by Ib Melchior
“Who is this Ilse Gessner?” he asked.
Zorina stood up. She looked pleased with herself. “I will send her to you,” she said. “Tonight you will stay together. In this room. You will have to get used to that. So best you begin at once.”
She left.
Woody stood up. He gathered the blue robe around him and tied the frayed belt. Dammit! That’s all he needed. A damned broad in tow.
There was a timid knock on the door.
“Come in,” he called brusquely.
The door opened. In the doorway stood a young woman.
Ilsa appeared to be in her early twenties. She looked at once sensuous, composed, and vulnerable. A full, hungry mouth was partly open; wide, innocent, disturbingly seductive eyes regarded him. A flimsy, cheap-looking negligee, in which she managed to look graceful, did little to hide her long-waisted, small but firm-busted body. With her short, soft-brushed hair—auburn in color rather than Nordic blond—she was enormously appealing.
“Herr Bauhacker,” she said, her voice soft and melodious, “I am Ilse. Madame Zorina sent me to you.”
For a split moment Woody was puzzled. Bauhacker? Then he remembered. It was a bit tricky, he thought. Here he was, CIC Agent Woodrow Wilson Ward, pretending to be SS Hauptsturmführer Fritz Diehl, using the cover identity of Obergefreiter Hans Bauhacker. He almost laughed out loud. Imagine what Abbott and Costello could do with that one!
He stared at the girl.
Suddenly the idea of being saddled with her seemed less of a handicap.
It was midmorning the following day when Woody stood in the perfume-scented foyer waiting for Ilse to join him. At the last minute she had wanted to say goodby to some of the girls who had befriended her during her stay at the brothel. Zorina had beneficently allowed it. He felt a little better. His clothes had been cleaned, but not pressed; his boots were still drab and scuffed. It would not do to appear in too much sartorial splendor as a refugee on the roads of a defeated Germany, Zorina had pointed out.
The night had been a singularly restless one. Too much was crowding in on him to allow him to relax. His mind kept trying to visualize what lay ahead, unable to do so, and therefore conjuring up lurid images in petulant self-defense.
Ilse had slept in the big brass bed. Alone. He had tried to sack out on a blanket on the floor, which hadn’t made falling asleep any easier. Most of the night he’d only dozed, unable to fall asleep not only because of his restless thoughts, the hard floor and the suggestive noises that reached him from the rest of the house during an obviously busy night, but also because of the proximity of the lovely girl.
Although they had talked, they had said nothing of importance to each other. An Achse Anlaufstelle was not the place to ask questions or volunteer information, and he knew little more about the girl than Zorina had told him. She less about him. They had taken each other’s measure, as far as they could. He had been reminded of a trip to the zoo. In San Francisco. When he was a boy. With his father he had watched as a female tiger had been introduced into the cage of a male for the first time. The big cats had watched each other warily. They had walked around the cage testing the air, keeping apart, maintaining their own privacy. But obviously interested.
It had been like that.
He let his mind run over the instructions they’d been given by Madame Zorina. One more time.
Use now had papers that showed she was Use Bauhacker, his sister. They had a US Military Government travel pass to go to Coburg where their parents lived. At least as far as they knew. They were supposed to be at the Wartburg turn-off signpost on the road south to Meiningen just outside Eisenach at noon. A truck, a wood-burner, carrying a load of rock salt, would pick them up. They were to wave their arms at the driver and, when he stopped, ask for a ride to Göttingen which was in the exact opposite direction. Only the Achse driver would agree, and take them to their destination. Once there, Woody would give him two hundred marks. The money was safe in his inside jacket pocket. They had been lucky, Zorina had said. It was only rarely that she could arrange motor transportation at such short notice. They’d be in Coburg at the next Anlaufstelle before the day was done.
It was possible, Woody thought. Just barely possible that Eva would still be there.
