A Feather on the Water(8)

The sun had been up for hours by the time they reached Munich. The driver had stopped somewhere to take a nap, and when they’d set off again, dawn had revealed rolling farmland and quaint villages—not at all what Martha had expected. The houses were like something from a book of fairy tales. There was even a castle, its towers and turrets glinting coral in the sunrise. It was a landscape that seemed untouched by war—until they neared the city.

Munich was a horror of destruction. Whole streets lay in ruins. Glimpses of lives smashed to pieces by falling bombs could be seen inside the skeletons of houses: the charred remains of a double bed, with a smoke-streaked crucifix hanging askew on what was left of the wall behind it; rose-patterned curtains flapping at shattered windows; an armchair, the springs poking through the torn leather upholstery, resting on the splintered boards of what had once been a floor; a child’s doll, naked and missing an arm, lying on a heap of broken glass.

The truck came to a stop a short distance from UNRRA’s headquarters—a small, squat building in a sea of rubble. The only cheering sight for the women as they picked their way across shattered cobblestones was what appeared to be a doughnut stand, run by the Red Cross.

Martha shaded her eyes against the sunshine, wondering if she might be hallucinating. The smell told her that her eyes were not deceiving her. Kitty and Delphine were already there, holding out money. Standing together, the contrast between the two women was stark: Kitty so young, and almost a foot taller than Delphine, who looked old enough to be the girl’s grandmother. The only common feature was their slimness—which, in Delphine’s case, was extreme. No wonder they were going wild for doughnuts. They looked as if a strong breeze would fell them like bowling pins.

Martha looked around for the driver, but he had disappeared. Probably he’d gone in search of cigarettes, which he’d complained of having run out of during the night.

“Come and eat!” Delphine waved Martha over to the stall.

When they’d sucked the last crumbs of sugar from their fingers, they stood outside the door of the UNRRA office, waiting for the driver and watching people crossing the square in front of them. A couple of months ago, these people had been the enemy. It gave Martha a frisson of shock to see that they looked so normal. There were women in dresses and hats, some carrying shopping baskets; men in business suits; children in school uniforms. Everyone looked tidy and clean, in sharp contrast to their surroundings. What were you expecting? her inner voice reprimanded her. Ogres wielding hand grenades?

“I don’t think he’s coming back.” Delphine was peering at her watch. “He was really mad about having to make that detour. I thought he was going to abandon us at the border. I don’t think he realized how bad it was going to be.”

“How will we get to the camp?” Kitty pushed back a lock of hair that had worked its way free of her braid.

“We’d better go and ask.” Martha pressed the button at the side of the pockmarked door. There was no sound—no bell or buzzer. She tried the handle. It wasn’t locked. She led the others down a dingy corridor. The smell of new, damp plaster hung in the air, giving the impression that the office had been hastily fashioned from a partially damaged building—probably one of the few still standing in this part of the city. There was a light at the end of the corridor. Martha could see someone sitting in a room, behind a desk.

“Good afternoon.”

The man looked up, startled by her greeting. In that brief unguarded moment, he looked confused, overwhelmed. He was a similar age to the male recruits Martha had traveled over from the States with. He scrambled to his feet.

“Good afternoon, ladies.” The accent was English. He came around the desk to shake hands. Martha noticed that his left arm ended at the elbow, the sleeve of his jacket pinned up under the armpit.

The introductions over, he checked their names against a list, then told them that the camp they were assigned to was called Seidenmühle. “It’s southwest of here, on the Amper River.” He went over to a map on the wall, which was peppered with colored thumbtacks. “There won’t be any signs, but you’ll see a big mill wheel from the road.” He stabbed a patch of blue beneath a yellow thumbtack. “Tell the driver that if he hits this lake, he’s gone too far.”

“I’m not sure we have a driver.” Martha exchanged glances with the other women. “He went off when we arrived, and he hasn’t come back.”

The man nodded, as if unsurprised by this news. “Don’t worry. We’ll find another.”

“When will we meet the rest of the team?” Kitty asked.

This was met with a look of incomprehension.

“We were told in Cherbourg that we’d join up with the others here in Munich,” Delphine added.

“There’s been a spearhead team out at Seidenmühle for the past few weeks,” he said. “You’ll meet them when you get there. And the US Army will be providing backup. There’s a tank battalion stationed nearby.”

“How many people are there in the camp?” Martha asked.

“A couple of thousand at the last count.” He shrugged. “Poles, mostly, I think. Not certain about that, though: could be a few Balts there, too.”

“Balts?” This was an unfamiliar word to Martha.

“Refugees from the Baltic countries: Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia.”