Alwine's Tears
Twenty-seven
The doctors to whom Albert had been sent to evaluate his fitness for duty questioned him relentlessly. He had to repeat over and over again the symptoms he was experiencing and speculating about their causes. Then finally they sent him to Germany without explanation.
In a hospital in northern Germany, he finally began understand that there were two resolutions to his dilemma. Other inmates in the facility subtly, their mouths dry with fear, hinted at his fate and by projection, their fate too. The first option was unacceptable, volunteer to return to the front. Reject that and the second option was to be taken out the back door.
“What’s out the back door?” he asked, puzzled.
“No one knows because no one returns.” The man made his hand into a gun and pressed his index finger to Albert’s chest. For a second Albert smiled, thinking it was a tease and then it hit him, no one else was smiling. For him, the problem was, that he knew he was a coward and if he admitted that now, the punishment was the same. His only recourse was to continue with the lie and somehow keep his story straight.
He caught his breath when in the spring of 1945, on May 7, the news was broadcast that the Reich had unconditionally surrendered and the rumor was that Hitler was dead. The doctors and nurses in the hospital were somber in defeat but relieved that it was over. One doctor who had interviewed Albert several times came and whispered into his ear, “No need to pretend any longer.” It was so good to be alive.
Within days of the announcement the British army was breaking through the doors taking over the military hospital. They questioned the doctors and nurses and sometimes took them away under arrest. The patients, including Albert, were sent to a civilian hospital.
He left his cane behind leaning on the wall beside his bed. With it, he left the last affectation of a limp, the uncontrollable shaking of his limb, the concussion and his memory loss. He was not proud of what he had done, but he was alive. When at last one of the doctors gave him his hospital record, he wanted to tear it up. There was nothing in that report that resembled his view of the real Albert Fischer. He only thought better of it when another patient told him that it was proof of where he had been for the last six months. In times of uncertainty, it was always good to be able to prove where you had been, so he folded it up and put it in the inside pocket.
Albert couldn’t believe his luck. In the new hospital he had no reason to lie and therefore no reason to hide. He quickly made friends and found he had much in common with the man in the bed beside him. His name was Emil Heim and he was a farmer from southern Germany. A bullet in his spine had made his legs useless, yet he and Albert both found solace by talking about family, farms, crops, and cows. Often, however, Albert dominated the discussion and Emil thought he would never shut up. Albert was in a gregarious mood; he was alive; the war was over and there was a great deal to talk about.
Albert told his friend about Volhynia with the soil so rich and wonderful that the Ukrainians had turned it with only a wooden plough until the Germans came. The land was so fertile that a small plot was all you needed to feed your family and half a hectare of land was all you needed to pasture a cow. He told them too how Hitler had given that land to the communists and exchanged it for those cursed lands in Warthegau. It was the first time that Albert agreed with his wife that the land had been cursed. His wife was a smart one.
“It’s remarkable,” he said to Emil, “my brother always told me that I had a wonderful wife but I couldn’t see it. Not until now.” He missed his family more than he thought possible.
It was only when he was thinking about his family that Albert became quiet. That’s when Emil was able to talk and even though Albert only half listened, he began to understand how much they had in common. Emil spoke of his farm in the south, in the rolling hill district called Allgau, in Bavaria, just before the Alps began. He spoke the same way Albert did about the land, with love and concern and pride. It pleased Albert to think there were men who loved the land as he did. In fact, Emil’s love of the land was only exceeded by the love he had for his wife. There were tears in the man’s eyes when he spoke about her; her gentleness, her healing touch, her understanding, her incomparable cooking. He spoke as if she were a saint. It was a little too much, and Albert was sure he was exaggerating, but a man who had sacrificed his legs in war was allowed to say whatever he wanted to, so Albert didn’t question anything he said.
“Do you have children?” Albert asked his new friend. He missed his own so much.
“No,” Emil said, “we’ve never been able to have children. It’s the one thing we have always regretted.”
“I have three children, maybe four,” Albert related, they were what he really wanted to talk about and he told Emil about his sturdy young son and his two pretty daughters. He related how desperately he wished to know where they were or whether they were dead or alive. He dreaded that they might be prisoners in the east.
