Chapter 26
When Clara arrived home, she was still unnerved by her encounter with Brandt and considering how to tell Friedrich about the threat. She hated worrying him, but they had sworn not to keep secrets from each other.
However, as she walked through the door, the lights were on, and she noticed Friedrich’s formal service cap on the hall table.
It wasn’t his everyday field cap he had worn that morning.
Was he going out tonight? Had he told her, and she’d forgotten?
‘Friedrich?’ He emerged from their bedroom, adjusting the cuffs of his crisp white dress shirt beneath his impeccably pressed service uniform jacket.
The dark wool was free of any lint or wrinkles, his silver rank insignia gleamed against the fabric. ‘Are you going out?’
‘I’m sorry, it was a last-minute instruction,’ he said, coming down the hall to greet her with a kiss. ‘The major has called a meeting over dinner to discuss logistical planning.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame.’ She hugged him, trying not to let her disappointment show. She had wanted to talk to him about Brandt but didn’t want to bother him with the worry just before he was going out.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, stepping back to look at her.
‘Fine,’ she said, smiling.
‘Clara, that is not your “fine” smile.’
‘We can talk later once you’re back,’ said Clara, brushing the lapels of his jacket. ‘It can wait.’
‘No. It can’t.’
Clara let out a sigh. ‘I bumped into someone I used to work with at the Charité,’ she said. ‘Greta Brandt.’
Friedrich frowned. ‘The one who was rude to you.’
‘Yes, that one. Delightful woman.’
‘Now I know that’s your British sarcasm as she was anything but delightful.’
Clara looked down at the ground. Friedrich wouldn’t be making such a flippant comment once she told him what Brandt had said. ‘There’s something else.’ She looked up at him, his expression turning serious once more. She could see his mind, trying to put the pieces together before she told him.
‘Brandt,’ he said drawing the name out. And then she saw the realisation fall across him. ‘Neuruppin.’ Clara nodded. Friedrich closed his eyes for a moment, opening them again to look at her. ‘Tell me it’s not true.’
‘I wish I could. She was waiting for me as I left the clinic.’
‘What did she say?’
‘That she had volunteered to help find a midwife who was helping the Jewish community. A midwife known as the Angel of Life.’ Clara could barely say the words out loud.
‘Does she know it is you?’
‘She didn’t say outright, but she suspects. I denied it. Called her bluff. She has no solid proof.’
Friedrich frowned as he contemplated the news. ‘You did the right thing, but you must take extra care now. Please keep a low profile for a while. Go to work and work only. Nothing else. It’s too dangerous when I’m not here to help you, to protect you. Promise?’
Clara’s stomach twisted with the knowledge that she couldn’t make the promise he needed. ‘I’ll only do what’s absolutely necessary.’
‘That’s not what I said.’
‘Friedrich.’
‘No, Clara, please.’ His voice cracked slightly. ‘I don’t want you out in the city at night or anywhere dangerous. Promise me.’
She looked into his blue eyes, today flecked with grey – a reflection of his anxiety that made her want to weep. How could she make a promise she might not be able to keep? ‘I promise I’ll only do what’s absolutely necessary. Only if it’s life or death.’
He studied her face for a long moment, and she wondered if he could see the evasion in her words. ‘I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get.’ A heavy sigh escaped him, defeat evident in the slope of his shoulders.
An hour later, after Friedrich left, Clara felt as though half her soul had walked out the door with him.
She knew she should sleep, but anxiety crawled under her skin like an army of ants.
Despite her bravado at her encounter with Brandt, being alone in the apartment, albeit for just a few hours while he was out, set every nerve on edge.
She ran a hot bath, sinking into the water and letting it soak away the tension in her shoulders. The heat was almost enough to make her forget the constant fear that seemed to live in her chest now.
She nearly dozed off in the warmth until sudden banging on her door shattered the peace.
Her heart lurched as she sat bolt upright, water sloshing violently over the edge of the tub.
She listened carefully for the pattern, her pulse hammering in her throat.
When the coded knock came again, relief flooded through her.
