by Brianna Hale
The Oberst thumps his desk with his fist. “Scheisse. We’re going to look like fools when they tell their story to the Western newspapers. This is going on your permanent record, Heydrich.” He breathes hard for a moment, thinking. “What happened to your informant?”
“He…was shot, sir.”
I narrow my eyes at Heydrich, but keep my mouth shut.
“And you, Volker? Heydrich tells me you briefly appeared at the raid but then disappeared again.”
I tap the ash from my cigarette into a porcelain ashtray. “Ja. I shot one young woman who aimed a pistol at me and then left the premises chasing another.”
“What happened to her?”
I wonder if anyone’s noticed I’ve shown up with a shabby new secretary this morning. I doubt Heydrich could put two and two together and come up with four, but even idiots get lucky now and then. It’s a good thing Fräulein Hoffman is transforming her as we speak. “She got away.”
“Think you’d recognize her again? What did she look like?
I pretend to muse on this a moment. “Thirty. Red hair. Tall. I only saw her from the back.”
“Too bad.”
“Ja. Too bad.”
Heydrich and I leave the office together, the other man’s face tight with anger and humiliation. I feel my good mood swell as his plummets. There are few things I enjoy more than seeing sneaking little upstarts get their just desserts.
Schooling my face into something more professional than I feel, I ask, “So, Heydrich. What have you learned from this disaster?”
The Hauptmann flushes and mutters banalities about better preparedness.
I laugh, cutting him off. “No, no, Heydrich. What you learned is that you’re not as clever, organized or capable as you want to be. You’d like to be like me, wouldn’t you?” I give him a commiserating smile. “Some of us were only meant to advance so far, to take orders rather than give them. Try not to let it get you down. Dismissed.”
And I watch, smiling broadly, as he’s forced to salute me, his cheeks red and his eyes burning with hatred.
Chapter Seven
Evony
I compose myself and go back out into the living room to Lenore, holding onto my old clothes like they’re a lifebelt. “Could I please have a bag for these?”
Lenore looks puzzled. “Don’t you want to throw them away? They’re rather…” But she trails off, polite to a fault. “Of course, I think I have a paper bag somewhere.”
The guard gives me a stunned look as we walk out into the hall where he’s waiting for us. I couldn’t give anyone the slip in these stupid shoes and resign myself to the fact that my escape won’t be effected today.
Volker’s office door is shut when we arrive back at our desks, which I’m intensely relieved about. We can hear him talking but the conversation is one-sided so it seems he’s on the telephone. Lenore shows me how to use the heavy Optima typewriter that’s sitting on my desk, getting me to feed the paper in and pointing out how to change from lower case to upper case letters. It’s completely baffling and hitting the keys makes my fingertips hurt, but she tells me I’ll toughen up in time. She gives me three pages of correspondence to type out and I work slowly and awkwardly, stalking letters across the keyboard like they’re prey. Why on earth couldn’t they have made the stupid machine with the letters in order?
Opposite me Lenore’s fingers fly over the keys, making a sound like machine-gun fire as she copies out a document from shorthand. She’s not even looking at her hands. It’s witchcraft.
Half an hour later we hear Volker go silent so he must have finished his phone call. After a few minutes Lenore pulls the letter from her typewriter and holds it out to me. “Would you mind taking this through to Herr Oberstleutnant?” Her face is carefully blank but I’m sure I catch a gleam in her eyes.
I’ve been nervously waiting for that door to fly open and for Volker to appear, and now my stomach clenches. I have to go in to him? I like it here behind my desk. The wood is like armor. I can’t keep the pleading note from my voice as I say, “Oh, can’t you? I don’t want to go in there.”
She flaps the paper at me, insistent. “Get it over with, like a plaster. You look lovely.”
So she’s not even going to pretend this is about her stupid letter. I get up and take it and she leans forward, dropping her voice. “Knock, wait for him to call out that it’s all right to enter, and then go in. And smile and say thank you when he compliments you!” she adds in a hiss as I turn away.
