War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 217

Chapter 31: Anna

O

n May 2

nd

, 1945, Berlin surrendered to the Russians and the looting, raping and murdering started in earnest.

Worry infiltrated every cell in Anna’s body. For three days they hadn’t left the basement except for short trips to the well in the backyard to get fresh water. Usually, she went together with Jan so they’d be quicker. Straining her ears for any unfamiliar sound she’d pump the water at full speed while he switched out the containers under the stream of water. Then they’d haul the buckets for her family and the elderly lady living in the cellar compartment next to them back downstairs as fast as they could.

Her mother and Stan would always wait inside, and she’d see the secret relief washing over their faces when she and Jan returned. But Anna didn’t delude herself into believing they were safe in that basement.

Just because the Russians hadn’t arrived at their street yet didn’t mean they wouldn’t. Whenever frightening thoughts crept up, she forcefully pushed them away. It didn’t make sense to cackle over unlaid eggs. If worst came to worst, then she’d worry about it. Not now.

“We’re running out of food,” Mutter said with a grave voice. “I’ll go upstairs and see what we have left in the pantry.”

“I took the last couple of potatoes yesterday. There’s nothing left except for a quarter cup of salt,” Anna answered. A silence fell over the small room. After a while she offered, “I’ll go to the store and see if I can get anything.”

“You can’t. It’s too dangerous. The Russian soldiers…” Stan said.

Anna knew all too well about the soldiers and their infamous command,

Komm, Frau

. Come with me, woman. It never led to anything good, but it also was an offer no German woman could refuse – usually backed up with the persuasiveness of a gun should the woman show any signs of disobedience.

“We can’t stay without food for God knows how long. Someone has to go,” Anna insisted, rubbing her temple.

“I’ll do it,” Stan said, rising from his chair.

“You? No way. You don’t even know where the stores are.”

“You could give me directions.”

“Anna is right. You can’t go. The grocery store owners don’t know you. They won’t give you a thing.” Frau Klausen glanced up for a moment from her mending.

“I’ll go then,” Jan offered and Anna’s head jerked around at the same time as those of the two other adults.

“It’s not that I haven’t done it before. I know the area. The grocery ladies like me. I can run fast if needed. And I speak Russian—”

“You do?” Anna asked. Here was this twelve-year-old boy who spoke flawless German, English and Russian, in addition to his mother-tongue Polish, while she’d barely mastered some English.

“Where we come from, most of the people speak three or four languages,” Stan explained.

“It’s still too dangerous, he’s only a child,” Frau Klausen said with a stern voice.

“They don’t go after boys,” Anna said in a soft voice. She hated to send Jan outside to get food, but truth be told he was the most likely to succeed without getting hurt.

“Here, take your satchel and the ration cards.” Frau Klausen got up to help Jan ready himself. She pressed a kiss on the top of his head. “Godspeed, my boy.”

The three adults stayed in the cellar room, each one coping with the worry about Jan in a different way. Mutter mended clothes. Stan carved a spoon from a small branch. And Anna peeled potatoes.

Suddenly steps on the staircase and loud knocks at the rusty metal basement door jerked them up from their separate tasks. Anna jumped, ferocious angst grabbing her by the throat and making breathing difficult.

The knocking became angry and she knew they’d break the door in no time at all if she didn’t open it. With one long gaze at her mother she took a deep breath and called out “C—”

But before the word could leave her mouth, a big hand pressed on her face and Stan said, “Shush. Let me.”

She nodded, petrified, and the hand slipped away. Stan limped to the door on his crutches and opened it. Anna strained her ears to hear, but she couldn’t understand the angry shouting.

Stan’s heart

hammered against his ribs and he wished he’d bothered to strap on his prosthetic leg earlier today. But since he wasn’t about to leave the basement, he hadn’t seen the need.

He opened the door on crutches and stared into the dilated eyes of roused soldiers looking to have some fun. Judging by the boozy breath they’d already started the party.

“We…want…woman,” they chanted in broken German.

Stan considered for a moment how best to address them and then decided to speak in their own language, “I’m sorry. There’s just me.”

The ringleader stepped forward and pushed Stan aside. “I’d rather see for myself.”

