May 1945
For months it went on. I had to use a rubber cap in case I should fall with child, and I put it in every single day. It cost me Fred’s Sunday suit on the black market. I tried to put Fred from my mind, because I didn’t think I’d ever be able to look at a man again without revulsion. The war would soon be over, they promised us. Both Rachel and I were getting desperate, not sure how much longer we could go on, living on borrowed time. Then in May 1945 we finally heard that the Germans had surrendered in Europe. The news came to me whispered from another woman as I queued to get one of the precious Red Cross parcels that England had finally sent.
I hurried home, a new spring in my step, anxious to share some of the parcel and the good news with Rachel. When I got there, we were able to open a tin of Rowntree’s cocoa and have a cup of it. We toasted the British troops in cocoa, and hugged.
The noise of an engine outside stopped our celebration.
‘It’s Horst’s car,’ I said, peering out of the window. ‘Wolfgang’s just helping him out. Quick!’
Rachel slithered back under the bed, and I piled the boxes and shoes around the door to her hiding place. I bolted back downstairs and managed to swill out the cups just in time.
‘What’s that smell?’ Horst said as he came in.
The cocoa packet was still on the table.
‘Red Cross parcel,’ I said. ‘It’s cocoa. I couldn’t resist. Shall I make you some?’
He took a look at the contents laid out on the table: the canned meat, powdered milk, the tin of Klim.
‘English shit,’ he said. He swept his arm across the table and everything went to the ground.
Of course. I should have realised. The news of the defeat of the Germans would have reached Horst too. He went up to his room and I heard the door slam.
When he came back to eat, he stank of whiskey, and even the meat roll and tinned vegetables couldn’t pacify him.
‘You think you’re so clever, you English, ja? What you look at?’
‘Nothing, Horst.’
He stood suddenly and pulled me back by the hair.
‘Upstairs,’ he said.
I did as he asked. It will soon be over, I thought. This war will soon end.
‘Lie down.’
I squeezed my eyes shut, let the fight seep out of me. Let him. Then it would be over. He would fall into his usual stupor and sleep. This grunting, groaning animal that stank of cigars was nothing to do with me.
It was taking too long. He was usually spent by now. A blow to my chest, a fist like a hammer.
‘Move, can’t you?’ he shouted, shaking me until my head rattled. ‘Do you think I want to do this with a dead thing? Move.’
I tried to move, but his weight pressed me down, like a butterfly on a pin. I made one intense effort. Life; that was what mattered. To stay alive. For Rachel. With horror, I felt him grow soft inside me.
He slid out of me. Incensed now, he rolled me off the bed. I landed in a sprawl, my face crushed towards the linoleum floor.
I tried to turn my head and caught a glimpse of the barrel of a gun.
Christ. He meant to kill me.
A hand grasped my hair, yanking, until my neck might snap. ‘They say the Führer is lost, and we are still stuck in this place. I’m tired of you,’ he said. ‘I don’t see why I have to see your face another day.’
‘What about Fred?’ My voice was thick, desperate.
‘Fred is dead. I heard months ago. Court-martialled for running away. Bloody coward. He won’t care if you’re alive or dead.’ He cocked the trigger and the sound of it was loud in my ears.
A flash of something metal across Horst’s neck. Several things happened at once. He tried to twist, but he buckled towards me, knocking me off balance so I fell with a crash, the breath forced from my lungs. Horst’s head hit the ground next to mine. His mouth made a sound like a groan, but his eyes were blankly open, and a gush of red was everywhere. Blood. The stink of it like iron and heat, and the gun skittering from his open hand.
At the same time I pushed his weight off me and turned. Rachel swayed there, white-faced, a sharp kitchen knife in her hand.
I sat up, woozily.
More blood pooled around Horst’s neck. He writhed a moment more, then was still.
‘You killed him.’ The words stuck to my lips in a whisper.
Rachel quietly put down the knife on the floor. ‘Every night I’ve covered my ears, trying to block out the sound of him. His shouts; his taunts. I swore I’d go mad if he hit you again, and I’d just had enough. I couldn’t take any more. He would’ve shot you.’
‘It’s the finish for us,’ I said.
‘I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to end this way.’ She knelt beside me and we gripped each other tight. Her ribs trembled under her nightdress.
‘We were so close to making it,’ I said.