overcoats and children in Hitlerjugend uniforms. Running to their deaths, not knowing that their Führer had already abandoned them. Then she continued her headlong dash toward the bridge and, though she heard the constant popping of small-arms fire, made it across with only bleeding knees.
Finally, at the break of dawn, she was in the Luisenstrasse and the vast expanse of the Charité grounds lay in front of her. She was stunned. In the week of her confinement in the bunker, the hospital had been heavily damaged. Almost every building she could see was blasted, and she was certain that patients and staff had been evacuated to the basements and lower floors.
She began her search in the trauma ward, which had been on the ground floor, but it too had been evacuated. She moved down to the basement and found herself in a sea of wounded. Beds were crammed together in twos, with the narrowest space between the rows for attending staff, and in the corridors, they were head to foot, in an unbroken line. At the center of the ward, patients simply lay on the floor on blankets. She stopped an orderly.
“Please, how can I find one of your nurses? She was among the ones meeting the troop trains.”
“No idea, Fräulein. They’ve assigned people anywhere they can grab them. Not that we can do any good now. The Russians came and took what was left of our medicines.” He rushed on past her. Russians already in the hospital? She was afraid of that.
She went from building to building, cellar to cellar, and it was always the same. The wounded were everywhere, calling for help, with staff rushing among the beds to bring water, bedpans, bandages. But Katja was nowhere among them.
Then she saw a familiar face, one she had seen in the newspaper. “Dr. von Eicken!” She ran toward him. “Forgive me, but I’m desperate to find a nurse, Katja Sommer.”
“Fräulein, we are all desperate here. Can’t you see? I’m sorry I can’t help you, but you might take some water to the patients while you look.” He hurried away and Frederica was chagrined. He was right. She could at least carry a pitcher with her from ward to ward.
She fetched one from what appeared to be a nurses’ station and filled it, then went along the aisles between the beds, trying to catch a glimpse of every nurse she passed. And each time someone called out to her, she went to help. She passed most of the night alternating between searching and helping patients. It became a mechanical sort of work, and for brief moments, she almost forgot that she had any purpose other than to bring water.
“Frederica?” someone called. She spun around. Water sloshed over the rim of the pitcher onto the floor.
“Rudi? Oh, my God, I thought I’d never find you. I’ve been looking for Katja for hours.” Frederica rushed toward him and kissed him on both cheeks.
He offered a wan smile as she sat on the edge of the bed and took his hand.
“It’s been so long. I wouldn’t have recognized you if Katja hadn’t told me you were here. You must have been through hell.”
“Don’t want to talk about that,” he mumbled, and Frederica had no time to press further. “Listen, we’ve got to round up Katja and Peter and try to break out of here. Can you walk?”
He nodded. “Slowly. Arm hurts.”
“Frederica!” This time it was Peter, still with a mop. He propped it against the foot of the bed and embraced her. “You escaped. Thank God.”
“Listen, Hitler’s dead, and so is Goebbels. I’m not sure who’s in charge now. But the Russians are still coming in waves so we have to get out of Berlin. All four of us. Do you know how to find Katja?”
“She was with the surgeons in the bunker this morning but could be anywhere now. You’ll have to wait here. She’ll come back sooner or later to check on Rudi. He’s in bad shape.”
Frederica focused again on Rudi and saw that he was almost in a state of stupor. He could talk, but didn’t want to. She looked questioningly at Peter, but he only shrugged and changed the subject.
“Frederica, dear. You look terrible. Why don’t you rest? Lie down here under the bed on a blanket where you won’t get stepped on. We’ll watch over you until Katja comes back.”
“Rest, yes. A good idea. I’m so tired.” She let herself drop to the floor onto the blanket Peter offered her. Lying on her side, she drew up her badly scraped knees and laid her head on her forearms. Outside the hospital walls, Berlin was being destroyed, but in the dizzying fatigue that overcame her, Frederica felt safe among friends and fell asleep within minutes.
