After making more changes in the commanding staff positions, Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner read the list of people who were to be transferred to other offices or fired from their positions because ‘they didn’t meet the requirements necessary for the excellent service.’ Barbara whispered another ‘Oh, God’ when he proceeded with SS-Helferinnen staff. Surprisingly, he didn’t start firing every second girl, but turned to Standartenführer Schellenberg instead.
“Standartenführer, I don’t really care for the Helferinnen staff as long as their immediate bosses are satisfied with their work, but I still need a secretary to take care of the correspondence. Just tell me which one of them has the most brains, types fast, pretty to look at and can make decent coffee?”
Schellenberg smiled and looked at where all of us were sitting, not making any eye contact with me though.
“Well… they are all fine workers with excellent characteristics, I don’t really know how to single someone out…”
“They’ve been working under your supervision for more than half a year already, and you don’t know which one is the best?” The Austrian raised an eyebrow at Schellenberg.
“Well… the best would be Annalise Friedmann, but she’s my personal secretary and—”
“Not anymore, she’s not.” Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner looked at me for the first time since he started the meeting and grinned. “She’ll be working for me now.”
“But Herr Gruppenführer, I need her.” Schellenberg was obviously not happy about such a move. “She really is an irreplaceable worker for me, I can’t find anyone else to do her job.”
“Are you arguing with me?”
“No, of course not, Herr Gruppenführer, I’m only saying that she has proven to be invaluable as my work assistant.”
“Well, too bad, Herr Schellenberg. Now she’ll become invaluable as my work assistant.” Dr. Kaltenbrunner gave the Chief of SD-Ausland a charming smile, and I knew right away that there would be war between the two of them from now on. “That about sums it up, ladies and gentleman. Any questions?”
Even if there were any, no one dared to raise a hand.
“Good. Dismissed.”
_______________
“Son of a bitch!” Standartenführer Schellenberg cursed out very rarely and only when he was really angry. “He did it on purpose! Any girl from the department has enough brains and ten fingers to print orders, and that’s all he needs her for. I shouldn’t have said that you were so good.”
I had almost finished packing my office supplies in a small box and shrugged.
“It’s not your fault, Herr Standartenführer. He would have picked me anyway, even if I wasn’t good at all.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Trust me, he would have.” I picked up the box from the table and extended my hand to my former boss. “I’m very sorry that I have to leave. It’s been a wonderful opportunity working with you, Herr Standartenführer. Thank you for everything. And please, let me know if I can do something for you in the future, I can take some paperwork home and do it for you if you need me to.”
He shook my hand and nodded.
“Thank you for the excellent work, Annalise. I’ll make sure it’ll be reflected in your personal file. And… good luck with your new boss.”
I chuckled at the expression of his face.
“Thank you, sir.”
I felt really sad leaving Walther Schellenberg’s office since I really enjoyed working under his command. But regarding my counterspy activity, my new appointment was even better than the previous one: all of Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner’s paperwork would be going through my hands now, and his position was of much greater importance than Standartenführer Schellenberg’s. Rudolf and Ingrid’s superiors would be very happy with that.
When I walked in Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner’s anteroom, his adjutant just nodded to me from the table in the corner without moving the phone from his ear. I just started organizing my working place when he put the phone down and headed to the exit. Already at the door he turned around and said, “He wants coffee. Go make him coffee.”
Great. From the position of the SD-Ausland’s Chief’s personal assistant I am degraded to an ordinary coffee maker. I opened my mouth to ask Gruppenführer’s adjutant how our new boss preferred his coffee, but he had already disappeared. It seemed like I had to go and ask it myself. I knocked on the door, and after getting a ‘yes’ from inside, I opened it to find the new Chief of the RSHA on the phone as well. Dr. Kaltenbrunner was more polite than his immediate subordinate though; he covered the phone with his hand and smiled at me.
“Yes, Frau Friedmann?”
“How do you want it, Herr Gruppenführer?”