A group of six soldiers trampled into the basement checking each of the empty compartments until they arrived at the end of the hallway. To the left was the elderly lady, well above eighty, and to the right were Anna and her mother.

The ringleader turned right. Moments later Stan heard Anna’s high-pitched yelp across the noise of rowdy joking. He hurried as best as he could to the compartment, his hands clutched to the crutches.

“

Schöne Frau. Komm

,” one of the men said, yanking Anna toward him by a strand of her blonde hair. Her blouse and bodice were ripped open, exposing the white flesh of her breasts to the group of leering men. Another one yanked at the arms of Frau Klausen, who crouched huddled into a corner of the room.

“Please, leave them alone,” Stan begged, hot rage boiling in his body.

“No chance. We came here to have fun. And this one,” he pointed at Anna, “looks like plenty of fun.”

Dizziness invaded Stan’s brain. Never in his life before had he felt as helpless as he did now. He’d promised his brother to care for his family. Peter had sacrificed his chance at freedom, maybe even his very life, and how was Stan going to repay him? By watching Peter’s wife and mother-in-law being gang-raped by a bunch of squiffy Soviet bastards.

He spied the knife Anna had used to peel potatoes lying on the floor and considered whether he could pick it up and cut the soldier’s throat with it. It took less than a second to accept the futility of the attempt. Even if he still had both legs, he’d be shot before – or after – he killed the man, which wouldn’t hinder the other five soldiers from raping the women.

“I want her first,” the ringleader said, before he nodded at Stan with a dirty leer. ”You can watch, cripple. Seeing a real man do your woman might even get you hard.”

Logic and reason flew away and Stan surged forward, intent on strangling the despicable man. The Russian countered Stan’s hapless attempt and shoved him backwards against the wall. Stan’s head connected with the cold hardness of bricks and for a few moments stars circled in front of his eyes. In slow motion he slid to the floor, unable to regain his uprooted balance.

The ringleader looked down at him, his brows drawn together. “I do not like being disturbed.” Then he nodded at the two youngest soldiers and said, “You watch him. Another move like this, cut off his other leg.”

Rousing laughter followed the cruel words and the other men started clapping their hands and cheering their leader on as he loosened his belt. One of the young soldiers aimed his rifle at Stan, while the other one took great pleasure in producing a ten-inch knife and wielding it in front of Stan’s face, before sliding it down his chest and slightly stabbing at his groin.

Stan closed his eyes, frozen with fear, shame and guilt. On a logical level he knew that his actions wouldn’t change anything, but still, pain about his inactivity racked his heart.

An incomprehensible grunting followed a pained gasp. The men obstructed his view, but the sound of footfalls a few moments later indicated that the first perpetrator had finished and the remaining soldiers were now taking turns abusing the women.

Bile rose in Stan’s throat and he balled his fists, swearing eternal revenge. He wished he could murder every single raping

Rotarmist

with his bare hands. He’d make them suffer; torture them slowly until they begged to be killed. And then he’d deny the wish with a smile.

When finally the men tucked themselves back into their uniforms, relief flooded Stan’s system. But only for a moment, until he saw how the soldier currently watching him started tossing the knife back and forth from hand to hand, his expression twisted into a nasty sneer. “We could take a souvenir,” the soldier slurred, his tongue thick with alcohol.

Stan’s eyes widened as the meaning of the man’s words and his gesture of cutting seeped into his brain. Adrenaline surged through his veins and with the strength of a truly desperate man he hauled himself up and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Wait!”

Six stupefied pairs of eyes stared at him.

“Wouldn’t you rather have booze? I’ll give it to you if you leave them unharmed.”

The Russians’ eyes lit up at the mention of booze. The leader took a step toward Stan and pushed his gun against Stan’s chest. “What makes you think I can’t have the booze and come back to finish them off?”

“Kill me and you’ll never know where it is,” Stan bluffed. The hidey-hole was easy enough to find even with a superficial search.

“Kill? I have better ways to make you talk.”

“You had your fun. Take the booze and leave the women alive.”

“They don’t deserve to live.” The soldier with the knife in his hands spit on the floor, the expression of hate in his eyes mixing with pain. “Even a slow and painful death is too good for these whores, after what the Nazi bastards did to my family.”

