“Next time, it will be you screaming, you foreign dog,” the receptionist is whispering in my ear again. I close my eyes and try to remain calm. Fear is coursing through my body and it takes all my strength to withhold the tears.
The receptionist clutches my neck again and directs me to the only lit room at the far end of the room. He knocks on the door and opens it without waiting for a response. We walk in to a typical GP’s diagnosis room and there is a chubby doctor with drooping eyes and a large mouth. Without doubt, I know it is Paul Beckermann’s son.
“Ah, who do we have here then?” he says in a cheery manner.
“Some girl from the street looking for money,” the receptionist says, he is on the verge of saying more but I can see that he fears the doctor.
“Well, come on in young lady, let us see how we can help each other,” I walk in and sit on the edge of the bed as directed by the doctor. The doctor turns to the receptionist and says: “Thank you Thomas, you may leave us now,”
The receptionist scurries away and the doctor turns his gaze towards me.
“My name is Dr Karl Beckermann and I am in charge of this medical facility. I hope Thomas treated you well?” I shrug my shoulders and don’t say anything.
“He can be a bit tough sometimes on young girls, especially ones he thinks are on drugs,” Beckermann continues, “His mother died of an overdose when he was thirteen and ever since then he has developed his own theories on addiction. I tell him it is an illness but he doesn’t believe me. Young people these days find it hard to listen to the older generation,”
Beckermann walks over to me and asks me to stand up. He is very tall, which must be a family trait. He is easily over two metres high. He lifts my arms up and inspects them, then moves to checking out my neck, lifting my hair up. I swear that he pulls my long hair towards his nose and smells it but that could be my imagination.
“You are not a drug addict,” Beckermann says.
“I never said I was,” I reply.
“So why are you here? You have the body of an athlete,”
“I’m new to the city, I have no money for rent and I met a boy called Heiko. He said I can make money for medical trials,”
“Ah Heiko, he always falls for the exotic arrivals. Why are you in West Berlin, where are you from?”
“Yugoslavia,” I reply, no point in trying to fool him.
“You’re very far from home, young girl,” Beckermann says, a leer crossing his face. He is very close to me and I realise that he is a big man who could easily overpower me. It takes all my willpower to withstand the trepidation and maintain steady eye contact.
“I wasn’t welcome at home so I had to leave. I bought the cheapest flight out of Yugoslavia and that was here,”
“Welcome to Berlin, where dreams come true,” Beckermann stifles a laugh and then sits back down in his worn-out chair. I’m amazed it bears his weight as he falls back in to it but it manages to hold.
“It’s a strange place,” I say, attempting to keep the conversation as light as I can, “It’s not like Yugoslavia,”
“No, I suppose it isn’t.” Beckermann replies, he is gazing at me intently. It’s hard to gauge in what manner. His demeanour is not aggressive, nor friendly. But it is unnerving. Simply by not overtly showing emotion he has an undeniably ominous aura.
“What tests do you perform here? Some of the people don’t look well at all,” I say, I know this could provoke a negative reaction but I can’t resist asking him.
“Are you a medical professional?”
“No,”
“Well, you wouldn’t understand what we do here. We are at the forefront of cutting edge research at this facility, helping to save countless lives.”
“Why is the work done underground?”
“You ask a lot of questions don’t you? We are funded by the government and a lot of the science is top secret so they don’t want other nations discovering it. Some people may call the volunteers here national heroes. I would be one of those people,”
A silence descends upon the room. I’m puzzled at why he gave me that over-the-top explanation. This place is seriously unsettling me.
“You are in very good shape,” Beckermann says, “Many of our volunteers arrive in a very disordered fashion, they have abused their bodies with narcotics and alcohol. Some people have done this for many years, their addictions have taken over their lives,”
Beckermann stands again, moves close to my body and begins examining me once more.
