Far From Home

Chapter 7

February, March, and the beginning of April were more of the same, without the major military action of December and January with the Battle of the Bulge. February and March were more about snipers, and villages and small towns being wrested from German hands and liberated, as the Germans retreated mile by mile into Germany, like a tide of evil going back out to sea.

The Allies’ final goal was to take Berlin and to crush Hitler’s government forever under the heel of the Allied Forces. The Soviets alone had 2,500,000 men, more than 6,000 tanks, and 7,500 planes at the ready for the attack. There was going to be no way out for Hitler and his forces. Nearly six years of pain had been a terrible price to pay for the war that Hitler had waged. The Allies were merciless in the punishment they meted out in exchange. It was a dramatic end to a war that had cost so many lives and broken so many.

The population of Berlin had no escape from the pummeling of the Allies. Streets were bombed, houses collapsed, bombs exploded, homes were burning, bodies and body parts were everywhere. People hid in their basements and bomb shelters. There was no escape from the clouds of smoke, the flames, the sound of bombs being detonated, the aircraft flying low overhead to strafe the streets. No one and nothing could be spared to bring the war to an end.

Marianna was at the beer garden when the first Soviet bombs were dropped on the sixteenth of April. She ran home down streets where electrical lines had fallen, shooting sparks, houses were collapsing, people were screaming in fear as they ran for shelter, and some of them never made it and lay sprawled in the street as debris buried them. It was not a sight for the fainthearted. When Marianna reached her building, the residents were rushing down the stairs to the basement. Those who thought they could make it dashed to bomb shelters. Marianna took a sweater and a blanket down to the basement with her. It was already crowded with people, and within a few hours, it stank of sweat and fear. Babies cried and children murmured. Some people prayed. It went on relentlessly for sixteen days, while people cried in despair and nerves were rubbed raw. Whatever food supplies they had were passed around, and bottles of water. Strangers cried in each other’s arms. Marianna sat in a corner, huddled with her roommates. One of them, Brigitte, left to make a run for it to her boyfriend’s house. They never knew if she’d made it, and there was no way to find out. They had begged her not to go.

Arielle and Sebastien listened to reports of the bombing on the radio day after day. Arielle looked stressed and worn. She was so distraught that he held her hand as she listened, and when he looked into her eyes, he knew the answer without asking the question. She had someone there. And Arielle whispered to him, “Marianna is there. I don’t know where Viktor is.” He nodded, understanding. There were no sides now, there were only people and human lives, husbands, wives, parents and children.

They were the longest sixteen days of Marianna’s life, and her mother’s. There was nothing to do but wait it out while the Russians and their allies pummeled the city and the German Army.

Hitler and his government were in a bunker underground. Several of them committed suicide when they understood that there was no escape from reality. Germany had lost the war. They had no choice but to surrender, but they held out for sixteen days while the people of Berlin took the beating of their life.

Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30. On May 1, one of Hitler’s generals, Joseph Goebbels, had his six children injected with morphine and, once they were unconscious, had cyanide pills put in their mouths, and then he and his wife took cyanide as well, in the bunker with the Führer. The city of Berlin surrendered the next day, on the second of May. The invasion of Berlin was over. And on May 7, the German government and the German army officially surrendered. The battle and the war had been won. Close to a hundred thousand civilians had died in the battle of Berlin. It had taken that to finally end it, after months of skirmishes, battles fought over every town, the enormity of the Battle of the Bulge.

Marianna, her three roommates, and the other residents of their building crawled out of their basement, filthy, exhausted, their nerves shattered, the building damaged but still standing. They could hardly walk after sixteen days in cramped quarters, but when the all-clear siren sounded, people came out, blinking in the sunlight, dazed and stunned that they had survived and that it was finally over.

At first, they thought that the all-clear was another air raid siren and people started to cry, and then when they realized it was truly the end of the siege of Berlin, their tears turned to tears of joy. People hugged each other and laughed through their tears, strangers kissed, and children clung to their mothers. Marianna felt as though she had been dragged over rocks in the street for two weeks. She couldn’t wait to throw her clothes away, to have a bath, to be clean again, to sleep without bombs falling.

The bodies were being taken off the streets and pulled out of buildings and hauled away. Everyone saw things they hoped never to see again. Marianna hugged her roommates. They couldn’t believe what they’d been through together—it was a bond none of them would ever forget. They had spent one night saying what they were going to do if they survived, and all Marianna had said was that as soon as the bombs stopped dropping, she was going to France to find her mother. But none of them could do anything just yet.

