by Margo Gorman
I miss you, Mary. If you get this tell me some news about my family. My mother doesn’t write much. Give me news of your crowd too.
Yours, Biddy
*
2nd February 1943
Dear Mary,
My wish might be coming true at last. Everybody is talking about the surrender of the 6th army in Stalingrad. There is more low murmuring. I don’t catch the words but I can tell from the way people shake their heads and the expressions on their faces that they would criticise Hitler now if they dared. Adelheid got word the other day that one of her sons was already killed in the Battle of Stalingrad but now she has hope that the other has survived as a Prisoner of War. Apparently the leader of the 6th Army, someone called Friedrich Paulus, disobeyed Hitler because he surrendered instead of fighting to the last man. Though I think she is afraid that the Red Army would kill the survivors instead of taking them prisoner. Nobody dares say it but I think the defeat means that Stalin and his Red Army have a chance of winning the war now. I hope, whatever happens, it means the war will be over soon.
I spend less time with the children with this new matron. I’m all day up to my armpits in nappies, children’s clothes, towels and the covers of the small beds – soaked with pee of course. All these have to be passed through a monstrous wringer and hung to dry. The wringer is electric and when it breaks down it is even worse as I have to use the hand one. At least it is work of a sort and without it I would be in a worse state. I pity the poor children who are subjected to a strict regime of food, change, sleep, crawling or walking. It has become a joyless place but still they manage to play and smile. That keeps me going. I soon realised that the new matron doesn’t do the Hitler salute just to stay out of trouble like the last one. She is clearly a committed supporter and she trains the children to march and salute. I wait to get home before I laugh at the ridiculous scene. She like a Sergeant Major and the little ones stamping their feet to the music and then stopping for the Hitler salute. She stands in front of the picture of the Führer. I am sure she means the children to salute her. I hope she doesn’t want to check my papers. They got me this job all right but now maybe they want more. I live in terror of anyone asking to see my papers in case there is something wrong. I do the Heil Hitler salute in an orderly and serious fashion but I feel sure they will see through me someday. At the moment there is more talk about the Red Army than the British. Even so I make sure everyone knows that I am Irish and Ireland is against the British and against the Communists too. On the walk to and from work each day I try to look as dowdy and dull as every other woman who walks to work. That’s not too difficult, I’m sorry to say.
Yours, Biddy
*
26th December 1943
Dear Mary,
The year has dragged on dismally. I spent Christmas day alone and a good part of the day huddled in bed for heat. My Christmas dinner was bacon from home with spuds and onions from Herr Schmitt. It makes a change from soup. When this is over, I never want to see soup again in my life. I haven’t had the heart to write here. Now I really am homesick and lonely. I wish every day that I had gone home when I could – Dieter came by today and brought a tiny morsel of sausage and bread. He doesn’t call often now and his uniform no longer hangs in the wardrobe. He would try to get me home if I want but he may be just saying it. I know it will be hard for him to do it now. He says Delia is OK and is working. But I know that already because I still write to her and she writes back. Dieter says it would be easier to send me to Bavaria. I said yes I will go soon but I haven’t the heart to do anything about that either. Maybe the war will soon be over now that they are really fighting.
Dieter found the remains of a bottle of Schnaps in the sideboard and we finished the bottle together. This war turns everything topsy-turvy even my feelings. Dieter kissed me goodnight and I felt funny. I do love him but I think for both of us it was only because of the Schnaps and missing Delia. I just laughed and pushed him away from me to his own bedroom. It makes me restless so I write this by candlelight like at home. I don’t want the brightness of electric tonight even though the blackout curtains are well fixed.
*
New Year’s Eve 1943.
Another Sylvester and I forgot to ask Dieter why they call it Sylvester – is it a saint? We would need a saint to help us welcome in the New Year. I thought the war would be long over by now. I lie awake every night now listening to the sirens. We are lucky that we allowed to use our cellar as an air-raid shelter. In the public air-raid shelters, people are just huddled together like cattle. Herr Schmidt insists on coming round to check that everyone goes down to their cellar. He takes his role very seriously and becomes more military every day. When there were raids every night I decided to make my bed in our cellar but he still comes to check that I am there. He stayed yesterday to chat. I am glad of the chance to keep practising my German and he makes me do the salute several times so that I do it correctly. It is a small price to pay. I rarely get chance now to speak much in work and hardly dare buy a newspaper. I am glad that Dieter and Delia befriended him. Maybe they did it for my sake.
There’s a pump in the cellar for ground water. Delia said that I should never drink it but sometimes I have tried it and I have had no ill effects so I don’t always climb the stairs with a bucket. There is an old boiler that was used for heating water for washing. I use the boiler to keep warm if I am not too tired to make sure there is water in it. I have a good selection of scraps of wood. I gather them on my way home from work. I have made the cellar quite cosy. All the cellars have their own door and I have ours to myself most of the time as the nurses are hardly ever here at night. I have made it into my own private waiting room. I dream of the things that are stored in the boxes and of the day that we will unpack them again. I have taken up reading by candlelight. I moved some of Dieter’s books down here but I can’t read the books in German. I feel guilty when I burn some of them but I tell myself that he won’t notice they are gone. I read the children’s books in German and am happy when I can understand them.
