Laugh of the Hyenas

by Ivan Roussetzki

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  Splinters of light… run through a dark endless tunnel …

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  “Turn there!” someone said. Helen snapped back to attention.

  The driver jerked the car onto a bumpy narrow lane, and they soon came upon a large, dark stone house near the top of a hill surrounded by evergreens. One dim light glowed behind drawn curtains in a downstairs window. As Helen peered out the car window, she could only imagine what or who awaited her inside.

  “Get out of the car!” He yanked Helen from the back seat onto the ground beneath her. “You men wait here,” he said and slammed the car door shut.

  The thought of trying to break the man’s iron grip on her arm and run into the night crossed Helen’s mind, but given that she couldn’t see a thing, and in light of the obvious physical strength of the man clutching her arm, she quickly dismissed the idea. He shoved her toward the front door and gave it a hard knock. Noticing the door was ajar, he pushed it open and guided Helen into an austere foyer.

  Immediately, a tall, well-dressed man appeared from the dimly lit adjoining room. Helen’s captor saluted the man and then sneered at Helen, as if to say, “Good luck, you French bitch.” He then quickly disappeared.

  The tall man addressed her in near perfect French. “Mademoiselle Noverman, I regret that we are meeting tonight under these somewhat unexpected circumstances. I hope my men were not too rough with you.” He gestured to the adjacent room and said, “Won’t you join me? It’s more comfortable in here.”

  Large burning logs blazed in an oversized fireplace, their glowing embers a harsh contrast to the man’s cold stare. “Please, sit down,” he said, pointing to one of two worn leather-covered chairs sitting in the fire’s soft orange light.

  With a slightly flirtatious but ominous voice, he said, “You are truly a beautiful woman.” Again he motioned for her to sit as he lowered himself into the other chair.

  Helen glanced about the room standing for a moment longer before she gracefully sat down. She looked at the tanned and blond athletic man with an angular jaw and opaque blue eyes sitting before her.

  “Who are you, and what do you want from me?” she asked.

  “So, what brings you to Oslo?” He held an open cigarette box in front of her. She took one.

  Helen noticed his slender fingers and manicured nails. With hands like carved ivory, he obviously wasn’t a workman, but rather more like a member of the ruling class. Her eyes scanned the man’s face. Who was he, and how much did he know about her?

  His aristocratic manner reminded her a little of Jean Lopié, but given the manner in which these other men had addressed him, he must be some sort of military officer—probably Norwegian or Russian or, God forbid, German. Whoever he was, the man must suspect her of something. Otherwise, why would he have gone to the trouble of bringing her here?

  “Are you a spy?” he asked.

  Helen gave him a coy look and stared into his sphinx-like face.

  “A spy?” she laughed. “How absurd!”

  Still smiling to hide her fear, she cast her eyes around the room again. The logs in the fireplace glowed with embers that popped like small caliber gunshots and sparks that lit up the room.

  Helen knew she needed to do something to change the topic, so she leaned forward slightly in her chair and crossed her legs. Helen’s skirt reached above her knees to reveal the inside curve of her thighs. The unlit cigarette hung seductively from her lips. Like the gentleman he was, the man didn’t hesitate for a moment to offer her a light. As he held a silver lighter close to her face, Helen caught his eyes glancing at her breasts beneath her silk blouse. He sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette for himself, inhaling the smoke rising from his lips into his nose and out again with a burst through his mouth. Maybe with some luck, Helen could maneuver this self-important man into a compromising position and get out of this threatening situation.

  “If you must know,” Helen said, “I have a friend who likes my company when he travels on business.” She took a long drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out in one strong stream.

  “Since he is only a friend,” he said, “perhaps you and I ought to get to know each other better.”

  “Perhaps,” Helen answered. “What’s your name?”

  Without answering, he got up from his chair and put another log on the fire. Sparks bounced off the bricks and screen like exploding artillery shells. Then he turned around and leaned against the ornate mantel as he continued to smoke.

