The German Midwife

by Mandy Robotham

  I wanted to know how, when and why, but I couldn’t form the words beyond gulps of sorrow pushing out of my throat. Dieter spoke low and even over the tears, holding my free hand. His back was towards the house, and looking from a distance no one would have guessed at an exchange so heavy with emotion.

  ‘I have been in touch personally with the camp doctor,’ he said. ‘I’m reassured he died from pneumonia, as a result of his asthma.’ Pinprick pupils tacked back and forth, searching my own. I only stared as the sobs subsided into the pretend hiccups of a child. ‘Anke, did you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you, but I don’t believe you,’ I said angrily, tears streaming into my neck. ‘I know how many death certificates have pneumonia, or heart failure, pasted onto them as truths. It’s all a lie, it’s just what they say.’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘How can you know? It’s all one big lie. He was probably herded into a truck and taken to the place no one comes back from …’ and I dissolved into tears again. Please, please, oh Papa, please don’t tell me you died under the gas.

  Dieter took both my hands, drawing them down sharply to grab my attention. ‘Anke!’ He looked almost angry. ‘Please believe me when I tell you he did not die in one of those places. I have done the most thorough of checks, and I have evidence your father died in the camp. Of natural causes.’

  I flashed fury again. ‘There’s nothing natural about being starved and worked to death, because you hold beliefs close to your heart.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said quickly, ‘you know I didn’t. But your family – you know what the agreement is – your family is not in danger of the transport.’

  ‘As long as I behave – isn’t that the deal?’ My anger and petulance were rising above sorrow, and as much as I was aiming at the Reich, Dieter was in the firing line. ‘And how can you possibly know the details? Are you intimate with the Commandant?’

  He pulled back, and I knew I had gone too far again, in aligning him with the side of the Reich he found more than unsavoury. Unlike me, he didn’t kick back, but let his hands fall away.

  ‘Because I have made it my business to know,’ he said quietly, ‘and because I have taken an interest, for some time now.’ He pulled out an envelope from his pocket. ‘This might explain a little.’

  I took it from him, and our fingers touched lightly again, this time with no crackle of acrimony. He reached out to push away a tear on my cheek but stopped short as a patrolman rounded the corner and came into view.

  ‘I’ll leave you in peace,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back later.’ He stood up and surveyed my curled, deflated body. ‘I’m so sorry, Anke, I really am.’

  I watched him, as I had so many times, step down from the porch and walk down the path. This time, though, he didn’t turn his head automatically towards the golden sun and the vista of blue. He put on his cap and looked straight ahead.

  The letter was in Papa’s hand, dated just a week previously. I might have had trouble knowing it was his, if it hadn’t been for the ornate way he wrote his Ts and Ps – the ‘academic’s artistry’ I had always called it. The script was spidery and disjointed, that of a man struggling to hold pen to paper.

  Darling Anke

  I would like to say I am well, but the winter has taken its toll and my old body hasn’t emerged from the cold with as much gusto as before. However, I am in the infirmary and the conditions are good, with nice sheets and kindness.

  Please tell Mama I am thinking of her – of you all – and remember so much the happy times we had at home, together around the table, when we laughed and told tales. Franz especially told the tallest ones! I remember too, all the times we two sat around the radio on a Sunday, and read our papers – those special times with my lovely daughter.

  I hope to hear from you soon, my precious girl, and know that you are strong. Keep the sun rising in your world.

  All my love, your Papa x.

  It was, undoubtedly, a farewell letter of the dying. It might have taken him hours, or days to write. He could have dictated it to someone, but I knew he would have fought, between the fire in his lungs, and the effort of sitting upright, to write this last goodbye, because he’d known I would sense it as genuine. There was his message, too – keep the sun rising. Ever hopeful, my Papa. Humanity will bear out, he was saying. Keep the faith.

  I stared at his telltale writing for an age, and although the tears rolled, I was not consumed by a crippling, burning sadness. The anger, I knew, would come later, but I pushed back my own images of the camp, the wide-eyed resignation of women sitting in the trucks, ready to roll towards their fate, the hospital block, the conditions. I could not allow myself to think of that now.