I’ve taught myself a sort of wide-awake daydreaming to pass the time and fill the space of my longings. I long for the feeling of glamour that I had when I came here first. I want to ride on the trams again and swing around the corner with a light heart looking at shops and bits of sky. I long for people who can look you in the eye again. I long for cafés with bowls of hot milky coffee where you pay with real money. I long for a trip home to Ireland too. I packed my things. It was easy to put everything I owned back into the small cream pigskin suitcase I love so much. I keep it in the cellar now and stroke the label on it for Berlin. The label on it reminds me of something from a film. I’ve only ever seen one film in Ireland. I can see Rudolf Valentino saying goodbye at the station and holding onto the hand of his loved one until the train pulled away. It would be lovely to go to Manorhamilton to see a film with you. I will come for a visit when this nonsense is over. Writing to you makes me less lonely. One day soon we will read these letters together to remind us of hard times.
Yours, Biddy
The date on the next letter was 30th May 1945 but the writing was hard to read. Aisling wondered about the gap. The time in the camp? She had heard the aunt call out, ‘Supper’s ready’ about 10 minutes before but had pretended not to hear. Now she decided to risk an evening with the aunt rather than escape into the city. She would find a way to ask her about the war. Time to gather more ideas for her sketches. She waited for the deadly lull after ‘Abendbrot’ when they both looked for something to talk about.
‘So how long have you lived here in Berlin?’ Asking for a response to a question already answered by the letters.
‘It feels like a whole lifetime,’ Brigitte sighed, ‘I was only eighteen when I came to be a nanny for Delia and Dieter’s children.’
‘So you came for work?’ Questions looking to connect the letters to the person then and now.
‘Yes work, although you’d think from my parents
it was a finishing school I was headed off to. Delia was from Manorhamilton – her father was a tailor and her family had a draper’s shop there. My parents ran up a mighty bill with a suit, hat, gloves, coat and suitcase. No daughter of theirs would let the family down. Delia met Dieter in the Mater hospital in Dublin when she was training to be a nurse.’ Brigitte whistled a deep sigh from her chest, ‘It was the happiest day of my life, the day I arrived in Berlin.
‘And you’ve been here ever since.’ A lifetime, Aisling conceded to herself.
‘Ever since.’ Like an echo.
‘Were you a nanny during the War too?’
‘When the children were old enough, I worked in a crèche.’
‘What about Delia’s husband, was he a German soldier?’
‘He was a doctor and an important one. He stayed in Berlin for a long time but then he was posted to the Eastern Front.’
‘And you stayed in Berlin when Delia went to Bavaria?’ Aisling enjoyed seeing a bit of fluster in the aunt. The memory of the Schnaps and snuggle? Maybe there was more to it than she told Mary. Could be she had an affair with him and Katharina was his daughter – that would be real news in Manorhamilton. It was worth a bit more interrogation.
‘Well, he was hardly ever there. And the nurses who moved in were hardly ever there either.’
‘So you were on your own most of the time?’
‘Well, I was in the apartment on my own but there were other families in the building.’
‘Were there bombs?’
‘Oh, there were bombs all right.’
‘Weren’t you afraid?’
‘At first, I wasn’t afraid of anything – that’s why I stayed when I had the chance to go. Maybe I didn’t know enough about anything to be afraid. Then it was too late to go home anyway. I did not think of it as my war – it would be something settled one way or another by the powers that be – nothing to do with me.’
Aisling closed her eyes, mentally trying a sketch of the aunt.
‘What about the bombs?’
‘Bombs fell on guilty and innocent. Some of the houses in our street were hit. Our neighbours, the Goldmanns, were long gone. Vanished one day. I hoped they managed to get out of the country and I was relieved for them. I still don’t know what happened to them.’
‘But the house you were living in was hit?’
‘Yes, I came back from work one day to find it gone. It was after one of the raids in the middle of an afternoon. The Allies took greater and greater risks – maybe to convince us they were winning. The kindergarten took all the children to the air-raid shelter and the matron told me to go on home. I saw one of the bombs burst as I made my way home.‘
‘You saw an actual bomb?’ Aisling was impressed.
‘It didn’t look like a bomb or what I thought a bomb should look like. I was running but there was no-one left on the street. It seemed like the planes above my head were looking to drop their bomb directly on me. I decided it was all over and stopped. Then I saw it in front of me – a glorious green glow that looked like something alive – like some creature with a message from heaven. I was mesmerised by it and watched it hit the wall. My feet were still on the ground but I was in a cloud of dust and could see nothing except that the heavenly creature had vanished inside a heap of green dung. Then the dung turned into a giant brush of fire sweeping down the street setting everything in its path alight down to the cellar steps. When it settled I could hear screams so I knew I was still alive. Every cellar was full of people. Like ours their cellar was an air raid shelter. I didn’t stop to see what happened next. My legs felt wobbly and strange as if they were not really part of me but they carried me down another street and another and then I realised I was running away from home. Nowhere was safe so I thought I might as well turn and go back. I got lost avoiding the street of the bomb and around another corner I overheard bits of German – eine alte Frau. They were looking for an old woman: I don’t know if they found her: lots of familiar places had melted into the thick smoky air. Sometimes later there were whispers in a queue for water or soup, or reading out the names chalked on the doorway of the building where they used to live. You might hear then of a missing name – some neighbour burnt alive.’
