by Debbie Rix
‘What made you think that?’ he asked, studying her face. ‘I wouldn’t have written if I hadn’t wanted you to write back. I thought you weren’t interested.’
‘You said you’d met some wonderful girls. “The girls are really pretty,” you wrote, “so natural. We had a wild time.” I think you’d been to a dance with them.’
‘You remember what I wrote?’ He seemed surprised. ‘I can’t remember what I did yesterday, let alone what someone put in a letter a year or so back.’
‘I do remember – every word, as it happens.’ She blushed. ‘How pathetic is that?’
‘Ginny.’ He covered her hand with his. It was cool and firm.
‘Yes?’ She looked, hopefully, into his grey eyes, willing him to kiss her.
‘Look, come outside, we can’t talk in here.’
‘I thought you wanted to see your friends.’
‘I do… I will. But I need to say something to you first.’
He guided her out of the pub. It had begun to rain again, and they stood in the doorway of the gentlemen’s outfitters shop next door, listening to the patter of raindrops.
‘Look Ginny… I know we said a few things to each other back then. Before Canada.’
‘Yes,’ she said, gazing up into his eyes. She could smell the rain on his hair, the slightly musty scent of his uniform.
‘I like you Ginny, I really do,’ he said.
‘But,’ she said, her hopes sinking, ‘there’s someone else isn’t there?’
‘No!’ he said, placing his hands squarely on her shoulders. ‘No, that’s not it at all. The thing is – I’m off to… well I can’t say where. I’m part of a special squadron. But it’s dangerous stuff, Ginny. And I’ve had to come to terms with something since I began my training. I might not make it. What we do is dangerous. Flying at night, flying low over enemy territory, taking flak… I’ve already lost mates. And once I really get started, I’ll lose a lot more. I might die myself.’
She shivered. ‘Please don’t say that.’
‘I’ve come to terms with it – it’s the best way to think. I say to myself: “The worst that can happen is that you’ll die, so just get on with your job, do your best, be brave, don’t hold back.” He spoke as if giving instructions to himself.
‘That’s awful,’ she said, with tears in her eyes.
‘Not really, it’s just sensible. And I’ve made a decision. I won’t break someone else’s heart. I’ve seen too many blokes with girls back here – girlfriends and wives – and how will they feel if their man is blown to smithereens? I won’t do that to someone. So I’ve decided not to get involved with anyone till after the war – if there is an after.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said, ‘do you mean you would get involved with me… if you could?’ She was clinging to some longed-for future where she and Freddie could be together.
‘Don’t read too much into it, Ginny – please. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, don’t depend on me. I might not come back. Get on with your own life. Study hard, be a wonderful architect. But don’t wait for me.’
He kissed her briefly on the cheek and was gone, pushing through the swing doors of the pub, the noise and laughter from inside seeping out into the rain-sodden darkness, leaving her alone and crying in the doorway.
Chapter Seventeen
Färsehof Farm
February 1943
Magda came downstairs early one morning to find her father once again listening to the radio. Unusually, it was a German voice she heard, and not the foreign tones of a BBC announcer.
We are interrupting your programme for a special bulletin, the announcer said solemnly. A slow drum roll was followed by the second slow movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Finally the announcer spoke again:
The battle for Stalingrad is over. True, with their last breath, to their oath to the flag, the Sixth Army, under the inspirational leadership of General Field Marshal von Paulus, has been defeated…. They died so that Germany may live.
‘So,’ Pieter said, turning off the radio. ‘It looks like it’s the beginning of the end.’
‘Really?’ said Magda. ‘How do you know?’
‘It’s the only thing that makes any sense. We’ve lost on the Eastern front, and the Allies are getting stronger by the day. We’ve not been so affected here – in the middle of the countryside – but the cities in the north are being bombed mercilessly. I don’t think people can take much more.’
He stood up and riddled the fire, removing the box filled with embers and taking them outside to throw on the rose bush near the vegetable garden.
‘Maybe Karl can come home now,’ Magda said, when her father came back inside, stamping the snow off his boots before leaving them by the door.
‘Well, these things take time,’ he said, slotting the box back into the range. ‘It won’t be over tomorrow, there’s still a long way to go. But there’s a sense that things are changing. I remember the First War and how that ended. So many men on both sides dead, our best soldiers killed, pointlessly. By the end our army was exhausted. We were just a group of boys and old men. We’d lost heart and we knew the Americans had joined the war, and were arriving in their thousands in France by the end. We could never beat them. I have the same feeling now. All those men lost in Russia. How much longer can they carry on pretending this is a war we can win?’
After breakfast Magda sat by the range pulling on her snow boots. Outside, large flakes of snow floated dreamily out of the sky before settling on the hardstanding outside the farmhouse.
‘Can you deliver some cheese for me to the shop in the village?’ Käthe asked as Magda pulled on her coat, adjusting her fur hat.
Käthe wrapped the large rounds in muslin. ‘Put them in the basket of your bike. And try not to get them wet, or dirty will you?’
‘Yes Mutti,’ Magda said, taking the cheese from her mother. ‘I’ll be careful.’
