“Impressive presentation—who’d have thought we were losing the war.”
“What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be sorting yourself out?” Kurt said, still pulling at the drapes.
Hans tugged at a shirt collar that appeared a size too small. “That Pervitin was messing with my head. I’m off it now.”
Kurt dropped the drapes and cast a wary eye over his one-time best friend, noticing sweat stains around Hans’s neck—his grooming was not what it once had been. “Never took that stuff myself; never needed to.” He could see that Hans was uneasy, and it gave him some satisfaction to see him so. “You know, Phipps, I thought I’d left Gabi in good hands. If I’d known that you were going to desert her, I wouldn’t have gone to Africa.”
“Trust me, if I’d have known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have gone. It was the biggest mistake of my life.”
Kurt spotted the maverick mouse. He was in a corner and surrendered without a fight. He popped Max into his pocket and smirked at Hans, who stood with his mouth agape.
“Are you all right? I mean, you haven’t sustained a head injury?” Hans asked.
“Nope. That’s Max, our mascot.”
Hans shook his head. “You haven’t changed, Kurt. You’re still nuts.”
The assembly sprawled into a large reception room where an impressive assortment of cakes, pastries and torts were on offer. It was a rarity during these later war years when rationed ingredients like sugar and cooking chocolate were available only to those in high office. The crowd responded accordingly, stampeding towards the display like a herd of ravenous cattle. Gabi’s sweet tooth sent her scrambling along the table in search of her beloved crumb cake.
She was tempted by a bundt blanketed in a deep layer of ice-sugar and a butter-yellow cheesecake that almost started a riot. At the far end of the table stood the pitiful remains of what had once been a generously sized crumb cake; alas, only a tiny sliver remained. Gabi pinched it between her fingers and placed the morsel on her tongue, savouring the clump as it crumbled and dissolved.
“I’ve saved you a piece.”
Her heart stopped. She turned to the man who had once been her world. Hans looked tired and war-weary; the western front had taken its toll, but his expression was sincere and he beamed expectantly. She glanced down at the slice of cake, giving her time to unravel her emotions. How could he be so nonchalant? Didn’t he realize how hard it had been for her? She had cried herself to sleep for months, and her appetite had only recently returned. She peered into his eyes and his soul spoke to her. He wanted something from her, something that he had already broken, leaving her alone and vulnerable. She looked away, unwilling to make the same mistake again.
Kurt tugged at his earlobe, watching the pair from across the room. He approached the estranged lovers.
Hans shoved the cake plate into Kurt’s chest, halting his advance. “This is between Gabi and me.”
The two men sized each other up like virile stags, antlers locked, ready to spar. Gabi glanced at Kurt. She hesitated, and Kurt could see the panic in her eyes before she fled out of the building. Hans immediately broke the face-off with Kurt and sprinted after her.
“Gabi, wait. Please wait.”
Gabi stopped. She heard his steps behind her and felt his hands on her arms. She shuddered. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’m sorry.” He paused and Gabi could hear each breath he took as though it was his last.
“I’ve thought about you every minute of every day for the past five months, four days, five hours and…” he checked his watch, “and twenty-four minutes since I saw you last. You are my love… my life. You give me hope, and I cannot live without hope.”
A tear broke free and trickled down Gabi’s cheek. She turned and gazed into pleading eyes, remembering her aunt’s words. ‘You must live in hope to love again for without love, life loses all hope’.
Cake plate in hand, Kurt followed them outside. He watched as they kissed and whispered words of love and devotion to each other and his jaw clenched.
Hans and Gabi drove out of the car park together, leaving Kurt standing on his own, still holding the plate and clenching his teeth. When he could no longer see their automobile, he broke off a piece of cake. “Love… who needs it?” he said and he placed the crumb into his pocket for Max.
October 1943
On 4 October 1943 Reichsmarschall Herman Göring is said to have issued the following instructions:
There are no meteorological conditions which would prevent fighters from taking off and engaging in combat. Every fighter pilot taking off in a machine not showing any sign of combat, or without having recorded a victory will be prosecuted by a court-martial. In the case of where a pilot uses up his ammunition, or if his weapons are unusable, he should ram the enemy bomber.
“As far as I’m concerned, I categorically refuse to allow myself to be held to such advice; I know what I have to do.”
The newspaper headline read “FIGHTER ACE FALLS”.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hans Philipp, Wing Commander JG 1, was dead. He was shot down near Neuenhaus on the Dutch border on Friday, 8th October, and although he had managed to bail, his parachute had failed to open. Some said it was schicksal.
Gabi found out that evening after supper, before her weekly telephone call to Hans. She was eager to discuss plans for their upcoming wedding, as they had done the past few weeks, and was especially excited to tell him of her latest thought: to have the ceremony beneath the old oak.
Hans had proposed almost immediately after their reunion, and Gabi had eagerly accepted before Hans had even spoken the words. They laughed until they cried, so great was their joy.
But on the evening of the eighth, Gabi’s joy died.
It was Thursday, the fourteenth day of October and Hans was awarded his final honour; a military funeral with all the solemnity and ceremony befitting a war hero. The funeral commenced at the Meissen Town Hall where his coffin, draped in a Nazi shroud, stood for viewing. This was the place where Gabi had taken her entrance exam into the flight academy, with the same cracked walls and peeling paint. It had been another world back then—a time of innocence and anticipation for a better way of life. On the surface, nothing had changed, yet everything had.
The funeral procession made its sombre journey down cobbled streets, Hans’s coffin placed on a canon trailer drawn by a half-track military vehicle, his family, Gabi and her father walking behind, a wretched train of misery. Even Eva was there, standing amongst the mourners who lined the street. What a performance she gave, overwhelmed with grief and sobbing theatrically as the procession passed her by. But Gabi didn’t question why Eva’s grief was so intense; perhaps she, too, had never stopped loving him.
Kurt waited at the cemetery as part of the guard of honour, watching Gabi from a distance. She had already been through so much and now she was to bury her beloved Hans. Kurt wondered why she did not weep like the other women but held herself stoic and calm. Perhaps it was because Gabi had no black veil to hide behind as the other women did. He shook his head at the futility of it all.
It was a chillingly cold day, light sleet drifting down like frozen tears. A few final words of respect, the symbolic laying of the wreath, one last salute and it was over. A middle-aged woman standing across from the grave twisted a handkerchief around her finger, again and again, lost in grief that spanned a lifetime. Her face was a death mask, her mouth a mere line across a pale, expressionless facade cloaked in sheer black silk. Alma, Hans’s mother, could cry no more.