The English German Girl

by Jake Wallis Simons

  There – a nurse in a green greatcoat hurrying towards the exit, she is slight of frame like Rosa, and curls are springing from below her tin helmet. Samuel, heart quickening, calls Rosa, Rosa, just a minute, stumbles round a stretcher and plucks at the sleeve of her coat. The figure turns round: it is a Green Nurse, an emergency midwife, dressed for the street, case in her hand, gas mask over her shoulder, tin helmet on her head with LONDON HOSPITAL printed across it, ready to walk out through the air raid to deliver a baby.

  —You haven’t by any chance seen a probationer by the name of Clark? he asks.

  The Green Nurse regards him blankly, exhaustion and confusion on her face, unsure what to make of this wild-eyed bandaged man in pyjamas and a greatcoat.

  —There are hundreds of probationers, she says. Ask a night sister. You can find them in the wards with ribbon bows on the handles.

  —Ribbon bows?

  —Yes, ribbon bows mean that a night sister’s there.

  Suddenly Samuel glimpses another figure in a nurse’s greatcoat navigating her way towards the main entrance, something balanced in her hands; this time the coat is not green but navy, and the curls are unmistakably Rosa’s. He blinks; as quickly as she appeared, she is gone.

  Dizzy and aching, he pushes his way through the crowds and finds himself at the top of the grimy steps at the front of the hospital, faced with the gaping entrance, gazing out into the night. In the street there is nothing but blackness; the sky is overcast with a thick fog, and the moonshine seeps dully down onto the city, onto the roofs with their missing tiles, the iron plates over the windows, the piles of sandbags, the cracked pavement. Splashes of light splutter on the horizon, silhouetting the barrage balloons, followed by the noise of explosions; searchlights sweep the clouds, and planes can everywhere be heard, but not seen. Was it really Rosa, or was his mind playing tricks on him? It could, after all, have been a Green Nurse, or nobody at all. What on earth would Rosa be doing venturing out at the height of an air raid? And even if it was Rosa, how can he find her now – which way did she turn, left or right? In an instant he makes up his mind; in a burst of insanity he decides to follow his instinct. He takes a breath, turns his lapels up high against his cheeks and plunges into the freezing smog.

  4

  Samuel stumbles along the Whitechapel Road, bandaged and freezing in the darkness, ignoring the pain in his arm, his head, placing his trust in his instincts, heading in the direction of Aldgate, towards Liverpool Street station. The blackout is total apart from a rectangle of light a little way ahead coming from the doorway of a pub; two figures stand unsteadily in the light until an Air Raid Warden approaches and the door is closed; then there is nothing but blackness. Samuel cups his blackout torch in his hand, allowing just enough light to spill between his fingers onto the pavement in front of him. Dotted about are mushrooms of rubble, spent shell cases and water mains gushing into the street; the flat drone of aircraft can be heard overhead, punctuated by the heavy thud of guns, and he begins to feel stupid, and vulnerable, without so much as a tin helmet for protection.

  There – across the road, in the amber light of a fire, a slanting shadow slips across a wall. Samuel, heart punching in his chest, hurries over the road in pursuit, hoping against hope. He takes his fingers away from the mouth of the torch and allows the beam to illuminate the pavement in front of him – the shadow is moving up ahead, it could be Rosa, it could be the Green Nurse, it could be anyone really, or just a cat, or a trick of the light. An eerie quietude has fallen over the streets as a wave of bombers passes towards the north of the city, but Samuel knows that it will not be long before another squadron approaches, especially given the intensity of these raids. He slips his torch back into his pocket; the clouds have drifted away from the moon and, despite the smog, there is just enough light to see. He breaks into a jog, the impact of his feet on the pavement sending stinging waves of pain through his body, and suddenly he feels cripplingly thirsty; but it is Rosa up ahead, it has to be, and nothing, not his injuries, not the cold, not even the enemy, has the power to stop him now.

  Balancing the tea tray Rosa hastens along the treacherous pavement. The mugs collide against each other as she walks, spilling tea onto the cigarettes, she really should turn back, the gun crew are nowhere to be seen, they must have moved on, the tea will be stone cold by now. But she cannot bring herself to return to the ward, to spend the remainder of the night in the company of bedpans and temperature charts and incontinent old ladies. A strange thrill is passing through her, a powerful sensation of freedom. She has not left the hospital building for weeks, months probably, in fact she cannot remember the last time she felt the winter breeze against her face, apart from when passing along the iron bridge from the nurses’ homes to the hospital and back; and despite the bombers and the gunfire, and the knowledge that in the catacombs of the city below her thousands of humans are cowering, a sense of peace seems to reign above ground. The city is hers, nobody is around, there might be Air Raid Wardens and gun crews and policemen, but they are lurking in the shadows and few and far between; yes, London is hers, for a few precious minutes, and the greater the distance between her and the hospital, the further she leaves Samuel behind. For a moment she imagines she is back in Berlin, passing through the deserted streets, for despite the fact that her family has been uprooted and flung asunder, and she speaks every day in English, and eats English food, and breathes English air, and even thinks in English these days; despite all this she is not English to the core, and never will be. She slows her pace and considers stopping, resting for a while on a wall, but it is perishingly cold and she has to keep moving. Across the street a rectangle of light catches her attention, two drunken figures are lolling in a pub doorway, for a moment she is struck by the crazy impulse to go in, order a drink; but then an ARP Warden approaches, tells the couple to stop volunteering themselves to Jerry as a target, and this brings Rosa down: what is she doing outside, in an air raid, by herself, with a tray of cold tea, when she should be back at hospital tending to the sick? Nursing is not about fulfilling one’s own taste for adventure, it is about dedication to those in need. She is filled with shame and decides that she must go back. As she turns she sees, in the foggy street behind her, a silhouette approaching. Far off there is the boom of a high explosive; the figure approaches to within arm’s reach and rummages in its pocket; then a blackout torch clicks on, dimly illuminating a pair of shoes on the pavement.

