The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason [115]
“That was the worst thing in the war—what the Nazis did to children.” She turned her gaze out the window. She whispered, “It takes a newborn baby a long time to drown.”
She separated herself from him to study his stricken face. She offered an encouraging smile.
“The day I lost my husband, almost five years ago, I was possessed with uncontrollable grief for perhaps one hour, until I recalled how wise and hard I had become. I could endure. I was afflicted with an odd sting of happiness then. I was so thankful that I had lived to have a husband and children.
“At first, when the news came about Maurice’s accident, it was as though I were once again scrambling in the mud and the wet snow, clutching at roots, craving that awful soup. Oh, that dreadful soup girl! We called her la Vachère. The cow keeper. We were cows! She would spill soup in the snow and laugh while we scrambled to lap up the snow. And then, oh, the happiness when the Red Army arrived and found just a few of us, delirious, starving! Because the buildings had burned, we could not explain to them clearly that there had been five hundred of us, that many had died and the rest had been marched away to Ravensbrück. They had no idea what we meant by Ravensbrück.
“There were nine of us at Koenigsberg with the Russians for about three weeks. Then they sent us on a two-day trip to a hospital in Poland. Two of the soldiers accompanied us in an uncovered camion to the train station. The landscape was ravaged, but we were happy to see that the Red Army had already routed the Germans along the way. We were arranged on some good bedding salvaged from the ruins of the German quarters, and we kept each other warm. My soul and spirit had been badly bruised. I had seen so many women die. I had seen some of my friends marched away, and I was certain they would not live. I did not see how any of them could survive the walk to Ravensbrück—eighty kilometers. Even as they left, the last straggling rows were holding each other up. I saw a Polish woman being dragged by her companions, who did not have the strength to lift her. I learned much later that a train had taken them part of the way.
“If I had not connived to stay with my mother, I should have been on that march, since I could walk. But I could not leave her. Never.
“At the end of the train journey, they put us in a charrette, a little wagon, and we arrived at a hospital in Poland. That was the most welcoming place I had ever seen. A group of women in nun’s dress appeared before us, and one of them, Sister Roza—she was so lovely! Our savior! The nurses there wept when they saw us. We held their hands in joy—even my mother, who managed smiles of gratitude to them. She could hardly raise her hand; she could not rise. I had fear that she would die during the journey. She was so weak, and she hardly had the strength to eat, even though we now had food. The dysentery had subsided, but with the typhus she had lost so much blood. Sister Roza bent over her with the most angelic smile. She stroked Maman’s brow and whispered gently to her, and I made her understand that this was my mother, all I had in the world. I held back my tears as this magnificent woman held her and, with the help of another nurse, gently lifted her onto a little rolling bed.
“Maman and I had our own room. The most luxurious chalet at Grenoble would not have surpassed this little room. It was bright and warm and clean. There was warm water. There were towels. We could wash ourselves! There was a little desk with writing materials. Of all the things in the room, that little desk seemed the most civilizing! Possibly we could write