V Alexander - The Taster

Cook stood nearby. She looked intently at the officer who had questioned me earlier. He shook his head and Cook’s face flushed red. She cried out and ran toward me with outstretched arms.

“Damn barbarians,” she wailed. “I hope they rot in hell!” She dabbed at the dried blood on my face and then collapsed against my shoulder, spending the remainder of her tears. I comforted her as best I could and then told her my story. I cried describing Else’s death in the car.

“We have little time,” Cook said after I finished. “The train leaves at noon and we must be on it. Meet me here at eleven forty-five.” She turned and strode toward the mess hall.

I grabbed my suitcase and walked to the dormitory. Along the way, I passed many men scurrying like ants whose anthill had been stepped on. Dora was in our room packing her things. She looked at me with a sour face and said, “You smell like shit.”

I threw my bag on my cot in disgust and said, “I spent the night in an outhouse.”

She stared at me blankly.

“All the tasters are dead,” I said.

Dora returned to her packing. “Better for them than what we have to go through. Imagine the Reich falling,” She slammed her suitcase lid and turned to me, her thin face quivering. “I can’t believe it.” She repeated those words several times before collapsing on her bed. The overhead light cast stark shadows across her face. “We can’t give up. The Führer will not allow the Wehrmacht to fail.”

“The war will be over soon,” I said, “and Germany will be defeated.”

She glared at me. “How dare you say such a thing? You ought to be hanged for treason. People like you and your traitorous husband are the reason we are losing the war.”

Enraged, I wanted to slap her, shake her, until I dislodged her blind obedience to the Party, but I’d said enough. Confrontation would only fuel the fire.

I turned from Dora and opened my locker. Nothing important was inside, a few hairpins and a pair of ruined stockings. I only had a few dresses in my suitcase. The one I was wearing would have to be thrown away. I took a dress out of my bag, left for the showers and immersed myself in soapy hot water until my body was scrubbed and clean. When I returned to the room, Dora had gone. I changed into fresh clothes and left my bloodstained dress lying on my cot, a souvenir for the Russians or the encroaching forest, whichever arrived first.

Cook was waiting for me on the train platform. “I had to leave so much behind,” she explained, and wrung her hands. “It will be a new life in Berlin—if not our last.” Her eyes grew hazy with thought. “I’m afraid of what the Allies will do to us, Magda. The Reds, if they get to us first, will slaughter us in the streets like pigs.”

“You will be safe with the Führer,” I said. Even now Cook failed to see who had brought such destruction upon our heads. She would never blame her Führer for the unfolding catastrophe.

“You’re coming to the Chancellery with us, aren’t you?”

I looked down the siding at the men and women evacuating the Wolf’s Lair. Few words were spoken. Most stood with lowered heads or stared at the train with vacant eyes. Dora, her suitcase by her side, stood at the end of the platform.

“No,” I said. “I have to find my father. I haven’t heard from him in months. I don’t even know if he is alive.”

Cook turned to me and put her hands on my shoulders. “Remember this: Come to the bunker if you must and I will let you and your father in.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t be foolish,” Cook said. “You may have no choice if you want to survive.”

I thanked her for her kindness, but in my heart I wanted nothing more to do with Hitler or his staff. I wanted to find my father and start a new life with him if that was possible. So much was up in the air. The enemy might kill us all. I thought about Karl. He leaned over me, his face filled with joy. We were making love on our last night together. His body lingered over mine and he touched my face as only someone who loves you can do. My heart ached for Karl, but he was dead. He wanted me to survive, but without him, life seemed impossible. Yet every time I felt overwhelmed, I remembered my pledge to him.

An SS officer walked in front of those waiting on the platform. He explained that only a small number of us would be allowed to board—there would be several trips between the Wolf’s Lair and Rastenburg Station using all of Hitler’s private trains. He selected Cook and me to depart on the first. Others, including Dora, would have to wait until later.

Cook and I boarded and settled into seats by the window. Looking out from the ornate car, the world seemed rather commonplace and colorless. My life would never be the same. I would be an ordinary German and my service to Hitler would be a memory. An autumnal melancholy hung over the Wolf’s Lair as the November clouds settled in gray sheets over us. Time had stopped for an instant. The bare trees, the bunkers in the distance, the railroad siding, would remain in my memory as they were at this moment. Nothing could change that. As I watched, a stooped old man approached the train. He was surrounded by SS officers and military generals, who seemed to be pushing his frail body forward. The brash, vibrant Adolf Hitler had crumbled before our eyes, a shell of his former self. The assassination attempt had wounded him, physically and psychologically, more than anyone knew. Perhaps self-loathing had led to his weakened condition, or perhaps he’d been consumed with hate because of Germany’s failure to win the war. I was uncertain which was true.

After several minutes, the train pulled away from the siding and we rolled through the forest toward Rastenburg. Cook patted my hands. We were bound for Berlin.

I left them at the station the next morning. Several SS cars were waiting to whisk Hitler and his staff to the Reich Chancellery. I hugged Cook and kissed her on the cheek.

“Remember, you can always come to the bunker,” she reminded me.

I thanked her and watched the sleek cars drive away. Hitler was in a large touring Mercedes far from where I stood.

I looked out upon the city. Berlin lay shattered. We had been lucky to even complete the journey. Whole neighborhoods were reduced to rubble. Cook and I had observed the destruction from the train. One soldier who accompanied us said Berlin reminded him of Hamburg after the bombing in 1943 and the horrendous casualties suffered there. My eyes were unprepared for the destruction in front of me.

The overcast had lifted, but the intermittent sunshine did little to lift my spirits. I picked up my bag and was glad I had so few possessions, for my only means of transportation to my old neighborhood, Horst-Wessel-Stadt, was by foot.

I walked through blocks pulverized to shattered brick and ashes. Charred storefronts lined the streets like burnt matchsticks. Vendors conducted what little commerce they could from donkey carts. I was hungry, so I purchased a half-rotted apple from a man wearing a ragged coat. He apologized for the bad fruit, but said I would not find a better meal anywhere else. I suspected he was right.

The trip took more than two hours, taking me over chunks of masonry spilled into the street, burned-out vehicles, homes reduced to cinders. My father had written that he had moved in with a man and his family. They were both workers at the plant. When I came to the man’s street, which was not far from where I grew up, nothing was left. The homes were gone, the trees blasted into splinters, the sidewalks littered with bricks and trash. I sat on my bag in the early afternoon sun overwhelmed by the destruction. A few people passed by, but no one spoke. Life had been drained from them; they were more desperate than I. I wondered if I’d been too quick to reject Cook’s offer. At least I would have food and shelter at the bunker.