War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 351

Chapter 18

J

ohann didn’t remember how he returned to his cell. He plummeted to the ground, curling up into a tight ball, oblivious to anything around him. The desperation about his sentence seeped into his bones, crowding out anything else.

With all hope vanished, he glimpsed one of the inscriptions on the walls, wondering if those who’d been here before had felt as utterly and completely hopeless as he did in that moment.

He would never survive twenty-five years in a camp. Not in his deteriorated physical condition. He barely weighed eighty pounds and there was no flesh or muscle anywhere to be found in his body.

An idea formed in his head, a last desperate attempt to take his fate into his own hands. For lack of a belt, he’d girded up his trousers with a rope. That rope would now serve its purpose to escape from his dreadful life. Johann gazed up at the single light bulb, gauging whether the support bracket would be strong enough to hold his body weight when he hanged himself.

The door to his cell opened even as he pondered the best way to get the rope and himself up there. Two guards walked in.

“Hands against the wall, feet spread apart.”

Hadn’t they searched him a dozen times already? What else did they expect to find? Johann instinctively brushed the front pocket of his shirt with Lotte’s picture with his hand as he raised it to obey the command. Soon, he wouldn’t need the picture anymore. He just regretted not having been able to say goodbye to his beloved girl. Would the Soviets even inform her? Or would she never find out his fate?

The hands of the guard searching him, brushed past the photograph, but stopped on his waistband. “Turn around and hold up your shirt.”

Johann did as demanded and exposed his caved-in stomach and protruding ribs.

“Take off the belt.”

A flicker of anger heated his heart before he untied the rope, pulled it from the trousers and handed it to the guard, who examined it with a grave expression on his face.

“We don’t want you to get any ideas,” the guard said and pocketed the rope.

Johann saw his hopes for a quick end dashed. He would cry if he had any tears.

“You need to appeal the decision against you to Moscow,” the other guard said.

“What difference would it make?”

“Only the higher court can decide. This is a lawful country.”

“I’m sure it is.” Johann had enough experience with the Soviet administration to seriously doubt the lawfulness of their regime. If they insisted, he would naturally write an appeal, but he didn’t expect that to change the outcome of his trial.

The appeal would probably be filed and noted on several lists, serving to cover their asses in case anyone ever questioned the trial. Appearances needed to be kept up at all costs.

The guards led him to another room, furnished with a table and a chair. One sheet of paper and a pencil lay on the table.

“Write your appeal right now.”

After he finished, Johann knocked on the door and a young woman with a sympathetic smile came inside. She handed him a postcard with a Red Cross logo in the corner and said, “Write quick and I’ll see that it gets sent.”

What was he supposed to write? If he survived, he’d be fifty-seven by the time he returned home.

He’d always believed the end of the war would improve things, would allow him to live a happy life at last. But apparently, he was wrong. Joy no longer existed in this dismal new world, no better future, nothing but pain, sorrow and bleakness.

With little time to think, he sat on the chair and penned a message to Lotte. When he was done, he handed the postcard to the woman, not daring to look into her face, for fear she’d notice the darkness in his soul.

Twenty-five goddamn years!