Sweat breaking out on my lower back, I raise my fist and knock. Volker’s voice mutters from within, a deep, distracted, “Ja.” I go in.
The office is large and bright and the opposite wall is all windows. The venetian blinds are up and I can see the Brandenburg Gate in the distance, the gray scar of the Berlin Wall running alongside it. On the other side is the West. I can see it, actually see it.
Volker is writing with a fountain pen and hasn’t looked up. His desk is large and empty apart from a tan Bakelite telephone, a lamp and a blotter. There’s a bookcase of bound volumes behind him and a portrait of Chairman Walter Ulbricht to my left, his small beard neat and salted.
As I approach Volker’s desk my hands are shaking. He finally looks up, expressionless, expecting Lenore. His eyes sharpen when he sees me. I expect them to travel down over my body, rude and possessive, but he looks only at my face. There’s brightness in those eyes and I’m reminded again of a predator. No one’s ever looked at me like this. What does he see that no one else ever has? Vulnerability, because he knows I’m alone and friendless? Does that excite him?
I swallow, and it’s difficult to speak because my mouth is so dry. “Fräulein Hoffman…wanted me to give you this.”
He takes the letter from my outstretched hand without looking at it. “Danke, Evony.” His voice is soft and pleasant, and he even smiles a little. But it’s his eyes that unnerve me, as they seem to see everything that I don’t want him to. That I looked for opportunities to escape today. That I’ll go on looking, no matter what. He knows this and it doesn’t concern him one whit. He’s so confident that I’m right where he wants me, and that I’ll never escape.
Heart racing, I turn on my heel and hurry out as fast as I can, closing the door behind me. When I’m behind my desk again my chest is heaving like I’ve run a race and my fingers feel cold and tingly.
Lenore is eager to hear what happened. “So? What did he say?”
That it’s hopeless. That I’ll never get away from him unless he allows it. “He said thank you for the letter.”
“Is that all? He didn’t say how pretty you look or how the new clothes suit you? And after all the effort we went to.” She scowls down at her typewriter and raps out her indignation on the keys.
At a quarter to six she leaves, telling me how well I’ve done today and giving my shoulder a squeeze. She seems to think my silence and pale face are because of first-day nerves.
I don’t know what to do once she’s gone, so I keep copying out the pages, conscious that Volker is just a dozen or so feet away behind his closed office door. My eyes flick around the alcove, the corridor that runs alongside it. I’m alone. I could run now if I chose. But will Volker have thought of that and given the people who guard the exits my description?
I’m going to do it. I’m going to get up and walk out of HQ—
And then Volker’s door opens and I see him reach for his cap and coat and flick off the light.
Little idiot, you should have run while you had the chance, I tell myself, fitting the cover over my typewriter like Lenore showed me how. The whole evening stretches ahead of me, hours alone with Volker in his apartment.
I collect my paper bag full of clothing and string bags of shopping and follow Volker to the elevator. He seems to be in a very good mood, glancing down at me with that small smile of his. “Did you have a good first day?”
As the elevator doors slide closed I think of something bland to say. “I’m not a good typis
t. The keys are in a funny order.”
He laughs, a delighted, full-throated laugh. “I’ve always thought so, too.”
Are we sharing a moment, me and my captor? I don’t want friendship from him, or shared confidences. I feel him tug on the string bags in my hand and nearly swing them at him, thinking he’s attacking me, before I realize he just wants to carry them for me. He tries to take the paper bag, too, but I shake my head, my heart pounding. He doesn’t get to touch these. They’re all I have left of the person I used to be.
When we arrive back at the apartment I’m relieved to hear Frau Fischer in the kitchen and I wonder how long she stays in the evenings. I hope it’s hours and hours.
Volker heads for my room with the bags of lotions and nylons, and I dump my paper bag on the hall table and cry out, “I’ll take those!” The last thing I want is him thinking he can waltz into my room whenever he likes.
