Читать книгу A Woman of War: A new voice in historical fiction for 2018, for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz - Mandy Robotham - Страница 10

A distinct chill in the air woke me. It was dark, and we were still travelling – the big engine purring steadily, a few lights sprinkled along the way, houses only just lit. I was disorientated, having no idea which direction we had come in, but I guessed we were in the mountains and climbing gently. The air felt different – a crystal edge, a taste recalled from family holidays.

I was surprised. I had assumed we would be in Berlin, Munich, or some other industrial town, headed for a private maternity home, where the wives of Nazi officials and loyal businessmen would be doing their duty – the women of Germany having been charged with procreating the next generation as their ‘military service’. Before I’d been evicted, posters had projected from every street corner in Berlin, recruiting to the ranks – blonde, smiling women with caring arms splayed around their strong, Aryan brood, ready to serve the Reich as rich fodder for the ranks. It was their duty, and they didn’t question it. Or did they? You would never know, since loyal German women didn’t speak out.

The sergeant startled as I moved, squaring his shoulders automatically. He spoke into the air. ‘We will be arriving soon, Fräulein. You should be ready.’

I was sitting in my only rags and had nothing to gather, but I nodded all the same. In minutes, we swept left through wrought-iron gates, rolling steadily up a long drive, icy gravel crunching underneath. At the top was a large chalet house, the porch lit by a glow from inside. The style was distinctly German, though in no way rustic, with carved columns supporting the large wraparound veranda, wooden chairs and small tables arranged to take advantage of the mountain view.

For a brief moment I thought we had arrived at a Lebensborn, Heinrich Himmler’s thinly veiled breeding centres for his utopian racial dream, and that my task was to safeguard the lives of Aryan babies, from appointed carrier women or the wives of SS officers. But this looked like someone’s home, albeit large and grand. I mused on what type of Nazi spouse would live here, how important she was to have caught the attention of the Führer’s office and the promise of a private midwife.

The imposing wooden door opened as we drew to a stop, and a woman appeared. She was neither pregnant, nor the lady of the house, since she was dressed like a maid in a colourful bodice and dirndl. I stumbled slightly on getting out, legs numbed from the extreme comfort. The maid came down the steps, smiled broadly, and put out her hand. Her white breath hit the chill air, but her welcome was warm. This day was becoming ever more bizarre.

‘Welcome Fräulein,’ she said, in a thick Bavarian tone. ‘Please come in.’

She led me into an opulent hallway, ornate lamps highlighting the gilded pictures, Hitler in pride of place above the glowing fireplace; I had seen more welcoming fires today than in all my time in camp. I followed puppy-like through a door off the hallway, and we descended into what was clearly the servants’ quarters. Several heads turned as I came into a roomy parlour, eyes dressing me down as the maid led me through a corridor and finally to a small bedroom.

‘There,’ she said. ‘You’ll sleep here tonight before you see the mistress in the morning.’

I was struck dumb, a child faced with a magical birthday cake. The bed had a real mattress and bedspread, with a folded fresh nightdress on the plump pillow. A hairbrush sat on top of a sideboard, alongside a bar of soap and a clean towel. It was the stuff of dreams.

The maid prompted me again. ‘The mistress said to give you—’ she stopped, correcting herself ‘—to offer you a bath before you have some supper. Would that suit Fräulein?’

Quite how they had explained away my dishevelment was a mystery – my dark hair had grown back and my teeth were intact but I looked far from healthy. This maid was either ignorant of my origins, or at least disguised it well.

‘Yes, yes,’ I managed. ‘Thank you.’

She disappeared down the corridor, and the sound of running water hit my ears. Hot water! From taps! In the camp it had been scarce, cold and pumped from a dirty well. I couldn’t take my eyes off the tablet of soap, as if it were manna from heaven and I might bite into it at any moment, like Alice in her Wonderland.

I sat gingerly on the bed, feeling my bones sink into the soft material, never imagining that I would spend a night again under clean sheets. The maid – she said her name was Christa – led me to the bathroom, shutting the door and allowing me the first true solitude in two years. Despite the sounds of the house around, it was an eerie silence, the space around me edging in, claustrophobic. There was no one coughing into my own air, sucking on my own breath, no Graunia shifting her bones into the crevice of my missing flesh. I was alone. I wasn’t sure if I liked it.

