The snow was three feet deep beyond the back porch. She took the sled and dragged it into the woods, ax in hand. Her father had taught her these things when she was a child. He hadn’t loved her any less because she was a girl but hadn’t babied her either. He taught her how to gather wood, season it, and set the fire. He taught her how to shoot, set traps, and skin and prepare the kill. He’d also introduced her to the works of Goethe, Hesse, and Mann, as well as the now-banned novel by Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front. She thought about her father for the two hours she spent collecting wood. The Allies had killed him, and now one of them was asleep in his cabin. She tried to mentally separate the stranger in the spare room from the men who’d dropped those bombs. She knew that the Nazis were the aggressors, but where was the justice in carpet-bombing civilians? Tens of thousands of innocents had already died, and the bombings were only intensifying. Then again, the enemy of her enemy was her friend. Despite what they’d done, the Allies had to have some kind of right on their side, and helping the man could afford her the chance to get some measure of revenge on the Nazis.
Franka piled the wood inside the back door in crisscrossed open stacks to ensure minimum drying time. It would need to dry quickly, because it seemed that the winter weather, like the war itself, would only get worse before it got better.
It was almost eleven in the morning when she went back to his bedroom. His eyes flicked open as she entered. They were murky, full of pain.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine. I think I could use some more painkillers. I slept through the night, but I fear they might be wearing off now.”
“Of course.” She had the prepared syringe in her hand as she went to the bed. He took his arm out from under the deep layer of blankets and presented it to her. He took the shot wordlessly and, without flinching, watched her push the needle into his arm.
She brought him a light meal afterward and waited to speak until he’d finished it.
“I’m going to set the casts on your legs now. They’ll give you a far better chance of making a satisfactory recovery, and it shouldn’t be too painful while you’re under the morphine.”
His eyes were half-closed, but he nodded.
“I’m going to have to wash your legs first; then I’ll put on the stockings.”
His answer came in the form of another nod, his eyes closed.
Franka warmed up some water and formed a good, soapy lather in an old basin she’d found under the kitchen sink. She removed the primitive wooden splints and saved the wood for that night’s fire. Franka washed the bottom half of his legs. She knew he probably needed an all-over sponge bath, but he would have to do that himself. That didn’t seem proper here. She slipped on the stockings, which ran from his knees to his ankles, and then wrapped the gauze bandages around them. As she mixed the plaster of paris, words tumbled out of her mouth, partly to make him feel more comfortable, partly to hear a voice in the cold silence of the room.
“I worked as a nurse for three years in Munich, at the university hospital. I saw a lot of broken legs. The injuries became worse as the war went on. I saw more and more young boys at the start of their lives, their whole futures ahead of them, with missing legs, or arms, or eyes. And then it wasn’t just soldiers anymore—it was women and children too, crushed in their own beds or burned to a crisp by Allied bombs. Thousands and thousands of them. We hadn’t enough room for the bodies in the morgue, not nearly. We had to lay them in the alley, pile them on top of one another.”
She didn’t speak for a few minutes as she dipped the gauze into the plaster mix and wrapped it around a leg.
“Did you ever work as a nurse around here?”
“No, I left for Munich after I graduated college. I took the opportunity to get out of Freiburg as soon as I could.”
“Why did you want to leave?”
The sound of his voice startled her. His eyes were open, and he peered down at her.
“I was young. I broke up with my boyfriend. I wanted a new start. I shirked my responsibilities to my family, and I left. I thought somehow that people in Munich might be different.”
“Were they?”
“Some, but not many.”
She finished the first leg, leaving the plaster of paris to set, and moved to the other.
“It seems like I’m answering all the questions when I’m the one who found you in the snow.”
The man didn’t answer.
“Why did you bail out over the mountains, and what happened to the plane? I didn’t hear anything. Why would you have bailed out there unless your plane was in trouble?”
He took a few seconds to answer, and when he did his voice was garbled and groggy. “I’m so sorry, Fr?ulein Gerber, but I cannot speak about my reasons for being here. That could compromise my mission and put brave soldiers on the front lines in danger.”
Franka brought her eyes back down to the man’s leg and bit her lip. “So then tell me something about yourself. Where are you from?”
“I’m from Karlshorst, in Berlin. Do you know the city?”
“Not well. I went a couple of times when I was a girl with my League of German Girls group. We saw the sights, Unter den Linden, the Reichstag, the Stadtschloss.”
“It must have been exciting for a young girl to be at the center of the Reich like that.”
She finished applying the gauze and began wetting the bandages in the plaster of paris. The other leg was already drying. She ran fingers over the surface of the cast. It was good.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
“Of course. You’re a loyal citizen of the Reich.”
“Why were you pointing a gun at me last night, then?”
“I wasn’t sure where I was. I’m trained not to trust anyone. There is too much at stake. I see the error of my ways now. I see the kind of person you are. I admire anyone who’d go to such lengths as you have for a member of the führer’s armed forces. You’re obviously someone who recognizes the value in every serviceman as we strive toward the final victory.”
Franka almost laughed at the rhetoric the man was regurgitating but managed not to. What was he really thinking?
“Why didn’t you ask me to contact anyone when I was in town? What about your wife and daughters? Do they even know you’re alive?”
“That could compromise my mission. I need to ask that you not report to anyone that you’ve seen me, let alone the fact that I’m here.”
Franka went to the window, stepping over the hole in the floorboards to get there. She threw back the curtain. The snow drifting down was just visible outside. “The snow is coming down again. The roads are going to be closed for days. Weeks maybe. You’re not going anywhere for a long time. You need to start trusting me. I could be the only friend you’ve got.”
She picked up the basin, threw in the medical supplies, and stormed out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.
A day passed, and then the next. The man lolled in morphine-induced delirium most of the time, and they spoke little. He emerged from his stupor on the third day. His pain was decreasing, and she had given him the last of his morphine shots that morning. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. His door was closed, but she imagined he could hear the radio programs she was listening to—none of them sanctioned by the National Socialists. If he was such a loyal subject, why didn’t he object? What she was doing was illegal, and enough to land her back in jail. She sat in the rocking chair, staring past her book. She tried to reason that he was who he said he was, but there was no getting past what he’d said in his sleep, what she’d heard. If he were Luftwaffe, even a spy, he would have asked her to get in contact with someone when she was in town. Even if what he said were true, and he was nervous about the Gestapo finding out about his mission, there should have been someone to call. Surely someone would have wanted to know if he was alive or dead. She put the book in her lap and rubbed her eyes in frustration. She placed several pieces of wood on the fire and watched for a few seconds as the flames engulfed them. It seemed like there was only one thing to do.
He was awake and staring at the ceiling as she shoved the door open.
“I need to tell you who I am. If you are who you say you are, then you’ll likely be disgusted with me, and the next week or two that we’re forced to spend together is going to be difficult. But I need to tell you. Perhaps then you’ll open up to me.”
“Fr?ulein, there’s no need for any loose talk. The less we know about each other, the better. I’m most grateful for all that you’ve done for me, but I can’t let you compromise my mission.”
“What mission? What mission could a Luftwaffe airman possibly be on in the Black Forest Mountains in wintertime? I think you’re here by mistake. I also believe that you’re planning on trying to escape as soon as you’re well again. That’s your business as long as it doesn’t compromise my safety.”