His tone was just short of begging.
“You have a solution for everything, haven’t you?” I grinned, in spite of myself.
“Not for everything yet. But I’m working on it, I promise.”
Chapter Sixteen
June 1942
“Looks like your bandit-partisaner were quite busy lately.”
I looked up from the hand-written report that I was typing. Willy, who sat at the round table beside me, couldn’t quite conceal a sly grin as he perused the local Minsker Zeitung. I glimpsed the date on the front page, printed in the usual German Gothic, June 22. The longest day of the year. The anniversary of the beginning of the war with the Soviets.
Willy sipped his iced coffee. The air barely circulated through an open window and he sat in his shirt only, leaving his jacket on the back of his chair. “Another derailed train, just outside Minsk. They’re getting closer.”
“You seem to be far too pleased with the situation for a representative of the occupying forces,” I noted, hiding my smile. The heat was sweltering and my hair was pulled up high to expose my neck and allow at least some coolness to pass over my skin. For the hundredth time, I pulled the thin cloth of my shirt away from my back to which it kept sticking.
“Not just me. Weizmann is quite pleased with it too.”
“Speaking of Weizmann, you should have gone with him to the lake. It’s far too hot to be indoors today.”
The Komsomol Lake had been opened to the public exactly a year ago as well. I’d never seen it myself, only heard about it from Liza who had a chance to dip her toes in it a few days before the Germans occupied the city. Now, the lake was mostly frequented by said Germans. Even ordinary Byelorussian civilians preferred bathing in the river Svisloch rather than risk the company of their new masters.
“And leave you here alone? A fine fellow that would make me.” A shadow passed over his face; he was suddenly serious. “He thinks about defecting.”
I regarded him in astonishment. “Who, Otto? You’re joking, most certainly.”
“No, Liebchen. I’m very much serious. Apparently, he’s had enough of this rot.”
“But…” I couldn’t summon any words. How bad could it have been for them, the air forces? Most certainly, sprawled out in the sun right now, still wet from swimming, getting their golden tan to match those sky-blue uniforms of theirs. Or playing ball with their comrades and emptying beer mugs delivered by the local Byelorussian’s cart. And Otto, out of all people – I just couldn’t quite take it in. He was a decorated officer, highly regarded by his superiors. But again, so was Willy and look who he had taken to his bed. “Why?”
“Doesn’t fancy the regime he’s protecting. He’s always leaned towards the red side but now, after he’s seen the ghetto with his own eyes and met you…” he paused. “He suggested an idea to me.”
“What kind of an idea?”
Willy was biting his lip for some time, working things out in his mind. It seemed he was deciding whether to tell me or not; not because he didn’t trust me but out of fear of putting false hope into my heart. “If he takes the radio box out of the back of his Messerschmitt, two people can fit in there. It’ll be a little tight but… It’s not that we have to fly far. Only across the frontline.” A ghost of a smile passed over his lips.
I was already shaking my head. “No. No, no, no; it’s a bad idea, Willy. It’s a terrible idea.”
“Not so terrible, if you think of it.” Excited, he pulled forward. “We can take the staff car and drive to the airbase—”
“What will you tell the Field Police when they stop you and ask you what a Jew is doing in your car?”
“Same as I said the last time. I’ll tell them you’re my typist, and I’m a lazy bastard who can’t be bothered with writing down his own reports. It worked last time, didn’t it?”
“All right. What about when we get to the base itself? I doubt they’ll let Otto take out that massive radio box in broad daylight. He has to do it at night then. Most likely they have sentries on that airbase, don’t they?”
“Those can be distracted with the right amount of alcohol.”
“Suppose they can. What about us? How can we loiter there all day without causing suspicion? And even if we do and even if we manage to get inside that plane, don’t they have any anti-aircraft batteries positioned there that can shoot down anyone who takes off without proper authorization?” He wanted to interject something but I wouldn’t let him. “And let’s imagine – the best-case scenario – we do take off and they don’t shoot us down, by some miracle. How are we to let the Russians know that we aren’t an attacking aircraft but merely want to defect? Without the radio, that is?”
