Chap­ter 16 begins with the nar­ra­tor reflect­ing on the emo­tion­al reunion with his wife, Hel­ga, after many years of sep­a­ra­tion. As the cou­ple ascends to the attic togeth­er, a mix­ture of joy and sor­row fills the air, as they both grap­ple with the weight of their shared his­to­ry and the tri­als that have kept them apart for so long. They are not alone in this inti­mate moment; Father Kee­ley and Vice-Bun­des­führer Krapp­tauer are also present, observ­ing the poignant reunion, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the atmos­phere. The con­trast between the ten­der con­nec­tion between the cou­ple and the unset­tling pres­ence of these oth­er fig­ures adds to the emo­tion­al com­plex­i­ty of the scene, illus­trat­ing the tan­gled web of their lives since they last saw each oth­er.

The nar­ra­tor, still over­whelmed by the improb­a­bil­i­ty of this reunion, asks Hel­ga how she came to be found after all these years. Jones, a mutu­al acquain­tance, shares the “fan­tas­tic coin­ci­dence” that led to the reunion, under­scor­ing the mirac­u­lous nature of their cir­cum­stances. Accord­ing to Jones, it was a read­er of his news­pa­per who tipped him off about Helga’s pres­ence in West Berlin, set­ting off the chain of events that would reunite them. Hel­ga, uncer­tain about the future, express­es doubts that the nar­ra­tor still feels the same way about her, believ­ing that he must have moved on dur­ing their extend­ed sep­a­ra­tion. This moment reveals the deep emo­tion­al scars left by the years apart, as Hel­ga ques­tions her place in the narrator’s life after all that has tran­spired.

As Hel­ga recounts the har­row­ing expe­ri­ences of the last fif­teen years, she reveals the immense phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al toll her jour­ney has tak­en on her. Cap­tured in Crimea, she was sub­ject­ed to unspeak­able hor­rors, includ­ing rape, before being trans­port­ed to Ukraine, where she was forced into labor under bru­tal con­di­tions. Her nar­ra­tive paints a bleak pic­ture of the fate of women like her—“stumbling sluts” as she describes herself—who were mar­ried to suf­fer­ing and left wan­der­ing through a dev­as­tat­ed land­scape. Her suf­fer­ing becomes emblem­at­ic of the mil­lions of indi­vid­u­als who faced sim­i­lar fates, their iden­ti­ties stripped away, their human­i­ty ignored. The nar­ra­tor lis­tens close­ly to her account, reflect­ing on the his­to­ry that shaped them both, rec­og­niz­ing how deep the scars of war run in their lives.

As Hel­ga con­tin­ues her sto­ry, she explains her escape from the labor camps, only to be cap­tured again and sent to a prison camp where she was forced to over­see the very S.S. sol­diers who had once been her cap­tors. The stark con­trast between her cur­rent role and the one she had been forced into high­lights the absur­di­ty and cru­el­ty of her sit­u­a­tion. Now, the S.S. sol­diers, once pow­er­ful fig­ures in the Nazi regime, are reduced to mere shad­ows of their for­mer selves, sym­bol­iz­ing the col­lapse of the pow­er struc­tures they once rep­re­sent­ed. The hor­ror of Helga’s expe­ri­ences is made even more poignant by the fact that she sur­vived it all, show­ing an immense strength and resilience. Yet even after her escape and a return to Dres­den, she remains unsure of her future, con­stant­ly haunt­ed by the past and the immense suf­fer­ing she endured.

Even­tu­al­ly, Hel­ga is repa­tri­at­ed, but not to Berlin as expect­ed. Instead, she is sent to Dres­den, a city that holds its own painful mem­o­ries for her. After escap­ing again, she even­tu­al­ly makes her way to West Berlin, a final des­ti­na­tion that rep­re­sents not just her phys­i­cal sur­vival but also the emo­tion­al jour­ney she has endured. The chap­ter ends with the rev­e­la­tion that Helga’s jour­ney was fund­ed by admir­ers of the nar­ra­tor, who had rec­og­nized the brav­ery he demon­strat­ed by speak­ing out dur­ing the war. This real­iza­tion con­trasts with the lies that had sur­round­ed him, illus­trat­ing the com­plex inter­play of truth and decep­tion in their lives. As the cou­ple con­fronts their shared past and the uncer­tain future ahead of them, the emo­tions between them grow more intense, remind­ing them both of the enor­mi­ty of what they have endured and the changes they must face in a world for­ev­er altered by war.