The Folks at Fifty-Eight (18 page)

“I have never hated anyone as much in my life as I hated that man. I hit him, in the face. Everyone laughed, and so I hit him again. They kept laughing, and so I kept hitting him. Then one of the SS men, a major, gave me his dagger.

“I remember holding the dagger and looking at it. It was beautiful. It had a silver eagle on the handle. The major said it was very sharp. When I started walking towards the man, he looked terrified. When Martin told him I was going to cut his thing off, he started screaming. Everyone was laughing. I felt proud. I had never known anyone be frightened of me before.”

“And did you?”

“No. I would have done, but he started talking. Martin told me to keep the dagger. He said I’d achieved more with it in one minute than the major had done in his lifetime. I don’t think the major was very pleased, but he didn’t dare say anything, and so I kept it.”

Hammond watched as she talked about the dagger, and laughed about the poor devil she had helped to torture. She didn’t seem to see anything wrong in it. She went on to talk about the rest of her time in Prague, and how she had learnt so much, but mostly she talked about Kube.

“I hated him. I hated what he did to me when I was a little girl, and I hated him touching me. I hated the sight of him, especially when he was naked. He was so ugly, all those folds of fat, and he always sweated so badly, and he smelled; especially afterwards.”

She said, as the Bolsheviks neared Prague, Kube ordered her to stay at Petschek, but she ran away. She hid in the Old Quarter of the city, in a house that had belonged to friends of her mother. The Reich recalled Martin Kube to Berlin for one last desperate stand, but she stayed hidden. Kube knew she was in Prague, but he didn’t know where. When he returned to Berlin, he left SS patrols scouring the city. She knew it would only be a matter of time before they found her.

As fortune would have it, just as they began searching the Old Quarter of the city, the people of Prague rose in revolt against the Reich. A few days after that, the Red Army arrived. What remained of Hitler’s armies had to get out of the city and the country, while they still could.

“When the Bolsheviks arrived in Prague, I was so happy. I thought I had finally got away from him. I thought I was free. . . But I wasn’t. Only the uniforms had changed.

“It started during the Sudeten German expulsions. The mobs were on the streets. They were killing anybody who even looked German. I was very scared. Everywhere there were expulsions to labour camps, and people being tortured and murdered. A Red Army patrol caught me stealing bread from the local bakery. They took me to the platoon commander. He took me back to the house. He said he wanted to speak to my parents.

“When we got there I told him I was lying. He laughed. I laughed with him. I showed him the cupboard, where I kept some schnapps, and then took him upstairs and let him have me.”

“Why didn’t you just tell him that your parents were dead?”

The casual manner in which she had so matter-of-factly related her shame had astonished Hammond. He watched her shrug, and give an answer that further astonished and shocked.

“He was going to have me anyway. I knew it, and so did he. It’s the way in Soviet territory. The younger and prettier women give themselves to the officers. That way they don’t get gang-raped by the men. I was just lucky that I was young and pretty.”

“Who was he?”

Her eyes blazed as she spoke of the man and his death.

“He was just another fat Bolshevik pig who thought I was a spoil of war. He threatened to give me up to the mobs, and so I stayed with him. I pretended I liked him. He didn’t know. He was infatuated with me. He thought I was infatuated with him.

“Then one night I tied him to the bed, with my stockings. He liked that. They all did. . . Well, they did at first. He’d been drinking. He thought I was going to play. I did, but then I took the dagger and cut the drunken pig into pieces.

“I got out of Prague, made my way back to Berlin, and hid with my mother in her apartment, because Martin was still in Berlin. The Führer had committed suicide, and the Bolsheviks had taken control. Martin came to see if I was still alive, and where I was. She didn’t tell him.

“Later, someone told me the Bolsheviks had killed him. I didn’t hear any more, and so I believed them. But if he survived he’ll never stop looking, not if he thinks I’m alive.”

“Well, let’s not panic just yet. We can’t be sure it’s him.”