“Yes, you would make an excellent base line sample for our new trial we are due to begin this evening. We would be happy to pay you five thousands Marks too,”
This evening? When I used to sit and watch the cartoons on the television you used to see a character gulp in nervy situations. I do exactly the same and feel the panic rising. The dank humidity is enveloping me and I sense my window of opportunity to escape is beginning to recede.
Beckermann walks away towards the door and I am momentarily glad that he isn’t about to start touching me again. Sweat beads are sliding down my face, how does the obese Beckermann keep looking as calm as Lake Bled on a summer’s day?
“Come, come,” Beckermann gestures to me to follow him.
Beckermann stands outside his office and calls out “Daniel!”. One of the orderlies, a burly sandy-haired man of about thirty comes running over, “We have our other volunteer ready for the new study, please show her to the main trial room,”
Daniel puts his arm around my waist and says “Good evening,” which is a strangely formal way to direct someone towards a possibly inhumane medical test. I walk off with the big orderly and try and work out if I can escape if necessary.
As we walk around the back of the hall opposite to the side I originally entered, an old man wearing what looks like a filthy loincloth runs up to me. He grabs my arms and is in my face shouting what sounds like “Folterer! Folterer!”
I don’t know what the word means, I ask Daniel what it is. Daniel blanks me and grabs the old man, another orderly seems to appear from nowhere and also becomes involved.
The old man displays surprising strength and at first manages to fight off the two muscular guys. After a few seconds, with raised voices and screams echoing all over the hall the two orderlies pin the old chap to the floor. A third orderly arrives and plunges a syringe in the old man’s neck and he instantly subdues.
Daniel turns back to me, with a look of shock on his face. He grabs my arm and drags me away.
“He nearly beat you up,” I say, “The old man was winning until your mate turned up,”
Daniel doesn’t say anything, grimaces and drags me away to a nearby door. He pushes along a short corridor at the end of which Daniel takes out a key and unlocks the door.
“Go through the door,” Daniel says in a level voice. I ponder whether to fight him, after his exertions with the old man he might be tired. On the other hand he looks in tremendous shape and I’m not sure how far away his back up could be.
The room I enter looks like a traditional hospital ward with three beds lined up to the left and three on the right of the room. In the farthest two beds, curtains are placed at the nearest side of the beds. I see a couple of bony legs poking out of the ends of the beds.
A female nurse is sat down at a desk writing something on a chart. A middle-aged male doctor is stood behind the nurse and talking to her. She doesn’t seem to be listening and is concentrating on her notes. The ward is not clean in any respect and has a rather pungent smell of bleach.
“Dr Beckermann sent this one for you, Dr Hansen,” Daniel calls out to the doctor who was so caught up in his monologue that he has only now noticed us enter.
“Oh, that is great news, I have been waiting two days for a new subject,” the doctor replies, he is of medium build with a dark head of hair and moustache, so dark it looks dyed. He jogs over to me and starts inspecting me like Beckermann did.
“That muscle tone is superb, Beckermann has done it again. What a s
uperb professional he is,” I don’t know why he is sucking up to him when he is not even here. Daniel doesn’t respond to him.
“Please, take a seat,” Hansen gestures towards the nearest bed.
“What tests am I doing, the other doctor didn’t mention it?” I say walking off towards the other beds. The doctor tries to stop me from walking down the ward but I push him off. Daniel stays stood in the doorway too, unmoved.
“Please, Miss, come and sit down and I can explain it all in great detail for you. Please,”
I pass by the nurse in the centre of the ward who simply smirks at me. As I reach the end of the bed I see the feet of what I thought was an old man. It is actually a young girl, her pink legs have the shrivelled texture of dried fruits.
My eyes move up her body, she is completely naked. Purple bruises and scratches cover a lot of her surface area. Blood is dripping out in isolated spots and running down her body onto the bedsheet. Her arms are fastened securely to the bed bars.
I look up to her face and where her eyes should be. What I see is the most frightening thing I have ever witnessed. Her right eye looks at me with dread. Her left eye is missing, the socket held open by what appears to be a steel clamp. Metal prongs are sticking in the gap where her eye should be. The prongs are holding a huge syringe in her eye.
