Anna was dreaming she had wandered into a gigantic library, with oak-paneled rooms and ceilings, dark shelves reaching up high. She hurried along, looking for something she couldn’t remember, when a phone rang in the distance, on and on. It was then she realized there wasn’t a door, no matter how urgently she searched. Finally, she spied a ventilation grate near the ceiling, climbed up some shelves, scattering children’s books all over the floor, and painfully squeezed through.
She awoke to boys’ loud voices over in the office, Axel talking on the phone, repeating orders to others apparently crowded around.
Lilly was up, pulling on socks and shrugging into a sweater. Lotte rolled out of her bunk swearing. Emma climbed down from hers, grim-faced, mumbling, “This is IT alright.”
“Can’t find them, gone!” shouted Chris at the open door.
“Where the hell are the Corporals? Why didn’t THEY answer the phone? What do WE want with these—”
“Why don’t you LISTEN for once: they are GONE, like the Lieutenant, like the Sergeant, GONE. I even checked the latrines!”
“I’ll bet they planned it all along,” said Gus, and spat on the floor.
Chris leaned against the wall, holding on to Tom’s shoulder. Eddie was pacing. Then one by one, the others piled into the Mess Hall, quiet, looking at each other. Henning sat on the floor, chin on his knees.
It was Axel’s flashlight that went around the room, touching the faces with its faint beam, as the last of them straggled in, comprehending.
“You do what you want,” said Axel, “but I’m going to keep my promise. I took an oath to defend my country, and I’m leaving in ten minutes to try my best. Spare bazookas still in the shed. NO LIGHTS. ZERO.”
Outside, a faint sound of motors could be heard in the distance.
The sky over Berlin was orange and smoky, particularly over the Eastern quarters, as so often before.
Reaching into boxes, the girls, numb, handed out X-rations and wrapped sandwiches as the boys filed past, pushing bikes, bazookas strapped to the handlebars, one on each side of the front wheel, most boys keeping their eyes averted.
“Servus, girls,” said Toni, and they nodded, Emma touching his sleeve.
Keeping a careful distance heading up a path, as they’d been taught, the boys soon disappeared in the silent darkness.
“Anna, I must say, couldn’t you have chosen a more fetching attire for the occasion? I see a uniform skirt over pajama pants, tsk, tsk.”
It was Motz, strapping on two bazookas, feeling for his pistol, bracing against the dreaded display of emotion.
“Motz—”
“No, we —”
“Your rations.”
“Thanks, we’ll need those.”
“If only Axel hadn’t decided to answer the phone, if he had just let it ring, or turned it off…” Anna was to say later.
“If he had not made them available to hear the orders, you mean,” said Lilly.
“That’s treason, are you crazy!” Emma shouted.
“No, Axel was right. There was nowhere for them to go. No safe place for any of them.”
“Perhaps a handful from around Berlin…”
“Not safe. Just Hansi, thank God.”
“Yes, thank God Hansi is safe.”
What would have happened if Motz hadn’t stopped to wait for Eddie, whose chain had dropped off the wheel again, as the others left?
And Ulli? Who stopped up the path to turn and remind them there was a spare bike at the back of the galley, Hansi’s, in case they couldn’t wrench the chain back on in the dark? Except that Hansi was so short, they would have had to wrestle up the seat by several inches, without tools. Ulli came back and offered help, Ulli who couldn’t find the water taps in the dark. But Eddie was handy, the born mechanical genius. And so it happened that these three were hugged tight and kissed and set off alone, just five or ten minutes after all the others, who had by now disappeared on the wood path, turning left. Eddie even carried a spare loaf of bread by his side in an ingenious sling designed by him.
The first aid supplies were left behind in the office, neatly packed.
The girls turned, went back inside the galley to wash their faces, picked up their backpacks in silence and stumbled off along the dirt road on the long walk toward home, Monika surprising them with more tears, tight hugs at the crossroads. They stood and held on to each other without speaking, walking backward for a long time, waving. Emma had reminded Anna and Lilly that they were to meet at 10.00 a.m. at Anna’s, to try to make their way into the city to report for emergency service. But now just sleep. How they longed to sleep.
“I have to mail a letter,” said Anna, touching her pocket. “For Eddie.”
A burst of machine gun fire sounded so close, Lilly and Anna dropped to the ground and crawled the last few metres to the underpass.
“Are they firing at us, do you think?” Anna asked.
“No, I don’t think so. It’s back in the woods,” said Lilly, “I’m so afraid for them. So afraid.”
“Listen, let’s not —” Anna said, and swallowed.
Anna runs along the deserted street. The moon has come out, and at the corner she spots a tank barrier about 500 metres away, beyond the city limits, but no sign of military activity. Behind her, from the direction of the woods, short blasts of machine gun fire continue, then a detonation, and another, but the artillery is silent for now.
As she approaches the house, a slight figure with a white nurse’s cap pushes a bicycle out of the gate across the street. Anna recognizes the midwife who delivered Foffie and waves.
“It’s a boy, a wonderful little boy,” she says, “but now I must get back to my own three. It’s high time,” and she pedals away.
“Good God,” Anna thinks, “what a terrible time to be born. A baby should be a triumph, a celebration of all that’s good in humanity, a sign of trust in the future.” The new mother is just eighteen, what an immense responsibility. Fortunately, her parents are young and healthy. They will help.
Anna has no house key, but Tatyana hears her knocking. First she makes a sound behind the door to see who it is.
Anna drops her backpack in the hall and hugs the shaking Tatyana. Come downstairs, to the basement, she motions to her. Tatyana knows that her countrymen are very close, and she is so torn between hope and terror. Not only has she been through the harrowing experience before, attempting to survive the onslaught of a conquering army, she knows more than Anna and the family do, about the arbitrariness of survival, there is so little time for judgement where an army advances. Orders are absolute, no time for words, guns do the talking, but at least she will finally know she is communicating in a shared language when the chance for words presents itself.
Wonderful prospect! But what if they know about her brother? About the family history? They can’t know, not these first fighting troops. They will assume she was deported to Germany against her will, and that’s what she must tell them. And she will stay here, with the family, will wait for Igor to come and get her, as he promised, but first his section of the city has to be liberated. How long will it take? How long? Days, weeks? If it does, how will she explain to the military why she is still staying here, with this family? Surely she must hate them? The political officers, the interrogators, travel right along with the fighting troops. And what if Igor does not make it through, where will she turn? What will she do?
Try to return home to Ukraine, to her mother, the devastated village she left behind… no, she won’t, ever. What future is there? And what if Mother is no longer there, has died? Or fled? Then what?