White Rose Black Forest(22)

Franka piled the wood inside the back door in crisscrossed open stacks to ensure minimum drying time. It would need to dry quickly, because it seemed that the winter weather, like the war itself, would only get worse before it got better.

It was almost eleven in the morning when she went back to his bedroom. His eyes flicked open as she entered. They were murky, full of pain.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. I think I could use some more painkillers. I slept through the night, but I fear they might be wearing off now.”

“Of course.” She had the prepared syringe in her hand as she went to the bed. He took his arm out from under the deep layer of blankets and presented it to her. He took the shot wordlessly and, without flinching, watched her push the needle into his arm.

She brought him a light meal afterward and waited to speak until he’d finished it.

“I’m going to set the casts on your legs now. They’ll give you a far better chance of making a satisfactory recovery, and it shouldn’t be too painful while you’re under the morphine.”

His eyes were half-closed, but he nodded.

“I’m going to have to wash your legs first; then I’ll put on the stockings.”

His answer came in the form of another nod, his eyes closed.

Franka warmed up some water and formed a good, soapy lather in an old basin she’d found under the kitchen sink. She removed the primitive wooden splints and saved the wood for that night’s fire. Franka washed the bottom half of his legs. She knew he probably needed an all-over sponge bath, but he would have to do that himself. That didn’t seem proper here. She slipped on the stockings, which ran from his knees to his ankles, and then wrapped the gauze bandages around them. As she mixed the plaster of paris, words tumbled out of her mouth, partly to make him feel more comfortable, partly to hear a voice in the cold silence of the room.

“I worked as a nurse for three years in Munich, at the university hospital. I saw a lot of broken legs. The injuries became worse as the war went on. I saw more and more young boys at the start of their lives, their whole futures ahead of them, with missing legs, or arms, or eyes. And then it wasn’t just soldiers anymore—it was women and children too, crushed in their own beds or burned to a crisp by Allied bombs. Thousands and thousands of them. We hadn’t enough room for the bodies in the morgue, not nearly. We had to lay them in the alley, pile them on top of one another.”

She didn’t speak for a few minutes as she dipped the gauze into the plaster mix and wrapped it around a leg.

“Did you ever work as a nurse around here?”

“No, I left for Munich after I graduated college. I took the opportunity to get out of Freiburg as soon as I could.”

“Why did you want to leave?”

The sound of his voice startled her. His eyes were open, and he peered down at her.

“I was young. I broke up with my boyfriend. I wanted a new start. I shirked my responsibilities to my family, and I left. I thought somehow that people in Munich might be different.”

“Were they?”

“Some, but not many.”

She finished the first leg, leaving the plaster of paris to set, and moved to the other.

“It seems like I’m answering all the questions when I’m the one who found you in the snow.”

The man didn’t answer.

“Why did you bail out over the mountains, and what happened to the plane? I didn’t hear anything. Why would you have bailed out there unless your plane was in trouble?”

He took a few seconds to answer, and when he did his voice was garbled and groggy. “I’m so sorry, Fr?ulein Gerber, but I cannot speak about my reasons for being here. That could compromise my mission and put brave soldiers on the front lines in danger.”

Franka brought her eyes back down to the man’s leg and bit her lip. “So then tell me something about yourself. Where are you from?”

“I’m from Karlshorst, in Berlin. Do you know the city?”

“Not well. I went a couple of times when I was a girl with my League of German Girls group. We saw the sights, Unter den Linden, the Reichstag, the Stadtschloss.”

“It must have been exciting for a young girl to be at the center of the Reich like that.”

She finished applying the gauze and began wetting the bandages in the plaster of paris. The other leg was already drying. She ran fingers over the surface of the cast. It was good.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

“Of course. You’re a loyal citizen of the Reich.”

“Why were you pointing a gun at me last night, then?”

“I wasn’t sure where I was. I’m trained not to trust anyone. There is too much at stake. I see the error of my ways now. I see the kind of person you are. I admire anyone who’d go to such lengths as you have for a member of the führer’s armed forces. You’re obviously someone who recognizes the value in every serviceman as we strive toward the final victory.”

Franka almost laughed at the rhetoric the man was regurgitating but managed not to. What was he really thinking?

“Why didn’t you ask me to contact anyone when I was in town? What about your wife and daughters? Do they even know you’re alive?”

“That could compromise my mission. I need to ask that you not report to anyone that you’ve seen me, let alone the fact that I’m here.”