Love Among the Ruins by Smith Harry Leslie

Author:Smith, Harry Leslie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Icon Books Ltd

CHAPTER 14

Spring

When spring came to Hamburg in 1946, it was a hard thaw. Bitter rain fell and made the city miserable, damp and dirty. Enthusiasm over winter’s passing was dampened by the widespread hunger of the people. Daily ration allotments were still horrendous and the calorie intake was insufficient to sustain the average person. Only black market entrepreneurs looked healthy and wealthy compared to their grey-faced compatriots. It was little wonder that few Germans paid attention to the war crime trials under way in Nuremberg. Naturally, many just wanted these prosecutions to be over and done with, rather like pulling a diseased tooth.

‘Sure, Göring, Ribbentrop and Hess are guilty. Send them all to the gallows,’ the people said. ‘But leave us ordinary Germans alone, we were just following orders.’

Gradually, the weather warmed and the days lengthened, but it did nothing to brighten my spirits. Instead, it depressed me because it reminded me too much of the year before, when hope and happiness lay at my feet, like garlands cast to victorious soldiers on parade. I was still raw from January when Friede broke off our affair. For weeks after Friede had fled the café, I looked for her like a dog run wild in the woods, but she wasn’t going to let me find her.

It didn’t matter where I searched because Friede had left no trail for me to follow. Most of her friends ignored me or reluctantly said that they had not spoken with her for some time. I went back to the restaurants we used to frequent and retraced my life with Friede. It was a futile hope that maybe I’d run into her. It never happened. I never caught sight of her. Even the waiters who remembered us shook their heads and politely said, ‘Sorry, the Fräulein has not been in for weeks. Maybe you would like to meet my cousin. She is just as pretty.’

I purposely walked down Langenhorner Chaussee, hoping to confront Friede about our break-up, but I never saw her. One time, I even got up the courage and banged on Maria Edelmann’s apartment door and asked the whereabouts of her daughter. Her mother said, ‘Friede is not here, she is at work.’

I wanted to say, ‘Tell her that I stopped by,’ but her mother interrupted me: ‘She doesn’t want to see you any more, so it is best to respect her wishes.’ I tried to leave some food rations for her, but Maria Edelmann declined and said, ‘Please don’t call again; it is embarrassing for everyone.’ So I gave up and went back to the air base. I let my wounds fester for weeks.

Finally, my mate Sid grew tired of my moaning and told me, ‘Cheer up, there’s plenty of fish in the sea, especially in Hamburg. Let’s get pissed.’ So we did. Through that winter, I drank and went to parties and got stinking drunk as many times as it snowed, trying to forget my misery of the heart.

As I was hungover most days, I attended to my duties at the airport telephone exchange reluctantly.

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