The old woman had chipped in with some reasoned argument. Catherine was insistent. She said if Martin Kube was still alive, he would be working for the Americans. It all fitted. Kube had worked for her father, controlling the Reich’s espionage networks in Bohemia and Moravia. When her father was assassinated, Kube took over.

It was if a light had suddenly gone on in Hammond’s head.

“Of course! That explains why Beria wants you. He wants to use you to get to Kube.”

“But I don’t know where he is. I didn’t even know he was still alive.”

“Yes, but Beria doesn’t know that. He may see you as his only link.”

For a while all three were silent. Hammond sat pondering the facts, and considering the implications. He realized that if the order to get Catherine Schmidt out of Germany and into the States had come from her childhood abuser, it left only one possibility: the power and influence that former Gestapo Kriminaldirektor Martin Kube had once enjoyed with the Third Reich now extended to the highest levels of the U.S. State Department.

They decided to ignore the presence of Kube, at least in the short-term. There was little doubt the former Gestapo chief introduced a new and undesirable complication, but the danger posed by Beria and Paslov formed the more immediate and significant threat.

The only sensible solution was to deliver the girl to the authorities at Camp King. Only after that would Hammond be in a position to address any threat posed by the continuing existence and influence of Kube.

It was one a.m. and Hammond lay awake, turning the facts over in his mind. It was a mess, a complex mess. He dozed for a while, but then a movement on the far side of the room jolted him into consciousness. Slowly and noiselessly he reached for the automatic, silently watching the figure in the shadows as he secured the weapon.

“Good heavens, Mr Hammond, that looks so big. What are you going to do with it?”

She giggled as she spoke, and Hammond felt so many conflicting emotions filling and confusing his mind. His relief at knowing it was not an aggressive intruder struggled with his annoyance at her impudence and childish persistence. His concern for her youth and vulnerability struggled with masculine instinct.

He replaced the automatic and watched the young seductress approach, following the exaggerated motion of her hips as she drew nearer and spoke again.

“I thought you told me anything that long was too unwieldy for close quarters?”

As he listened to the words of seduction dripping from her lips, a desperately unfair struggle became ever more desperate and ever more unfair.

“I’m frightened, and cold. I want you to hold me and protect me, and keep me warm.”

Suddenly the child had returned. Hammond stammered a refusal.

“You know I can’t do that. Look, it’s late. Go back to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”

She moved closer, while he lay in the shameful awareness of his own fragile resolve. She eased the nightgown from her shoulders and allowed it to slide to the floor. Flaunting her nakedness, she whispered words that echoed among the shadows and hung on the night air.

“Then take me, and use me, and love me.”

“I can’t do that either.”

“Why? Don’t you want me?”

“It has nothing to do with not wanting you.”

“Then why?”

He studied the beauty of her face and the splendour of her nakedness, caught in three-dimensional magnificence by obliging shafts of moonlight that bathed every facet. She shivered, and he wavered, but then the moment had passed and his conscience remained.

“Because it would be wrong. You’re beautiful, but you’re still so young. You should be making love with a young man of your own age. Anyway, it’s my job to protect you, not take advantage of you.”

He blushed furiously and drew the blanket closer as he stammered the refusal, knowing he had to somehow dissuade her youthful infatuation before lust overwhelmed.

“You take advantage of me?” She giggled at the apparent absurdity. “You’re so sweet, but I’m not a child. I’m a woman, and I need a man.”

She reached for his fingers, and he meekly allowed her to guide them to her breast. More impudent fingers reached out, and then slipped beneath the blanket to discover his guilt and destroy whatever inhibition remained.

“And I need to feel this inside me.”

“Catherine, no.”

He had tried one final unconvincing denial. She grinned, and pouted, and eased her nakedness against his.

“You can’t say no. It’s not allowed. I found it. The law says it belongs to me.”

At first he’d only thought of her as a child, stunningly beautiful but nonetheless a child, innocent and enchanting, petulant and precocious, with impressionable values and brittle opinions. But that was before he had listened to her speaking of so much hatred and violence and wickedness. Before he had come to think of her as vicious and cruel, shamelessly debauched and emotionally disturbed.

