Hilda smiled through her tears. Such fine words from such a young man. They shook hands. He left, looking lonely as he walked away from her. She had not asked where he was going or what he was looking for, and he turned out of sight before she could call him back. Then she let the tears and howls of anguish flow and her voice joined the choir of mourning mothers in the city that afternoon.
Chapter 25
Death, Devastation and Sorrow
Hilda looked at her wristwatch. It was approaching her normal lunch hour, but she was not hungry. The anger of Otto’s death changed her priorities, and it was as if grief satisfied her need for food.
She looked around her at the ruins of her home. She knew there was nothing worth saving; everything she found as she poked around the rubble was damaged. Roof slates covered much of the debris; she looked underneath a few but had neither energy nor incentive to lift up each one. Shards of crockery surfaced like an archaeological find; she spotted broken chair legs and a buckled bed. Things she had regarded as treasures now had no worth; even if she found her precious mantelpiece clock undamaged, nobody would be able to buy it. Money was worthless. Time would clear the ground and all traces of the Richter family in Hamburg would be gone.
‘Hey, lady, get off the site. You’ll fall and break your leg or something worse.’
Hilda turned round to see a man probably in his eighties. He had done his good deed for the day and turned to go. She felt like a naughty child caught in the act, but she accepted his advice. She picked her way carefully back to the street below.
She sank down on to one of the more stable remains of a wall and covered her face with her hands, unsure what to do next. There was no point in pinning a note to a door, even if there had been a convenient one. Otto was not coming back. She tried to find a place for that knowledge in her mind; she could not afford to go around in a daze like so many other grieving mothers. There would be a place for Otto in her heart always and in the forefront of her mind. Wherever she found herself, he would always be in her thoughts. He was born in the wrong place at the wrong time, and with the wrong nationality. If only Willy had been Scottish, then Otto, or whatever he would have been named, might well have been alive today.
Her next task was to seek out the family she still had: Karl and Renate. She stood up, gave herself a little shakedown and turned in the direction of their house, although her hopes of finding them there were now low.
She passed a man stoking a brazier, bright with dancing yellow flames. He noticed her passing as he gazed into the glow, mesmerized. He wanted no communication. With a stick he poked out a potato. He grabbed it and held it in his gloved hand, close to himself. His eyes followed Hilda. He was not going to share his meagre lunch.
She saw a swallow darting and undulating over the uneven ground, seeking eaves that were no longer there. Then she heard a low grating sound, and as she turned right towards Karl’s house, a huge machine bearing the insignia of the American army came into view. It pushed a spiny metal shovel ahead of it, clearing rubble and carnage alike from the road. The driver wore a facemask to keep out the rising dust and the stench of rotting carcasses. She watched it perform its duties and waited until it passed. She was grateful for an unobstructed route ahead; it seemed to be the start of Hamburg reclaiming its veins and attempting to come back to life. That was when she knew that Germany’s second largest city and main seaport would survive, given time; it would flourish as it had done before the madness of the war. It would take a while, but it would happen.
In days gone by, it would have taken her about fifteen minutes to reach Karl’s home. She had already been walking for twenty-five, and she was at least still three hundred yards away. She recalled the Pied Piper of Hamelin who played to drive the rats out of town; how Otto loved Willy telling him that story. If she had had her oboe with her, she might not have had any effect on the multitude of rats, but perhaps she would have been able to give the city a moment of musical magic to take away the sadness on everyone’s face.
Many of the buildings in this part of the city seemed less damaged. She even saw a couple of untouched homes, their uncared-for gardens bearing witness to their missing occupants. Such was the indiscriminate destruction of the bombs that had hurtled to the ground.
Then she saw Karl and Renate’s house. The windows had been blown in but the building seemed relatively lightly damaged. She approached, hoping she might catch a glimpse of either of them. Her heart beat confidently.
‘Renate,’ she called out three times.
A voice answered, but it was not Renate’s.
‘You are looking for Renate Richter?’
She glanced to her left to see a woman holding a young boy’s hand. Her blouse was dirty and her hair unkempt, but her son looked cleaner; his jersey was free of stains, and one sock draped down over a scuffed boot. She walked towards them, vaguely recognizing the woman as one of Karl and Renate’s neighbours.
Hilda returned her half-hearted smile.
‘Hilda Richter isn’t it?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I am the sister-in-law of the Richters.’
‘Yes, I know. Where have you been? Where have you come from?’
Hilda wondered if her truth might worry her and prevent her from divulging what she needed to know. She chose her words carefully.
‘I was visiting my parents in Scotland when the war broke out. I was away for the duration of the hostilities.’ It was not entirely a lie.
‘You remember me? I am Martha Roth.’
She nodded. ‘I remember your face but I had forgotten your name. Your son is very young of course. I don’t remember him.’
‘No, he’s only three. He will grow up in peace. I had him at the right time, although he will have no father. My husband was killed in Italy.’
They gazed at each other in silence for a moment. ‘I am sorry for you,’ Hilda said. ‘My condolences.’
‘That’s all we are saying to each other, condolences, condolences, condolences.’
She beckoned Hilda into her bomb-scarred home. Hilda opened her bag and gave the little boy a biscuit. His mother smiled and placed a kettle on her battered kitchen stove.
‘This part of the city got off lightly. I am pleased for you,’ Hilda said.
‘Yes, lightly perhaps. But not without pain, so much pain.’
The pain was everywhere; she had seen it in everything she had passed, but this was the first time someone had actually said the word.
The family dog lay curled up in a corner; then it lost its shyness, regained its inquisitiveness and ambled towards her. She stroked the affectionate hound gently. Martha told her the dog was called Muggi. Its eyes seemed to linger on her as if to say, ‘There is bad news coming and my duty is to stay with you to comfort you.’ She stroked it again, and it came even closer.
Martha Roth poured ersatz coffee into a mug.
‘I am sorry; there is no sugar or milk, of course.’
‘I am sure things will slowly get back together again. It will take time,’ Hilda said.
Martha joined her at the table. ‘You know about Gerhardt Eicke?’
Hilda wondered why that name had come up. ‘Yes, I know who you mean. He was my son’s Hitler Youth leader, and a Gestapo man, of course you will know.’
‘Yes, that’s true, but he was also the man who cleared Hamburg of its Jewish population.’
Martha looked at her. She was clearly not Jewish. Hilda wondered why this conversation was raised.
‘The early years of the war saw the Jewish community being rounded up and taken away in trucks. Now we know where they went, where they were killed in great numbers in gas chambers. It will live on our national conscience forever.’