The syringe has the diameter of a rolling pin with about half the length. The girl is not moving except for her right eye. It is her only communication method but I can feel her right eye conveying agony. She is pleading for release from this ghastly condition.
This is repugnant. Who on earth would do this to a fellow human being, especially in the West where they preach about human rights? If someone told me this place existed I would never have believed them.
I turn round to the doctor who has the appearance of a boy caught stealing a chocolate bar from a shop. Mild embarrassment. I have never felt so much revulsion in my whole life.
“What are you doing to this girl?” I say, attempting to keep my voice from sounding too shrill.
“This is vital scientific work, we are going to save many lives,” the doctor says.
“Her eye, did you take out her eye?” I say walking up to him with fists balled.
“She had lots of problems with her eyes so we… we said that we can help her out,”
“You ripped out a girl’s eyeball as part of an experiment,” I face the doctor and I know I am about to punch this man in to next week. As I prepare to strike I feel hands on either side of me. Daniel has grabbed one arm and the nurse, who I notice has the build of an Olympic shot-putter now she has stood up, has caught hold of my other arm.
The doctor’s face has turned from fear to smugness and he directs his colleagues to sit me down. My anger is swelling and I know I will have at least one moment where I will give my all to escape from here. I may not be successful but I will go down fighting either way.
“So, young lady, your little act of rebellion has ended,” Dr Hansen says, “It is time for the experiment to begin. You are lucky, we won’t be needing to remove your eyeball. Instead we can identify how effective the drugs are when injected directly into the cornea,”
Dr Hansen stands over me, he holds the hypodermic needle in his hand, I know once he injects me there will be nothing I can do. I start shouting in the vain hope that someone, somewhere will rush in and save me. I suppose that is what every volunteer does here. Now I am about to become another shrieking banshee hidden a mile underground. My limbs are fighting and the nurse and Daniel are working hard to suppress me.
“There is no good and bad in nature. Stop putting emotions at the forefront of your thoughts. You are helping us to erase defects and imperfections in humans,”
“You are butchers,” I spit at him which riles him immensely.
“Unfortunately for you, I may be the butcher but you are the diseased pig, oink oink,” Hansen moves his arm to inject me when I hear a familiar voice from directly behind him.
“One more movement and I blow your head off,”
The doctor freezes. Behind him I see Janko’s face. He is holding a pistol directly at the back of Dr Hansen’s head. Daniel lets go of me and spins around - straight into Gunari who floors him with one punch. He crumples to the floor.
The nurse is in shock so I grab her head and simultaneously move it towards my fast rising left knee. Her nose explodes on my kneecap and she falls to the floor too.
I admire my two saviours.
“Impeccable timing, boys”
The Art of Probability
Monday, 5 May 1986
“What is going on here?” Dr Hansen says, his body as still as one of his subdued volunteer medical trialists.
“Exactly my question to you, doctor,” Janko says, “Turn around,”
The doctor turns around slowly and comes face to face with Janko’s gun. Janko gestures with the gun towards the chair and desk in the centre of the ward. The doctor skips across and sits down obediently.
“Are you OK Ana?” Gunari says to me whilst rubbing my back.
“Of course I am, I was about to escape when you burst in,” I say and Gunari smiles in a silly manner. I pop up off the bed and give him a peck on the cheek and then decide to give him the biggest hug I may have ever given anybody. I take Gunari by the arm and lead him to where the one-eyed girl is laying.
Gunari stops in his tracks and walks behind the curtain and begins dry retching. It takes him a few seconds to compose himself and he makes his way back to see the girl.
“Can you speak?” he says to her. Her one remaining eye begin to water. No voice escapes her mouth. Gunari remains close to the girl but he doesn’t speak. It could be because of the shock of seeing her or maybe he has no plan. How does anyone plan for this scenario?
