Chapter 16
Clara was somewhat relieved when Max left. Just him being in the apartment was enough to put her on edge. She’d just settled herself in the armchair with a coffee when there was another knock at her door.
Her heart raced. Another unexpected visitor? She didn’t know if she was cut out for all this. She got to her feet and crossed to the doorway, her hand resting on the wall as she stared at the front door, willing the caller to leave.
Whoever it was had no intention of going away. They knocked again. This time more insistently. Clara approached the door. Paused for a moment to compose herself, before opening it a fraction to peer through the gap.
‘Marie! What are you doing here?’
Marie smiled. ‘I thought I would come and see my friend.’ Her eyes widened and she gave a sideways glance to the apartment door on the other side of the landing. ‘Did you forget I was coming?’
Clara hadn’t been expecting Marie at all. Something must be wrong. ‘Come on in.’ Once Marie was in, she closed the door. ‘Don’t worry about my neighbour, she’s hard of hearing.’ She quickly ushered her friend through to the living room. Only then did she ask Marie what was wrong.
Marie shrugged off her coat. ‘I wanted to speak to you about something. Sorry for surprising you.’
Clara hung up her friend’s coat. Her friend looked worried, but Clara sensed she wasn’t quite ready to talk about it. She needed some time. ‘I’ll make some supper. Are you hungry?’
‘Let me help you,’ said Marie.
Clara set about making them a light meal as Marie made coffee. While they ate, Clara asked about Marie’s family, then moved onto work and how things were at the Charité Hospital.
They continued to chat while they finished their meal, when Marie put her cutlery down on her now empty plate.
Clara pushed her own empty plate to one side. ‘Shall I get us a sherry?’
Marie nodded. ‘I’ll clear the table.’
Once the plates and cups were dispensed in the kitchen, Clara and Marie moved to the living room. Marie perched on the edge of the armchair, while Clara sat on the sofa. She could see Marie was wrestling with her thoughts as her leg jigged up and down.
Clara scooted to the end of the sofa. ‘What’s wrong, Marie?’ she asked gently.
Marie took a big sip of her drink, before looking at Clara. ‘There has been talk around the hospital of a midwife helping the pregnant Jewish women.’
Clara kept her face expressionless, but her heart beat a little harder. ‘What sort of talk?’
Marie shrugged. ‘Just that the women who can no longer seek help from the hospital are now asking a midwife to visit them.’
‘I suppose they need some sort of help if they can’t get it at any medical facility,’ replied Clara, careful to choose her words.
She was on edge as to where this conversation was leading.
Marie was her friend, but she was also German and at the end of the day, as Clara had experienced, nationality was seemingly more important than friendship to some.
‘No one knows who she is,’ said Marie.
‘Does anyone suspect who she is?’
‘No. All they know is that she is called the Angel of Life among the Jewish community.’
‘How do they know that?’ Now Clara’s heart really was hammering away.
‘I’m not sure. Maybe someone said something under questioning or maybe someone reported back to the Germans.’
‘Why would someone do that when the midwife is just trying to help?’ Clara’s question came out more forcefully than she intended.
‘Because people are frightened. They exchange knowledge for benefits, like food, medicine or just to save their own skin.’ Marie took another sip of her drink, finishing the contents on a further gulp. ‘You need to be careful.’ Her words were soft, almost a whisper.
Clara looked at her friend. ‘Why do you say that? We all need to be careful.’
Marie nodded. ‘I know,’ she said. She reached her hand over and held Clara’s. ‘I know it’s you. I know you are the Angel of Life. It can only be you.’
Clara shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You can trust me,’ said Marie. ‘You have my word.’
Again, Clara denied it. ‘We shouldn’t be having this conversation.’
Marie held her grip on Clara’s hand. ‘I promise, you can trust me. I want to help. I haven’t said a word to anyone else.
What is happening at the hospital is wrong.
It is against every ethic that I believe in.
I see too many Jewish women being turned away, denied help, help that could save their lives and the lives of their unborn child.
I cannot stand by and let that just happen. ’
Clara looked intently at her friend. Everything she said resonated with Clara. Didn’t she have the same conversation with Friedrich? Telling him that now she knew, she couldn’t conveniently forget it.
‘Please tell me you mean that,’ she whispered.
