Adam swallowed hard but didn’t say anything.
“You don’t have to say anything, I’m a very good psychologist and can read people very well. That’s why I’m the Chief of the Gestapo, I guess.” Gruppenführer laughed. “And you know what, I don’t blame you. She’s a very, very beautiful girl. How can you not be in love with her?”
He lowered his hands to my uniform jacket and unbuttoned it.
“But do you know what your biggest problem is?” Adam frowned even more as Dr. Kaltenbrunner took the jacket off me and undid several buttons on my shirt. “You’re a Jew. And she’s Aryan. You can’t have her. It’s against the law.”
The leader of the Austrian SS put his chin down on my shoulder pressing his cheek next to mine, hugged my waist with both hands and smiled at Adam. “But I can.”
I finally realized what he was doing, and how exactly he was planning to make Adam speak: he was going to use me as bait. I could only hope that Adam would keep quiet.
“I can understand your feelings. You saw her every day at work, you spoke to her, you were even able to touch her during the dancing. But I bet you never touched her like this.”
Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner moved one hand from my waist to my chest and slid it under my shirt, firmly pressing my breast through my bra. Adam almost jumped in his chair in indignation.
“What are you doing?! Stop touching her!!!”
“You can make me stop.” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner smiled at Adam, his fingers still caressing my breast and playing with my nipple until it got hard under his touch. “Just tell me where the code book is and who supplies you with information.”
“I’ve already told your people that there is no code book. I already get those messages coded.”
“Alright. Who codes them then?”
Adam didn’t say anything.
“No? Fine. I have all the time in the world and I’ll be enjoying every minute of it. And so will Frau Friedmann here.”
This time under Adam’s terrified stare he moved his hand inside my bra. I inhaled sharply and tried to close my eyes in my humiliation, but now it was just the sensation of his warm fingers on my bare skin, his heavy head on my shoulder and the other hand still pressing against my stomach. I decided it would be better to keep my eyes open.
“Stop doing that!!!”
“Why? She likes it.”
“No, she doesn’t!”
“Of course she does. Her heart is beating so fast now.”
“It’s because she’s scared!”
“No, she’s not scared. She’s excited. She wants me to do it.”
“No, she doesn’t! Get your dirty hands off her!!!”
“I will, as soon as you tell me who codes your messages and where they’re getting the information from.”
Adam looked at me in desperation. This time with Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner’s face right next to mine I couldn’t shake my head or give Adam any other sign, so I just pursed my lips and frowned the best I could, silently begging him to keep quiet. For the rare exceptions when Rudolf did it, my husband coded almost all of them. Adam sighed and lowered his head, but didn’t say anything.
“Still no?” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner raised his eyebrow at Adam. “Very well.”
He took his hand out of my bra, and with a sinister smile put both palms on my knees, forcing them apart. Adam shifted in his chair, looking at the leader of the Austrian SS in disbelief. I clenched onto both sides of my chair, desperately hoping that it was just a psychological trick and he wouldn’t actually do anything to me. He slowly picked up my skirt to my mid-thighs and started stroking my legs, still resting his head on my shoulder.
“She has beautiful legs, right, Jew-boy? Only ballerinas have legs like that. Look how shapely they are, how long, how perfect. The real embodiment of the Reich’s idea of Body Beautiful, don’t you think? But I still don’t understand what you were hoping for. Did you really think that you would come back to Berlin on the white horse, defeat the Nazi regime singlehandedly, save the princess over here and live with her happily ever after?” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner was still caressing my bare legs with his fingertips, slowly moving his hands higher and higher, my skirt moving along with them. “You were hoping that one day she’ll become yours, weren’t you? You were going to sleep every night dreaming how one day you would be able to do what I’m doing right now. Never going to happen, Jew-boy. But I’ll do you one favor though: I’ll tell you exactly how it feels.”
Watching Adam’s expression closely, he unhurriedly slid his hand under my skirt, moving it along the inside of my thigh higher and higher. I pressed myself inside the chair holding my breath. He was not actually going to do that. Adam was breathing heavily, looking at the grinning Austrian in desperation and anger. The latter stopped his hand within an inch from my underwear.
“One last time I’m asking you, who’s coding your messages?”
“Please, don’t do that,” Adam hardly whispered, already knowing that all the pleading would be in vain.
“Don’t make me do it. Who’s your connection?”
“I don’t know him…” Adam finally breathed out with a pained expression on his face.
“Wrong answer.”
He put his hand between my legs and moved his fingers up and down, pressing them firmly against the silk of my panties. I closed my eyes again; I couldn’t stand to see Adam’s face. I never felt more exposed and embarrassed at the same time. And now the leader of the Austrian SS put his other hand inside my bra again, squeezing my breast, caressing my nipple with his thumb, pressing his cheek closer to my face and his leg closer to my hip. I heard Adam struggle against his handcuffs, desperately trying to release himself.
“Stop that, you son of a bitch!!! I’ll kill you!!!”
“No, you won’t.” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner laughed. “There’s nothing you can do, except watch me do whatever I want to the girl you’re in love with. How does it feel, huh? Seeing some other man touch her where you could only dream of touching her?”
