The German Midwife: A new historical romance for 2019 from the USA Today best seller.

by Mandy Robotham

  The camp itself was run efficiently. It was filthy, disease-ridden and a haven for death, but it functioned like clockwork and dished out punishment with vicious regularity. Officially, it was commanded by male SS, but in reality the female guards kept order and thrived as overseers. They presented the appearance of a tailored, coiffured and painted posse, having bizarrely set up a small hairdressing salon on site, where prisoners teased their locks into the latest styles. When they weren’t goading the dogs to snarl at us, they lavished untold affection on their ‘babies’, grooming their fur and slipping them treats of meat that we could only dream of. Each of them could have given the male SS officers lessons in cruelty, as if concrete had been stitched into that grey uniform.

  Beatings were common, vicious and visible, the punishment block often overcrowded, and death a part of daily life. Days when the body cart didn’t leave for the lakeshore were rare, bloody feet poking through a thin shroud, although Graunia told us that – officially – the death certificates only ever gave a cause of heart failure or pneumonia. I only hoped they were buried in peace, instead of a thousand souls bobbing for all eternity around the mud-laden waters.

  I kept my head down, sewing at a rate of knots, and took solace from the company of Graunia and several others in the hut. There were eighty or so in our barrack, a human mosaic of cultures and creeds: German, Hungarian, German Poles and Czechs, but no Jews. Our unity came in that we were anti-Nazi, some Communist, some Social Democrat, and so by definition all failed patriots. We called ourselves The Pests and took pride in it.

  The rest of the camp was a lesson in how to divide and rule. Jews, prostitutes, native Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses – all deemed ‘undesirables’ – each had their own hut or huts, depending on the numbers, and the guards took pleasure in pitching the groups against each other. It would be heartening to think that women forced together in adversity would band as one, all looking out for each other, the strong supporting the weak. But human nature isn’t like that. Survival, I learned swiftly, is the most basic of human instincts, and the Nazis’ strongest weapon was that they knew it. They used it.

  Reissen, the chief overseer, was shrewd. She took time in recruiting prisoners as enforcers – or Kapos – to act as hut leaders, giving them titbits of privilege to make life more bearable, and a smidgen of power to exert over women in the hut, in return for information on dissidence. They were also called on to do the guards’ dirty work for them. Some women, those who doubtless thought they had no morality left to lose, worked in the punishment block and dished out the beatings personally. The lust for life – your own life – is a powerful motivator.

  Because I kept myself under the radar, I was never singled out. Instead, I formed a tight trio with Graunia and Kirsten, a Czech-born German whose crime had been slipping Jews onto trade ships out of Germany. Together, we pooled food, stories, wishes and dreams. We kept each other alive. Each night, before lights out, we linked hands and whispered: ‘Another day gone, another day alive, another day towards freedom.’ It reminded me of the words I said almost daily at the hospital, to mothers who felt they would never reach journey’s end: ‘One contraction less, one closer to seeing your baby.’ Each day, that life seemed further and further behind me, like sand through my fingers.

  Until Leah. The industry in the sewing room that day was frenetic, with Herr Roehm even more ferocious than normal, due to an urgent order from the Reich’s upper office. There was a reward of a new Mercedes-Benz as a thank you for his ‘loyalty’ – Graunia told us as much when she typed the letter from Roehm, assuring the Reich office it would be ready on time, ‘whatever it takes’.

  That day, two women had already fainted from dehydration, and a snowstorm of fabric motes clogged the air as the cutters worked at full capacity. I had time only to concentrate on not catching my fingers under the machine needle, which was jumping at breakneck speed. The noise was endless and cacophonous.

  Leah was working two machines over from me. I had glimpsed her that morning walking into the room at six a.m., stooping slightly, with a hand clutching at her belly. Monthly bleeds were rare among prisoners but urine infections were common, causing intense bladder pain. I had flashed a look at her as we’d entered, bringing up my brow, as if to say ‘All right?’ She had smiled weakly, but didn’t nod. She was small and slight, and I hoped she would make it through the day. Graunia had told us the entire shipment was to be on the train by ten that night.

