Judith pushed the typewriter carriage back so vehemently that the machine almost toppled off her desk. Unrolling the sheet of paper, she reread her letter. It was more fiery than the previous ones but she’d given up being diplomatic. In the month since she had taken over as matron, she had sent dozens of tactful, pleading letters that had resulted in promises and prevarications but no action. Now she was demanding that UNRRA send the British nurses that they had promised, not ‘as soon as possible’ but immediately. Thankfully she no longer had to beg for soap, but she desperately needed more drugs, sterilisers, splints and bed-pans.
She threaded the paper back into the machine and added a biting postscript. She appreciated their faith in her ability to establish a hospital for three thousand desperately ill patients, but her healing powers would be vastly improved with medication, disinfectant and thermometers.
Until the British nurses arrived, she’d have to manage with the German ones. They were clean and efficient but lacked empathy with the patients, who complained that one lot of Nazis had been replaced with another.
She set aside the letter. The truck would soon arrive to collect the bodies and she had to record the names and details of patients who had died that day.
With its Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Russians, Romanians and Slovaks, the hospital resembled the Tower of Babel. Her best interpreter was Anna Silbermann, a diminutive Polish doctor who spoke five languages. It was Anna’s skills that Judith needed now to check the details she’d recorded about the dead patients. The nurse who had informed her that one of the pulmonary tuberculosis cases had died spoke very little English, and Judith’s German was too basic to be reliable. She closed the ledger, switched off the lamp, locked the door behind her and went in search of her interpreter.
Dr Silbermann was leaning over an elderly man, listening to his heartbeat. When she saw Judith approaching, she shook her head. ‘His wife died yesterday,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t want to go on living.’
Judith looked at her with interest. ‘Do you believe people can die of a broken heart?’
‘Hearts don’t break,’ Anna said. ‘They harden.’
Something in her tone warned Judith to drop the subject.
Back in her office, she pulled out the report and Anna pointed out some spelling errors.
‘I’ll never get all those sz’s and cz’s right,’ Judith said. ‘Polish must be the most consonant-heavy language in the world.’
Anna lapsed into a preoccupied silence.
‘You try to keep everyone alive, Matron, but deep inside we’re already dead.’ Her voice sounded dull and remote. ‘I died in Auschwitz two years ago. What you see is a machine that keeps pumping from habit.’
After Anna had gone, Judith sat for a long time without moving. Probably most of the people in her care had gone through experiences that could add volumes to the annals of human cruelty and suffering. She might succeed in patching up their bodies, but doubted whether their psychological scars would ever heal.
She had to get some air. On her way out, she passed one of the female wards and looked inside. Three of the patients were sitting on a bed, chatting as they bent over their sewing. Curious to see what they were doing, she walked towards them and saw that they were stitching lengths of blue material. They were Slovakian and spoke no English, so the conversation took place in mime. She pointed to the material and spread her hands in an inquiring gesture, and they laughed and indicated that they were making skirts. They didn’t seem to understand that she was trying to find out where the material had come from. It wasn’t until she walked away that it struck her. They were cutting up the mattress covers. Her initial reaction was anger. With all the thieving that went on in this place, what they needed was a detective, not a matron. The previous week she had been horrified to discover that thousands of sheets donated by American corporations were missing, probably stolen by the staff. As though she hadn’t enough to do, she now issued requisition slips for the linen so the girls had to come to her every morning and sign for the sheets before changing the beds.
And now the patients were pilfering what was left of their dwindling store of bed linen to make clothes. Standing in the hospital forecourt, breathing in the cool night air, Judith felt her anger evaporating as she smiled to herself. These women, who only three weeks earlier had been more dead than alive, still cared enough about their appearance to raid cupboards and sew new clothes. Their entrepreneurial spirit was probably more therapeutic than any medication.
Light rain fell the following morning, and, seated at her desk, Judith watched the raindrops threading down the window. She was waiting for Frau Wohlberg, the housekeeper, to tell her that she needed to keep a closer watch on the German and Hungarian cleaners. They made an exaggerated show of scrubbing and polishing whenever she appeared, but lounged around smoking and gossiping the minute her back was turned.
There was a knock on the door. She looked up, expecting to see the housekeeper, but it was one of the nurses.
‘There is a woman here. She wants work,’ she said.
‘Can’t the housekeeper deal with it? I can’t interview every kitchen maid myself,’ Judith said.
‘Ja, but Frau Wohlberg is talking to the cook, and the woman wants to see you only.’
Judith sighed. ‘All right, send her in.’
The door opened and a young woman entered, holding two children by the hand.