Amused, he watches me prize the bags from his fingers and hurry away from him. I take my time in the bathroom and bedroom, putting away my new things. There’s plenty of space. There’s no evidence, either, that anyone else has stayed in my bedroom recently. No telltale long hairs in the corners. No half-empty tubes of lipstick or discarded bobby pins. Has he done this before? Is this how he always recruits a new secretary, by stealing a traitor, or am I the first?
When I come out into the lounge I can see Frau Fischer in the kitchen but no other movement in the apartment. Maybe Volker’s gone out. Standing in the kitchen doorway I watch the housekeeper for a moment and then say, “Can I help with anything?”
She looks up with a friendly smile. “No, dear, I’m all right. Well, don’t you look lovely. Did you have a good first day?”
I shrug. “It was all right.” I hear the front door open and close behind me and jump. Volker did go out then, but he’s back. I can’t bear to be near him so I push past him as he comes toward the kitchen, fleeing for my room. I sit on my bed and hear him talking on the telephone, the sound of Frau Fischer washing the dishes. An hour must tick by this way and I don’t move. I’m frozen and scared in a way I wasn’t at HQ. This is his home and I have no purpose here. I don’t know what he wants from me.
I jump at the sound of a knock on my door. It’s Volker. “Dinner, Evony.”
It’s been a long time since the tuna on rye at Lenore’s and my belly’s rumbling, and whatever Frau Fischer was cooking smells delicious. But eating means being close to him. “I’m not hungry.”
Volker’s voice turns cold. “It wasn’t a request. Come out, now.”
My hands clench on the bedclothes. I don’t want to do anything he says. Giving into these little things could eventually mean giving in entirely. But I look down at my clothes and realize I’ve given in a lot already. Finding a way to escape may take some time. It will be exhausting and possibly suicidal to fight Volker every minute of every day. As much as I hate the idea, I’ll have to concede to do as he asks sometimes. I take a deep breath and open the door. Volker’s smile is his sarcastic, obsequious smile, the parody of a good host.
He holds out his arm. “After you, Fräulein.”
A set of sliding doors has been pulled back on the other side of the lounge revealing a dining room. The table is set for two and laid with linen placemats and silver. There’s a decanter of ruby wine and candles in sticks and the food is in covered casseroles. Frau Fischer has gone, then. It’s so disgustingly civilized that I want to sweep it all to the floor.
Choose your battles, Evony.
On the way to the table I remember my things—I left them on the hall table. But when I go to collect them and put them safely in my room I see that the table is empty.
I turn to Volker, a chill prickling down my neck. “Where are my clothes?”
He pretends to look puzzled but he knows exactly what I’m talking about. “That paper bag? I took it down to the incinerator.”
For a moment I can only stare at him, certain he must be lying. My clothes can’t be gone. It’s impossible because I put them by the hall table and they were right there, waiting for me. But I see from his face that he’s not lying. He did burn them, and without asking me first.
I launch myself at him, my scream shattering the peace of the evening. “They were all I had left of my life! That coat was all I had left of him. It was my father’s coat. They were my clothes. You had no right.” I batter his chest and shoulders but his body easily absorbs the blows. He holds onto my elbows but doesn’t move—he doesn’t even seem surprised. When I reach up to claw at his face with my newly manicured nails he grabs my wrists, turns me around and crushes me against his chest. My arms are trapped beneath his and I shriek, thrashing about, trying to twist free, trying to bite, but I’m held as if in a vice.
“Let me go.” The memory of his hard, hungry eyes fills my vision. Are his hands going to move down over my body now, taking what I won’t give? I’ll scream so loudly the neighbors will think someone’s being murdered. I’ll bite him until he bleeds and scratch his eyes out.
“No. I will not let you go.” His mouth is close to my ear and he doesn’t need to speak above a harsh, sinister whisper. “You don’t need reminders of your old life as you are never going back. Do you understand? This is your life now. You’re mine.”
Hearing him lay it out so coldly and brutally takes my breath away. I wish his housekeeper and secretary could see him now. They haven’t felt him ruthlessly hunt them down, catch them, possess them. Take sadistic pleasure in trapping them, body and soul. “You can’t make me forget who I am. I’ll always remember, and I’ll always hate you for what you’ve done.”