There was chaos in the streets, soldiers, lorries picking up the bodies, buses overturned. The railway lines had been destroyed, the airport decimated. Going anywhere would be a challenge for at least a month, or longer. Banks had been leveled, people would have no access to money, and in the long term, it would take years to rebuild the city, and other cities all over Germany. Hitler had put the population through hell, and then he had deserted them and committed suicide, so he never had to surrender and admit defeat. But the evidence lay all around them. Armored trucks came to remove the surviving members of the military and take them away to a prison nearby until more formal arrangements could be made. It would have been Hitler’s fate if he had lived. There was no glory here, only shame. People in the street threw rocks and chunks of debris at the soldiers as they were led from the bunkers to the trucks, which then sped away.

When Marianna and her roommates went upstairs to their apartment, the stairs seemed shaky, but the building was solid. There was no hot water, only cold, but all four of them took showers and put on clean clothes. The little food they had had gone bad. There was no electricity, so the refrigerator had stopped working two weeks before. They threw everything away. There were no food stores open and one of the women suggested they find a soup kitchen run by the army. They had seen a Red Cross truck driving down the street. Food was going to be difficult to come by, and there were millions of hungry people milling around, many or most of whom had lost their homes. People were looking for each other and finding tragedy under the rubble. There were crying mothers searching for their children, and children with glazed eyes who couldn’t find their parents. The entire city was in shock after what they’d been through, and then there were bursts of joy as they realized that they were free again, and the war was over! After five and a half long years!

The four roommates walked back down the stairs later, sticking together. They found a food truck handing out fruit and sandwiches, water, juice, and hot tea. People were lining up, desperate for water and something to eat. The weather was balmy, which made it easier to stand in line. You could hear people crying all around, out of joy, tragedy, or relief, or all three.

After they had eaten what the Red Cross gave them—they had been ravenous—Marianna and her three roommates decided to walk to the beer garden and see if it was still standing. A tree had fallen and was lying across the courtyard and had crushed a few tables, the chairs were overturned, the sign with the name had fallen and disappeared somewhere, and the windows were broken, but other than that, it was in surprisingly good shape. Hedi, a lively redhead from Stuttgart, looked disappointed.

“Damn, I was hoping they had bombed the place so we wouldn’t have to go to work.” The others laughed when she said it, and Antonia from Munich said she was going home. She had promised her mother, and she still looked shaken after the bombing was over. She was the youngest of the group. Claudia, from Berlin, was older than the others at thirty, and more hardened than they were. She was the one who turned tricks occasionally for rent money. Marianna didn’t approve, but after what they’d been through, she was in no mood to be critical, she was just glad they were alive. Brigitte had gone to be with her boyfriend, and they hadn’t heard from her and didn’t know how she had fared. They hoped she was all right. They walked back to the apartment then, and saw that there were ambulances and police and excavating machines in the street. They were still digging people out of the rubble. It was grim work, and the roommates went upstairs so they didn’t have to see it. They had seen more death than they could stand and hoped never to see it again.

Claudia pulled out a bottle of cheap whiskey she had in her room, and poured a round. They lit candles since there was no electricity, and they sat together, grateful that they had come through it and the war was over. Living through the Battle of Berlin, they had almost become inured to death. But it was still shocking. They had even seen an old man have a heart attack and die in the basement shelter. The bombs were falling when it happened and they couldn’t call for help. He had been old, but a nice man. They had wrapped his body in a blanket, and the men had carried it upstairs to the hallway during a brief break in the bombing. They had seen death at all ages and in all its forms.

The roommates were all lost in their own thoughts as they drank the whiskey, had another round, and then went to bed early. They didn’t even have the energy to talk. They had all been through too much.

Marianna climbed into her bed for the first time in more than two weeks, thinking of her mother. She was eager to go to France, and wondered how soon she could travel. She had enough tip money to pay for the train, but nothing would be up and running for a while. Roads would be blocked, trains wouldn’t be operating. She was hoping that in three or four weeks, she could get there. And the city would be a mess in the meantime. There were soldiers everywhere in the streets, along with rescue workers and police. The soldiers seemed to be mostly Russian, but the other Allies were there too. She’d heard several Americans, and a number of British, while they waited in line at the Red Cross truck. A group of American GI’s had chatted with Claudia, who spoke some English. She was tall, with big breasts and a spectacular body, and even in rough clothes and sturdy shoes, she looked sexy.

