Gabriella Berlin Winter 1943–44

By Gillies Mackenzie

Although a novel, this story is historically accurate and tells in vivid detail what life was like in Berlin during the RAF’s bombing campaign against the city in the winter of 1943–44.
The story tells of how the 19 bombing raids that winter affected the lives of ordinary Berliners, as well as its extraordinary cast of characters and narrators. The story tells the dates, times, duration, locations and aftermath of the raids and offers an extraordinary insight into how the average Berliner lived and coped under such devastating conditions.
This is a story without oxygen, where breathing is difficult as smoke and ash fills our lungs and clings to our clothing, stings our eyes and singes our hair. It follows surgeon Gabriella von Klonau as she murders the vulnerable and the damaged in the blacked out, bombed out mayhem and chaos of Berlin during that dark bitter winter of coughs and tears.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781398405738

Gillies Mackenzie

Gillies MacKenzie was born in Argyll, Scotland. After studying graphic designing at Portsmouth College of Art, he moved to Berlin until changing careers to become an advertising copywriter and living first in Düsseldorf, where he worked on accounts for Volkswagen and P&G, then later to Hamburg to work on various Siemens accounts. Today he lives in Copenhagen and still works as a copywriter in Germany.

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About the Author

Gillies MacKenzie was born in Argyll, Scotland. After studying graphic designing at Portsmouth College of Art, he moved to Berlin until changing careers to become an advertising copywriter and living first in Düsseldorf, where he worked on accounts for Volkswagen and P&G, then later to Hamburg to work on various Siemens accounts. Today he lives in Copenhagen and still works as a copywriter in Germany.

Dedication

For the beautiful Russian poet, Elena Vilchevskaya.

Copyright Information ©

Gillies Mackenzie (2021)

The right of Gillies Mackenzie to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788781367 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781788781374 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398405738 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2021)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

25 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5LQ

Acknowledgement

Thank you, GREY Germany, especially Jeannette, Katja, Per, Mark and Neil.

And a very special thank you to my three boys, Alexander, Nikolaj and Oliver, who had to grow up being called Pumpkin, Nolly and Ollen.

Finally, thank you Gabriella and the Christmas crowds in the KaDeWe.

East, Night, Forest, Wolf

Four words to start this story and four little words only.

Oh, but what words you have been given! To our most distant past run these four words. Through the memories of our parents and through the lives of their parents we go, through and through lives and lives. Already, after such a short journey, what was a vague shadow begins to darken. Past the earliest names on our family tree and past names forgotten as completely as they were once remembered, still, we go back and then the shadow in our memory is no longer a shadow but fear, complete whole and real. Four little words that shaped the Northern European world, words that still do even though we do not recognise this any more. Dare you go any further back? Four little words.

This is a story from the Great Central European Plain. An area stretching from the Ural Mountains in the east across the steppes of Russia, the unending forests of Poland until it slips beneath the shores of Holland and Germany. And this is a story of Berlin. The greatest city of this vast flat land remembers still the fear of four words, four words that define this great plain. Listen, any of you who come from the west or north or south to names, names that are not your names; their meaning not known to you. Berlin, Königsberg, Stettin, Moscow. Names of the east, names first spoken when the wolf was within howling distance, names strange to your ears. This is a story of the wolf, of the darkness that is the forest at night and of the East.

Four words then: east, night, forest and wolf. Our fears are shaped and sharpened by these four little words, and what fears they are! We are not concerned with what you think you fear; our subject we know well enough. We tell a story from the East. And do we ourselves fear, we wolves to the bone? Yes, we fear. And do not forget that these four words have made Gabriella what she is.

The First Arrival

Through the window of the corridor, she sees her aunt and uncle standing on the platform peering into the filthy, soot-encrusted windows. The train glides a further 30 metres or so before shuddering to a standstill. Despite all they had endured, all they had in common, everything that binds these passengers together is mercilessly cut as the doors crash open heavily against the weathered, inflexible rubber bumpers. Warm, morning, late-summer air comes into the stale corridor as swollen footed, un-washed, dehydrated travellers, couples, families, lovers and uniformed men step down stiffly from carriage steps and onto the platform.

