A Woman of War: A new voice in historical fiction for 2018, for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Mandy Robotham

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      After a quarter of an hour of slow climb, the car’s engines beginning to grumble like a troublesome uncle, the trees fanned out and the view became clear – we were, it seems, scaling a virtual mountain. Even with a light mist, it was spectacular, a feathery white collar to the rock mass, giving way below to a chequerboard of farmland, only dotted here and there with small clumps of dwellings. Like a child, I pressed my nose to the window – if we climbed any higher I felt we might be like Jack ascending the beanstalk, slipping through candy clouds.

      In minutes, the top came into view, a concrete lip that looked as if it were teetering over the side of the granite peak, like the tree house my father had built in our garden, fun but always slightly tenuous. Just as I thought the road couldn’t get any steeper, it suddenly evened out and became a flat plain, and we drove through guarded black gates and onto a wide path. The view from below had been misleading; the mountain had a flattened area – by man or nature I couldn’t easily tell – and the house complex was large and sprawling, set into the side of the natural rock and not at the peak, as it first appeared. The main house was a mix of old stone and wood, chalet-style, two storeys but with an iceberg promise of more below. It was a tiny village on top of the world, small gardens and wide balconies surrounding the main house, with outbuildings here and there. Uniformed soldiers were dotted at various points, knights at the ready.

      I was led upstairs onto the wide porch, breathing in air so dramatically different from the camp smog that I thought I must be on a different planet, my lungs wheezing on the purity. The light up here made me think there was life, after all; in all those dark days, this world had existed in parallel, outside of hell. It was almost too much to comprehend.

      The door opened to a woman’s harsh, thin face, topped with a jet black cap of hair, bearing a reluctant smile.

      ‘Welcome Fräulein Hoff,’ she said. ‘I am Frau Grunders, the housekeeper.’ This last statement was said with reverence, but I managed only a ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you.’ Her prickly greeting mirrored the cacti and spiked greenery dotted in the hallway, set in rows of colourful, ceramic pots. She bristled as her ebony, austere shoes clipped on the wooden flooring, leading me through a high, vaulted hallway, and down to the servants’ quarters. I was shown into a small parlour, which could have been called either cluttered or cosy.

      ‘Please take a seat and wait here,’ she said, and closed the door.

      Minutes later an officer in grey SS uniform entered, stooping through the doorway to avoid his lofty height making contact with the gable.

      ‘Morning Fräulein, I am Captain Stenz.’ He clicked his heels and sat awkwardly, although his face was open. ‘I will be your official contact here. My information is that you have been told only a little of your duties.’ A deep well of blue irises looked at me directly.

      ‘I have, Captain, yes. I was only told that my skills as a midwife would be needed.’

      He paused, eyes scanning the floor, as if revealing any more was physically painful. Silently, he peeled off black leather gloves, finger by finger.

      ‘The situation is delicate,’ he said finally. ‘We are relying not only on your practical skills but on your professional confidentiality … and integrity.’

      I only nodded, eager for him to go on.

      ‘There is a lady residing in this house who is currently pregnant – four to five months we believe. For a number of reasons she cannot attend a hospital for care. She will be your sole charge.’

      ‘Am I allowed to know her name, if I am to be her constant carer?’

      He sighed at the inevitability of opening a secret but dangerous box, and placed his leather gloves on the small table between us, as if he were really laying down a gauntlet.

       5

       New Beginning

      ‘Her name is Fräulein Eva Braun.’ With those words Captain Stenz sat back in his chair, aware that a volatile cat had been let out of the bag. I had never been a follower of the magazine gossip columns but my younger sister, Ilse, keenly crawled over the fashion pages, following the rounds of Berlin’s social parties. ‘Look at this, Anke,’ she’d often say. ‘Don’t you think she’s just gorgeous? Shall I have my hair like that?’ Thanks to Ilse, I had heard Eva Braun’s name – as the sister to one of Hitler’s inner circle, a wholesome German girl, from a good family, blonde and blue-eyed, someone Hitler could and would be associated with. It was never stated that they were close, or even romantically involved – the Führer was married to Germany, after all. In the propaganda newsreels engineered to show his human side – the Führer ‘at play’ – she was sometimes in the background, filming with a camera, alongside her sister, Gretl.

      Now, my mind spiralled. Up until then, I thought I had been engaged to look after the wife of a Nazi dignitary, or even the illegitimate child of the Reich’s inner circle. But now, something far more sinister ran like electricity through my brain, so incredible it seemed beyond reason.

      Could it be that Adolf Hitler, the Führer, the Commander of the Third Reich, and possibly all of Europe, in time, was the father of Eva Braun’s baby? And what would that mean to his standing as the Father of Germany – to be shared with a population who he claimed as his children? To those of us who had experienced Hitler’s version of cleansing, who had witnessed first-hand what he was capable of inflicting on human beings, any offspring with a semblance of his thinking was a frightening prospect. A son and heir to both name and genetics was too much to fathom.

      I struggled to react, to absorb such news. Captain Stenz only looked at me with those deep blue eyes, as seconds ticked slowly by. Searching, enquiring.

      ‘Fräulein Hoff?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Are you quite well?’ He said it with a note of true concern, and then a hint of a smile. ‘We can’t have you falling ill, not on your first day, can we?’

      ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘It’s just … the change of circumstance, so quickly. It’s hard to take in.’

      I wanted to test his reactions by referring to my other life, to see if he masked them in the same automatic way as the others, empathy sucked from his psyche. His eyes dropped, and he moved to pick up his gloves.

      ‘Yes,’ he said flatly. So, a complete Nazi – one of them. Inevitable. But then, the quickest flick of his blond lashes towards me, a rich, blue spark. In that second I caught some doubt, some recognition. And he caught me catching it. Over the past two years I had barely looked at any man without feeling hatred or disgust, since most were guards infected with a profound disdain for humanity. Yet the man before me caused an unexpected reaction deep inside; a tweak low into my being. Did I recognise it as attraction? I rebuked myself for such shallow and immediate feelings.

      He needed to leave soon – a car was waiting – so we covered my duties swiftly. I would remain at the Berghof for the duration of the pregnancy, and for at least four to six weeks afterwards, helping my charge to adjust to motherhood. The baby would be born at home, but transport and a doctor would be available at all times should I need them, and would reside in the complex for a month or so before the birth. A small room would be set aside for anaesthetics, СКАЧАТЬ