  “Helen—I hope you don’t mind me calling you Helen—I’m afraid that you’re in a serious situation. If you cooperate with me, I can help you. But first I need to have a little chat with your friend. His name is Jean Lopié, is it not?

  When she heard Jean’s name, Helen tilted her head downward and pushed several strands of hair behind her ear so the man could not see the fear creep over her face. By the time she looked up, the man had turned away and rang a servant’s bell to the right of the fireplace. A moment later, a young soldier appeared at the door and snapped a salute. The man barked an order in German to the soldier. He then turned to her and spoke in French.

  “Please follow this man upstairs and make yourself comfortable. We shall speak later.”

  The tone in the man’s voice frightened her, but Helen managed to offer him a tempting smile. Helen followed the young soldier’s signal to ascend the stairs and silently thanked God for giving her more time. In light of her predicament, every minute counted. At least for now, she hoped that Jean was still free.

  When the soldier unlocked the door to the servant’s bedroom, Helen stepped inside and scanned its Spartan contents. Seeing little more than heavy curtains over a window, a small bed, dresser, a rustic wooden chair, and a chamber pot, she spoke to the young man in German.

  “Sergeant, I didn’t want to bother your superior officer, but I’d like to freshen up. Would you be so kind as to bring me a bowl of warm water, a towel, and, oh yes, a glass of brandy, too, please?”

  Exhausted, Helen lay on the crude bed and considered her situation. “Jean must know that I’ve gone missing and must be worried sick,” she whispered to herself. “And how did that man know our names? What am I going to do?”

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  Splinters of light … bleeding legs … dark endless tunnel … walls collapsing … thick air… putrid smell of rotting flesh …

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  A key turned in the door lock and jarred her awake. Helen opened her eyes to see a dim rectangle of light from the hallway spread in front of her, and the silhouette of a man appeared. She silently cursed for dosing off as she glanced about the room. The only thing she could see was her coat hanging over the back of the chair where she had put it before she lay down. The light from the hallway flashed for a moment longer and then disappeared as the door closed. The semi-darkness enveloped the room once again, but Helen knew that the man who questioned her earlier was somewhere inside the room. She remained absolutely still under the quilt on the bed.

  The man said nothing, but Helen felt him move closer. Without offering so much as a word, she felt his fingers touch her hair and, not to her surprise, his sticky lips kiss her neck. His hot breath was filled with the smell of liquor and cigarettes. His hands now reached under the quilt, and he gently rubbed her breasts. She didn’t resist. Helen let him unbutton her blouse and remove the rest of her clothes. He leaned against her. She moaned. He panted like a hungry dog. He removed his uniform, and she reached for him as he climbed naked into the bed beside her.

  Helen thought, “Men are so predictable.” Again, like so many before him, she had this man where she wanted him—between her legs and within her power. As he eagerly pressed his teeth into her shoulders and churned vigorously inside her, Helen carefully reached beneath the mattress to where she had hidden a broken stem of the brandy glass. Then, holding her makeshift weapon in her right hand, and with the expertise of one of Paris’s best prostitutes, she expertly rolled him onto his back with he
r left hand and then climbed onto his belly. Helen’s eyes were accustomed to the dim light that filled the room, so she was ready to make her move.

  As he began to moan, she knew the time had come to act. In one quick motion, Helen jumped up from the bed and slashed the broken brandy glass along the side of his neck. His surprise was absolutely complete. For a brief moment he looked at her in utter disbelief, until he saw the blood dripping from his wound.

  “What? You whore! I’m going to ...”

  “Shut up!” Helen pressed the glass harder into his neck. “You think you can have me for free, just like that, in a lousy room like this? I’ll have you know I’m one of Paris’s most expensive women, and no one—especially some pompous ass like you—is going to take advantage of me. Besides, it doesn’t look like you’ve got much lead left in that pencil of yours anyway. Okay, now it’s your turn, Mr. Whoever-You-Are. Turn over, put your hands behind your back and keep quiet, or I’ll slit your throat right here and now.”