  —Rosa, comes a breathless voice from the darkness, it is you. It is really you.

  The yellow beam of the blackout torch swings upwards to spread a horrid light across a face half covered with bandages, deep black shadows sweeping up in triangles above the eyebrows.

  —Friend or foe? says Rosa, alarmed.

  —Put that light out! someone shouts from somewhere.

  The torch is lowered and shines again on the shoes.

  —Do not be afraid, Rosa. It is me. Samuel.

  Rosa gasps and backs away, holding up the tea tray defensively.

  —No, I refuse to believe it. Are you haunting me?

  —You are haunting me.

  —Where did you come from? Have you been following me?

  —I wanted to give you a letter.

  —I’ll summon the police. After all this time, can’t you just leave me alone?

  —I just want to speak to you.

  —You’ve been told I’m not interested, isn’t that enough? What more must I do? And now you follow me into an air raid?

  —Rosa, please. I need to explain. Just allow me five minutes.

  —Five minutes is all it took to destroy our baby. If you continue to follow me I shall summon the police.

  —You don’t understand, says Samuel, it’s not true.

  Rosa turns and hurries off into the clinging mist, and as she does so the clouds knit in front of the moon and everything is shrouded in blackness. Samuel curses, shines his torch into the smog and hurries after her. His head is hurting, the
dizziness has returned and the strength is draining from his limbs – why won’t she stop, just for a moment, why won’t she listen?

  They weave their way along the Whitechapel Road, Samuel flicking on his blackout torch from time to time to illuminate the way ahead, struggling to keep her in sight, begging her to stop, to listen. In the eerie lull of the bombing, as a silence descends more profoundly than before, the subterranean level of the city awakens, and everywhere people creep from their shelters to make cups of tea. A solitary searchlight sways amongst the clouds, a lonely pillar of light, slicing past the barrage balloons that hang ominously in the sky, piercing the thickening smog. Piles of sandbags lie like rats against buildings; the air tastes sooty, like vinegar, like coal.

  —Rosa, stop. I’m going to go mad, I swear it.

  Suddenly Rosa stops and turns to face him.

  —Go mad then, she says, go mad. I do not want to speak to you or listen to you or hear from you ever again, should I be condemned to live as long as God himself.

  Without warning she steps sideways into the street and disappears. Samuel switches on his blackout torch, sweeps it through the mist and sees her on the other side of the road, silhouetted against an Oxo advertisement. Suddenly something within him gives way. He turns the torch off, hurries across the street and grabs her roughly by the elbow.

  —It wasn’t me that made the decision to get rid of our baby, he says, it was you.

  —Just leave me alone, cries Rosa, how can I get you to just leave me alone?

  She tries to push his hand away but he holds fast to her sleeve.

  —I shan’t leave you alone, says Samuel, not until you listen to me.

  Suddenly a distant screeching sound cuts through the sooty air, coming gradually closer. Samuel tries to pull Rosa to the ground, but she slips out of his grasp; he grabs at the empty air and his torch shoots from his hand, clunks onto the street and skitters into the gutter.

  A silence falls, and for an eternity there is nothing but blackness. Samuel finds himself half sitting, half lying against a wall. He can’t hear the noise of his breath, can’t hear anything; he pulls himself numbly to his feet, he can feel nothing, as if he doesn’t have a body, can hear nothing, see nothing, smell nothing. Gradually his vision returns – the night is illuminated by the sickly brightness of a fire that fills the buildings along the opposite side of the street and spills down into the road. He is coughing, his lungs are full of grime. A few feet away lies Rosa, on her side as if sleeping, coated in powdery dust, her tin hat beside her on the pavement, spinning on its dome; a blanket of broken glass lies across her, she still clutches the tea tray to her chest, although the teacups and cigarettes are nowhere to be seen. Samuel shuffles along the debris-strewn pavement and gathers her up like a doll. Shards of glass patter to the ground as he carries her through the rubble, staggering, coughing violently, unable to hear, to think; Rosa’s greatcoat flaps beneath her as he walks, her head lolls limply backwards. Suddenly she raises her head and begins to moan, and Samuel tries to soothe her – to his surprise he can hear his own voice now, it is booming, filling his whole head, he can hear his own breathing as well. Rosa says something that he cannot hear, struggles out of his arms and drops to the pavement, stumbles, gets woozily to her feet and then falls to her knees. Samuel tries once again to pick her up, the feeling is returning to his limbs and his wounded arm is hurting, Rosa struggles away and manages to stand, steadying herself against a wall. A buzzing sound is beginning to fill Samuel’s head, he pushes his fingers into his ears but it continues regardless.

