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They were only a handful of letters on a crumbling brick wall. Seventeen words, meaningless on their own, but powerful enough to warrant a transfer to Mauthausen together. How could three sentences, each in delicate handwriting, have so much control over their writers? Had the country sunk to the point where no one was allowed to speak their minds anymore, where "freedom" existed in just one's most private thoughts?
"What are you thinking about?" Lilli asked, painting a little edelweiss on the corner of their work; her signature. Basch had told her time and time again not to sign her work, and yet, Lilli kept putting edelweiss on every painting she did. Was it her way of rebelling? She didn't fit the unruly teenager stereotype by any means. Nonetheless, everyone had their guilty pleasures. Roderich knew that better than anyone else.
"I wasn't really thinking about anything," Roderich said. He couldn't tell the girl he'd been staging a revolt in his mind, thinking about what it would be like to speak freely again. He'd been quiet for too long and was begging for the chance to shout out something against the Nazis. Being part of a resistance movement wasn't enough for him; he wanted to tell the whole crowd of Nazi elites how proud he was to be Jewish without getting shot.
"You had to be thinking about something."
"What makes you say that?"
Lilli glanced over her shoulder, the harsh light from the streetlamps casting long shadows across her face. "You haven't said anything for a long time. I know you don't say a lot, but it's making me nervous. That and you looked angry."
"Alright, then. What do you want me to say?" Roderich asked, leaning up against the wall. He picked at the dried paint on his coat, the white streaks almost gone after three months. Only three months ago he'd been a run-of-the-mill alcoholic, drinking his fantasy problems away. Now he had real problems and he wasn't allowed to drink. "I don't have a lot to talk about tonight."
"Don't you have a story or something? Did anything interesting happen today?"
Roderich thought for a moment, going over his day. His quiet life at home was unbearably dull, having little to no opportunities for excitement. All he did was the same routine as the day before – work, chores, get angry with the Third Reich, and try his best not to turn to drinking by four in the afternoon. The same things he'd been doing since Elizabeta left, day after boring day. The day got interesting when he went to Basch's house, either because he had to or he was so fed up he'd rather get yelled at by Basch.
"I can't think of anything to tell you, other than we should be leaving soon. Basch said to have you at Francis' by eleven." Roderich looked back at Lilli, trying to figure out what she was painting around the edelweiss. It appeared to be a triangle – why that?
"I'm almost done," Lilli said, drawing a line straight through the triangle.
"What are you doing?"
Lilli shushed him, hiding her masterpiece from Roderich. "It's our new signature, for you and me. Hold on…there!" She took a step back, holding out her hands to show off the new addition to the wall.
Beneath the three lethal sentences, Lilli's edelweiss was surrounded by a Star of David. As if the defiant words weren't enough, the star was the pièce de résistance. It was cocky and dangerous, almost cute in a way, and above all, the opposite of what Basch had told them to do.
He wasn't sure how to react to it – be the parent figure Basch wanted him to be or give his honest opinion? "I…I like it," Roderich said, flashing the girl a smile. He couldn't crush her dreams, not when she was just fourteen. "We should have a signature, and that one fits us very well."
"You really like it?"
"Would I lie to you?"
Lilli paused for a moment. "You might, but it would probably be for my own good. Sometimes people need to be lied to. Basch lies to me a lot."
"And you're alright with that?" Roderich asked, grabbing the violin case he'd left against the wall. He flicked the latches open, taking the tiny can of paint from Lilli and nestling it inside the worn felt with the two paint brushes. Basch had given them the case to use on missions; it couldn't have been bought legally, not when the case was in so good of condition and Basch didn't have enough money to buy a newspaper. Not that Roderich cared where the case was bought; it wasn't one he would even think of putting Marlene in.
"I'm alright with a lot of things," Lilli said, hiding the white smudges on her hands with a worn pair of mittens. "Lying isn't necessarily evil like everyone makes it out to be. Sometimes it can be good and I don't realize it. I don't need to know everything that's going on in Basch's life, and whatever he chooses to hide from me is for a reason."
"I don't think he hides that much from you."
Lilli shrugged, leading Roderich back out to the main street. "He's a very secretive sort of person. He never tells me anything about his past, doesn't tell me what's going on with him, and certainly won't tell me about you. And by the way, you moved up in the ranks last night. You're now somewhere between trustworthy and Mathias."
"Meaning?" Roderich said as they stepped out of the alley into the sleepy street, pulling his keys from his pocket. He had a feeling Basch sent him with Lilli solely because he had a car and Basch didn't.
"You're one step closer to becoming a friend. When you played that air raid game with him, he started trusting you. That or something else happened that I don't know about. He might be warming up to you."
