One Child in Berlin by A.W. Hartoin

Author:A.W. Hartoin [Hartoin, A.W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A.W. Hartoin
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Maier Bäckerei sat on a corner in a quiet section of the Berlin Mitte and it was busy, despite being rundown with peeling paint and a sign that looked like it had been bolted on the front long before the last war.

Stella flirted with the idea of bypassing the line since she wasn’t going to buy anything but thought better of it. She might have a riot on her hands. Hungry people were testy people and everyone was hungry in Berlin. So she took her place in the back of the line and queued for an hour. By the time she got to the front her stomach was rumbling and the smells coming from the hot ovens in the back weren’t helping matters.

The exhausted woman at the counter turned to her after the last woman in front of Stella had finished haranguing her about everything from the size of their loaves to the amount of wheat in them. She looked at Stella with hangdog eyes and said, “Can I help you?”

“I’m just looking for someone who lives above your shop,” said Stella.

“Do you want any bread?”

“No. I need to find—”

“Next!” the woman yelled.

Stella put her pocketbook on the counter with twenty Reichsmarks sticking out. “Please help me. I’d be very grateful.”

The woman eyed her and called out, “Hans!”

“Yeah?” a man yelled from the back.

“I’m taking my break!”

The line erupted in protests and Stella didn’t blame them. An hour was a long time to wait for Kriegsbrot, especially when theirs appeared to have peas in it, but the woman didn’t care. She whipped off her apron and threw it on a crumb-covered table. A man ran out with his hands up. “What’s happening? What’s happening?”

“I’m taking my break. That’s what.” The woman looked at Stella, jerked a thumb at a side door, marched over, and left.

The man stared at Stella with red spreading up from his neck to his face.

“Sorry.” She grabbed her pocketbook and ran after the woman through the door and up a flight of creaking, dusty stairs to a landing that had a tall window with dirty glass and an ashtray on the sill.

The woman stopped on the landing and took a red and white pastilles box out of her pocket. She popped the top open and, instead of lozenges for cough and congestion, it was filled with cigarette papers and a little sack of tobacco. She held the tin out to Stella.

“No, thank you,” Stella said.

“You don’t smoke?”

“No.”

“I can tell.” She put the tin on the windowsill and opened the sack.

Stella didn’t say so, but she could tell the woman did smoke and quite a lot. She had a fine network of lines around her mouth and eyes that she was too young to have. She couldn’t have been much older than Florence, but the lines and frizzy grey hairs at her temples belied her age.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m Sophie Weber and may I ask who you are?” asked Stella.

“Berta Meier. Very nice manners,” Berta looked over Stella’s coat and darned stockings.

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