And then, when she had spoken of her life in Berlin and Prague, he had seen her as the victim, and his heart had gone out to her. A beautiful and vulnerable child, in need of love and care, despoiled and abused by the very people entrusted with her welfare and protection.

Now, though, he came to know her as a woman. The graceful felinity as she moved against him and the whispered intimacy of each breathless persuasion. Her hair’s gentle fragrance as she nuzzled at his neck, and the softness of her thighs as she drew him close and wrapped him in her lust. The fullness of her breasts, and the nipple’s jutting adamance; the arch of her back, the tenderness of her touch, and the erotic perfection of her form.

He held his breath as she wriggled and writhed and drew him deeper, and then closed his eyes as delirium took hold and a thousand velvet teeth nibbled and grazed at his flesh.

But then, almost before it had begun, a spasm of helpless lust preceded a groan of despair, and all that remained of those fleeting moments of sensual perfection were thoughts of inadequacy and remnants of shame.

“I’m sorry, but it’s been so long since. . . I’m so sorry, I. . .”

She held a finger to his lips, and soothed his wounded pride with whispers of praise.

“Shush. It was beautiful, and you’re beautiful. The only man who ever cared enough to worry. The most beautiful man I ever knew. The most beautiful lover I ever knew.”

Lips that had lied so generously only moments ago, now moved to replenish lust and repair a shattered ego.

“And we have all the time in the world to make it perfect.”

It was gone eight when Hammond woke with the memory still fresh in his mind. He lay still, listening to footsteps on the stairs and hearing the old woman moving around the kitchen. Then the door opened and she brought him his coffee.

“Shiva, my Lord, you’re awake. I thought I’d almost danced you to death.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Oh nothing, just some silliness. Look, I’ve brought you coffee.”

She smiled and carried the coffee to the bed. He took the cup.

“Who’s Shiva?”

“You are, my lord.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You are Shiva, one of the greatest of the Hindu gods, and I am Kali. . . your wife.”

“Wife?”

He must have looked horrified, because she suddenly giggled.

“Don’t worry, it’s not real. It’s just a silly game I play. You don’t have to look so worried. I’m not expecting you to marry me.”

“Oh good.”

The petulant child returned.

“Why good? Don’t you want me any more? That’s not what you said last night.”

He began to protest, but then saw the mischief in her eyes.

“I think you’re still playing games with me.”

She smiled coyly.

“Perhaps.”

“So how do you know so much about Hindu gods?”

She sat on the bed and explained.

“When I was seven, my father sent me to England. He said I should always remember that I am a child of Etzel, and be proud of my country and its language and culture and heritage. But he also said English is the language of nations, and I had to learn to speak it without an accent.”

“And who is Etzel?”

“Etzel comes from the
Nibelungenlied
.”

“The what?”

“The
Nibelungenlied
. The poem: the three thirteenth-century manuscripts.”

He shrugged his ignorance. She explained further.

“Originally there were many more than that, over thirty I think, but only three are really important. They are famous in Germanic literature, and refer to Attila as Etzel.”

“You’re talking about Attila the Hun?” She nodded and smiled, seeing the look of disbelief and seeming to take a perverse pleasure in shocking him. Hammond held the scepticism. “So your father told you that you were a child of Attila the Hun, the descendant of a warmongering barbarian, a man who slaughtered thousands of innocent people?”

She pouted a contradiction.

“No. He told me that I was a child of Etzel.”

“And he was serious?”

“Of course, but Etzel wasn’t that. He wasn’t what you said. Etzel was a great warrior and a nomad, and we are his children, at least, those of us who continue the fight. We have become nomads, just as Attila was. They have stolen our lands and enslaved our people, just as they did with Attila, just as the Fűhrer predicted. But some of us, the chosen ones, the Children of Etzel, will continue the fight. Like him, we will drive the invaders from our lands and free our people. One day it will happen and the Reich will be great again, you’ll see.”