Berlin Hungers by Justine Saracen

Author:Justine Saracen [Saracen, Justine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635551174
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2018-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

After the Christmas kiss, Gillian was crippled by uncertainty, both by the recklessness of what she’d done and by the revelation that Erika’s husband was one of the murderers who had bombed London on that fatal day.

The argument simmered, barely articulated, in her subconscious. Erika was not a murderer, but she had married a murderer, for Dietrich Brandt had been in the squadron of the first blitz on London. And six years after the fact, Gillian could still not shake the memory of coming upon the glowing ashes of her home, her family, her entire past.

But even if she could reconcile her attraction to Erika with her repugnance for the Luftwaffe, what exactly was she expecting? Did Erika really want her? Even assuming the desire was mutual, how did that make her different from Jack or any other member of the occupying forces who exploited the defeated?

She buried herself in work, as if letting time pass would quiet the buzzing in her head. And for two months, she succeeded. Like nature itself, she spent the winter months in withdrawal while she became ever better at micromanaging the landings, and the calm reassuring voice she used in her guidance also soothed her personal turmoil. The tiny comets that glowed and faded on her radar screen, mere radar echoes, were all the airplanes she saw now, and she drew them in like kites on a string.

The busy days became weeks and the weeks months, and off duty, she occupied herself with her little German primer. Soon she could announce in German that she was a good child whose mother cooked soup and whose father defended the homeland.

As she labored over the strange pronunciations, she kept imagining Hanno as a six-year-old, struggling to read the words as she now struggled to memorize them. Would she one day speak well enough to have a conversation with him? She shook her head. Of course not. She would never see him again, though, curiously, his face had grown vivid in her memory.

March arrived, and she sensed a certain thaw in herself. Perhaps it was time to seek deeper connections among the other WAAFs, develop attachments among her own comrades. At the end of her workday, she turned over her screen to her relief and, bending into the cool spring breeze, hurried toward the sergeants’ mess for supper.

One of the mechanics approached her on the tarmac, and as he came close, she recognized the tall, dark-haired man as Heinrich.

“Hello,” she said, surprised but with genuine cheer. “It’s been a long time. How is everybody?” she asked, though by “everybody” she really meant only Erika.

“We’re fine. Thank you,” he said. “In fact, I was looking for someone to take this to you.” He slid his hand into his overalls pocket. “Erika asked me to deliver it and to wait for your answer.”

Puzzled, she glanced down at the paper he’d dropped into her hand. It was folded over in three panels and sealed in medieval fashion with a spot of candle wax.

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