Gabriella stands in line, her beautifully cut, mid-brown coat just covering her knees, suitcase by her side and waits to get off. A fat woman is coming back up the corridor against the flow of people queing to get off, instinctively, Gabriella looks back to see if the other door is closer. She knew it isn’t but it would be a reason why that fat cow is wading her way. As she looks back, she catches the eye of the man standing behind her, it wasn’t her intention and she is relieved that the one-eyed officer doesn’t respond. The fat woman pulls herself past Gabriella’s suitcase. Her fur collar brushing against her cheek, her expensive perfume quite unnecessary at this hour. She had, by now, stopped asking to be excused and is forcing herself back along the line of ashen faces with a look of ill-humour. The old man in front of Gabriella bends down and picks up his suitcase, the queue is moving again. She breathes in filthy air as she nears the door and tastes lignite as she steps off the train.

Welcome to the third biggest city in the world, eastern woman, welcome to Berlin.

There were plenty on that platform as Gabriella stepped carefully down from the train that morning. A small woman, they saw. Dark-haired, parted more or less centrally, not tall, her body wrapped in good cloth was neither fat nor thin. The brogues quite beautifully hand-sewn were easily missed, the eyes not so. Oh, what eyes! Almost black but that was but a trick. Her hair the darkest of dark brown and her complexion so white made those green-brown eyes seem blacker than black. A slight squint only adds confusion. Her nose quite small but thick above the thinnest lips, an overbite on a very small chin made this woman stunningly beautiful, indeed difficult to describe beyond beautiful, the wide jaw and high cheekbones making any photograph unrepresentative as it could never capture this complex stunning face…and then the smile! At 39, she is no spring chicken; the lines on her cheeks and around her eyes are deepening and to her consternation, the arse is spreading at an alarming rate, especially when one considers the rationing. Finally, a pair of delicate glasses, a scarf of dark blue cashmere and a Prussian accent as thick as a Berliner’s hide. So it is that a woman arrives in her capital city. An East Prussian indeed, from a fine home, a farmer’s daughter if you care to call a titled landowner a farmer, indeed, if you would call an estate a farm…But they did then, later, they just call it a place best forgotten, milk spilt and not to be cried over. But I am jumping ahead of myself and plenty of other heads too.

The aunt and uncle have been waiting for the train for more than two hours and are only told the train should arrive before noon. Not that the train’s unpredictable arrival is down to the influence of wind and tides, really a timetable is nothing more than a waste of paper. We are getting conditioned to accept the unacceptable and to expect everything to be late rather than early, unavailable rather than plentiful. Those, like the uncle, who don’t adapt are in for a frustrating and disappointing remainder of their lives. They stand together in the middle of the platform away from the groups of soldiers that clog both ends of the platform. There are groups of nurses and other medical types waiting with stretchers and wheelchairs, and they fear the train has been attacked. Finally, the engine and its train draw into the station, dusty beyond imagination; autumn really is a filthy season! They see the two yellow-stripped, first-class carriages glide past and begin to walk towards them. Gabriella follows the old man down onto the pale brown platform she turns to her right and that shy smile lights the world. A wave and a call make everyone else disappear and it’s just the three of them on the platform hugging and kissing. Gabriella hasn’t seen them for years but they are as she remembers them and besides, don’t we remember people better than we know them? Back to the crowded platform where luggage must be collected. The porters few and far between are all old men bent over like question marks after a lifetime of lifting up and putting down other people’s belongings, is it any wonder that they look like they’re questioning the point of their lives. The uncle sends one of these men both older and frailer than himself off to fetch Gabriella’s trunk.

A problem is occurring; it will make its way past our family and continue down the platform. The fat woman is still on the train; she has managed to open one of the stiff greaseless windows and is shouting at a railway official. It seems she has lost her dog and is, given the extent to which she is attached to that dog, in a terrible state of agitation. It’s fair to say that if her husband were missing she wouldn’t be as anxious. In a way, she is fortunate, as only the rich can be, as her anxiety can be hoisted on to others less fortunate. This process is now underway and a posse is to be assembled; it’s a thankless task, adopting the problems of others richer than themselves so that these cockcoo problems were now their own never end well. Were that we were all so fortunate as the rich, but these are not the times where the fortunes of the common man are that favourable.

Gabriella watches the performance with interest; they will find the dog and having her wish fulfilled will the fat woman be satisfied? No! Some people are never satisfied, she smiles.

While Gabriella, the aunt and uncle find a taxi and drive up the station ramp towards Potsdamer Platz, the dog is found. And is the fat woman happy? Well, no. The dog is found in a now-empty compartment. The dog’s throat has been cut and its body kicked beneath one of the seats, its dried blood a small black stain on the brown linoleum floor. Having her wish come true she is still not satisfied and if anything, has soured this fat woman’s mood even further.

