In the Midst of Life

was still alive. She hinted that her father was a very difficult man, a musician and singer, wrapped up in his art, expecting and revelling in the adulation of his fans (mostly women), and quite incapable of looking after two teenage girls. The two sisters walked hundreds of miles to an aunt who lived in or near Hamburg. They ate whatever they could find, and slept where they could. She told me that the American soldiers stationed in Germany were always very good to them, and it was through contact with them that she learned to speak English, which she spoke all her life with a delightful touch of an American accent.
    When the girls got to Hamburg, they found it to be in complete ruin. They had heard that the city had been badly damaged, but their imagination had not prepared them for the reality. Chaos reigned, and of the suburb in which their aunt’s home had been, nothing was left. Their aunt was presumed dead. How the sisters lived, I just do not know, because she said nothing of the years between 1946 and ’56. At some stage she must have learned shorthand and typing, and worked as an English/German secretary, and then decided to come to Paris to learn French and become atrilingual secretary, which was better paid. This was where we met.
    Helga was so beautiful, that particular type of German beauty, rather like that of Marlene Dietrich, with lovely blond hair, finely chiselled features, and a slightly superior look that irritated some people but intrigued others. She was tall and slender with such stunning looks she attracted many men. She had had very little formal education because of the war, but she was so intelligent, and so artistic, that it did not matter. She had received no musical education, but seemed to know all about music. She had no training in the fine arts, yet knowledge of painting and sculpture seemed to come naturally to her. She had had no guidance in the appreciation of architecture, but nothing missed her eye. She had something informed and insightful to say about everything and taught me, her younger friend, so much, not just about the arts in the abstract, but about the humanity behind the creation.
    We lived in central Paris, I with the family I worked for, and she, independently, in a tiny attic room at the top of an apartment block that was always hot in summer and cold in winter. Could I ever forget it? The concierge who opened the door, grumbling at having been disturbed, the lift to the fourth floor, which looked as though it had been constructed in the days of Napoleon Bonaparte – perhaps it had! Then two or three flights of stairs, each one steeper and narrower than the last, to the ill-fitting door of Helga’s fortress where she slept, lived, studied and entertained her friends. Everything was always in perfect order, in a space about nine feet square. With a camper burner on a tiny cabinet, and one saucepan, she produced delicious meals and delicacies.
    We both studied at
L’Alliance Fmnçaise
and met a lot of international language students, but in the evenings we went out with her artist friends, earnest, excitable young men trying to put the world to rights after the war. They brought their canvases to her, seeking her opinion and advice, which she always gave after a careful study of the painting. Obviously, they respected her opinions, because they came back with more. Although not much older than they were, she could always be relied upon to comfort and console and, though she had very little money, to providefood, paint, a canvas, a book or a record. Throughout her life she had a wonderful kindness, which drew people towards her.
    Helga probably had short-term affairs with some of these artists; she was young and vibrant. I would never have enquired – it was entirely her business – but I doubt if she was ever wantonly promiscuous, she was just not the type. Admirers surrounded her all her life, but she never married.
    The Paris days came to an end. I returned to England to do midwifery, and she returned to her homeland to work in Baden-Baden as a trilingual secretary and interpreter. She remained there for the rest of her life. It was there, when she was about thirty-five, that she met a man whom she truly loved. He was a German pilot named Hans, who had been severely wounded in the abdomen during the fighting. She nursed him for two years and gave him the love he needed. They could not marry, because he already had a wife who did not want the trouble of