Eva

by Ib Melchior

  “Two hours,” he said flatly. Narrow-eyed he looked at Woody. “I will, of course, have to log your request for emergency processing.”

  “Do that.”

  The agent turned to his wife. “Give them something to do,” he said drily. “They should not be idle if we have visitors.” He turned to Woody. “I will bring your travel papers to you here,” he said. “In two hours.”

  He left.

  The woman turned to Ilse. “Come with me,” she said pleasantly. “I will give you something to do. Sew buttons on a little jacket, perhaps. For Pinocchio. And your young man, I will ask him to repair a broken board in the bridge behind the stage.”

  They set to work. Woody watched Ilse, as she sewed tiny buttons on a diminutive green Bavarian peasant jacket. She sure is easy on the eyes, he thought. A regular pinup. He wondered about her. Who was she? And how did she come to have the pull she did? He’d tried, in a half-assed way, to draw her out. At first, he thought she’d been friendly, although understandably reticent, but after they’d left Zorina’s place she’d seemed withdrawn.

  Ilse looked up. She caught him watching her and quickly averted her eyes. Dammit, he thought. What the hell gives?

  “Ilse,” he said evenly, “you and I are going to have to be together for a long time. Under circumstances that may not always be easy. We will be—damned close. We will have to be able to depend on one another. Trust one another.” He looked searchingly at her. “Is there something wrong? If there is, now is the time to . . . to clear the air.”

  For a moment she sat motionless, without speaking. Only her fingers moved, manipulating the tiny buttons. He did not break in on her silence; she was obviously trying to arrange her thoughts. Her emotions. He could almost see when she reached her decision. When she finally spoke, her voice was low.

  “Is it true?” she asked. “Is it true what Madama Zorina said?”

  Puzzled, he frowned. It was a totally unexpected question.

  “What?” he asked. “Is what true?”

  “That you were in charge of the guards—at Flossenburg Concentration Camp?”

  A spontaneous denial almost burst from him. He caught himself. It was true. Of SS Hauptsturmsführer Fritz Diehl, it was true. And he was Fritz Diehl. For now.

  “Why?” he asked, playing for time.

  “Is it true what—what the Americans say about those camps?” she asked. “The—the terrible things they say went on there?”

  It was becoming a conversation of questions, he thought. No answers. Well, dammit! here was one. “Yes!” he snapped vehemently. “Every damned word.”

  She flinched as if he had hit her. She gave a little sob.

  “Is that—what you did?” she breathed.

  He was torn. His cover demanded he say yes. But it was obvious that the girl was appalled and revolted at what she had heard. She would reject him totally, if she thought he’d really been part of it. He could not afford that. He also realized that he did not want it. Yet he knew that as a good operative he could not afford to weaken his cover by denying involvement.

  “No,” he said hoarsely. What the hell was he doing?

  She looked up at him. “But—Zorina said . . .”

  “Zorina was assuming,” he said curtly. “I did not think it necessary to correct her.”

  “Then, what . . .”

  “Ilse,” he said earnestly, looking into her face, “accept the fact that I was not involved in the horrors of the—the concentration camps. Accept the fact that I abhor what went on there as much as you do. And—accept the fact that the circumstances in which we find ourselves make it impossible to talk freely and openly about everything.”

  She looked into his eyes. “I want to believe you,” she said softly.

  “You can.”

  She nodded. Somehow he knew she did.

  “The camps,” she whispered. “They were under the control of the Reichsführer?”

  “Himmler?”

  She looked at him, oddly. “Yes. Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.”

  He nodded. “That’s correct.”

  She bit her lip. “It is—because of him that I am here,” she whispered.

  Woody was startled “Himmler? Because of Himmler? How?”

  “He issued a personal directive to the SS organization in command. He instructed them to—to make certain I was taken to safety.”

  “Why?” He asked the obvious question with reservations. Did he want to know?

  “My mother,” Ilse said. “She—she had a position with the SS. She asked the Reichsführer. She thought Germany would not be a good place for me. After the war was lost.”

