She didn’t feel guilty afterwards. She told herself it was simply natural. Nature reigning supreme again. Just as in the Swiss Alps all those years ago. She revelled in her animalistic side and on her next rendezvous flayed her arms and legs around in Rodrick’s bed in celebration when he was out using the toilet. She felt more annoyed than guilty. Annoyed that she had to sneak out of her own home to be with him, tip-toeing about like her four-year-old self trying to escape her parents’ villa for the mystique of the factory beyond.
She could barely think her husband’s name when she was lying in the carpenter’s bed, but when she did she tried not to compare Rodrick with Max. She tried. And sometimes she failed. Rodrick was so much more masculine than Max and in many ways so much easier to love. She talked about the Nuremburg Trials with Rodrick, and about how good life was in the thirties under the National Socialists. They agreed on everything and they never talked about religion. In fact Erika found him a little boring. Intellectually he was not the sharpest tool in the workshop, but she wasn’t there to talk, she told herself, and besides sometimes Max could be so bloody minded. You’re going to have to convince me of your faith. Or I have to convince you of mine. Otherwise we’ll have to separate. He threatened her! That’s basically what that was, wasn’t it? Max bullied her into converting, talked her into marriage. They were all there at Freiburg, pursuing the same scientific goals and yet somehow he managed to make her feel like she was in the wrong for following that science to its natural conclusion: atheism. But there is nothing wrong with a natural conclusion; a tangible, corporeal reality. As doctors they knew that better than anyone. So nature it was. And natural she felt, if not bloody feral flailing her arms and legs around in those sheets and giggling uncontrollably.
They were in the barracks when Christoph delivered the mail. It was much later than his usual delivery, but then in retrospect Max contended if it had been at the usual time, when all of the doctors were likely to be in the hospital, Volkov could not have been there, still prevented from entering the hospital like all the other guards by his blessed paranoia. Volkov had clearly engineered this delivery, having been one of the guards to read the prisoner’s mail before it was handed out, so that he could be there to enjoy the fall out when Horst read the first letter of Eva’s that had got through in all the years he had been away.
‘I’ll read it later,’ he said eyeing the lingering Volkov and pushing it under his pillow.
‘No, doctor,’ Volkov said coolly, though his hand on his holster said he was anything but cool, ‘you will read it now’.
All the prisoners were on edge with Volkov hanging around and each of them in the vicinity of Horst’s bed, Max included, sat themselves up on their bunks. As Max’s eyes darted about the hut the expressions he saw had him recalling the passers-by at the tram crash outside the theatre when he was sixteen, not helping with the wounded, just gawping at the carnage.
Horst read. There was no sound in the barracks save the constant eerie song of the wind wheezing through the gaps in the shoddy structure. Max examined his brother’s face as closely as Volkov did. Saw his slack open jaw gradually clamp itself shut. Saw the masseter muscle flex in his cheeks as he ground his teeth. Saw him grip the paper in his hands just as Mrs Lagunov had gripped the stained sheet on her bed as her baby forced its way out of her. It wasn’t a long letter and less than a minute later, after having to re-read the first sentence three times to make sure he hadn’t misread it, his hand shot upwards and delivered the paper to Max for his brother’s opinion.
Before Max began reading, Volkov’s smug voice stopped him. ‘Aren’t you going to say thank you, doctor?’ Volkov always laced the word doctor with such distaste it was obvious to Max he envied their skills and the status it gave them in the camp. He looked up from the paper. Volkov and Horst had locked eyes. Volkov gloating, Horst glaring.
‘Thank you for delivering my mail personally, Sergeant Volkov, thank you for making sure it got through to me this time,’ the Russian instructed in condescending tones.
This time? Max wondered if Horst had noticed that phrase too. There was something in it which, intentionally or not, gave Max the impression that Eva had written on many other occasions and that Volkov was aware of this, or even directly responsible for the letters not getting through. Yet now, when her letter contained bad news, which even without reading it was perfectly obvious to Max, Volkov made sure it was delivered and that he was there to relish the fruit of his sabotage.
And then Horst was launching himself up from his bunk and Max was launching himself down from his to stop his brother attacking the guard which would surely result in his being shot.
‘No, Horst, no!’ Max was barely able to hold him back until Bubi threaded his way between the beds from his bunk further down the hut and provided another bulwark between the enemies.
‘Thank you, Sergeant Volkov for delivering the mail, now would you kindly leave,’ Max spat over his shoulder as Horst continued to rage.
Although he tried to hide it behind his bravado, Volkov was shaken by the ferocity of the prisoner’s outburst. Horst had always been more brawny than his friends and despite the years of malnourishment, he was still capable, especially with his current motivation, to pulverise his slight tormentor as finely as he ground coal for treating diarrhoea in the hospital.
‘You should keep your little bulldog on a tighter leash, Dr Portner,’ Volkov said trying not to hurry from the barracks, ‘otherwise he’ll have to be put down’.
The chloroform was administered by a mask held over the face. When unconsciousness was evident the cutting began. ‘Great job, darling,’ Erika said to Netta, ‘but you have to hold the mask over the lady’s face like that the whole time until I’m finished, OK? Can you manage that?’
