War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 286

Chapter 5: Anna

Berlin, June 1945

A

nna returned home from a night shift at the Charité hospital. Like the rest of the city, it now was under Soviet administration. Even with the war officially over, nurses were very much in demand, although the horrendous influx of new patients had slowed down.

“Good morning, darling.” Peter, her husband, greeted her with a kiss as she opened the door. “We were just about to have breakfast. Do you want to join us?”

“No, thank you. I already ate at the hospital.” She said out of habit, even though it was true only about half of the time. Without her mentor and boss, Professor Scherer, it would be true even more rarely. But Peter and his thirteen-year-old son from his first marriage needed the little food the family could get hold of more than she did.

Peter had just returned home from a POW camp and weighed little more than she did. And Jan… she looked at her stepson with a smile. He was growing again, evidenced by the trousers that ended mid-calf and the shirt with the rolled-up sleeves to disguise that it was much too small.

Peter gave her a doubtful gaze, but didn’t insist. “Will you at least have a cup of tea with us?”

“I will.” She settled at the table with Peter, Jan, Peter’s brother Stan, and her mother. Mutter poured her a cup of herbal tea – real tea was a luxury they hadn’t tasted in years.

“How was your work?” Mutter asked.

“Like always. Although we finally have fewer new patients coming in. But I hate working for the Soviets; the soldiers at the hospital make my skin crawl.”

“Soon the Western Allies will enter Berlin,” Stan said.

“I hope so.” Anna was too tired to even care. Each and every day was an awful struggle to survive.

“I’ll go and queue up for food,” Mutter said, finishing her own meager breakfast. Mutter’s hair had turned white over the last weeks and she’d become incredibly gaunt. Just like Anna, she gave most of her share of the meals to the men.

“Can I come with you, please?” Jan asked his grandmother. He seemed to be the only person who enjoyed leaving the safe confinement of their apartment and always volunteered to run errands.

Mutter nodded. Anna knew that she liked having the boy around, even though she didn’t approve of his techniques to

organize

food and other things.

Beggars can’t be choosers. And we are beggars

. Anna sighed. If morals had been blurred during the war, it had only become worse now that every person in Berlin literally fought to survive another day.

Jan and Mutter left, and Stan glanced uneasily at Anna. It wasn’t his fault, but every time she looked at him, she remembered what had happened, and shuddered. He noticed the shudder and said, “I should fix some holes in the wall of the other room.” Then he walked out of the room, filled with guilt and shame.

“He’s doing well. You almost don’t notice his wooden leg,” Peter said.

“Physically he’s doing astoundingly, but mentally…”

Peter came over and put his arms around her. “Don’t you think we should get properly married, now that it’s not illegal anymore?”

“I’d love to.” She leaned back against his bony chest. Despite his emaciated figure, he still managed to make her feel protected – and loved. Peter and Stan were Poles, swept from their homelands to Berlin by cruel twists of fate. She and Peter had married in a clandestine, Catholic ceremony last year, but hadn’t been able to make it official due to the racial laws.

“Let’s go to the administration and find out what we need to get married,” he suggested.

“Right now?” The tiredness blew away at the prospect of becoming his legal wife.

“If you insist.” He grinned, letting his fingers trail down her back. She shuddered involuntarily. Anna stood up, gathered the dishes into the sink and then turned around to say, “Let’s go then.”

“Yes. The worst they can say is no, right?”

“They won’t. Now that the Nazis are gone, there’s no reason to keep us from finally getting officially married.” He took her hand and together they left the apartment, walked down the dilapidated stairs and to the next administrative office two blocks down the road.

They approached the door and a Soviet soldier stepped forward, barring the path. “Identification.”

Peter handed over both his and Anna’s papers and she glanced nervously at the soldier while he examined their papers. Moments later he handed them back. “What is your purpose here today?”

Peter looked at Anna and then reached for her hand. “We would like to start the proceedings to get married.”

The soldier looked at them and Anna believed she saw him smirk, but it must have been an illusion, because he moved aside and even opened the door for them. “Go ahead.”

Inside was a reception desk manned by yet another soldier. Anna kept half behind Peter’s back and let him do the talking. She hated the Soviet soldiers with a passion and not even Peter’s big hand around hers could make her uneasiness go away.

“Excuse me, we would like to apply for a marriage license,” Peter said.

The soldier pointed towards the hallway. “Second door on the right.”

“Thank you.” Anna clung to her man as they made their way to the indicated office and Peter knocked on the door.

“Come in.” An elderly man in uniform sat at the desk, not looking overly happy that they’d disturbed whatever he had been doing.

“We would like to apply for a marriage license,” Peter said.

The man fumbled in one of the drawers and handed them two sheets of paper, “Fill these out. I’ll also need to see your identification papers.”

Anna and Peter filled out the paperwork, which she found incredibly simplistic. It didn’t ask for a lengthy family history, proof of heritage, health certificates and whatever other red tape the Nazi administration had required. In fact, it asked nothing but her name, birth date and nationality.

She completed the form in a matter of moments and handed it back to the clerk along with her identification. Peter did the same and the Soviet glanced at them, before he took out another official-looking form and transcribed their data. Then he took not one but four of the seals standing on his desk and stamped the form meticulously with each one of them.

“Congratulations. There you go.”

Anna looked at the form in the soldier’s hand, not really comprehending what had just happened. Peter stepped forward and took the paper from the soldier’s hands. “What is this?”

“Your marriage certificate. You said you wanted to get married.”

Anna looked at him in shock. “We’re married? Just like that? Because you stamped this piece of paper?”

“Yes. Have a good day.” The man mustered a smile and then busied himself reading some papers in Cyrillic letters.

Anna stood, stupefied, until a tug on her hand reminded her that Peter stood by her side. Her husband. He still held their marriage certificate in his other hand and the expression on his face mirrored her own shocked one.

Hand in hand, they left the administration building. It wasn’t until they had reached the street that they both woke from their shock-induced rigidity and he wrapped her into his arms, twirling her around.

“Congratulations, Frau Zdanek.”

“I still can’t believe it,” she said, pressing a kiss on his mouth. “I thought they’d make us jump through all kinds of hoops and here we are, married after receiving four stamps on a piece of paper.” Peter placed her on the ground again, but her brain was still unwilling to process the events. “He didn’t even ask me whether I want to become your wife.”

“Too bad, because now it’s too late to back out. You’re stuck with me for the rest of your life.” Peter chuckled, some of the old shimmer returning to his ice-blue eyes. After his ordeal at the POW camp, she’d feared he’d never return to his joking and teasing old self.

“I could go in there again, and ask for a divorce,” she said, giving him a smirk. “I’m sure it’s a matter of two minutes and some more stamps on another piece of paper.”

“And do you want to?” His voice had turned serious and she quickly wrapped her arms around his chest. “You should know that I never, ever, want to live a single day without you again.”

“Me neither. I love you more than you’ll ever comprehend. Only the thought of returning to you kept me alive these past months.”

Anna caressed his face, and the scar under his eye that told of his experiences, when she suddenly remembered. “Oh, my goodness! Mutter will never forgive me for getting married without even telling her.”

“We should hurry home to tell her. And Jan.” His face clouded over.

Anna knew he was thinking about his first wife, Ludmila, who’d been killed by the Nazis for being a Jew.