I peeled off my thin dress, my underclothes almost disintegrating as they dropped to the floor. Steam curled in rings above the water, and I dipped in a toe, almost afraid to enter the water, in case a real sensation would pop this intricate dream.

Sinking under the delicious warmth, I wasted precious salt tears, when there was already water aplenty. When you saw so much horror, destruction and inhumanity in one place, it was the simplest things that broke your resolve and reminded you of kindness in the world. A warm bath was part of my childhood, but especially when I was thick with a cold, or racked with a cough. Mama would run the bath for me, sit talking and singing while she washed my hair, wrapping me in a soft towel before putting me to bed with a hot, soothing drink. I tried so hard not to think of them all, as I wallowed in the strangeness, but I hoped beyond everything they weren’t in the hell I’d just left behind. Heavy sobs shook my wasted muscles, until I was dry inside.

Tears exhausted, I surveyed my body for the first time in an age; there were no mirrors in the camp, and the cold meant we barely undressed. The very sight shook me. I counted my ribs under parchment flesh and saw that the arm muscles developed through hospital work were now flaccid and wasted, my hipbones projecting through my skin. Where I had disappeared to? Where had the old Anke gone? It took a good scrub with that glorious bar of soap to cut through the layers of grime, and the water was grey as I stepped out, tiny black corpses of varying insects lying on the leftover scum. Christa had laid out a light dressing gown for me, and I purposely avoided any glimpse in the mirror. Tentatively, I padded back down the corridor in my bare but clean feet.

In the room, more treasures awaited. Clean underwear was draped over the chair, along with a skirt, stockings and a sweater. There was an undervest but no bra, though I had nothing to keep in check any more, with almost the look of a pubescent teenager on a prematurely aged body. Within minutes, Christa arrived with a plate of glazed meat, potatoes and carrots the colour of a late afternoon sun glowing alongside. Hunger was a constant gripe, and I hadn’t noticed not eating throughout the day.

‘I’ll leave you in peace,’ she said, with a sweet, natural smile. ‘I’ll bring in breakfast in the morning, and Madam will see you after that.’

My instinct was to go at that plate like a gannet, gorging on the precious calories, but I knew enough of my starved insides to guess that, if I wanted to retain it and not retch it up instantly, I needed to tread carefully. I chewed and savoured each morsel, quickly feeling the stretch inside me. Once or twice, my throat gagged uncontrollably at the richness, and I breathed deeply, desperate to swallow it down. The meat, softly stewed, brought back memories from before the war, of my mother’s birthday meals – beef with German ale. Guiltily, though, I had to leave a third of the portion. With nothing else to occupy me, I laid my wet hair on the sumptuous pillow, drinking in the laundry soap smell, and fell into an immediate sleep.

Light from a small window above the bed signalled daytime, and I moved my shoulder slowly, as I had done every day in previous months. My wooden bed rack had caused painful sores on my shoulders, and getting up demanded restraint to avoid opening up the skin and inviting infection. Only when I felt my skin sunk into soft cotton did I remember where I was. Even then it took several moments to convince my waking brain that I wasn’t lost in a fantasy.

The noise of a house in full motion crept through the walls and I tiptoed to the bathroom, feeling the inevitable grapple inside me between starvation and distension. Christa was heading into my room as I arrived back, wearing a slightly startled look, as if she had lost me momentarily. As if I could escape.

‘Morning, Fräulein,’ she said, addressing me like a true guest. I had warmed to her already, mainly for treating me like a human being, and because she had brought me more food. Her flaxen hair was pulled tight into a bun, making her high cheekbones rise and her green eyes sparkle.

‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite finish the dinner,’ I said, as she eyed the leftovers. ‘I’m not so use—’

‘Of course,’ she said with a smile. The staff clearly had their suspicions, whatever they had been told. It took me a good while to absorb the eggs and bread on my plate, yolks the colour of the giant sunflowers swaying in my mother’s garden. Memories, carefully kept in check while at the camp, were swimming back. I forced the protein into my already overloaded system and Christa was at the door as I pushed in the last mouthful.