Marianna already felt filthy from having been out for a few hours. There was plaster dust and chunks of concrete everywhere, and the smell of the fires workers were still putting out, so many homes had burned. She was thinking about her trip to France and seeing her mother when she fell asleep. She hadn’t seen her in ten months, which felt like an eternity, and she had so much to tell her, and about Jürgen and Viktor. She knew her mother would be devastated.

Marianna woke up at noon the next day. The others were just coming out of their rooms then too. The empty whiskey bottle was standing on the table from the night before, and Claudia threw it in the trash. They had nothing to eat in the apartment and had to go out scavenging again.

They left the building together, and there were more Red Cross trucks in the street. First aid stations had been set up, and makeshift areas with bulletin boards where people could leave messages for each other. They looked for one from Brigitte, but agreed she would have come to the apartment to find them. Hedi knew where Brigitte’s boyfriend lived, and after they got something to eat, they decided to walk there and see if she needed help. They rounded the corner to the address and there was no building, just burned-out rubble. Firefighters were still spraying the embers. There was nothing left. The building had been pulverized. A police officer told them that a bomb had hit it, a direct hit, and everyone in it had been killed, probably instantly. The roommates were hoping that Brigitte and her boyfriend had been at a bomb shelter when it happened, but they had the sick feeling that she and her boyfriend had died in the explosion or she would have come to find them by then. Brigitte and Claudia had moved into the apartment together and were school friends. Her boyfriend was a musician she’d met at the beer garden where they all worked. Antonia started to cry when she saw what had happened. The four women were all acutely aware that it could have happened to them. It was all luck and destiny as to what buildings the bombs fell on and who got killed. They walked away finally and went back to the apartment. It felt dangerous being in the street.

One of the police officers told them about an entire neighborhood that had been leveled, and most residents killed. It gave Marianna a chill to realize it was where Jürgen’s parents lived, and she wondered if they had died in the bombing.

Chunks of stone and concrete were falling off buildings, railings crashed into the street, there was broken glass everywhere. Trucks were trying to squeeze their way through, soldiers were driving army vehicles at the edge of the crowds. People were pushing and shoving and anxious, and groups of Russian soldiers kept ogling the four friends and heckling them in Russian. The gist of what they wanted was clear. Even dirty and disheveled, they were four very attractive young women. And the soldiers were restless. Marianna had the feeling that the streets would be dangerous for a while. And at night the soldiers would be drinking. There was a curfew for the next few weeks, but not everyone would respect it.

The four women spent the next few days at home, and only went out for food. The end of the war in Europe was officially declared on May 8, six days after Berlin had fallen, and the electricity came on the next day. They went to the grocery store to get some food, but the shelves were almost bare. There had been no deliveries. They bought enough dry food to keep them fed without going out for a few days, and stopped at the beer garden. A crew of men were making repairs. There was business to be had from soldiers of all nationalities, and the owner was eager to take advantage of it. All the liquor bottles had broken behind the bar, and he replaced it all for a fortune on the black market. He said they’d be open in a few days, and expected the women to come to work.

“I’m going home,” Antonia said. She had called her mother in Munich, and she wanted her to come home immediately. It was too dangerous to be in Berlin. Marianna thought so too. But leaving Berlin at this point would not be easy. Antonia’s parents were coming to get her as soon as the roads were cleared, and they told her to stay in the apartment until then. They were grateful she was alive and wanted her to stay that way. They had never liked the idea of her going to Berlin. She was the oldest of six children, and they wanted her to come home as soon as they could get her there and forget Berlin for the time being.

Marianna was uneasy about the hordes of soldiers they’d seen in the streets, and when they listened to the radio, there were warnings in German for young women to be careful, and to stay off the streets at night. But the four roommates couldn’t if they had to go to work.

