Chapter 36
Clara followed, forcing her feet to move at a normal pace when every instinct screamed at her to run to him.
Each step felt like an eternity as she fought the urge to look over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching.
Friedrich turned a corner and Clara followed.
They were in a quieter residential street now.
She could see his tall figure ahead of her as he continued towards the edge of town where the buildings were fewer.
Then he disappeared to the right. Clara quickened her pace.
‘Here.’ It was Friedrich. He took her hand and led her down a narrow track to a farm building. There was a side door to the barn and Friedrich stepped through, taking her with him.
As soon as she was inside, he closed the door, securing it with a piece of wood.
Clara collapsed into his arms, her composure finally cracking as she pressed her face against his chest. The familiar scent of him, the solid warmth of his body – for the first time in hours, she could breathe properly. Friedrich kissed the top of her head.
‘Is this safe?’ she asked.
‘As safe as it can be. If we’re caught by the farmer, he will just think we are taking the opportunity while we can.’ He kissed her again. ‘I thought for a minute I was going to have to fight off that soldier next to you at the table.’
‘And I thought I was going to have to fight that woman at the bar.’
They both laughed, probably more than the exchange warranted. Then Clara felt the tears fall.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered against his chest. ‘I keep telling myself to be strong, but seeing you again, knowing what comes next.’ Her voice broke. ‘I’m blaming the pregnancy for making me fall apart.’
‘My emotional, jealous, pregnant wife,’ he murmured, stroking her hair. ‘I rather like this possessive side, even if the timing is terrible.’
Any momentary respite found with humour was sucked away at Friedrich’s last comment. Clara clung to him, her fingers gripping the fabric of his uniform as if she could anchor him to her through sheer force of will. ‘Is this all really happening?’
‘I wish I could tell you otherwise, liebling.’
‘I wish you would surprise me and say you’re coming,’ said Clara, without conviction, knowing even as she spoke that it was impossible.
‘It has to be this way,’ said Friedrich, his voice breaking slightly.
‘It’s the safest way. In the world I can keep you safer from my office at the Bendlerblock than I can on the road.
Me coming along would cause suspicion far more quickly than me going back to Berlin and carrying on as normal for as long as possible.
’ He tipped her chin up with his fingertip and she could see his own eyes glistening.
‘You know all this, Clara. If there was any other way – God, if there was any other way, I’d take it. ’
‘I don’t think I can do this without you,’ she confessed, her voice barely a whisper. ‘I need you. We need you. How am I supposed to raise our child without knowing their father? How do I explain that Daddy loved us so much he had to let us go?’
‘You need me to keep you safe, both of you.’ He wiped the tears from her face with trembling hands.
‘I love you, Clara. I love everything about you. From the first day I met you at that lecture – do you remember? You asked that question about infection rates that made Professor Weber stumble over his words. I loved your spirit, your bravery to come to another country. Your defiance against British convention.’ His voice grew thick with emotion.
‘I loved how you embraced my homeland and my city. How you loved my mother from the moment you met her, how you understood her worries about me. I haven’t stopped loving you for even a single day.
’ He kissed her forehead, his lips lingering.
‘I love how passionate you are. How you’ve stood by your beliefs even when it put you in danger.
Your principles. How you put others first, even when I begged you not to.
I love how completely, how fearlessly you’ve loved me. ’
‘Then please don’t make me go.’ The words tore from her throat, raw and desperate.
‘I have loved you with every breath in my body since we met. You’re my home, Friedrich.
You’re my everything. We were meant to be together.
We’re meant to stay together. Forever. Our story wasn’t meant to end like this.
Now we’re finally going to be a family.’
‘Hush, now, liebling. This is not the end.’ His own tears fell freely now.
‘Our love will never end. Every sunrise, every sunset, every breath our child takes – I’ll be there in all of it.
Our love is bigger than borders, bigger than this war, bigger than anything they can do to us.
’ He crushed her mouth with his, passionate, desperate, trying to pour a lifetime of love into one kiss.
Clara kissed him back with everything she had, memorising the taste of him, the way his hands felt in her hair, the sound he made when she whispered his name.
She needed to love him completely just one more time.
