Far From Home

Chapter 6

Christmas in Berlin bore no resemblance to the Christmases Marianna had grown up with. Jürgen had been shot down over Poland three months before, in September. She still felt as though she was moving through a haze. She had been evicted from their apartment by his parents two days after his death. She was working in the beer garden where she’d gotten a job as a waitress. The customers were mostly soldiers who manhandled her every chance they got. And she barely made enough money to pay her rent and eat. She was sharing an apartment with four other young women who worked at the beer garden, one of whom also worked as a prostitute whenever she needed money and had the chance. Berliners were desperate.

Marianna walked past her parents’ home once and stood outside in the cold, sobbing. A famous general was living there. She could see that there was a party going on. She was a twenty-two-year-old widow. Her father was dead, and she had no idea if her mother was still alive. She had lost touch with her old friends after her father’s shocking execution, her husband’s death soon after, her eviction from their apartment, and now the shame and exhaustion of her job at the beer garden and the degraded life she had been forced into to survive. She would have had the right to a pension, as the widow of a Luftwaffe pilot, but the administrative offices were understaffed, clogged with demands, and all funds had been redirected to the war effort.

She barely made it through the days, and the only good thing about her job was that they fed the girls a meager dinner when they came to work at night. Some days, it was all she had to eat. She had lost weight and her clothes hung on her. She realized that she was no worse off than many others in Berlin. Countless people were homeless, and despite all his promises, bravado, and denials, Hitler’s army was being beaten by the Allies. They were losing the war, with severe losses on all fronts. The Allies were gaining ground.

They were showering bombs on Germany. The cities were being decimated. Heilbronn, Nuremberg, Ludwigshafen, and Munich had suffered massive damage, and to the east, the Russians were battering the German army. German morale was at an all-time low, and people in high places were beginning to think they might lose the war.

Marianna had called the War Office when Jürgen’s parents made her move from their apartment, to give them her new address. Since she was the only known surviving adult member of her family at the moment, and Viktor’s next of kin of record, she wanted to be sure that they knew how to reach her, in case he was injured, or worse. She prayed for him night and day, every time she thought of him, which was frequent. He was her baby brother, even though they were less than three years apart. She felt responsible for him, as they no longer had parents to turn to. She was hearing from him less and less often. The battles were more and more brutal, more desperate, and seemed to drag on forever with tremendous loss of life. And since he was in the infantry, she knew he was in the front lines.

She had given the War Office the address of the apartment she shared, and the address and phone number of the beer garden as her place of employment. They had no phone at the apartment. None of the roommates could afford it. And since the beer garden was a seedy place, with a clientele made up of mostly lowly soldiers, the tips were small, and if the men were drunk enough, the barmaids got none at all, unless they were willing to perform additional services after hours when they finished work. She knew some of the women did, out of financial desperation, but Marianna would have died first. The only things keeping her alive now were the hope of finding her mother one day and her sense of responsibility to her brother.

All her dreams of love and romance were dead, along with her faith in her country and its promises. Her husband had given his life for a lost cause. His family, which had pretended to welcome her with open arms in rosier times, had slammed the door in her face over her father’s actions, and had turned their backs on her and left her penniless and homeless when their son died. All her bright hopes for the future had died with the people she loved. It felt like the war would go on forever. The soles of the shoes she wore to work had worn through and had holes in them, and she couldn’t afford to buy new ones. She didn’t blame the women she worked with for the things they resorted to, to make a little extra money. They had to do whatever they could. Some of the other waitresses had children who were living with grandparents. The children’s fathers had been killed in the army, and the widows had to contribute to their parents to help feed their children, since their benefits as widows were long overdue and never paid. The saying that all was fair in love and war had never been truer, and love had nothing to do with it.

Marianna worked a double shift at the beer garden on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so that the women with children could spend time with them, although no one had money to buy gifts. There were still people living in grand homes in Berlin, the way her parents used to live, but no family had been untouched by the losses in the war. The lucky ones had only casualties among their loved ones. And as soon as they recovered, if they recovered, they were sent back to the front.

The atmosphere in Berlin wasn’t festive that year, even among people who could afford to live well. There were parties given by the High Command of the Third Reich, but there was a forced gaiety to them. Sometimes, walking down the street, Marianna saw a Christmas tree through a window, with the candles on it lit. It always reminded her of her childhood, her parents, and their home. Her life was so very different now than it had been a year ago. She could never have predicted how low they had fallen in a year, how much they had lost. She couldn’t even spend Christmas with her brother. She had no idea where he was. And wherever the army had sent him, he wasn’t spending time writing letters. She knew he had been in Poland for a time, during the Warsaw uprising, which was a ground and air battle, but she had no idea where he had been since then. He seemed to go from one battle to the next, and never got sent home on leave. The army was on its knees with losses, injuries, and battle fatigue.

The Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes had begun nine days before Christmas, and Marianna hoped Viktor wasn’t there.

She finished work at one in the morning on Christmas Eve and tried not to let herself think of years past. There was no point. It only made things worse. One of her roommates had bought each of them a bottle of nail polish. It was Marianna’s only gift, and she treasured it. She hadn’t had any in months. Her nails were brittle and broke easily from poor nutrition, and she noticed that her hair had gotten thin. Marianna couldn’t afford to buy any of the others a gift.

When she went back to work the next day, the customers were as drunk on Christmas Day as they had been on Christmas Eve. It was a bitter cold day with a chill wind when she walked home that night. She felt as though she was getting sick. She tried to will herself not to. She couldn’t afford to miss a single day’s pay, and for once she had gotten more tips than usual on the holiday. It was a struggle to pay her share of the rent every week. It started to snow as she walked home, and she was chilled to the bone when she got to the apartment. She made herself a cup of tea with a splash of whiskey in it and went to bed.

She woke up the next day blazing with fever and went to work anyway. The bartender looked at her shivering with the chills in her scant uniform, designed to show off her legs, which looked like matchsticks now. “Are you okay? You don’t look good.”

“I’m okay. It’s just a cold.” Marianna looked half dead and felt it. He gave her a shot of bitters and told her to drink it.

“That’ll fix you up. I’ll make you a hot toddy later, after the boss leaves.” The bitters tasted awful, and drinking it on an empty stomach made her feel dizzy. She had no appetite for dinner that night. They each got half a sausage and a boiled potato. One of the women said it tasted like prison food, and the bread they got with it was always stale.

The bartender remembered something then, and dug around in a drawer. “I saw it a few days ago, and forgot to give it to you,” he said, handing her an envelope. It was from the War Office, and the postmark was five days earlier. It must have arrived on Christmas Eve or the day before. The mail was slow these days, the postal service was shorthanded. Every able-bodied young male in Germany was at the front. The army was even taking some fifteen-year-olds, and sixteen-year-olds were commonplace.

Marianna stood next to the bar and tore the envelope open. She was sure they would have sent her a telegram or called her if Viktor was dead. A letter might mean that he was injured. If so, she hoped they had brought him to a hospital in Berlin, so she could see him.

Her eyes flew over the page. The words blurred with her fever, she read them again, and her knees went weak. The barman saw her face drain of color until she was as white as snow, and he came around the bar in time to catch her as she fainted. She was as light as a feather in his arms. He had a daughter her age and felt sorry for the young women who worked there. They worked like slaves and were treated like dogs, for almost no money. Most of them were starving, and many of them turned to prostitution just so they could eat.

He reached across the bar with one arm, as he held Marianna in the other, grabbed a damp cloth, and put it on her forehead. One of the other women had seen her collapse, and pulled up a chair for him to sit her down. Marianna came around then, and looked at them both blankly, then remembered the words she had read before everything went black.

“What happened?” the other waitress mouthed silently to the barman, and he shook his head. Marianna was still wearing her wedding ring, and they thought the letter was about her husband, who had already been dead for three months.

The other woman brought Marianna a glass of water, she took a sip, and looked at them. She could hardly catch her breath. “It’s my brother. He was killed in Belgium a week ago.” The War Office said they couldn’t send the body home, there were too many to send now. He had been buried with his comrades where he fell. They assured her that he had died a hero’s death, which meant nothing to her now. She had lost her father, her husband, and her brother to the war, a war which had no meaning and made no sense, and had robbed her of everyone she loved and her home. “Viktor was twenty,” she told them, and the barman held her while she sobbed. “He was a good boy.” They let her cry, and the other waitress, who had just finished her shift, took her home. She kept a firm arm around her. Marianna stumbled several times. The sole of her shoe was coming loose and kept catching on the uneven sidewalk. When the other waitress got her home, she undressed Marianna like a child and put her to bed. Two of her roommates were there, and looked questioningly at Marianna’s co-worker when she came out of her room. Marianna had crawled into bed and passed out.

“She had bad news about her brother,” she whispered to the others. They nodded. There was nothing unusual or surprising about that now. They had all had bad news about someone they loved in the last five and a half years.

“She looks sick,” one of her roommates commented.

“That too. Influenza, or something like it.”

“We can’t afford a doctor.”

“Just let her sleep. Give her some schnapps if she wakes up,” the waitress recommended.

“She’s a widow too,” the other roommate said sympathetically. She liked Marianna, who was a nice young woman, although she kept to herself and they didn’t talk much.

“Who isn’t?” the waitress said. Many of the waitresses at the beer garden were, and women all over Germany, all over Europe. The war had devoured their men.

