“What would you like, today?” he said.
“Meat, if you have any.”
Franz went back inside and returned with a small parcel of minced meat wrapped in a page torn from Das Reich.
She peeled back the newsprint, peered in, lifting the contents to her nose. “What is it?” It had an odd smell.
“It’s meat,” he said. “Three hundred grams, full of good stuff.”
“Is it horse? Mule?”
“It’s a mixture. Do I ask what you’re putting in the bread?” He gave her his broken-toothed grin. “I’ll take one of your loaves.”
She glared at him. “A third of a loaf.”
“A half. Take it or leave it.”
She opened her bag, pulled out one of her loaves and cut it in half with a penknife. Franz grabbed the half loaf and slammed the door in her face.
Her second call was to the Ruhwald Schrebergärten allotments beside the golf course, just across the main road from her apartment block. She visited two plots, exchanging generous slices of bread for vegetables. Her last call was to an allotment owned by Hans Klein. A tousled-headed, barrel-chested ex-soldier, Hans lived in the same block as Gretchen. He had lost his right leg above the knee in the Russian campaign and had been fitted with a false one made of metal. Heavy and unarticulated, he walked by swinging it, pivoting on his good leg.
Hans spent all his time at the allotment, although his vegetable patch was overgrown and in need of attention. What he did there all day, every day, was a mystery to Gretchen. Certainly not tending to the soil.
She found him in the cabin sitting in his old armchair, his metal leg stretched out before him, resting on a wooden kitchen chair.
“What does our Gauleiter have to say today?” she asked. The high-pitched, nasal voice of Dr Joseph Goebbels coming from Hans’s Volksempfänger radio was instantly recognizable.
Hans gave her a blank look. “The people of the Fatherland have nothing to fear.” His deep voice rolled around her like ocean waves. “The Wehrmacht is driving the Americans out of Italy into the Adriatic Sea. The final glorious victory in the Mediterranean will be ours.”
“And what about Berlin? Will the bombings stop?”
He switched the radio off. “Berlin will always be the pride of the Reich. Our brave soldiers will protect us. Our anti-aircraft batteries are to be improved; new ones added. We just have to remain strong, to knuckle down and work together tirelessly.”
“Of course. Tirelessly.”
He gave her two onions and three potatoes in exchange for a thick slice of Kommissbrot.
“And what of the western war?” she asked.
“The advance of the Americans and the English has been halted at Caen in Northern France.”
“So they won’t ever reach us here?”
“The Western Allies are weak. They will fail to take France. And they will never break the Westwall.”
“Of course.” She wondered how much of this he believed. It was impossible to tell from his expression or the way he delivered the news. “And the Soviets?”
“The Gauleiter didn’t mention them. The last I heard they were bogged down somewhere in Poland.” He handed her a copy of Völkischer Beobachter, a couple of days old. “I saved this for your husband.”
“Thank you.”
“How is Herr Schuster?”
“Much the same. I live in hope.”
As she left the cabin, he gave her a bent-arm Hitler salute, which she ignored.
4
Hans was an enigma. He had sacrificed a limb for the Reich, but he didn’t seem depressed or angry – or even resentful. He’d never said anything to suggest that he was anything less than a committed Nazi. How could a man lose a leg, see Germany under attack from two sides, the inevitable loss of the war approaching fast, and still remain faithful to the Führer? It made no sense.
Gretchen’s husband, Oskar, had been a geography teacher before the war, a well-read, cultured man. She thought of Hans as rough and uneducated. But she found him attractive, for some reason. He had a sense of humor, a sardonic smile and a rumbling laugh. She could only guess at his age. She thought he might be 40 to 45, five or ten years her junior. Perhaps that was the attraction. She tried not to think about what it would be like in bed with a man with a leg missing.
When she arrived home, she found Frau Niedermeyer, the postwoman, on her doorstep. She had no mail for Gretchen, but she had news that she was bursting to tell.
Breathlessly, the words poured from her lips while she stood between Gretchen and her front door. “You will recall I told you that our troops are defending the city of Caen. Well, they have now been under constant attack for at least two weeks. They have been fighting bravely, and in the last few days they have counterattacked successfully. The Americans and the English have suffered heavy losses and are retreating.”
Gretchen was skeptical. “Where did you hear this news?”
“Postcards home from our brave soldiers. They say that the Allied offensive will falter unless they can secure a port on the western coast. Antwerp or Calais would be their best choices, but our forces have both of them tied up like a drum. Antwerp is secured by an impenetrable Kriegsmarine blockade!”
“Thank you, Frau Niedermeyer, that’s wonderful news. Now if you don’t mind, I must attend to my husband.” Gretchen pushed past the postwoman and opened her door.
“There’s more!” said Frau Niedermeyer.
“Another day, perhaps,” said Gretchen, and she closed the door in her face.
She found Oskar sitting in his chair where she’d left him. He hadn’t touched the water or the food.
