‘Of course, Head Nurse. I will return to my duties at once… at once,’ she said, head bowed submissively to avoid further scrutiny. The head nurse held her lips as the kind nurse made her way uncomfortably past. Too close for comfort, as Angel no.1 was almost free.

  ‘They are lumps of flesh,’ the head nurse said behind her, halting the kind nurse where she stood as if the words were magnetised. ‘Lumps of flesh, that is all. Worthless, useless, idiots, all of them, serving no purpose, of no value.’

  The kind nurse listened, unmoving, before lifting her head up slowly to look directly at Devil No.2. She could not believe that she was being brave enough to study her features briefly. She was always so keen to escape those eyes. Hadamar’s head nurse stared at her, without any feeling the kind nurse could easily read.

  ‘What do you suppose we are doing here, Miss Weber?’ Devil No.2 said.

  ‘Caring for the sick?’ The kind nurse could no longer maintain eye contact and turned her face down once more to the floor.

  ‘We have not got time to care, Miss Weber. There is too much to be done… to be achieved.’

  ‘Of course, Head Nurse,’ the kind nurse said without thought. ‘Absolutely, we are very busy at the moment preparing for next week’s visit from Reichsführer Himmler’s office. We are honoured to be receiving such guests,’ she said, turning around again in a renewed bid to leave the confrontation. Her body felt locked in purgatory.

  ‘Oh… and Miss Weber,’ Devil No.2 said, making the kind nurse turn back to face her once more. ‘Don’t let me ever catch you in here again.’

  ‘Yes,’ the kind nurse said hurriedly, before pacing back out onto the hospital corridor.

  28

  Marta paced into their living room to find her husband, Hans, who she knew would be sat reading and enjoying his newspaper. He quickly looked up and sensed her haste, closing the newspaper and placing it down on their coffee table. Before she could speak, she was hit by a smell in the room.

  ‘Have you been smoking?’ she said, breaking her train of thought. ‘Oh… it doesn’t matter,’ answering her own question.

  She took a seat opposite her husband while continuing to dry her hands on a tea towel. They were wet from washing this evening’s supper plates at their kitchen sink. Hans leant forward slightly and looked at her, listening.

  ‘I spoke to Mrs Kohler after church on Sunday,’ Marta said. ‘The mother of a boy who was taken into hospital… like Meike was.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Hans, trying to prevent any escalation of emotion.

  Finally, Marta put down her tea towel and concentrated. ‘A lovely lady… very elegant. She – Mrs Kohler,’ Marta corrected herself, ‘is upset, Hans, upset at what happened to Horst… to her son. You remember him from church? He walked peculiar, part of his condition, I remember Meike once explaining to me.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Hans shook his head unhelpfully and Marta worked to contain her frustration.

  ‘She has received a letter from the hospital where Horst was a patient. Hans… her son is dead. He’s dead.’

  Hans’s mind felt it must have missed something.

  ‘I don’t understand, Marta,’ he said. ‘The boy had a condition… since birth. Was that right? It cut his life very short. What does that have to do with Meike? She is very different, you know that. She had an accident,’ he said as his wife’s face skewed in resistance to information she already well knew.

  ‘What does it have to do with Meike?’ Marta whispered angrily. ‘It has everything to do with Meike, Hans, everything.’

  A pause between them both as Marta thought Hans might say something, but he didn’t.

  ‘They were both taken at home, Hans, against family wishes,’ Marta continued in a hush. ‘And now a boy is dead, Hans. Horst was not ill. He had a condition. He should have lived… for years… a happy life, like Meike.’

  ‘We don’t know that, Marta,’ Hans said, sitting up in his armchair to avoid having to project his voice any further than he had to. ‘That condition could have weakened him in all manner of ways. Children and people die, Marta… all the time. The things I saw in the war…’ Hans finished, but letting his voice trail off. He knew what he had left himself open to.

  ‘The war, the war,’ Marta said, impatiently picking back up the tea towel she had placed down. ‘Always the war,’ she said. ‘Something is wrong, Hans! The war is an excuse. What does anything have to do with poor Meike? What difference does it make… whether she is here now living with us, her grandparents, or in hospital… we don’t know where? The bloody Party already has her poor father… Abbe…’ But she had begun to bluster crassly and Hans never liked to hear it from a woman.