The platform managers wish that morning hasn’t come true at all, indeed, not only is the fat woman still in his office she is very much full of life and still screaming at him and his chief while the husband is being chauffeured over from the town hall. This was going to be a day in hell; fat bitch, I would kill her fucking dog as well if it wasn’t already dead.

As we shall see, it isn’t just a few unfortunate railwaymen who will suffer because the wish of a fat woman was fulfilled to her disliking. If she had been more appreciative of the efforts made on her behalf, perhaps the railwaymen would have been more inclined to help this woman whose lovely little dog had been killed. Indeed, it would take little effort to discover who was in the compartment where the dog was found. As it was, these men were making a lot of effort to avoid the threats and life ending punishments being screamed at them. There is an important lesson, which we all can learn concerning wealth, power, desire and poverty. It is unwise to be poor.

Gabriella looks out at the city that will be her new home and like a new pair of shoes, it doesn’t feel comfortable and perhaps never will. The taxi drove down streets that she has seen before, but now she looked at them as places that she was going to be a part of, indeed, looking at them with this in mind made them look very different from the streets she walked down as a visitor from the country. She could feel dried blood under her fingernails. She looks down at her hands, what beautiful gloves these are.

As the taxi hits yet another pothole, the uncle apologises yet again for the now-familiar news that their driver had joined the submarine service and that they had no petrol for the car. Gabriella looks at the taxi driver sensing that he too was beginning to regret the loss of the bastard’s bloody chauffeur. The taxi driver could fully understand why he joined the submarines, although felt it was probably not worth his while giving the old man the explanation, he was saying for the fifth time he was seeking for why would anyone want to leave his employ, especially for a submarine. Gabriella was enjoying the growing annoyance of the driver. Who wouldn’t feel annoyed, it’s not his fault that the roads are in the shity state they are?

Gabriella opens the door and enters the dark house that is her home now.

The Second Arrival

It’s dawn, East Prussia, we are in the forest, it’s the last day of October 1943 and it’s bloody cold.

What more? There isn’t more to tell.

You could tell them that we are standing in the mist that we are as silent and as pale as the land we stand in. That we sense movement but see nothing, that when we look around, it is just possible to see the faintest hint of trees in the hanging mist. That mist droplets are floating in the air against the grey background yet look at that background image for long enough and ignore the floating droplets and you will see the dead tree.

But we are all here together and they can see what we see, Father.

The rotten branch breaks and falls.

Tell us anyway.

The broken branch clatters through the tree’s brittle branches. The branch lands on the frozen, windblown lake.

And now.

Silence again.

But look! Down there in the ice by the bank, there is a black swan frozen into it and it is dead. We think only of forgetting the branch, its time has already been and gone.

Silence.

Listen! Hot breath. Who is this? Certainly not one of us!

We hear nothing and then.

Then the breath comes again.

He comes out through the trees all in black.

Note the stubble on the chin, the well-polished boots with silver spurs, toes wet, the glow of a cigarette as he draws air into his body and the SS runes woven in silver on his collar.

He is touching his groin, Father.

Yes, his gloved hand starts to unbutton his fly.

Just listen to that!

See the warmth flow from him.

He is pissing on the dead swan.

Hunting horn.

Shit, he says.

He finishes pissing and turns away, throwing his cigarette down onto the ice. We stand watching the cigarette still burning on the ice until his piss flows onto it.

Fizz.

The fizz of champagne, the tinkle of medals, the gentle jingling of a metal harness, the clink of champagne glasses, the step of a horse on cobblestones, the sliding of a sword into a scabbard, the laughter of men, the snorting of horses, eyes rolling, the cry of a man urging his horse on.

Uniformed men, black and grey.

That man nods. And the hunting horn is blown again.

We are inside the firs; it is dark except for the snowy tracks nearby. We see a few shafts of misty light between the trees. The hunters ride through the shafts in groups and then we are alone.

Excited dogs strain, pulling their handlers. Listen to them panting with excitement and their lust for blood. Look! One excited dog attacks the ear of another.

Silence.

The sun burns away at the morning mist.

Horse’s hooves clip the frozen earth and a whip lashes against a horse’s flank.

Silence.

Look, the SS officer on his horse breaks through the mist and out into the sunshine and then back into the mist. He is alone, he and his horse are breathing heavily.

Another rider is slumped over his horse. The horse stands still; both are exhausted, heavy steam rises from the body of both horse and rider.

