Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

She washed the little boy in his bed and put clean clothes on him without undoing the soft bonds. She had experience of bedridden patients. 'Is there anyone else who had better not get up?' Lisa said no. An hour later all the children and their beds were clean, and the ward was aired. Clean bedpans were stacked under the sink in the lavatory. 'We're old enough to go to the loo now by ourselves,' Helga announced cheerfully.

Her loving glances kept returning to her son. He had grown taller and older, yet he still seemed like a little boy. She knew he would never develop beyond the mental age of six, and would live only until he was about twenty. Dr Weiland had gently explained that to her soon after the birth, and she had found confirmation in medical textbooks.

He nestled close to her. 'Mama, Mama. ' ama…' All the children came crowding around her. 'Mama… Mama…' their little voices babbled.

There was a rattling of keys. It was Nurse Doris, and she had a man in a white coat with her. Ah yes, at first you think you can improve everything here — but believe me, they're still little monsters.'

'Left wallowing in their own filth.'

Nurse Doris shrugged, without showing any interest. 'Do as you like. My stint here is over. This is Herr Gotze, our ward orderly.'

Helga shook his hand vigorously. 'Pleased to meet you, Herr Gotze.' She looked at the time. It was midday. 'Where do the children eat?'

'We feed them in their beds. Then they can only get themselves dirty,' explained Doris, with indifference.

'Perhaps you'd rather take them to the dining room?' suggested Gotze, earning himself a venomous glance from Doris.

'Oh yes, I would, Herr Gotze,' replied Helga, pleased. And I'm sure you can tell me if there's a village inn here? We could all go and have a drink — to celebrate my arrival.'

'Yes, sure, there's Bredewitz in Gross Moorbach. I'll tell the others. And if you need any other help, I'm always here. Isn't that right. Lisa?' The child was crouching in a corner, and didn't reply.

On her second Saturday. Helga had the afternoon and evening off. She took some things to the laundry and ran the vacuum cleaner over her room. She finished around five. She put her warm, lined boots on, and her thick loden coat. The cold November air in the park cleared her head. She had a lot to think about: her new job and the responsibility for her little charges that went with it: Karl and herself. How long would she have to stick it out with him here?

'Some day these horrors will be over — the Party, the Brownshirts… she remembered Eugen's words. She longed for that day, and at the same time she felt like a traitor because it meant wishing for the Fiihrer's fall from power. Then he'd probably have to go into retirement in Braunau.

She almost fell into a freshly dug pit behind some luxuriant rhododendrons. She remembered that Nurse Meta, who worked in the kitchen, had said it was difficult getting rid of the garbage. The garbage disposal truck hadn't been allotted enough fuel. 'We bury our own rubbish,' the nurse had said, in her strong Saxon accent.

Helga walked as far as the small, barred and locked gate in the park wall. A little stream bordered with reeds, a branch of the river, rippled along outside the gate and then was lost in the dense woodland. A pair of ducks came down and swam towards the bank, quacking. It soon grew dark, and she set off back to the house. The warmth of her room enveloped her pleasantly. She pulled her dress off over her head, put on her dressing gown, and was about to take her boots off when there was a knock at the door.

'Yes?' she called, surprised.

It was Dr Urban. Well, she had been expecting him to turn up sometime, and was even prepared to sleep with him. A boss with his vanity wounded by rejection could be dangerous to her and little Karl. Worse things happen, she'd thought, shrugging.

He had brought flowers and champagne. 'My personal welcome.'

'That's very kind of you, sir. You must excuse my dressing gown. If I'd known you were coming. '

'Oh, never mind that.' He dismissed her apology. He kept staring at her boots. 'You've settled in nicely, and you have your ward well under control. My compliments, Nurse Helga.' He still hadn't taken his eyes off those boots.

She remembered what Nurse Doris had said, and it dawned on her that she might not have to sleep with him at all. 'Go and get champagne glasses,' she ordered. He returned with two ordinary wine glasses. 'No, I said champagne glasses, the shallow ones,' she instructed him.

Without demur, he went off a second time but came back empty handed. 'I couldn't find any proper champagne glasses.'

To make quite sure, she took the game a step further. 'Because you didn't look properly. Go off again at once.'

Any other man would have refused. He eagerly obeyed. She was almost certain of it now: he was one of those men who found satisfaction only in submitting to a dominant woman. She had learnt about it in a seminar on sexuality given to the nurses.

'I'll let it pass this time,' she said sternly when he came back without champagne glasses again. 'Open the bottle and then sit down.' She arranged herself so that her dressing gown fell slightly apart, exposing one knee above the top of her boot. He looked at it avidly.

Gradually they fell into conversation. He told her about his wife and daughter, who lived in Berlin. 'The air here doesn't suit Gertraud, and Gisela's at school at the Luisenstift in Dahlem. So I'm alone in the villa.' Helga had seen the former estate manager's house in the park. It was as ugly as the old manor house. 'Would you visit me there sometimes?' It sounded almost pleading.

'We'll see,' she told him coolly.

'May I touch your boots?' he asked as he left.

Her instinct had not let her down. 'Next time.' It gave her a curious satisfaction to make him wait.

'Cuckoo, cuckoo!' Karl had hidden behind a stout oak, and the other children were looking for him. The grounds of the hospital rang with their shouts and laughter. Karl ran out of his hiding place and over to the bramble bushes. 'Cuckoo!' Little Hans was the first to find him. He puffed with excitement, let go of Helga's hand and ran towards Karl, clinging to him and crowing with delight. Only two weeks earlier she wouldn't have dared let him out of bed — he had laid into her with his fists and banged his head against the wall when she'd first tried it. But her cheerful storytelling, with the children gathered round her, interested him so much that he hadn't noticed when she untied him a second time. Even when he became aware that he could move, he went on listening calmly. A new life was opening up for this severely disturbed child; at best he had been ignored in the past, and more often he was restrained and punished. Now the others helped by including him in their games.

Lisa in particular had a calming effect on him. She persuaded him to join in, as Helga patiently practised with the others for days on end, until the nursery rhyme about 'Little Hans' echoed through the children's ward. Helga was proud of this and many other small successes, and felt happy with the children. No one noticed that she paid a little extra attention to Karl, because no one paid any attention to her and her ward anyway.

In practice, she was mistress of her own domain. Dr Urban let her do as she liked. Now and then he called to ask if everything was all right in the children's ward. She visited him sometimes at the villa, reluctantly acting the part of stern dominatrix in words and gestures.

Gotze the orderly was not much help. He spent most of his time in the former coach house where Helga kept her bicycle, tinkering away at a green truck. For the boss,' he explained, sounding self-important.

On this particular morning, as so often, he was lying under the vehicle, an Opel Blitz, busy with a spanner. The children watched with curiosity. Little Hans was all excited, because Gotze let him hand him a pair of pliers.