“What will you do?” Emil asked him.
“I’ll have to look for them.”
Just then a nurse entered the ward. They acknowledged her with silence; they knew her as Sister Elizabeth, but called her Sister General behind her back. She was large and had a take charge personality which was accentuated by her order’s headdress that she wore with pride.
“Albert Fischer,” she began very seriously, “you are being released today. You are well enough to go home. Pack up and I will come back with your paperwork.”
“My uniform, a change of clothes and a few marks are all I have.”
She thought it was cry for sympathy and rebuffed him, “Well, there is plenty of work out there rebuilding Germany.” She nodded abruptly to certify what she had pronounced and left abruptly having delivered her message.
Albert turned to Emil. “Today I start my search for my family.”
“Good luck my friend,” Emil answered but looked away, “I wish . . . I . . . I want to go home too.”
“I wish I had a home to go to,” Albert responded flippantly and regretted it instantly.
“I watch men walk out of here and I know I never will.”
On the adjacent beds others were listening while Albert formulated an idea. “To tell you the truth Emil, I have no idea where to start looking for my family . . . I have no place to go. I could take you home first.”
Emil laughed at the ridiculous suggestion and blurted out, “I can’t even walk.”
Albert responded immediately, “I'll carry you.”
Emil wanted to respond positively but he had no idea that Albert was serious. “Don't joke Albert. It’s hundreds of kilometers.”
“You’d be doing me favor, Emil.”
“But they haven't released me yet.”
“Do you see any bars?” Albert asked, “The doors are not locked.”
The men nearby became excited for Emil, and perhaps wished that the moment was theirs. Gottfried, the young soldier on the other side of Emil became animated in his excitement. “Go with him Emil! Go with him!”
“Let’s get a wheelchair!”
“Go home,” the soldier across from Albert, Helmut, added his enthusiasm. He had heard Emil talk so wonderfully about his wife. “Go home! It’s not doing you any good staying here. Go be with your wife.”
Helmut and Gottfried jumped out their beds and limped quietly into the corridor in their hospital gowns, looking for a wheelchair. Albert began to pack Emil’s scanty things into a canvas bag. Others joined the fun and helped Emil to get dressed. Within minutes a wheelchair came through the door.
Helmut seemed anxious to hurry things along. “Hurry, they are looking for the General, we told them she authorized it.”
The group maneuvered Emil into the wheelchair just as Sister General entered the ward. “What are you doing with that wheelchair?”
Helmut tried to speak with authority. “Emil is going home.”
“Who has authorized this? Emil has not been released and that wheelchair is hospital property.”
“Sister,” Albert said, “what does it really matter. He wants to go home to his wife.”
Sister General started waggling her finger, “Nein, nein, nein. Not on my shift. Patients do not leave without permission on my shift and hospital property does not disappear while I am on duty.”
Gottfried became indignant. “He took a bullet in the back for his country. The least it can do is spare him a wheelchair.”
Shaking her head the nurse, insisted. “You men stay here. I’m going to get Dr. Erhardt. A Sister will stand guard at your door. That chair is not leaving!”
Albert sat on his bed, defeated. “Well, it was a good idea.”
However, Gottfried was not so willing to give up. He went to the large window facing the street and opened it wide. “It’s only one floor.”
The idea took a minute to gel with the others. As they understood what Gottfried was telling them men quickly pulled the sheets off several beds and tied them together.
Emil was aghast. Quickly he objected, “No! No! I’ll fall.”
“The wheelchair first,” Gottfried explained, “and then we’ll make a sling for you Emil. It will be like a ride at the fair.”
Albert quickly understood his role in this escape plan and rushed to the door, showed his discharge papers to the nurse guarding the door and headed for the stairs.”
“Sister General said I could go!”
The nurse laughed and before she could recover Albert lighted down the stairs. At the front door he looked up to located the window where the wheelchair was being pushed out.
As Emil’s roommates lowered the chair, Albert was waiting at the bottom while a crowd, increasingly interested in what was going on, was gathering. When Albert reached up to collect the chair a policeman stepped forward. “What is happening here?” he asked.