Wrapping herself in a towel and pulling on her dressing gown, Clara hurried to the door, already knowing what this meant and hating herself for it.
Paul looked startled when she opened the door, taking in her dishevelled appearance. ‘I was in the bath,’ Clara whispered, guilt already forming in her stomach. ‘Come in, quickly.’
‘I have someone with me.’ Paul stepped into the apartment, followed by Marie.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Clara, looking from one to the other.
‘I was calling in to see you,’ said Marie. ‘We met in the stairwell. And I think it’s a good job we did.’
Clara closed the door behind them, waiting for an explanation.
‘You’re needed tonight,’ Paul said urgently, and Clara’s heart sank further. ‘Max sent me.’
Clara hesitated. Friedrich’s words echoing in her mind. The promise she’d made barely hours ago felt like a betrayal waiting to happen. ‘Is it urgent?’
Paul nodded gravely and she could see genuine fear in his young face.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Marie. ‘The labour has stalled, and the baby could be in distress. It needs two of us.’
‘Who’s with the mother?’ Clara asked, her medical training already overriding her personal anguish as possibilities raced through her mind.
‘Her mother and an aunt,’ said Paul. ‘No one knows what to do. They think the baby’s position is wrong.’
‘Breech presentation,’ Clara murmured. Without intervention, both mother and baby would likely die. She looked at Paul’s worried face. ‘Wait while I get dressed.’
As she pulled on her clothes, Clara’s hands trembled with more than the cold. She wasn’t breaking her promise to Friedrich, was she? Life or death she’d said. This was one of those moments.
Before leaving the apartment, she quickly went into the living room and took her medical book from the shelf and placed it on the coffee table. She hoped she’d be back before Friedrich, and he wouldn’t have to come home to that.
An hour later, Clara and Marie climbed the stairs of an apartment building in an unfamiliar part of the Prenzlauer Berg district.
A more prosperous part, with wider, tree-lined streets and from what she could see in the dark, well-maintained, elegant buildings, featuring wrought-iron balconies with flower boxes as opposed to lines of washing.
She didn’t know why, but it made her uneasy.
On the second floor, Max waited outside a door, smoking with the desperate intensity of a man watching his world hang in the balance.
Several cigarette butts littered the ground at his feet.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, stubbing his cigarette with violent precision. In the dim hallway light, she could see something she’d never seen before on his face, raw undisguised fear. ‘Two of you?’ he said in surprise when he saw Marie.
‘Yes. It’s better to have two midwives for difficult births,’ said Clara quickly. ‘Who is the woman? What’s her name?’
‘Steffi,’ Max replied, then added quietly, almost as if the words were dragged from him. ‘She’s my wife.’
The revelation stopped Clara in her tracks. Max had never mentioned his personal life or family and she’d never asked. ‘Your wife?’ She couldn’t hide her surprise.
‘We have a son already. This is her second pregnancy.’ His voice was strained, and Clara could see him struggling to maintain his usual composure. The mask of the hardened operative was cracking, revealing the terrified husband and father beneath.
‘We need to see her immediately if the baby’s breech.’
Inside the cramped bedroom, the metallic scent of blood and the sounds of laboured breathing hit Clara immediately. The baby was presenting buttocks first, one of the most dangerous complications she could face without proper medical equipment.
Steffi lay exhausted on the bed, her face pale and drawn with pain. Her mother sat beside her, wiping her daughter’s brow with a cloth.
While Marie hurried over to Steffi, Clara focused on the birth. ‘The baby is bottom first,’ Clara explained gently. ‘I need to turn it, but it will be very uncomfortable. Painful, even.’
Steffi nodded weakly. ‘Please, just do whatever you need to.’
Clara washed her hands thoroughly in the kitchen sink, her movements automatic while her mind focused entirely on the challenge ahead. When she returned to kneel at the foot of the bed her hands were steady.
‘Deep breaths,’ she instructed, placing her hands on Steffi’s swollen belly. ‘Tell me when you feel a contraction coming.’
Working by lamplight and instinct, Clara reached inside and grasped the baby’s tiny feet. This was so much harder than the controlled environment of a hospital. Here she had no proper instruments, no backup if things went wrong.