Madame Zorina came up to him. She looked tired after the night’s activities. Her makeup could not entirely hide the black pouches under her eyes. She had obviously fortified herself with a nip or two. She still wore her Japanese robe. Woody wondered if she lived in it.
“Ilse will be here in a moment,” she said. She looked at Woody. “Is everything clear?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“I know you are impatient, mein Junge, at having to take Ilse along.” She smiled, exposing her tobacco-stained teeth. “But you will not regret it, I promise you. She is an extraordinary girl. She is well educated. Part of her schooling was at the Sorbonne. In Paris. And at an exclusive finishing school in Heidelberg run by the SS. She speaks French, of course, and she has some English, too. She is a strong girl. She can stand exertion. She will not let you down. You will have no trouble with her on that score. She is an excellent tennis player and a competition-class swimmer. She is in good shape.”
You can say that again, Woody thought. In more ways than one.
“Anything else,” Zorina finished, looking at him out of the corners of her eyes, “any personal matters, she will have to tell you herself. If she wishes. I can only assure you she is well qualified to travel the Achse.”
Ilse came into the foyer. She walked up to them as Zorina reached out and folded Woody in her arms. She gave him a moist kiss full on the mouth. She drew back and looked at him. His lips and chin were smeared with her lipstick. With a little laugh she used one of her ample sleeves to wipe it off.
“By the way, mein lieber Junge,” she said teasingly, “I checked out your story about being in charge of the guards at Flossenburg—as you knew I would.” She shook her head in mock reproval. “You were not a very nice boy, were you?”
She patted his cheek affectionately. “Off you go,” she said. “I know all will go well.”
Woody had suffered the leave-taking in silence, embarassed and ill at ease.
He missed the dark look Ilse gave him at the mention of the Flossenburg Concentration Camp.
18
IT WAS 1417 HOURS, Friday, June 8, when the ramshackle wood-burner came to a wheezing halt at a black-and-white striped roadside signpost which read: COBURG.
The driver turned to Wood. “This is as far as I take you,” he said. “You know where to go from here.”
Woody nodded.
“Good luck,” the man said. He held out his hand. Woody shook it.
“Thank you,” he said.
The man pulled his hand away. He glowered at Woody, “Nanu!” he growled in annoyance. “Hey! Shall I have trouble with you?”
Sheepishly Woody remembered. He pulled out the two hundred Marks. He gave the money to the sullen driver. “Sorry,” he said. “Thanks for the ride.”
They got out, and stood at the roadside watching the wood-burner chug off.
The Anlaufstelle was near the Coburg Square in the middle of town. From the directions given him by Zorina, Woody estimated it would be a half hour’s walk. He looked at the girl. They had said little to each other since they left Zorina’s establishment. The cab of the truck had not seemed to lend itself to conversation. All three had sat quietly, Ilse between the two men. He had been acutely aware of her closeness on the cramped seat, and had allowed himself to fantasize. It had been a stupid thing to do. He should be concentrating on more important matters. Like catching up with Eva.
And survival.
He looked around. On a hill overlooking the town stood Coburg Castle. At first it seemed undamaged, until he suddenly realized that he could see right through the tall, gabled roof of one of the main buildings. Only the steepled supporting timbers remained, scorched and black against the sky.
The sa
fe house was a small Gasthof—a small hotel on a side street off Coburg Square. The streets on the outskirts of town were still cluttered with the piled-up remains of barricades erected in a futile attempt to stem the enemy tide; now dismantled and as useless as ever. They walked past the dismal reminders of defeat, ignoring them and their futility as studiously as the townspeople did. They crossed Coburg Square, passed by the gutted Adolf Hitler Haus, and presently they stood before a dingy little hotel ambitiously calling itself Zum Stern—At the Star.
They had arrived at the Coburg Anlauffstelle.
Ever since he and Eva had emerged from the caves in the Harz Mountains, blinking at the sun like hemeralopic troglodytes, Willi had been keyed up, on the lookout for trouble. Any trouble. Although everything along the Achse escape route had run as smoothly as the wheels in a well-oiled machine. He was impressed but not surprised at the capability and ingenuity of the SS organization.
