War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 70

Chapter 15

T

he gnawing guilt nagged Anna for the rest of the day. Every time she thought she had it beaten back, it returned with a vengeance. When Anna arrived home, Ursula and Mutter were preparing dinner.

“Hello, darling,” Mutter said, peeling potatoes. “You look tired.”

“Yes, it was a tough day,” Anna answered and poured herself a glass of water. She needed to talk to someone about the events of the day. Normally the first person to set her moral compass straight would be her mother, but she couldn’t tell her. Not today anyway. Mutter still believed Anna was working as a simple nurse at the Charité

.

No, today she didn’t have the strength to confess that she was working as a research assistant, trying to find a tuberculosis vaccine.

“Everyone is tired these days,” Mutter said, attacking the next potato. “Who can sleep well with all the air raids and spending the nights in those dreadful bunkers? I wish the bloody Englishman would drop a bomb on me and it was over!”

Surprised by Mutter’s sudden outburst Anna all but dropped the glass in her hand. Before the war, even before Lotte disappeared, her mother had been the slumbering bedrock of their family. Pleading for help, Anna glanced at her sister, but Ursula simply sat on her chair, her eyes treacherously damp.

Anna didn’t understand the world anymore. Mutter yelled. Ursula cried. She wouldn’t be able to talk to either one of them about her doubts. She studied Ursula’s face. Something was different. Thinner, but also more rounded. That didn’t make sense. Anna shrugged, over the last weeks, every conversation with her sister had ended in arguments and yelling.

“Can I help?” Anna asked, and then put a pot with water on the stove to boil the potatoes.

After dinner, Anna glanced at the clock. “Peter will pick me up in a few minutes.”

“Now? It’ll be dark soon,” Mutter objected.

“Don’t worry. I used to walk at night all the time when I was working shifts in Moabit. Ursula still does,” Anna answered. Ursula often worked irregular shifts in her job as prison guard. It was the perfect cover for her activities in the underground network of Pfarrer Bernau and allowed her to leave the house at any time during day or night without raising suspicions.

“It’s different now,” Mutter said. “There’s more crime with all those people not having enough food.”

“Peter will walk me home,” Anna assured her mother.

“How can I know he is a good man? You have not even presented him to me,” Mutter said.

“You will get to know him. Soon. Just not today.” It was a sore spot. Anna wished she could introduce him to her family, but she knew they wouldn’t be fooled by his handsome looks. Mutter would discover on the spot that he was hiding something, and as long as Anna didn’t know his secret, she didn’t dare bring him home.

“That must be him,” Ursula said as the doorbell rang.

Anna dashed down the stairs with a huge smile on her lips. When she opened the door, she threw herself into his arms.

“Wowza!” Peter echoed a word from some American film of so long ago. “What have I done to deserve this?” He chuckled and pressed a kiss on her cheek.

After walking hand in hand along the streets, they soon got tired of watching dust, rubble, and destruction.

“Want to come to my place to hear a radio show?” Peter asked. He lived in an apartment in one of the staff buildings at the Charité.

“That would be nice,” Anna answered as they hopped onto a bus. While technically he had access to the professor’s Mercedes at all times, he preferred not to use it during his off hours.

When they arrived at Peter’s bachelor apartment, which consisted of a single bedroom, a bathroom, and a small kitchen that doubled as the sitting room, Anna’s palms were moist.

Peter invited her to settle on the couch, and then turned on the radio before he made them hot tea and handed one mug to Anna.

“Would you mind waiting for a few minutes?” he asked with an apologetic expression. “I have to do some work.”

“Surely. I won’t run away.”

Or maybe I will

. She had decided to talk to him about the things she saw this morning in the quarantine ward. But now she wasn’t so sure revealing her true feelings was a great idea. She hadn’t known him for a long time and he could be a spy, trying to find out what had really happened to her supposedly dead sister Lotte.

“It won’t take long, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss on her cheeks, and inhaling his masculine scent made her throw all precaution overboard.

“Wait. I have to tell you something.”

Peter’s eyes darted between her and the closed bedroom door, where he kept his small desk.

“Please,” Anna whispered. “It’s important.”

He pulled his chair to her side, and wrapped his strong arm around her shoulders. Anna took several deep breaths before she found the courage to expose the horrors of her guilt-ravaged mind. She took one look at Peter, and sucked in a ragged breath. Could she tell him what she’d seen?

“Professor Scherer took me to the Pediatric Clinic today. To the quarantine ward.”

“He did?” Peter asked with a clenched jaw.

“I…it was awful. That vaccine I’m working on? I didn’t know they were using the test sera to experiment on retarded children.” She shuddered, the scenes of the morning flashing through her brain. “It was horrible.”

Peter didn’t say a word, just squeezed her shoulder. But his eyes betrayed no surprise.

“You knew?” she gasped.

“Since I’m not medical staff I’ve never been there, but yes, I always suspected something awful was going on back there,” he answered, nudging her head to look at him. His radiant blue eyes had darkened. “You feel sorry for the children?”

“I do. This is wrong on so many levels. I wish they would stop!” Anna cried, holding his gaze.

“Talk to the professor. He listens to you more than anyone else I’ve ever known,” Peter told her.

“Me? I’m only a research assistant.”

“That’s where you are wrong. Professor Scherer is convinced that you’re brilliant. He’s betting on you winning the Nobel Prize one day.”

Anna shook her head. “It’s not even him conducting the experiments, but Doctor Bessau, the head of the Pediatric Clinic. Even if I convinced the professor to let me stop preparing the bacterial cultures, it would make no difference. Someone else would do them. It’s not that difficult, you know?”

“But it would make a difference for you,” Peter insisted.

“It’s not my fault! I’m just working in the laboratory, doing what I’m told to do. It’s not me who’s infecting children with a deadly disease! I didn’t even know someone was testing the vaccines on humans!” Anna growled.

“But now you know. Will that change anything?” Peter folded his big hands across hers, as if to make sure she wouldn’t balk.

“Holy hell! You’re making it sound as if I’m the bad person here! I never wanted to experience any of this madness, I only worked in Ravensbrück to save…” Anna slapped a hand over her mouth, petrified at continuing the sentence. Even if her initial revelation hadn’t caused Peter to turn away from her, she couldn’t trust him enough to say more. To say it all. “…My work is going to make a difference one day. I can save thousands. Hundreds of thousands even. This vaccine might be able to eradicate one of the scourges of mankind. Don’t you think that’s worth something?”

“Anna, my sweet little Anna. I’m sure you have the best intentions, and the work you are doing will make a difference one day. But surely there must be another way to get the same result.” Peter stroked her hair as he crooned the soothing words.

“I don’t know what I can do…” She took a breath and then shook her head. Her mind reeled with the implications. Everywhere she turned, she found no rational answer. “Flat-out refusing to work on the bacterial cultures will ruin my career. Professor Scherer promised to promote me as soon as we see a success.”

Peter took her face into both hands and locked eyes with her. “Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”