The owner of the beer garden had given them a few more days, and then told them that if they wanted to keep their jobs, they had to come back. They went to work the next day and Marianna was crushed to discover that the kind bartender she liked so much had been killed in the bombing. He had died with his wife and children, and Marianna cried when the owner told her. And then he told them to get to work. They expected a small group of customers the first night, but were surprised to find the place crowded until midnight. They had to close after that by martial law. The roommates had to leave a few minutes early in order to get home by midnight. The number of soldiers roaming the streets, supposedly patrolling the city, was alarming. A lot of them looked drunk and disorderly. There were military police in jeeps too, but some of them turned a blind eye to whatever was happening. They didn’t want to get into fights with soldiers of other nationalities in languages they couldn’t speak. They’d honk their horn a few times, or shout at some unruly drunk and drive by. The women were relieved when they got back to the apartment. Claudia poured them a round of drinks. She’d bought another bottle.

“It’s not going to be fun getting home after work,” she commented. Antonia had already gone back to Munich with her parents, and there were only three of them now, Hedi, Claudia, and Marianna. Hedi and Claudia were good at defending themselves from drunks at the beer garden, but the soldiers were a whole other type of drunk and much more ominous than their usual customers. They looked at the waitresses like a marketplace of women ripe for the plucking and wanted to devour each one. Most of them had been on the battlefields for months, and some had never seen a city like Berlin with all the lures it offered, even in the battered condition it was in.

The three women double-locked the apartment door at night, and wedged a chair against it, in case any of the soldiers wandered into their building. Without a phone, they had no way to call the police if something happened. And the police were busy with more pressing problems, helping to dig bodies and survivors out of the rubble, and rescuing injured and orphaned children. The women had never needed that kind of protection before, but postwar Berlin was very different. There had always been unsavory parts of the city and things that happened there, but the soldiers added a different element to it, which was impossible to control. There was a constant underlying feeling of danger and violence.

The friends told their boss they wanted to leave earlier at night, and he wouldn’t let them. There was a new bartender named Fritz, and the owner said Fritz could walk them out at night to make sure the street was safe enough, but after that they were on their own, which was little help, but at least they had each other for protection. They could scream if they had to. And none of them could afford to stop working, especially now that they had Antonia’s and Brigitte’s shares of the rent to pay too. But they were making more on tips than they had been, and the beer garden was crammed to the rafters every night. There were no couples there anymore, just men, most of them military, from a broad range of nations, and almost none of the customers spoke German. The strip bars had been quick to open too. There was money to be made. The soldiers loved them. A lot of the women who worked there were prostitutes, and some of the soldiers couldn’t tell the difference between the waitresses at the beer garden and the women at the strip joints, and expected the same treatment at both places.

“If another guy grabs my ass, I swear I’m going to punch him,” Claudia said one night. She had been running back and forth to the bar with drinks for them all night and she was tired. Marianna was having the same experience, and the other waitresses were too. Berlin was beginning to feel like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Claudia went home early that night with a headache. It wasn’t quite dark yet, so she felt safe walking home alone. She was tall and looked like she could take care of herself in most situations. And Hedi’s new boyfriend came to pick her up after work. She had just met him, and he seemed like a nice guy. He was a British soldier from Yorkshire. He’d found a black market restaurant someone had told him about, and he was taking her out for a late dinner, which left Marianna to get home on her own. She didn’t love the idea, but she had no other choice. A group of Russian soldiers at the bar had been heckling her all night. She couldn’t wait to leave work and get back to the apartment. The place was loud with male voices, smelled of men, and was full of smoke. The boss had bought an American jukebox on the black market and all the soldiers loved it, no matter what language they spoke. Marianna could take their orders in French, English, and German. Two of the Russians had wanted to dance with Marianna, and she had slipped out of their arms to get away and gone out to the kitchen to get a break. The Russians only spoke Russian. The cook looked at her sympathetically. She was sixty years old.

“It’s the Russians. I think they’d even sleep with me, if they could. They act like they haven’t seen a woman in the last six years.”