  The man didn’t say a word, but even in the faded light she could see his hateful glare as he turned onto his stomach. If looks could kill, she would have been dead on the spot, but Helen was in charge now, not him. Next, she tied his hands, just as Jean Lopié had taught her, using part of a sheet that earlier she had ripped into long strips. She looped a slipknot around both of his wrists and secured them behind his back. As she was about to gag him, he cursed in German and said, “I underestimated you, Helen Noverman. You can be sure I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “You speak German like a native,” she snorted.

  Helen had her clothes back on and was about to lower herself out of the window with the remaining strips of torn sheets when without any warning, an enormous explosion rocked the woods nearby, shaking the entire house and sending a flash of white light into the night sky above the trees. A moment later a second and third explosion shattered the windows in the room and caused her bound captive to fall onto the floor. The noise was deafening, and the walls spewed geysers of dust and plaster everywhere. Wood and glass from the broken windows covered the floor. People downstairs yelled in Norwegian and German that they were being bombed, summoning everyone to the basement as quickly as possible.

  Helen had no time to be frightened or to do anything but run from the room. But before she left, she saw her captive’s pistol lying on the floor. When she tried to pick it up, he sprung up and kicked her hard in the stomach. Helen lost her balance and fell backwards onto the floor. By the time she looked up, he was standing only a few feet away, holding one of his boots. To her horror, he pulled a small gleaming metal blade from the inside of the heel and cut the sheets that bound his wrists.

  In German, he said, “I carry this little gem for just such occasions.”

  Like a circling hyena, he growled as he feinted and lunged at her, the blade barely missing her face. Helen tried to crawl backwards like a crab, but she was trapped in a corner filled with pieces of plaster and splinters of wood. He lashed out at her again, this time slashing a long deep gash in her left forearm. He laughed as she recoiled into a ball from the pain. It was so excruciating that Helen barely noticed the blood streaming down her arm. Certain of victory, he closed to within inches of where she lay bleeding. As he lifted his knife, she cringed and waited for a final blow. Then he laughed again and said, “Helen Noverman, you shouldn’t have ...”

  But the man never finished his sentence, because another bomb fell, this time causing a torrent of wood, stone, mortar, glass and furniture to rain down on them. The room became a complete shambles, filled with smoke and dust. Both of them were bleeding, with shards of glass from God knows how many places. Suddenly, part of the ceiling above him fell to the floor, leaving the man squirming and cursing in German under a large pile of rubble.

  Without hesitating another moment, Helen jumped up and ran from the room and down the hall to the stairs, finding instead a huge hole in the floor. She looked down two flights. The steps and banister lay on the first-floor landing like a large pile of toothpicks. The young soldier who had taken her upstairs earlier that evening lay dead nearby, his head and chest a bloody mess. Helen ran to the other end of the hallway, hoping to find a back stairway that led from the servant’s quarters down to the kitchen. She thanked God the narrow steps were still intact. When she reached the kitchen, it was deserted. Helen wrapped her injured arm with a small towel to stop the bleeding and was about to slip out the door when she saw him.

  “Oh, Jean! For the love of God,” Helen cried. There he was, tied to a wooden chair in the corner, slumped over, bloody and nearly unconscious. She shook him with all her might. “Come on, my love, it’s me, Helen. We’ve got to get out of here.” He groaned but barely moved.

  She knew they didn’t have much time before another bomb dropped or a guard or policeman found them. Helen looked around the destroyed kitchen and saw a pitcher that stood, somehow, unbroken. She picked it up, saw that it was filled with water and threw the contents onto Jean’s face.

  “We need to get out of here—now!” she cried.

  Helen was bleeding, her clothes were in tatters and she was barely able to see from all the dust and smoke. Holding Jean up took all her strength, but they managed to stagger through the kitchen door and escape into the safety of the woods behind the house. Jean fell down every few steps, but they finally made their way to a clearing at the top of a hill. From there, they saw the horrible reality of what was taking place in Oslo.