When Albert noticed the uniform, he had to think quickly. Policemen were officious beyond belief. “Uh. . . uh . . . We are practicing a fire evacuation!”
“Can I be of any help?”
“Of course!” Albert replied, “they are about to lower my friend who is handicapped. If for some reason he should fall . . .”
“In a fire shouldn’t the priority be the man and not the wheelchair?”
Quickly Albert answered, “Why, do you see a fire?” The policeman shrugged his shoulders and stood by to help.
Now Emil was being lowered, but much more slowly than the wheelchair. Part way down screams came from the window.
“Stop them! Stop them! Help!”
Albert looked up and saw Sister General.
“What is wrong?” the policeman asked turning to Albert.
“She doesn’t want to be next!”
However, as the Sister grabbed onto the sheet-rope, Emil began to swing.
Emil began to shout. “Help, help! I’m going to fall.”
Albert stood right under his friend. “Hang on Emil, hold tight!”
Albert began to jump trying to reach Emil and steady him. He was unable to reach high enough as Sister General was struggling with the men trying to lower Emil.
“Stop them, stop them!” She continued frantically to shout, “They are stealing that wheelchair.”
The jostling started to unravel the knots in the sheets. Emil panicked as he felt himself slipping out of the sling. “Ah! Ah! No!” Despite the nurse’s interference Emil’s friends are able to lower him another couple of feet before he fell.
Albert and the Policeman were able to catch Emil and prevent him from hitting the ground, but the Policeman and Albert collapsed onto the sidewalk with Emil in their arms. Albert quickly recovered and helped his distraught friend into the wheelchair. Unfortunately, the Policeman now had a firm grip on the chair.
“Are you stealing this? Did you lie to me?”
Albert bit his lower lip then quickly responded, “Oh, for heaven’s sake. He’s paid for it with a bullet in his back. How does he get home without it?”
“You lied to me!”
“I did. I’m sorry.” Then said quickly in the hope of placating the officer, “We’ll bring the chair back.”
The policeman looked at Albert questioningly and then let go of the wheelchair.
“Let’s go Emil,” Albert said turning the chair to cross the road.
“My bag, my clothes!”
Seconds later the bag appeared at the window but as Gottfried was about to toss through the window Sister General grabbed at it.
“Let go!” Gottfried ordered her.
“No, no. I will not let . . .”
Gottfried yanked at the bag wrenching it out of her hands but as he tossed it out of the window the nurse reached for it and began to fly through the window.
“Help! . . . Help!” she screamed.
She had to let go of the bag and grab onto the window frame. Gottfied grabbed her voluminous legs and pulled her inside. Helmut, however, had his arms wrapped around her hefty body steadying her. She breathed a sigh of relief and then realized where Helmut’s hands were. She pulled his hands away and turned and slapped him. “How dare you?”
With Emil in the wheelchair Albert raced it across the road. Half way he stopped and looked back.
Shouting to the crowd assembled under the window he asked, “Which way is the train station?”
“Where are you going?” the Policeman called back.
“Bavaria.”
Several in the crowd wanted to point to the right, but the other half pointed in the opposite direction.
Even out of breath, Albert and Emil laughed as they made their getaway. They were pleased with themselves, albeit surprised at their daring. Unfortunately, they met their first disappointment almost immediately when they were informed that the trains out of the city were not running because of track repairs. The setback didn’t destroy their optimism, however. They searched for the roads leading south and headed out enthusiastically.
The next few days proved more interesting than either one of the veterans had imagined. In every town they passed through, they were stopped and questioned. Everyone assumed that the comradeship of the battlefield had been transformed into loyalty and brotherhood. They found that people were moved and inspired by their plight. Loyalty to comrades was one of the few good feelings that had resulted from the war. It produced a feeling of optimism that was sorely needed. Trucks and cars stopped and gave them lifts. They were gifts of food, shelter and encouragement and occasionally even money.
On the fifth day, however, early in the morning, the wheelchair broke. A wheel got caught in a rut and the chair tipped over, spilling Emil onto the ground. Emil wasn’t hurt but the wheel was hopelessly twisted. Although they joked about contacting the hospital for a replacement, the breakdown promised to make things considerably more difficult.
