Joachim Koch.
After a few minutes Frieda said to Carla: ‘You’re a bit solemn. What is it?’
‘I know how you get the food you bring us,’ Carla said. ‘You’re not a black marketeer, are you?’
‘Of course I am,’ Frieda said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I saw you this morning, getting out of a jeep.’
‘Colonel Hicks gave me a lift.’
‘He kissed you on the lips.’
Frieda looked away. ‘I knew I should have got out earlier. I could have walked from the American zone.’
‘Frieda, what about Heinrich?’
‘He’ll never know! I’ll be more careful, I swear.’
‘Do you still love him?’
‘Of course! We’re going to get married.’
‘Then why . . . ?’
‘I’ve had enough of hard times! I want to put on pretty clothes and go to nightclubs and dance.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Carla said confidently. ‘You can’t lie to me, Frieda – we’ve been friends too long. Tell me the truth.’
‘The truth?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I did it for Walli.’
Carla gasped with shock. That had never occurred to her, but it made sense. She could believe Frieda would make such a sacrifice for her and her baby.
But she felt dreadful. This made her responsible for Frieda’s prostituting herself. ‘This is terrible!’ Carla said. ‘You shouldn’t have done it – we would have managed somehow.’
Frieda sprang up from the piano stool with the baby still in her arms. ‘No, you wouldn’t!’ she blazed.
Walli was frightened, and cried. Carla took him and rocked him, patting his back.
‘You wouldn’t have managed,’ Frieda said more quietly.
‘How do you know?’
‘All last winter, babies were brought into the hospital naked, wrapped in newspapers, dead of hunger and cold. I could hardly bear to look at them.’
‘Oh, God.’ Carla held Walli tight.
‘They turn a peculiar bluish colour when they freeze to death.’
‘Stop it.’
‘I have to tell you, otherwise you won’t understand what I did. Walli would have been one of those blue frozen babies.’
‘I know,’ Carla whispered. ‘I know.’
‘Percy Hicks is a kind man. He has a frumpy wife back in Boston and I’m the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. He’s nice and quick about intercourse and always uses a condom.’
‘You should stop,’ Carla said.
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘No, I don’t,’ Carla confessed. ‘And that’s the worst part. I feel so guilty. I am guilty.’
‘You’re not. It’s my choice. German women have to make hard choices. We’re paying for the easy choices German men made fifteen years ago. Men such as my father, who thought Hitler would be good for business; and Heinrich’s father, who voted for the Enabling Act. The sins of the fathers are visited on the daughters.’
There was a loud knock at the front door. A moment later they heard scampering steps as Rebecca hurried upstairs to hide, just in case it was the Red Army.
Then Ada’s voice said: ‘Oh! Sir! Good morning!’ She sounded surprised and a bit worried, though not scared. Carla wondered who would induce that particular mixture of reactions in the maid.
There was a heavy masculine tread on the stairs, then Werner walked in.
He was dirty and ragged and thin as a rail, but there was a broad smile on his handsome face. ‘It’s me!’ he said ebulliently. ‘I’m back!’
Then he saw the baby. His jaw dropped and the happy smile disappeared. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘What . . . who . . . whose baby is that?’