  They could clearly see German planes flying overhead. As the planes dropped their bombs, explosions lit up the early morning sky. Hundreds of fires burned everywhere in the city. Helen could even see the cross from the Evangelical Lutheran cathedral engulfed in flames. Her firsthand glimpse of Germany’s mighty military machine and its destructive power made her throw up. The bombs fell endlessly onto a totally unprepared and unprotected city.

  “What few old anti-aircraft weapons the Norwegians had were probably wiped out in the first wave of bombing,” Jean managed to say and shook his head.

  “Jesus Christ, Jean! What the …?” Helen choked.

  They both looked up to the heavens to see an unbelievable sight. The skies over the outskirts of Oslo were filled with hundreds of airplanes belching parachutes from their bellies like gigantic flying insects laying eggs into a vast forested nest.

  It was April 9—Helen’s mother’s birthday—and the Germans had invaded Norway from the air with paratroopers. At that moment, Helen truly believed that the Germans were a superhuman race and that nothing in the world could stop them. She looked at Jean beside her and cried for the first time since her mother had died. She leaned onto Jean’s bloodied shoulder.

  “What did they do to you?”

  “What the Gestapo usually does to people who don’t talk,” he said.

  “Gestapo?” she raised her eyebrows. “I thought they were Norwegian police. Well, except maybe one of them.”

  “You must be talking about the tall blond man. Ah yes, we got to know each other, so to speak,” Jean said. “I’ll tell you something, Helen. He may speak perfect Norwegian and French, but I know for a fact that he is German and the Chief of the Gestapo here in Oslo.”

  “Oh Lord, what have I done?” she muttered. Not waiting another second, she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a long, hard kiss. “I love you Jean, more than anyone in the whole world.”

  “Come on, Helen,” he said, struggling as he stood up. “We’d better get moving. The Germans are now the masters of Norway, and if we want to get back to Paris, we’ll have to run for our lives.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Splinters of light stab my bleeding legs as I run through a dark, endless tunnel. Thick air, putrid with the smell of rotting flesh clogs, my lungs. I gag. From behind the light, I make out the shadows of large men coming after me. Vicious barking dogs pull them closer. Desperate to escape, I fall into a shallow pit filled with fetid water. I find a man’s lifeless body floating face down. Suddenly, he rai
ses his head. It’s my father! He tries to speak, but I can’t make out his words. The dogs, with their jaws flapping and their angular teeth shining like shards of glass, tear at my arms. The tunnel walls collapse. My screams drown out my father’s last words.

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  “Papers!” A man speaking in Bulgarian woke Helen up. Relieved that her recurring nightmare was interrupted, she opened her blurry eyes and looked out the window to see the sign: Welcome to Bulgaria. A young border guard in a tattered coat and scruffy fur cap poked his head through the train door into her compartment. His swollen, outstretched hand looked like a hunk of pink ham, and his nose resembled a mound of raw ground meat bordered by two black olives for eyes.

  She handed him her passport and removed a small mirror from her purse. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and examined her lipstick.

  The guard inspected Helen’s passport. “You’re German.” His eyes swept over her face, down over her breasts, past her knees to her shoes.

  “Your business in Bulgaria is what?” he asked, trying to sound officious. “I’m going to Sofia to teach German in a girl’s high school,” she said in near perfect Bulgarian. It was a response she had practiced for months in preparation for her border crossing. Helen gave the guard a gentle smile, but he only frowned as he studied the passport and glanced at her and the photograph.

  “Your Bulgarian is good, but this photo… It doesn’t look like you,” he said. “Your hair was shorter.”

  “Long hair in the winter keeps me warm,” she said, and with a shrug reached into her handbag again, this time removing a small silver flask. She pretended that she was about to take a sip when she saw the guard eyeing the container.

  “You look like you could use something to keep you warm. Here, have some,” she said. “It’s only a little schnapps. It won’t take the place of your girlfriend on this cold night, but it should help.”