Eva had been uncomfortable in Madame Zorina’s establishment, but he had spent a delightful couple of hours—on the house. The stops in the Zum Stern hotel in Coburg and in Neustadt had been uneventful as they had been passed on with efficient dispatch.
The accommodations in the Anlaufstelle in the little Bavarian town of Nördlingen halfway between Nürnberg and Munich were cramped but adequate. Achse travelers were put up in the cellar or in the attic of a small tailor shop run by one Reinhold Hacker, who specialized in the repair and alteration of old clothes, a thriving business in postwar Germany. Hacker’s living quarters were on the second floor of the little half-timbered building. Behind the shop was his cluttered workroom, curtained off by a heavy portiere of blue velvet, badly faded in the folds, that hung across the doorway. It was a good choice for a stop. All sorts of people came into the shop every day. Strangers would not be noticed.
Hacker was making arrangements for them to leave the next morning. For the town of Memmingen about 120 kilometers directly to the south. It was a long haul and he had promised them motor transport. Meanwhile he had cautioned them to stay in their attic quarters except for the necessary trips to the grimy little bathroom off the workshop. And that was exactly what they were doing.
Eva was sitting on the mattress that served as her bed, looking up at the tiny patch of blue sky visible through a skylight window in the roof. The whirring sound of Hacker’s old treadle-operated sewing machine, occasionally interrupted by the thin tinkling of the shop doorbell announcing a customer, floated in the air along with the dust particles in the beam of light from the window.
She wondered if she would have a sewing machine of her own in the new world she was headed for. She looked forward to sewing little things for her son. Adolf. Little Adolf, she had decided to name him.
A pang of grief swept through her. His father would never see him. He would have loved him so, she thought. She just knew that Adolf would have been a good father. A wonderful father. He always loved the little children who came to him with their flowers and their awkward little curtsies. He would always pat their cheeks and have a kind word for them.
She remembered a speech Adolf had once made to the National Socialist Women’s Auxiliary. “I should love nothing more dearly than to have a family,” he had said. She had been in the audience and she remembered his words very clearly. “When I feel I have accomplished my historical mission, I intend to enjoy the private life which I so far have denied myself. I intend to have a family of my own.” And he had looked right at her. She had been certain of it.
She sighed. The world had robbed Adolf of a family—and his son of a father.
For a moment she sat, lost in daydreams, listening to the distant whirr of Hacker’s sewing machine.
Willi watched the girl. A bond of affection had sprung up between them. It had quickly become obvious to him that Eva was a young woman very much in need of affection, something she had done without through most of her life. At times he had wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but the thoughts of the Führer and his unborn child forbade any such action. It would likely as not have led to a deeper involvement, which, of course, was out of the question.
But they had talked. The hours of waiting in the various Anlaufstellen had been longer than any other hours they had ever known. It was disquieting to be so completely dependent on others, on strangers, as they were, and their mutual uneasiness had brought them together.
Eva sighed. She hugged her knees. He knew she missed her cigarettes, but there was a strict rule of no smoking in all of the Achse hiding places. She looked troubled. It was a special look he had seen on her face before. He wondered where her thoughts were taking her. She had told him many little confidences during the long days in the Baumannshöhle. Her moments of delight. And of anguish.