‘And make sure you deliver them before you go to school – Herr Fischer is waiting for them. He’ll give you the money; look after it for me.’
‘Yes Mutti, I won’t lose it.’
As the shopkeeper weighed each cheese carefully, counting out the notes pedantically for Magda to take home to her mother, she overheard several women muttering about that morning’s radio announcement.
‘I have a cousin in Munich,’ said one woman, quietly, to another. ‘The city is filled with refugees from cities in the north – they’ve had so much bombing up there. There’s nowhere for anyone to live any more, it’s a disgrace.’
‘I know,’ said another, conspiratorially. ‘My friend in Heidelberg said the same thing. There are people arriving at the railway station every day. Where they are supposed to put them, I don’t know?’
The mood in the village was one of quiet fury, and as she cycled away from the shop, Magda decided to go to Munich as soon as possible. She was desperate to speak to Saskia; to find out how the bad news from the Eastern front might impact the work of the White Rose. Might they be able to stop their work now, or would they instead become emboldened, she wondered? As she cycled towards the school gates, her heart sank. Otto was waiting for her.
‘There you are,’ he said. ‘You’re late.’
‘I know,’ said Magda irritably, wheeling her bicycle into the school yard, and placing it in the rack. ‘I had to deliver some cheese for my mother.’
She picked up her bag of school books and began to walk into the building, but Otto held her by the arm, pulling her towards him.
‘Stop it,’ she said, ‘what are you doing?’
‘I follow you sometimes,’ he said.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Where do you go each week?’
‘We’re late, Otto. I’ve got to get to class.’
‘You cycle to Augsburg – every Saturday. What do you do there?’
‘How do you know I go to Augsburg?’
‘I see you cycling in that direction; where else woul
d you be going?’
‘Magda, Otto,’ said Herr Schmidt walking towards them. ‘Get to your classes.’
Magda avoided Otto for the rest of the day. After school she ran out of the building and cycled home, peering over her shoulder from time to time, checking to see if Otto was following her. She woke the following morning with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was Friday, and that evening she would be forced to spend time with him as the Hitler Youth and the League of Girls met in the village hall.
Käthe was chopping turnips for soup, her fair wavy hair falling over her eyes. She pushed it away with the back of her hand.
‘Mutti,’ said Magda, sitting at the table, and buttering a piece of bread. ‘I don’t feel well. I don’t think I can go to school, or to the meeting tonight.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Käthe, putting down her knife. She walked over to Magda, standing behind her, her large hand resting on her daughter’s forehead. ‘You have no temperature.’
‘Don’t I? I still don’t feel well.’
Käthe sat down with her daughter at the table. ‘You shouldn’t miss school… unless you’re really ill.’
‘I am – honestly.’
‘Magda,’ her mother said, gently. ‘Is there something worrying you… or someone you don’t want to see?’
She gazed at her daughter with her clear blue-eyed stare. Tears came into Magda’s eyes.
‘No, it’s not that – I promise.’
‘Well,’ said Käthe, ‘unless you have an illness, I think you must go to school, and to your meeting tonight.’
Tears fell down Magda’s cheeks, and Käthe wiped them away with her thumbs.
‘Dearest Magda – you must try not stand out from everyone else. I worry for you otherwise. About what people will say. Just go to school, please. And get it over with.’
Reluctantly, Magda did as she was told. At school, she hid in the cloakroom between lessons, desperate to avoid Otto. But that afternoon, at the village hall, Otto was waiting for her.
‘I didn’t see you at school,’ he said, accusingly. ‘Where were you?’
‘I was there, but I wasn’t feeling very well.’
‘We never finished our conversation the other day,’ he continued, ignoring her explanation.
‘What about?’ she asked impatiently.
‘Augsburg.’
‘What about it?’ she said irritably. ‘I go there, sometimes… yes – to the cathedral.’ She was surprised at her own lie.
‘I didn’t know you were interested in such things.’
‘It’s not the religion particularly, but I like to listen to the organist.’
She smiled defiantly, pleased with herself.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘You don’t even play.’
‘I may not play myself, but that doesn’t stop me appreciating an artist. He’s very good. He plays… stirring German music.’
Delighted at her fiction, she ran across to join the girls in her group. They stood in a noisy gaggle, gossiping and giggling.
‘Where’s Erika?’ Magda asked.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Bette, a tall blonde girl, whispered conspiratorially.
‘Heard what?’ asked Magda.
‘She’s gone to a special camp… to have a baby with an officer!’
‘No!’ said Magda, genuinely shocked.
‘That SS officer – in Munich,’ the girl went on. ‘He organised it.’ She sniggered.
‘That’s disgusting,’ said Magda. ‘She’s younger than me.’
‘Yes, but she was desperate,’ said Bette. ‘It’s not her first time you know. She’s done it with several of them.’ Bette nodded towards the boys standing on the other side of the hall. ‘Otto and Erika – they were at it for weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was already pregnant, and the camp is just a convenient way to cover it up, to make her look patriotic.’
Magda looked across at Otto. He smiled at her – with his tight, mean-lipped smile.
‘I didn’t know,’ she said to Bette. ‘Poor Erika.’
