Sabine had barely closed her eyes when the shrill screech of the air raid sirens tore her awake. She sat up straight on the bed, her eyes blind in the complete darkness of the room with the blackout curtains drawn.
She fumbled for the switch of the nightlight, still not completely familiar in the strange room. When she finally found the switch and bathed the room in dim light, the sirens stopped wailing, and she scrambled from the bed, slipping into a woolen jacket that hung ready across the back of a chair.
In the sitting room she ran into Ursula, coming sleepily from her room, dressed in a long nightgown and a woolen jacket, just like Sabine. There was no time to get properly dressed, because the gruesome shrilling of the sirens started up again, indicating akute Luftgefahr, immediate danger.
Ursula and Sabine slipped into their shoes and grabbed the suitcase beside the door, stocked with extra clothes, food, and water. A night in the shelter could get rather long. One should think that after so many years of being bombed almost on a nightly basis, people would get used to it.
Wrong.
Chills of terror still ran down Sabine’s limbs every time the sirens sounded, and the queasy feeling in her stomach wouldn’t let up until she heard the all-clear signal.
“We need to get to the basement,” Sabine hissed in a shaky voice.
“No. Shelter. Follow me.” Ursula hurried downstairs, Sabine on her heels. On every landing, more people poured out of their apartments, scurrying like frightened mice to the safety of the shelter.
Sabine dragged the small suitcase behind and suddenly remembered Frau Klausen. “Where’s your mother?” she yelled at Ursula, who didn’t falter in her steps.
She shouted back, “Over at my sister’s, I suppose.”
In any case, there was no time to stop and worry. Sabine shrugged, thinking it ironic that the apartment building where she lodged now, because her own house had been destroyed by the SS, might succumb to real enemy bombs.
In her district people usually sought shelter in their basements, but here crowds of people fled to the next public shelter, a Hochbunker. The bunker was a huge concrete building, sufficient to host five hundred people. Even the sight of that many people that would share the space with her for the next hours frightened Sabine.
Ursula led the way to a corner, fitted with three mattresses and blankets, and pointed at one of them, “Take this space. It was Anna’s but since she moved away, it’s yours now.”
Sabine had never been in such a huge public shelter before and she wished for the small confines of her own basement. People always argued the Hochbunker were safer than the cellars. The house above could burn to the ground and suck all the oxygen out of the basement, effectively suffocating those seeking shelter in there.
But seeing the multitude of people squeezing inside, before the doors were firmly locked, made her queasy stomach revolt and she barely managed to keep the remains of her dinner down. The two women settled on the mattresses, both of them consumed by their own worries and fears, when Sabine noticed Ursula’s painful moans.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes…ouch…I…guess…”
Sabine peered in the semi-darkness at Ursula’s damp face and then her eyes lowered to the other woman’s bump, where visible contractions pulled at her belly. Oh, God. No. She’s…how far along?
“You need to relax and breathe,” Sabine said, helping Ursula to sit on the mattress and lean against the wall.
“Relax?” Ursula murmured, the effort of trying to do just that showing on her creased forehead. “You’d think I’d be used to the air raids by now, since they happen so often.”
Sabine gave a short laugh. “I don’t think anyone ever gets used to being awakened by the earth exploding around them.”
A small smile appeared on Ursula’s face, until the next contraction wiped it away. “I’m frightened,” she whispered. “I’m only in my seventh month.”
“Nothing will happen,” Sabine said, hoping she spoke the truth. Premature babies happened all the time, but everyone knew that those babies in fact weren’t always delivered early. Probably the best thing to do was to distract Ursula from her fears, by talking to her.
“I’m grateful that you’ve received me so kindly in your home. It must be difficult to share it with a stranger.” Sabine retrieved a bottle of water from the suitcase, poured some into the lid that could be used as cup and handed it to Ursula.
“Thank you.” Ursula closed her eyes, drinking the water, her face showing a pensive expression. “Our apartment used to be full with my parents and the four of us, and I longed for the day when I could move out. But now that it’s only Mutter and myself, it feels lonely.”
“Tell me about your siblings,” Sabine encouraged her.
“Well, my sister Anna used to live there until several weeks ago, when she was offered employee housing at the Charité clinic. She works there as a nurse. My mother didn’t like the idea, but Anna convinced her that it was safer…with the blackouts and the air raids…” Ursula smiled, and the contractions seemed to ease up. “Then there’s my brother Richard. He’s eighteen and we haven’t seen him in almost two years, since the day he was drafted. Currently he’s fighting somewhere in Poland. And Lotte, the youngest. She’s…dead. Contracted typhus.” Ursula scrunched up her nose but didn’t look very sad at the loss of her sister. “What about you?”
Sabine stowed the water bottle between the two mattresses. So far, Ursula’s family was completely unremarkable. Nothing remotely noteworthy. “Me? I’m an only child. My parents moved to Freiburg a couple of years ago, because of my father’s job. So I don’t get to see them very often.”
“Oh, I couldn’t imagine not seeing my family at least once a week. As much as I loathe them sometimes, I also need to have them around. Especially, Anna. She’s my confidante, my best friend, and my moral compass to keep me straight.”
“That’s what my husband is…was,” Sabine said, unable to hold back the feeling of nostalgia that swept across her at the thought of Werner. She literally ached from missing him. His warmth. His laugh. His touch.
“I’m sorry,” Ursula said, grabbing her hand. “It must be so hard for you. What was he like?”
“Werner?” Sabine mentioned his name and felt the wound in her soul open a bit more. What am I supposed to say?
She took her time answering and then softly revealed as much of the truth as she could. “Werner was a wonderful man and my best friend. I still can’t believe he’s gone, and there’s a little part of me that still hopes he will survive all of this.”
“I thought he died in the bombing?” Ursula asked, shocking Sabine to the core.
“He did. It’s just, his body still hasn’t been found. One moment he was alive and the next…” Sabine sobbed, not sure what flustered her more, the fact that he’d been kidnapped by the Gestapo or that every word she spoke to Ursula was a lie. To redeem her conscience with some bits of truth, she gave Ursula a weak smile. “I have many good memories with him, and I’m grateful for every single day I spent with him.”
Sabine couldn’t help but voice the question that had been burning on her tongue for the past few days. “What about the father of your baby? Where is he?"
Ursula stiffened and pulled her hand away. “He died in action at the front.”
Stunned at the cold and unemotional manner in which Ursula delivered this information, Sabine got the message loud and clear. She didn’t welcome the topic of the baby’s father.
Sabine closed her eyes and imagined Werner there with her, holding her in his arms and keeping her safe. All the while the tension around her mounted with the reverberating echo of the shells coming closer to their location.