  —We must get to a shelter, he says, the underground is around here somewhere.

  —Ich brauche keinen Luftschutz. Geht schon so, says Rosa, coughing a cloud of dust.

  —You need a doctor, says Samuel, come on. You’ll be safe with me.

  Rosa continues to repeat geht schon so, geht schon so, geht schon so, I’m all right, I’m all right, as Samuel takes her by the elbow and steers her through the fog, through the milky rubble and dust, the shadows and the fumes, the rivers of water from burst pipes, the snowy drifts of glass, the split sandbags and cracked paving slabs and twists of metal that could have come from anywhere; the shattered moonscape of London’s East End.

  5

  —You mean you never use the shelters? Even when you’re off duty? whispers Samuel. His breath clouds in the air and his arms are clutched round his knees; it is so cold that he is glad of his bandages.

  —I don’t need to, replies Rosa, her whisper echoing against the tiled walls. She gathers her greatcoat against the chill. There is a reason that I am alive, she whispers, I don’t know what it is. But if I die, I die. A lot of people are in far more danger than me.

  —And they say the Jews are always the first ones in, says Samuel.

  Her body stiffens but she makes no response. There is a silence. Samuel blows his nose, causing the man sleeping beside him to stir. He peers into his handkerchief; it is filled with an oily black deposit. He shivers, picks up Rosa’s tin helmet and begins to rotate it in his hands. His ears are still ringing from the bomb blast.

  —So finally I have the opportunity to explain, he says, leaning against the curved wall of the platform, his head haloed by the London Underground symbol.

  —There is nothing to explain, whispers Rosa.

  —I’ve written you a letter.

  He rummages in his pockets but to no avail; the letter did not make it through the blast.

  —Damned bombs, says Samuel, they’re an absolute nuisance when it comes to keeping hold of things.

  Rosa turns onto her side, presenting Samuel with her dust-covered back.

  —Ironic, isn’t it, he whispers, a nurse getting knocked off her feet within easy reach of her hospital. And this is where you first arrived, isn’t it? When you came on the train from Germany? Liverpool Street?

  Rosa does not respond. Samuel sighs and looks around him, spinning her helmet absent-mindedly in his hands as the bombers whirr through the thick night above, carrying their murderous load. The platform is murky with darkness, dense with slumbering Londoners, clustered together like field mice under blankets; it is like a communal bedroom, personal effects everywhere, hats and jackets hanging at all angles. Nearby a cloth-capped man is snoring loudly, stretched across a bicycle in a very uncomfortable-looking fashion. Somewhere along the platform a baby begins to cry as the bombs beat their irregular rhythm upon the earth above, and sheets of dust slip on occasion from the cracks in the tiles overhead. Who knows what would have happened to Rosa if he hadn’t been there? Alone, she would surely have been done for; the bombardment above ground is gaining momentum if the racket is anything to go by. He looks over at her, she is still motionless, either asleep or pretending to be; her shoulders are tense, the muscles bunched together like a bag of walnuts.

  —Are you awake? he whispers.

  There is no response.

  —I didn’t know anything about the procedure, he says. Mother didn’t tell me anything, you know.

  Rosa remains silent.

  —When I found out what Mother had done I was beside myself with rage, he goes on, almost to himself. I left home that day and haven’t been back. I’ve been trying to find you ever since. My parents have made no effort to contact me, and I haven’t even sent them a postcard. They could be dead for all I know.

  There is a pause and then Rosa rolls over to face him.

  —What? she whispers.

  —I didn’t know anything about the procedure, Samuel repeats.

  —But you came into my bedroom, you saw what was going on. You saw it with your own eyes.

  —I thought he was giving you a routine examination.

  —But I called out to you, Samuel. I called out and you walked away. You can’t deny that.

  —I was away with the fairies. I didn’t know if I was coming or going.

  From along the platform somebody shushes, and immediately they both stop talking. Rosa turns away again, pulling the lapels
of her greatcoat over her face.

  —You did hear me call out, she whispers, you should have known. You should have made it your business to know.

  —Perhaps, whispers Samuel. And perhaps you should have stood up to Mother.

  Suddenly, Rosa faces him.

  —Don’t you twist this back on me. I was just a guest in your house, not even a guest, your mother made me into her personal maid. I didn’t have a hope, not once you betrayed me.

  —I didn’t betray you.

  —You did betray me. I needed you, and you weren’t there. You didn’t have the backbone to stand up to your mother.

  —Well then, nor did you.

  —Very well, I admit it. I should have refused the procedure, I should have. Do you think I do not live with this guilt every day? Do you think there is a single night when I do not think of my weakness and suffer?

  —You don’t have all the suffering, you know. The baby was mine as much as yours, and so is the guilt.