Opposite Sides (77 page)

“
You come.”
Her driver opened the door and indicated for her to follow him
through the large wooden doors of the building. “Room for you stay.
I find official form and names. You look through.”

Jan spent the next hour
flipping over pages in the missing people file, a long list of
names, ages together with photographs when available. Nothing was
turning up. She handed the large folder back. Nothing was said. She
was handed another, this time much smaller. She returned to the
bench top and began going through the files. She ceased hunting,
stretched back her aching shoulders and massaged the back of her
neck. She turned the next page. With great difficulty she was able
to recognise a name. She had seen the same on Hans’s identity card
during the war.

‘
XXXX:
Resmel. XXXX: Siegmund Erwin Falko . . .XXXX:
20/10/1942’

Someone had wanted to
find the child. She struggled on with trying to decipher the
official writing. She made a guess that the last known whereabouts
was at an address in Angermunde.

“
Excuse me,”
she called to her driver. “Can you read German writing?”

“
Sorry,
no.”

“
Blast!” Her
frustration made her angry and she found herself shouting. “How am
I supposed to read this stuff? I can’t even make out the damn
letters!”

An official came over and
looked at the entry. He shrugged his shoulders, muttered something
unintelligible and returned to his former place. She had not
bargained on this difficulty.

By the end of that first
day, Jan knew she was in the right area but she was still no closer
to finding Hans’ trail. Somehow she would need to change her
tactics if she was to have any luck. She tried her driver
again.

“
Can the
officer find someone who can speak English? A little
English?”

“
Da
. Little English. He find person
tomorrow.”

“
Tell him to
make it early. Very early.”

The Russian was as good
as his word. When she returned the following morning, an elderly
man was sitting on a bench already waiting. She introduced herself.
He nodded.

“
I need your
help to understand this.” She pointed to the entry in the
file.

“
Name says is
Siegmund Erwin Falko Resmel. Little boy.” He held his arm out to
show how small the child was. “Little young.”

“
I know.
Where was he last recorded?”

The man read out the
address for her. Then he wrote it down very carefully so that she
could read it.

“
This is the
place?”

“
The house
address. But . . .
Haus
kaputt
!”

The man made destruction
signs to tell her that the house was no longer standing.

“
Oh dear. Do
you know if the child was there then?” The man shrugged. Jan
questioned him further. “Does it say here if anyone was looking for
the child?”

The man read
further.

“
Father come.
No child here. He go on to Altentreptow.”

“Altentreptow? Where’s
that?” Jan felt a sudden lump in her throat as she felt everything
beginning to slip away from her. He voice rose into an emotional
squeak.

“
Not far away
from Neubrandenburg. Little north. Many people walk after to
Malchin. Then follow road to Schwerin.”

“
Oh, yes,”
nodded Jan. “That would make sense. The papers said they were
trying to get to Schwerin. I was told many people were heading that
way.” She remembered someone telling her that many refugees had
hoped to reach the castle there and turn themselves in to the
Americans. So, there was hope. She turned to her escort. “Can we go
there today?” she asked.

“
Da. First, I
get papers stamped. Then we go to Altentreptow.”

Her driver had received
orders to do everything possible to help this British nurse find a
Major Resmel and he had been made to understand that the order had
originated from the British Military Occupation Forces.

The road to
Neubrandenburg was not in good condition. The surface had been
damaged so that they had to steer around shell and bomb holes.
After almost two and a half hours they arrived at the outskirts of
the medieval walled town. Everywhere still carried deep scars from
the last few months of vicious fighting but finally they drove into
the remains of the town centre. Jan climbed out of the vehicle and
stood before an ugly, dull-grey stone remnant of wall. The rest of
the building had fallen into jumbled heaps of twisted rubble and
rubbish, strewn around like a scattered jigsaw. If Altentreptow was
like this, finding either Hans or Siege would take a long
time.

Jan spent the morning
searching for clues. After an hour in Neubrandenburg, they drove
the short distance to Altentreptow. She showed everybody she met
the piece of paper with Hans’ and Siegmund’s name and every time,
the people shook their heads or stared at her with a blank,
incomprehensible stare. After a bite to eat, she continued her
search around the vicinity of another possible address she had been
given.

Have you seen these
people? Do you know where this person is? There was no need to
translate, for everyone with names or photos was asking similar
questions. Sometimes people just stared dazed by hidden memories,
their blank staring eyes focussed on another time. As the next hour
ticked by, Jan became more and more frustrated and saddened until,
like the locals, she would walk up to strangers and plaintively
hold up the two small photographs, hoping for someone to say they
had seen them.

“
Do you know
where this person is?” She pushed the paper under the gaze of yet
another stranger. The woman, her head wrapped within a heavy
woollen scarf, examined the two names for almost a minute. It was
as if a spring in her body had wound down and she had come to a
stop like a toy doll. Jan let her hand drop like the disappointed
tail of a dog and was just about to walk away when the woman
reached out and grabbed her sleeve. The smile was unexpected and
Jan almost missed its significance.

“
Jawohl.
Jawohl
.”

Suddenly the
doll-like creature came to life and the woman began to nod
repeatedly as if her head were on some sort of spring. She said
something but Jan did not understand. The woman fumbled around
until she found the picture she wanted, stabbing over it several
times as she repeated the word
Kind,
Kind
over and over.

“
Him? This
one? You’ve seen him?” No translation was necessary. The woman
nodded even more vigorously as Jan’s excitement transferred to her.
“Where? Where? Can you show me?”