Not just with her heart and mind, but her body.
She needed him to love her too, to create one last perfect memory to carry with her across the years ahead.
Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms on the rough hay, holding onto one another as if they were the only people left on earth.
Clara traced the lines of his face with her fingertips, trying to memorise every detail – the way his eyebrows drew together when he was thinking, the small scar on his chin from a childhood fall, the exact shade of blue of his eyes in the dim light filtering through the barn slats.
Friedrich gently stroked her hair. She could feel him trembling.
‘You have to be brave now. Do it for our child.’ He moved his hand down to her still-flat stomach, spreading his fingers wide as if he could somehow touch the life growing there.
‘Look after him or her. Tell them about me every day. Tell them how their father lived for this moment – knowing they existed. Tell them how much I loved them before I even knew them.’
‘You’ll be able to tell them yourself.’ Clara’s voice was fierce through her tears.
‘This isn’t goodbye forever. I won’t let it be.
Somehow, some way, we’ll find each other again.
We have to.’ But even as she spoke, she could see in his eyes that he didn’t believe it, that he was already saying goodbye in a way she couldn’t bear to accept.
‘I will try,’ said Friedrich and she heard all the things he couldn’t say.
The knowledge that his resistance activities would likely be discovered, that his protection of her would eventually come to light, that he was probably sending her away to safety while walking back to his own death.
‘Wherever I am, wherever you are, wherever our child is, my love will always be with you. In every lullaby you sing, every scraped knee you kiss, every bedtime story you tell, I’ll be there.
’ He rolled over and kissed her again, soft and sweet and utterly heartbreaking. ‘Promise me something.’
‘Anything.’
‘Promise me you’ll be happy. That you’ll find joy again, even without me. That you’ll let our child see you smile when you tell them about their father, not just cry.’
The request broke something inside her, but she nodded through her tears. ‘I promise. But only if you promise me you’ll fight. That you won’t give up. That you’ll try to come back to us.’
‘I promise to fight,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘For you. For our baby. For the chance that love can win even when everything else has been lost.’
All too soon it was time for Clara to go back to the inn and for Friedrich to return to Berlin. Clara had never felt so physically sick or heartbroken in her entire life.
She gripped his hand desperately, wanting to prolong every second of physical contact, knowing that when she let go, it might be forever.
They had talked optimistically about being reunited, but she wasn’t naive enough to believe it was guaranteed.
The chances of Friedrich making it to the shores of England or Clara returning to Germany once the war ended, were heartbreakingly slim.
She held back her tears, determined that her husband’s last memory of her wouldn’t be one of weeping.
They reached the end of the road that led into the town, pausing in the shadows one final time.
Clara looked up at him and opened her mouth to speak, but Friedrich placed his finger gently to her lips, then kissed her with such tenderness it nearly undid her completely.
In that kiss was every emotion, every moment of love they had ever shared – their first meeting, their wedding day, quiet Sunday mornings, whispered conversations in the dark.
She stood there looking up at him, drowning in the impossibility of this moment. How could she possibly say goodbye to the love of her life? How could her heart keep beating when it was breaking apart?
Friedrich kissed her one last time, lingering as if he could somehow make the moment last forever.
Then his hand moved reverently to her stomach, pressing gently against the place where their child grew.
He closed his eyes for several heartbeats, and she knew he was trying to somehow connect with the baby he would never hold.
When he opened his eyes to look at her, even in the darkness she could see the tears streaming down his face.
Without a word, they wiped each other’s cheeks with infinite tenderness, then leaned their foreheads together, breathing the same air, existing in the same space for just a few more precious seconds.
Finally, Friedrich gently moved her hands away from his face, lifting them to his lips to kiss her knuckles one by one, as if he were saying goodbye to every part of her.
A small, broken sob escaped Clara’s throat.
She took one last look at the handsome, brave, wonderful husband, trying to burn the image of him in her memory forever, before forcing herself to turn and walk across the square.
Their hands stretched between them, fingers intertwined until the very last possible moment, until finally their fingertips slipped apart, and Clara’s heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces.
She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. If she saw him standing there watching her go, she would run back to him and never leave no matter the consequences.