  A light from the kitchen, radiating into the room’s doorway, made both Hans and Marta’s heads turn towards it. Anselma had come downstairs and was clinking in the pantry for a glass of milk before she went to bed. Hans and Marta turned back to face one another anew, but with no words now, only emotions running through their eyes like a river running high after rainfall.

  29

  'Hello, Doctor,’ Marta said, trying not to sound hurried.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Richter,’ Dr Jung said from behind his desk, sporting a stethoscope loose around his neck.

  Outside, the thin sky was grey and inky pale. Marta wasn’t sure which way the weather would turn when she had looked up with a frown and left the house earlier. Meike had appeared in her mind.

  ‘How can I help?’ Dr Jung said, bringing her back to the room, happy to speak to a patient he knew well; less small talk.

  ‘I am not here for myself, Doctor,’ Marta said.

  ‘Ah,’ Dr Jung said and immediately shuffled in his chair as the parameters of the conversation had changed. Marta noticed, quietly, crow’s feet sketching themselves gently from the corner of Dr Jung’s eyes.

  ‘I have discovered more information, Doctor, if I may… not perhaps directly relevant to Meike, but… significant, I hope you will agree,’ said Marta, not yet ready to look her guest from the previous evening in the eye.

  ‘I spoke with Mrs Kohler after church on Sunday. Lovely lady… very elegant,’ Marta said, pausing for a moment. ‘Her son, Horst, was taken from their home, against her wishes, into hospital… Hadamar, I believe, as you said, not far from Berlin, only a few kilometres north of the city.’

  ‘Yes, I know Hadamar,’ Dr Jung said. ‘It was an asylum of sorts for soldiers with diseased minds… shellshock, after the first Great War. Terrible condition… well, I know you… Hans.’

  ‘I didn’t know that, Doctor,’ Marta said, and Dr Jung regretted reaching a wrong assumption. ‘I guess Hans was lucky that he wasn’t injured in the war.’

  ‘Mrs Richter, I think everyone who fought in 1914 was injured, whether, as doctors, we were able to see their injuries or otherwise. It opened our eyes to that. And, for that, we should be grateful. But here we are again, aren’t we?’ he said, and Marta nodded softly.

  She said, ‘Do you know the name Schuster? A Dr Heinz Schuster? It was the signatory at the bottom of a letter Mrs Kohler received from Hadamar hospital, informing her that Horst, her son, had died.’

  ‘Horst died?’ the doctor said, more in confirmation than in question. ‘I am… sorry to hear that. He was a polite young man.’

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘May I ask, how did he die, Mrs Richter?’

  ‘Influenza, an abscess on his lung,’ Marta relayed from memory, from the letter she had been privy to.

  ‘Thank you for telling me. I will know to be aware and to pass on my condolences when I next see Mrs Kohler. And Mr Kohler, of course.’

  ‘The signatory at the bottom of the letter,’ Marta said. ‘Does the name Schuster ring a bell with you at all?’

  Dr Jung breathed and cast his eyes higher into the room. It didn’t, which concerned him, because nearly everyone knew everyone, at the very least by name, in medicine in Berlin.

  ‘I don’t, Mrs Richter, I’m afraid,’ he said finally. ‘And I am surprised that I don’t, given that he must be quite senior. But, as we did discuss at your home the other evening, I am rather out of the loop these days. I am speculating, but perhaps he was appointed from outside of Berlin. You almost hope we lose the war again, don’t you?’ Dr Jung then said, happily surprising Marta with such frankness.

  ‘I don’t know, Doctor,’ said Marta. ‘We lost in 1918, didn’t we?’

  Dr Jung smiled and nodded. ‘You are quite right, Mrs Richter,’ he said. ‘You are quite right.’

  Marta was back walking outside, heading home again and trying not to contemplate what lay waiting for her there when she arrived. She felt peaceful. Looking up, the previously patchwork sky had melted into undisturbed blue, like the world’s oceans were upside down, and Marta wished she could swim in their serene waters.

  ‘Alfred,’ Marta said with a start, almost walking into him close to the doctor’s surgery. ‘Alfred,’ she repeated more calmly, ‘lovely to see you. How have you been?’