Roderich jammed the key into the car door lock, shaking his head. "He's never going to warm up to me. We may look friendly enough now; the sole reason I'm still working for him is so he can use me."
He tossed the violin case in the back seat of his car – something he never would've done had it been a real instrument – and got in. Lilli took her place in the passenger seat, still a bit wonderstruck as she looked around the car. Roderich almost found it adorable how excited she got when the Horch pulled up in front of her house.
"You're so lucky," Lilli breathed, looking over every intricate detail of the Horch's interior. The rough leather of the seats, the scratches and dents in the paneling from nights of drunken abuse, and the sheet music scattered over the floor and stuffed lazily in between the seats. Everything was new and wonderful to her starry eyes.
"I wouldn't call myself lucky. Something more along the lines of woefully hopeless fits better."
"You truly are lucky, though," Lilli said. "You've got a job everyone in my school wants to have, you've got money to buy whatever you want, and you've got your own little family with us. How is that not lucky?"
"I couldn't tell you. What I know is that I didn't get here by chance," Roderich said, glancing over at Lilli. "I had to work for everything. Maybe not as hard as I should've. That didn't mean it wasn't work. And work is not luck."
"Do you ever agree with people?"
Roderich paused for a moment, thinking back to the fights he'd caused over the years. "No, I don't think so. I've been arguing since I can remember. I felt like it was my job to prove people wrong. Which is why everyone hated me and I got into a lot of fights. That and the fact that I was Jewish."
"…I really thought I'd hate you, too," Lilli said, her shoes becoming the most interesting thing in the world. "And not because you argued. We were learning about Nazis in school and the teacher mentioned your name with the rest of them. He said almost no one knew what you looked like and then said that you had to be an Aryan. And I guess I thought that if you were an Aryan, you were bad."
"I'm more surprised that anyone bothered to remember a drunk's name," Roderich said in what he thought was consolation. "I'm not that well known."
"You are. It's just that no one can put a name to your face. Everyone knows the name Roderich von Wolffe. Every one of the good kids do, the people who go to their meetings and don't live with my brother. Which isn't me." Lilli looked up at Roderich. "I used to wonder what you looked like and how mean you were. I hated you without knowing you. And now, I can't imagine hating you now that I know you. You're nothing like the Jews they told me about in school. There isn't anything to even dislike about you."
"Oh, believe me, there's plenty that you don't know," Roderich said. "I'm a very dislikable person."
"How did I ever hate you?"
"Who knows?" Roderich asked with a smile. "Who knows anything at this point? You're so young, Lilli, and you think these serious things. Save those for when you're old. For now, enjoy life as it is and forget about worrying."
"There's a war going on. How can I enjoy anything?"
"So what if there's a war? Make the most of it, play your brother's games and listen to the lies they're feeding you in school. Remember them, as someday you're going to look back on this and realize how stupid it is. You're going to have so many wonderful stories and wonder why your brother ever trusted you with an alcoholic."
"You can't laugh about a war," Lilli said. "Especially not this one."
"You can," Roderich corrected her. "You can always laugh. Because our time here is a blink of the eye to the world, you can laugh at anything. In a few centuries, no one will remember Hitler's name. He'll fade, just like the rest of us. Today, this year, your whole life, it's nothing to history. This'll all be forgotten somewhere between the Great War and the next big conflict. So do what you want to do. You're fourteen, you've got a whole life ahead of you. Do what you want with it."
"I want to make it out of this alive."
"There's a start. Tell me something more. What do you want to do with your life?"
"I figured I'd help Basch with the gun work."
"Is that what you honestly want to do?" Roderich asked. "Work with guns and Basch? You're going to go insane if you stay with him for the rest of your life."
"Maybe I could be a housewife," Lilli said, looking over at Roderich for approval.
"Alright, that's getting better. Don't you want to do something exciting?"
"I've always wanted to be a nurse, but that's not going to happen," she mumbled, green eyes going back to her shoes.
"Why won't it happen?" Roderich said. "You're smart, you've got the patience for it, and you're so damn sweet that hospitals would be begging for you."
"Basch wants me staying with him. He's protective –"
"You mean to tell me that you're letting Basch run your life?" Roderich interrupted. "You won't do something because he doesn't want you doing it?"
"Well, ja…"
"Lilli, I'm going to tell you this once and I'll never say it again. Take it or leave it. You cannot let other people run your life. You are Lilli Zwingli, and if you want to be the best nurse in Austria, you be the best nurse in Austria. Do not let Basch hold you back. Don't let anyone tell you no. We have a very limited time here, so don't let someone else keep you from making the best of it."
