Eva’s Mom has received a written request, put together in careful, printed words, with the help of her Ukrainian-German dictionary, to allow Ludmilla a visit to the church next Sunday, a special day in the Greek Orthodox calendar. This would be very difficult and time consuming, seeing they had to make three transfers to reach Onkel Toms Hütte station, on the underground line, one of the southern-most suburbs.
There was no way of determining whether the previous night’s air raid had damaged trackage along the way. Also, the entirely likely daytime run by the American bombers would catch them while Ludmilla was at church. She would follow rules while there, and Eva would keep a look-out for the closest public air-raid shelter when they arrived. She was fifteen now, a very mature fifteen. To everyone’s surprise Ludmilla already knew the location of her church but never having had a chance to use the subway on her own, she was grateful for Eva’s offer.
They set out early, with a liverwurst sandwich each for lunch.
They stood at the end of the compartment and looked out through the glass doors.
“You look pretty today, very nice blouse!” said Eva, pointing. Ludmila smiled, blushed and whispered words in Ukrainian, which Eva still couldn’t make out, after two years of trying. The long brown hair was freshly washed, braided and arranged in a neat circle around the crown of her head. She wore her awful black boots with a matching black bag, a gift from mother.
She eagerly examined the names of the S-Bahn stations, became very excited when they reached Wilhelmsruh, with the deafening roar of the airplane engines being tested just a couple of hundred metres from the tracks. She looked up and down the platform, then seemed to make for the exit, but Eva held her back, holding up three fingers.
They soon entered into one of their conversations where Ludmilla would offer a whole sentence in slow, deliberate tones, and Eva would guess the meaning, then attempt a similarly earnest sentence in German, and back again until they would break out in giggles. Those were the good times. Not enough of those.
Most mornings Ludmila wielded the broom somewhere near the front door at mail delivery time, her dark eyes scanning the letters before placing them on Mother’s desk. Yes, she did receive news from home, very occasionally, and it would always send her into the pantry sobbing.
Not today.
Coughing from smoke they follow the crowds and climb down to the subway system, and they will transfer two more times.
Every time a uniform appears Ludmilla starts trembling, averts her eyes.
Passengers for Wittenbergplatz will have to use a bus today, so they follow many others and stand in a long line, ruins all around them. Ludmilla points at messages affixed to walls, nailed on basement doors or painted right on bricks.
“Frau Müller at daughter Nellie’s” says one, followed by a phone number. When she spots the photograph of a small child, complete with age and another phone number, Ludmilla bursts into tears. After the carnage and desolation of her own hometown, the chaos and hardships during her deportation to Germany she has lived a curiously sheltered life of domestic servitude in the Berlin suburbs.
A crowded bus finally arrives and takes them to their destination, then on to Onkel Tom’s Hütte, a suburb presently showing splendid fall colours on old trees.
When the church comes into view, Ludmila clutches and unclutches her bag and starts running. Eva points to her wrist and shows two fingers, except that neither owns a watch. Should there be an air raid, it would take them a lot longer to get back home.
Eva decides to go for a walk and follows a wide avenue with old houses, wrought iron fences, few cars parked in driveways in the fall of 1944.
She finds a bench, sits and unwraps her sandwich, and afterwards decides to return to the station, where she finds a truly dreadful cup of red ‘sprudel’.
“Yes,” says the man in the kiosk, “The Ukrainian church down there is an active community, the only one in the whole city.” He searches Eva’s face, and a moment later he adds, “the poor bastards don’t have much going for them, do they, it’s the Russians that are winning.” He stops there, turns away as if afraid he has said too much.
Eva is returning to the vicinity of the church when the doors open wide and young men and women, the latter all wearing head scarves, emerge. Ludmila’s eyes are red but she is flushed and smiling. Very quickly she walks towards Eva and doesn’t say a single word all the way home.
Eva notices a little red mark on her neck.
A week later it is gone.