“How do I want it? Hot and on my table,” he replied with a grin.
I squinted my eyes at him trying really hard not to start laughing. He was incorrigible.
“I’m talking about your coffee.”
He grinned even wider. “Me too.”
“Well, if you’re such a big joker, you’re going to have it the way I like it.”
Only after saying it aloud I realized the double meaning of it, but Dr. Kaltenbrunner noticed it first of course.
“Oh really? That’s fine, that’s even interesting when the girl is in charge.”
“Oh, God!” I closed the door behind myself before he would say something even dirtier, and heard him laugh on the other side. It seemed like working in my new office would be a lot of fun to say the least.
If I thought that dirty jokes about coffee was as far as it would go with my new boss, I was very mistaken. The very next day, when the new Chief of the RSHA entered the anteroom, he looked me up and down and noticed with his infamous arrogant grin, “You know, it’s a shame that you have to wear this uniform.”
I naively thought that maybe he’d allow me to wear regular dresses to work and even smiled back.
“What would you prefer to see me in?”
“I’d prefer to see you naked.”
Right. What else did I expect to hear?
“Go away with your dirty insinuations, Herr Gruppenführer. I thought you were serious.”
“Oh, I very much am!”
I don’t even want to think where that conversation would go if Georg didn’t come in and handed Dr. Kaltenbrunner the morning correspondence.
The next day Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner was leaving his office and motioned me to follow him.
“I want to see if you’re really that good of a stenographer as Schellenberg was saying. I have a meeting with Reichsführer and will need you to put down every word.”
“Of course, Herr Gruppenführer.”
I had just gladly assumed that we were finally back to a professional relationship, when he started his tricks again. First of all, he told me to sit right next to him so he could ‘see if I’m writing everything down correctly.’ Then, as soon as Reichsführer Himmler turned to a map on the wall and therefore couldn’t see what was going on behind his back, Dr. Kaltenbrunner put his hand on the back of my chair and slightly moved my left hand towards himself, so he could ‘have a better look at my report.’
I gave him my best murderous look and mouthed, ‘What are you doing?’ so Reichsführer wouldn’t hear me. But the mischievous Chief of the RSHA just tapped his finger on the paper in front of me and mouthed back, ‘Keep writing.’ Of course he moved away from me only when Reichsführer turned around.
On the way back to our office, when we finally could speak again, I squinted my eyes at him and said, “If you don’t stop it with your behavior, I swear I am going to take you down to the Gestapo basement one day and will be killing you slowly and painfully.”
But as it turned out, nothing could impress the Austrian and his dirty mind.
“Mm, sounds promising. Personally I didn’t know that you were into that kind of stuff, but I’m open to experiments.”
Trying very hard not to start laughing or blushing, I quickly looked around and making sure that we were alon
e in the hallway, I smacked him hard on his shoulder with the report I was carrying.
“Are we starting right now?” He playfully raised his eyebrow.
“We’re not starting anything! Here, take your report and I’m going to check if the transcriptions Herr Müller promised you are ready.”
“What do you mean, take your report? I need a transcription for it.”
“You said you knew stenography! Just an hour ago!”
“I lied.”
“Why would you watch so closely what I was writing then?”
“I wasn’t looking at the paper.”
Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner lowered his eyes to the level of my chest. I shook my head.
“You are absolutely disgusting.”
“It sounds like a complement coming from you.”
“I feel like I need a shower after everything I heard from you in the past few minutes.”
“Let’s take it together, I can scrub your back.”
I tried my best to keep a stern face, but failed, burst out laughing and went to see Gruppenführer Müller, thinking what a difference from the always professional Schellenberg Dr. Kaltenbrunner was. Surprisingly, but I couldn’t get mad at him no matter how hard I tried.