  All of us felt the end of Herr Roehm’s stick that day. Fast wasn’t good enough – he wanted the uniforms to fly off the machines at an obscene rate. By midday, when he saw the hope of his shiny new car rolling from view, his voice had reached fever pitch.

  ‘You bitches! No coffee at lunch until we have over half the order. Faster! Work faster, you bitches. Work for the Reich!’

  There were sweat patches on his jacket, and he looked as if he might need a doctor before some of us. Leah had already been prodded once, plus given a crack on her shoulder when she visibly slackened. When it was long past our missed break time, the woman between us shot out a hand to grab my attention.

  ‘She’s in trouble,’ she mouthed, and we both glanced towards Roehm, occupied on the other side of the room. Leah was slumped forward, head nestling on the material. She wasn’t dead; I could see the bony ladder of her spine through her shift dress, rising and jumping as if she were receiving a gentle jolt of electricity.

  We both froze. Rule number one, drummed into us day after day at the five a.m. roll call, barely awake in the grey square, was that we should not help any woman who fell. Weakness was not tolerated, even if it was created by the Reich itself. The instinct to help a fellow human in need earned you a swift beating and time in the solitary confinement block. More effective psychology.

  I knew if Roehm spied Leah looking as if she was napping, his cosh would come down hard on her tiny body, maybe even her head, with fatal consequences. One-handed, I continued sewing and waved the other arm in the air, hoping to attract the attention of the duty guard walking the lines of machinists. She was new to the camp and I hoped we might take advantage of what humanity was left inside her. The Kapo talking to Roehm was particularly brutal and, ironically, we had more chance with the guard.

  She approached. ‘What is it?’

  I pointed at Leah and the guard clomped over, pulling on her shoulders. ‘Come on, girl. Don’t get into trouble.’

  One eye was on my rattling machine, the other to my side. Leah’s head lolled heavily, and the guard pulled again. Leah came to sharply, and clutched at her belly. I heard that familiar wail even above the din of the room. Braying, bearing down. Labour. A baby. Unmistakable.

  I didn’t think of the consequences, the nights I might spend alone in a dark cell, nursing multiple bruises. I was up and out of my chair, peering under the rim of Leah’s dress, where the shape of a baby’s head was already moulding her skin, ready to show itself any minute.

  ‘She’s about to have a baby,’ I told the guard.

  ‘What? Can you see it?’ She looked worriedly for Roehm, but he was still distracted.

  ‘Not yet, but it won’t be long.’

  She looked at me suspiciously, and our eyes met. I pleaded with all my might in that look not to alert Roehm, but to ghost us out of the door before he could wield the cosh. Leah moaned again, and the guard’s eyes flicked towards the nearby door. She may have reasoned the mess of a birth would halt production and earn her a rebuke.

  We half pulled and half shuffled Leah from the room, into the small vestibule of the hut.

  ‘We need to get her to the Revier,’ the guard snapped, looking behind her for Roehm following.

  ‘She won’t make it,’ I said. ‘The head will be here any minute. Trust me.’

  ‘What makes you an expert all of a sudden?’

  ‘A big family, lots of nieces.’ I brushed it away. ‘We need something to wrap the baby in, some material.’

  Leah was on the floor now, s
eemingly unconscious, but brought round by the pain of the contraction. She was straining and pushing down visibly, the stretch of her skin paper-thin as I glimpsed a penny-size circle of black hair. The back of her dress was slightly damp, where the tiny pool of waters surrounding the baby had broken. Malnutrition meant it had been no tidal wave.

  The guard appeared again, with a length of off-cut material, her eyes darting uncomfortably. ‘This better happen soon, or Roehm will be out here,’ she barked. Even so, I saw her hands go automatically to Leah’s shoulder and give fleeting support.

  ‘It will.’ I was talking low to Leah, although she seemed in her own world. ‘It’s all right, Leah, you’re doing fine, nearly there.’ The patter was as much for me as her.