  “Why did she think that?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Your mother,” he said, “what did she do? For the SS?”

  “I am not sure,” Ilse replied uncertainly. “Something in administration.” She sounded almost apologetic. “I was always away. At school. For the last few years I only saw my mother when she came to visit me.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Ilse shook her head. “I do not know.” She fell silent, and busied herself with her minuscule buttons. He watched her. Somehow he felt warm and happy.

  Ilse looked up. “I know it is not your real name, Hans Bauhacker,” she said timidly. “I—I want to call you by a name just for me. When we are—together.” She looked up at him, wide-eyed, as if frightened by her own audacity. “Of course,” she added quickly. “I will not want to know your real name. I . . .”

  “Woody,” he blurted out.

  “Wu-di?” She frowned prettily.

  Shit, he thought, disgusted with himself. Now I’ve done it! “No, no. Rudi. Nickname for Rudolf.” He smiled.

  She smiled back at him. “Rudi,” she said softly, “I am glad they chose you to go with me.”

  The way she said the name made him wish it really was his.

  Willi had wondered how it was possible for two Ami soldiers in an American vehicle to transport B-B Achse fugitives, the kind of subjects the entire enemy army was searching for, along the SS escape route, until he realized that they had no idea of what they were doing.

  They were nothing but black marketeers. Contemptuous parasites, he thought, preying upon both their own and the vanquished.

  Assigned to a supply unit they often traveled between towns in their area of occupation, and occasionally—at the request of their “customers” and for a suitable expression of appreciation—they would take along a civilian or two. To visit a sick aunt or something.

  They had let him and Eva off at one of the gates in the ancient walls that still partly surrounded the oldest part of this historic town on the Ach River. Memmingen was an important railhead on the Augsburg-Ulm line, Willi knew, and was known for its woolen goods, its soaps, and its rope making. Like all the towns in Bavaria it teemed with sad, gray townspeople mingled with enemy occupation troops and a host of discharged prisoners of war and civilian refugees left strewn about the countryside in the tens of thousands.

  The Memmingen Anlaufstelle was a rope manufacturing plant near the railroad yards; their contact was the plant manager, Heinz Ludwig.

  A faded sign on an old red-brick building proclaimed:

  RADEMACHER & SOHN

  SEILEREI

  Gegründet 1888

  “We were shut down during the last year of the war,” Ludwig explained as they walked down the narrow ropewalk past the massive rope-making machinery. Willi looked around in awe. The building must be at least 250 meters long, he thought.

  “We make primarily rope and binder twine here,” Ludwig told them. “But we could not get any hard fiber cordage. We had to close down. At a time when our product was most needed by the Reich,” he finished bitterly.

  He gestured toward several men working on the machinery. “We are in the process of readying the plant to resume production, as you can see.”

  They walked past the breakers, the spinning devices, the forming and laying machines. At the f
ar end of the ropery was a large storage room. A few old bales of deteriorated fiber and a couple of huge coils of old rope were shoved against the wall; otherwise the place was empty, awaiting new production material. At the far end was a door. Ludwig headed for it.

  “We have partitioned off a room from the storage area,” he said. “For the use of Achse travelers.” He smiled, revealing badly decayed teeth. “Ostensibly a rest area for our workers, of course. You will be comfortable there until we are ready to pass you on.”

  “When?”

  Ludwig pursed his lips. “Possibly tomorrow morning.”

  Willi glanced at Eva. She looked tired. She could do with a good night’s rest. The last six weeks had made her condition quite noticeable. It must be a great strain on her. He admired her. She had not complained. But it was obviously becoming difficult, if not impossible, for her to travel any great distances via bicycle or by walking. And they still had a long way to go. The most difficult part. He turned to Ludwig.

  “How will we travel?” he asked.

  Ludwig shook his head. “I do not know that yet,” he said. “I will be informed. Memmingen is a Verteilerkopf on the Achse— an important distribution center. Other routes branch off here. Travel must be coordinated.” He glanced at Eva, not quite able to hide his disapproval. “I shall try to obtain—eh, suitable transportation,” he said archly. “By motorcar, perhaps by train.”