Chapter Thirty-five
“God damn it! The flag’s gone,” Major Tcheletchev swore. “Marshall Zhukov ordered a flag on the Reichstag building before May Day and we gave him one, but here it is two days later and the Nazis have gotten up to the roof and removed it. This time we’re going to kick the shit out of them. Bring up the mortars.”
At the major’s signal, two mortar teams rushed forward with their 82 mm cannons on tripods. They set up in moments, and with a single barrage, the two mortars succeeded in punching through the bricked-up doorway. Seasoned fighters poured into the building through the opening. Once inside, they split into teams, some confronting the Germans who emerged from the cellar and others climbing to the upper floors. In less than an hour, they managed to seize the building completely. Outside, Lieutenant Yevgeny Khaldei stood by, one hand supporting a massive red flag wrapped around a pole and the other holding his Leica camera.
When the last Germans emerged from the building under a white flag, Yevgeny called to a knot of nearby soldiers. “Who’s going up on the roof with me? Alyosha Kolvalyov, what about you? You want to be a hero today?”
“Sure, if I don’t get my head blown off.”
“Ismailov, what about you?”
“To get my picture taken? Why not? Yuri’ll come too.” A third soldier nodded.
The four of them scuttled up the steps into the now-pacified parliament building and made their way up onto the roof. Broken slate and a layer of grit made poor footing, and they had to scrabble part of the way on their knees. But finally they reached the highest part of the Reichstag roof and looked down onto the street. Below them, their fellow soldiers looked like ants, and their tanks like so many toys.
Alyosha Kolvalyov pointed toward an ornamental column. “How about there?”
Lieutenant Khaldei positioned himself on a ledge just over the heads of the other men. “Can you climb up on the column?”
“More drama, eh?” Kolvalyov scrambled onto the rounded top of the column and dropped to his knees to keep his balance. Ismailov held one leg, as Kolvalyov unfurled the flag and let the wind catch it. It fluttered handsomely in the soot-filled breeze.
“Great shot!” Khaldei hefted his Leica in front of him and began shooting. Again and again he snapped, from various angles and perspectives. The third man stood back watching his two comrades and called up to him. “You think people are going to give a shit that we put a flag on an empty building?”
Yevgeny Khaldei snapped another frame. “Yeah, I think they will. Besides, I owe some friends a flag picture, and now, mine’s better than theirs.”
*
Frederica awoke to the sound of shouting. She pulled herself up between two beds and realized she was hearing Russian. She ran to the corridor and saw them, Soviet soldiers streaming in from the stairwell. “Doctor come!” they were shouting, and dragging with them doctors, nurses, orderlies, anyone in hospital uniform. Were they being pressed into ser
vice to tend the Russian wounded or would they be executed? Then, to her horror, she saw a Russian soldier emerging from the lower staircase dragging Katja by the arm.
Peter was already lurching toward them and he waved to the Russian. “You, come here. Medicine.” He mimed using a hypo-dermic. “Here in the closet.” He swung open a door to a broom closet, but it contained a shelf holding a row of bottles of disinfectant. The soldier came forward to investigate. Katja wrenched loose from his grip but the soldier, having caught sight of the cache of chlorine bottles, no longer cared. “Is good?” Peter asked, as if he had been trying to help him all along.
“Is good,” the soldier replied, loading his arms and lumbering away with the last four bottles of disinfectant.
Katja and Peter ran to Rudi’s bed where Frederica was helping him to his feet. “We’ve got to get out,” she said. “We’ll go west to the Allied lines, where they can send a message to the SOE. Handel can identify us.”
“Do we know where the British are?” Katja asked.
“Somewhere north. The Americans are closer.” Frederica gathered up Rudi’s blanket and began folding it.
