A Flicker of Light (3 page)

Although she longed for companionship, Petra found the other girls cordial
,
but cool
.
After all
,
she was
Norwegian
, not German -
accep
ted, but still considered an outsider
. Discussions at meals always turned to the Third Reich and how it would restore Germany to its rightful
place in the world. If Petra heard it one more time, she thought she might scream.

Secretly
,
she found the strength
to
endure by remembering her future plans. Hans would return
,
and
they would
leave the war behind. The
y
planned to
marry,
take the baby and live
on his parents’ farm. Hans had told her of their
prosperous,
sprawling acreag
e,
located not far from Heim
Hockland
. That was why they had chosen this particular
location for Petra
.
Lebensborn
homes had been built in Norway
and it would have been easier
for her
to go to one of those
,
b
ut besides the
appeal of
proximity to her future in
-
laws
at
Heim
Hockland
,
the anger she
’d felt toward
her own family had
driven her to travel as far away
from them
as possible.

When
Petra
was abandoned by her childhood friends
and rejected by her family
, stubborn like her father,
she’d sworn
to herself that she would
do this alone, without any of them.

The nights were the most difficult. Sometimes she thought she might die of loneliness. Petra longed for Hans, to feel his soft breath against her neck, to laugh as he teased her.

She
would often gaze at the stars outside her bedroom window while her mind drifted off to memories of Christmas so long ago with her parents and little brothers. She could hear her father's hearty laughter as he presented them each with chocolates all the way from Belgium. Petra laughed as she thought of her brothers as they
’d
begged to have some of hers when they had finished their own. And now, with the birth so close at hand, she longed to talk to her mother.

Days turned to weeks, and then
weeks turned
to months
as she waited
. Letters and gifts arrived
frequently
from Hans, reassuring her of their bright future. She received candy, sil
k stockings and letters filled
with promises of enduring love, until finally the end of his service drew near. Hans would return in six weeks. Her body tingled when she thought of his homecoming. Every morning when she awoke, and every night as she lay in her bed listening to her roommate snore, she repeated it over and over in her mind:
Six more weeks
!

The testing on her body continued. The we
ekly weighing and measuring had beco
me tedious. Every day
,
she reminded herself that all of this would soon be over and she would be back in her lover’s arms
forever. They would
be a
happy family
,
and their child would grow up
safe in the warmth of their love.

The Russia
n winter descended upon the ill-
prepared German invaders
,
bringing temperatures well below freezing.  Without warm-enough coats or boots to protect their feet, many German soldiers froze to death
;
others lost appendages to frostbite.

Engrossed in a conversation with a fellow soldier, Hans marched along a snow-
covered rural road
. Icicles hung from the barren trees and
a blanket of silvery snow on the
ground hid a treacherous patch
of ice
. Hans’ sharp eyes spotted it in time, and he took evasive action as they moved through the frozen landscape.

“Ah, I can still remember that football game. I say it should have been a red card. It looked like a slide kick,
I tell you,” Han
s
said as he adjusted his helmet
.

“Oh, no, my friend, I don't agree at all. I don't even feel he deserved a warning,” the other soldier insisted
as he
pulled
his coat tighter around his waist against the onslaught of the arctic wind.

Han
s
briefly
considered his comrade
’
s opinion,
then
he
replied
,
“He should have been…”

The bullet flew across the field and hit Hans in mid-sentence. He dropped silently. The virgin snow surrounding him slowly turned a deep scarlet. Hans was dead before he touched the ground. Although she did not yet know it, Petra's dreams had just come to an end.

Chapter 3

Munich
, 1943

A

s Frau
Klingerman
walked slowly down the center of the
aisle
,
her steps were labored
as she thought
of
the
awful
burden
she carried,
soon to be
passed along, like a dreaded plague. Each of the
girls
at Heim
Hockland
gave a sigh of relief as
she
passed them
by,
carrying the familiar envelope.
As soon as Petra saw it
, her
heart fell like an airp
lane crashing out of the silver-
blue winter sky into a thou
sand undistinguishable pieces. She knew
that Frau
Klingerman
would stop in front of her; s
he felt it before it happened.