When they stopped laughing at their preposterous predicament, they were still left with the decision of how they should proceed. Emil was very self-conscious of the burden he was to Albert. He apologized again and again and insisted that Albert go on alone.
“That would be just fine,” Albert joked, “but without you, I have nowhere to go. I know you believe your wife is a saint but what would she do to me if I came knocking on her door and told her that I left you on the road?”
“I can only imagine,” Emil responded with a deep laugh like Albert hadn’t seen from him before, “but it wouldn’t be nice.”
“We’ve come too far to give up. We’ll just have to go as far as we can each day and make the best of it. I’ll carry you as much as possible and when I can’t carry you, we’ll rest.”
It proved more difficult than either man had imagined. Albert couldn’t just swing Emil onto his back like one of his children, and neither could Emil jump up like his son Edmund. Albert had to squat and allow Emil to wrap his arms around his neck and then slowly lift him. But there was no way that Emil could wrap his legs around Albert and balance himself properly. It was a chore for Albert just to lift his friend into position and then get a hold on his legs. It was obvious that they had come to the most difficult part of their journey home.
They had only gone a few awkward feet that last day when the rain started. Their fortune had been so good to this point that neither one could believe their luck had run out. The deluge came down heavier and heavier and they were on the open road. And as if to accentuate their misery, on this day the cars just passed them by as if they couldn’t even see them. They traveled like that for several hours. Albert’s back ached so they had to rest frequently even with the rain drenching them. As they struggled, they didn’t hear the truck that approached them from the rear. The vehicle startled Albert and he slipped on the wet roadside and fell over, with his friend on top of him.
The truck stopped right beside them and they could see it was American. A soldier leaned out of the passenger’s window and shouted through the rain in German, “Why do you carry him?” Albert and Emil found it hard to understand the strange pronunciation but when the soldier repeated it more slowly it was understandable.
“My legs are paralyzed,” Emil responded, as he sat in the rain. Then looking into the man’s uncomprehending face he said, “Kaput, kaput,” and touched his legs. The soldier knocked on his rear window and yelled something foreign. In a flash, several soldiers jumped out the back. For a moment Albert and Emil were afraid, but one of the soldiers spoke understandable German and asked, “Which way are you going?”
“South,” Albert answered, already hopeful.
Two of the American soldiers lifted Emil onto the back of their truck and Albert, tired as he was, climbed in and sat beside him. As they drove south in the rain, they shivered under army blankets, but were so grateful that their smiles beamed at the American soldiers.
“Are you German,” Emil asked hesitantly of the soldier who had spoken to him in German.
“No, I’m American,” he said forcefully and then softened. “My parents were born in Germany!”
“Then you are German,” Albert said quickly.
“No, it doesn’t work that way in America.”
Albert was puzzled. “Our family was in Russia for generations but we were always German.”
The American responded, “Like I said, it doesn’t work that way in America. Our name used to be Schmidt, but we changed it to Smith.”
Emil realized that the soldier had taken offence and changed the subject. “Where are you headed?” he asked.
“One of our planes crashed in a river by some small town down south,” the young man answered. “It’s causing trouble. We have to get it out.”
“Which river?” Emil asked.
He turned and spoke to his comrades in English and one answered, “Iller River.”
Emil grew excited. “The Iller! It runs very close to my home, Reicholzried!”
“That’s it,” the German-American said, “that’s the name of the town where the plane went down, Reicholzried.”
“It’s my home . . . that’s my home . . .!” Emil said excitedly. He couldn’t believe his ears.
The coincidence was a wonderful surprise, Albert being the most grateful for it, though he never said so. He smiled at Emil who beamed with joy, but Albert was so relieved that he just relaxed in the back of the truck eating the chocolate bar one of the Americans offered him. He watched Emil as he looked across the landscape, anticipating his home. There was a joy on his face that Albert envied and it made him sad to think that this wasn’t his own reunion he was rushing to. The truth was that he was relieved to be going with Emil, but now he had to face the possibility of never finding his family. How relieved he was when he finally felt himself drifting into sleep.
