The Lost Catacomb (28 page)
Since sex in a
Lebensborn
facility was apparently not
going to be an option tonight after all, and since he had no idea what
opportunities of that sort awaited him in Rome, he thought that he might as
well try his luck.
He
’
d heard that silk
stockings, cigarettes, and chocolates could easily seduce Italian women, but
their own Fascist Blackshirts, he knew, could also provide them with those
luxury items.
And he was fastidious
enough to shrink from the notion of enjoying the charms of the same prostitutes
that some at the Vatican would be so eager to embrace.
He entered the club.
Soft romantic music was still being played at the piano.
Perhaps it was a waltz or something from
one of Wagner
’
s
operas, but he wasn
’
t
sure.
His enjoyment of music was
merely amateur, as he readily admitted to himself.
He had come from a home where the middle
class work ethic was more important than culture, or at least more important
than what he had been taught was a decadent obsession with cultural details
that characterized inferior races, such as the Jews.
It was now 11 o
’
clock.
She was still there, looking somewhat
bored, her flawless skin and golden hair glowing under the light that pooled
onto her table from the wall sconce above.
He walked over to the bar and ordered a drink.
Pointing in her direction, he asked the
barman to send over a magnum of his best champagne and two glasses, with his
compliments.
The presence of a
second glass should convey his meaning precisely.
Kessler swallowed his whiskey in a single gulp and walked
over to the table.
“
May I join you?
”
he asked, bowing
slightly from the waist and clicking his heels.
The young woman looked up at him from
under thick dark lashes and tossed her silken hair over her shoulders.
She appeared to be about 23 or 24
years old, slender, but lushly curved in all the right places.
She was wearing a black sequined
cocktail dress with narrow straps and a neckline that showed off her ample
cleavage.
A matching silk jacket
was carelessly laid over the back of the chair next to her.
She motioned to him to sit down, exhaled a languid puff of
smoke from her cigarette, and leaned forward slightly, exposing more of her
milky white bosom.
Her eyes were
pale blue, her lips full and artfully painted a crimson color that matched her
long, elegant nails.
The floral bouquet of a perfume familiar to Kessler wafted
towards him.
He wondered how she
had been able to obtain French perfume of this quality.
Perhaps a rich lover?
He had once given his former mistress
some Guerlain perfume in the pre-war years, before it had become unpatriotic
and hideously expensive, even for an officer with his salary and
contraband-goods connections.
“
Well?
”
she said, recalling
him from his brief reverie.
“
My
name is
Hauptsturmf
ü
hrer
Jurgen Kessler,
”
he
said, introducing himself.
“
And yours,
fr
ä
ulein
?
”
“
Greta,
”
she replied.
“
Greta
Braun.
Thank you for the champagne.
I
’
m new in Berlin.
I
’
ve just been transferred from Munich to the
Abwehr
offices to serve as a translator.
How fortunate that I chose to dine here this evening,
”
she added, tossing her
hair over her shoulders again and lowering her eyelashes provocatively.
“
Do
you come here often?
”
“
My
home away from home, in fact,
”
he replied.
Kessler poured
some champagne into the two Bohemian crystal flutes that the waiter had
brought, and raised his glass to her:
“
To the
Reich!
”
“
Yes,
”
she replied, as her
fingers closed around the stem of the slender flute, stroking it lingeringly
before raising it to her scarlet lips.
“
To the
Reich and its handsome officers.
”
An hour later they were heading arm in arm towards her flat,
by good fortune some three blocks from his own.
The stars shone above in a cloudless,
dark violet sky.
He marveled at his
luck, at how well things had turned out after all.
She was at least as beautiful as the
Lebensborn
girls he
’
d dallied
with before on the instructions of his senior officers, but far more
sophisticated.
But then he
remembered that he had not yet told her he was about to be transferred far from
Berlin.
Perhaps if he had, she
would not have asked him back for a nightcap and coffee.
She took a small ring of keys out of her beaded bag and
opened the door to the apartment building.
“
It
’
s just one flight up,
”
she said.
“
Let
’
s not bother with the
elevator.
”
Her legs were long and lissome in their silk stockings and
high-heeled shoes, and as he followed her up the spiral staircase, with its
intricate wrought-iron balustrade, he could see the lace edges of her garters
as the slit in the side of her dress opened up along her thighs.
At the landing on the first floor, she turned left and led
him towards her apartment, smiling enigmatically as she silently locked the
door behind them.
She carefully
placed her key ring in the drawer of an antique desk and turned on the
brocade-shaded lamp that perched at its edge, filling the room with a faint
rosy light.
“
Now
darling, what would you like to drink?
”
she purred.
“
I have some French
brandy and Irish whiskey.
”
Not easy things to procure in
Berlin.
Not in 1943 anyway, he
thought, intrigued by the prospect.
“
Brandy
for me,
bitte
sch
ö
n
.
”
He sat down on the dark, well-worn sofa, and she closed the
drapes at the window
—
rich
crimson velvet with heavy fringes, whose color, he noted with quiet amusement,
closely matched the hue of her lips and nails.
They sipped their drinks for several
moments, and then she licked her upper lip slowly, smiled, and leaned towards
him.
“
I
’
m going to put some
music on the gramophone.
It
’
s been a long time
since I
’
ve danced
with a gentleman.
My late husband,
you know, was a pilot in the
Luftwaffe
.
Shot down by the RAF, those
schweinhund
,
”
she said bitterly,
“
six months ago.
He'd been on a reconnaissance mission
near London.
“
It
’
s been very lonely for
me since then, but I
’
m
finally starting to take charge of my life again.
That
’
s one of the reasons why I accepted the transfer to
Berlin. A change of place, maybe a change in my luck.