  Willi nodded. “We will wait,” he said.

  “Excellent,” Ludwig agreed. “It is best you remain here. Tomorrow is Sunday. There will be many Amis in town. I will have your new Military Government permits for you by then.”

  “Tomorrow then,” Willi said. “Meanwhile, might we have something to eat?”

  “Of course. I shall bring you some food.” Ludwig left.

  Eva sat down on one of the beds. She hoped Ludwig would bring something soft to eat. Like Leberwurst. She still had trouble chewing, with those teeth missing in her lower jaw. If only she could have had that bridge put in. She sighed. She was bone tired. Her back—in fact her entire body—ached. She sank back, trying to relax.

  Suddenly she felt a tiny movement in her abdomen. A distinct little push. Or kick. All at once she was overwhelmed with tenderness. It was the quickening. She was certain now. A small new life was growing in her—and had made its presence felt. Gently she placed her hands on her beginning swelling. There. Again. A little kick.

  She gloried in it, a secret smile illuminating her face. She closed her eyes. In her hands she lovingly cradled the tiny life within her. The life that was part her and part Adolf. A little son, they had told her.

  A little boy—in the image of the Führer, Adolf Hitler.

  Nördlingen had been left behind a little over half an hour before, and so had the damned baskets, except for one they had tied to the back of the bike as a carry-all. It was only just past 1800 hours and they should have no trouble reaching the Memmingen stop, sixty or sixty-five miles farther, in two and a half hours, before the 2030-hour curfew. Woody wondered what a rope-making joint would be like. He’d never seen one. The little dirt road that led directly south toward Memmingen had been virtually deserted, and they were making excellent time.

  Hacker, the tailor who ran the Nördlingen stop, had been only too happy to speed them on their way. It had actually taken him less than an hour to get their forged AMG permits renewed to Memmingen, and hustle up a couple of gallons of black market gasoline for their motorbike. Nervously he’d asked them not to wait in his shop, but to go to a Gasthaus nearby to eat and come back for their papers later—on the pretext of picking up Woody’s jacket which he left for repair. The man had explained that there was a strong possibility that authorities would come to his shop. He—and the Anlaufstelle operation—were in no direct danger, but a customer who had left several items of clothing with him earlier in the day, had been found brutally murdered. By the Werewolves, they said. And investigators might come to his shop to talk to him. He had apparently been the last to see her alive. It was best to take no chances. Woody had agreed.

  They were entering a little town called Dillingen on the Danube, when Woody suddenly slowed down.

  Ahead a couple of jeeps were parked off the roadway and several GIs and German civilians were gathered in a group.

  Woody swore under his breath. He knew at once what it was. A roadblock. A checkpoint for snap security checks. He knew where such checkpoints usually were set up; at bridges, intersections, and railroad stations, and he’d tried to avoid them. As Hacker had said, it was best to take no chances. What the hell was a roadblock doing at the town limits of a two-bit burg?

  There was nothing he could do. Slowly he rolled up to the roadblock and came to a halt.

  A corporal came over to them. “Off!” he ordered gruffly, gesturing for them to dismount. “Off! Schnell!” He pointed to the group of apprehensive German villagers huddled nearby. “Da. Gehen,” he said. “Gehen! Schnell!”

  Woody wheeled his bike over to the group. What the hell was going on? Nobody asked for his ID.

  After a short while a sergeant, a big, burly man—looking mean and rough enough, Woody thought, to be picking his damned teeth with a rusty nail—came over to the group. Legs spread, arms akimbo, he glared at them. Brusquely he shouted. “Mitkommen! Schnell! Alle mitkommen! Move it!”

  The ragged group of uneasy, bewildered Germans followed the noncom as he strode down the road, Woody wheeling his motorbike along. He gave Ilse a reassuring smile. She took hold of his arm.

  Presently the sergeant turned off the road and headed for a large barn. Other GIs and German civilians stood outside, and a few US military vehicles were parked next to the wooden building, among them a self-propelled generator.