“The Germans aren’t much better,” Marianna said, and put her jacket over her uniform at eleven-thirty, tied a scarf over her hair, and scurried through the tables in the garden, past the bar, and out into the street, walking at a fast pace, hoping to escape every man’s notice. She didn’t wear makeup to work anymore, even lipstick, and the boss had complained about it. He wanted the waitresses to look attractive to keep the customers happy. She stayed close to the buildings so no one would see her in the shadows, and the street noises were so loud, even at eleven-thirty, that she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her. Other more residential parts of the city were quieter at night, but where the beer garden was, there were other bars and restaurants, and the military police turned a blind eye and let the soldiers have some fun. They had fought hard to free the city and they deserved a reward for their trouble. She was crossing a narrow street past a dark alley. The streetlight had been destroyed in the bombing and just as she ran past it she felt a powerful hand grab her by the neck and pull her backward, and she flew into the chest of a Russian soldier. He put his arms around her and held her arms and crushed his mouth down on hers and kissed her so hard that he bit her lip and she could taste blood in her mouth. She fought against him, but he was an enormous man and dragged her into the alley, which was pitch black with no streetlights at all. He slammed her up against a wall, and kept her there with one powerful hand on her throat, and banged her head against the wall a couple of times for good measure to let her know he meant business, and with the other hand he reached under her uniform and pulled her underpants down. He unbuttoned his pants then and released himself against her, and she pushed him away with every ounce of strength she had. She tried to scream as he crushed his mouth against hers again, and suddenly, as he did, his head was yanked backwards and he flew away from her and fell into the street with his pants undone. He fell onto his knees and gave a shout of pain as she stared at him, and she saw a tall man with huge shoulders and a face set in pure fury pointing a gun at her attacker. The Russian had come within a millisecond of raping her. And the man with the gun was a soldier too.

“Get out of here now, before I shoot you,” her rescuer roared at him in English. He cocked the gun and pointed it, ready to shoot, as the man on the ground stumbled to his feet and did up his pants. He spat at the armed soldier as he ran past him out of the alley and back into the street he had dragged her from with a chokehold.

“I’m sorry,” Marianna’s rescuer said in English, not sure if she understood. But his rescue needed no translation. “Some of these guys are animals. Are you okay?” She had already pulled up her underwear while he was watching the Russian and pointing the gun. She recognized from the uniform that he was American. He handed her a handkerchief, she had blood all over her mouth. Her head was throbbing where the attacker had banged it against the wall, and her throat was bruised from the two times he’d choked her. Her voice sounded hoarse when she thanked the American in English, and he was relieved to be able to speak to her.

“I saw him follow you out of the beer garden. I didn’t like the look of him. The Russians need to keep a tighter rein on their men. Do you want to see a doctor?” he asked her. “That was a nasty bang of your head against the wall. He knew what he was doing, choking you. You would have passed out in a minute.” He looked worried about her, and her lip was still bleeding. The Russian soldier had bitten her hard.

“No, I’ll be all right,” Marianna said gratefully, but she was shaking, and her rescuer could see it. She had been sure the Russian soldier was going to rape her, and it was a miracle the American had turned up at the right time. “Thank you for saving me. He was very strong.” Her English was measured but fluent.

“And very drunk, and very dangerous. A lot of these guys are. Our Americans aren’t angels either. A lot of them have never been anywhere, especially Europe. Put them in a city like Berlin, even in the state it’s in, and they go nuts. You shouldn’t be out at night.”

“I know. I work at the beer garden. I usually walk home with my roommates, but one went home sick and the other went out to dinner, so I was alone. Berlin is very dangerous right now.” She walked toward him, and he saw that she was unsteady on her feet. Her legs were shaking. He would have told her to sit down but there was nowhere to sit, and there was garbage on the ground in the alley. He held out a crooked arm to her to steady her, and she grabbed it gently, tucked her hand into his arm, and looked up at him, embarrassed and grateful all at once, and her head was throbbing.

“I have a car parked nearby. Can I drive you home? Though given what just happened, you have no reason to trust me. I’m Tim McGrath, Captain, U.S. Army. I’m in charge of some of these bozos, the American ones. Thank God the Russkies aren’t my problem.” He smiled at Marianna and she felt safer and steadier holding on to him. She didn’t want to accept a ride from a stranger, but it was going to be a long walk home with her head aching, her legs wobbly, and her throat hurting. He could see her hesitating. “If you think you can make it, I’ll walk you home. Do you live far?”

“About a fifteen-minute walk. It’s not a good neighborhood, but it’s close to where we work.”

“A beer garden isn’t a great job right now. You’re right in the heat of the action. And I think these guys are going to go nuts for a while. Their own officers can’t control them.”

“I won’t walk home alone again,” she said in a soft voice, and leaned against him. She was tiny next to him, he was very tall. “Oh, and my name is Marianna von Auspeck.” He knew that the “von” meant she was an aristocrat. She was also very young, and he wondered what she was doing working in a beer garden. She took off her scarf and uncovered her dark hair. He could see how pretty she was, even without any makeup. She had very distinguished looks, milky white skin, blue eyes, and delicate features. She had gone back to using her maiden name when Jürgen’s parents rejected her so vehemently. She didn’t want to use their name, no matter how much she had loved Jürgen. He was gone now. Their marriage seemed like a distant dream that had never happened, and she wasn’t ashamed to use her father’s name. She was proud of him. She had stopped wearing her wedding ring recently.