Willy cleared his throat in apparent embarrassment. “He has just recently suggested this. We didn’t quite think the entire affair through.”
I rose from my chair and sat at his feet, taking his hands into mine. “There’s nothing to think through. It won’t work.”
He took my face into his hands. “I need to get you out of here.”
“I know. But not like that. We’ll just get killed, all three of us.”
“I don’t like the speeches our political leaders are making lately.” He pulled me toward himself, sat me down on his lap and cradled me in his embrace. “Judenrein Occupied Eastern territories, by the end of the summer,” he finished in a barely audible voice. “They say, we should follow Estonia’s example. They’re in the lead. Completely clean of Jews, as they have put it.”
I buried my face in the stiff collar of his shirt. His hand was gently stroking my back. My blouse was stuck to it again and I was creasing his shirt and his neatly-ironed jodhpurs by leaning into him but for some reason, neither of us paid the slightest attention to any of this.
“Do you think they’d take us?” I asked at last. “The Red Army, I mean.”
He gave a shrug. “They take the Jews, so you’d be safe. Partisans or ordinary Red Army, no matter.”
“What about you?”
Another shrug. “It depends on luck, I suppose. Sometimes they put defectors into special camps; sometimes, kill them on the spot. It depends on their mood.”
He spoke about it so calmly as though his life was of no matter to him any longer. I kissed him, with infinite tenderness, on his mouth. It was of matter to me though.
“So, the Red Army is not an option,” I concluded softly. “Partisans it is.”
A scowl replaced his beaming expression at the sound of persistent knocking on his office door. I quickly fled back to my chair and began typing; whoever it was on the other side, let them hear me working.
Willy went to open the door. For some time, I listened to subdued voices, soon replaced by Willy’s apparent protests.
“Don’t worry, Herr Leutnant.” Blood left my face when I recognized the voice of the man who’d advanced further into the office and soon stood before me, regarding me with the eyes of a cat watching a canary – Untersturmführer Schönfeld. “I’ll watch over your little Jewess while you’re collecting those papers from the Reichskommissariat.”
Willy didn’t move an inch from the door, his arms crossed over his chest.
Without turning around, Schönfeld said in a sing-song voice, “the Reichskommissariat officers don’t appreciate the wait, Herr Leutnant.”
“I’ll be right back,” Willy said to me and, after snatching his jacket from the back of the chair and throwing yet another withering glance at Schönfeld, quickly left the room. I didn’t hear the door close – he must have left it open on purpose.
“Ilse Stein, isn’t it?”
So, he knew my name after all. I rose from my seat and smoothed out my skirt. “That’s correct, Herr Untersturmführer.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Much younger than his wife.”
“I wouldn’t know about his wife. We don’t talk on personal subjects.”
“What do you talk about then?”
&nb
sp; “Work-related issues.”
He pulled the chair out, in which Willy was just sitting and positioned himself quite comfortably in it. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“You spend an awful lot of time here.”
“He has a lot of reports to type.”
“A convenient excuse.” His mouth twitched in disdain. His gaze was growing dark, impenetrable. “Do you type at night, too?”
My hand gripped the back of my chair instinctively, searching for any kind of support. I felt as if I was falling, falling straight through the ground and into the pits of hell and the devil himself was now grinning at me.
“Sometimes I have to stay until after six and by then it’s too late to return to the ghetto. The curfew…”
“Ach, the curfew.” His artificial laughter echoed off the walls. “That’s awfully convenient too. And where do you sleep when you stay for a night?”
“On the floor in his office.”
“He wouldn’t let you sleep on the sofa?”
“No. The sofa is for Aryan officers only when they come to visit.”