“The radio said they stopped at the Elbe,” Peter said. “That’s quite a distance. If you two can walk that far, I can carry Rudi on my freight bike. I suggest we go ahead and wait for you in Potsdam. I used to live there and know some of the shopkeepers. I can probably negotiate some food and a place for Rudi to lie down for a night, maybe some civilian clothes too.”
“Good idea,” Katja said. “In the meantime I’ll pass back by my father’s house and pick up some warm clothing and a few valuables. Here, take this.” She handed Peter the folded blanket. “In case you have to sleep in the open. And this too.”
She pulled an unopened package of French cigarettes from her apron pocket. “From my father’s supply. I’ve been giving them to the patients in place of painkillers. But these are for you and Rudi to exchange for food.”
“Where should we meet you in Potsdam?” Peter asked.
“At the railroad station. Last I heard, it was still in one piece. If you have to leave, put up a notice there. Otherwise, we’ll look for you there in two days.”
“Fine.” Peter reached for Rudi’s service jacket to help him dress.
“No, not the jacket,” Frederica said. I think he’ll do better as a civilian, even in pajamas. If he’s in uniform, both sides will be after him, not to mention the snipers. The sicker he looks the better.”
“All right. Pajamas and blanket it is.” Peter knelt to put Rudi’s hospital slippers on him, and Rudi took faltering steps away from his sick bed. The others followed, making their way among the beds and pallets of the helpless.
Katja felt a pang of regret for leaving the wounded soldiers behind. Some of them had happily enlisted, others had been forced, but all had fought for Hitler. She had to make her own choice now, between aiding them until the very end or leaving them to the fate their leader had brought them to. It seemed to her that three months in a concentration camp had given her the right to flee.
Though Soviets still streamed into the hospital in search of medicines or booty, enough civilians were running about, agitated and frightened, that the four of them were able to reach the street unmolested. Together they made up an odd and rather pathetic little group. Three civilians, wheeling a patient in a blanket on a freight bicycle, along the Luisenstrasse. Russian military vehicles swung around them and foot soldiers ignored them.
As they crossed the River Spree where Frederica had come a day before, they could see down the length of the Wilhelmstrasse. It was filled with advancing Red Army troops but their guns were silent.
“I don’t want to march past those troops, even if they know by now that Hitler’s dead,” Peter said. “Turn right, toward the Reichstag.”
They passed German civilians, the very elderly, who seemed to have just emerged from their cellars. More Russian soldiers drove past them in a jeep, laughing.
They wove in and out of burnt-out vehicles, blasted buildings, piles of rubble. On all sides of them lay dead men and the bloated carcasses of horses. It was important to keep moving. While Peter pedaled over broken brick and gravel, Rudi rode bumping up and down on the rear platform of the bicycle. In his bandages, which covered his upper chest, right arm, and left knee, and the obviousness of his suffering, he gave them credence as non-combatants.
Suddenly Peter stopped pedaling. “Ohmygod, look. Up there.”
He pointed with his chin toward the Reichstag building. Black with soot, it held a single spot of color, a bright-red Soviet flag. “Look, you can see the men on the roof holding onto it. Another one’s off to the side taking pictures.”
Rudi looked up through bloodshot eyes. “Great flag picture. Better than ours.”
“So it’s over now, I guess,” Katja murmured. “Finally, peace.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Rudi said, hoarsely. “I know what we did to the Russians. We’ve got it coming back to us.” He fell silent again, his expression grim.
Katja’s mind was elsewhere. “Listen, Peter. The shortest route to Potsdam is southwest along the Potsdamer Chausée. It runs parallel to the railroad line. It’ll also be safer since there’s bound to be lots of other refugees to give you cover. In the meantime, Frederica and I will follow the Kurfürstendam west to Grünewald.”
“All right then,” Peter said. “Try not to take too long. We really don’t want to meet the Allies without you to plead our case.”
