War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 344

Chapter 11

J

ohann woke in the camp hospital, an overcrowded barracks similar to the others. He was lying in the first ward for the sick people without contagious diseases. There were no medicines or special care, but a Russian doctor came every morning to check on the sick.

“How are you today,

tovarish

Hauser?” the doctor asked him.

“Hungry,” Johann croaked.

The doctor glowered at him and pretended not to have heard. He took Johann’s temperature, by laying a hand on his forehead, and his pulse. Then he scribbled a note on a list. “You’re category four. One week.”

Johann looked at the man as he walked down the aisle, deciding in less than a minute about the fate of a man. Category four. A weak smile appeared on Johann’s lips. Unsuitable for work. An entire week! That was almost like paradise. A happy summer vacation.

Norbert, the German medic and prisoner himself, stayed busy caring all alone for two hundred sick men. While he didn’t slack in his efforts, his results were meager at best. Without equipment the only cure he could offer was clean water and a kind word. He cleaned wounds, washed dirty dressings to re-use them again, and didn’t report the dead immediately in order to receive their rations for another day. Without Norbert, many more men would have died.

After three days of bed rest, Johann itched to walk around again. Helmut and Gerd had come to visit him every day for a few minutes, but he still had too much time on his hands to think. And thinking was never good, because it always led to depression.

On the fourth day, he got up to enjoy the late summer sun. By pure accident he ran into a member of the anti-fascist brigade, boasting about the new camp library. Johann wanted to have nothing to do with these people, but after four days of utter boredom and too many depressing thoughts, he followed the man.

The library consisted of a shelf in the room where the political re-education classes were held and boasted a total of twenty books in German: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and a party program of the newly formed SED, the Socialist Unity Party in the Soviet zone of Germany.

“Light reading,” Johann said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Because of his recent bad experiences with derogatory remarks, he quickly added, “I’ll start with Lenin, I think. Isn’t he the great mastermind behind the Marxism-Leninism that is the theoretical construct behind the socialism we’re privileged to witness as it exists?”

The other prisoner shot him a suspicious glance, but he couldn’t very well chide him for praising the great Lenin.

Johann stayed three weeks in the camp hospital before he was considered fit to work again. His body had used the idle time to recover some of its strength and his mind had honed its sharpness by devouring book after book. The contents might be drab and propagandistic, but the act of reading reached long forgotten corners of his brain. Slowly, Johann’s spirit recovered along with his body.

Weeks turned

into months and winter returned with a vengeance. He should have been used to the brutal cold by now, but his physical condition had deteriorated more than he’d realized.

Every day was an awful struggle against the bitter, stinging, wet cold that seeped into bones and hearts. The river was frozen, and the prisoners rubbed their hands and faces with snow to get rid of the worst filth. The lice and bedbugs were freezing, too, and made it their mission to crawl into the deepest crevices of the vulnerable men to stay warm.

The itching was maddening, and Johann scratched his skin until it started bleeding. The food supply dried up and became even more meager than last winter. Which was no surprise, because the little news they got from the outside told about a horrible famine all over the Soviet Union. If the Russians didn’t have enough to eat themselves, why would they spare food for enemy prisoners?

Shortly before Christmas, a non-event for the communist atheists, a tragedy happened. Gerd stumbled during his work in the lumber mill and the greedy buzz saw neatly sliced off both of his arms. Without proper medical attention Gerd succumbed to his injuries in a matter of hours. But his high-pitched screams followed Johann into his nightmares for weeks.

Just as his two-year anniversary of captivity rolled around, all the men in his barracks were called to the classroom.

“This will be another enlightening lesson about the benefits of the communism,” Helmut said, carefully concealing his true opinion.

“At least we can sit and it’s warm inside,” Johann answered. Sometimes they were bribed with hot water or

kasha

, millet gruel. He hoped today would be one of these days, although he didn’t allow himself to get too excited.

“Warm is good. I had frostbite on my nose and cheeks today,” Reiner said.

Johann peered at the man. “Seems okay now.”

“Yep, the locals shouted at me to rub my face with snow.”

“With snow?”

“Weird, right? But it helped. Circulation flowed again and my face is still intact.” Reiner grimaced. He wouldn’t be the first one to lose the nose, an ear or fingers to the brutal cold.

“Gosh, let’s talk about something else,” Helmut said, even as they reached the classroom and settled on the chairs.

But instead of the political officer who usually gave the ideological speeches, the camp commandant entered the room, carrying a box. He put the box on the desk in front of him, everyone in the room craning their necks to peer inside.

“Dear God, it’s letters,” Reiner hissed.

“Letters?” Suddenly Johann’s heart raced a mile a minute. Would the two-year period without news from his beloved ones end today? He looked down at his trembling fingers, before his gaze caught Helmut, whose face was white as a ghost, with feverish red dots on his cheeks.

“Nervous?” he asked his friend.

“I so wish my mother is alive.”

Johann could barely breathe while the names on the letters were called out.

After an endless time, the official said, “Johann Hauser.”

He was completely awestruck and didn’t even blink, until Helmut elbowed him and hissed, “That’s you. Go!”

Elated, he walked to the front of the room, his gaze fixed on the brown envelope. “Thank you,

gospodin

commandant,” he said as the officer handed him the letter. He instantly recognized the handwriting as Lotte’s and his heart leapt.

She’s alive!

With trembling hands he removed the single sheet of paper and held it to his face in an attempt to get a whiff of her delicate scent. He traced her handwriting with his fingers, smoothed out the page and began to read –

My dearest Johann,

How happy my heart was to receive news of you. Your friend has stopped by in Berlin on his way to his family. He gave me a wooden doll, which I keep in my purse at all times. It reminds me of you, my darling, and gives me courage.