She led me upstairs to a large lounge, skirted on three sides by wide picture windows, a view of the forest in one, mountains in the opposite. It was roomy enough for several leather sofas in an austere German design, with sideboards of dark wood and ugly, showy trinkets. The inevitable portrait of the Führer loomed over the huge fireplace, which provided a gentle lick rather than a roar.

A woman was sitting in one of the bulky armchairs and stood as I arrived. Tall, slim and elegant, her blonde hair swept in a wave, clear blue eyes, and a pout of ruby red lipstick. Groomed and very German. Not obviously pregnant either.

‘Fräulein Hoff, welcome to my house.’ There was only a hint of a smile; from the very outset this was clearly an arrangement, and not one she was overly happy with either.

‘My name is Magda Goebbels, and I have been asked by a very good friend to find someone with your knowledge to help her.’

At the mere mention of her name, I realised why I had been treated so well. Frau Goebbels was the epitome of German womanhood, married to the Minister for Propaganda and mother to seven perfect Aryan specimens – an obvious model for those zealous posters. Since the Führer had no wife, she was often at his side in the newsreels and pictures, in the time before I was taken. She was the perfect Nazi, albeit a woman, tagged ‘Germany’s First Lady’ by the columnists.

She went on matter-of-factly. ‘I know of your reputation, your working knowledge, and your … situation.’ I noted there was always a pause when the threat to my family was mentioned. Was it shame, or a minor embarrassment? For people so unashamed about the cruelty they inflicted, Nazis appeared almost shy about calling it blackmail.

She carried on, unabashed: ‘I know that since your work has been so varied, you clearly care deeply for women and babies in any situation. I can only trust that you will do the same for my friend who has need.’ She paused, inviting a reply.

‘I will always endeavour to bring the best outcome for any woman,’ I said, leaving my own, deliberate pause. ‘Whoever they are.’ I did, in essence, mean it. The rules of my training as a midwife didn’t discriminate between rich or poor, good or bad, criminal or good citizen; all babies were born equal at that split second and all deserved the chance of life. It was the moments, months and years afterwards that fractured them into an unequal world.

She caught my meaning, clasping her hands in front of her, nails perfectly manicured.

‘Good. You will spend today getting prepared, and then travel to meet your new client tomorrow.’ She said the word ‘client’ as if I was a private professional about to take on a task of my choosing. I wondered then how much, and how deeply, they felt the lies. Or if they really believed their own propaganda? Truly believed it?

I said nothing, refusing to qualify her offer even with a ‘thank you’. She wouldn’t let it go.

‘You should be clear that this is a good opportunity for you, Fräulein Hoff. Not many would be trusted with such an important task. We feel you will be a midwife first, whatever your own politics.’

They were taking a gamble, but they were probably right. I was no angel in life, but I took my duties seriously. Mothers were pregnant to have healthy babies, and babies were meant to survive, for the most part. That was the golden rule.

I turned to go, seeing a shape ghost past the doorway.

‘Joseph?’ she called from behind me. ‘Joseph, come and meet the midwife we have engaged.’

A small, dark-suited man clipped towards me with a slight limp, stopped and pulled his heels together in that automated way. This was no Aryan, but his face was often in the papers my father had pored over in the days before we became the disappeared. Joseph Goebbels – one of Hitler’s trusted inner circle, master of the truth twist, gilding lies and hoodwinking good, honest Germans. Wasn’t it Goebbels who had declared: ‘The mission of women is to be beautiful and to bring children into the world’? I remember my sister, Ilse, and I laughing at the words, but now that I looked at his wife, I understood why he imagined it possible.

‘Fräulein Hoff, pleased to meet you.’ He gave that half smile Third Reich officers clearly practised in training, designed to err on the edge of threat, his little spiny teeth just visible. He was rakishly thin, dark hair slicked back, cheeks sunken; if Himmler – Hitler’s right-hand man – was painted as the rat in the Reich’s higher circle, then Joseph Goebbels was the perfect weasel. For his wife, the attraction must have been more than skin deep. I felt an immediate shiver that he even knew my name.