“She has nothing to do with all this, let her go!”
“I’m not the one who’s holding her here, Jew-boy. She could have long been home with her loving husband if you weren’t so stubborn. And now, if you don’t start cooperating, I’ll fuck her right here on this table, right in front of you.”
“You won’t dare!”
“Oh yeah? You clearly don’t know me.”
I did. I knew him very well.
“Frau Friedmann likes silk underwear,” he continued. With my eyes still closed his voice sounded so loud in my head, his aftershave lingering on my skin where he was brushing me with his cheek, and his hands everywhere on my body, so gentle and so ruthless at the same time. “I like it too. I like how it feels when I touch her through it. But do you know what I like more, Jew-boy? No underwear at all.”
I involuntarily jerked when Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner moved my panties to one side and put his hand on me, not a single obstacle on his way anymore, just his fingers on my skin. I could feel how much it excited him, because he started breathing faster now, pressing himself even harder to me, touching me more persistently.
“She’s so goddamn fine, you couldn’t even imagine something like this in your wildest dreams, Jew-boy! So warm, so tender… so wet already.” I could almost hear him grin wider as he said that. I hated him, hated that he had the insolence to do something like that in front of another man, hated how he was playing me with his fingers, moving them in slow circles around the most sensitive spot on my body, and hated myself because it started to feel so good. “You know what, don’t tell me anything, I don’t want anything from you anymore. I just want to fuck her.”
I gasped as the leader of the Austrian SS slid two fingers inside of me. “Oh yes, I’ll definitely fuck her. I swear, Jew-boy, she’s worth all of your secrets.”
“You’ll go before the tribunal, you dirty dog!” Adam said very quietly, with unmasked hatred in his voice. I coul
d tell that he was almost broken at this point.
“Most likely. But I’ll die a happy man!”
He was laughing. I heard Adam swallow hard. And there was nothing I could do. Absolutely nothing.
“Josef. His name is Josef. He’s the leader of the Resistance here in Berlin. He codes my messages. The woman who delivered me the radio was one of his agents, I don’t know who she is, but he does.”
I opened my eyes wide in awe. Trying to help me, he sold the wrong man, the man who used to work closely with my father when the latter was still a lawyer before he had to move to Switzerland, and was helping Josef to falsify all kinds of documents for the Underground movement. The Gestapo’s close surveillance on that very Josef was the reason why my parents had to leave the country so hastily, because if the Gestapo would have gotten him, all my family would be in imminent danger. I told Adam about Josef and that if he happened to come across him, he should stay away from the leader of the Berlin Resistance for the same reason, but didn’t say anything about my father. And now that little mistake might cost Papa his life.
Dr. Kaltenbrunner finally let go of me and straightened up next to my chair.
“It wasn’t that hard, was it? You told me everything, and I hadn’t touched a hair on your head, just like I said I would. I’m a little disappointed though that you destroyed my plans for the evening with my pretty Frau Friedmann, but a deal is a deal, and I’ll let her go. You’ll stay here of course and will tell the agents who’ll proceed with your interrogation all the details. I’m not going to say that I’ll see you in the future, because most likely I won’t. Unless they decide to send you to Mauthausen.”
Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner laughed again and pressed the button under the desk so the guards would open the door. Already at the door, while Dr. Kaltenbrunner was talking to one of the agents waiting outside, I turned around and mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ at Adam; he just shook his head with tears in his eyes, as if saying that it was him who was sorry. I was ready to burst into tears myself: my poor Adam had no idea what he had done, even though unintentionally. I just buried my brother, and now my parents’ life was hanging by a thread. As soon as Adam identifies Josef by the picture, the Gestapo will start a massive manhunt and then it’ll be all over with. I started shivering walking behind Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner out of the jail. As the last door was locked behind us, I started walking fast towards the exit of the building, further from all of them, out to the street. He caught me by my forearm and turned me towards him.
“Where are you going alone? It’s night out, I’ll drive you home.”
I yanked my hand out of his with a force I never suspected I was capable of.
“Don’t you dare ever touch me again, you dirty bastard!!!”
He was visibly confused at such an outburst from my side, but it wasn’t enough for me to yell at him. I pushed him in the chest with both hands, already crying. He threatened me, he humiliated me, he made Adam talk, he will make them arrest Josef and Josef will tell them everything about my father, and they will get him too. I pushed him again and again; he didn’t even try to stop me and was just standing there, blinking at me.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said, clearly uncomfortable with me crying in front of him, finally realizing what he had done. “I shouldn’t have—”
“I hate you!!!” I screamed at his face almost at the top of my lungs; I didn’t care that the RSHA workers could hear me yell. He stepped away as if I slapped him.
“I’m very sorry…” he whispered again. I turned around and ran out of there, right into the cold May night.
Chapter 5
I walked all the way home even though the building of the RSHA was quite far from my house. I think it was even raining out, but I’m not sure. I was too deep in my thoughts to care about things like rain or cold. Halfway home I finally stopped crying and instead started thinking what could possibly be done now to prevent Josef from being caught. But nothing was coming to my mind.
