Johann shook his head. ‘Where is she, Adelina? You must tell me.’
Adelina looked down at the baby and then back to Johann. ‘Can’t you see her?’ She held the baby out again, this time into the light that shone in through the gaps in the boards at the windows. ‘Look. He has his mother’s eyes. Can you see her, Johann?’
Johann looked, and as his eyes met the child’s he was taken back to the very first time he saw Ava Bauer. His own eyes began to well with tears. ‘What are you telling me, Adelina?’ His voice wavered as he spoke. He already knew the answer. ‘Please, I need to hear you say it.’
Adelina turned away then, and Johann heard her sob.
‘Say it, Adelina!’ Johann’s tone was firm now. ‘I can’t believe it otherwise.’
Adelina turned back to him and he knelt closer. ‘Ava is dead, Johann. My daughter is dead.’
Johann held Adelina then as they both began to cry unreservedly. He could feel her frail body beneath the blankets she was wrapped in—feel her fragile bones shaking in his arms, the baby between them, silent and peacefully oblivious to the horrors of the world into which he had been born. When he felt he had no more tears left to cry, Johann withdrew, but he remained on his knees beside the armchair. He knew that if he tried to stand up at that moment he would only fall down again.
‘And your husband? Is Gerhard also—’
Johann didn’t need to finish his sentence. Adelina began to nod her head almost as soon as he began to ask. He let out a long sigh and wiped the tears from his cheeks.
‘Tell me what happened, Adelina.’
‘Don’t you want to meet your son first?’ Adelina said. She turned the baby to face Johann, and the baby’s tiny hands began to grab at the air between them.
‘My son?’
‘Of course.’
All these months and Johann had no idea. He thought back to the last time he had seen Ava. It was in May the previous year, when he had been granted home leave. He had received only one letter from her since then, which was soon after his return to the Front. He realised that whatever had happened to the Bauer family must have happened soon after the child’s conception, which by his calculations had to have been eleven months ago.
‘Hello,’ Johann said to the baby. He placed his hand over the baby’s chest and felt his heartbeat. It was strong. He held the baby’s hand, and those tiny fingers curled around his. ‘I’m Johann. I’m your father.’ The baby was smiling, but Johann could not. ‘He’s very quiet,’ he said to Adelina.
‘He’s had to be,’ she said. ‘He would not have survived otherwise.’
Johann looked at Adelina again and thought how gravely ill she appeared. Only now did he think to ask, ‘Have you eaten?’
The man Johann had confronted when he first came into the room was still standing by the cabinet he had been rummaging through, looking for candles. He answered for her. ‘She’s had soup. It’s all she could manage.’
‘And the baby?’
‘Yes, my wife saw to it.’
Johann nodded. Turning back to Adelina, he asked, ‘So where have you been? Dachau?’ It was clear from her appearance that she had been held in a concentration camp. ‘Is Volker Strobel responsible for this?’ Johann didn’t want to believe it, but why else had his friend lied to him about having visited Ava’s uncle in Gilching, and why had Volker seemingly ignored him when he telephoned the camp earlier that day?
‘The Gestapo came for us early one morning,’ Adelina said. ‘They took us to a cell and refused to answer any of our questions. We had no idea why we’d been taken. The following day we were told it was because we had been harbouring a Jew.’
‘A lie?’
Adelina nodded. ‘They brought a girl in and she pointed at us and told them we’d hidden her and fed her for several weeks. She was able to tell them things that could only have been known by someone who had been inside this house and knew it well. It was all the Gestapo needed to prove the allegation.’
‘Volker?’
Adelina nodded. ‘Although we didn’t know it at the time.’