At S-Bahn Wollankstrasse there is an immense crush for the opening doors. Women carrying bags, older men with backpacks — a young invalid who is given respectful space and a seat inside.
No kids. It is the spring of 1944 and the schools have been evacuated. Students, teachers are all off to the border regions. And the war is coming closer. Young mothers and their pre-schoolers have long ago left for the countryside, most billeted with farm families, not to everyone’s delight. Berlin is a childless city.
Here at Wollankstrasse station there is a pale young woman struggling with two suitcases and talking calmly to someone invisible to the pushing throng.
“Look where you are going, dear. Careful when you get to the edge of the platform. Take a biiiiig step, and then you —”
“Stand back. Stand back! Keep clear of the doors,” shouts the station master having raised her signal, and the doors close and the train moves out.
Anna has been jammed flat against a rear wall and is breathing in Doris’s ear when a piercing scream emanates from somewhere in the vicinity of her knees. Wedged between umbrellas, jute bags and attaché cases, a few blonde curls are now visible above terror-stricken eyes.
“Mummmmmmmmy!!!” screeches the small person with formidable lungs. There is no response. Or rather there is considerable reaction. Everyone aboard the car is talking at once. Anna slides straight down along the wall and eyes a very small person in a knitted frock and little jacket, clutching a bear that has seen better days.
“Hello,” says Anna, “what’s your name?”
“Gilly,” comes the sniffling reply, after a long pause of careful consideration.
“Are you lost?” asks a tall man. Gilly emits another huge wail.
“Nonono,” says Doris, “Gilly is here with US. She is not lost.”
“Was your Mom out there on the platform with you just now?” Multiple nods, bear now in front of tear-streaked cheeks.
Noisy strategy discussions are underway.
“Think like a mother, Robert. THINK!”
“What do you mean? How do I know what —”
“Logic, Robert. Use logic. My child is whisked away by a suburban train. I remain behind on the platform. What’s my next step?”
“Well, Helmut, you are always the one who —”
From the interior of the car a young woman in a nurse’s uniform calls out the telephone number of the Red Cross Railway Service. “That’s where the station master will direct the mother. But a decision please,” and she raises her hand in the air. “We are pulling into Gesundbrunnen in a minute. Should someone wait with her here? For the mother?”
“What if she doesn’t talk to the station master? What if she fainted or something?”
“You’ve seen too many movies, Evelyne. She doesn’t faint. This is 1944. There is a war on.”
“Well, this is my take. As a mother, I don’t go anywhere. I stay put. I figure somebody on that train will take an initiative, bring her back here where she started!”
“Brilliant Robert. You are brilliant. I knew it. And that’s what we’ll do. We’ll take the kid straight back to Wollankstrasse.”
“Berliners will leap in front of a runaway streetcar to save your child,” says a woman with a pronounced Dresden accent, and her companion, also Dresden, finishes, “Yes, and from the stretcher this same Berliner will deliver a lecture on superior child-rearing practises.” Those within earshot nod acknowledgment. Mea culpa. The train stops.
A veritable posse of twelve or so volunteers are now accompanying those bearing Gilly to the opposite side of the platform, in hopes that a southbound train will appear presently to transport the wee one back to her anxious parent.
Doris is carrying Gilly, the latter sucking on a seafoam-coloured piece of ‘fondant’ that has magically appeared from the rear of the car.
They are all doing the math. The next train north will not arrive at Wollankstrasse Station for another fifteen minutes or so, and if the next southbound one is on time —
Here it comes. Gilly covers her ears with both hands, teeth protecting the treasure in her mouth as the southbound train pulls in. Everyone stands back and watches Doris with Gilly and Anna push inside before the big squeeze. The girls sway back and forth without support, but it’s impossible to fall.
“So, what happened to his ear?” Anna asks, pointing to the bear.
“He chewed it off,” says Gilly. “Caesar did.”
“Ah. And who is Caesar then?”
“The Tomcat!!! Don’t you know Caesar?”
“Oh, of course, Caesar. I forgot.” A working cat in a barn?
The doors open.
Wollankstrasse. The station master by her side, Gilly’s mother is sitting on the suitcases, quite composed, but leaps up and runs forward to retrieve Gilly, whose face is now covered in sticky bits.
“Did you notice,” says Anna, “as they roll north once more, “people are all so tired and gloomy, so short-tempered and shut down these days, and then —”
“Then a really cute toddler —”
“And an ugly bear —”
“Remember, there are no little kids around anymore. Do you think everybody misses them?”
“Like crazy,” says Doris.