‘I promise on the life of my mother,’ said Marie without hesitation. ‘I want to help.’ From her pocket she took a folded sheet of paper and placed it on the coffee table. ‘I hope you will take this as my proof of what I say.’
‘What is it?’ Clara picked up the piece of paper and unfolded it. A list of three names and addresses, followed by a date.
‘When their babies are due,’ said Marie.
Something in Clara’s heart, or in the pit of her stomach, or in her soul, she didn’t know where, led her to believe her friend.
Marie wouldn’t lie to her. She wouldn’t be setting a trap.
Marie had even come to the apartment that day Clara was sacked.
She’d provided Clara with more information about Hannah Rothstein.
She took a deep breath, before finally speaking. ‘In what way can you help?’
‘I can supply you with the names and addresses of Jewish women who are denied medical care and advice from the Charité. Women who are desperate with nowhere to turn. I can get medical supplies from the hospital. I can help in the community. I will do whatever I can to help.’
‘You will be putting yourself in grave danger,’ said Clara.
‘I know. I have thought of all that. I would be foolhardy to not be scared but I would also be heartless to not help women who need the help. I do not want to standby and do nothing.’
‘What made you come to this conclusion?’ asked Clara. There was something different about her friend that she hadn’t been able to pinpoint until now. There was a sadness in her eyes.
‘Yesterday, a Jewish woman came to the hospital. She was in labour. She was only thirty-four weeks pregnant. She was turned away. She begged and begged for help. The security removed her from the hospital. Even when she was doubled over in pain no one helped her.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She collapsed before they reached the door. She gave birth there and then on the hospital floor. On her own. No one helped her. No one was allowed to.’
Clara gasped, her hand going to her throat in horror. ‘And after that?’
Marie shook her head. ‘Eventually the matron stepped in and ordered me and another midwife to take her to a side room. We cut the umbilical cord. Wrapped the baby in blankets and gave her to the mother. We weren’t allowed to do anything else.
’ Marie looked down and a tear dropped onto her lap.
‘It was awful. An hour later, the woman’s husband arrived.
He had only just received word of what was happening. They left to bury their child.’
‘Oh, no,’ Clara couldn’t gather her thoughts to speak. ‘That’s awful. Barbaric. How can that be allowed to happen?’
Marie looked up, wiping her tears with her fingertips.
‘I knew then I could not stand by. I know it might have been too late for anyone to do anything but if that mother hadn’t had to come to the hospital in the first place then she might not have given birth, or the child might have been saved.
What happened there, I no longer recognise as my profession.
I became a midwife to bring life into this world, not to stand by and watch it be taken.
I have blood on my hands in every sense. ’
The next few days rolled on uneventfully.
Clara continued her new routine of going to work in the morning and home visits in the afternoon, finishing the day with her last call to Ursula Müller.
She looked forward to her chats with the German woman – it seemed they had a lot in common, and Ursula always seemed genuinely interested in Clara.
‘What would you usually buy your sister for her birthday?’ she’d asked one evening after Clara had mentioned it was Rose’s birthday that day. She was sad she hadn’t been able to send her any kind of message to let her know she was thinking of her.
‘Well, Rose is very practically minded,’ Clara had said. ‘I probably would have bought her a useful gift. She wouldn’t have wanted flowers or chocolates. She’d probably have wanted a scarf or gloves. Or a new pen. Something like that.’
‘Is your other sister like you or like Rose?’
‘Evie? She’s the baby of the family and very much the quiet one,’ said Clara. ‘I don’t think she’s like either of us. She prefers photography, poetry, writing, that sort of thing.’
‘A gentle soul?’
‘Gentle but also quietly determined. She lost her sight in one eye, but it hasn’t held her back. She can be very stubborn at times.’ Clara smiled as she thought of her sisters. ‘Probably a trait we all have in common.’
They had talked some more about family and Ursula had shared her wish that she had siblings and that with her mother not living in Berlin, she felt very lonely most of the time.
‘But I must admit, I do look forward to your visits. They brighten the day up,’ she had confessed.
‘And I enjoy coming to see you,’ Clara had replied almost cautiously.
She wasn’t used to such informality and acceptance of late and it filled her heart, reminding her that not everyone in the country automatically mistrusted her or disliked her.