Springtime of the Spirit (30 page)

Christophe had killed his last enemy, and neither these men nor the ones on the other side should be called that. He had no intention of adding any more faces to his nightmares. But he marched anyway because it was the only way to reach the last place he’d seen Annaliese.

He stared ahead, wondering where he would be today if Frau Düray hadn’t asked him to go after Annaliese. How else would he have found a way to care about what went on here in Munich, except through Annaliese? Without her, would he have cared enough to hope for a better future for himself? for anyone?

He couldn’t be sure. He knew he’d always wanted something better than this, and now he couldn’t imagine a future—a better future—without Annaliese.

He wouldn’t fight for Communism or Socialism, no matter what, and he doubted Annaliese would expect him to.

But he
would
fight for a future with her.

34

“They’re here! They’re in the city!”

The sentry, a boy who couldn’t be much older than thirteen, shouted his message the moment he’d opened the door, then ran toward the tent in the center.

Annaliese stood but did not join them. So the battle had begun. She wondered how long it would be before this battle was near enough to hear. She looked around, questioning if she should flee this spot that was obviously a place meant for soldiers, not civilians like her, or non-Communists like her.

But the same thing that kept her here last night kept her here again. She had no place else to go.

God save her. God save them all.

* * *

The stench was the same, the grunts and cries, the quiver of light from firing guns, the pale faces around him—paler still after they fell.

Christophe never drew his weapon, not even when men around him started falling. The one on his right was dead already; he knew that from the severity of the wound to the man’s head. But another to his left and then another in front . . . The one nearest he checked for a pulse at the neck, finding it despite the blood soaking his shoulder and arm.

“Hold on, soldier,” he said in his ear. “I’m going to take you to safety.”

Christophe pulled the man to conceal him behind a stack of chairs at what must have been an outdoor café. The man was still conscious, though stunned, and his gun fell away the moment Christophe clasped him around his chest. He left the weapon on the street.

Then he went to the other man who’d fallen and did the same, first checking for a sign of life and finding it—weak. More blood, unconscious, certainly more grievously wounded than the first man had been. Christophe grasped him beneath the arms, pulling him in another direction, to what he hoped was a flat between the shops. A flat where someone lived.

The door was locked, as he’d expected, but a kick to the knob had the frame splintered in no time. Screams pierced his ears, although he saw no one, not even in the shadows of the unlit room.

“There is a man here,” he announced to whoever had screamed, “a man needing care. He can’t hurt you.”

And then, taking with him the man’s weapons, Christophe left the soldier unarmed, hoping whoever lived in this shopkeeper’s home would see to the needs of a man who might otherwise die—a man who’d come to defend the rights of bourgeoisie shop owners.

He returned to the street. Men collapsed and blood spurted and Christophe, like so many stretcher bearers he’d seen doing the same, went from wounded to wounded. He gave aid where he could from the bandage roll in his jacket—the last one the government had issued to him the year before, something he should have thrown away long ago but had carried with him anyway, like a habit he found too difficult to give up.

Unlike the last battle he’d fought, Christophe was unable to tell the difference between these fighting armies—White or Red, none carried flags, and some on both sides wore a German uniform. Christophe didn’t care; he helped whom he could as an angel would. And surely angels were there, a shield between Christophe and the bullets sailing around him.

* * *

“Wounded here!”

Annaliese heard the cry and without thinking drew near. She’d heard the gunshots—hollow and short, like firecrackers in the distance. A fighter from the street stumbled over the threshold, dragging a man beside him until the guard at the door rushed to his aid. Between the two of them, they hauled the injured man to the nearest cot, where Annaliese met them. She had neither training nor equipment, not even a single bandage, but surely she could do something.

She nearly vomited at the sight. He was not merely pale but white, limp and unconscious. So much blood, so wet and shiny, still streaming from the side of a boy who looked even younger than Annaliese herself. What could she do? What could
she
do to save anyone from such a wound?

The fighter who’d brought him had a good deal of the man’s blood on his own hands and shirt. “His name is Shultz. You’ll help him,
ja
?”

Annaliese found herself nodding even though everything inside told her she was less than adequate to meet such a task. The fighter was already turning away, leaving her alone at this boy’s side. Not even the guard who’d helped move him to the cot stayed near. He returned to his post.

She ventured another step closer but was afraid to touch him for fear of doing more harm than good. “Shultz?” How absurd to say his name as if to ask his permission or his help in assessing what to do for him. But she was too stunned to do anything else.

Movement beside her banished her stupor.

Leo stood there, a frown on his face. “There’s nothing we can do for him.” Then Jurgen, who was a few paces behind, joined them. Leo turned to block him from the sight. “The fight must be nearing if they’re close enough to bring wounded here instead of the hospitals. Let’s go.”

Annaliese couldn’t imagine where Leo would take Jurgen. Back to the tent? That hardly offered any protection, not even with the half-dozen guards left behind. They were all as fragile as this boy bleeding to death in front of them.

But Jurgen wouldn’t let himself be pulled away. He looked beyond Leo’s shoulder, at the man who even now seemed to be melting into the cot beneath him. Jurgen stepped closer, closer even than Annaliese stood, and bent over the boy.

“You’re not alone,” he said, laying a hand to his forehead, smoothing back curly hair. Then, without turning to Leo, he added, “Aren’t there any supplies here? bandages? iodine?”

“Come away from there, Jurgen,” Leo said. “What do you think you can do?”

Resistance to Leo’s coldheartedness made Annaliese braver than she’d been a moment ago. “Pull away his jacket, Jurgen. Maybe the blood makes it look worse than it really is. I’ll see what I can find for bandages.”

