She paused. Tadek waited, his breath high and shallow in his throat.
“I told you, I started working at the Charité hospital in March.”
“Yes.”
“Alfred came to see me in April. He was being sent to the Berlin defense line along with the boys under his charge. He came to say goodbye to me. Berlin was almost entirely surrounded by then.”
Tadek saw her knuckles turn white as she clutched at the glass.
“He said, he wanted to say goodbye in private, not in front of all the doctors and nurses and all of those poor wretches we had to put right on the floor… So, I went with him to the cellar where the bomb shelter was. It was empty during the day. With the Ivans so close, the Amis hardly ever bombed us anymore so as not to kill them by accident.”
Tadek let her go through all of those unnecessary details without interrupting. He almost wished her to start speaking about something entirely different, just not to get to the main point, not to have to be there with her in that cellar, alone with Alfred.
“I thought he only wanted to talk.” Another long pause. She rose to her feet a bit unsteadily and poured herself more cognac. There was no talking about it without alcohol, that much was obvious. “And then, instead of goodbyes, he said, you saw what those Asian hordes do to women. Better me than them. That was his reasoning for what he did. Didn’t want the Russians to rape me before him.”
She sat back on the bed, brought the glass to her lips and poured the contents down her throat. Her hand was shaking. Tadek took it gently in his and she didn’t pull away.
“Do you know what’s the funniest part? When the Ivans came, they didn’t touch us. They had so many injured with them – their own – and we tended to them along with their doctors and they spared us. The frontline troops were actually decent fellows and even supplied us with their medications and whatnot. It was the rear troops that came after them, that began all that wild orgy all over Berlin but we were still safe in the hospital with ‘our’ Ivans. You know, when they first came, I almost wanted them to do it, just so that the entire rotten affair would be somewhat justified at least.” Her icy fingers dug into his palm with force. “How damn ironic it is, that the people who I expected to hurt me, didn’t and the person who I thought would protect me, did this to me instead. Isn’t it funny? I think it’s hysterical. Fate has some sick sense of humor, wouldn’t you say?”
“It certainly has,” Tadek muttered under his breath. It was illegal bringing anything even remotely resembling a weapon to school but he was suddenly considering smuggling a knife in his pocket. He didn’t need a large one, just a small one would do. Stuff its end into an apple – there are plenty of those in the orchard – and put it into your pocket that way, so the blade doesn’t pierce its way through. “Did you report it?”
From Gerlinde, a cold, derisive snort. “To whom? The police? They’d tell me to take a number and have a seat along with the entire rest of Eastern Germany. Doctor Dressler, my immediate superior? He’d laugh and say that he wished he had my troubles. He barely slept those days, three-four hours if he were lucky. His arms, elbows deep in blood, hardly any medications left, almost no anesthetics, mutilated half-corpses, like a carpet on the floor and the more he bandaged, the more they brought in. You truly believe something of my sort was on the list of his priorities?” She shook her head again, a cynical smirk barely visible in the meager light coming from the hallway. “It wasn’t even on the list of my priorities, to be truthful. I thought it to be best not to think about it at all after Alfred had left. I didn’t even cry, believe it or not. I was angry and numb but most of all just numb. So, I fixed my clothes and went back to work. I thought I’d forget all about it with time… But then I saw his face today and it all came rushing back to me, like a wave and I felt like I was drowning—”
“Like with me and that idiotic Red Cross truck?”
She smiled softly. “Exactly.” Her head was on his shoulder now, heavy and alien and familiar at the same time. “Does it often happen to you? The memories, that is?”
“Not often. Just when something triggers them. And at nights, too.”
“Yes. The nights. I hate the nights the most.”
“What about your father?”
“What about him?”
“Did you tell him?”
She was quiet for a moment. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t want to upset him with that on top of other things, I suppose. Like he didn’t want to upset me with certain things. In the very end, he was burning so many papers in the fireplace, papers and photos… When I asked him what those were, he said, nothing. Nothing for me to worry about.” She paused. “Perhaps, he wanted to protect me. Or was too ashamed to admit it. That’s why I didn’t tell him anything. Or, perhaps I didn’t tell him because deep inside I was afraid that he wouldn’t believe me or would get angry with me or, worst of all, would do nothing.” After another long pause, she finished softly, “you’re the only person I’ve ever told.”
Tadek felt his throat constricting. He kissed the top of her head with infinite tenderness and wondered if Morris could find von Rombachs’ current address for him – for the “investigation purposes.”
12
The interrogation room was dingy and dark. Despite Morris’s reassurances that the Gestapo never used it, that
