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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my body from top to toe, giving me balm for the most obvious of skin sores, pronouncing my lungs ‘a little wheezy’ but not infected, and my teeth in surprisingly good condition. He didn’t balk at the sight of my ribcage or sorry breasts, working methodically to check I was no threat to my proposed client. His positive mutterings told me I was ready. I would do.
I slept uneasily that night, despite the sumptuous bedding. I thought of Rosa, cold and vulnerable, of all the women in the maternity hut, my own hut too, and of Margot, eight months into pregnancy, barely recognisable as a mother-to-be. Her bulge was tiny, but it had sucked every particle of nutrition from her needy body nevertheless. On the day, she would be stripped of energy and life and baby in one fell swoop, and Rosa left to deal with the physical debris, as well as Margot’s deep, vacuous keening, rising above the hut as she grieved the life and loss of her baby. And here I was, sleeping in near luxury. ‘Unfair’ didn’t begin to describe the lottery by which we lived, died, or merely existed.
I took my last meal in that house with Christa, who had been almost my only real contact since arriving. In such a short time, we had struck up a small friendship; I recognised in her some spirit that was here simply to live, for her family, and yet she revealed in those young, green eyes that she wasn’t one of them. It was survival, of a different kind to my own, but survival nonetheless. Maybe there were more of us than we imagined, just doing our best.
But was it enough? Was it right?
The large saloon engine gave off clouds in the crisp air as Christa waved me goodbye. ‘Be careful,’ she said, giving my hand a meaningful squeeze. ‘Look out for me – I’m sometimes sent up to the big house on errands.’
‘I will, and thank you, Christa. Thank you so much.’ I was genuinely sad to leave her, feeling we might have been better friends given time. We drove about a mile past large, lodge-style houses before the road started upwards, banked on either side by tall evergreens, climbing higher and higher up a stone coil of good road. The air changed, a tinge of blue clarity even inside the car, and it began to feel very mountainous. We passed through several checkpoints, and I had a distinct feeling that I would not be descending for some time to come.
After a quarter of an hour of slow climb, the car’s engines beginning to grumble like a troublesome uncle, the trees fanned out and the view became clear – we were, it seems, scaling a virtual mountain. Even with a light mist, it was spectacular, a feathery white collar to the rock mass, giving way below to a chequerboard of farmland, only dotted here and there with small clumps of dwellings. Like a child, I pressed my nose to the window – if we climbed any higher I felt we might be like Jack ascending the beanstalk, slipping through candy clouds.
In minutes, the top came into view, a concrete lip that looked as if it were teetering over the side of the granite peak, like the tree house my father had built in our garden, fun but always slightly tenuous. Just as I thought the road couldn’t get any steeper, it suddenly evened out and became a flat plain, and we drove through guarded black gates and onto a wide path. The view from below had been misleading; the mountain had a flattened area – by man or nature I couldn’t easily tell – and the house complex was large and sprawling, set into the side of the natural rock and not at the peak, as it first appeared. The main house was a mix of old stone and wood, chalet-style, two storeys but with an iceberg promise of more below. It was a tiny village on top of the world, small gardens and wide balconies surrounding the main house, with outbuildings here and there. Uniformed soldiers were dotted at various points, knights at the ready.
I was led upstairs onto the wide porch, breathing in air so dramatically different from the camp smog that I thought I must be on a different planet, my lungs wheezing on the purity. The light up here made me think there was life, after all; in all those dark days, this world had existed in parallel, outside of hell. It was almost too much to comprehend.
The door opened to a woman’s harsh, thin face, topped with a jet black cap of hair, bearing a reluctant smile.
‘Welcome Fräulein Hoff,’ she said. ‘I am Frau Grunders, the housekeeper.’ This last statement was said with reverence, but I managed only a ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you.’ Her prickly greeting mirrored the cacti and spiked greenery dotted in the hallway, set in rows of colourful, ceramic pots. She bristled as her ebony, austere shoes clipped on the wooden flooring, leading me through a high, vaulted hallway, and down to the servants’ quarters. I was shown into a small parlour, which could have been called either cluttered or cosy.
‘Please take a seat and wait here,’ she said, and closed the door.
Minutes later an officer in grey SS uniform entered, stooping through the doorway to avoid his lofty height making contact with the gable.
‘Morning Fräulein, I am Captain Stenz.’ He clicked his heels and sat awkwardly, although his face was open. ‘I will be your official contact here. My information is that you have been told only a little of your duties.’ A deep well of blue irises looked at me directly.
‘I have, Captain, yes. I was only told that my skills as a midwife would be needed.’
He paused, eyes scanning the floor, as if revealing any more was physically painful. Silently, he peeled off black leather gloves, finger by finger.
‘The situation is delicate,’ he said finally. ‘We are relying not only on your practical skills but on your professional confidentiality … and integrity.’
I only nodded, eager for him to go on.
‘There is a lady residing in this house who is currently pregnant – four to five months we believe. For a number of reasons she cannot attend a hospital for care. She will be your sole charge.’
‘Am I allowed to know her name, if I am to be her constant carer?’
He sighed at the inevitability of opening a secret but dangerous box, and placed his leather gloves on the small table between us, as if he were really laying down a gauntlet.
‘Her name is Fräulein Eva Braun.’ With those words Captain Stenz sat back in his chair, aware that a volatile cat had been let out of the bag. I had never been a follower of the magazine gossip columns but my younger sister, Ilse, keenly crawled over the fashion pages, following the rounds of Berlin’s social parties. ‘Look at this, Anke,’ she’d often say. ‘Don’t you think she’s just gorgeous? Shall I have my hair like that?’ Thanks to Ilse, I had heard Eva Braun’s name – as the sister to one of Hitler’s inner circle, a wholesome German girl, from a good family, blonde and blue-eyed, someone Hitler could and would be associated with. It was never stated that they were close, or even romantically involved – the Führer was married to Germany, after all. In the propaganda newsreels engineered to show his human side – the Führer ‘at play’ – she was sometimes in the background, filming with a camera, alongside her sister, Gretl.
Now, my mind spiralled. Up until then, I thought I had been engaged to look after the wife of a Nazi dignitary, or even the illegitimate child of the Reich’s inner circle. But now, something far more sinister ran like electricity through my brain, so incredible it seemed beyond reason.
Could it be that Adolf Hitler, the Führer, the Commander of the Third Reich, and possibly all of Europe, in time, was the father of Eva Braun’s baby? And what would that mean to his standing as the Father of Germany – to be shared with a population who he claimed as his children? To those of us who had experienced Hitler’s version of cleansing, who had witnessed first-hand what he