“You’re both fools,” Leo said. “If they’re fighting close enough to bring him here, we could be attacked at any moment. Jurgen, come along
now
.”

“And go where?” He was already working on the jacket, ignoring the red discoloring his fingers as he freed each button. “If I’m going to die in this fight, Leo, I’d rather do it helping someone than hiding. So if you’re not going to help Annaliese, get out of the way.”

Annaliese didn’t wait for Leo’s response. She ran through the narrow aisles, calling out to the men who guarded the doors, others who lingered around the tent where Jurgen and Leo had been.

“Medical supplies!” she called. “Are there any here?”

The men at whom she’d directed the question, those in front of the tent, only looked at one another with as much of an inquiry on their faces as she must have had on her own. She turned when one of the men at the rear of the warehouse called out.

“We have bandages—here.” He held up what looked like a toolbox, green and metal and hopelessly small. No bigger than a breadbox. What sort of army was this, without any medical supplies? Had they expected this revolution to be as bloodless as the last? With countless armed men filling Germany?

She called the guard forward, taking the box from him. At least it must have something in it because it was heavier than she’d expected. Then she hurried back to the injured man’s side.

Jurgen had the wound fully exposed now, but she couldn’t tell the size for all the blood. She pulled open the box, spotting white bandages, gauze to soak up the blood, and cotton cloths and rubber gloves. Too late for Jurgen to use those now, but she handed him some gauze. She found a small bottle of iodine and one of alcohol, taking them out but pushing aside things she knew they wouldn’t dare use: thread, needles, and tubes of some sort.

God help her, she wouldn’t simply hand over such supplies and be of no use. If one more young man was brought through those doors, she would use these supplies herself and not cower in the effort.

* * *

Christophe pulled yet another man off to the side of the street. He’d forced himself to leave those who were dead or near dead, knowing there was nothing to be done for them. But this man was sitting up, having been struck along the side of his head, obviously dazed but fully alive. To leave him in the street would be to invite someone to finish him off.

Christophe shoved him under the shelter of a storekeeper’s awning, then moved away, intent on getting to the next who might need him.

“Wait . . .”

Christophe turned to the man, surprised by the clarity in that single word.

“Don’t leave me . . . not without a gun. I can’t find it. I lost it.”

The soldier’s rifle was still slung over his shoulder. Christophe shifted it to the man’s lap. Then, without another word, he continued his mission.

* * *

Tear sheets for bandages. Apply pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. Tie a tourniquet. Dab iodine—vicariously wincing because the boys upon whom she performed the services were unconscious and couldn’t wince for themselves.

Man after man was brought in, so many even Leo was shamed into helping. Even he could hold gauze to a wound. And then, amid the new smells, the groans, and the growing number of cots in use, Annaliese’s most fervent prayer was answered.

A man entered on his own two feet, this one neither carried nor coerced. He toted a bag and claimed he was a doctor but needed to say no more than that before Annaliese asked him what to do.

“You’ll direct me to the ones I can help,” he said as they walked. “Monitor those who are brought through those doors. The ones who come in on their own, cussing or angry, can wait. The ones carried in, delirious and barely able to call for their mother—those I cannot help. Take me to the ones who moan,
Fräulein
. It’s them I can help.”

And so she did as directed, praying all the while to categorize the wounded as she’d been assigned. From afar, she watched while he performed any miracle he could while guards were commandeered to the duty of holding patients down for surgery. She heard the ping of bullets removed from wounds, dropped into a pan. She saw a guard hold open a grievous wound with a long silver instrument so the doctor had two free hands to explore. She saw men faint; she saw men die. And some, she saw survive.

* * *

The steady stream of fighters pouring in from around the city soon had the men in the streets either retreating or surrendering. Though it was difficult to tell one side from the other, surrender was clear enough in the relinquished weapons, the lifted arms, the growing silence.

Once Christophe learned there was a makeshift medical station set up in the back of an empty garage, he’d carried men there one by one.

He didn’t count the minutes or the hours the battle raged; instead he counted the men he’d helped.

Twenty-three.

Only when the bullets ceased and more men came out to help the wounded did he realize the significance of the number.

Twenty-three was the number of men whose faces haunted him at night.

There, at the threshold of the garage-turned-hospital, without caring who saw him, Christophe fell to his knees.

35

Annaliese brushed her forehead with the top of her wrist, only vaguely aware that the influx of injured men had gradually diminished. The needs before her went on, even though another doctor and three nurses were there now to perform more expertly what she’d attempted to do before they’d arrived.

But there was water to be fetched, cotton cloths too precious to be discarded that had to be rinsed for use again, utensils to be cleaned in antiseptic. She did what she could, still too dazed to think about having acted as a nurse upon living souls who’d deserved someone with far more training than she. Hours passed before she spoke to anyone about something other than a task at hand.

Odovacar was brought in, wounded. He’d donned a helmet he’d taken from a fallen man only moments before a bullet ripped through it. Nonetheless the impact had knocked him out, leaving his forehead bloodied and his mind disoriented. The doctors and nurses were still busy with more-severely wounded men, and so as soon as she could, Annaliese went to his side to clean his wound, though he soon fell unconscious again.

She returned to him some time later, after a doctor had seen him. “I don’t think it would’ve been all that glorious in France after all,
Fräulein
,” Odovacar said to her. He held on to her hand as if he couldn’t bear for her to leave him. “It’s been only a couple of battles for me, and I’ve already had enough.”

She looked around the barracks, thinking she would easily trade its newly acquired stench of death for the smells she’d tried banishing earlier. “I hope this will be the last of it.”

But somehow she wasn’t convinced of that, and neither, she thought, was Odovacar. She looked at him again and saw a tear slide from one eye.