made Hansl take his raincoat.’
‘It’s just a summer storm,’ said Bach. ‘If it does rain it will soon be over.’
‘I hope so,’ said Anna-Luisa. ‘You’ve such a long journey.’
When August Bach sat down to breakfast she noticed that he was wearing his best uniform. She approved of his uniform, for although he was forty-six years old he was tall and slim and his greying hair served only to emphasize the tan on his face. At his throat the Pour le Mérite medal glittered.
‘The milk is sour. The thunder must have caused it,’ said the girl.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘This is the last of the real coffee you brought. Do you know, Herr Bach, I am so used to ersatz coffee that the real beans you bring from Holland keep me awake at night.’
‘Where is an egg for you, Anna-Luisa?’
‘There were only two, Herr Bach, the hens are not laying, and they cost six Reichsmarks each. There is a terrible shortage this month.’
‘Have this one. The Luftwaffe live well in Holland. Only last week Willi, my Stabsfeldwebel, laid his hands on some cream.’ He passed the egg to her.
‘You’ll never believe me, Herr Bach, but I don’t remember the taste of cream.’
‘I believe you,’ said August Bach. ‘I’ll speak to him when I get back and see if he can’t find some for me next month when I come.’
‘Did you notice, Herr Bach, little Hansl has picked up this terrible local accent?’
‘Like my cousin Gerd’s,’ said August smiling.
August Bach watched the girl eating his boiled egg. She looked up and smiled. What did an accent matter? She was very beautiful, especially when she smiled. Without her he would have no home and, unless you counted the occasional printed postcard from a Hitler Youth camp in the Protectorate, no young son either. Nowadays the children were being evacuated farther and farther away. Bombed-out children from Cologne had gone to Bulgaria and Hungary.
‘Herr Bach,’ said Anna-Luisa. ‘Is it true that many RADwJ girls are going to work on flak sites? There is a rumour that they will even be manning the guns.’
Bach had always feared that some day Anna-Luisa would decide that looking after little Hansl was not a great enough contribution to the war effort. Worse still, he feared that the RAD bureau would decide that for her, but here in the country the pace of things was slower. There was no RAD bureau in Altgarten, no SA, and even the Party HQ was closed on market day.
‘Are you unhappy, Anna-Luisa?’ he asked. ‘Are you thinking of leaving us?’
‘I would never leave you, Herr Bach,’ she said. ‘Never. I will look after Hansl all the rest of my life.’
‘Now, now, Anna-Luisa, you mustn’t make promises like that.’
‘I will, Herr Bach. I will. I love Hansl as though he was my own child.’
‘Then why do you ask me about the RAD girls going to the gun sites?’ asked August.
She got to her feet and began to clear the breakfast table. ‘Have you finished your coffee?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry, but there is now only the ersatz.’
‘Answer me, Anna-Luisa.’
‘Herr Bach,’ she said. She was standing at the sink now with her face turned away from him. He waited for her to continue. She was attractive in her neat white blouse and brown skirt with her blonde hair drawn back into a severe knot. Why had he not noticed before her long slim legs and strong young arms? Undressed, she would look … he killed the thought immediately. She was only a child, perhaps a year or so older than his infantryman son. Her service in the RAD was a patriotic duty. It was his job to look after her, not lust after her.
‘Are there’ – she paused – ‘any RAD girls working at your radar site?’
August Bach didn’t laugh, although the thought of girls in that desolate spot on the Dutch coast made him realize how little she understood the rigours of his life there.
‘There are no girls, Anna-Luisa. I only wish there were,’ he joked. And he looked up at her, still smiling, to discover her face racked with tears. He took his handkerchief to dry her eyes. ‘Anna-Luisa, whatever is the matter?’
‘Be careful of the washing-up water on your fine uniform,’ she said, raising her face to him, and the next moment he found that he was kissing her. She was sobbing as though she would never stop. It was difficult to understand what she was saying, but August Bach suddenly found that everything made sense to him. ‘I love you, Herr Bach,’ she said. He smoothed her blonde hair and made little clicking noises with his lips in the hope that it would stop her crying.
‘I love you,’ she said again. ‘Whatever shall we do?’
‘You can stop calling me Herr Bach for one thing,’ he said.
‘What will people say?’ she said.
‘Does it matter?’
‘This is a little country town, Herr August …’
‘Just August.’
‘August … people gossip here. There is no telling what stories will go round.’ He had his arms round her and felt her sobbing gently. He patted her shoulder awkwardly and paternally.
It was a damnable situation. Almost the whole town knew August’s cousin – Gerd Böll the grocer – and through him half the town knew August. Often strangers would talk to him in the street as though they were lifelong friends. ‘We must take things slowly,’ said August. Anna-Luisa nodded.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said, ‘do you think they’re not gossiping about us already?’
‘They are,’ said Anna-Luisa, ‘but it does not matter. I love you.’ He held her more tightly and less paternally.
‘And I love you,’ said August and he realized that he did. All these months of spending his leaves in the same house with this young girl. No wonder neighbours talked. To her he must have seemed unnatural or inhuman. He looked at her; she was a simple girl and for her perhaps he was a frightening figure. He asked himself to what extent he had been hurrying back here to see the child and to what extent because it was his home, a home that Anna-Luisa had created, a place where his favourite foods were placed before him and his favourite records near the gramophone. August realized that all these months he had been hurrying back to Anna-Luisa. ‘I love you, Anna-Luisa,’ he said. ‘I want you to marry me.’ She raised her reddened eyes to him. Her hair had fallen forward. She was remarkably beautiful even in this disarray. Even more beautiful, perhaps.
‘There are my parents, Herr Bach. You will have to visit them or at least write.’
‘I will do that today,’ he said. He stroked her head again and took her hand. It was a slim hand reddened by hard work, scrubbing floors and washing Hansl’s clothes