“I'm very sorry, Fraulein Jorgensen,
”
t
he old woman's face showed genuine concern as she placed the dreaded
symbol of death
into Petra’s hand. At that moment
,
Petra’s entire
world began to spin
.
She fought to get herself under control
and
crunched the letter in her
hand
.  Then Petra gripped
the table
and
stood.
Everyone’s eyes were upon her, b
ut she was unable to sp
eak.
Petra turned away
,
clutching the envelope to her chest
, and left the dining room. There was an un
natural silence in the room. The
piano player had stopped playing Wagner; the other girls
had stopped talking;
each of them stared, saying a silent prayer of thanks that the letter had not been addressed to them.

Death.
The letter meant death.

In fact, the presence of de
ath in it
s
looming stillness
was overwhelming
in the lunch room that day. Just death and the
sound
of the
clicking of Petra's shoe heels on the marble floor.

Petra pulled herself up the stairs using the banister. The walk
down
th
e corridor seem
ed endless, but
finally she reached her room.  She closed the
door, relieved to be alone; Ursula
was downstairs having lunch. It
would have
been difficult to endure
her
well-int
entioned sympathy
. Petra sank
onto her bed
, full of despair
. With shaky fingers
,
she opened the letter. It said all she needed to know. It told her that in an instant, in just a flash of a second, her entire life had changed.

Dead.
Hans’ life was over. He had died while fighting at the Russian front.

Without warning, the grease and spice
s
from the lunch
she’d just consumed bubbled angrily in her stomach.
A dizzy headache and nausea
accompanied the pound
ing of
her heartbeat, which she could hear clearly in the stillness of the silent room
.

Even before she
’d
opened the envelope, Petra had known
what the message would say. The girls at Heim
Hockland
had seen these letters many tim
es before; i
t was always the same
.  But even though Petra had
known what the letter would say, until she read it
,
she had hoped that somehow
there had been a mistake
. That s
omehow, someway
,
this time the familiar envelope would contain a different message. Or perhaps
it had
been given to her in error
.
Her eyes refused to focus and
she whispered
,
“Please God, let it not be so. Please, I beg you; I'll do anything, anything you ask. Please.”

Her tears fell, sprinkling the white parchment and blurring the b
l
ack ink. She read th
e words again, this time aloud:

Frauline
Jorgensen,

It is with deepest regret that we must inform you of the death of your fiancé, Hans
Kurman
. He died while bravely fighting for the Fatherland. You have much to be proud of; your future husband proved himself a hero. We of the Third Reich offer our condolences.
W
e also offer our thanks for the dedication you have shown by agreeing to bear a child at the
Lebensborn
Institute, making a selfless contribution
to the future of the Reich.

Dev
Heldentod
,

Furfuhrer
Volk Und
Vaterland

Eng Hero for Hitler
volk
und Patriotic

Now Petra was
truly
alone in the world, alienated from h
er family and everyone she knew;
all she had left kicked gently inside of her womb. She fell back upon the pillow and raised her hands to the sides of her head. Pressing
them
tightly against her scalp, she fought the thunderstorm of tears that stung th
e back of her eyes. She
felt herself grow nause
ou
s
. Running quickly to the bathroom
,
and arriving just in time, she threw up.

Tears of loss and anger stained her face as she wiped the vomit from her mouth with the back of her hand. What seemed like a long time passed before she felt able to stand
upright.
When
she did, she leaned against
the wall for balance.

Hans, the man to who
m she had given her heart, soul
and body, lived no more. Never would she hear his voice again, or share his laughter. She could no longer comfort herself as she looked out her window with the thought that somewhere he saw the same stars she did. Hans saw nothing. To grasp this horrible truth seemed impossible.

She could not imagine a l
ife without him
.  She
knew she
was
somehow
going to have to find
the
strength within herself to go on, for
the
baby
’s sake, if not her own
, but at that moment Petra couldn’t imagine how or where she would find that strength.
She had no money and she could no longer turn to her family.
I must think of something!  I must!
Desperation set in.
What to do? What to do?