A Woman of War: A new voice in historical fiction for 2018, for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Mandy Robotham
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with a tiny porch and patio, just big enough for a small table and chair outside the window. It was like a tiny holiday home, a place to relish freedom and the view.
The clothes Christa had adjusted were laid out on the bed; a toiletry set, fresh stockings and underwear on the drawers opposite. Next door, in the small bathroom, soap, shampoo and fresh towels were set neatly. Also laid out was a working midwife’s kit – a wooden, trumpet-like Pinard to listen to a baby’s heartbeat, a blood pressure monitor, a stethoscope, and a urine testing kit. All brand new. Guilt ran through me like lightning. What else was I expected to sacrifice for this luxury? Not just my skills, surely? Over the last two years I had faced my demons over death; I had strived to avoid it with any careless slips, but resigned, in a way, to its inevitability in all this fury. My biggest fear was in being made to choose, trading something of myself for my own beating heart, of living without soul.
In the camp, it was an easy black and white decision. It was them and us, and when favours were exchanged it was for life and death. It wasn’t unheard of for the fitter women to barter their bodies with the guards in exchange for food to keep their children or each other alive; an acceptable contract since we already felt detached from our sexuality – it was simply functioning anatomy. But information that might lead to fellow captives being dragged towards a torturous death – that was another matter. It happened, of course, when cultures were pitted against each other, but I had trusted the women around me implicitly. We would die rather than sell our sense of being.
The maid would return for me just before three, she said. I resented the time alone when she left, when I would have to think. I deeply envied those with the ability to empty their minds for some peace, to enter a blank arena with doors leading to more and more emptiness. Peace? Merely the prospect, either universal or personal, seemed utterly remote.
I found a blanket in one of the drawers and sat on the porch, basking in a winter sun slowly tipping across my face, warm and comforting. The gardens were quiet, no uniformed guards in sight, so either they were discreet, or not on full alert. I wondered if the Führer was present, and if being near to the centre of evil felt any different – whether I might sense its strength if he were near. What I would do if I came face to face with the engineer of Germany’s moral demise?
Berlin, March 1941
It was inevitable, and the one that nobody wanted: the baby of our fears.
‘Sister?’ Dahlia’s voice was already unsteady as she found me tidying the sluice.
‘Yes, what is it?’ My back still to her.
‘The baby in Room 3. It’s, erm—’
I spun around. ‘It’s what? The baby’s born, breathing?’
‘Yes, it’s born, and alive, but …’
Her blue eyes were wide, bottom lip trembling like a child’s.
‘There’s something not quite … his legs are …’
‘Spit it out, Dahlia.’
‘… deformed.’ She said it as if the word alone was treason.
‘Oh.’ My mind churned instantly. ‘Is it very obvious, at just a glance?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Anything else?’
‘No, he looks perfectly fine otherwise – a gorgeous little boy. Alert, he handles well.’
‘Has the mother noticed? Said anything to you?’
‘Not yet, he’s still swaddled. I noticed it at delivery, and again when I weighed him. I’m not imagining it, Sister.’
We both stood for a minute, searching in ourselves for the answer, hoping another would hurtle through the door and provide a ready solution. It was me who spoke first, eyes directly on her.
‘Dahlia, you know what we’ve been told. What do you feel you should do?’
With such knowledge I was already complicit in any decision, but if we covered this up, would I regret it? Would it be me as the ward lead who got a visit from the hospital administrator, and the Gestapo? Or would we both bear a secret and keep it within each other? Sad to say that in war, in among the Nazis’ pure breed of distrust, even your colleagues were unknowns.
‘I’m frightened of not saying anything,’ Dahlia said, visibly shaking now, ‘but he shouldn’t be … he shouldn’t be taken from his mother. They will separate them, won’t they?’
‘I think there’s a good chance. Almost certainly.’
Dahlia’s eyes welled with tears.
‘Are you saying you want my help?’ I spelled it out. ‘Because I’ll help if you’re sure. But you have to be certain.’
We locked eyes for several seconds. ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she said at last.
I thought swiftly of the practicalities of making a baby officially exist but disappear in unison. ‘Dahlia, you finish the paperwork and start her discharge quickly. I’ll delay the paediatrician, and we’ll order a taxi as soon as possible.’
Adrenalin – always my most trusted ally – flooded my brain and muscles, allowing me the confidence to stride into the woman’s room. I painted on a congratulatory smile, and in my best diplomatic tones I told her it would be in her best interests to leave as soon as possible, to forsake her seven days of hospital lying-in, to quit Berlin and to move to her parents’ house, where her father was dangerously ill and not expected to last the night. Wasn’t that the case? It was, wasn’t it?
She was initially stunned, but soon understood why, as we unwrapped the swaddling and she saw with her own eyes the baby who would be no athlete, but no doubt loving and kind and very possibly a great mind. I hinted heavily at his future in the true Reich, and she cried, but only as she dressed hurriedly to go home. We were taking a large gamble on her loyalties to the Führer, but I had seen enough of mothers to know all but a few would lay down their lives for their child’s survival and a chance to keep them close. Looking at her stroking his less than perfect limbs, I wagered she was one of them.
Dahlia and I took turns in guarding the door, while I forged the signature of the paediatrician on shift. He saw so many babies, and his scrawl was so poor, it would be easy enough to convince him of another normal baby if the paperwork was ever questioned.
Dahlia’s face was a mask of white, and I had to remind her to smile as we shuffled the woman out of the birth room, as if leaving only hours after the birth was an everyday scenario. The baby was swaddled tightly, with only his eyes and nose visible to the world. The corridor was clear, and we moved slowly towards the labour ward entrance, the woman taking the pigeon steps of a newly birthed mother. Dahlia assured me a taxi was waiting, engine running.
‘Are you not transferring to the ward, Sister? Is everything all right?’ Matron Reinhardt’s distinctive tones ripped through the air, stern and commanding. I swore she could silence the clipping of her soles at will.
I spun on my heels, but gave Dahlia a gentle tug on her shoulder, which meant: ‘Stay put, don’t move.’
My face fixed itself. ‘Sadly, family illness means we need to discharge this mother early, Matron. A grandfather who is keen to see the little one, as the doctors think his time is limited.’
The woman turned her head, nodding agreement, lips pursed.
Matron stepped towards