Compared to my multiple duties in Standartenführer Schellenberg’s office, being Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner’s secretary was a vacation. All I did that day was basically type the orders that needed to be signed and sent out (but Georg already took care of that, as it was technically the responsibility of Gruppenführer’s adjutant), make coffee and take care of the calls if Georg was running errands around the building. Georg even let me go earlier that day, saying that Herr Gruppenführer and he had to go to the Reich Chancellery for a meeting. I picked up my bag and went by Heinrich’s new office, which he occupied now instead of the old Chief of Department D.
My poor husband was buried under the pile of reports and orders, which he had to become familiar with in a matter of a few days, and accepted my help with filing them with gratitude. When the working day was officially over, we decided to take the rest of the files home, and went down to the garage, where Hanz was already waiting for us. However in the car Heinrich threw the file that he was trying to concentrate on for quite some time on the seat, and said, “How about to hell with work and let’s go celebrate our promotion tonight?”
“Sounds fine by me!”
“Great! Let’s go home, change and then I’ll take my beautiful wife to the best restaurant in the city. Did I tell you that I got a very impressive raise as well?”
“Really? Does it make me a trophy wife now?”
“Absolutely. I’ll buy you all the French dresses that you like and will be showing you off right and left. After all, I’m a very important Oberführer now, aren’t I?”
He straightened out in his seat with a very pompous playful look and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yes, darling, you look very important. You have to change the insignia on your uniform now, don’t you? I’ll have Magda take care of that, she’s a great seamstress, she’ll fix it in five minutes for you.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
I smiled and asked him after a pause, “Do you remember when you came over by my house for the first time and I couldn’t fix you a proper lunch without my housekeeper? You laughed at me and said that you feel bad for my future husband because—”
“…because you’ll starve the poor fella to death, yes, I remember it very well,” Heinrich finished for me and smiled. “And you said that I shouldn’t be feeling bad for him because he’ll marry a girl, not a chef and will have to afford a housekeeper. And I said, what if you marry a military man, and the war will start and you’ll have to take care of him?”
“And I did marry a military man, and the war did start,” I concluded with a smile. “But thank God you’re not in the Waffen-SS in the Eastern front, but here with me. And thank God we still can afford a housekeeper.”
Heinrich chuckled, but then got serious again.
“I’m going to be away a lot now, you know that, right? That new position requires a lot of travelling. It’s not my former steady office post.”
I frowned. “Really?”
Heinrich nodded, and then it suddenly hit me. He did it on purpose. Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner knew perfectly well what he was doing by delegating the office to my husband, to be able to send him away whenever he wanted. It all came together now, Heinrich’s promotion, my new appointment and more than anything Adam’s story about what Dr. Kaltenbrunner had told him in Mauthausen. She’s mine. I didn’t give Adam’s words too much meaning because he clearly said that Gruppenführer was very drunk, and people say a lot of things when they get drunk. But this move was calculated and done on purpose, definitely not under the influence of alcohol. Did he really have some sinister plans on my account, and was pretending to be nice just to make me drop my guards?
“God dammit.”
“What happened?” Heinrich turned to me.
“Oh… nothing. I just remembered that I didn’t type one of the orders he asked me, that’s all,” I lied. “I’ll do it tomorrow morning. Tonight we celebrate.”
_______________
It was almost eleven, and I was drunk. Heinrich kept telling me stories about the former Chief of Department D and what he got fired for (think prostitutes and alcohol, sometimes even on duty), and I tried not to laugh too loud. The other patrons of the restaurant were paying us too much unwanted attention anyway, but mostly thanks to Heinrich’s SD uniform, the organization that regular people tried to stay away from the further the better, and me, ‘half-naked’ (as Heinrich called it) in my black dress, which I brought from Paris a couple of years ago. I wasn’t ‘half-naked’ of course, but the back of the dress was completely open, and it was way against the modest fashion that the Führer approved of.
“Well, I’m not dressing up for the Führer, I’m dressing up for you.” I raised my eyebrow at Heinrich, and he laughed. The dress stayed.
