Steffi’s mother turned to Clara and clasped her hands in her own. ‘Thank you. You really are the Angel of Life.’
Before anyone could say anything else, Paul rushed into the room. His cheeks flushed from running. He was breathing hard.
‘Hey!’ said Max in alarm but then stopped seeing Paul’s concerned expression. ‘What is it?’
‘German patrol. It’s in the next street,’ said Paul, between breaths. ‘We need to go.’
Max looked over at his wife and child and then at Clara. ‘We can’t go, can we?’
‘She can’t be moved yet,’ said Clara. ‘It wasn’t an easy birth, and she needed stitches.’
‘You should go. While you can. Quickly.’
‘There’s no time,’ said Paul, his face pale with worry.
Clara exchanged a look with Marie, who shook her head. ‘We can’t leave her, and we can’t take her.’
‘But the patrol,’ said Paul. The sound of boots on the road could be heard getting closer. ‘They’re checking buildings.’
Marie looked at Clara with surprising calm. ‘Stay here. Switch the lights off. Everyone stay silent.’
Before anyone had a chance to ask Marie what she meant, she was smoothing down her hair, pinching colour into her cheeks. She darted out of the apartment. Max switched the lights off and went to stand at the window. Clara joined him, both pressed against the wall with a narrow sight of the street below.
‘Guten Abend!’ Marie called sweetly to the soldiers. ‘Such a lovely evening for a walk.’
Clara glanced at Max, who she was sure looked as confused and worried as she felt. Clara held her breath as the patrol stopped, looking with interest at Marie who was standing at the edge of the path. One of them, barely older than a boy, grinned widely.
‘What’s a pretty Fräulein doing all alone?’ he called back to her.
Marie laughed, a sound so light and flirtatious it was almost unrecognisable. ‘Oh, I’m waiting for my gentleman friend. But he’s terribly late. Perhaps you handsome soldiers know of somewhere more exciting than this boring street?’
Clara looked on in a mix of horror and awe as Marie began to move slowly along the path, chatting and giggling with the patrol, drawing them further from the entrance to the building.
They were almost out of sight, when a military car pulled up alongside the path and an officer jumped out, reprimanding the patrol for talking and not getting on with what they were supposed to be. The patrol quickly hurried up the steps to the next building while the officer told Marie to stop distracting his men. She set off down the street in the opposite direction.
‘Shall I follow her?’ asked Paul. ‘Make sure she gets home all right?’
Max appeared to consider it for a moment before nodding his consent. ‘After that, go home yourself,’ he instructed the young man, who was already halfway out of the door.
Clara stayed long enough to ensure both mother and baby were stable, before saying her goodbyes, assuring everyone she would be fine on her own, and slipping out of the apartment.
It was nearly midnight, and Friedrich was probably already home. He would have seen the medical book on the table and known what she was doing. She knew it wouldn’t minimise his worry. These days he liked to accompany her and wait a few streets away, so she could get home safely. Travelling around the city as Captain Bergmann’s wife and in his company was far safer and easier.
Chapter 27
Clara checked her watch as she stepped out of Ursula’s house into the chilly evening air. It was several days on from the delivery of Max’s daughter and Friedrich had said he’d be working late again due to another logistics meeting that could run past midnight. The empty apartment would feel less lonely if she had something purposeful to do.
As she walked towards the tram stop, she thought of Max who she had met with just the night before to make sure his wife and daughter were doing well. He had taken her to a different apartment, because apparently their location had been compromised. In other words, the authorities knew where Max and his family lived.
That information could only have come from within the Jewish community, and it made Clara both sad and frightened. Max’s exhausted face haunted her. A man forced to uproot his newborn child and recovering wife, together with their other child, because someone had sold them out. She was beginning to feel increasingly claustrophobic in the city. That, in turn, made helping the Jewish women and babies all the riskier, but she knew she couldn’t abandon them.
The betrayal cut deeper than any external threat. It was sickening to think someone in the Jewish community was feeding information to Fuchs. Someone was betraying their own people for safety, or food, or simply out of fear. People like Max’s family were paying the price with their lives while the informant slept safely in their bed. The thought made her stomach turn and her resolve harden. She had to find out who was doing this.
She knew where to find Fuchs – he’d be leaving the station now after his shift. If she was going to follow him, to see who he was meeting with, tonight would be perfect. Friedrich wouldn’t be home to worry, and she had her legitimate travel pass if anyone questioned her presence on the streets.
Clara made her decision. She took the tram towards her apartment, getting off a couple of stops earlier and heading towards the police station. Her heart hammered as she walked, but her resolve was firm.
The streets of Berlin felt different at night now, darker, more watchful. Clara pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders as she hurried along the cobblestones, her footsteps echoing off the silent buildings that looked like sentinels on night duty.
