XI Piangevole

June 25, 1948

Just when Germany was beginning to recover, disaster has struck. I was on a train to Magdeburg when Russian soldiers boarded, demanding exit visas. No one had them, of course, because they didn’t exist until that moment. The soldiers pushed us back into our seats and barked, “Pass geben! ” and “Nicht reden! ” and I didn’t dare ask what was going on in Russian, for fear of drawing attention. I just sat in helpless fury like the others.

After an hour of confusion, the train finally reversed direction, taking us back to the Hauptbahnhof. We found out that the whole city was blockaded. No traffic at all toward the west. I’m sure the same thought occurred to everyone. The west is where most of our food comes from. What will the British and Americans do? Their front-line soldiers have been sent home, while Berlin is still crawling with Russian troops.

Hoarding has begun again, and ration cards—and hunger.

August 14, 1948

Will it work? The British and Americans are trying to supply the city by airlift, but their planes are too small and too few to carry everything a city needs. They arrive haphazardly and are subject to weather. Yesterday in heavy fog, a C54 carrying coal crashed and burned at the end of the runway. The one landing right behind it blew out its tires trying to avoid the burning wreck. A third had to touch down on a small side runway and skidded in loops. The whole airfield was in chaos. It feels like war again.

September 20, 1948

Lucy is pregnant. It couldn’t happen at a worse time. Food is rationed again and the black market is back overnight. Lucy has stopped giving concerts, though I can see it breaks her heart. Her health is poor and it’s a strain for her to go by foot to all the halls and stages. When we go on the train to the east zone to get produce from the farmers, she can’t carry any weight. Routes toward the east aren’t blocked, but you have to travel farther and farther out from the city to find anything, and in the winter, it’s grueling for her.

November 8, 1948

Most of the available coal goes for industry and there’s little left for heating. People go out at night and cut down the trees in the parks for firewood. People are pulling up the grass and mixing it with their potato ration, just to have a little more in their stomachs. Schalk delivers whatever I ask for, but I hate the counter-favors. He sends me his other “clients” for special medical treatment, usually for syphilis. Some of them are very young, which sickens me. How do twelve-year-old children get syphilis?

December 19, 1948

The planes roar into Tempelhof in an endless stream, one every three minutes. They arrive so close together now you can’t separate the engine sounds. It’s all just one long drone, soft, then loud, then soft again. At first we couldn’t sleep, but we’ve gotten used to the great dark wasps that bring in food and coal. I’ve volunteered to help unload the flights. There’s no payment, but they feed us a hot meal afterward along with the airmen. The G. I. s are huge, sleek and well fed, the way victors always are. Some of them very handsome. A few have been arrogant, but most are cheerful, open, and friendly in a superficial way. They all chew gum, their jaws constantly moving up and down, like they never finish eating. Except for “Kommen Sie hier, Frä ulein, ” none of them speak German, so conversation is impossible.

May 11, 1949

The blockade is lifted. A great embarrassment for the Soviets, who had to back down. The supply planes are still arriving, though. I suppose because no one can be sure the whole thing won’t be reversed. As soon as fresh food was available, I used all our food coupons to buy milk, meat, and vegetables for Lucy, though it may be too late to help her or the baby.

May 15, 1949

Three years as a battlefield medic did not prepare me for this. I stood by, helpless, while Dr. Weidt attended. I argued for a caesarian section but Weidt said ether was “too scarce to waste on childbirth. ” So my poor Lucy suffered twenty hours of labor before the first baby was delivered. A girl. But the long labor caused hemorrhaging in the second infant.

Lucy was in agony, I could see, but she was so weak she just moaned. It was an hour of horror as the foetal shoulder presented instead of the cranium. Lucy screamed while Weidt forced it back and tried to turn it.

The baby presented, not the cranium, but its face, already gray. Blood trickled from the tiny nostrils. Bright blue eyes opened wide, seemed to look at me, begging for life, then closed again. Lucy was moaning, deep, desperate moans. Weidt pushed the forceps around the face, lacerating it, and slowly extracted the baby. A boy, fully developed, perfect.

Suffocated.

Weidt applied oxygen, trying to revive the infant, but nothing helped. “Natal asphyxia, ” he said. “I’m sorry. ”

I held Lucy’s hand, both of us sobbing, until the afterbirth came.

Katherina closed the journal and let it fall to the floor. Another revelation. She’d had a twin. A brother who lived for just a moment. Why had they never told her? She tried to imagine him, the child who had been the focus of all their hope. She could not conjure a face, only wide imploring eyes before death snatched him away at the very entrance to life.

But it was the last line of the entry that struck her like a blow. In clear script, as if her father had written it with loving care, were the words, “We named him Florian. ”

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