“I smell horse manure.” A sneer cut across his handsome, cruel face. “I bet you sleep right here.” He motioned his perfectly coiffured head toward the bed. “Together with Schultz.”
Steps in the office promised the salvation of Willy’s face but to my horror, it was another SD officer, Schönfeld’s superior judging by the way Schönfeld jumped to his feet and greeted him with a snappy salute.
The newcomer, dark-haired and looking positively bored, was tall and considerably older than his subordinate. The belt hugged a visible paunch and his bloodshot eyes and reddish complexion betrayed his fondness for a drink.
“Well?” He didn’t bother returning the salute, only leaned against the doorframe and put both thumbs into his belt instead. “You dragged me here; now what?”
Schönfeld stole a quick glance in my direction. A pleasant smile now replaced his previous poisonous smirk. “Just tell Herr Sturmbannführer the truth concerning your and Leutnant Schultz’s relationship and we’ll all be on our merry way. There will be no consequences for you, I promise.”
The mere thought of what they’d do to Willy if I only uttered one careless word turned me cold with horror. It might as well have been winter outside; my entire body had begun to tremble.
“There’s nothing to tell. I type reports and orders for him…” I shot a hopeful glance in the Sturmbannführer’s direction. He stifled a yawn before arching a brow at his subordinate.
The latter turned to me, the previously pleasant mask vanished, as though by magic, as he shouted at me in a loud, wild voice, “you sleep here, you Jew-whore! The truth, I said!”
I jerked and instantly froze where I stood, a helpless rabbit before the uncoiling cobra. I couldn’t bear that shouting, for that infamous SS shouting was invariably accompanied by vicious beatings and shootings and I had grown much too tender while away from all that. Tears were stinging my eyes without spilling, only burning like acid instead. I was terrified of these two men, beyond any measure.
At last, I managed to speak in a miserably weak voice, “I sleep on the carpet in the office—”
In an abrupt motion, Schönfeld leaped forward, seized my arm and twisted it behind my back with such force that I yelped in pain. Still holding me fast, his hand pushed me face down onto the table; with the other one, he undid his holster and took his gun out.
“I don’t have time for your games!” Beads of spit landed on my face as he bellowed in my ear. “The truth I said!” He shoved the gun into my temple. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I shot twenty Jews, personally, just yesterday; I have no problem shooting one more! Tell me the truth!”
My entire body shook with sobs and unspeakable horror but I refused to say a single word. Most likely he’ll shoot me when he doesn’t get what he wants to hear out of me and in front of his superior on top of it. But my fate was sealed – I would be dead in any case by the end of summer; Willy said so himself. Nobody wants to be worse than Estonia, do they? But him, him they won’t touch now, as long as I keep silent.
“Say it!!!” He nearly dislocated my shoulder after yanking on my arm once more while his knee was pressing into the small of my back.
I cried out in pain but shook my head adamantly, looking at Sturmbannführer’s polished boots instead. “There’s nothing to say… I’m only a typist, I swear!”
The older man rolled his eyes. Let her go, don’t you have anything better to do? His red-rimmed eyes read as he looked at his subordinate. He was ready to walk out. Most likely, he, too, had a cold beer waiting for him in his office, which interested him much more than some Jew-girl.
His face twisted with fury at his so far unsuccessful interrogation, Schönfeld moved a gun away from my head and shoved it into my ribs instead, right next to my breast. “You’re telling me he doesn’t take advantage of such a situation? That sounds like a waste if you ask me. You have some nice, appealing assets here.” His gun circled round my breast and moved down my stomach, then along the hip. “I bet he fucked you quite a few times in the same exact position you’re currently in. It’s not that I blame him – you’re pretty for a Jew. Just nod your head if I’m correct.”
I shook it instead, as much as the table, to which my temple was pressed, allowed.
He leaned even closer to me, refusing to give up. “It’s very lonely here, away from home. And you’re telling me he never shoved his dick in you, not even once?”