  ‘Fine… thank you, Mrs Richter,’ he said before an uncomfortable silence hung between them.

  ‘I hear, Alfred, you’re an excellent football player,’ Matra tried, keeping the conversation light, and Alfred began a smile and nodded modestly. A lady walked too closely by, brushing Marta, who moved closer to the side of the pavement where they stood stilted. Alfred mirrored her movement, but remained muted, and Marta felt her peace from a few moments earlier dropping into sadness. They both felt Meike’s absence like a bruise.

  ‘Could I buy you a cup of coffee, Alfred?’ Marta said and Alfred, who was rapidly approaching Hans’s lofty height, nodded. He felt closer to Meike in the company of her grandmother and the sensation was both comforting and pained in the same heartbeat. He had no prior life experience of emotional conflict. He felt overwhelmed.

  They were sitting and glad of the simple, physical task of drinking coffee in squinting Berlin sunshine. Chatter and cafe life dancing all around them, at polar odds with their table’s quietness, but also somehow in keeping. Was there anything left to fear? Alfred wondered, with a feeling he might have previously pigeonholed as happiness, but it was as if that true anchor had escaped him ashore and now he was alone, adrift at sea.

  ‘We still don’t know anything about where Meike is,’ Marta said, placing her coffee back down on the table. She watched Alfred take in her words but fail to offer any in reply. ‘How is school, Alfred?’ she asked, steering again to gentler waters. ‘Do raid sirens disturb your lessons during the day? I assume they must.’

  ‘Yes, they do,’ he said, failing to subdue the start of a smile. ‘It’s good if it’s a lesson you don’t like. But if it’s a lesson you like…’

  ‘And what lessons do you like, Alfred?’ Marta asked, not about to refuse the obvious opportunity.

  ‘German… and history.’

  ‘Ahhhh… humanities. And a historian,’ Marta said. ‘A fine combination. We need more young men like you, Alfred. Do you know what you would like to do when you are older?’

  A small shake of the head and Marta feared she had lost him once more before he said, ‘I feel angry when I hear about injustice… I want people to know the truth.’

  Marta smiled quietly and nodded.

  ‘More coffee?’ a waitress interrupted, poised to pour. ‘Madam?’ But Marta shook her head. ‘Sir?’ she added. Alfred blushed awkwardly and instinctively followed Marta’s lead and shook his head also. The waitress left them alone again.

  ‘She called you sir, Alfred,’ Marta said with a smile, which was reciprocated as they both rose from their seats and Marta enjoyed the moment between them. She dipped into her purse, from her handbag, and left money on their table, underneath her napkin. Alfred immediately wanted to thank her, but he didn’t, and he right away regretted not being brave enough to do so.

  The pair of them made an unlikely couple as they left the cafe behind them and strolled along the high street in the northern quarter of the capital. Brilliant sunshine, in the afternoon, blinkered their vision. Laughter close by hugged them. It was Friday, the promise of a weekend. The smell of meat from a butchers, as Marta and Alfred passed outside, closing down for the day after a dawn start. Fumes of caffeine and tobacco rising above new cafe-goers, sitting and reflecting on another Berlin working week. National Socialism was good, or, it wasn’t bad? Marta felt a shiver of guilt for being seduced for a moment.

  ‘Alfred,’ she said, putting her hand out to invite him to stop walking for a moment. Their homes were close. ‘I’m so sorry you had to experience that… the night you visited Meike. I am not applauding, mind, your attempt to steal my granddaughter,’ she added in happy reprimand. ‘But… you didn’t deserve to see that.’ But her enthusiasm for sharing was suddenly waning. ‘I wish…’

  Too much information.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Alfred said, in a shock of maturity in miniature, which Marta was realising he made a habit of. She could picture why Meike would like him. ‘It’s not your fault,’ Alfred said with a sadness.

  Marta looked at him, and she realised something deeper – he had been torturing himself too.

  ‘Boys bully others at school… the ones who don’t have any friends… who can’t play football… sit at the front in class. They’ll put you on the bus to Hadamar, they shout. Then they either cut their throat with their fingers or pretend they’re choking. Everyone knows, Mrs Richter. It’s no secret,’ he said.