  Leah gave one almighty push and the baby’s head was born rapidly, black hair against chalky white skin. The features were still, lips a mottled maroon, and I couldn’t tell if there was life or not. With only a half push, the body slithered out like tiny puppy, flaccid and unmoving, a scrawny cord around his neck spindle. Instinctively, I rubbed at him with the material. ‘Hey, little man; hey, baby, come on,’ and then bent to blow life on him and in him. I didn’t think, I just did it.

  With no fat on his rack of ribs, it was easy to see when he breathed, a balloon of life hitting his sternum, and he coughed and whined. Leah came round in that split second, and her eyes registered alarm, and fear, soon joined by a smile. A real one. Several workers from the Revier, the hospital block, arrived and we moved her across the yard, still attached to her baby, drops of blood giving light, life and colour to the grit underfoot.

  Inside the medical block, I worked in my own world, encouraging the placenta away with a rub on Leah’s abdomen. Turning to dispose of it, I was met by the hard stare of the Revier Officer.

  ‘Do you have something to tell me, Prisoner Hoff?’ she said, eyebrows arched. ‘It seems you may have been hiding something from us.’

  34

  Beginnings

  Midnight on the fourth day since Dieter left, and I woke to the squeak of the door handle. His lofty silhouette moved towards the bed, feet tiptoeing in his socks.

  ‘It’s fine, I’m awake,’ I whispered.

  ‘Is this too late, do you need to sleep?’

  I propped up on my elbows. ‘No, I want to sleep with you – eventually.’

  The past week had seen my sex drive – depressed to almost zero since the real conflict began – reawakened, whetted by his presence. Sleepiness subsided at the mere sight of Dieter. His jacket relegated to the furthest corner of the room, he padded towards me and slipped under the covers.

  Bright sunlight was pushing through the thin curtains when I woke. It took me several seconds to realise I was still curled in the conch of his long body, that he hadn’t ghosted away as the light rose. He stirred as I stretched.

  ‘Dieter, it’s quite late. Shouldn’t you go?’

  He squinted at his watch, and fought the fog of sleep, squeezing my midriff as he burrowed down again.

  ‘Dieter?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, I gave Rainer the car for the night – he visits a woman down in the town. He won’t be back until midday.’

  He dozed as I stared at the curtains, dancing a jig in the breeze. My stomach groaned noisily and I would have given anything right then to have been in a Parisian hotel room in peacetime, the smell of coffee and pastries nearby, tempting me to run out from under the warm covers and steal them back to bed to share with Dieter.

  Gradually, I felt his breathing rise and he stretched awake. His lashes caught and tickled the back of my shoulders. He lay back and I shifted to fit like the last piece of a jigsaw under his arm.

  ‘Do you think we’ll ever wake up in a nice hotel room and have breakfast together?’ I mused.

  ‘Does it matter?’ he murmured. ‘I could go halfway and ask Frau Grunders to bring in a tray, if you’re really that keen.’

  I dug him playfully in the ribs. ‘Never hurts to have dreams, Captain.’

  He pressed his chin into the top of my head and I felt the warm air of his nostrils.

  My curiosity grew with the length of our silence.

  ‘Dieter, what do you think will happen to us, to Germany?’

  He pondered for a few seconds. ‘Us? I have no idea about that. But Germany, I don’t even like to think. It’s ironic that Hitler is probably in some bunker underground trying to manoeuvre a victory and yet we’re digging ourselves deep and deeper into a very dark hole.’

  ‘Is it that bad?’

  ‘I think so, judging by what comes across my desk. The high command has always been good at putting on a show, but underneath they are scrabbling like mice. I think Hitler has underestimated the Allies hugely. They are tenacious and Churchill is a wily fox.’

  Aside from the outburst that had first led us into bed, this was the nearest we had come to discussing the war in detail. Still, he seemed unguarded, as if purging was a comfort.