Marianna ached all over when she woke up the next day. She still had a fever and was too sick to go to work. One of the other roommates said she’d tell them, and Marianna thanked her and went back to bed. When she got back to her room, she opened her purse and saw the letter. The barman had put it there, thinking she’d want to read it again when she was more coherent. She read it and started to cry. She couldn’t stop. She remembered how cute Viktor was when he was two and she was five. She thought he was a pest then, and they had fought a lot when they were kids, until she was sixteen and he was thirteen, which wasn’t so long ago. And five years later, he had enlisted in the army. He had lived two years since then, and had seen a lot of action all over Europe. He was so young and alive she had never expected him to die. She was afraid he would get injured or lose an arm or a leg, but she thought he was young and agile enough to survive it.

She had heard on the radio that the fighting was fierce. They were calling it the Battle of the Bulge. If the war ended now, it would mean nothing to her. It was too late for Viktor, and she couldn’t even have a funeral or bury him in his homeland, the Germany he had loved so fiercely and defended so bravely, the Fatherland he believed in to his very soul and had been willing to die for. All she could think of was what a terrible waste it had been and that the Fatherland didn’t deserve his loyalty to the death. She hoped that he was with their father now, and that they had made peace with each other. They were both brave men who had given their lives for their country, even though they were at opposite poles. None of it mattered now. They were both dead, and so was Jürgen, her handsome prince.

Marianna stayed in bed for three days, crying constantly, and then she went back to work.

She and the same barman who had helped her were on duty together on New Year’s Eve. The crowd was even rougher and drunker than usual, and the death toll was climbing rapidly in Belgium. She thanked the barman for his kindness to her. He patted her hand, and saw the ravaged look in her eyes. He’d seen that look so many times in recent years. It was time for it to stop. The country was worn out, and everyone was disheartened. He slipped Marianna a glass of champagne at midnight in a water glass.

“Next year will be better,” he whispered to her. She didn’t believe him, but she emptied the glass and went back to work. It numbed her just enough to keep her on her feet for the rest of the night.

—

Sebastien and Arielle spent New Year’s Eve together. He had bought the smallest, cheapest bottle of champagne they had at the store, which yielded two glasses each. They drank it in Madame Bouchon’s living room, which she allowed them to do as an exceptional occasion, because it was New Year’s Eve and she liked them both. They were sensible, respectful, polite people, and she was well aware that Sebastien never spent the night. She didn’t want anything like that going on at her house, even though Arielle was a widow. She liked how proper and well-bred Arielle was. She was a lady.

Arielle offered her one of her two glasses of champagne from the bottle, and Madame Bouchon was touched by the offer but gratefully declined. Her drug of choice was cognac, and she had one “for medicinal purposes, to help me sleep, in wartime” every night, and then went straight to bed. And New Year’s Eve would be no different.

“To 1945,” Sebastien toasted Arielle at midnight. “Let’s hope this is the year the war finally ends, and people can start their lives over.” He wished that for them both. They wanted to find their children, and Sebastien his wife. Arielle had no hope of finding Gregor, but if she found her children, it would be enough. She didn’t ask for anything more. Sebastien kissed her cheek at midnight and they hugged.

They sat together in Nicole Bouchon’s living room for another hour, just talking and enjoying each other’s company. It was nice not being alone on a night like that.

“I want to introduce you to my cousins when this is over. They’re good people. My cousin Jeanne lost her husband and son in the Resistance, and her brother, Louis, I think, is still active in it.”

“More people are than you can guess,” Sebastien said quietly. He loved talking to Arielle. Their friendship had brought him out of his shell and healed some of his wounds in the five months she’d been there. The time had gone more quickly once they started going to meetings together. She was always impressed by how infinitely perfect his forgeries were.

“You could start a whole new career,” she had teased him several times.

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about how I can help people when I go back to work. A lot of people lost everything when they were deported. Often their neighbors stole everything they left. Others denounced their friends and neighbors in order to get their apartments, and have continued living in them for dirt-cheap rents, or bought them for next to nothing. I haven’t quite figured out how to do it, but I want to help the returning deportees reclaim their homes, as a sideline. I wouldn’t want to be paid for it, and take advantage of them. It would be pro bono work.”

She was impressed by the idea and liked the sound of it.

“I’m not sure how I’d find them,” he said.

“Maybe put the word out in legal circles, and they’ll find you. It’s a noble idea. I’d like to help you with it, if you need a secretary.”

“I’d be grateful for the help. I suspect that some people didn’t even bother to get a lease, or purchase the apartment legally, they just moved in, like squatter’s rights.”

“Do you think you could get them out?” she asked.

“If I try hard enough, I’ll bet I can. Shame them into it, or threaten to bring lawsuits against them. It’ll depend on what kind of restitution laws are put in place when the war ends.”

“We could lobby for laws that support claims like that,” Arielle said, her eyes shining with the idea. Her sense of justice and fair play was similar to Gregor’s.

