Chapter 2

Ilse raises her pickaxe in greeting as I reach the site. She’s joined the old women now, her belly too big for clambering on rubble. “A special occasion?” she asks, eyeing my scarlet dress.

“Yes,” I tell her. “The sun is shining, and we’re alive to see it. How are your children?”

“See for yourself.” She nods to one side, and I see Erich hammering in cobbles while little Hans, too young to help, squats barefoot by his side. “I had a letter from Franz,” Ilse says, and then pauses, her hand in the small of her back. “He thinks they’ll let him come home soon.”

“Have you told him?” No need to say about what. He won’t be the only man coming home to a little cuckoo. Although there are more, of course, who won’t come home at all.

“Not yet.”