  And Woody knew what was in store.

  Shit!

  The German villagers—men, women, and older children—were all herded into the barn. Inside, a large screen had been set up at one end, and a motion picture projector stood at the other. Benches, bales of hay, and planks propped up on bricks served as seating before the screen.

  As Woody and Ilse made for a seat, a corpulent burger began to argue with the GI who had directed him to a seat. Red-faced and indignant the man voiced his objections. The big sergeant elbowed his way up to the man. He jutted out his jaw and glared savagely at the German. “Listen, Krauthead,” he snarled. “I’ll cut your fucking ears off and ram them up your asshole so you can hear me good when I kick your butt! Now—sit!”

  Woody grinned inwardly. It was kind of good to hear a real GI noncom sound off. He felt downright nostalgic. The German did not understand the words—but he was in no doubt about their meaning. He sat.

  A lieutenant stood up before the screen, facing the crowd. The people fell silent. The officer pulled out a piece of paper and began speaking in German with only a trace of an accent.

  “Pursuant to AUS directive, MGAF-GO (79),” he intoned, “every German citizen over the age of fourteen, without exception, is required to witness a screening of US Army film, TF-261.9.”

  He put the paper down. He looked out over the assembled German villagers, his face hard and grim.

  “What you will see,” he said harshly, “is how your former government dealt with those it considered enemies, unfit, or merely inferior. All the film you will be shown was photographed by your own SS motion picture units and deals with only a fraction of what went on in such concentration camps as Dachau, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen; Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Mathausen; Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, Maidenek, and Flossenburg. All in the name of your Führer, Adolf Hitler.”

  Woody felt Ilse stiffen beside him. He remembered her earlier questions about the camps. She was about to get an answer. In spades. He’d seen the “Mickey Mouse” film before, screened for other such groups. Automatically he took her hand.

  The film began. The barn was eerily quiet except for the drowsy whirr of the projector. First there were the usual identifying titles and numbers—and then the s
hock opening Woody would never forget.

  It was another barn: men, women, and children being herded inside, guarded by SS troops, tall and blond and trim in their immaculate, tailored uniforms with the silver flashes on the collars; gasoline being poured on the straw, heaped around the wooden structure with its locked and barred doors. And the fire. Flames engulfing everything. And through the flames, through the scorched and burning wood, fire-blackened hands thrusting out through impossibly small openings, clenching and contorting in agony as the flames licked at them, eating away the flesh to expose quickly charred bone. And the head. The terrible head. The head of one desperate man who’d gouged out a big enough hole in the burning planks to force his head through, in a vain attempt to escape the hell inside. Hairless and blistered, his ears and lips charred appendages, his mouth wrenched open in a silent scream, his eyes wide in unspeakable terror—until the searing heat burst them and the hot fluid spurted from them. And through it all, the laughter and merriment, the jeering and derision of the SS guards. It was a sight he would never forget. He knew that neither would the girl who sat stiffly beside him.

  And there was more. Much, much more. Narrated by a dispassionate German voice.

  The piles of emaciated, white, naked bodies, already drained of blood so they would burn easier, stacked like cordwood at the crematorium ovens; a much more efficient way to dispose of the undesirables than the primitive barn burnings . . . The rows of men, women, and children being herded to the “showers,” like cattle to the slaughtering pen; crammed and locked into the common “shower room,” to suffer the indescribable agonies of being gassed by Zyklon-B . . . And the rubber-booted, cloth-mask protected men of the Sonderkommando who hosed down the hideous tangle of distorted bodies, interlocked by the violent spasms of death, to get rid of the feces and blood that covered them, before wrenching them apart to make room for the next group. The mountains of eyeglasses, shoes, pens, watches, and—most pitiful of all—hair, shorn from the heads of the women . . . .

  At Oranienburg Concentration Camp, the voice of the narrator droned on, more than one hundred specially selected inmates of all ages were gassed and the flesh carefully boiled and stripped from their bones in order to provide undamaged skeletons for the collection at Himmler’s Institute for Practical Research in Military Science . . . .