The thrill when the Führer, on her twenty-seventh birthday, with obvious pride had presented her with one of the very first Volkswagens which he had just ordered mass-produced for the people . . . Her joy in sports, a joy he shared; skiing, swimming, and hiking, and her childlike excitement over the 1936 Olympics—until her jealousy of the beautiful and talented Leni Riefenstahl, the “priestess of the Nazi Olympics,” who found such obvious favor with the Führer, had soured her on the event . . . Her genuine happiness in the memories of her times alone with “the Chief,” a term of endearment she often used when she spoke of the Führer . . . Her pleasure in his small attentions . . . And the hurts, the aches. The humiliation she felt at being snubbed by the grand ladies of the Nazi regime, the wives of the high-ranking officials who surrounded her lover, affronts which often thinly disguised an icy animosity. Emmy Goering, Anneliese von Rippentrop, Elsa Himmler, and Magda Goebbels in the forefront. Only once had the Führer angrily stood up for her. Emmy Goering had given a party for all the lady secretaries, assistants, and servants of the Berghof—and on the list had been Eva Braun. Emmy Goering was never again allowed at the Berghof . . . And he knew of the disappointment, the lonely ache when she was being excluded from the glamorous affairs and the big balls attended by the Führer . . . He had felt the raw pain beneath her bantering confession, that after hearing Goebbels proclaiming in a speech that “the Führer is totally devoted to the nation and has no private life,” she had referred to herself as Fräulein Kein Privatleben—Miss No-Private-Life . . .
And in a moment of emotional anguish she had even let slip in a wretched whisper the two times she had attempted to take her own life when the misery and agony of her relationship with the Führer became unbearable.
He watched her. Her eyes haunted, she was staring out through the window, seeing something other than the bright, blue sky. He frowned, concerned. Something was obviously tearing at her, he knew not what. But he could not afford to have her fall to pieces. Not now.
He touched her arm. “What is it, Eva?” he asked gently. “I am your friend. Perhaps I can help.”
Eva turned to him. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. Suddenly she sobbed. She flung herself impulsively into his arms and buried her face in his shoulder. She wept. Uncontrollably. Great sobs shook her body as she clung to him.
He held her. He let her cry.
Presently she stopped. She lifted her tear-stained face to his and gazed at him, her eyes liquid in anguish. “I am sorry, Willi,” she whispered. “I . . . I . . .”
“It is all right,” he said quietly. “Why not tell me what is troubling you?”
For a moment she sat silent. She looked down, her eyes not meeting his.
“It—it was so terrible,” she whispered. “And I was there. I— helped. And—she looked so much like me. I—I killed her, Willi. She is dead because of me. I should be dead!”
“Who, Eva? Who did you kill?”
She told him. In a rush of anguished words she told him about the young woman who had taken her place in the bunker. Told him how she changed clothes with her and how she helped put her own dress on the unconscious girl. She told him about the death spasms that racked the young woman’s body when the poison phial
was crushed in her mouth, and how her own life had been saved by the deliberate sacrifice of another. And she told him of the guilt that had gnawed at her, eaten her—and grown into a monster in her mind, threatening to devour her sanity.
She looked at him, tears brimming in her eyes.
“But I did not do it for me,” she sobbed. “I did it for Adolf. For the Führer. And for our child. You must understand that, Willi. Please . . .”
He nodded. “I do understand, Eva,” he said quietly. “And you were right in doing what you did. You need feel no guilt. The life of the Führer’s son is above all else.” He looked solemnly at her. “Put away your guilt,” he said. “Guilt is like any other pain. Whether real or imagined, it hurts just as much. Don’t be hurt by a guilt you need not feel.”
She nodded. She wiped her eyes. She felt better. Perhaps she had just needed to confide her feelings to someone. Willi was right. What had been done was for the greater good; for the future.
“I will be fine,” she said resolutely. “Thank you, Willi.”
He smiled at her. He had suspected that something like what Eva had told him had taken place, but he had, of course, not known the details. It must have been an ordeal for a girl, unaccustomed to the necessity of violence. He looked into her face. The shadows in her eyes were still not completely driven out. She had escaped from the bunker, he thought, without a scratch.
Unless you look inside her head.
The air in the little hotel room was charged with tension. Grim-faced the man looked at Woody. “There is nothing I can do,” he said flatly. “You and your woman will have to remain here at the Zum Stern for a few more days. Perhaps a week.”