  In a strange, distorted way, there was some relief; a curious reprieve that I would no longer worry about my father and his fate, that he would not – in his frailty – face the split second of realisation when the shower heads did not produce a freezing spray of fluid, but the insidious hiss of death. We knew from the gossip in the camp that that was when the screams reached their peak of panic. No, I could not – would not – think of that now.

  I couldn’t do anything other than believe Dieter when he said that wasn’t Papa’s end. The letter was proof, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t have told me about the sheets, and the kindness, otherwise. As a dying man, Papa would have been a prime candidate for the transports, labelled a ‘useless mouth’, but there could have been strings pulled, favours asked. As Dieter said, he had some power – just not enough to save them. I rolled the possibilities around in my head, seesawing beliefs and wishing above all my faith was right. I had to believe my father had died in a bed, and not in the bowels of inhumanity.

  I woke to a short rap on the door. The low light told me it was late afternoon, one foot warmed by golden rays pushing into the room as I lay curled on the bed. I watched the door handle turn and Dieter’s head peek through. He slipped in and pulled the curtain across the window.

  ‘How are you?’ he said in the new gloom.

  I rubbed my eyes, and thought for a second: how was I?

  ‘Uh, I’m all right. I must have fallen asleep.’

  He moved towards me, sitting alongside like a mother attending a sick child. My face was streaked with salt tracks, gritty as I brushed them away. He cupped one hand around my cheek, and stroked a thumb over the swollen skin around my eyes.

  ‘It’s too much,’ he said. ‘I know you are stronger than an ox to have survived this far, but it’s too much. I’m so sorry.’

  I sat up, rubbing both hands over my face, trying to inject some life into the parchment skin. ‘The funny thing is I’ve imagined getting such news for the past two years – about all of them – but I feel slightly numb. The numbness feels worse than being broken inside.’

  He took my hands again and brought them to his lips, kissing the tips of my fingers. ‘I hate this war, I bloody hate this disgusting excuse for a fight between children pretending to be grown men,’ he said quietly, into the flesh.

  I looked at him and swallowed hard to ingest some courage. There was just one thing I needed to know, one thing I could not ask last night, but that I had to question now.

  ‘Dieter, do you have anything to do with the transport? The picking and choosing, the lists?’

  His eyes flashed alarm, but were directly on me, no hiding. ‘No. I promise, Anke, I promise. I wouldn’t – I couldn’t – do that.’

  ‘But you said … you mentioned names falling off lists, going missing?’

  ‘I sometimes deal with visas, granting transport out of Germany. Academics, doctors, families with foreign roots. I stamp a few more than I should, lose the rejection letters. Like I said, not much.’

  ‘It’s something,’ I said, with a weak smile. ‘Something is better than nothing.’

  He cocked his ear towards the door, at the rumble of an engine, and said he needed to go. Could he come back later, after dinner? Did I want to be alone? No, I said, I didn’t. I wanted
his company, his warmth, not to be left to eat away at my own sorrow.

  ‘Won’t they suspect where you are?’ I hadn’t seen much of Frau Grunders in recent weeks, but I didn’t doubt her eyes were everywhere.

  ‘I’ll give Rainer the night off and he’ll take the car into town,’ he said. ‘It’s the advantage of being a roaming officer – I have no set agenda, or home.’

  He kissed me lightly on the lips, stroked my hair as a farewell, and was gone again.

  I washed and tidied myself, and sat on the porch until dinner, perhaps my happiest place until last night. My stomach was growling with hunger, typical after a daytime sleep, and I realised I’d missed lunch, but equally I wasn’t keen on facing the servants’ hall, so I ignored its gripey protests at first.