  Everyone knows! Marta’s mind ballooned. Everyone knows what?!

  30

  Five… no, six, yes, six, Alfred counted in his head in the black, which was slowly beginning to soften to his eyes. Blast, he thought. He had lost count. Focus, Alfred, he urged himself through clenched fists. Eight… nine. This was it. He could make out the shape of a door ahead on his right. Meike’s room. He glanced over his shoulder, trying to ground himself as best he could, standing in this bleakness. Why wasn’t the darkness softening more? He could hear someone moving behind the corridor wall, but out here they seemed unreachable to him and yet only this wall separated them. Ten. Ten, Alfred repeated in his head. Then chaos.

  ‘Alfred? Alfred? Alfred!’ his mother repeated, now appearing glaringly at the door, ajar, to his room. ‘It’s not like you to sleep in the day. You have a caller, Mrs Richter from across the street. She would like to talk to you,’ his mother said, words pinched by anxiety.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Richter,’ Alfred said, greeting her at their front door.

  ‘Invite Mrs Richter in, Alfred,’ his mother said from behind them, making Alfred cringe. ‘Don’t leave her standing outside.’

  ‘No matter, Mrs Reis,’ Marta said, saving Alfred from further embarrassment. ‘I am unable to stop, I am afraid. I was simply hoping Alfred may like to come with Mr Richter and I to visit our granddaughter in hospital. If you are happy for him to, of course. She has a handicap,’ Marta said, playing the guilt card and then quickly realising that Meike would have been annoyed with her for doing so.

  ‘I am me before anything else, Grandma,’ she imagined Meike reprimanding her, low by her side. ‘And it’s not sad, Grandma! I’m quite happy.’

  ‘Of course, of course, dear,’ she always responded, and in her mind, she walked over to her granddaughter and she embraced her like she was the only other person in the world.

  Marta’s eyes returned to Alfred, standing in front of her. She felt the cold from outside clash with the warm air from inside the Reis’ generous home. Alfred had been born into relatively good fortune.

  ‘Come… come in, Mrs Richter,’ Alfred’s mother then fussed, closing their front door to the cold. ‘Alfred?’ she said. ‘Would you like to go with Mr and Mrs Richter to visit their handicapped daughter in hospital?’

  Marta’s heckles immediately prickled at the word handicapped, like Alfred’s mother had used it without permission first.

  ‘You see?’ Meike’s ghost teased Marta.

  ‘Yes… yes, I would like to go, Mother,’ Alfred said.

  ‘If that is alright with Mr and Mrs Richter,’ his mother reminded him.

  ‘Of course, Mrs Reis,’ said Marta. ‘It would mean a lot to my granddaughter.’

  ‘Of course… very well,’ Alfred’s mother said and with that her son began to pull on the arms of his coat and his shoes on his feet, and he was out the front door, waiting for Marta to then prise herself free of his mother. Finally, she walked forward to Alfred, breaking out into a smile with mischief in her eyes. They were in cahoots. Given even everything, it felt like fun.

  ‘We are going to Hadamar, Alfred,’ Marta said. ‘Are you ready, Alfred?’

  He nodded.

  In his car, Hans drove the three of them out of Berlin’s choke and to the city’s rural edges, on their journey north to Hadamar hospital. The clean sun of a January morning became clouded by grey in the sky, which began to produce gentle snowfall, Alfred watched through the windowpane, sat looking out of the back of Hans’s car, which felt colder than Siberia. He wished he’d brought a bigger coat. He breathed heavily in loud puffs to try and warm himself before wishing he hadn’t drawn attention to himself from Marta and Hans sat in the vehicle’s front seats.

  ‘Are you warm enough, Alfred?’ Marta asked, looking over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m fine, Mrs Richter, thank you,’ Alfred said without pause.

  He looked back out his passenger window and he was mesmerised by the snowflakes, falling more heavily all around and blanketing everything in white. In the car, nobody spoke over the vehicle’s guttural movement. The three of them stayed wrapped in their thoughts.

  ‘We’ll be lucky to make it back at this rate,’ Hans finally said, weathered hands tight on the steering wheel and leaning his head forward warily to illustrate his point.

 

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