‘Yes, Mama,’ Netta said teetering on the stool at the side of the examination table, her little hands gripping the mask which delivered the anaesthetic gas from the canister on the floor to the woman with mastitis who had come to Erika on the journalist’s recommendation. Even though she had a four-year-old girl as her assistant – perhaps because she had a four-year-old girl as her assistant – the woman was infinitely more comfortable here than in the hands of Dr Frankenstein as she and her friends liked to call their family doctor. Ex-family doctor.
Having made an incision over the abscess, Erika inserted her finger into it to break down the fibrous tissue there and release more of the pus, which came oozing out much to Netta’s disgusted enchantment.
‘Keep your eyes on the mask,’ Erika said noticing it slip from the patient’s face. ‘We don’t want the lady waking up during this, do we?’
Netta was sure she wouldn’t like to see this if it was happening to her so she concentrated as much as her young butterfly brain could on the task in hand.
Business was booming now since that article had appeared in the Mengeder Zeitung and she couldn’t thank the journalist enough for it. But all these patients and all these procedures had their downside too. She knew she shouldn’t complain, but she was exhausted. She had had to extend her surgery hours as it seemed that every one of the ten thousand women in the area was now coming to her for treatment. She needed a slightly more experienced assistant than her four-year-old daughter and her four-year-old daughter should be playing in the garden or learning piano with her Opa not watching her mother digging about in a lady’s pustular breast…
There was a knock at the front door.
Erika huffed.
… And she needed someone to answer the door when Max’s parents were not around. She couldn’t rely on them forever. They had done so much for her already.
Luckily, this time Martha was on hand to answer and she opened the door to Rodrick. Erika was too busy draining the abscess and making sure this woman’s breast was not defiled by the extent of the wound she had to make to hear their conversation. She didn’t hear Rodrick ask for her. She didn’t hear Martha say she was busy. She didn’t hear him ask when she would be free.
She didn’t see her mother-in-law simply point to the plaque on the wall by the door.
DR ERIKA PORTNER
She didn’t hear Martha tell him how Karl had made that plaque.
‘Despite his handicap, despite his age,’ she said, ‘he is still very good with his hands and we don’t need any more help thank you very much. Erika doesn’t need any more help thank you very much,’ she said pointedly and stared at him until he wrung those big calloused hands and meekly turned from the door.
Erika glanced up as the front door was shut firmly. She caught her breath as she recognised the dark hair on his bowed head, free of woodchips, washed and waxed, passing the window. She heard the stool dance on the wooden floor as Netta nearly toppled off it and snapped:
‘Netta, will you concentrate!’
Although she might just as well have snapped at herself.
The infection seemed to have been removed. Now all she had to do was make sure the wound was sutured in a way that would leave minimal scarring.
After surgery closed, she made yet another excuse to the raised eyebrows of her in-laws and hurried to the village to apologise for not being available when Rodrick called.
Thank God for Martha, she thought as the sound of her heels ricocheted about the quiet street, although she knew it was terrible to think so. Thank God she is always there to look after Netta.
She didn’t give Rodrick a chance to speak when he opened the door. She stopped his mouth with hers, led him to the bedroom, stripped him, as he did her, and pulled him down on top of her, enjoying the way his weight crushed the breath from her.
‘Your mo… Martha told me to sling my hook basically,’ he said later picking at a patch of peeling varnish on the bed post.
‘Basically?’
‘Told me you didn’t need any more of my help. Told me Karl could take care of everything.’
Erika stared at the ceiling deciphering the words for a moment.
‘She knows!’ Erika said to herself with a surprised naivety which astounded even Rodrick.
‘I suppose she wouldn’t be too happy about you becoming Frau Rodrick Gerlich then?’
The carpenter’s thinly veiled proposal fell on ears only half-aware of what was being said. Erika was too concerned right then about the repercussions of her actions at home. If Martha knew, then Karl probably knew. Perhaps Aunt Bertel too. What did they think of her? Were they about to throw her out of the house? What would become of her and Netta then? Perhaps she should have thought of that before she left her daughter with her husband’s parents so she could run to another man’s bed? She smothered this chastising voice with a pillow and told herself it was fine. They obviously understood, otherwise she would be probably on the streets already. As long as it stopped here.
‘Damn them!’ She sat up and hit a bewildered Rodrick with the pillow. I suppose they expect me to go to confession now, do they? To stay at home, she fumed inwardly, work my fingers to the bone and be a nun for as long as it takes for my husband to come home? If he ever does.
Hang on! What was she thinking? She didn’t need to worry about being thrown out on the streets. There was a big strong man here offering her a considerably smaller, but very well maintained roof over her head. His construction skills were second to none. Adding another room for a surgery onto the workshop would be no great stretch for him. She looked at Rodrick’s bovine mystified expression. She grinned, flashed feline eyes and straddled him.
Later that day she sat at her desk, rubbing her tired eyes, yawning incessantly, a blank piece of stationery before her, her patients’ notes finally updated and stacked neatly to one side. She picked up a pen, looked over at the window where that dark, clean, waxed hair had passed earlier, clenched her incisors together behind pursed lips and began to write a letter.
