‘I’ll make some enquiries and see if I can find anything out,’ he’d told her when he left for work the following morning, but so far, he had no news. Clara knew it wasn’t just a case of Friedrich turning up at the Bendlerblock and asking outright about their neighbours. He had to be more discreet than that.
It was when he returned home from work on Wednesday evening, that Clara could immediately tell there was something wrong.
‘I’ve had some news about the Levins,’ he said, meeting her gaze. He never shielded her from the truth, he was always honest with her, and she knew it was not good news.
‘Tell me,’ she whispered.
‘I don’t know much, but I do know Frau Levin and the baby have been separated from Herr Levin. They’ve been sent to a facility north of the city. Neuruppin.’
Clara gasped and held onto the door frame to steady herself, the name standing out in her mind from the lists she’d seen in Herr Müller’s study. ‘What happens at Neuruppin?’
‘It’s a medical facility for mothers and babies.’
‘A maternity clinic?’
Friedrich closed his eyes momentarily, before opening them and speaking. ‘The details are classified but the rumours .?.?.’ he looked away ‘.?.?. the rumours are not good, Clara. The women and babies, they are never relocated.’
Clara’s stomach turned and she felt physically sick. ‘What happens to them?’
‘I don’t know.’
Did he know and just not want to tell her?
The sense of dread and fear was heavier than ever. Clara felt trapped by her helplessness. Getting the lists seemed such a small act against such enormous cruelty. She wanted to do more. She needed to do more.
That need was crystallised into desperate determination the morning of her appointment at the police station. Instead of Friedrich’s friend, Herr Arnold, it was Fuchs behind the desk.
He clearly enjoyed making her squirm, not with threats, but with the way his eyes lingered over her body when he checked her papers, slowly, methodically, despite knowing exactly who she was. The way he ran his tongue across his top lip, deliberate and obscene, and held her passport hostage a little longer than necessary before letting her pull it from his fingers. Even after she turned to leave, she could feel his gaze boring into her back, following her all the way to the door.
Her skin crawled.
Fuchs embodied everything she despised about the regime, the sadism disguised as duty, the petty power wielded over the powerless, the pleasure taken in other’s fears. Men like him didn’t just follow orders, they relished them.
The day passed quickly and went some way to distracting her from her dark thoughts. The joy of bringing a baby into the world that morning brought a mixture of relief as well as hope. As she wrapped the newborn in a towel to pass to the mother, she silently wished that the child would grow up in a world of peace. She hoped it would come soon but also made a silent promise to that child that she would do everything she could to make the world a better place for it.
That promise echoed in her mind as she made her way across the city to Ursula’s house. She thought of Fuchs’s leering face, of how he’d made her feel small and powerless. But she wasn’t powerless.
And not only that, but she would also keep getting those lists from Hans’s study, no matter how much guilt gnawed at her. She genuinely liked Ursula, even considered her a friend, and hated the deception. Every visit to that study felt like a betrayal of the woman who’d welcomed her, who trusted her. But what was one woman’s trust weighed against dozens of lives? Against babies like the one she’d delivered this morning. Like the Levins and their baby. The answer was clear, even if it made her feel wretched. She might not be able to save them but there were others still to come who she could save.
That Thursday, Ursula greeted Clara with her usual enthusiasm and after examining her patient, Clara was very confident mother and unborn baby were in good health.
‘You’re my model patient,’ she said. ‘But I’d still like you to rest. Just because we’ve been out once, it doesn’t mean everything is all right.’
‘Are you always this bossy?’ asked Ursula.
‘When it comes to my patients, yes.’ Clara packed her stethoscope into her bag. She’d dragged the appointment out as long as she could, waiting for Her Müller to come back so she could get access to his briefcase but today he was late.
‘Would you like a coffee before you leave?’ asked Ursula.
Clara couldn’t have asked for a better excuse. ‘That would be lovely, but I’ll do it. Midwife’s orders, you’re to stay resting there.’
‘Oh, I’m fine.’
‘No. I insist,’ said Clara. ‘Besides I don’t want Herr Müller to come home and find you waiting on me. I don’t think he’d be very pleased.’
Ursula smiled. ‘If you put it like that. Anyway, he’s a big softy really.’
Clara had just filled the kettle when she heard Herr Müller’s keys in the front door, his voice calling out an apology for his lateness.