Silence.

What is this? Men and boys on foot approach us banging old pots and blowing whistles; they walk in a wide line through the trees.

A rider in front of them jumps expertly off his horse to reach for his shotgun. He fires both barrels. Note the warm smoke as it rises against the black of the forest.

Silence.

The handlers have unleashed the dogs they race away as a pack into the thick undergrowth.

Occasional shots echo in the distance.

Silence.

I see twin-barrel muzzles flash.

The SS officer sees something moving between the trees down a slope. He urges the exhausted horse to turn and go down. He is galloping now through the trees. He breaks out into bright light. The boar clatters through brittle reeds and out onto the frozen lake. He follows on horseback.

Hooves clatter and slide on the ice.

The boar runs further out onto the lake, he follows. The hind hooves of the horse start to go through the ice.

A dead wild boar is dropped by two peasants.

Silence.

As the horse falls through the ice, he is thrown sideways, the horse panics.

Another boar lands heavily, its bloody snout rolling slowly over to face us.

Silence.

As he falls, he hits an old, weathered, wooden post sticking up through the ice. The post goes through his side.

Champagne corks are popping.

A group of SS officers stand by a row of eight dead and bloodied boars; drinking champagne and posing for photographs. They are dirty, sweaty and exhilarated. They laugh and joke. Others arrive, walking their exhausted and filthy horses. The eight dead lie on their stomachs; little bits of fir branch have been placed in their mouths to keep them open.

The horse screams as it thrashes and sinks under the black water that soon settles, already beginning to freeze again.

He lies impaled upon the post above the freezing water. He is very black against the white of the landscape.

His breathing ragged and he shivers. He opens his eyes and is unable to move. He looks across the colourless land, with banks of mist out on the lake. All is quiet and still. In the far distance beyond the lake, the white smoke from a train passes slowly across the horizon.

He blinks. Look at his hand tremble! He is freezing. He still looks out across our frozen land. He is sobbing slightly between shivers. As we watch, out of the mist come three grey figures.

He inhales sharply.

The figures approach; they are old men wrapped in multiple layers of clothes and rags. Each bent over with their burden, branches and sticks, nothing to fear they are just simple peasants out collecting kindling and firewood.

He exhales.

Even in the dark of night, it is possible to see that the piece of wood is still sticking out of his stomach. His legs are wrapped in a grey blanket and he lies upon a stretcher, both eyes wide open.

And where is he?

Oh! In an ambulance, really nothing more than an old lorry with a red cross painted on a white square on its four doors. The lorry is parked outside a railway station. Lights are on inside the station buildings.

A stray dog is scavenging beside the track digging at the hard earth. He seems to give up and looks around. Clang. My God that was loud! Points changed suddenly. The dog runs away.

An electric bell rings. The clapper hits rapidly against the ringer. It does this in three bursts of two seconds.

A very bright red light is blinking on and off down the track.

The floodlights are turned on. He is sweating with fever. In the extreme cold, steam rises from him.

An ice-encrusted passenger train arrives; none of its lights has been turned on.

A door opens, heat pours out into the night. Five thick, stocky figures in uniform run out towards the ambulance. They open the back doors. Their movements are slow and clumsy because of the cold and multiple clothing. We see them take him out on his stretcher. Four of the figures carry him; the fifth his large travelling bag.

A train door is opened. He is roughly taken aboard the train. Inside, nurses and orderlies direct the four where to put the stretcher. The other puts the bag onto the train. The door is closed. No light escapes the blacked-out train. The five figures run back to the warmth of their hut. The floodlights are extinguished. The dark train moves away and the flashing red light goes out.

He is lying on the bottom bunk. He stares up at the bunk above. He blinks in the dark.

The door to his carriage is opened, light floods in. Two porters and a nurse check the patients. They wrap one of the patients in his blanket and carry him roughly out. A light is shone in his face; he closes his eyes. She moves to the next patient. The door closes and all is dark again.

Pale dawn light creeps in around the door.

Another train whistles in the far distance.

The train enters a tunnel and the light is gone.

He lays still on his stretcher; his face is covered with wet blood. He stares at the ceiling, unseeing, while another drop of blood splashes onto his forehead. The blood comes from the man lying on the bunk above. His arm is hanging down and warm blood is slowly dripping off his fingers.

His grey socks sticking out of the grey blanket rub against each other as the train sways.

So this is Berlin, our capital that neither of us has ever seen. How big it is!