Later that evening, as they left the hall, pulling on their warm coats and fur hats, Otto caught up with her.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, irritation in her voice. ‘Mutti is expecting me.’
‘Oh stay a little,’ he said, slipping his arm beneath her coat where it snaked around her waist.
‘No Otto… I can’t.’
‘I think you can,’ he said, pulling her around the side of the building. He pushed her against the wooden panels of the hall. She could feel it cold against her back; her feet were chilly in the snowy ground.
‘All that stuff about Augsburg and the organist… it’s a lie, isn’t it?’ He held her face in his hands. She could feel his fingers, icily cold, against her cheek. ‘Kiss me,’ he said, his icy breath spilling out into the dark night air.
She could hear Bette and the others saying their goodbyes, the cheerful sound of bicycles being wheeled down the road. She heard the youth leader muttering under her breath as she locked the door. Listened as she too, climbed aboard her bike and wobbled heavily down the road towards the village. She and Otto were quite alone in the darkness with just the distant sound of an owl hooting in the woods nearby.
Otto pressed his mouth against hers. She tried to resist, but he was stronger than her and held her head firmly in his hands while he kissed her, forcing his tongue deep inside her mouth.
‘There,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ His hands slid down her waist. She felt them as they clutched at her backside, pulling her towards him. She felt him hard against her stomach – an unfamiliar sensation that appalled her. She felt sick, but attempted to smile – desperate to placate him and to wipe away the feeling of his wet tongue inside her mouth and on her lips.
‘I’m old-fashioned,’ she said, moving his hands away from her body and trying to pull her coat protectively around her. ‘I ought to go.’ She slithered away from his grasp busying herself with putting on her gloves, adjusting her hat, discreetly wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Erika didn’t feel that way…’ His face, lit only by the moonlight, was flushed with anger.
‘No,’ she said, moving away from him, ‘and look what happened to her.’
She regretted the words as soon as she had uttered them. He looked over at her, his eyes narrowing.
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s gone to a special camp, I hear… to have a baby.’
His face relaxed, and he smiled. ‘Oh that. Well she’s just a little tramp.’
‘Why do you say that?’ She felt strangely indignant on Erika’s behalf.
‘All the boys know it.’ He laughed defensively.
‘Well I’m not like that!’ said Magda defiantly. ‘If you really liked me, you’d appreciate that and respect me.’
‘I do like you.’ He sounded childlike, suddenly – anxious to please. ‘And I respect you. I… love you, Magda.’
It was such a surprising thing for him to say. She had always thought him incapable of any kind of emotion.
‘And you?’ he asked, nervously, just like any lover.
‘We’ve known each for other a long time,’ she said, sensing a subtle shift in their struggle. It was he who was anxious now; she who had the power. She paused… ‘Of course I’m fond of you.’
‘Really?’ He sounded hopeful, pathetically so.
‘I’d better go,’ she said, seizing the moment. ‘But I’ll see you next week.’
She reached up and kissed him fleetingly on the cheek, then disappeared round the side of the building where her bike was parked. As she pedalled furiously away, she turned around. He was standing in the middle of road, watching her.
The following morning she left early for Munich. The sky was heavy with snow, and dark grey clouds hung threateningly over the city. Magda’s hands were cold as she grabbed the metal handle bars and cycled towards Marienplatz. As she entered the ancient square she wa
s shocked to see slogans painted on the old town hall: ‘Hitler: Mass Murderer’ and ‘Freedom’. She remembered Max and the others discussing the possibility of leaving messages on landmark buildings at their last meeting. The group had argued about it – better to stick with the leaflets, some had said, than risk everything by painting signs on buildings. Clearly Max, or one of the others, had decided to do it anyway.
From Marienplatz, Magda cycled north towards the university, up Theatrestrasse past the Feldherrnhalle, guarded day and night by teams of SS soldiers. Everyone who passed – either cycling or walking – was required to salute the Führer. Usually Magda avoided this humiliation by doing a little dogleg and diverting down a tiny side-street just before the memorial, but this morning she was anxious to get to the university as fast as possible. As she cycled past the guards, she noticed the words ‘Down With Hitler’ smeared in black paint down the side of the building. A group of women in headscarves and long skirts – Russian slaves, judging by their clothes – were already busy trying to scrub it clean with buckets of water, but they were making little headway. Magda, watched by the soldiers, raised her hand gingerly in salute.
She was breathless by the time she arrived at the end of Saskia’s road. The worst of the wreckage from the October bombings had now been cleared away, leaving sizeable gaps where the apartment buildings had once stood. But there was still debris on the road, forcing her to climb off her bike and wheel it through the bricks and shattered masonry. At Saskia’s house she rang the bell, but there was no reply. She pushed the door of the big apartment building and found that it was on the latch. Leaning her bicycle against the hall wall, she lurked near the concierge’s ever-open door. The woman was stirring something on the stove and did not immediately notice Magda. When she turned round, she looked startled.
‘What do you want?’ she said, angrily. ‘Standing there, spying on me.’
‘I’m not spying, really. I’m sorry. I was looking for Saskia. I rang her bell but there’s no reply.’