As Emil kept an anxious watch on the road, he was too excited to sleep. The countryside became more and more familiar and his face beamed as he recognized the landmark bridges and high hills. Indulgently the American listened as the happy man pointed out every familiar thing they passed. After a while, however, even Emil realized he was boring the soldiers to death and stopped.
“Why did you help us?” Emil asked the American. “We are your enemies.”
“You were our enemy.”
“Yes, it’s over. Yet, for years we were shooting at each other.”
“The lieutenant,” the soldier said, indicating the man up front, “thought that you looked like you needed help. When you see a soldier carrying his wounded buddy you have to say to yourself, I would like a friend like that.”
Emil nodded his understanding and looked out again at the beautiful green countryside of his home. It looked magnificent even in the rain. Only days ago, he had thought he would never see it again, and now he had trouble controlling his emotions. He had a home and he had a friend. While he told the American that until a few days before he had not even known the man who was carrying him home, Emil cried. Then when he explained how Albert had sacrificed going to look for his own family, the Americans seemed impressed.
“So, your friend has no home to go to?” they asked.
“He has my home for as long as he needs it.”
The rain stopped at dusk and Emil grew very excited. He began not just to recognize the landscape but the specific villages they drove through and after a while he knew the names of the people who lived on the farms they passed. He wanted to point out to Albert the landmarks that they had talked about for days but his companion just slept through his excitement. Soon they were crossing the railroad tracks outside the small town of Reicholzried. Shortly thereafter, where a country road joined the main road into town, Emil asked the Americans to stop.
He woke Albert. “We’re home, Albert. We made it. It’s just a short distance up that road,” he pointed out.
“The lieutenant says that if it wasn’t so late we would take you there,” the American explained, “but we have to find the Burgermeister of this place and get ready for tomorrow.”
“Thank the lieutenant and all your comrades for their kindness,” Emil said. “We’ve come a long way and there’s not much further to go.”
It was dark when Albert carried Emil up the lane of the Heim farm. At the front door Emil insisted on standing when his wife saw him for the first time. She knew of his crippled condition but he did not want to greet her while being carried. Albert put him down and let him lean against the door frame while they tried to straighten his wet and badly wrinkled uniform. Then Albert supported him and knocked. Seconds later the door opened, slowly at first, and then it flung wide. “Emil, Emil!”
______________
When summer came, Anna was sorry to see Alwine return to the Osciency camp. Although she would not admit that Alwine had become her friend, she did admit that she was her best worker. It was because Alwine’s pregnancy was so well advanced that she was returning to the Osciency camp. Anna tried to hide the bag that she wanted to secretly give her worker but, in the end, there was not opportunity to do it quietly.
“Don’t open it here," she told her. “It’s really nothing.”
When Alwine reached the road, she finally looked into the bag. She wanted to turn back and thank Anna for her generosity. The bag was full of vegetables and even the treat of fresh apples. She looked back to the farm lane and knew she shouldn’t go back; it would only embarrass Anna.
At the camp Alwine looked forward to the birth with trepidation. Looking back at the pregnancies she had survived in this cursed land was disheartening. There was not one live baby to show for it. How could God torment her so? How could He have made the mistake of letting her get pregnant now? It was fear, more than anything, that made her cry as she awaited the birth.
It was now the first week of July as Alwine dragged herself through the camp gate. Quickly she was overwhelmed with paperwork that was explained as forms required by the Red Cross. She didn’t understand but struggled to filled them out and then returned to the barn.
During the daytime there were only a few sick women in the barn, but before sunset others started to arrive from their assigned work. To her surprise and delight, Hertha and Edmund walked through the doors just after sunset. They were now day laborers, sent out to one farm or another to do chores. It was almost too good to be true. Alwine wrapped her arms around her children and savored the time they had together. Even though they were all still prisoners and subject to the whims of the Poles, this felt good.
Alwine felt guilty for being at the camp during the day. She was not content just to sit around and do nothing. She didn’t feel sick, she just needed to rest more often. She tried to help the camp by tending to the women who were ill, bringing them water and trying to make them more comfortable. However, when Irene Weiss was returned to the camp with a fever, the bitter woman refused even to allow Alwine to wipe her brow. Alwine had no idea what she had done.