He is lying in the back of another ambulance. It is night and very dark. A pale blue light comes from the cab. The driver has the head of a jackal and is in a serious discussion about something with the other ambulanceman. The roads are uneven.

Charité Hospital.

He is wheeled down a pale corridor towards an operating theatre. He sees through a round window, two figures stand in a darkened theatre. It is the jackal head and the ambulanceman both smoking.

Gabriella helps to remove the wooden post from his stomach.

Out in the street and look! Isn’t that the same stray dog that we saw outside the railway station in Klonau, East Prussia? It is running across the traffic of Invalidenestraße and into the cemetery next to the hospital. What is it doing here?

The Departures Begin

A week has gone by, where have you been? We have been particularly busy, things have been sorted and settled and soon, things will begin to get out of hand. It will be time to meet Gabriella again, indeed, to get to know her. A word of warning: Do not expect this to become a cosy relationship.

And what to say of the war? It was fought in Berlin over the radio. Quite often was heard the voices of government, not a Berlin accent between them. Giving this comforting message or that new directive. A fund was created to send winter clothing to our troops on the eastern front, what could be more decent, after all, it’s the least we can do. It was a resounding success and shows that we can all do our bit. Later, a fund will be set up to help those of us who have lost our homes and belongings to the English bombers. Again, this will stir the hearts of the whole nation and we will be sheltered and fed. But for now, it is the children of Berlin who are being sheltered as every child under 16 has been ordered out of Berlin despite the ineffective efforts of the British flyers to kill us from the air. They say that during their raid on September 3rd, they killed 27 cows and lost 83 flyers. Maybe they will soon order the evacuation of all cows from Berlin. Our lives are not really that disrupted except we are losing sleep. No, the biggest problem in this town is the bloody cold.

Sacrifices are called for and sacrifices are to be made, women it seems are to sacrifice more than men; true, a lot of men have donated their lives to fuel this war and you can be sure they won’t be getting another one, easy come easy go. But the mother gives up her boys and then her winter clothes and her spare pair of boots and then this and then that until she will have nothing left to give and still, they will ask for more; you can be sure of that as well. Too late to ask for your vote back, little mother, that cross given with a flourish that cold January in 1933. Now, look where your choice has led you; down the cemetery’s path twice already, one cross for two! And choice is the word running through Gabriella’s mind this damp, cold, grey morning as she sits on a hard, wooden seat in an over-crowded bus heading towards Invalidenstraße. Choice and lack of choice, one has led to the other and Gabriella has no choice but to sit on this bus just as she has no choice but to attend the meeting that the letter in her coat pocket is demanding that she attend. Starting at 10:00, the Frau Doctor Gabriella von Klonau having been requested and required to attend this meeting at the Charité Hospital has arrived as directed this Tuesday, November 2 1943. An official letter on official paper, written by an official who uses official words, so! Only the official reason is missing then. But then none of us is dumb enough to need that, are we and anyway when was the last time anything was explained to us?

Gabriella didn’t place any crosses on any voting papers but crosses and her have an affinity, her crosses usually were inscribed unbekannt. Unknown and, let’s face it, we are all unknown to each other these days and we bury our secrets and hopes deeper than our dead; hoping to return in happier times and dig them up again. This isn’t a good time to be caught with hopes or secrets as any possession of hope can only mean treason because we have no hope since the men in brown and black striped those from us as surely as they took our bicycles. Hope was replaced with duty, just as bicycles were replaced with walking. Our shoes have yet to be assigned a replacement. Our secrets are usually small and petty, a sister in the country who will bring two eggs a month to supplement the ever-frugal rationing, or the neighbour who can resole shoes using rubber obtained illegally from a brother in the navy…how petty we have become, looking over each other’s shoulders convinced that others are getting more than us yet terrified that our own stash will be discovered and shared. So we become more isolated and furtive until friends become acquaintances and family becomes an irritating obligation unless they keep chickens. And the rest are strangers from every imaginable region and country, here one minute, gone the next, all change again! Until all the chairs are gone and we stand amongst strangers, no longer dancing as the tune has become an all too familiar march for the dead.