  ‘Goebbels still has control of the newspapers, so your average German thinks we’re marching over Europe unabated, heads high. In truth, the Allies are taking key points in Italy, and we’ve suffered major air attacks. German cities are destroyed and we’re limping like a wounded animal. There have been several attempts on Hitler’s life too, from inside his own troops. No wonder he’s not up here playing happy families.’

  A breath caught in my throat at the mention of an assassination attempt, and I worked to let the air release slowly. The words almost tipped out – the messages to Christa, the note under the sewing machine, the potential threat to the baby. Something in me, however, held back. I trusted him, I really did. I didn’t think Dieter would hurt or betray me. But, even now, I wasn’t sure how big the threat was, or if it would be very real on the day. I didn’t want to burden him any more, make him choose one side or the other. Too many choices might break us, and right now, he was the only bright thing allowing me to limp through. After Papa, my own propulsion wasn’t enough. I needed a reason to push through into tomorrow.

  ‘Dieter, are you afraid?’

  He took a long breath in and held it there – I felt the taut bellows of his chest against my ear. Finally, he let go.

  ‘I’m not sure I know what fear is any more. I lost it a good while ago, along with anxiety and worry. It all merges into one – you live every moment expecting to meet death like a long-lost friend around each corner. Even in my world. A drunk Nazi commander with a grudge and a gun is as dangerous as a battlefield sometimes.’

  ‘Do you have hope?’ was all I could say.

  ‘I do now,’ he said, squeezing me. A tiny, wet sensation snaked its way through the hairs on the top of my head and hit my scalp, but I didn’t look or feel to see if it was his tear, or the spark of my entire being pushing up to meet him.

  He dressed properly while I was in the bathroom, kissing me goodbye before I shut the door. I wandered into the servants’ hall as the table was being cleared, putting the kettle on to boil and busily setting my own breakfast. Cap under his arm, Dieter stepped uneasily into the room.

  ‘Morning, Fräulein Hoff. I appear to be too late for breakfast upstairs,’ he said, a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘So it seems, Captain. I’m rather late myself.’ I could barely suppress my laughter, in serious danger of giving us away. But I dipped my head and held on, our secret being the best of motivations. ‘I’m just about to make coffee. Can I interest you in some?’

  ‘I would be very grateful, thank you.’

  And so we had our breakfast together, not in an ornate hotel room, naked and smelling of sex, but fully clothed in the midst of the morning bustle, and with a steely, sideways glance from Frau Grunders as she sailed in and out.

  I moved towards Eva’s room with a definite spring to my step. Unusually, she was still in bed – it was gone ten by this point – but she called me in and rolled over with a groan. Her face was pale and puffy – telltale signs of a bad night.

  ‘Eva, how a
re you? You look tired.’

  ‘Oh, Anke, is it going to be like this for weeks now? I must have been up until about three. It feels so tight, like everything below is being crushed. But the baby is wriggling a lot, so that’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is. It’s probably the baby’s head going down and turning, which is also good.’

  Just a minute into the check, however, tiny wires pulsed in my brain. As I palmed the bump, it tightened under my fingers and Eva’s face crimped visibly, flushing just under her chin and creeping up her neck, subsiding as the flesh softened again. Her blood pressure was up slightly, and her pulse a little raised. If I wasn’t much mistaken, Eva was in early labour.

  The baby’s heart was sound as always, and I played down the tightenings – if she believed it could happen imminently, the whole house would be on high alert. Even if I was right, we could still have days of rumbling and brewing towards the real thing.

  ‘Well, it all seems fine. I’m sure it will settle down again,’ I told her. ‘Perhaps you ought to go for a walk, and then make sure you catch up on some sleep later.’

  Strangely, she seemed satisfied by my advice, and not for the first time I thought Eva Braun was stoical enough to withstand the physical demands that would soon face her.

  I found Dieter in the communications room, and gestured for him to talk outside, privately.

  ‘I can’t be sure but I think Eva is going into labour,’ I said as we came out of earshot.

  He looked slightly alarmed. ‘Is it too soon? I understood it would be another three weeks.’