Carla frowned. ‘It was Ada, I think.’
Then, more distinctly, they heard: ‘Help!’
Erik got to his feet, but Carla was ahead of him. He went after her. Ada’s room was in the basement. They ran down the stairs and into the small bedroom.
There was a narrow single bed up against the wall. Ada was lying there, her face screwed up in pain. Her skirt was wet and there was a puddle on the floor. Erik could hardly believe what he was seeing. Had she pissed herself? It was scary. There were no other grown-ups in the house. He did not know what to do.
Carla was scared, too – Erik could see it in her face – but she was not panicked. She said: ‘Ada, what’s wrong?’ Her voice sounded strangely calm.
‘My waters broke,’ Ada said.
Erik had no idea what that meant.
Nor did Carla. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘It means my baby is coming.’
‘You’re pregnant?’ Carla said in astonishment.
Erik said: ‘But you’re not married!’
Carla said furiously: ‘Shut up, Erik – don’t you know anything?’
He did know, of course, that women could have babies when they were not married – but surely not Ada!
‘That’s why you went to the doctor last week,’ Carla said to Ada.
Ada nodded.
Erik was still trying to get used to the idea. ‘Do you think Mother and Father know?’
‘Of course they do. They just didn’t tell us. Fetch a towel.’
‘Where from?’
‘The airing cupboard on the upstairs landing.’
‘A clean one?’
‘Of course a clean one!’
Erik ran up the stairs, took a small white towel from the cupboard, and ran down again.
‘That’s not much good,’ Carla said, but she took it and dried Ada’s legs.
Ada said: ‘The baby’s coming soon, I can feel it. But I don’t know what to do.’ She started to cry.
Erik was watching Carla. She was in charge now. It did not matter that he was the older one: he looked to her for leadership. She was being practical and staying calm, but he could tell that she was terrified, and her composure was fragile. She could crack at any minute, he thought.
Carla turned to Erik again. ‘Go and fetch Dr Rothmann,’ she said. ‘You know where his office is.’
Erik was hugely relieved to have been given a task he could manage. Then he thought of a snag. ‘What if he’s out?’
‘Then ask Frau Rothmann what you should do, you idiot!’ Carla said. ‘Get going – run!’
Erik was glad to get out of the room. What was happening there was mysterious and frightening. He went up the stairs three at a time and flew out of the front door. Running was one thing he did know how to do.
The doctor’s surgery was half a mile away. He settled into a fast trot. As he ran he thought about Ada. Who was the father of her baby? He recalled that she had gone to the movies with Paul Huber a couple of times last summer. Had they had sexual intercourse? They must have! Erik and his friends talked about sex a lot, but they did not really know anything about it. Where had Ada and Paul done it? Not in a movie theatre, surely? Didn’t people have to lie down? He was baffled.
Dr Rothmann’s place was in a poorer street. He was a good doctor, Erik had heard Mother say, but he treated a lot of working-class people who could not pay high fees. The doctor’s house had a consulting room and a waiting room on the ground floor, and the family lived upstairs.
Outside was parked a green Opel 4, an ugly little two-seater unofficially called the Tree Frog.
The front door of the house was unlatched. Erik walked in, breathing hard, and entered the waiting room. There was an old man coughing in a corner and a young woman with a baby. ‘Hello!’ Erik called, ‘Dr Rothmann?’
The doctor’s wife stepped out of the consulting room. Hannelore Rothmann was a tall, fair woman with strong features, and she gave Erik a look like thunder. ‘How dare you come to this house in that uniform?’ she said.
Erik was petrified. Frau Rothmann was not Jewish, but her husband was: Erik had forgotten that in his excitement. ‘Our maid is having a baby!’ he said.
‘And so you want a Jewish doctor to help you?’
Erik was taken completely by surprise. It had never occurred to him that the Nazis’ attacks might cause the Jews to retaliate. But suddenly he saw that Frau Rothmann made total sense. The Brownshirts went around shouting: ‘Death to Jews!’ Why should a Jewish doctor help such people?
Now he did not know what to do. There were other doctors, of course, plenty of them, but he did not know where, nor whether they would come out to see a total stranger. ‘My sister sent