Dear Husband,
This is the last letter I am writing to you because on June 24th I am going to marry another man. Then I don’t have to work any longer. I have already been working for three years since you’ve been away from home. All the other men come home for leave, only you POWs never come. Nobody knows how long it will take until you come home. That’s why I am going to have a new husband. I will give the child to the orphanage. I have to. I cannot stomach this life any longer. There is no way to survive with these few pfennig benefits. At work they have a big mouth when it comes to the women. But now I don’t need to go there anymore, my new the other man is going to work for me. All wives whose husbands are POWs will do the same thing and they will all get rid of the children. Three years of work is too much for a woman and 20 Mark for benefit and 10 Mark child benefit is not enough. You cannot live on that. Everything is so expensive now. One pound of bacon costs 8 Mark, a shirt 9 Mark.
Your wife.
When Max had read and re-read the letter he sat down on the edge of the bunk where Horst lay. He was furious at Eva on behalf of his brother. How dare she rant about the cost of a shirt when her husband was right now wiping his tears with the filthy cuffs of the same shirt he’d been wearing for the past three years! Three years of interminable nights when he dreamed of nothing else but being back with her; when, had he ever been free to go, had the gates been left wide open for him, he would have run and run for as long as it took to get back to her and the kid. How dare she rant about the cost of bacon when her husband had nothing to eat but watery broth and black bread every day of this miserable existence!
‘She knows you’re a prisoner.’ Max tapped at the paper. ‘Whatever happened to loyalty, till death do us part, in sickness and in health?’ He figured the best way to console his friend now was to encourage him to rave against his wife, since pity might only push him further to despair.
‘The war. That’s what happened to loyalty,’ Horst replied with surprising equanimity. ‘She has a point. She’s had to work God knows where, suffer all kinds of abuse and try and look after Lisa at the same time. It’s a pragmatic decision. And I can’t blame her.’
Horst caught Max looking at him with a fair degree of horror.
‘It’s true, Max. If I showed up at home tomorrow I know she’d forget all about this… other man. Look!’ He snatched the letter back. ‘She doesn’t address it to me, to Horst, and she doesn’t sign off Eva. She says Dear Husband and Your wife. She can barely bring herself to call that other bloke her new husband. Look!’ He flapped the letter at Max desperately – as desperate to convince his mate as himself. ‘She crossed it out there and put other man. That’s all he is. A practical solution to a dire predicament.’ He lay back on the bunk again, hands behind his head, contemplating the canvas of the bunk above. ‘I have to get back to her. That’s all. And when I do everything will be fine.’
Max sat, head in hands looking down the tunnel of bunks before him, full of snoozing men, many of them husbands too. He hadn’t heard from Erika in a while. Perhaps she was beginning to struggle too, perhaps she will soon seek solace, financial or otherwise, in an other man. He wasn’t sure he could be so level-headed about it if he received a similar letter.
All wives whose husbands are POWs will do the same thing and they will all get rid of the children.
How could Eva be so sure? Erika wouldn’t go to such extremes. She had the support of his family. She was going to apply for a license to practise medicine in Bernried, she said. She would be working for the National Health Service and making more than enough money to look after Netta. No daughter of his was going to end up in an orphanage! His inner tone sent memories of Gunther’s voice echoing down the tunnel of beds:
‘No daughter of mine is going to spend her wedding night in student digs.’
He laughed quietly at himself and gave Horst’s leg a concerned but supportive rub as he got up onto his own bunk. There was a theory – wasn’t there? – that women tended to marry men that resembled their fathers.
‘God forbid,’ he said shaking his head at the ceiling as he pulled his blanket over him.
Netta was already clutching her book of Grimms’
Kinder und Hausmärchen when her mother came into the room to tuck her in.
‘Which one shall we have tonight?’ Erika asked perching on the edge of the bed and taking the book from her daughter.
‘Aschenputtel, Mama. Will you read me Aschenputtel?’
Erika cradled the book and let the big pages peel off from her thumb as she searched for the tale, but before she found it, she stopped.
‘No. Let’s not have Aschenputtel, she said. ‘It’s so… violent,’ she grimaced and Netta began to sulk.
‘What about Die Wichtelmänner?’ Erika tried to buoy up her little wretch. ‘Yes, let’s have Die Wichtelmänner!’
And as her mother began the tale of a poor shoemaker and charitable elves, Netta was longing for the other story where the heroine’s mother watched over her from heaven, dropped beautiful gowns and slippers in her lap so she could go to the ball and made sure that eventually, no matter how unlikely it seemed, the prince would find her and they’d live happily ever after.
It wasn’t long, however, before Erika’s story was just a string of soothing sounds, the words themselves irrelevant, and Netta was soon asleep.
Erika closed the book on her lap and leaned on it with such force it would seem to someone entering the room that she was suffering stomach pains. She squinted at the Tiffany window, mesmerised by the evening light diving through the stained glass and landing on the floorboards in pools of sapphire blue and cherry red.
Fifteen Words Page 23