  The breeze was cleansing, pricking at my sore skin, and I stared at the falling shadows, indulging myself with thoughts of Papa. I pictured him at home, before the angst and the conflict, as the wise one with a sharp sense of humour behind his paternal seriousness. He had often laughed so hard at the dinner table that Mama shot him a look to halt his childishness, yet in the next breath, she was giggling too, unable to hold back. The image was so fresh, and I made a decision there and then not to let the injustice stir up a bitter stew, one that would infect my insides and make me brew a hatred so filthy that it coloured me, forever. Papa’s body had succumbed to circumstance, but this madness could not beat us. It would not.

  31

  Relief

  My growling stomach forced me eventually into the servants’ hall for dinner, although I took care to bathe my reddened eyes before I went. I didn’t want to answer awkward questions, and was unsure if Dieter would have told Frau Grunders about Papa. I hoped not – the grief was mine, and I didn’t relish forced sympathy from any quarter, least of all supporters of the Führer’s war.

  To my relief, no one paid any special attention, and dinner was as muted as always. Only Lena and I talked, about sewing, and she was animated about the dress fabric she’d just bought in town. Perhaps I could help her with making a dress for a local dance in a few weeks’ time? I said it was Christa she needed for a skilled seamstress, but I’d do the best I could.

  There was no sign of Dieter, Rainer or the car after dinner, and my heart deflated a little. I tried reassuring myself it was the duties of office keeping him away. Later, I sat under the navy sky – the chalet seemed too claustrophobic – as wheels scrunched onto the drive, a door slammed, and the car moved off again. He strode up eagerly, casting about for the patrol, and not speaking until he was on the porch.

  ‘Evening,’ he said, face darkening. ‘Are you all right?’ His eyes scouted mine for clues.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, and smiled to drive it home. He cocked his head to one side and raised eyebrows in half belief.

  ‘Honestly, Dieter, I’m all right. It was a shock, but not unexpected in some way. I hate where he was, I hate that it should ever have happened, but it’s also a kind of release for him. I’m determined it won’t destroy me.’

  He took off his cap and reached for my hand. His flesh was warm, finger pads soft, and his fingers kneaded at the bones above my fingers, creating an instant tingle inside.

  ‘You are amazing,’ he said, looking at me. ‘I like to think I would react in the same way, but I don’t know. I’m not sure I could be that forgiving.’

  I flinched at the word. ‘It’s nothing like forgiveness, Dieter. It doesn’t come close. But I refuse to be further damaged by this … this soup of hatred. That’s their triumph, in making me hate the way they do, just because of what they are. They won’t make me like that.’

  He nodded understanding. ‘You are one very determined lady,’ he said. ‘And I’ll say it again: you are amazing.’ His mouth was beautiful when he smiled, teeth even and straight, with just the slightest chink in a top tooth. I hadn’t realised it until then, but that was what gave him such a boyish look – despite his height and stature – as if he had stepped off the football field after a tricky tackle, grinning triumphantly.

  ‘Well, I won’t argue with any man who tells me I’m amazing,’ I said. ‘You can come onto my porch any time.’ We were good, and flirting again.

  This time it was me who cast around for any stray witnesses, squinting into the darkness. When there were none, I took his hand and led him off the porch and into the chalet. Curtains closed, it was the same scenario, the same anticipation, but without the unknown ahead. It was slower, and we ambled over each other instead of racing to drink in the moment, more certain that we held the space. He was patient and giving, and we took turns in leading until I could no longer delay that moment when we climbed and fell into a nest of feather-lined bliss.

  My head was on his chest for an age after, his arm securely around me, my finger tracing over his chest. My eyeline settled on his navel, and a strange bump in the skin. I pooled my finger in the dip and then around a small nest of hair above. Yes, there was a second hole above, not as deep as his umbilicus, but unmistakably there.

  ‘Dieter, what’s this?’

  He roused from a semi-dose and bent his head upwards, as if he could only half feel where I was touching.

  ‘Oh, that. It’s, um, an injury.’

  ‘From the war?’

  ‘I was careless,’ he said. ‘A stray bullet.’