To escape, Alwine walked around the grounds. Beside the old summer-kitchen she found a garden where someone had planted vegetables. She had a hard time recognizing what was planted there. It was overgrown with weeds and did not look healthy. When she asked who had planted it, she was told about a woman who had begged or stolen seeds from the farms where she worked, but as soon as her garden was planted, she was sent away.
To Alwine there were few things more shameful than leaving a garden to go to weed. She began to care for it, spending the cool mornings weeding and digging with her fingers or a stick. Generally, Alwine did not like tending gardens she had not planted, but this one was different. It was like an orphan needing care. Being careful not to disturb the roots of the stunted vegetables, Alwine began to pull the weeds. The carrots and the beets were a fraction of the size they should have been by this time of year. The potato tops were a little taller and heartier and she could dig around them more aggressively to loosen the soil. There wasn’t much else that she could rescue except for a patch of radishes. Yet when she was finished the vegetable patch looked like it had been saved. Perhaps there would be some sort of harvest from it.
The work felt so good that Alwine couldn’t believe how much she had missed her garden. When her children asked why she worked when she didn’t have to, Alwine looked at them in amazement. “You should all have had gardens of your own to take care of, then you would know.”
“Know what Mama?” Hertha asked.
“In a garden you plant vegetables and flowers, but the garden plants hope in your heart. It’s like a prayer that you plant. I think God blesses gardeners because they spend a lot of time on their knees.”
One evening, as Alwine put her children to bed, she was totally shocked to see Hedwig Fischer coming through the barn door. As if drawn by a magnet, Alwine rose from her bunk and walked over to her with her heart racing. Her immediate reaction on seeing Hedwig was to wonder where Johann was. Had he escaped? She wanted to ask but couldn’t bring herself to pose the question. “Hedwig,” she called out tentatively as she got closer.
As Hedwig turned, Alwine saw the perspiration running down her face. It was the fever. However, when Hedwig laid her eyes upon Alwine, she flew into a rage. She ran at her, flailing her fists and shouting, “It’s your fault! It’s your fault! He’s dead because of you!” The other women had to restrain Hedwig and pull her away, but Alwine stood there white as a sheet. She turned her face away but saw only the accusing eyes of Irene Weiss. She cried.
The next day without asking her permission, Alwine sat by Hedwig’s side and used a wet cloth to wipe the perspiration from her forehead. There were no medicines or doctors and the cause of the fevers that afflicted so many was a mystery. With rest and a minimum of care it almost always passed in a few days.
Despite everything, Hedwig’s health continued to falter. As she became weaker, she did not protest when Alwine offered to feed her some warm broth and wash her with a wet cloth. When she finished, Hedwig laid her head down and mumbled something. “What did you say, Hedwig?” Alwine asked as she put her ear close to the woman’s mouth. She repeated it. The words were weak but discernable, “I killed him.” Alwine blanched; she supposed she was talking about her husband. It was the fever. It could only be the fever but then Hedwig opened her eyes and said it plainly. “I killed him so they would blame Albert.” Then she fell asleep. It didn’t make sense. Fever makes people say strange things.
She wiped Hedwig’s face again and heard someone ask from behind, “Why do you do that? You know she hates you.”
Alwine turned and saw Irene Weiss sitting up on her bunk. It was such a relief to hear her friend talking to her again. “There is no one else to take care of her,” Alwine replied.
“You’re always taking care of things,” Irene said with a sarcastic tone. “Do me a favor. Don’t take care of me! Did you think that maybe she doesn’t want your help? She blames you for her husband’s death . . .” Her hateful words were cut off by a cough.
“You’re ill, Irene.”
“Yes, but don’t help me, Alwine. Your friendship has been nothing but a curse to me.”
Alwine gasped. She couldn’t believe what Irene was saying. She turned her back on her former friend and wiped Hedwig’s brow again. She was hiding her tears.