His hand sank, and he told Helmut, “Karsten arrived safely in Germany.”

“Thank God, I was so worried he wouldn’t withstand the long journey.” Helmut’s face showed a genuine smile for the safe arrival of their friend.

“But they took my letter from him.”

“That was to be expected. You know how thorough they are in their searches.”

Johann nodded, sending grateful thoughts to Karsten for going through the trouble of visiting Lotte and letting her know about Johann’s whereabouts. He began reading again.

You can’t imagine how worried I was about you. Now at least I know that you’re well and alive. Please take care of yourself and stay healthy. I’ll be waiting until you return to my side. I know, we never talked about it, and it’s a bold move on my part to spell it out, but I honestly wish to spend my life with you.

I returned to Berlin in August 1945 and found that my sisters Anna and Ursula and my mother were still alive. For that I’m incredibly thankful. But what is even better is that our missing brother Richard miraculously turned up at the farm of my aunt.

With the war over, things are slowly returning to normal. So much of Berlin has been destroyed, but everyone works hard to rebuild our beautiful city. Initially I worked as a Trümmerfrau, one of the women clearing the rubble from the streets, but in fall I started my first semester of law studies at the University of Berlin. So far, I like the studies and hope to become a lawyer. My biggest wish is to have you by my side during this exciting yet taxing journey.

I took the liberty of writing a letter to your mother as soon as I received news from you, and I have to tell you that both your parents have died. I’m so sorry, my sweet darling.

Since the day your friend stopped by, I have diligently been writing a letter to you every month, even though the kind lady at the Red Cross told me that despite the best efforts of the Soviet government, distributing the mail to so many prisoners is almost impossible.

In any case, I will continue to write to you, in the hopes that one of my letters will find its way to you. If you can, please write back to me.

Forever yours,

Lotte

Johann’s heart

swelled reading her lines and he felt tears pricking at his eyes.

Thankfully, one of his fellow prisoners rose to speak. “

Gospodin

commandant, are we allowed to write back?”

The commandant was caught off guard for a moment and glanced around the room into the eyes of two hundred hopeful men. Maybe the combined yearning melted his heart, because he said, “Of course. I’ll have postcards distributed tonight.”

Indeed, later in the evening the guards distributed one postcard to every man with instructions to write a maximum of fifty words and only positive things.

“What the hell do they expect me to write then?” Johann complained.

“About the weather, maybe?” Reiner offered.

“Write to your girl how happy you are about her letter and that you think of her every day,” Helmut suggested.

Johann furrowed his brow. It should be easy enough to tell Lotte how much he loved her and mirror her sentiments about wanting to return to her side. But a nagging thought held him back.

While his comrades scribbled the allotted fifty words on their postcards, he stared holes into the air.

“What’s wrong?” Helmut asked.

“Nothing.”

“Aha.” Helmut poked him in the arm, where once a biceps had been. “Then why is your postcard still empty?”

“It’s just…” Johann sighed. “What if she doesn’t want me anymore?”

Helmut’s face showed alarm. “Did she say so?”

“Not really… but…”

“What did she say in her letter?”

“That she loves me…”

Reiner joined the conversation. “And how, exactly, does this imply she doesn’t want you anymore?”

“I’m a millstone around her neck.”

Both his friends stared at him wide-eyed, until Helmut demanded, “Let me read her letter.”

Wordlessly, Johann handed it over, biting his lips as Helmut’s eyes scanned the text. His friend would see the hidden threat, wouldn’t he? Johann was so much beneath her; she’d run away screaming once she realized the truth.

“Holy shit!” Helmut exclaimed.

“What is it?” Reiner and another bunk neighbor asked curiously.

“She’s basically proposing marriage.” Helmut returned the letter and faced Johann. “That woman is madly in love with you.”

“Yes... but... didn’t you read the part about her studying law?”

His friend nodded. “I did. What’s so bad about it?”

Johann hid his face in his hands. “She’ll be a lawyer, and I? A slave worker who hasn’t learned anything but the trade of a soldier.”

“Seriously?” Reiner asked.

Johann nodded.

“If she holds this against you, she isn’t worth shit,” Heinz said.

“Look. You were a Leutnant in the Wehrmacht, that is something,” Helmut said.

“Former Wehrmacht soldiers aren’t exactly popular right now.” Johann wanted to believe them, but how could he? Lotte wouldn’t want to be dragged down by someone like him. She might believe so right now, because she was blinded by her infatuation and the sweet times they’d shared in Warsaw. But once she faced reality, she’d turn away from him, disgusted. “Have you recently had a good look at me? At any one of us?”

“Nothing a shower and good food every day can’t fix,” Helmut said lightly. “And when we return home— “

“If,” Johann interrupted him.

“When, not if.” Helmut fixed his gaze successively on the three men. “When we return home, each of us will start a new life. We’ll do it with the same tenacity that we’re now using to hang on for dear life. You, Johann, can learn a new vocation or go to university. Anything is possible. Civilian life back home will be so much easier than what we experience now, and that is our advantage. We won’t complain how hard it is to get up at 5 a.m.…” The men nodded and grinned. “…or that it’s too hard to study at night, or carry a heavy load, or even that it’s too cold to go outside.”

Johann had never seen anything positive in his captivity, but the way Helmut painted it, it didn’t sound all that bad. He wished he had the unwavering optimism his friend possessed.

“Okay, I’ll write to her,” he said it with a smile, already dreaming about how her soft curves felt pressed against his body.