"It's hard to go against him," Lilli said. "He took me in and did so many things for me. I owe my life to him. And I can't fight that, not when he's taken care of me when he can barely take care of himself."
"Where's your rebellious spirit?" Roderich asked as they pulled in front of Francis' apartment. "Come on, you've got to have some adventure in your life."
"I don't know if that's the adventure I want," Lilli said, fumbling with the buttons on her coat. "So, um, thank you for driving me here. You didn't have to do that."
"Of course I did. I wasn't going to leave you out in the snow."
Lilli gave him a half-smile, pushing open the car door. "I'm glad I don't hate you, Herr von Wolffe. Without you, I'd be miserable."
He tapped his pen impatiently against the edge of his clipboard, trying to keep himself from going insane. The sharp hospital smell stung at his nose – he was used to working in dirty cells and basements, not clean rooms actually used for operations. His operating room was in disarray, tools laying in the sinks and red stains in between the floor tiles. The hospital had provided him with one of their best rooms, one that met every health requirement in all of Europe. The Führer would consider having an operation done in the room, it was that antiseptically perfect.
How long had it been since he'd been in a hospital? Years, it seemed. He'd been working at Dachau since it opened, picking apart the seams of so many people's lives. Experimenting with genetics. Working on various forms of torture. Killing man after woman after child. He was a ruthless man with a ruthless job who went home to his wife every night and felt no regrets. He'd been trained to be a surgeon for the looming war, until Dachau offered him a job that he couldn't refuse.
The door swung open, a young looking nurse stepping into the room. That got the man interested – he hadn't seen any women in Dachau, save for the heartless looking kapos who'd rather watch him bleed out on the floor than have a civilized conversation.
"I'm sorry for the wait, sir. There was more paperwork than we expected, and his guardian wasn't in a good mood," she said, clutching a folder full of papers tight to her chest.
"No, no, it's no trouble." The man dismissed her apology with a wave of his hand. "It wasn't that long of a wait to begin with. Is everything settled with the subject?"
"Ja, we got his papers signed. There's only a slight problem."
"Which is?"
"After much arguing with the man responsible for him, we came to the agreement that we can run tests and we cannot kill the subject," the nurse said, her blue eyes going to the overly polished floor. "He believes the subject is still ill, and the procedure is necessary. If we kill the subject, the man in charge will not be happy. He says he has connections to the Führer."
"Are accidental deaths alright?" he asked.
"We can't kill him, no matter what."
The man's grin slipped back into a frown; he wasn't good at keeping his patients alive. Dachau let him point to anyone and kill them – they weren't so generous in Graz. "I see. Then we'll push him as close to death as we can. May I see the subject now?"
"He's not cooperating at the moment. If you want to go in, you can." The woman motioned to a pair of doors on the other side of the room – the same doors the man had heard feral shouts coming from moments ago. He'd hoped it was someone else's patient.
"Danke, Fraulein," he said, giving the nurse a forced smile. The man turned on his heels, going over to the doors. He pushed one open, slipping inside right as the subject started screaming again. If it wasn't for the too-white walls, the man would've been right back in Dachau.
"Mein Gott," the man grumbled, looking at the metal table in the middle of the room. He hated disobedient patients, and this one seemed to be no exception. The subject was sobbing, shouting things in an odd language, and fighting everything the assistants were trying to do. And then again, the subject looked to be about twelve, so it was understandable. He was scared and alone and missing his parents who were probably rotting in a mass grave.
"Let the subject go," he ordered. The room fell silent; even the subject went quiet.
The assistants backed away from the table, leaving the subject curled up on the table. He looked a bit tall for his age – it was hard to tell his exact height, as he had his knees pulled tight to his chest. In his struggle, he'd somehow torn open the back of the hospital gown, revealing scars running over his back. Perhaps a rough childhood? Abusive parents? Wherever the boy came from, it wouldn't matter in a few minutes.
"I'm sorry, sir, we couldn't get him restrained," an assistant apologized, said restraints still in his hands.
"It won't be a problem. I can work with this," the man said, grabbing a chair. He went over to the trembling boy, wild green eyes locking with his. Moving as slow as he could so as to not startle him, the man sat down beside the table. The boy backed away, sobs racking his chest, and put his hands up around his throat, He knew what was going on; had he been through this before?
"Hello there," the man said in the softest, most motherly voice he could force out of himself. "I'm Doctor Halle. I work here at the hospital. Can you tell me your name?"
The boy blinked a few times, confused by the sudden shift in tone. His crying faded into hiccups as he stared at Doctor Halle, trying to make sense of the man.
"What is your name?"