“Leave her alone,” Irene tried to yell but her words got caught on another cough. “She doesn’t want your help. Her husband stopped on the road to wait for you. That’s why they were caught. The Russians shot him. He was waiting for you, that’s why he died.”
Alwine’s eyes flowed but she didn’t know if it was for Johann or because of Irene’s hateful words. She couldn’t take any more of her accusations and laid down on her bunk. She soon found herself on her knees beside her bed. Of all the things that God had asked her to endure this torment was the worst she could have faced.
Still, Alwine was up again the next day feeling better. The first thing she did was tend to the garden. There she could think clearly and pray. Prayer eased the mind. Refortified, Alwine went to take care of Hedwig. The woman seemed eager for the attention.
Buoyed by Hedwig’s reaction, Alwine risked asking her sister-in-law about her strange confession, on the chance that it was not out of delirium that she had spoken. “Hedwig, do you remember what you said yesterday?” she asked quietly. Hedwig shook her head ever so slightly, and stared off into the distance. “You said you killed him so that Albert would be blamed.” Hedwig said nothing, her eyes were glassy and her face was blank. Alwine was sure now that it had been the fever talking.
As Alwine turned to leave, she saw Irene sleeping fitfully. Perhaps she was cold. Her blanket lay beside her on the floor. Timidly Alwine approached her. All she wanted to do was to pull the blanket over her, but then she saw the sweat on her face. She couldn’t help herself. She found another cloth and wet it to cool Irene’s fever. Irene woke.
“I don’t want your help,” she said weakly.
“Why are you so angry with me?” Alwine asked so directly and sincerely that Irene could not turn away.
Irene took the wet cloth off her forehead and threw it lamely at Alwine. “Why should you understand?” she asked with contempt. “I don’t even understand. I just know that I hate you.”
“What did I do?” Alwine pleaded.
“What did you do?” Irene replied angrily through labored breathing and coughing, but even though she was weak, her anger came through clearly. “What did I do to deserve this? It was you that Martin wanted to hurt, not me! He hated you, not me! Your husband was his enemy and I paid the price! I’ve suffered too much for your friendship!”
“You think I’m to blame?”
“It’s obvious. You are my curse Alwine. My life wasn’t meant to be like this. Now my husband is dead and my children will die here.” She coughed and coughed again but grabbed for more hateful words. “When August died, I wanted to pay you back your curse. I told them Albert wasn’t really injured. I wanted him to die too.”
It was irrational. Alwine wasn’t at all sure that Irene meant everything she said, but she had conveyed her feelings clearly. It was puzzling. How long had her friend felt such hostile thoughts? Such anger was not consistent with the nature of the girl she had grown up with. Yet Alwine remembered all too clearly what Hermann Martin had done to her. If Irene had changed, she had a reason.
For a long time Alwine couldn’t get her mind off what Irene had said. Words could hurt. They clawed at her insides and tore up her confidence. Was she really a curse? Could her friend really trace all her trouble to their friendship?
It was impossible to leave it alone. Reflecting again on those dark months in Zwickau and the disturbing years in Warthegau under the Reich, Alwine wanted to understand how that curse had entered her life. It had probably started when Ewald, and then little Einhardt had died as a consequence of the resettlement. Later, her feelings had been renewed when she had realized what the Germans were doing to the Poles and Jews. Yet, there had been no other alternative for them. Or had there? Hadn’t they been warned not to take the land?
Though Alwine believed that curses were real, she saw them differently now. She believed in them, not in any magical or superstitious way, as some people believed, but in a very tangible way. It was actually simple to understand. Sooner or later people had to live with the consequences of their actions. So, in effect, they cursed themselves. It wasn’t at all mysterious, it was very logical. If you set a higher moral code for yourself, God expected you to abide by it. Alwine was sure that this is what the Volhynians had done in their arrogance. They had called themselves Christian and behaved like thieves. How could they now expect God to bless them? Consequences overtake the innocent as well as the guilty, and that is the real curse.