“Do you think you’ll settle in Paris again?” Sebastien asked her. He still believed that she had lived there before, when she was married. He knew nothing about her life in Berlin, or her losses from the war.

“I’d like to live in Paris. It will depend on where my children want to settle. I don’t want to be too far from them again. At least not for a while. I have relatives I might be able to stay with after the war,” she said vaguely, thinking of Jeanne and Louis. She still hadn’t told Sebastien about them. “They live in the country and I’d rather be in Paris. In normal times, I prefer visiting the country to living there,” she said, and he smiled.

“I guessed that about you. You seem much more Parisian, like a city woman, not a country mouse,” he said, and she laughed.

“And what about you? Paris or Lyon?”

“I grew up in Lyon and my parents were there. But I studied law in Paris, practiced law there, and I prefer it. I don’t want to be a country lawyer when all of this is over. I love the cultural life in Paris, the theater, ballet, opera, great restaurants. I turned into a big-city boy, although I love it here too. I wouldn’t mind spending time here, but not all the time.”

“Me too.” Talking about life after the war made it seem more real to both of them, as though it could actually happen, and wasn’t just a distant dream. It had begun to seem that way. The war had raged on for the last six months, even though the Allies had landed and reclaimed a number of cities and parts of the country. But the Germans hadn’t given up yet. They fought like demons to keep what they had longer than anyone had expected them to. It had begun to seem demoralizing that winter, and a lot of people were depressed that the Germans were still there. The French thought the arrival of the Americans would change everything and end the occupation. It hadn’t. There were still cities and provinces firmly in German hands.

—

With the Battle of the Bulge continuing in Belgium until nearly the end of January, for six weeks in all, it was a relief when it finally ended on January 25, 1945, with an enormous death toll. It had been an agonizing battle, which had claimed Viktor’s life, although his mother didn’t know it. It was depressing enough just hearing about it on the radio day after day, in grim wintry weather. And even more distressing when three days after it ended, Ici la France broadcast news that some had feared, others had suspected, countless Jews had heard about, but no one was prepared for in its full measure. While heading toward O?wi?cim in southern Poland, the Soviet Army had come upon what eventually proved to be the most terrifying concentration camp of all. The Russians liberated Auschwitz, where they found seven thousand desperately ill, emaciated, nearly dead prisoners. Thousands of others had been forced to march, loaded onto trains and evacuated from the camp before the Soviets arrived. The seven thousand left behind, too ill to be transported, had been left to die, and what their liberators found there devastated the hearts and minds of the free world, and was ample proof of the inhumanity of the Nazis. Most of the prisoners in the camp were Jews, men, women, and children who had been deported and sent there from all over Europe. More than a million had been exterminated there, and children were sometimes used to dig the communal graves.

The camp was divided into several categories—prison, extermination, and slave labor. As Arielle, Sebastien, and Olivia Laporte listened to the account of the liberation on the radio, all three of them cried at the images which were conjured by the firsthand descriptions, which later appeared in the press with shocking images. Sebastien had to go outside into the cold January air to catch his breath. It was particularly meaningful to him because he was so afraid that his wife and daughter might have been exterminated there, and the best he could hope for was that they were among the seven thousand left behind, or among the prisoners who had been transported deeper into German-held territory. All he wanted to do now was go there and find out. He went to call the Red Cross to inquire if his wife and daughter were among those who had been liberated, or if there was any further news of deportees from Paris in 1941. He couldn’t even speak when he came back into the store, and both women looked at him with compassion. Every moment of his suffering of the past four years was in his eyes. Madame Laporte patted his arm gently, and Arielle gave him a hug. After what they had heard on the radio, there was nothing one could say. It made the pain of what lay ahead for him all too real, and all he could do in the meantime was pray that Naomi and Josephine had survived.

Madame Laporte let him leave early that afternoon. He couldn’t stop crying, and he needed time alone to compose himself. Arielle dabbed at her eyes after he left the store and blew her nose in her handkerchief. She couldn’t imagine living through it if she thought one of her children or someone she loved had been sent to a place like that.

In the ensuing days, the reports of the torture the prisoners had endured, those who had lived, was beyond imagining. The cruelty of the Nazis who ran the camp was limitless. It made the American soldiers on the ground in Europe even more determined to defeat the Germans and see to it that they got the punishment they deserved.

Sebastien was very quiet the next day when he returned to work. He had called the office of the Red Cross again, as had hundreds of other people. He had managed to get through and gave them Naomi’s and Josephine’s names and details. They promised to get back to him with any information they had. They were deeply compassionate, and he thanked Madame Laporte and Arielle for their understanding, and then he got back to work. He didn’t speak for the rest of the day. He couldn’t. The horror of what they had heard was just too powerful.