I wanted to go home.
“You, in the pink hat,” commanded the officer. “I don’t have all day. Show me your papers.” He pointed to the identity card trembling in my hand.
I couldn’t move.
He stood up to face me. “What’s going on here?”
The shoe poet softly placed his hand on my shoulder. “Una, dear, are you all right?”
Una. How could I steal Una?
“As you can see, Una’s quite far along,” said Poet. “And she appears to be ill.”
The sailor, Alfred, snapped the papers from my hand and handed them to the official.
The officer sighed. “I already had a kid get sick on my desk. Move her aside,” he said. Poet pulled me away from the table. The wandering boy petted my coat.
“Her nurse is assisting Dr. Richter at the ambulance train,” said the sailor. “She asked me to bring the expectant mother for registration.”
“We’re registering, but not boarding yet,” said the officer. “Everyone must be inspected first.”
The sailor looked toward me with an odd smile. “Oh, please do inspect her. Don’t you see? The hair, the eyes,” he said. “An exquisite specimen. Her offspring shall no doubt be the same.”
“I can’t,” I whispered to Poet. This wasn’t right. I had no right.
“You must.” He nodded. “For your child.”
The officer reviewed the papers. Heat prickled up my cold neck. The sound of muffled crying floated nearby.
“Madame,” said Alfred to a tearful woman behind us. “What do you have there?”
“Nothing,” said the woman, pulling a bundle close to her chest. “She’s sleeping.”
“Is the child ill?” he asked. “We cannot register those with contagion.”
The woman’s tears turned to sobs. “No, she’s not ill. She’s sleeping.”
Alfred turned to face the woman and pulled back the blanket. He sneered. “She’s not sleeping. She’s dead! Officer, this child is deceased.” Alfred peered at the dead baby with studious fascination.
The mother’s strength was no match for her grief. Her body quaked as she tried to speak, choking breaths between her words. “No. Please. She’s just asleep. I swear. Don’t take her from me.”
The officer whistled to a nearby sentry and motioned him over.
The woman sobbed, clutching the bundle. “No! Please. I can’t leave her here. Don’t take my baby. Please, don’t take my baby!” Pandemonium ensued.
The shoemaker turned to me, his eyes full of tears. “Do you see, my dear? The proverbs are at play. ‘I wept because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.’”
I cried out, faking labor, and fell to my knees on the dock.
alfred
Hello, my Hannelore,
Such a trying day already and it’s only just begun. Against all odds, I found a nurse for our ship’s doctor, Dr. Richter. It was an impossible task, but like so many other occasions, I was able to make the impossible possible.
My first assignment was to register the nurse’s patients for embarkation on the Gustloff. There was an old shoemaker (with the type of grotesque knuckles that distress me greatly), a small boy, and a young, pregnant Latvian who spoke awful German but had the favored features of the Reich. Once again, I drew my sword and laid my cape for Germany, helping the woman cross my cloak to safety. Yet another saved for the Vaterland!
Something else quite astounding took place this morning. I am assisting a young recruit on a very important mission for Gauleiter Koch. Perhaps you don’t understand the significance Koch has in this war. He is the regional Nazi Party leader, second only to Hitler in this area. Koch successfully obliterated Ukraine. This young recruit has papers signed by Koch himself, indicating he is a courier carrying a valuable treasure for the Reich. Of course I’m handling the matter with the greatest discretion and not disclosing even the slightest detail. After all, perhaps I shall have occasion to meet Koch myself.
My catalog of heroics is growing so rapidly I can scarcely keep track. I am enjoying a bit of quietude in my private toilet right now to strategize for the next undertaking. Duty calls as the young recruit awaits me. I have to be in my tip-top condition for such a mission.
? ? ?
It was so nice and warm in the toilets. I decided to stay a bit longer.
joana
In a matter of hours the crowds had doubled in Gotenhafen. The stethoscope around my neck detained me as I walked. People saw it and ran out of bombed buildings and craters, begging for aid and medicine. I tried to help a woman whose face was blackened with frostbite.
“I used to be beautiful,” she whispered, her eyes vacant.
“The scars will fade,” I told her.
“Can you give me a cigarette?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have any.” A cigarette was akin to gold.