‘Did you ever think of telling your story? Oral history or something similar?’
Brigitte looked suspicious.
‘Why not tell your story, Mama?’ she mimicked. Must be Katharina.
‘My story for Katharina and Monika. Now you too. Everybody wants the story with the angels and the devils. They say they want the truth but the truth is too ugly to tell. Easier to pretend those things did not happen or take memories out and look at them secretly. No-one can put words onto it. Maybe no-one can hold such horror in their head for very long. It is better forgotten. There is no point admitting that such things can happen when they should never happen. It’s too hard to think that someone was responsible. Even after the war when it was over, then it was too hard to face that someone British or American had bombed houses full of people. In order to be able to eat, we had to accept them as our liberators. Sometimes people looked at me in envy because I was one of them in a way – almost British. Sometimes they looked at me with hatred. Either way, I don’t blame them.’
Aisling felt the adrenalin rush again. She would check the aunt’s story but truth or fiction, it kept making great images in her head. Her colour scheme was now green and red on top of black and white, not a whole palette of colour.
‘Do you know if there is any film or photos of the green bombs?’
‘Those fire bombs were better forgotten. The Allies did not want them remembered. We did not want our shame remembered. There were whispers telling how Hamburg was even worse than Berlin. There was a bookshop here in Berlin, where the owner had photos but he kept them hidden. Only people who asked had the chance to see them. He let me look at them and I knew why he did not want them on display – the suffering of so much pain is not for spreading around. Only people like me needed to see those images to be glad it was over. It was as if I was taking a secret look at something dirty from my past. When he saw me he would get them out and leave me there in silence for a while. Later we would talk about the weather. Surely for someone who had no memories, such pictures would be even more of an obscenity.’
‘So the photos might still exist?’ The aunt looked at her with vacant eyes and said nothing.
‘Why did you feel ashamed? You didn’t do anything?’ Any question to stop her clamming up.
‘Why did I feel ashamed? My own daughter thought I must have done something so bad I couldn’t talk about it. Maybe I did. Maybe we all did. Maybe we all do.’
‘Yes, but you didn’t blow up your own house, did you? I expect the British and Americans were proud of what they did. They stopped Hitler. It was Hitler they were trying to bomb. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘But shame is not for what you do or don’t do. Shame is what you feel in front of others. Would you like someone to know that your wife carried your dead baby in a suitcase all the way from Hamburg to Berlin and then committed suicide in front of her remaining two children? Would you be proud of that or ashamed?’
‘Well, I suppose I wouldn’t go around boasting about it but I would expect people to understand that it was a war and strange things happen and people do strange things. I wouldn’t feel ashamed of it or guilty.’
‘Ach so. Maybe for young people to-day it is different. They have grown up with Television and they see wars and bombs every day. Maybe you would not feel ashamed and dirty if it touched your life. But you don’t know.’
‘But I do know,’ It was out before Aisling knew the words were there. The aunt looked at her strangely.
‘Maybe it is not the same but I felt like that when Michael died. Ashamed and dirty. Not guilty, but it was as if it was something that I had done. Something I couldn’t talk about. But I didn’t even know what it was.’
The aunt lo
oked at her. Aisling shrugged. She wished she hadn’t said anything about Michael. The aunt was a wily old bitch and could corner her if she wasn’t careful. How to get this back to bombs in Berlin without it being too noticeable?
‘So where was this apartment that was bombed? Is it far from here, maybe I’ll go take a look? And where did you live if it was bombed?’
The aunt looked at her again. Clearly she sussed these last questions were a smokescreen but she answered anyway, ‘I was one of the lucky ones. It wasn’t a firebomb that hit our street – only an ordinary one. Nobody was killed and the cellar was still there. A few of the people and the local blockwart cleared a way down the steps. The rest were still in there – more dazed and shocked than I was. We stayed there. I didn’t go back to work after that. I couldn’t face them. No work meant no ration book.’
‘So what did you eat?’
‘I had hoarded some flour and potatoes in our cellar. The flour was alive with little small black creatures but I mixed it with bicarbonate of soda and water and made griddle scones on the boiler. I had hidden a jar of bottled beans, jars of pickled gherkins and some large jars of bottled red cabbage – buried in sand in buckets. I was lucky they were still there too. Bottled fruit. The jars came from Delia’s mother-in-law in Bavaria. She would bring a great suitcase full of jars of stuff when she visited. Delia wouldn’t touch most of it before the war and even on rations, she would rather go hungry than eat it.
