Despite the large convergence of the broken, she was not affected by her emotions. Rosalind could treat a person without thinking that she was saving someone’s son or brother or father. And she could see from those nurses she worked alongside, from their lack of mental discipline, from their attachments to patients, that her way was the only way. She did not allow herself to imagine Georg on a battlefield somewhere. She could never allow herself to believe anything other than he was bulletproof.
Monique and Rosalind hadn’t gone back to the river house last summer because of their work, but they had caught up with Georg in Berlin, before he was sent away shortly after the war began. Georg wrote to both of them often. He spoke of how he missed them. Ironically, the collectiveness of this word drew only feelings of exclusion.
When the girls received word that Georg was coming to the city on leave, they made plans to meet at a wine bar. Georg had not yet seen active duty. He had been to Poland to help prepare the area for greater Germany, keeping the civilians in order after the invasion, and witnessing things he did not wish to discuss. Georg was under strict instruction not to talk about the military. They were preparing for something huge was all he said.
Both Georg and Erich wore their uniforms, Georg in field gray and Erich in the attire of Hitler’s Schutzstaffel, of which he had just been made a member. Rosalind noticed that many glanced their way, and their eyes did not linger too long on Erich. He was tall, imposing and fearful in black. And his fair hair, combed back severely, called attention to the well-defined and forceful angles of his jawbone and nose.
Erich ordered drinks while Georg lit a cigarette, at home in the smoky, crowded bar. Smoke was part of his life now, especially on the battlefield. He said he had taken up smoking for fun. Though his use of the words “for fun” did not sound as such, the sentence spitting out a more sober but subtle undertone.
Monique arrived late, taller in heels now, and smartly dressed. She wore a navy-blue jacket and skirt and a matching navy hat. Her normally wild hair was tamely twisted and pinned behind her ears. Her cheeks were rouged, and her lips were a brilliant sheen of red, emulating photos of film stars. Beside her, Rosalind felt insignificant and pallid. Rushing straight from work by train and bus, she wore her plain, striped nurse’s uniform, though she had brushed out her shoulder-length fair hair. She was right not to adorn herself. Hitler liked purity, women of natural beauty, and discouraged the use of makeup.
“You finally like skirts now, yes?” said Georg to Monique. “You are all grown up. I did not recognize you at first. What is that paint on your lips?”
Monique threw herself into Georg’s arms, laughing. “Stop teasing me!”
“I can’t help it. If you are going to paint your face, how will I recognize you?”
“Stop it! I have a very important job, you know.”
Monique told silly stories, talked of friends from clubs she attended, her special friends, she called them, and Rosalind noticed that Erich listened intently to this, though he did not question her or make a comment. It made Rosalind feel better, Monique talking about such trifles; it showed that Rosalind and her job were more important.
Rosalind excused herself to go to the powder room, and when she came back, she found only Erich there reading through some notes from a small black pad he carried in his jacket.
“And where are the others?” she asked.
“Talking outside,” said Erich carelessly, glancing up at her, then back down at the notes in front of him. He shaded the book with his hand, keeping whatever was written there hidden.
“Why?”
Erich looked up, and this time his eyes rested, studying her. He was reading her, she thought. He took a brief sigh as if his summation were complete.
“I think they are having a cigarette and a private talk. You can go and find them if you wish,” said Erich, and Rosalind thought either he had read her panic or he wanted to be alone to write. She concluded it was both.
There was no immediate sign of them at the front of the building, and she searched until she found the pair standing close together in a laneway to the side. Monique seemed very animated. The noisy chatter that spilled out from the windows of the bar masked what they were saying, but there was clearly an argument. “You have to tell her!” was all she thought she heard, though she couldn’t be certain.
It was Monique who was facing her, who saw her approach first. She nodded toward her to alert Georg, who turned to look, frowning at the interruption.
“Rosalind,” said Monique. “You must keep Georg company! Erich is taking me to a function with some senior officers.”
She raised herself on tiptoe to kiss Georg on the cheek before she walked past them. He appeared agitated, brushing the hair back roughly from his forehead, and unable to rest his gaze with his thoughts elsewhere.
“Is everything okay?” asked Rosalind. “What were you talking about?”
He relaxed to some degree, focusing then on her.
“Nothing really. Just about the war . . . I have to leave in a few days . . .”
It told her nothing, but that was Georg. If she pushed him, he would simply change the subject or walk away.
“Why don’t we go to dinner?” he asked, brightening slightly and holding both her hands.
“That would be nice,” she said.
The following night Rosalind borrowed her father’s car and drove Georg to his barracks. He was sweet then, and he held her longer. And this time he kissed her fervently on the lips. Hers was the last face he would see before he left for battle. She knew they were meant for each other. Monique was a pleasant diversion when they were young, but he needed someone stable, someone who could love him back.
The following year Monique was fired from her job. Several weeks after that, she announced her plans to marry Erich.
Present-day 1945
Rosalind is thinking of the water gushing in the other night. She is thinking that she can’t afford to get someone to fix it. She would never ask Erich, because he would pay someone to do the work, and then she would feel she owed him something more. He says she owes him too much already.
She agrees to Stefano’s offer. It is the look of him that causes her to weaken. A sense that he is too battered for any more fight. She recognized it in others whom she treated: scarred and smaller than they were before the war. She believes she can trust him. He saved a child. It is unlikely he will want to hurt her.
She mutters something about meaning to fix it, but the comment is lame and fades at the end with insincerity. She is not capable. She knows it. Though she is capable of helping load some bricks. She knows the place he is talking about. Houses that were crushed by air fire and bombs.
She directs Stefano to the barn to collect a wheelbarrow. While he is gone she checks on Georg, who is sleeping. From her bag, she takes a syringe and performs the task of injecting medicine to keep him asleep for several hours. She does not want him to wake and come looking for her. Sometimes he does not take to strangers. She does not want to frighten Stefano away, not now that he is doing this task for her. Georg must bear this for both of them.
The squeaking wheel of the barrow alongside the house alerts her to action. She ties up her hair, then an apron, and leaves to accompany the handsome stranger who has somehow landed at her door.
They cross the road to several damaged houses with walls turned to rubble, glass that has disintegrated, and blackened things that lie strewn and barely recognizable: a stove; a birdcage; broken china, the patterns singed; and other objects, covered in black grime and soot. Michal looks at the items, then turns to Stefano.
“Go on,” says Stefano. “Find something. There might be treasures there.”
And Rosalind shudders, imagining children stepping over the remnants of her house in Berlin, of the faces of her parents in the rubble. She remembers watching men and women, volunteers, pulling out bodies from these ruins. Not long after the war ended, there were many who went from house to house, pulling the injured from wreckages along the road and depositing the bodies in a warehouse in the town.