Chapter 28
A strange numbness settled over her, as if her body had suddenly become weightless and hollow.
The sounds of Fuchs’s heavy breathing, the distant rumble of a late-night tram became muffled and far away as if she were hearing them underwater.
There was a sense of being present but disconnected from reality.
The sound of a grunt and a thud, scuffling feet and voices filtered through her mind. The heavy weight on her body lifted. Her arms fell away from the wall, no longer pressed in place above her head.
‘Clara. Clara!’
She could hear her name being called in some sort of urgent whisper. Calling her again and again. A hand on her shoulder as she was turned away from the wall.
‘Clara.’ The voice was insistent.
She opened her eyes. It took a moment to focus, to make out the dark shadow of someone standing in front of her.
‘Clara.’ A gentler tone.
She looked harder and then gasped. ‘Paul? Oh, my God, Paul.’ She clung onto him as her mind raced, trying to process what had happened. And then it all came flooding back with horrifying clarity. Her body began to tremble violently.
‘We need to go,’ Paul was saying. He looked concerned, like he didn’t know what to say or do to help her. ‘You need to go. Now.’
‘What happened?’ she whispered.
Paul looked back over his shoulder to the ground, where the body of Fuchs lay unmoving.
Clara gave another gasp.
‘Do you need a doctor?’ Paul asked. He gave her a gentle shake. ‘Clara, look at me. Do you need a doctor?’
‘A doctor?’ For a moment she didn’t understand the question. She touched her face, grazed from the brickwork, her lip swollen from where Fuchs had struck her. She looked down her body and mentally assessed herself for a few seconds. ‘No,’ she said finally. She looked back at Fuchs. ‘Is he . . . ?’
‘Dead?’ Paul nodded.
She looked at the young man in front of her and nodded.
Thank you, her mind whispered as she looked at Paul’s young face, his hands trembling a little from what he’d done.
But even as overwhelming gratitude flooded through her, her heart broke for this boy who had just crossed a line he could never uncross.
He was barely more than a child, not even twenty and now he had to carry this forever.
Then Paul was taking her arm and hurrying her down the alleyway. Clara stopped at the end. ‘How did you know?’
‘I’ve been following Fuchs myself. I saw you but I couldn’t let you know I was there in case it blew both our cover.’ He glanced back down the alleyway. ‘Probably just as well I was here.’
Clara touched his face with her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘And I’m sorry.’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t be sorry. He deserved what he got.’ He straightened his shoulders. The hardness in his young face was heartbreaking. ‘Listen to me, Clara. You have to be more careful. They’re watching. They know more than you think.’
‘Who’s watching?’ She could see the fear in Paul’s eyes. ‘You’re scaring me.’
He opened his mouth, closed it, looked around desperately. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything. You need to be more careful. That’s all. Now, we do need to leave.’
Clara took one last look back down the alleyway. As a midwife, she was sworn to do no harm, to preserve life at all costs. Yet seeing Fuchs’s body, she felt only relief and that contradiction cut deep into her soul.
She felt Paul tug at her arm and snapping out of her thoughts, she knew she had to concentrate on getting home. Back to her apartment where Friedrich was. She’d be safe there.
Clara crossed the city on the last tram out in something of a daze. Paul was travelling alongside her although not with her, but she knew he was there, and it gave her some comfort. She could sense him behind her, watching over her as she reached the door to her apartment building.
Clara glanced down the road but couldn’t see him. She pushed open the door and almost ran up the steps to her apartment.
Friedrich must have been watching for her as he opened the door to her before she even reached for it.
‘Liebling,’ he whispered, ushering her in and closing the door behind them, locking it.
‘I was worried.’ He stopped. His whole body stilled.
Clara stood in the hallway looking down at her feet.
She didn’t want him to see her grazed face and swollen lip but how could she hide it from him? She felt his fingers lift her chin.
The horror in his eyes as he took in her injuries was the most painful thing she’d seen. ‘I’m all right,’ she said softly.
‘No. No, Clara, you are not all right.’ His voice rose in tone as he fully inspected her face. ‘What happened?’
‘I need to wash,’ she said, moving away from him and going into the bathroom.
She ran a sink of water and stripped off her clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor before taking a flannel and scrubbing every inch of her body.
The tears came as she rubbed and rubbed at her skin to rid to sensation of Fuchs hands on her.
The door opened and Friedrich stepped silently into the room. She paused, looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
He didn’t say anything just moved closer to her.
Slowly, he took the flannel from her hands and dipped it into the water.
He took the bar of soap and began washing her, trailing the flannel over her shoulder and down her arm, back up across her back and repeating the same with the other arm.
Then her body, slowly, ensuring he washed every part of her.
Then he took the towel and wrapped it around her before lifting her up into his arms and carrying her into the bedroom. He set her down on the bed then went over to the chest of drawers to find clean nightwear for her.
With careful movements he dried her with the towel. She could see the pain in his eyes.
Friedrich fetched her nightdress and carefully slipped it over her head, pulling it down over her body, his hands slow and gentle.
Then he laid her down in the bed and climbed in next to her, pulling the blankets over them and wrapping his arms around her.
‘Clara, liebling. I need to know what happened.’
She nodded. Of course he did. He deserved to know. And so she told him about Fuchs. Her voice breaking and tears falling.
‘I tried to fight him off,’ she said. ‘But I couldn’t. He was too strong.’ She looked up at her husband. ‘He didn’t manage to do what he wanted.’ She shuddered at the memory of his hands on her skin, rucking up her skirt, his breath on her face and neck. ‘Paul saved me. He, he killed Fuchs.’
Friedrich’s body tensed. ‘I should have been there. I should have protected you.’ He bit into his fisted knuckles, his eyes tightly closed. A low growl emanated from this throat and Clara felt his body turn rigid.
‘None of that matters,’ said Clara, trying to soothe her husband. ‘He’s dead. He can’t hurt me. He can’t hurt us.’ She kissed her husband.
Friedrich was silent for a long time, eventually the stillness from his body and the tension holding every muscle in a paralysis eased.
‘I will thank Paul. But Clara, danger is now even closer. You can’t go out like that again on your own.
I am not one to forbid, but I cannot allow you to put yourself in danger like that. ’
‘If I don’t carry on what I’m doing, then I have no purpose,’ said Clara.
Friedrich was quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing gentle patterns on her shoulder. Clara could feel the wheels turning in his mind, could sense him calculating risks and possibilities in that methodical way he approached all problems.
‘We can’t talk about this now,’ he said finally, his voice steady but strained. ‘Not tonight. You need to rest.’
‘Friedrich?’
‘Ja, liebling?’
‘I love you.’
His arms tightened around her. ‘And I love you. More than life.’
There was something final in the way he said it. Clara wanted to ask what he was thinking, what plans were forming behind those careful blue eyes, but sleep was pulling her under. Tomorrow would bring its own challenges. Tonight, she was safe in his arms.
As she drifted off to sleep, she could feel Friedrich’s vigilance in the way he held her. Protective. Desperate but quietly determined.