Ghosts of Dresden

     Phil and Carol Steinman stood in the hallway, outside the hospital nursery- Phil in his favorite blue tweed suit, Carol in her favorite floral day dress.  They looked through the glass partition on the wall, at the bassinets and the newborn life they carried.  Some of the infants slept peacefully, exhausted by the existential journey they had made.  Others fussed and moved about- little legs kicking, tiny arms twitching; their fists closed tight, gripping.  Just gripping.  With each cry, they seemed to yell out, “I’m here!  I’m here!  Why?  Why?”  Few seemed content, in consciousness, watching the mobiles above their heads spin in circles. 
     Carol’s eyes gooed and gahed.  Phil’s, not so much. 
     “You know, I don’t see how anyone on this earth would want to reproduce,” he said.

     Carol’s jaw dropped, but she knew enough about her husband to not take any word that came from his mouth seriously. 
     “Seriously,” he said.  “they’re repulsive.” 
     She laughed and gave him a gentle push on the shoulder, then grabbed his arm and pulled him closer, to her side.  She held him there; and as she held him, Phil could feel her longing.  He knew how much she wished one of those babies to be hers.  But it was impossible.  They had tried.  And tried.  And tried again.  Phil didn’t mind the trying, at first.  He supposed Carol didn’t mind either.  But he quickly learned, when trying to make a baby (and failing), sex became more chore than recreation. 
     “They’re so cute,” Carol said. 
     “Yes, they are.”  Phil wanted to add, so are puppies, but felt he had poked enough fun of the sensitive subject.  He didn’t want to push it.  He didn’t want to upset his wife. 
      A nurse entered the room opposite the glass and moved swiftly down the aisle to a screaming infant at the end of the second row.  She wore the standard white nurse’s uniform, a white nurse’s cap atop her head.  She picked up the baby boy and rocked him steadily in her arms.  His raucousness was getting to upset some of the other babies in the nursery.  His face was beet red. 
     “He’s a feisty one,” Carol said.
     “Yes.  He sure is going to give his parent’s a headache.” 
     “You think he was premature?”
     “I don’t know,” said Phil.  “Possibly.” 
     “Poor little guy.  I’d take him in a heartbeat.” 
     “And I’d be taking lots of Aspirin.” 
     Carol was genuinely concerned for the infant, and Phil loved her for it.  In his thirty-two years, he had never met anyone as compassionate (aside from maybe his own mother) as she.  It made him think about what a good nurse Carol would have made.  She was headed down that path, and would have completed the schooling, had it not been for the War.  The War seemed to put all their plans- scratch that, their lives, on hold. 
     A young man and woman moved up next to Carol, happy and smiling, arm in arm.  Phil supposed they were family of a recent mother.  Perhaps a sister and her significant other- a boyfriend.  (He didn’t see a ring.)  The woman stood on her tiptoes, her nose almost against the glass.  She peered inside and scanned the nametags.  The boyfriend hung back. 
     “There, look!” she pointed.  Her boyfriend moved closer.  His smile widened.  He turned and locked eyes with his lover.  It was a deep lock, Phil could tell- the kind where the eyes glass over and see nothing else.  Phil looked away, for decency.   He wrapped his arms around Carol, from behind, and bent down to whisper in her ear, “Now they’ve got baby fever.” 
     Carol giggled under his grasp. 
     It was only a matter of time before the young lovers next found the nearest linen closet or went to the backseat of the guy’s Opel.  But they were only boyfriend and girlfriend, as far as Phil could tell.  To do that would be… well, Phil didn’t mean to judge, but he thought, a little irresponsible.  They should be engaged, at the least, to make the act somewhat respectable.
     Phil looked back and the guy was down on one knee.  He held the girl’s right hand between both of his. 
     “I promise you, Elsie, I will marry you after this war, when I come back.  I promise.” 
     “Oh Edwin!  I love you!”  She lunged forward. 
     The man, Edwin, stood up to receive Elsie’s embrace.  Elsie had tears in her eyes.  They kissed and ran off down the hallway, hand in hand.  Elsie’s blonde locks bobbed behind her. 
     For a moment the hallway was silent again.  The nurse behind the glass wall had calmed the crying infant and was in the process of placing him back in the bassinet.  She was careful not to move too swiftly, so as not to wake him.  She gently slid her hands out from under the tiny body as it connected with the mattress. 
     “That was sweet,”  Carol said.  
     “Huh?” 
     “The guy and the girl.”
     “Oh, yes.” 
     Phil could only think one thing, as he swayed with Carol in the hallway- dancing, but to music unheard.  He thought the young man would not come back from the war.  The war would put the young couple’s plans on hold, just as it had put his and Carol’s.  He heard a siren outside, which seemed to echo his opinion.  A deep, moaning wail- distant; not too loud.  A noise like thunder followed.  It shook the ground and the hospital walls. 
     The hospital’s siren kicked on. 
     Nurses and hospital staff moved frantically through the halls, room to room.  Phil and Carol stayed put. 
     “There’s a storm coming, isn’t there Phil?” asked Carol.
     “Yes, I’m afraid there is.”
     “Maybe now’s not the best time to be thinking about children, anyway.”
     “No, probably not.” 
     “I wish we could take them with us.”  Carol watched as the nurse behind the partition wheeled the bassinets into the hallway on the right side of the room.  The thunderous sound came again, louder, and shook the walls harder.  The babies began to cry.  Plumes of dry plaster and dust fell from cracks in the ceiling. 
     “I wish we could take them too.”  Phil said.  “But we’ll see them on the other side.” 
     “Yes, I suppose we will.” 
     Phil and Carol turned from the partition and proceeded down the hallway.  They linked hands, as Edwin and Elsie had, and moved casually as the walls of the hospital fell around them.