The Charité is a huge teaching hospital in the central district of the city called Mitte. Since the war has taken so many turns for the better, the hospital has branched out as it were and now has many other satellite locations around the city, mostly in school buildings that are no longer needed since the children of Berlin have been evacuated to the countryside. Now, just like the BDM’s soup kitchens, the Charitè has opened up all over the city to cater to an ever-increasing number of customers… the one true wartime success story of this coming winter and one to watch as customers flock to it as if it were a branch of Wertheim during the spring sales. Gabriella gets off the bus in the Invalidenstraße and walks through the square in front of the huge, ornate, four-storey, red brick reception building. The trees and the square have been draped with a huge camouflaged net and every window seems to have been boarded up or painted black. Gloom shades Gabriella like a shadow, gloom under the netting, and gloom in the hallway where a gloomy woman sits at a desk lit with a mean, little yellow lamp. Gloom in the air as she waits on a shiny wooden bench and the gloom in her heart chills her in this place. Nurses walk past her silent and tired on their way to this duty or that, shabby uniforms no longer crisp and clean and grey are supplemented with old sweaters of every colour and shape. Like every expanding business, it needs to recruit staff and newest recruit von Klonau sits and waits and listens. Whispers in the corridors, no one shouts in here except the dying, they don’t care for protocol. Nurses whisper, doctors whisper, the porters, priests, technicians and the dead whisper and Gabriella hears them all.

A tall surgeon in a shabby white coat and dying of liver cancer comes to welcome Gabriella in person. Stooped with big hands and big features his intelligence and humanity radiate from him despite his tiredness. He smiles at the small woman sitting as still as possible on the dark, wooden bench. His reward for a friendly welcome is a beaming smile as Gabriella stands up and shakes his hand and the room is transformed as Gabriella laughs charming the old professor. It is just as well that they get along, as they will be working together for the remaining weeks of his life. He takes her into the administrator’s office where three men in dark suits sit at a long table. They stop talking as Gabriella and the professor walk in. The professor offers Gabriella a chair and joins his three colleagues on the other side of the table. Gabriella scans their faces and loses interest, how disappointing, she thinks. The interview does not go well for the three administrators who soon feel distinctly uncomfortable and this strange woman of the east does nothing to make the meeting anything other than unpleasant. So it can be with her.

My aunt and uncle have always lived here, I remember as a little girl they would arrive with gifts and stories from the big city.

I was last here when I was 21.

Do you think so?

It stinks more than I remember.

No, thank you.

I haven’t worked since leaving Leipzig in 33.

It isn’t my choice to work again. I am here because one of you sent me a letter ordering me to be here. And here I am.

Ten years is indeed a long time and I don’t know how the job has changed, I can imagine it will take me quite some time to catch up and relearn all I have forgotten.

That is none of your damned business.

Don’t be impudent?

And what do you think each evening as you put your key into the lock, as you push the door open? What do you say and what will you say when you draw your last gasping breath, perhaps the same meaningless words you utter every evening.

Indeed, you are right and it is equally none of your business. I don’t ask to be here, I do not come cap in hand asking for work and I do not have to explain myself to any of you in this room. You summoned me here.

With my aunt and uncle, the house is huge.

Yes.

No.

How often can I go home?

I am the only one who can look after the estate and keep it as productive as it is.

Becoming a surgeon was the idea of a stubborn and over-indulged girl who no longer exists.

Waste? I was never a talented surgeon; I was more of a plumber.

As for my duty to the state, almost the entire produce of my family’s estate goes to the war effort, we have made tremendous sacrifices, I owe the state nothing!

Thank you. Oh! A rare laugh, although laced with a fine, rich vein of irony. It so rarely pays to compliment this one.

The stillness of the forest. Be the first to walk down a track in more than a year even though the track was first walked a thousand years before. The sound of fine rain falling into the trees, or the gentle sound of mist in the trees when a soft, swirling breeze blows, and being alone, truly alone.

I see faces here that are familiar, what is Janus doing here? Or coming out of the U-Bahn I see Manuela, shouldn’t she be attending her duties rather than strolling around Berlin in a fur coat that she can’t afford? And then I see that they are strangers and I wonder again what I am doing here.

Really? We have a chapel built onto the main house. A priest used to live with us in better times.

Then I am sure that we will have plenty to talk about even though I don’t know that area so well. Has he been here long?

Fear the bombers, no.

Endlessness. I once read an article about the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, more than 12 kilometres deep. I often thought about being on a small rowing boat above the trench, nothing below except endless dark. I tremble still at the thought of leaving the boat and slip into those deep waters. Is that our fate bobbing in and out of the surface between life and death? I imagine diving down, forcing myself deeper using precious moments and holding my breath and rising again and up, back to the surface still fearing the deep as yet again it calls me down.

I adore it, is it possible to get tickets, or has everything been turned over to the black market?

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