I smiled. Mutti was managing quite well without the servants; it was as if she had become stronger.

‘Luckily Tante Susie visited during the week and brought apples she’d picked up in the country on her trip from Windsheim.’ Tante Susie was Mutti’s sister who lived in one of the large towns near Nürnberg where her husband had worked as a doctor before the war.

‘How did Mutti manage to do it with all the tenants?’ I asked in hushed tones. Despite the cramped living conditions and Vati’s enquiries, none of the tenants had yet been offered alternative accommodation.

‘Your mother stood guard in the kitchen with a knife in her hand while it cooked. She stared down anyone game enough to even look into the kitchen with that determined gaze of hers. Nobody was going to steal her hard-earned feast!’

I roared with laughter, wiping the tears from my face just as Mutti entered the room, her face beaming with pleasure to see I had finally arrived.

After the meal, it was time to put together the Christmas parcel for Heinrich. Mutti had kept some of Tante Susie’s apples and she had set aside enough butter, eggs and flour for us to make gingerbread biscuits for him. They weren’t the same as usual because we didn’t have all the right ingredients but they were still good: homemade and baked with love. It was a special time, Mutti and I baking together. The steady rhythm of mixing, kneading, rolling, cutting and decorating was soothing while we shared snippets of our weeks apart. Vati prowled the hallway near the kitchen, keeping away most of the curious neighbours, even when the smell of cooking biscuits drifted to the front of the apartment. He even helped us put together the advent wreath and find the pack of red candles we still had somewhere. It was a tradition of ours and I looked at the wreath decorated with holly and the four red candles on our little table with satisfaction.

I managed to find a few chocolate bars and plenty of cigarettes with the rations I had kept and Vati had acquired a small amount of real coffee and a little bottle of whiskey. I packed the box with photos, poems and a long letter I had begun in Scheyern, telling Heinrich about my work, our move to the kloster and the beautiful churches, grounds and countryside that I had only really glimpsed but intended to explore. But it was only after reading the letter Heinrich had sent me more carefully in the privacy of my mother’s room that I was able to finish my own letter.

I’m coping. Each day is busier than the last with the new casualties, the back-to-back surgeries and the care and management of the men’s wounds and injuries. This is what keeps me going while we constantly move backwards in retreat, disturbing the men, packing up when we have to. Sadly, we lose more men than we need to this way but we’re all trying to stay ahead of the Red Army and stay alive.

I could only imagine the nightmare Heinrich was living. My stomach clutched in fear and concern for him but also because of my ridiculous schoolgirl crush on my superior and the terrible guilt and shame it brought, especially when I knew how much Heinrich was sacrificing.

I read again the part I had been most looking forward to.

In my few moments of quiet before sleep, thoughts of our life together sustain me. I look forward to celebrating our wedding with our family and friends, finding a job at one of the München hospitals and settling into our own apartment to begin married life. In all truth, I would be happy to have a quiet life where nothing unexpected or very exciting ever happened again. I have seen enough action and upheaval to last a lifetime.

I miss you most of all – our conversations, your unerring support and your smiling face. I can’t wait to see you and hold you in my arms once again.

All my love, Heinrich.

Something nagged at me and I frowned, trying to work it out. Heinrich expressed everything about the life we wanted to build together. Then it hit me. Where were the words telling me how much I meant to him, how his life was nothing without me? Even on paper he couldn’t express his feelings for me. Girls at work had shared the erotic letters their husbands and loved ones had sent them, making us all breathless. I was quite envious and wondered if it was maturity and experience that made a man able to write those kinds of things. My thoughts wandered to the kind of letters Erich would send me if he were my lover.

I shook my head. I wasn’t being fair. Heinrich was in the middle of a war zone, doing all he could to stay alive, and here I was, safe, well and feeling sorry for myself. I just wanted this war over, so he could come home. If he couldn’t express it in words, he could show me what he felt for me on our wedding night. I wanted to get on with our life together, a life that had been planned out for so long.