I didn’t want to think of the Führer that night, of the Party, of the war and everything else, I wanted just to go back to the way it was when Heinrich and I just started dating, when I didn’t have to wake up every single day thinking if I’d get caught today or not, if Heinrich might get compromised, if we’d survive another week. I wanted to be that carefree young girl again, to get drunk with my husband, to roll in the snow outside and not to think of tomorrow.
“Heinrich, let’s go by that park again, remember where you took me after I got drunk on Christmas party for the SD staff where you took me as your date?”
“Of course I remember. I kissed you there for the first time.” He grinned at me.
“Yes, you did.” I giggled. “And then we almost got arrested by the Gestapo.”
“Let’s go do it again!”
Heinrich finished his drink, threw the money on the table and helped me get up.
In twenty minutes we parked our car next to the park, and I was happy to see that it was snowing outside, just like it was four years ago. I was wearing the fur coat that Heinrich gave me for my eighteenth Birthday, after I left my old one in the hands of Ulrich Reinhard, who tried to assault me in my own theatre. He was working in the same building with me now, but I didn’t want to think about it tonight.
We slowly strolled down the white alley, reminiscing about the first time we met, the first time we kissed, of our wedding day and how happy we were back then. We still were, and we still loved each other the same, but that air of the pre-war innocence was long gone. We both got caught in the current of events that we couldn’t really control, and were forced to make choices that we would never make if it wasn’t for that damn war. But we didn’t want to talk about it either. It was our night, and ours only.
Heinrich pulled me close and kissed me. He always knew how to kiss me the way to make me forget about everything in the world, how to hold me so close that I couldn’t breathe, how to make my head light and my legs weak. He
put his hands inside my coat, and I liked how the leather of his gloves felt against the thin material of my dress.
“Come here,” he said, taking my hand in his and pulling me towards the car parked nearby. “I want to show you something important.”
“What would that be, Herr Oberführer?”
“My backseat.”
I was still giggling like a little girl when my own husband pushed me inside the car and laid on top of me, stripping off my coat and pulling up the skirt over my thighs. I took his overcoat off him and it fell on the floor next to us; we didn’t care at that point. Heinrich pulled his gloves off with his teeth just to feel my body with his bare hands, to cup my face when he covered my mouth with his again and to undo his pants faster, because he didn’t want to waste any time.
He didn’t even bother to take my underwear off me, so he just moved it to one side and entered me in one strong move, making me gasp and dig my fingers into his shoulders. I didn’t want to close my eyes this time, I wanted to see his face, wanted to see his eyes while he was watching me, wanted him to see how good he could make me feel.
“Annalise…” he whispered my name next to my ear and kissed my neck, then my lips again, slightly biting me as he started moving faster. I pressed my legs closer to his body and stretched my arms over my head, grabbing onto the handle of the door. The backseat was definitely not designed for the purpose that we were using it for, so Heinrich put my left leg on top of his shoulder to make more room for us. In this new position he all of a sudden was so deep inside that I yelped and grabbed his arm, overwhelmed by the new sensations.
“Am I hurting you?” Heinrich stopped moving and looked at me; I shook my head and slowly lifted my other leg on top of his other shoulder.
“No… no, it feels so good… please, don’t stop.”
He grinned at me and started picking up the tempo again, looking me straight in the eye. Very soon I couldn’t take it anymore and started moaning loudly, biting my lip in order not to scream. I had already ripped my stockings on his medals and crosses and probably bruised my skin too, but as long as he was moving so fast and strong inside of me, nothing else mattered. Heinrich was licking and biting my legs right through the silk of the stockings, grabbing my ankles, leaning even more on top of me and thrusting even harder, until I had to press both palms into the door not to bang my head on it. I shut my eyes and started screaming his name, begging him to never stop; he put his fingers on top of my mouth to keep me quiet and I started biting on them hard, which excited my husband even more.
The Girl from Berlin: Gruppenführer's Mistress Page 14
