War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 280

Chapter 27

T

wo days later Martha and Lotte arrived in Berlin and parted ways. Lotte retraced the familiar steps from the central station, Bahnhof Zoo, to the apartment building where her family had lived for decades.

But nothing was familiar anymore. She barely recognized the streets and got lost more than once in the endless catalog of obliteration. It was like the jaws of hell had opened up and swallowed the entire city of Berlin, leaving only molten vomit behind.

As she trudged the streets, she saw women queuing for rations, women removing debris from the ruins, women collecting stones to be reused, women layering bricks, women repairing tram rails, women driving buses.

What she didn’t see were men.

Having lived surrounded by men in the garrison for such a long time, Lotte was amazed at the lack of countrymen. The only adult males visible were Allied soldiers striding along the streets as if they owned them – which, in fact, they did.

She stopped at a corner to ask directions of a tired-looking woman removing bricks with her bare hands. The woman stretched her back with a groan and looked at Lotte with dull eyes that had long lost their light. “Down there and then to the left.”

Before she departed in the indicated direction, Lotte indulged in her curiosity. “Why don’t you let the men do this backbreaking work?”

“Men? Which men?” The woman wiped the sweat from her forehead and murmured, “All dead, imprisoned or missing. You got lucky you’re alive.”

The old post office a block away from her building was obliterated, but the ancient linden tree in front of it stood defiantly like a headstone to mark the spot. How often had Lotte and her siblings climbed those sturdy branches when Mutter had to go into the post office to stamp her letters?

“It’s unladylike for you to behave in such an unrefined manner. Why can’t you be more like your sisters?” Mutter had scolded. Lotte continued her antics until that day when she was twelve years old and a boy whistled up at her.

“He can see your knickers, Lotte.” Anna and Richard doubled up laughing. Lotte never climbed that tree again, though now that she wore the attire of a man she fought an irresistible impulse to scale those branches once more. Instead she ran her hand through her cropped hair and walked on, determined to be as resilient as that beloved old tree.

When she finally arrived at the building where her family lived, the shock settled deep into her soul, impeding any movement. She stood frozen to stone on the street, a car honking at the obstacle she posed, her eyes widening by the moment. A barely standing structure with gaping bomb holes in walls peppered with bullet holes, and smashed window panes, confronted her. Where her apartment used to be the wall had a different color, as if freshly erected to repair a hole.

Please God, let them be alive and here

. Lotte prayed, though in her heart she couldn’t fathom anyone living in these conditions, especially Mutter, who was so fastidious about cleanliness and tidying her home.

She slipped through the entrance door that hung on the hinges. Rushing up the damaged stairs, taking three steps at once, she met a young boy dashing down. He brushed past her without a word, darted on outside into the street and disappeared.

Lotte’s heart nearly stopped. He hadn’t recognized her, but despite his having grown so much in the past year she recognized him immediately. If her nephew Jan was here, the rest of the family must be, too. With newfound energy she bounded up to the fourth floor and stood on the landing, heart thumping and palms sweating.

She banged on the door with both fists, not caring whether she alerted the entire neighborhood. Not even the neighborhood gossip, Frau Weber, scared her right now, because what would she do when the believed-dead daughter of her neighbors returned home? Denounce her to the new authorities?

“What the hell are you trying to do, you crazy boy?” Her brother-in-law Peter opened the door, scowling angrily. The last time she’d seen him in Warsaw he was an impressive, fear-inspiring, burly man. Now she stared in shock at his hollow face and skeletal frame. His own clothes hung on him in as ludicrous manner as the stolen clothes hung on her.

Riddled with shock, she couldn’t utter a single word.

“You want to break a door that’s already hanging on its last hinges? We have no money, nor anything else. Go away.” He attempted to slam the door in her face, but she was faster and pushed a foot between door and frame.

“Peter, it’s—”

In that moment she heard her sister Anna’s voice calling out, “Who is it at the door?”

Tears spilled from Lotte’s eyes and before Peter could say a word, she screamed, “Anna. It’s me, Lotte.”

Moments later she was staring at her sister, who had an expression of total disbelief in her eyes.

“Lotte, honey, you made it home.” Anna pushed her husband aside and wrapped her arms around her sister, both women bawling like babies right there in the doorframe, until Peter finally pulled them inside.

“Oh, Anna…” Lotte had yearned such a long time to reunite with her family, that now the words slipped from her brain. Everything slipped from her brain and she found herself on a dilapidated sofa, holding a glass of water in her hands, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Goodness, Lotte, we heard about your evacuation and that you’d gone missing…” Anna hugged her so hard, she thought her ribs would crack. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Where’s Mutter? And Ursula?”

“Ursula moved to Aunt Lydia’s with the baby and Mutter is running errands.”

“Thank God…” Lotte barely dared to ask her next question. “What about Richard? And our father?”

Anna shook her head. “We haven’t heard from them.”

“Which is a good thing,” Peter said. “If they had been killed, your mother would have been informed.” It was a small solace.

“I saw Jan dashing down the stairs, but he didn’t recognize me.”

Peter chuckled. “I didn’t recognize you, either. Thought you’re a vagrant coming to beg.”

“What happened to your hair?” Anna asked.

“It had to go. Was safer to travel like this.”

The bottomless agony in Anna’s eyes told Lotte that her sister knew all too well. Things had happened to both of them, but if they wanted to survive, they had to bury the past, never to be spoken of again.

Ever.

“Look at the bright side, Lotte, it took you nineteen years of rebellion until you got what you wanted and became a boy.” Anna made an effort to push the haunting memories away.

Lotte chuckled as the revelation hit her. “You’re wrong, big sister. I never wanted to be a boy. I only wanted to do all the exciting things boys are allowed to do and girls aren’t.”

“Speaking of boys. Do you have news from that soldier you were sweet on?” Anna asked.

Her family had never met Johann, since he’d had to stay in Warsaw when Lotte visited for a week’s furlough last year.

“He was captured by the Ivan in January. But since then I’ve had no news.” Her heart grew sad at the thought of the man she loved, and she clung to the hope that he’d soon be released and return to her side.

Thankfully, she didn’t have time to dwell on her sadness for long, because the door opened, and her mother entered the apartment.

“What’s…”

Mutter dropped her shopping bag, and a dozen potatoes for which she’d probably been queuing for hours tumbled to the floor. Lotte jumped into her mother’s opened arms. “Lotte, my baby. God… darling… you’re here… my baby is here.”

And for once Lotte didn’t mind one bit that her mother still called her baby. She was alive and home again.