Tim guessed her to be about twenty-one or twenty-two. She looked even younger. He was thirty-six, and the commander of a company in the army. “Are you from Berlin, Miss Auspeck?” he asked her politely. She smiled and there was still blood on her teeth.

“Yes, I am from Berlin. Please call me Marianna. This isn’t the Berlin we know. Everyone is a little crazy from the war, and the liberation.”

“It’s a good time to stay home,” he said gently.

“I have to work,” she said simply.

“Are your parents here?”

“I lost my parents a year ago,” she said, and he felt sorry for her.

“This war took a heavy toll.”

“Thank God Hitler is gone now. He was a monster.”

“Yes, he was,” Tim agreed. He didn’t know anything about Marianna, but he could see that she didn’t belong here. She seemed stronger as they walked along, with her hand in his arm, like two people out for an evening stroll. She was very polite, and her English was excellent. “I’m sorry about your parents,” he said gently.

“Me too. They were wonderful people. I lost my brother too, in the Ardennes, in the Battle of the Bulge.”

“Do you have any family left?” She shook her head, and winced when it hurt, and her eyes met his in a direct clear gaze.

“No, I don’t. I have cousins in France, but I haven’t seen them in a long time. I’m going to visit them soon.” They had reached her building by then, and he could see how damaged the street was, and that her building looked shabby at best. Clearly, bad things had happened to her as a result of the war. And there were many more like her all over Europe, who had lost their families and their homes.

“Marianna, I want you to do some things for me. I want you to put ice on your head when you get upstairs. If you don’t, I think you’re going to have a nasty bump tomorrow. And I want you to promise me that you will never, ever walk home alone again. Something very bad could have happened to you tonight. He might have not just raped you, he could have killed you and left you in that alley. I don’t want anything like that to happen to you.” He spoke to her like a child, and she looked like one as she gazed at him. Despite her circumstances and her job, there was an air of innocence about her.

“I promise I won’t,” she said solemnly. “Thank you for saving me. I was very lucky tonight.”

“So was I.” He smiled at her. He seemed like a gentleman to her, like one of her parents’ friends. She couldn’t tell how old he was in the dark. But he had blond hair, a nice smile, and good manners. “I’m going to give you my phone number. They have us billeted at a hotel. If you have a problem, you can call me there and leave me a message. Do you have a phone number where I can call you back?” She shook her head and winced again. She touched the back of her head and there was a wet spot of blood where the Russian had banged it against the wall.

“I don’t have a phone. You could call me at the beer garden. The owner is called Franz Ernst.”

“If you feel worse tomorrow, I think you should see a doctor.” She smiled at him then, the wide-open smile of an honest young girl. Her innocence touched him. She looked like she didn’t belong in the place where she worked or the place where she lived, and he had a feeling that she had come from somewhere very different than her present circumstances. And neither she nor any woman deserved to be raped by a Russian soldier in a dark alley. The thought of it made him furious all over again.

“I’ll be fine,” she reassured him. “I hope he doesn’t come back to the restaurant tomorrow.”

“I doubt he will. Have someone call the military police if he does. You can bring charges against him. But there are a million others like him, and not just Russians. Watch out for the Americans too.”

“Thank you, Captain McGrath,” she said politely in her precise English.

“I’ll stay down here until you get to your apartment. Does it look out on the street?” She nodded. “Wave, so I know you got in safely.” She thanked him again and headed up the stairs into the building. And a few minutes later, she waved from a third-floor window. She was smiling, and looked very young and pretty as she waved down to him. “Ice!” he shouted up to her, and pointed to the back of his head to remind her.

“Thank you, Captain!” she called down to him, and disappeared into the apartment. The night could have ended very differently. He shuddered thinking about it, as he walked back to where he had left his car and drove to the hotel where he was staying. He was intrigued by Miss Marianna von Auspeck and had a powerful desire to see her again, just to make sure her head was better, he told himself. It seemed like a crazy idea, but it would be hard to resist calling her at the beer garden, or dropping by to check on her.