But the woman failed to
understand. It was all so frustrating.

“
I’m sorry. I
don’t speak German. Oh, blast it!”

Jan tried once more to
make the woman understand by pointing to the name again and holding
both hands up in a questioning way. The woman replied with a
torrent of language. Jan did not even catch one word. Then, it was
as if the woman suddenly grasped the situation for she touched
Jan’s arm, pointed to a destroyed house, pointed to the name on the
paper and shook her head. She made a sad face. She gestured
something falling and then everything being flattened.

“
Oh, God!”
Jan exclaimed. “The house where he was taken must have been bombed.
Siegie must have been killed! So, where’s Hans?”

“
We go Soviet
Office in centre,” said her driver. “I speak to officer
there.”

It did not take long to
find the place for it was the only building flying the Russian
flag. The building was most likely the old Rathaus but had been
taken over by the occupying forces. Jan’s driver spoke to the
officer inside who demanded to see her identity papers and
authority to enter the Soviet-held territory before they would
allow her to enter. When he had satisfied himself that all was in
order, he indicated that she could step inside but he also made it
clear that she must wait while further checks were made. After
twenty minutes, a senior officer in the Soviet army approached
them. He asked to see her papers.

“
You are
looking for two people?”

Jan was so relieved when
he spoke to her in English that her smile was one of surprise mixed
with pleasure.

“
Thank
goodness you speak English.” The relief in her voice was obvious.
“I’m trying to find either of these two people.”

She handed over the
missing person’s document.

“
One wait.
Moment.” The officer spent ten minutes hunting through a pile of
documents. Finally he extracted a paper from one of the files with
an officious swastika stamped over the centre of the page. “Nazi
records up to last day of war. Very thorough.” He read the main
points of the document to her. “Siegmund Erwin Falko Resmel. Young
child. Killed: May 2nd 1945. Air-raid.” He looked up with a
resigned expression. “I see, only child name on paper.”

“Are you
sure?”

Jan felt sorry for the
child she had never met. The officer nodded.

“
Everyone in
building killed. No survivors. Sorry.”

“
Did anyone
else make inquiries?”

“
When?”

“
Recently.”

The officer consulted the
document again.

“
Yes. It says
here child’s father come February this year.”

“
Hans! It
must be Hans. He was here?”

“
Name on
record says Major Erwin Resmel. It is written here.”

The Russian officer
showed her the document.

“
Yes! Yes!
That’s him!” Jan could feel her heart pounding as her hands began
to tingle and tremble. She adjusted her glasses several times,
trying to calm herself so that she could deal with this new
situation. “Do you know anything else? Does it say where he is?
Where he went? When was he last in the area?”

Jan could not stop the
questions from tumbling down like the gush of water in a waterfall.
Her anxiety did not affect the officer. He calmly stood before her
reading further down the page. He looked up again and spoke in a
flat monotone.

“
Sorry.
Nothing.”

The words slammed into
Jan with the force of a train. She removed her glasses, wiped them
and put them on again. Any excitement she had shown earlier had now
evaporated.

“
Nothing?”
she asked weakly.

“One moment. Maybe.” The
officer briefly held up his hand before disappearing through a
doorway into another room. A few tense minutes passed before he
reappeared. “We do have information for you. This man you look for
is in hospital. This is hospital’s address.”

“
Hospital?
Why is he in hospital?”

“
Reason
unknown. No information on report. Sorry. But you go there. Wait,
please.” The officer picked up a phone and made a quick call. Jan
stood there wondering what it was all about and whether she would
be removed from the sector or even taken away for questioning.
She’d heard so many stories that she was not even sure of her own
safety. However, the officers face lit up and it was obvious that
he had heard good news. “I am informed you will find him there. I
show you on map.” They looked at an old map and the officer drew a
line from his office block to the hospital. It was a round-about
route. “Much damage in city. These roads are open.” He gathered his
papers and handed her the map. “You keep that. That is all I can
say. So now you go and find major.”

“
Thank you so
much for your help.”

The Russian brushed aside
with his hand.

“
No problem.
I understand. We also help find these Nazis. Now you can report to
your authorities that military man is found. I have also heard
Americans take Nazis for trials.”

“
Trials?”

Jan was thrown into a
feeling of uncertainty again.

“
Military
authorities are hunting down monsters responsible for all war
atrocities. Too many dreadful, dreadful things they have done. Not
human. Soviet Republic work together with United States and Great
Britain to find Nazis. You are sent here to find this man? He will
answer for bad things done.”

Jan did not give him his
answer.

The following day Jan’s
escort drove her to the town’s hospital and after more papers had
been stamped and signed, she was finally informed that Major Erwin
Hans Resmel was, indeed, a patient there. She was conducted to his
room, led along the bare, twisting corridors by one of the hospital
orderlies. Jan followed on automatic pilot, her heart beating
faster and faster as the orderly led her deep into the body of the
hospital until they arrived at a small room.

“
Hans!”

He lay pale and
unresponsive between sheets as white as his face. Jan had seen this
many times before during the war but this time it was Hans and it
surprised her when she felt her stomach begin to tingle.

“
Hans, it’s
Jan.” his eyelids fluttered but he did not open his eyes. She
picked up his file notes and began reading, hoping to recognise any
of the familiar figures or graphs. She satisfied herself that his
bodily signs were normal. She was still reading when a doctor and
an Intelligence Officer from the Red Army entered the
room.