He faced his wife. ‘The arrangements, they are all in order?’

‘Yes, Joseph,’ she replied with clear irritation.

‘Then I bid you good day. I hope you are well looked after, Fräulein Hoff.’

He walked out, his wife’s red lips thin and her gaze fixed on his back. She may have been beautiful and a copious breeder, but I had the feeling Frau Goebbels was more than a pretty face.

The interview over, Christa appeared in the doorway to lower me back to the servants’ quarters. The ‘getting ready’ consisted of making me presentable for my mystery client, something of a task in just one day. Christa was sent with carbolic, tackling the lice eggs embedded on the shafts of my thin hair. She worked cheerfully, talking affectionately about her family near Cologne, and although she skated over the hardships of war, it was evident that real, working German families were suffering too. Her brother was already a casualty, blinded and returned from the Eastern Front, leaving her father struggling on the family farm without a younger man’s muscle. She hinted only briefly at his disdain for the Reich.

She had been a nursing auxiliary before the conflict, in a home for elderly women. Part of the care, said Christa, was in teasing their thinning locks into something of a style, far better than any medicine. After the last of the lice were evicted from my own head, she worked miracles with her scissors and the hot iron, appearing to double the volume of my weakened strands, skilfully hiding my scabbed scalp. I barely recognised myself in the mirror, having not glimpsed my own face for what seemed like years. I had aged noticeably – lines around my eyes, gaunt cheeks, and tiny red veins pushing out in patches on my skull bones – but Christa’s efforts lessened the shock. Much like my body below, I chose not to dwell on the reflection.

Christa brought several suits and skirts, plain and practical, gleaned from the wardrobes of previous governesses or house managers; I mused only briefly on how many had left under a cloud of death. In the camp, we scavenged greedily on the corpses for useful clothes without a second thought. ‘The dead don’t shiver,’ we said, as justification for our guilt. It was accepted as survival. So that now, I didn’t flinch as I pulled on rough stockings, which morphed into silk, and buttoned a blouse that wouldn’t cause my skin to itch with renewed insect-life. They hung on me loosely, but Christa nipped and tucked, spiriting the clothes away and returning them within hours for a neater fit.

Towards the end of the day, an unexpected visitor appeared at my door. Christa noted me tensing at the sight of his small black carrying case, balding head and thick glasses. She spoke quickly, as if to reassure me he wasn’t a caricature of Dr Death: ‘Fräulein Hoff, this is Dr Simz. Madam has asked that he attend you before your trip tomorrow.’

Dr Simz had a dual role of both physician and dentist, checking over my body from top to toe, giving me balm for the most obvious of skin sores, pronouncing my lungs ‘a little wheezy’ but not infected, and my teeth in surprisingly good condition. He didn’t balk at the sight of my ribcage or sorry breasts, working methodically to check I was no threat to my proposed client. His positive mutterings told me I was ready. I would do.

I slept uneasily that night, despite the sumptuous bedding. I thought of Rosa, cold and vulnerable, of all the women in the maternity hut, my own hut too, and of Margot, eight months into pregnancy, barely recognisable as a mother-to-be. Her bulge was tiny, but it had sucked every particle of nutrition from her needy body nevertheless. On the day, she would be stripped of energy and life and baby in one fell swoop, and Rosa left to deal with the physical debris, as well as Margot’s deep, vacuous keening, rising above the hut as she grieved the life and loss of her baby. And here I was, sleeping in near luxury. ‘Unfair’ didn’t begin to describe the lottery by which we lived, died, or merely existed.

I took my last meal in that house with Christa, who had been almost my only real contact since arriving. In such a short time, we had struck up a small friendship; I recognised in her some spirit that was here simply to live, for her family, and yet she revealed in those young, green eyes that she wasn’t one of them. It was survival, of a different kind to my own, but survival nonetheless. Maybe there were more of us than we imagined, just doing our best.

But was it enough? Was it right?