I never picked up my belongings or my bag from the office, and now I had to knock on my own door. Heinrich wasn’t sleeping of course; hearing his hurried steps in the hallway, I figured that he was waiting for me in the living room – close both to the door and to the phone. I guess Max had told him that I had been arrested.
My husband’s look said it all as soon as he opened the door: I must have looked like a complete mess in wet clothes, with running mascara and loose hair stuck to my face.
“Oh my God, Annalise, are you alright?” He gently picked up my face with both hands, obviously looking for any marks on it. “Did they hurt you?”
“No, they didn’t, I’m fine.” I tiredly wrapped my hands around his waist and rested my head on his shoulder. I suddenly felt so extremely exhausted that all I could think of was going to sleep. “Take me to bed please, I can’t walk anymore.”
Heinrich effortlessly picked me up and carried me upstairs, not asking anything. He knew what the Gestapo did to people, if not physically, then emotionally for sure, and decided to let me rest first. Less than anything I wanted another interrogation, and I was glad that he understood that. Instead of talking, he just took my wet clothes off and covered me with the blanket. Almost half-asleep, I took the cyanide out of my mouth before I completely forgot about it and accidentally swallowed it in my sleep, and gave it to Heinrich.
“Here, take this too. I didn’t have to use it this time.”
Right after I fell into a deep sleep without any dreams.
_______________
I woke up with a start and saw that it was still dark out. I stretched my hand out to Heinrich’s side, but the bed was made up where he was supposed to be sleeping. I quickly sat in bed, feeling anxiety taking over again. It all came back at once: the Gestapo, Adam, Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner, Josef, my father. I rubbed my eyes with a moan; deep inside I was hoping that I dreamed it all.
“Sweetheart? Are you awake?”
I turned to the direction of Heinrich’s voice and saw him sitting in a chair next to the fireplace.
“What are you doing over there?”
“I couldn’t sleep. And besides I wanted to be up when you’d wake up. Do you want me to get you something?”
“Yes. An aspirin, a glass of whiskey and a gun loaded with one bullet.”
Heinrich chuckled.
“Let me bring you the first two things, and then we’ll talk about the gun and who you intend to shoot.”
It took me two glasses to tell him everything that happened since two Gestapo agents stopped in front of my office table. Well, almost everything. For some reason I decided that it was a bad idea to tell him about kissing the leader of the Austrian SS and especially how he almost had his way with me right in front of Adam. Even though my husband was not a hot headed man (no spy can be, if he wants to survive for at least some time), he was still very protective of me and could easily go and shoot the man who dared to offend his wife in such a despicable manner. And then I would have most likely become a widow.
“Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do for Adam at this point, but we’ll try to get him out as soon as they decide which camp they will send him to. Right now we need to find this Josef before the Gestapo does,” Heinrich concluded after I finished talking. “Ingrid and Rudolf can get your parents out of Switzerland through their people, but it’ll take too much time that we don’t have.”
“How can we possibly get him before the Gestapo?”
“We have one big advantage: we have a lot of friends on the other side, who will gladly tell us where to find him. I seriously doubt that they will be as cooperative with the Gestapo as they will with us. But we mustn’t waste any time: if we want to get him to him first, we have to do it now.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Night is the spy’s best friend.” Heinrich winked at me. “Get dressed in something dark and let’s go.”
Fifteen minutes later we were already driving on the empty streets of Berlin. Hein
rich wasn’t wearing his uniform this time, but still had his gun in his pocket.
“So what’s the plan?” I asked him. “How exactly are we going to get Josef?”
“One of my connections that works both with us and the Underground might know where to find him. Or he might know someone who knows where to find him. We’ll take it from there.”
“And when we find him? Do you think he’ll come with us? What if he refuses?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. He’ll have to come with us.”
“Where are we going to hide him though? I mean before you get him out of the country.”
“We aren’t going to hide him. Too dangerous.”
“I don’t understand…”
“We won’t have time to get him out of the country. No time and no resources, taking into consideration that the Gestapo have probably already made him number one on their most wanted list.” Heinrich turned to me and looked me straight in the eye. “We’ll have to kill him.”
“What?” I honestly thought that I misheard what my husband just said.
“That’s the only option we have.”
“No! Heinrich, that’s not right! You can’t kill a man just like that!”
“Do you want your parents and Adam alive?”
“Yes,” I finally replied.
Heinrich suddenly chuckled. “I’m surprised that you’re so sensitive all of a sudden. Wasn’t it you who asked Kaltenbrunner to organize Heydrich’s assassination just a couple of months ago?”
“It’s different.” I frowned at him. “Heydrich deserves to die. And besides, I’m not the one who will have to physically do it.”
“You won’t have to. I’ll do it.”
There he was, another man ready to kill for me. The memories of the first one touching me everywhere in the most inappropriate way earlier that night were still fresh in my mind, and I shook my head trying to get rid of them. It was my own fault; both Heinrich and my late brother were trying to warn me about the true nature of that man, but I refused to listen. I sincerely hoped that Dr. Kaltenbrunner was the nice Dr. Jekyll, but he turned out to be the evil Mr. Hyde.
The Girl from Berlin: Gruppenführer's Mistress Page 8
