Cold Peace

“These ladies were just telling me they have been tasked with assessing the demand for an air ambulance.”

“None from this hospital,” Friedrich Sauerbruch declared immediately and firmly — to the obvious astonishment of his father. 

“Fritz, that’s not true —”

“Father, listen to me. The air ambulance as I understand it —” he interrupted himself to turn to Emily and Charlotte and add, “Correct me if I am misinformed — would fly from Gatow to hospitals in the West.”

Emily and Charlotte nodded, and the elder Sauerbruch asked, “So?”

The younger doctor drew an exasperated breath, and then attempted to sound patient as he explained, “The patients at this hospital are all either members of the Soviet occupation forces, who naturally prefer to be treated in the Soviet Union, or members of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany who likewise prefer to be treated in the Soviet Union. No one admitted to this hospital has any need or desire to be evacuated to a hospital in the capitalist Zones.”

“Fritz, that is ridiculous—” the elder man started to say, but his son silenced him with a frown. The old man pressed his lips together and looked up resentfully at the younger man.

“Now, ladies, in the interests of saving everyone’s time, allow me to escort you out,” the younger Dr Sauerbruch concluded.

That was an order, not a request. Emily and Charlotte stood and turned to shake hands with the elder Dr Sauerbruch. The famous surgeon clasped their hands warmly between both of his in turn. He met their eyes one after the other as he assured them, “It is a wonderful project, an excellent service. It could save many lives. I wish you all the best. Good luck!” As they were ushered out of the office by the younger doctor, the famous man called out a second time “Good luck!” Emily thought she heard something plaintive in his wishes for them.

The younger Sauerbruch marched them down the dingy halls, past the pale-faced men in grey suits that gazed after them with expressionless faces. This time Emily noticed that many wore the same lapel pin as Friedrich Sauerbruch: two hands clasped. It was the symbol of the Soviet-controlled “German Unity Party.”

The young Dr Sauerbruch maintained a pseudo smile and a forced friendliness as he escorted them. He made small talk with Emily without listening to her answers. When they reached the reception, they signed out while he waited for them. To Emily’s surprise, he did not simply see them through the door, he came out to the car with them. 

As Emily dropped into the back seat, he leaned down and spoke through the open door. “If you want my advice, Mrs Priestman, you will not try to start this business.”

She was provoked enough to ask, “Why ever not?”

“Because, Mrs Priestman, it is only viable as long as the Western Allies have a military presence and control airfields in Berlin. Yet the imperialist powers have no business here whatsoever, and we Germans are fed up with them — most especially your air forces, which we came to know all too well when you rained terror on us day and night. We do not want your air ambulance or any other patronizing charities. Just leave and let us build back our own country the way we want it.” Then he slammed the door shut before she could answer.

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte whispered as they drove away.

“I’m not,” Emily retorted. “That was a highly interesting and most educational meeting. Besides, you were right about the elder Dr Sauerbruch. I no longer believe he knowingly advocated cruel and painful experiments on living humans. We will, however, have to tell David what the younger Sauerbruch said.”

Charlotte lifted her head in alarm and asked, “Must we? I mean, as you said yourself, the need for the ambulance from the West is great enough to justify the ambulance service. And Dr Sauerbruch senior confirmed that. His son was just trying to frighten us. He is a Soviet stooge! Did you see his party pin? He does not represent the real Berlin.” Charlotte was emphatic both from conviction and fear that David might change his mind.

Emily nodded, “I suppose you’re right, but we will still have to tell David.”

Charlotte nodded unhappily, and they fell silent, lost in their separate thoughts.

After dropping Charlotte at her apartment house, Emily rode alone in the backseat if her car as her driver took her home. As the broken masonry of the battered city rolled by, her inner apprehension grew. She couldn’t escape the feeling that Berlin was seething beneath the crust of its wounds. On the surface lay a dry, broken wasteland, inhabited by ordinary people struggling to survive, but underneath, like a festering wound, poisonous forces were at work — the black market, the prostitution of young mothers, kidnapping, institutionalised theft on the part of the Soviet state, sanctioned theft by the ordinary Soviet soldier and a clandestine campaign by Stalin to change the post-war balance of power by seizing control of Germany — if not the entire continent. The more she thought about it, the more absurd it seemed to try to start a business in this environment. Indeed, for the first time since their arrival, she wondered if it had been the right decision to come to Berlin at all. More than David’s business was a risk. The Western Allies were under threat and RAF Gatow would be a prime target.