“Yes, young like you.”
And Rosalind is thinking of her own loss, of the grave that sits on the hill. She wishes she could talk to him, tell him everything. Though he is a foreigner, a man, and therefore unlikely to understand a loss like hers, she thinks.
“Where did you learn to speak German?”
“I completed two years of language studies before I signed up for the military. German first because war had begun, and I thought it would be most useful. Then I took my books with me to the battlefield and practiced on the German soldiers. I speak some English, and a little French. Though not as well.”
“And what did you want to do with so many languages?”
“A translator or a teacher . . . The world was, how do you say . . .” He looks for the words.
“Full of possibilities.”
“Yes,” he says.
“Why did you choose to go to war then?”
“Joining someone else’s pointless fight was never on my list to do. But not joining would have meant I cared little about the ones who did. I could not sit idle while people, friends, around me were signing up.”
It is intriguing to her that he is both studious and brave, and he is caring also. Yesterday she felt he was hiding something. Perhaps it was this. That he is anything but ordinary.
“Do you hate us?” she asks, surprising herself, his answer suddenly important to her.
“Who?”
“Germans.”
He shrugs. “I did hate once, but hate now lives in the past. And I prefer to remember the past, not live in it.”
This answer brings a sense of relief, though it is still unclear to her why she is so affected, why her heart feels suddenly lighter. Why it is Stefano, a stranger, someone she might have left for dead in another time, who makes her feel this way.
“Are you getting water for the geese?” he says, his eyes briefly leaving hers to look down at the pails, and stopping her from saying something she might regret, a futile apology perhaps for all that has happened.
“Yes.”
“Then I will help you,” he says, reaching for them.
He walks behind her toward the river.
“You must be looking forward to going home,” she says, filling in the silence as they approach the river’s edge.
Stefano steps down the embankment and glides a bucket on its side to fill it with water, then passes it to Rosalind at the edge of the slope.
“I’m a little cautious about going home. I’m not sure how I’ll be received. Whether I’m a hero or a traitor. I won’t really know till I get there.”
“What did you do? Was it so bad?”
He passes her the second bucket, then steps closely toward her, their faces only inches apart. Embarrassed by their closeness, she steps away.
“Soldiers who worked for Germany aren’t probably looked at with any great gratitude there or here. I have to go back and face enemies in the streets and my family also.”
“They will support you.”
“I am worried what they will say.”
She is intrigued by his candidness. The only time she witnessed such openness was from the soldiers who lay dying, whose affection they bestowed on her, their sins, their truths, in lieu of their wives and mothers who were not there to listen. She heard many stories. Some she remembers vividly. She carried out their wishes. She took their final letters and posted them.
When she looks up at him, he is studying her with unblinking eyes as dark as ink, and she turns away self-consciously.
They return to the house. He walks in front this time, and she looks at the large hands that wrap around the handles of the pails. The limp is not visible today, perhaps due to a night of rest.
She opens the pen, and he empties the buckets to top up the small pond created for the geese.
“Thank you,” she says, unsure whether she should invite him in for tea. Whether it is too much, too soon. Whether Georg will be waiting at the table for her when she enters. His reactions are becoming less predictable.
“I’m here for another two nights at the kindness of your friend and neighbor. I could help you fix the leaking wall. I forgot to tell you that building is another one of my skills.”
“You have many then.”
He pauses, waiting for her response to his suggestions, which she has avoided offering.
“Erich is in town, working again,” he says.
She lowers her eyes briefly so she doesn’t give anything away. She does not want to reveal the truth. Though perhaps it is that they both know his employment is a lie.
“I have seen some materials in the broken buildings across the road when I was wandering. I can rebuild the wall. I can fix it so there are no more leaks.”
“The bricks in the fields across the road belong to someone else.”
“By the looks of it, I don’t think they will be coming back.”
It is a line that hangs for too long.
“It would not be too difficult. I have such idle time. I am not used to being so idle. You would be doing me a favor.”
“I . . .”
“But of course, given that I am a foreigner, I would understand.”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s not that.” But there is truth in it. She would feel uncomfortable, perhaps even disloyal. She thinks of Erich, who trusts him also. “You have an injury. I . . . have nothing to pay you with.”
“I ask for nothing in return.”
She thinks of Berlin in the final days. She shudders. But that was Berlin. This is different. He is different.
1939–1940
Rosalind began her nursing career, not with the desire to heal—oddly enough that had never been her goal—but with an initial idea that was more conceited: that in such a role she would be more appreciated by her parents, Monique, Georg, and by the party. But by the end of the first year, she’d quickly discovered a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging.
She was committed to the principles that the German Red Cross demanded of her: dedication to hygiene, to treatment, and to the preservation of race, and devotion to the führer. Unlike Monique, who, though given work in an office of the Reich Ministry, showed little commitment to anyone or anything.
Thanks to a referral from Erich, Monique now held a position in the education ministry, typing reports and requisitions, and general correspondence that did not include any sensitive material. Rosalind thought this was for the best, given that Monique had previously held concerns about the government. She was not as vocal as she had been in the past on political matters, on imprisonments because of race and her disapproval of war, but her silent rebuttal of the new system came from her willing association with others who did not fit with the German design, an association that her employer had yet to learn about.
Once Rosalind had completed her initial training, she was transferred to a large hospital southwest of Berlin, where the führer himself was said to have once been treated, and she witnessed her first emergency amputation as casualties—those more likely to survive—came in from the field hospitals in greater numbers. The hospital was palatial, with its arched windows and grand staircases. But as the Second World War funneled more patients through its stately doorway, the aesthetics of the building became inconsequential. Under bright-white lights, the overwhelming smells of ether, iodine, chlorine, sulfur, blood, and bedpans disintegrated the building’s charm.