I turn around and see the patient in the bed opposite. I paid them very little heed when I initially came in. I stand beside their bed and I cannot tell what gender they are. Short hair, feminine features and a long, thin body. Their gown is wet from sweat. They also have one eye but thankfully the socket is covered by an eye patch.
“Hey,” I say to her and I place my hand gently on their upper arm, “Can you hear me?”
“Yes,” a weak, reedy voice comes out of dry lips, their eye remains closed, “Where am I?”
“Berlin,” I reply, unsure on where exactly they mean.
“Berlin, Berlin. West or East?”
“I’m not completely sure,” I say, “You’re at the IMFG medical centre. Do you remember coming here?”
“I don’t remember anything,” the volunteer opens their remaining eye and it is a piercing blue, “I don’t remember who I am.”
I continue stroking their arm and face. I don’t have a clue what to say to them. I look around to Gunari and he too is stroking the young girl’s hand in the opposite bed. Janko is questioning the doctor but I can barely hear his questions or the answers supplied by the petrified Hansen.
Janko calls out to Gunari and I. We both reluctantly leave the two volunteers and stride over to Janko.
“The doctor claims this facility is paid for by the government,” Janko says.
“That’s what someone else told me, they probably think that is true,” I say.
“Treating people no better than farm animals, performing degrading experiments on them,” Gunari is quietly seething and he delivers a huge punch to the side of the doctor’s head. He says something that I don’t understand, possibly in French. The doctor is now barely conscious.
“How did you find me?” I say.
“After you left, we stood around unsure what to do,” Janko says, “The more we stood around at Potsdamer Platz we realised that we might have sent you to your death. After the last few days we knew we couldn’t do that,”
“Then we met that security guard at Stadtmitte station,” Gunari says, “It didn’t take long for us to obtain information from him about what goes on in this place. I don’t think either of us expected to find this,”
“We saw you being taken away and the old man shouting ‘Torturers!” to you and then the big fight, we were hiding behind one of the curtains,”
“So that’s what he was shouting, I didn’t understand the word he was using,” I say. Torturers is exactly the right word.
“Did Dr Beckermann see you?” I ask and both men look surprised.
“He is here?” Gunari says.
“We didn’t know, I doubt he will have seen us,” Janko adds.
“He has an office at the back of the main hall,” I say, “We should pay him a visit,”
“Let’s tie these three up first,” Gunari says and he is already on the move ripping up bed-sheets. He ties Daniel, the nurse and Hansen to a bed each and also fills their mouths with smaller bed-sheet rags.
“I hope I don’t need to use this,” Janko says, raising the pistol up, “Especially considering it has no bullets in it,”
I pause for a moment and then burst out laughing, a hearty laugh I needed so much.
“You have no bullets,” I repeat, thinking back to when he pointed at Hansen’s head.
“No, I found it at Schwarzer’s house and I searched everywhere but I couldn’t find any ammunition at all,”
We are about to leave the ward and head to find Beckermann when the door opens and Dr Karl Beckermann, of all people, walks straight in. His face is a picture of shock. Janko points the gun directly in his face. The arrogance he displayed to me earlier has vanished. The face reminds me of Schwarzer when we first captured him.
Dr Beckermann looks around and sees the bizarre sight of three of his staff members haphazardly tied to the furniture. Words want to pour out of his mouth but the surreality of the situation silently overpowers his urge.
“Take a seat, Dr Beckermann,” Janko says, and in a carbon copy of ten minutes ago gestures to the newly arrived doctor to sit down at the nurse’s table. The big doctor forlornly slumps into the chair and again I am surprised it supports his bulk. After a minute or two of hanging his head he finally raises it up. Gunari uses more torn bed-sheets to tie him to the chair.
“You are making a big mistake gentlemen,” Beckermann has regained his composure, much more convincingly than Schwarzer did in similar circumstances. Janko says nothing, Beckermann turns to Gunari who also remains silent.
The Wind and the Rain Page 19