Peter’s bicycle wobbled off due south, while Katja and Frederica joined the ragtag groups heading westward. Reluctant to talk around strangers, Katja fell to brooding. Could they make it unscathed to the American lines? So many disasters were still possible: Russian rape, SS-style execution, banditry on the road. Even if they reached American lines, would anyone bother to contact the SOE? And if they did, how much would her service count? Not to mention Rudi, still debilitated and technically a POW, no, technically a criminal, for homosexuality remained illegal, war or no war. And Peter? Would the Allies even remotely care about a half-Jewish homosexual and part-time terrorist? Frederica’s arm around her shoulder reminded her to take one step at a time.
*
Katja’s family house on the Brahmsstrasse in Grünewald was mercifully intact, and entering it after wandering the bomb-blasted streets of downtown Berlin was surreal.
They dropped onto the soft furniture in the living room and Frederica gave out a long sigh. “Okay, I know we can’t stay here when we’re just hours ahead of the Russians so, before I fall asleep here, tell me the plan.”
“Plan,” Katja repeated. “You know, I wanted more than anything to make a hot meal for us both, crawl into bed, then spend a loving night with you for the first time in weeks. But I guess that would be insane.” She turned sideways and tugged on Frederica’s jacket.
“To start, you have to get out of those pretty secretary clothes. We’ve been lucky so far, but eventually you’ll attract the attention of sex-starved soldiers. You can put on an old coat of my mother. The only way we’ll be safe is to dress like old women, with dirty faces.”
“Do you think we’ll fool anyone?”
“Not up close. But among the thousands of refugees heading west, we’ll look just like all the other old people. Now come down to the cellar with me and help me choose food to pack.” Katja drew a battered suitcase from the bottom of a cabinet and dragged it down the stairs.
The cellar smelled of mold, but Katja was pleased to note the supply of the food her father had kept “for emergencies”: dried Landjäger sausage and Emmentaler cheese. Even a case of beer, which she’d forgotten about.
“The beer’s going to be too heavy to carry, but we can take a couple of these for our first night.” She held up two of the spring-stoppered bottles and laid them side-by-side in the suitcase. “There’s even a jar of my mother’s pickled red cabbage.” She laid it reverently among the sausages and cheeses.
They dragged the suitc
ase back up to the living room and stood panting over their three-day survival rations. Katja looked around the living room, at all the familiar objects she had grown up with. “There are a hundred things I wish I could take along, but it’s impossible—though I suppose it’s no different from losing it all to bombs.”
She thought for a moment. “For sure, I don’t want to leave my mother’s jewelry. It’s just a few pieces, but they’re all I have of her. While I get them, why don’t you wrap the bottles in towels and pack what we’ve collected. I’ll be right down with blankets and a coat. Maybe I can also find some wheels so we don’t have to carry everything.”
Once upstairs, Katja rummaged quickly through the family chest, caressing the items she had kept from both her mother and father. Her mother’s soft night shawl, a pair of formal kid gloves, a string of pearls, an embroidered vest, her wedding ring. There was her father’s watch and his opera “treasures”: an autographed photo of the great Lauritz Melchior; the string part to the opera Tosca, signed by Toscanini; black velvet gauntlets worn by Mephistopheles in Faust; the flashy dagger from Macbeth. Would Frederica find the cache of souvenirs amusing?
She froze suddenly at the sound of the front door opening. Had the Russians reached Grünewald? She’d heard stories about what the Russians did to women. She stood up clutching the prop dagger. It wasn’t sharp, but with enough force…
Silently, she crept to the top of the stairs and looked down into the living room. She saw no Russians, to her relief. Just a single man in an SS uniform. She was about to go down and investigate, but something made her stop.
Frederica’s voice was loud with surprise and annoyance. “What are you doing here? How did you know—”
“I saw you in front of the Reichstag building and kept following you. You’re not seriously thinking of fleeing west to the Americans, are you? That would be stupid.”
Katja recognized the voice of Erich Prietschke. A flush of anger went through her, but she remained on the stairs, out of sight.
Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright Page 24