War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 77

Chapter 22

T

he next morning Anna went to visit her family. She’d been so caught up in her new promotion and her career, it had been a while since she’d seen them. Despite still owning a key to the apartment, she preferred to ring the bell.

“Anna. Come in. What a nice surprise,” Ursula greeted her as she opened the door.

Anna hugged her sister tight, and noticed how much bigger Ursula’s stomach had grown. It wouldn’t be long before she was unable to hide her growing belly beneath her untucked blouses.

“Does Mutter know yet?” Anna gestured to her sister’s belly.

Ursula shook her head and led her sister over to the kitchen table. “Mutter is running errands. She should be back soon. Do you want some tea?”

“Thanks, tea would be fine.” Mutter grew peppermint plants in the allotment so they always had a fresh or dried supply of leaves for tea.

While Anna waited for Ursula to heat the water, she asked, “Are you still working with Pfarrer Bernau?”

“Yes,” Ursula said, sighing. “It is tiring on top of my usual work at the prison, but I can’t stop now. There are so many people who need to leave this country to stay safe.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” Anna asked.

Ursula looked at her with big eyes, before she giggled. “Afraid? Of course! There’s not a single minute in the day that I’m not frightened. Every time I hear steps behind me, I’m certain it’s the Gestapo coming to arrest me.”

“But…how can you live like that? Don’t you want to stop? And feel safe again?” Anna insisted. Her older sister had never been particularly courageous. She had been

the good girl

, while Anna herself had been the rebellious one, the one who wanted more from life than being a wife and mother.

“I want to stop at least ten times a day,” Ursula said as she put a few peppermint leaves into a cup and poured hot water on top. “But then…these people need me. If we can’t get them out of the country, sooner or later they will be found and sent to the camps.”

Anna sighed. Why was everyone else so much braver than her?

“Enough about me; how’s your work?” Ursula asked.

“I’ve been promoted to team leader of the research group.”

“That’s a good thing, right?” Ursula asked.

Anna shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “No. Ursula, you wouldn’t believe…they are testing my vaccines on real people.”

“What?”

“They’ve been using mentally ill children…”

“That’s disgusting.” Ursula put a hand on her hips and stared at her sister with a piercing glance. “You have to stop working there. Today. How can you be a part of that?”

“It’s not that easy. I’m not directly involved, and if I don’t prepare the bacterial cultures somebody else will. And sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”

“That’s bull. You don’t actually believe that baloney, do you?” Ursula’s eyes shot daggers at her, but then her glance softened and she patted Anna’s arm. “Don’t make a pact with the devil, Anna. Walk away.”

Anna gave a bitter laugh. “I already sold my body to the devil, remember?”

“I do. Don’t sell your soul as well. The Nazis can take everything from you, your possessions, your dignity, your physical integrity, but the one thing they can’t take away is your soul. Your ability to make the right choice.” After her speech, Ursula suddenly looked tired.

“I should go,” Anna murmured. She hadn’t come here to be lectured and scolded like a three-year-old. She came because she needed empathy and some sisterly support.

“Don’t.” Ursula stopped her. “It’s time for you to stop putting your ambitions above everything and everyone else. You may be living your dream and climbing the ladder of success, but it’s built on the corpses of men, women, and children. Not on your accomplishments.”

“Who are you to criticize my choices? You can’t even tell Mutter the truth!” Anna yelled at her sister.

“Tell me what?” Mutter asked, coming to stand beside the table. She glared from one daughter to the other, her stare demanding an answer.

Ursula flashed Anna a nasty look and then said what she should have confessed months earlier, “I’m pregnant.”

Mutter’s face turned ashen and she flopped onto the chair. “You’re what?”

“Pregnant,” Ursula repeated, shaking with tension.

“How…how could you do something so…so…disgraceful? Haven’t I raised you to be a modest girl? One that doesn’t…” Mutter closed her eyes, disgust showing in her face. “You can be glad your father isn’t home.”

None of this would have happened in the first place if he were home, instead of having to go to war.

Anna bit her tongue; it was wiser to keep out of the line of fire.

Mutter seemed to recover from the shock, some of the lost color returning to her face. She ran a hand over her hair, smoothing the first streaks of gray, and asked in a much calmer voice, “Who is the…father?”

Ursula begged Anna with her eyes to stay silent, and then confronted her mother, saying, “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not? Is it so terrible?” Mutter’s eyes turned wide as saucers. “It is, isn’t it? The father is one of those visitors you’ve been hiding in the allotment gardens?”

Ursula remained quiet, refusing to answer her mother. Anna, for once, was in full agreement with keeping the parentage of Ursula’s baby a secret. The reality was much worse than Mutter imagined. The father wasn’t a Jew, but the enemy; one of the hated English bomber pilots bringing death and destruction to the German people.

“I have to leave,” Anna announced into the tense quiet. “I’ll visit another day.”