Stan had a pretty good idea about the atrocities committed by the Nazis, and it hit him between the eyes: He wasn’t one bit better than the six Russian soldiers standing in the room. Hadn’t he just minutes ago sworn eternal revenge? Immeasurable suffering? The cruelest of pains? Another wave of shame hit him, this time for his own depreciable notions. Maybe it was time to try and break the vicious circle of violence?

He put on his most convincing expression as he jumped over his own shadow and extended a symbolic hand to the very people he hated so much. “Look. Comrade. I’m a Pole, I hate the Nazis as much as you do, and if the swine hadn’t smashed my leg and captured me I’d be with you now taking dominion over Hitler’s capital of Evil and punishing its citizens. But do you really want to mutilate these women because someone else committed an awful crime against your family? Wouldn’t you rather enjoy the end of the war and live in peace?”

The other men paused their rowdy antics for a moment, staring in disbelief at Stan. Finally, one of them said, “Let’s take the booze.”

“We…want…booze,” the rest began chanting and their leader nodded at Stan. “Show us and we’ll leave you alone.”

Stan nodded. “Follow me.” He hobbled to the cubbyhole beneath the stairs and crouched down, afraid he’d never get up again. He handed the leader of the group the bottle of

Korn

he’d stolen from the hospital. The soldiers circulated the bottle, each one taking a long swallow, before the leader slid the bounty into his pocket. Stan awaited with bated breath what would happen next.

“Good stuff,“ the leader said and signaled his men to leave.

A heavy burden fell from Stan’s shoulders as he heard the metal door clicking shut behind them. He was still crouched in the corner when Frau Klausen came around, extending her hand to help him up.

“Thank you,” she said in her usual voice.

“I…I’m sorry. I…” Words failed him, the happenings still fresh in his mind.

“We don’t talk about that. Ever,” Frau Klausen said and handed him the sticks he’d used for crutches.

Anna had turned her back to the door of the compartment, arranging her clothes. Red-hot rage, followed by guilt shot through Stan’s veins as he saw her slender back heaving with emotions.

He could only hope that the Soviet high command would impose discipline again and stop the repulsive behavior sooner rather than later. Or that the Americans arrived in Berlin.

About an hour later they heard another knock on the basement door. The tension in the room skyrocketed, Stan’s neck hair standing on end. But a moment later he relaxed when the next knock carried the agreed-upon signal. Three quick knocks. Two long ones.

“It’s Jan,” Frau Klausen said, her voice thick with relief. “I’ll go and open the door.”

Stan used Frau Klausen’s absence to ask the question that had been burning on his tongue, “Are you hurt?”

Anna shook her head. “No. Just shaken up. Thanks for your intervention.” She swallowed hard.

“I…I’m sorry…”

“Don’t.” No doubt fighting against her tears, she stubbornly avoided his gaze, but he’d already seen the immeasurable agony in her face. And it was his fault. For failing to protect her. If only…it didn’t help that he saw his brother’s face in his mind and heard his last words, begging him to take care of his family.

Hell of a good caretaker I am

! A sarcastic smile pursed his lips, before another wave of guilt threatened to undo him.

A moment later, Jan rushed into the room shrieking, “Look what I got!”

“Let’s see what you have,” Anna said with a cheerful voice that sounded so fake, it rang in Stan’s ears.

“Bread and carrots.” He pulled two immense loaves of bread from his satchel and handed them over to Anna.

“The bakery gave you all of this?” Anna said with wide eyes.

Jan turned red and hung his head, mumbling, “Not really. I stole it.”

Stan reached over and lifted the boy’s head up. “You stole it?”

“I’m sorry, but the bakery windows were all broken up and everyone was taking what they could. These loaves of bread had fallen under the counter. I crawled underneath and grabbed them. No one saw me do it,” he assured.

Stan shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with what you did. I’m sure the baker would be happy to know that the work of her hands was going to help feed hungry German mouths and not those of the Red Army.”

“What about Polish mouths?” Jan asked hesitantly, bringing into the open what everyone had been denying for months.

“I think given the choice between the Red Army and a Pole, the baker would most certainly choose the Pole.” Stan kept his tone light and tried to steer the conversation to lighter things. They ate the bread Jan had pilfered together with the few remaining potatoes and talked about happier times.