“Go,” Kurt urged, quietly. “We may not have long.”
Gudrun reminded herself, firmly, that she came from a brave family and pushed the curtain aside, then froze in horror at the sight that greeted her eyes. Her boyfriend was lying on his side, hooked up to a machine that bleeped worryingly every five seconds. The lower half of his body was completely gone; she had only taken basic medicine at school – it was another skill girls were required to learn – but she honestly wasn’t sure how he’d survived. His face was bruised and broken; indeed, for a long moment, she was honestly convinced that they’d made a dreadful mistake and opened the wrong set of curtains. But he had the scar on his chest she recalled from one of their love-making sessions and his SS tattoo, on the underside of his right arm, matched the one she’d memorised.
“They tattoo our ID number and blood group so we can be treated in a hurry,” Konrad had told her, once. She felt sick as she recalled the handsome young man she’d courted, the man who’d gone to war. “And it’s a badge of honour…”
“Jesus,” Kurt said, peering past her. “How the hell is he going to give mama grandchildren?”
“Shut up,” Gudrun hissed. She couldn’t help peeking at where Konrad’s genitals should have been, but they were gone. Whatever had happened to him, it had taken everything below his hips. She honestly had no idea how he was still alive. “Do you think we can wake him?”
Kurt grabbed her arm. “Don’t even think about it!”
Gudrun winced in pain, but she had to admit he was right. She didn’t have the slightest idea how to wake Konrad, if it were possible. Removing him from the machine might kill him outright. It would almost certainly set off alarms, bringing real doctors and nurses running to the bed. They’d be smoked out, caught and arrested. And after that… Gudrun wasn’t sure, but sending them back to their father would be far too lenient for the SS. They’d probably be exiled to Germany East. If half of the rumours were true, no one ever came back alive.
I should have married him, she thought, looking down at Konrad. It was far from illegal to get pregnant out of wedlock – the state would happily pay expectant mothers a small stipend for carrying another young German to term – but her mother would have been furious if Gudrun had allowed herself to get pregnant. If I had…
She swallowed, hard. Konrad wouldn’t be making love to her anytime soon, let alone returning to the war. Doctors could perform miracles these days, but she doubted they could rebuild his legs, let alone his genitals. She’d heard stories about how sperm could be mined from a male body and then inserted into a female body, impregnating the woman, yet… she shuddered at the thought. It sounded terrifyingly unnatural. Konrad would probably die in a hospital bed, if he couldn’t live without life support, or spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair like Grandpa Frank, drinking heavily and nursing his sorrows. She winced at the thought – she didn’t like Grandpa Frank, even if he was her maternal grandfather – and then stepped away from the bed. Part of her wanted to stay with him, but she knew what would happen if she tried. The SS would take her away and…
They wanted to cover this up, she thought. Konrad was from an SS family – his father had been a trooper before retiring – and yet they’d been lied to by the state. They wanted to conceal his wounds…
It didn’t make sense, she told herself. Konrad wasn’t anyone important. His family didn’t have ties to the Reichstag. But, instead of reporting his wounds to his family, the SS had tried to hide them. She tossed it over and over in her head, remembering what her father had said about his work as a policeman. If someone was trying to hide something, he’d said, it meant they had something to hide that justified the effort of hiding it. And yet, Konrad wasn’t anyone important. There was no reason to hide his wounds.
Take Konrad out of the equation, she told herself. There was nothing important about Konrad, therefore no one would waste the effort solely for him. And you get…
She looked up. There had been more than two dozen names on the list – and, in the ward, there were two dozen beds, each one hidden behind a set of curtains. If each of them held a wounded soldier, and it looked as though they did, what did it mean? The news kept claiming that German troops, bringing fraternal aid to their brothers in South Africa, were winning the war. But if someone was concealing the sheer number of wounded troops… what did that say about the progress of the war? And how many troops had wound up dead in South Africa?
They’re lying, she thought. She had always been dimly aware that the news services were run by the government, that nothing was ever broadcast without government approval, but she’d never fully understood what that meant. They’re lying about the war.
She jumped as she heard someone clearing her throat. “What are you two doing in here?”
Gudrun turned. A young nurse – a senior nurse, judging from the gaudy rank badges on her uniform – was standing behind them, hands on hips. She looked as stern as their mother when she’d caught them in the biscuit box, back when they’d been children. Gudrun couldn’t help thinking that she would have been pretty if she’d let her hair down and, perhaps, worn something a little more fitting. The uniform was just plain ugly.
“I convinced Nurse Gudrun to let me see my friend Konrad, after my own examination,” Kurt lied, smoothly. It wasn’t as if Gudrun was an uncommon name. There had been three other girls with the same name in junior school. “We served together in South Africa, don’t you know? He saved my life twice.”
He leaned forward. “If you’re charged with his care, perhaps you can tell me how he is? I’d be most grateful…”
The nurse frowned. “You shouldn’t have brought him in here without permission,” she said, addressing Gudrun. “Visitors have to be cleared through security…”
“It’s my fault, beautiful,” Kurt said. He cocked his head. “Can I take you for a drink later?”
“Perhaps,” the nurse said. She looked downcast for a long moment. “Your friend is unlikely to survive without the life support machine, sir. The brain damage was quite severe and the medical care he received in the theatre was quite poor. We dug quite a few pieces of shrapnel out of his flesh, but by then it was really too late. His body is still alive, if barely; his brain is dead.”
Gudrun swallowed the question she wanted to ask. She didn’t dare draw the nurse’s attention back to her, even as Kurt flirted and the nurse – insanely – seemed inclined to respond. Perhaps, being a nurse, she didn’t have many chances for romance… or, more likely, she thought a soldier would understand long hours and short tempers. Her father had once told her that policemen preferred to marry nurses…
“You escort him to the doors, then report to the security office,” the nurse said, finally. “I have work to do here.”
“Of course,” Gudrun said. She had no intention of doing anything but walking out the doors with Kurt, removing the uniform as soon as possible and never returning. “I’m sorry…”
“Go,” the nurse ordered.
“That was a close one,” Kurt muttered, once they were past the guards. “But at least I got her number.”
Gudrun gave him a disbelieving look. “You do realise you can’t possibly call her?”