‘My darling Heinrich,’ I read, then scanned what I had written before ending the letter:

I miss you so much it hurts. So many times a day I think about all the things I want to share with you but of course I can’t. I count down the days until you come home safely to me and I once again feel your strong, loving arms around me. I look forward to our wedding day and the joy of knowing you will always be by my side. We will have a wonderful life together. You mean everything to me. Stay safe.

All my love, your Lotte. *

Perhaps a little overdone, but at least I had conveyed how much Heinrich meant to me, maybe even shown him how I wanted to be written to. I prayed that my letter would give him some measure of joy and hope as well as updating him on life at home. Mutti promised to post the box the following day and already I was imagining Heinrich’s reaction and pleasure at opening the box and the letter he would write back. I couldn’t bear to think that he would not be home for Christmas.

*

December came as operations moved into overdrive. Hitler launched a major offensive on the Western Front through the Ardennes to prevent the Americans and British from invading Germany. There was hope in the office, as the new aircraft were finally ready to be useful in the battles to come.

The office staff exchanged small Christmas gifts before those of us who were able to returned home for a day or two. München had been bombed again and Bettina’s family had left the city and she was unable to join them. She and Erich had nobody, so at my father’s insistence, they joined me to celebrate Christmas with my parents. I couldn’t let Erich spend Christmas alone despite my inner conflict, knowing how much he missed his family. I was only offering a kind gesture to colleagues at a time of difficulty. Colonel von Wissenbach gave us a lift in his private car, as he was travelling to München for the night.

We brought lots of Christmas cheer home with us and Colonel von Wissenbach sent an expensive bottle of Hennessey cognac to my father. My mother’s tight expression softened into one of wide-eyed delight when we arrived with coffee, nougat, beer made by the monks at Scheyern, ham, real gingerbread, Belgian chocolate, winter apples, fresh vegetables, pine branches to give the room that Christmassy smell and other assorted delights.

Although it was a bit cosy as we gathered around the Christmas tree in my old bedroom, I was glad to be home, the flickering light of the candles shimmering in the glass baubles and silver tinsel, the scent of pine around us. Mutti proudly announced that we would have roasted goose for dinner, which Vati had managed to acquire for her, from one of his many contacts, I suspected.

As I helped bring in the food, I noticed Mutti had even managed to make stollen, quite a feat considering the high demand the ingredients would have been in. She told me that she and her friends had gathered the ingredients and split them. I cut thin slices and placed them on the platter to make sure there was enough to last. The bread was just like I remembered, sweet and yeasty with a good dash of lemon, almonds, vanilla and rum.

It was a wonderful evening, fuelled by good food and wine. Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine spending Christmas Eve with anyone else – it was perfect. Except that there had been no news of Heinrich. I told myself I hadn’t accounted for delays in the post with the disruptions that would inevitably occur with the approaching Red Army. But the ache in the pit of my stomach was a constant.

‘I’m sure you must be missing your wife and children,’ said Mutti to Erich.

He nodded, his eyes clouding over. ‘They’re still in Silesia. I had hoped they would be in Berlin for Christmas but my daughter has been unwell and not fit to travel.’

‘How old are your children again?’ Mutti asked, sipping her wine, relaxed now that the table had been cleared.

Erich’s face lit up. ‘Eva is nine and Walter has just turned five.’

‘A perfect age to enjoy Christmas,’ said Mutti wistfully. ‘I still remember when mine were all that little. They were so excited waiting for “der Weihnachtsmann”, and when he finally came and they discovered the presents under the tree, well, they were beside themselves. I never had any trouble keeping them awake on Christmas Eve. It was the highlight of their year.’ My mother smiled indulgently at me.

‘Were your family planning to just visit Berlin for the Christmas period?’ asked Vati, draining his glass of cognac.

‘No. I want to get them away from Silesia. I don’t think it will be safe there for much longer. The Red Army is getting closer each day and I don’t want my family anywhere near an invading force.’