"Gideon!" the loadmaster yelled, smacking my shoulder. "Turn time's eight minutes."
"Make it six," I muttered, scribbling my signature on the manifest.
I glanced through the windshield one last time. The boy was still there, waving. I felt something loosen in my chest, something I thought the war had burned out of me.
I pushed the throttles forward. The C-47 roared, eager to climb back into the sky. Berlin fell away beneath me, gray and broken but still breathing.
The dragon coiled around my ribs, warm and heavy, whispering about fire and glory.
But I kept my eyes on the horizon.
We could haul food, coal, medicine—whatever the brass wanted.
But what we were really hauling wastime.
And I prayed to God that, for now, that would be enough.
Berlin — June 29, 1948, Tuesday
I wokebefore the light and lay still, listening for the creak that meant the ceiling was ready to fall. Thankfully, it didn't come; there were only the small, thin breaths of my brother and the restless scrape of wind against cardboard. I eased off the old mattress and tucked the blanket around Klaus's shoulders. He slept with one hand under his cheek the way he had as a baby, lashes black against hollowed skin. Six years old and already he knew the rule: if he woke and I wasn't there, he stayed put. No wandering. No talking. No opening the door for anyone.
The apartment had been grand once. I remembered it scrubbed and shining because my mother used to clean here, and sometimes, she'd taken me along.Inga, hold the bucket; Inga, wring the cloth; Inga, look how marble becomes a mirror when you polish it. Now half the walls were gone, and what was left leaned at odd angles, like a drunk who'd fallen asleep standing up. The marble was gray andwould make my mother roll over in her grave if she had one. I'd patched the gaps with planks, flattened crates, and sheets of cardboard scavenged from the bar. The wind still found a way in. Dust had worked itself into everything: our skin, our hair, the mattress springs.
But at least here, no one looked for us. The ruin was too ruined to bother with. It might collapse at any hour, and people preferred buildings that pretended they wouldn't.
I pulled on my Kittelschürze—a sort of apron with pockets made to be worn over dresses to keep them from getting too dirty. It was June; normally, there would be a hint of spring in the air, but there was only ash. The air coming off the canals was a bit chilly, and shards of open rooms could be damp and sharp at dawn, a chill that would settle in your bones if you let it. I pushed my feet into shoes that had belonged to someone richer and dead, kissed Klaus's hair, and slipped out.
Outside, the courtyard was filled with rubble. Brick heaps crouched like sleeping animals. The streets were already thick with people heading in the same direction I was, moving quietly, shoulders forward, the way you do when you've spent years flinching at sirens. No bombs fell now, but the city still walked like it expected them.
You had to line up early if you wanted your ration, earlier still since the Russians closed the roads and rails. They said the Americans and British were flying in food, sacks and sacks of it, and coal would come too. I believed it because I'd seen the planes grumble across the sky and slide down into Tempelhof like silver fish returning to adark pond. I believed it because I had to. Belief and bread were both thin, but one made the other easier to swallow.
The queue outside the grocer's looped around the corner, thin bodies wrapped in thin coats. A little cough here, a sniffle there, just enough to prove we were alive. I found my place behind Old Manne, who nodded without turning. He'd come back six years ago with one arm and a face that looked carved from a softer kind of stone. He kept the stump of his sleeve pinned neatly, the way my mother had kept ribbons straight.
"Morning, Mädchen—girl," he said. "You look tired."
"I worked late," I replied. "Some English pilots came in and stayed late."
"Good tippers," he nodded with a sideways smile. "Bad singers."
"Very bad," I agreed. Some were worse at other things, but Manne and I knew not to say this out loud. These men were ourliberators. But he was right, they did tip well.
Money didn't buy much now, but tips still meant cigarettes to trade or a bit of meat if you knew the right person or the right back door.
Mother Olga stood three people ahead, a sturdy woman with a baby tied to her chest and four more children orbiting like hungry moons. Her husband, like my father, was missing in Russia. Missing meant you kept a plate onthe shelf and a story at the ready. It meant the ache never scabbed over.
The line shifted, a quiet, stubborn inch. Further up, I saw Elke on tiptoe, craning to see how much stock the shopkeeper had. She spotted me and sent a quick wink. Of everyone I knew, Elke had the fewest ties left. Her grandmother and mother had both been killed when the Russians came through, and her father and several uncles were either dead or gone. She was pretty in a way the city still recognized: clean collar, sharp cheekbones, a laugh like a dare.Berliner Mädchen are the prettiest, my mom used to say. Elke worked with me at Die Ecke—The Corner—bar, and she had a plan for her life that involved leaving Berlin on the arm of anyone with a uniform—French, English, American—she didn't care as long as they took her away. I didn't judge her for it. She wanted a ticket out. I wanted a roof that didn't fall and a stomach that didn't ache. We all wanted something.
"Did you sleep?" Elke asked when I edged close enough.
"Some, I finished at midnight."
"Midnight," she huffed. "I was finished at ten, and then I wasn't." She rolled her eyes. "Americans. One of them promised me Chicago. Have you heard of Chicago?"
"It sounds far."
"That's the point," she said, grinning. Then her mouth softened. "How's Klaus?"
"Sleeping. He knows to stay put." Saying it out loud didn't make the fear smaller. The building could crack itself open while I was gone. A stranger could step through the cardboard and find a boy too obedient for his own good. I kept talking anyway. "He was three when the war ended. He learned quick."