  ‘It’s not hard to take a bullet in war,’ I said. ‘Was it in battle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The clipped reply sent a firm message, and I decided not to let it hang awkwardly.

  ‘So, were you in hospital long? Were the nurses nice to you?’

  ‘Nice enough,’ he said, ‘but not as nice as you would have been, I’m sure.’

  ‘Don’t be so certain – I’m a better midwife than I was ever a nurse. I might have been an ogre of a matron to you – a young whippersnapper of a soldier.’

  He pulled me close to him and kissed the top of my hair. ‘Well then, I’d better behave myself, hadn’t I?’ He pinched me playfully.

  ‘Did it hurt, the bullet?’

  ‘Like hell.’

  ‘In that case, I’d better administer care and compassion to the best of my ability.’ With a wry smile, I pressed my lips against the wound, a waxen crater amid his softened belly, and it was the only signal he needed. The gravelly tiredness in his voice disappeared and we sank under the covers and into the warm balm of safety again.

  32

  Waiting

  He left again at first light, skulking across the no-man’s land of the complex towards his own room, and I wondered how much of such bliss would be allowed before this war took it away again, the way it sucked everything tender and kind into its black vortex. For now, though, the morning sky was painting itself a crisp mountain blue, the curtains puffed gently inwards, and I allowed myself a few moments of self-pity. Then, my mind turned towards Papa, Mama, Ilse and Franz, and I roused myself to begin another day of survival.

  Eva’s mood matched mine, although she wasn’t aware of anything other than her own discomfort, complaining of backache and ‘odd pains’, most of which sounded like twinges of late pregnancy.

  ‘When will this baby come, Anke? Surely there’s something I can do to move it along, something you can give me?’

  ‘No,’ I said matter-of-factly, ‘nothing but a healthy dose of patience, and a smattering of faith.’

  ‘You and your faith,’ she grumbled. She glanced sideways like a cunning child. ‘I’m sure Dr Koenig would oblige, if I asked him in the right way.’

  ‘I’m sure he would,’ I countered briskly. ‘Always assuming you wanted to end up in a hospital, when your body decided it didn’t like being pushed and pulled into labour. And the baby along with it.’ I was in no mood to deal with her silliness, or be centre stage in a minute power struggle.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Really? Is that what happens?’

  ‘There’s a fair chance,’ I said truthfully. ‘Babies don’t take kindly to being forced out. Besides, what y
ou’re feeling is a good sign the baby is descending, and is getting ready.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Her face lit up, like I’d given back the lollipop I’d just taken away.

  ‘Nothing is sure at this point, but the baby’s head feels nice and low, and it’s pointing in the right direction. So, it’s all good. But if you’re asking me when, I simply don’t know. Only the baby does.’

  ‘Come on, baby!’ she said urgently into her bump. ‘Come on, your mama wants to meet you.’ With superb timing, the baby kicked again and she giggled like a schoolgirl. ‘Oh, it heard me!’

  Arrival, Somewhere in Germany, February 1942

  I’d never given much thought to what hell might look like – youth gives you that luxury, plus my father’s general distrust of religion meant the rhetoric of hellfire and damnation didn’t feature in our household. On that juddering journey, neck aching as my heavy head tick-tocked in synch with the train’s motion, I repelled any images of furnaces and black holes pushing up through the cracks of my half sleep.

  I needn’t have worried about any fiery predictions. Because hell is grey – grimy, vapid and devoid of any pigment designed to lift the spirit. As the doors were finally pulled back on a dusky, barren world, the image couldn’t have been any bleaker.

  There had been a twitch of noses as we ground to a halt, to orientate, gain some idea of the geography. I detected a faint saltiness, and there were mutterings: ‘Are we near the sea?’ ‘Will they ship us out?’ We settled ourselves in for a wait, some women giving up their floor spaces for others to rest their legs. There was shouting outside, but senses piqued when we heard female voices among the low bark of men and dogs. Then, the heavy scraping of the latch, and the door sweeping back, followed by the recoil of those outside to let the foul odour fly.