“Oh?” There’s so much scorn and amusement in that one brief question. His breath is warm against my ear and I feel him looking down at me, enjoying that he has me his mercy. He plants a slow, tender kiss on the side of my neck and I feel my pulse thundering beneath his lips. It’s a kiss that belies the cold cruelty of his words and the steel of his embrace. It’s the kiss of a lover, soft and sensuous, and something clenches low in my belly in response.
I expected cruelty, and armed myself against brutality, but I wasn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t prepared for him to be gentle and I don’t know how to fight it. He shifts his arms, one hand moving to caress my throat and I draw in a soft breath of surprise and need. He feels it, and his lips move up to my jaw, trailing burning kisses.
No, please, I don’t want this. He can’t strip me of my will to resist him along with everything else. I will garb myself in hatred for him. I will steep my body in antipathy and rage. Even so, it takes every ounce of strength I have to speak. “I’ll never be yours.”
But it comes out as a breathy whisper, not the defiant shout I wanted it to be.
His lips curve into a smile against my throat. “Oh, Liebling. Yes, you will. I have not even begun to try and you are already giving in.”
My eyes fill with tears. He’s wrong. He’s wrong. But my body has betrayed me because I’m not even fighting anymore. How can this be happening, after all he’s done? I remember my father and Ana and I feel so ashamed. “I hate you.” But my voice is filled with anguish, not defiance.
Volker releases me so suddenly that I stagger, and drag breath into my lungs as if I’ve been drowning. When I turn to face him that hard, emotionless look is back in his eyes. He straightens his uniform jacket and cuffs as if he can’t bear to be in even the slightest disarray. “Go to bed. You’re overwrought.” And without another word he turns and walks into the dining room.
I stand shaking where I am. What gives him the right to do the things that he does? Is it this system which grants him so much power without restraint? Yesterday I would have said that I distrust how East Germany is organized, with its spies and secret police, but now I detest it. On unsteady feet I make my way to my bedroom, tears brimming on my lashes. I feel sick of crying before I remember that I haven’t actually cried, not properly. No longer able to swallow down my tears they break like a storm, and I throw myself down on my
bed and muffle my sobs in a pillow.
My mind keeps circling back to one thing, and it’s the most ridiculous, insignificant part of this whole mess: that was the first time a man’s ever kissed me. It was my neck he kissed, but it doesn’t matter. That was being kissed. There was passion in it, and desire. Possession. I felt it, responded to it, and for that I’m so ashamed. I’m a traitor of a different sort now—to Ana and my father.
There’s a knock on my door and my whole body clenches in fear. But a moment later I hear Frau Fischer’s voice, not Volker’s. “Evony, can I come in?”
I sit up wiping my face, and my fingers come away black: the mascara. It’s everywhere, and gumming my eyelashes together. Frau Fischer opens the door, bearing a tray of something steaming and sets it down on the bedside table. “Herr Oberstleutnant called to say you are unwell. But what’s the matter? Have you been crying?”
There are black smudge marks on the white pillowcase as well. “Called?” I ask thickly.
“Ja, I live just down the street, the top apartment in the blue and white building.”
“Oh.” I know the one she means. It’s just a few doors down, and even though she’s loyal to Volker it’s comforting to know that she’s nearby.
“Have you got a stomach ache or are you homesick? I’ve brought some soup for you. Herr Oberstleutnant said you haven’t eaten yet.” She makes me get into bed and puts the tray over my lap, and I let her because it’s nice to have someone fussing over me in this motherly fashion. All my life it was just me and Dad and I looked after him for as long as I can remember.
Frau Fischer sits on the bed and tells me about herself while I eat a little of the soup. It’s very good, a clear broth with sliced sausage and mushroom. I think I taste lemon and thyme, too. It’s miles better than the food I make though I’m sure I could have bought the same ingredients. There’s a piece of rye bread, very dark and cut thickly.
She has three grown daughters and the eldest lives with her along with a baby grandson, whose name is Thom, and her granddaughter called Lea. “Their mother is working at the television station right now.”