“
But
perhaps I
’
m boring
you.
Why don
’
t we waltz to this lovely romantic music for a
while,
”
she
suggested brightly,
“
and
see where it takes us.
”
She made her selection from the small stack of records near
the phonograph, wound up the crank, and placed the needle carefully on the
disc.
Kessler slid his arm around
her slender waist and then moved his hand slowly down towards the top of her
firm buttocks, holding her close.
She pressed her breasts lightly against his chest and sighed softly.
He breathed in the delicate floral scent of her perfume,
wafting up from between them, and leaned even closer to her, swaying
rhythmically to the music.
Sensing
no objection, he brushed her ear lobe with his lips, taking care not to
dislodge her long glittery earring.
She raised her lips to his and they kissed, gently at first, then more
passionately, her tongue finding its way into his mouth, greedy and insistent.
She pulled back from him slightly and slipped the straps of
her dress off of her shoulders.
Her
breasts spilled out over the top of her undergarments, ripe and full.
“
Unzip me, darling,
”
she
moaned.
“
Ah
,
das ist
s
ehr gut
.
”
The dress slithered to her feet, and she bent forward to toss
it out of the way.
She stood there,
clad only in a pale peach satin and lace bra, satin tap pants, and a matching
garter belt and silk stockings.
She
stepped out of her shoes and removed the rhinestone earrings, which she gently
laid on a nearby chair.
Kissing him lightly, she reached over to unbutton the jacket
of his gray uniform.
“
I hope you don
’
t think I
’
m hurrying things too
much.
But it
’
s been so long since .
.
.
.
”
She
left the sentence unfinished, as she reached for his belt and holster.
“
These,
too,
”
she
insisted, and placed them carefully on the sofa.
“
They
could get in the way.
Maybe even be
dangerous, you know.
”
Her hips undulated gracefully to the music, and she removed
her garter belt and stockings, while he watched, dizzy with desire.
No one had ever performed a striptease
for him, not the
Lebensborn
girls, many of whom were of country, peasant
stock, and certainly none of the whores he
’
d ever slept with
—
they were all business.
“
Your
turn again,
mein herz
,
”
she whispered, reaching for his zipper.
He now stood there, breathing heavily in his undershirt and
boxers, his erection pushing its way though the opening at the front of his
shorts.
She nuzzled against him and
unhooked her bra.
Only her satin
panties remained.
He cupped one of her breasts, pinching her nipple lightly, as
one hand wandered further down, stroking and massaging, and she panted beneath
his touch.
“
Bitte
,
I
’
d rather do this
in a bed,
”
she
groaned, taking his hand and leading him towards the bedroom.
He followed her down the dark hallway to her room, and they
tumbled onto the bed.
Soft
moonlight filtered through the bedroom curtains.
He removed her panties, and as her
thighs parted at his touch, he began to explore her with his tongue.
Moaning loudly, thrashing back and forth in ecstasy, Greta
cried out,
“
Yes,
mein
Gott
, now!
Gott im
himmel
, please!
”
Suddenly she snapped her legs together around his head and
neck, pinioning him.
“
Yes, now!
”
A swift blow to the back of his
head, a sudden twisting of his neck, a cracking sound, and it was all over.
Two shadowy figures, British intelligence operatives, had
emerged from the closet and now stood in the dark near the bed, having
delivered the
coup de gr
â
ce
.
They had spent a rather uneventful
evening behind the bedroom closet door, waiting for
“
Greta
”
to signal them.
“
God,
I thought I
’
d have
that swine inside me in another minute.
Bad enough it had to go this far,
”
she said in the King
’
s English, jumping off of the bed and grabbing a
sheet to cover herself up.
“
Actually,
it was a pretty good show,
”
one of them remarked dryly.
“
You might consider
doing this professionally after the war.
”
“
Knock
it off, James, or I
’
ll
make sure you don
’
t
come along the next time I have to do this sort of thing!
”
she snapped.
“
Tom,
”
they called to a third
man, who only now emerged from behind a tall armoire.
“
Go
get his uniform out of the living room and put it on.
You
’
ll exit through the front entrance to the apartment
building, the same way that damn Kraut came in, just in case someone else has
been watching him.
We
’
ll take the
‘
package
’
out through the back.
”
“
Greta,
”
in the meantime, had
removed her blond wig. She ran her fingers through her short brown hair,
splashed some water onto her face from the ewer on the nightstand and removed
most of her makeup.
She dried her
face with a small towel left there for that purpose and pulled on some
nondescript dark clothing.
Her
scarlet nails would have to be dealt with later.
She glanced up as Tom returned to the bedroom dressed in
Kessler
’
s uniform
and nearly froze in shock.
“
My God!
They told me they were planting a
double, but I never imagined you would look so much alike,
”
she said, now
shuddering visibly.
“
Glad
you think so,
”
he
replied matter-of-factly.
“
Time to go,
”
he said, nodding
briskly to the other two agents.
Deftly, the three men bundled up the body in a dark burlap
bag and gathered up the wig, jewelry, evening clothes, and Kessler
’
s underwear, shoes, and
socks separately, while
“
Greta
”
straightened the bed
linens, turned off the lights, and carefully removed all traces of her presence
from the apartment.
The group
silently slipped out of the building through a back exit and carried the body
to a waiting automobile.
“
Let
’
s go! Move it!
”
they said to the
driver, quietly closing the trunk and the car doors.
Tom, in the meantime, had left through the main entrance,
taking care to lock the apartment and entry doors with the keys
“
Greta
”
had placed in the
living room desk drawer.
A block
away, he dropped them into the sewer and then made his way to Kessler
’
s apartment, softly
whistling
“
Deutschland
Uber Alles
.
”