Something snapped in me that very moment. “No, he didn’t! Only your SS men do that, in the ghetto, at night, when their superiors are asleep,” I growled back.
He had wanted to make me speak but those were clearly not the words he’d expected. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his superior straighten in the doorway, his face losing its bored expression for the first time.
“Put that gun away,” he commanded. Apparently, there were precedents when Schönfeld showed himself to be a bit too trigger-happy for his commanding officer’s liking. “Now, I said!”
“Herr Sturmbannführer—”
“You hold your tongue now and release her arm. I can’t quite talk to her from this angle.”
Reluctantly, Schönfeld released my arm. I pulled it toward myself and made a motion toward the older man when Untersturmführer grabbed my shoulder and pushed me down onto the chair. His superior now stood in front of me.
“What is it that you were saying about our SS men in the ghetto?”
Still cradling my arm, I stared at his brass buttons. We were not allowed to look into their eyes. It took Willy a good few weeks to persuade me in the opposite, for him. How many times, after we had just met, had I been staring at my food or the papers on his desk – anywhere but directly at his face. He finally succeeded in breaking that hateful habit but now the words, drilled into our poor heads, beaten into us until we were covered in bruises, were back with a vengeance. No Jew is allowed to approach an Aryan. No Jew is allowed to touch an Aryan. No Jew is allowed even to look an Aryan in the eye; the Jew can only look at the Aryan’s feet and kiss them if needed. This is your place; remember it for the remainder of your short, vermin lives.
The SD senior officer was waiting. I forced myself to part my lips. “They’ve been coming at night from time to time, ever since we’ve arrived here. They come drunk, select the prettiest girls and make them dance for them.”
“Did they make you dance for them?”
I nodded. “A couple of times.”
“What else did they make you do?”
“Me, nothing. But they did take some girls with them and people who work in the Cemetery would later tell us that they found their naked corpses the following morning.”
“That’s a lie!” Behind my back, Schönfeld bellowed. “It’s a shameless lie! She’s only trying to divert the issue from herself, the cunning bitch! No SS man—”
“What part of the, ‘hold your tongue’ order did you not understand?!”
his superior roared, his face growing even redder – from rage this time. “How long has this been going on and why have I never seen a single report about it?”
“Because it’s not true, Herr Sturmbannführer…”
The older officer ignored his orderly’s protest and looked down at me instead. “Would you be able to recognize the men who came into your house if I showed you their photos?”
“Yes, Herr Sturmbannführer.”
Already turning his back to me, he motioned for me to follow him. I did, putting as much distance between myself and Schönfeld as was possible. In silence, me trailing behind him, we walked along the carpeted hallway and up the marble staircase. On Sturmbannführer’s floor, SD field-gray uniforms replaced the Luftwaffe blue ones. I stuck to him like glue, refusing to meet any of the curious gazes.
His office was larger than Willy’s, with a portrait of Hitler occupying a big part of the wall. Below it, countless cabinets stood, instantly reminding me of the library catalog. Something told me though, it wasn’t anything literature-related that was hidden there, numbered in succession and assigned its respective letter. He motioned for me to sit down while he searched for needed files behind my back.
“Ilse, isn’t it?” He sounded calm, almost amicable.
“Yes, Herr Sturmbannführer.”
“Schultz says you’re a very good typist.”
I didn’t reply anything, just guessed by that remark that the man interrogating me must have been Sturmbannführer Bröger, Willy’s acquaintance from the SD. He wasn’t twisting my arm like Schönfeld but instinct, instilled by years of dealing with his SD kin reminded me, at once, that I had to watch myself with him even more.
“Is he a good boss?”
“Yes,” I replied carefully.
“Does he give you extra rations?”
“He gives me scraps of his own food sometimes,” I lied, putting as much humility in my voice as possible.
“Hm. That’s nice of him. Is he kind to you?”
No Woman's Land: a Holocaust novel based on a true story (Women and the Holocaust Book 2) Page 15