As the days passed, however, it was Alwine’s concern for her unborn child that made her forget about Irene’s anger. She dreaded the idea of burying another child. However, when she tried to think about something else, she only found other worries to occupy her mind. Was her husband dead? Was he with the thousands of German soldiers that had been dragged off to Siberia? Or what about her parents and her sisters Else and Klara? Where were her brother Arnold, or sister Adele and her family? There were so many things to concern her but there was nothing that she could do about any of it. Even the child getting ready to come into the world could count on little help from her and that ought not to be. She cried about it day and night but was careful not to let her children see her fear. They had enough to cope with.
Edmund woke one night and caught her crying. He pressed her to tell him why. Alwine was weary of keeping her problems to herself. In a moment of weakness that helped to relieve some of her anxiety, she shared her deepest concerns with her oldest.
Edmund took his mother’s worries seriously, more seriously than Alwine had ever suspected he could. They were problems that no twelve-year-old should have to deal with and certainly he had no ability to solve them. Now he concluded that the only way he had to deal with problems that were too big for him was to ask for help, and if God could rescue him from Jerzy Finkowski, then he could certainly help his mother.
It was when Alwine was at her lowest point that Stefan showed up at the Osciency camp. He brought gifts of more fresh vegetables and a container of fresh milk. He also brought Alwine two featherbeds, which essentially were two sheets sewn together and filled with duck down. He had rescued them from Alwine’s farm after her escape and the family had used them when they stayed with him. Alwine protested that it was too much. She could never justify sleeping in such comfort while others around them slept on straw with thin blankets. She told him to take them away. Stefan refused. Instead, he went to the Commissar and convinced his old friend that it was time for Alwine to have some privacy as she was getting ready to give birth. Within hours she and Else were moved to a very small but private room, off to the side of the barn, that had perhaps been an office. There, in privacy, Alwine could finish the days of her pregnancy.
When Edmund and Hertha came back that night, they found a pot of vegetables cooking and lay down on the thick blankets. For a few minutes they played and laughed like children ought to. Alwine was happy to see her children eat so vigorously, especially the picky little Else. It was wonderful to see them all smiling and enjoying life. Such a sight could keep hope alive.
“Mama,” Edmund began. He wanted to make a special night even more special by sharing something important but found it hard to explain. “We’re going to be all right,” he finally said.
“I hope so Edmund.”
“I know it Mama,” he said forcefully.
“How can you know such a thing?”
“Papa is all right and we’re going to be together again, and the baby will be fine too.”
“Edmund, I’m not sure that...”
“No Mama,” he interrupted, “we’ll be fine. We’re going to get out of here. I know it. God showed me!”
“I hope so.”
That night Alwine woke up with a start. She had started her prayer and fallen asleep, but now was shaken awake. It was not a frightening nor even an unsettling feeling that she had, even though it made her tears flow in a torrent. The words were quiet as a whisper and yet as clear as if they had been spoken reassuringly by the angels themselves. Her parents were dead. There was no need for Alwine to worry about her parents any longer. At that moment she realized too what Edmund was trying to tell her.
On a hot August day, while Alwine worked in her adopted garden she spotted storks flying over the camp. She pointed them out to Else who was terribly bored watching her mother work. “Run, Else, run and tell them that you want them to bring you a baby.” Else was so thrilled that she immediately chased after the birds shouting loudly into the sky, “Bring me a baby! Bring me a baby!” Excitedly she came bouncing back to her mother. “Do you think they heard? Do you think they will bring a baby?” she asked.
“Of course they heard.”
The next day Else was sent to play in the big barn. She didn’t really want to go. She still felt safest with her mother, but with some coaxing she finally went with one of the other women. Hours later, when she returned, she found a little baby brother in her mother’s arms. For days the baby totally consumed her attention as she watched him even when he was sleeping. She pointed out to her mother how determined he was to have his index and middle finger together in his mouth. She laughed at how he worked until he had them safely tucked away. The little girl couldn’t believe her luck in having received such a gift.
“Did the storks bring him, Mama?” she asked, her face aglow and full of wonder. “Yes dear, they must have heard you.” Else kissed the baby and turned to her mother again, “Are all babies so small?” Her mother didn’t answer, but changed the subject. “What shall we call him?”
“I think we should call him Kurt.”
It wasn’t a family name but Alwine approved anyway.