It took several agonising minutes of careful manipulation, Steffi’s cries growing weaker with each attempt. Finally, the baby shifted, and she felt the subtle change that meant success.
‘Nearly there,’ Clara encouraged. Steffi groaned with each movement. Clara continued working, pushing and guiding until, at last, the baby moved into the proper head-down position.
The next contraction came like a gift from heaven. ‘Deep breath, but don’t push yet.’
The head emerged in a rush of fluid, followed by the shoulders and then on one more contraction, a baby girl was born.
The room erupted in cries of joy and relief. Clara gave the baby a quick check over, before wrapping her in a towel and passing her to Steffi.
Max burst through the door as if he couldn’t wait another second. He stopped abruptly, looking from his exhausted wife to Clara and she saw the tension melt from his features as his gaze landed on his newborn.
‘A girl,’ said Steffi as Max rushed over to her. Tears leaked from his eyes and for a moment he wasn’t the tough-talking anti-regime fighter that Clara knew. She saw a man simply overwhelmed with love and relief.
Steffi’s mother turned to Clara and clasped her hands in her own. ‘Thank you. You really are the Angel of Life.’
Before anyone could say anything else, Paul rushed into the room. His cheeks flushed from running. He was breathing hard.
‘Hey!’ said Max in alarm but then stopped seeing Paul’s concerned expression. ‘What is it?’
‘German patrol. It’s in the next street,’ said Paul, between breaths. ‘We need to go.’
Max looked over at his wife and child and then at Clara. ‘We can’t go, can we?’
‘She can’t be moved yet,’ said Clara. ‘It wasn’t an easy birth, and she needed stitches.’
‘You should go. While you can. Quickly.’
‘There’s no time,’ said Paul, his face pale with worry.
Clara exchanged a look with Marie, who shook her head. ‘We can’t leave her, and we can’t take her.’
‘But the patrol,’ said Paul. The sound of boots on the road could be heard getting closer. ‘They’re checking buildings.’
Marie looked at Clara with surprising calm. ‘Stay here. Switch the lights off. Everyone stay silent.’
Before anyone had a chance to ask Marie what she meant, she was smoothing down her hair, pinching colour into her cheeks.
She darted out of the apartment. Max switched the lights off and went to stand at the window.
Clara joined him, both pressed against the wall with a narrow sight of the street below.
‘Guten Abend!’ Marie called sweetly to the soldiers. ‘Such a lovely evening for a walk.’
Clara glanced at Max, who she was sure looked as confused and worried as she felt. Clara held her breath as the patrol stopped, looking with interest at Marie who was standing at the edge of the path. One of them, barely older than a boy, grinned widely.
‘What’s a pretty Fr?ulein doing all alone?’ he called back to her.
Marie laughed, a sound so light and flirtatious it was almost unrecognisable. ‘Oh, I’m waiting for my gentleman friend. But he’s terribly late. Perhaps you handsome soldiers know of somewhere more exciting than this boring street?’
Clara looked on in a mix of horror and awe as Marie began to move slowly along the path, chatting and giggling with the patrol, drawing them further from the entrance to the building.
They were almost out of sight, when a military car pulled up alongside the path and an officer jumped out, reprimanding the patrol for talking and not getting on with what they were supposed to be.
The patrol quickly hurried up the steps to the next building while the officer told Marie to stop distracting his men.
She set off down the street in the opposite direction.
‘Shall I follow her?’ asked Paul. ‘Make sure she gets home all right?’
Max appeared to consider it for a moment before nodding his consent. ‘After that, go home yourself,’ he instructed the young man, who was already halfway out of the door.
Clara stayed long enough to ensure both mother and baby were stable, before saying her goodbyes, assuring everyone she would be fine on her own, and slipping out of the apartment.
It was nearly midnight, and Friedrich was probably already home.
He would have seen the medical book on the table and known what she was doing.
She knew it wouldn’t minimise his worry.
These days he liked to accompany her and wait a few streets away, so she could get home safely.
Travelling around the city as Captain Bergmann’s wife and in his company was far safer and easier.