There was still no reply. The boy looked down at the metal table.
"Can you understand me? Do you speak German?" Halle asked in the same caring voice, even though he wanted to beat the answers out of the boy. It was always best to stay calm with young children, at least until they fully understood what was going to happen to them. There was no use being calm after they started screaming.
The subject nodded, taking one hand away from his neck. Halle smiled; they'd gotten past the trust issue. Trust was hard to gain with older children, and thankfully this one was a lot more empty-headed than the rest.
"Good, good. I promise I am not here to hurt you. I am going to make you better. All I want is your name."
"…N-n-nein," the boy stammered, pulling his legs closer to his chest. So he could speak. Halle was starting to wonder if they'd brought him a mute.
"This will go over a lot easier if you cooperate with me," Halle said, glancing down at his clipboard. Nothing was going to be easy about Experiment 49, at least not for the boy.
The procedures listed were going to hurt the child for years to come – and if the pain wasn't physical, it would be mental. Nightmares for decades, phantom pains, flashbacks, Halle had seen the effects of his tests. He'd tested on the nightmares, Experiments 32 and 37, which certainly were the least pleasing of his tests. Staying up all night with a screaming man wasn't ideal to anyone.
Hopefully, the boy would get flashbacks. Halle was fond of silent suffering – really, he was fond of silence in general. And Experiment 49 fell under the right categories for flashbacks.
"My…my n-n-name is T-T-Toris," the boy whispered.
"Toris," Halle repeated, letting the name roll off his tongue. Definitely Slavic. "And where are you from, Toris?"
"Nowhere," he said. "I d-d-don't have a-a-a home anymore."
"Everyone has a home. Where were you born?"
"Nowhere."
"Alright, then. Where do you live now?"
"Nowhere."
"Where were your parents from?"
"…Nowhere."
Halle clenched his hand into a fist, taking a deep breath. "Are you from Poland? Your name sounds Polish."
"Is P-P-Poland nowhere?" Toris asked in his innocent voice.
"Listen, kid, don't get smart with me," Halle growled, losing the act for a second. "I'm not asking for a lot. Just answer my questions and this will be over."
Toris nodded again, his green eyes wide. "I-I-I come from R-R-Russia."
"See? It isn't that hard," Halle said. He'd never had the pleasure of operating on a Soviet – and Toris was as mad as he'd heard the people were. What sort of secrets laid within the boy's impure chest? Halle was itching to rip him open and find out, the psychotic part of him that almost got him thrown out of medical school eager to take over. "Now, do you know what we're going to do to you today?"
Toris shook his head. Poor soul, he was so new to the world of racial science.
"I promise it won't hurt," – lies, horrible lies – "We're going to take a little bit of blood for some tests. And then you'll fall asleep and you won't feel a thing. You'll wake up all better."
"I just got over typhus," Toris said, dark eyebrows furrowing together. God, that kid was obnoxious. If Halle had him for a son, he would've shot the boy already and forgot he ever had a son.
"That doesn't mean you're not sick," Halle said, looking back down at his clipboard and the procedures listed. He'd wanted to do a full dissection; shame someone wanted the boy alive. Other people always had to ruin his fun. Experiment 49 was supposed to be a postmortem procedure. He'd have to tweak it into something that kept the boy alive. "You have plenty of hereditary diseases we are going to take care of. I don't have a lot of information on you, Toris. Can you give me a last name?"
"Laurinaitis."
"And birthday?"
"February 16."
Halle looked up. "What year were you born?"
"Sixteen."
"No, not your birthdate. How old are you?"
"I was born in 1916," Toris replied. "I'm twenty-five."
Halle froze. That pitiful thing before him was twenty-five years old?
Surely that was wrong. That would make Toris all of three years younger than he was. He looked like he was seven, and acted like it, too. What grown man would be crying and stuttering over something as simple as an operation? The Soviets were so proud of their soldiers, and yet, this was the best they could produce? A stammering, sobbing, arguing catastrophe? A sorry looking man with his ribs jutting out and dark circles beneath his eyes? A fragile, pale, sickly wretch?
"Give me your real damn age before I get mad," Halle snarled, slamming his hand down on the table. Toris flinched, putting his hands back up to his neck. "I am not playing games anymore, kid."
"I'm twenty-five, I promise," Toris said. "I know I'm shorter than you –"
"This has nothing to do with your height." Halle put his clipboard aside, wishing he could grab Toris' heart and rip it right out of his chest. "I was expecting a child," he said to the assistants, pointing to Toris. "I was not instructed to do work on a grown man, no matter how childish."
"That was the only one we could get for you," one of them said. "Everyone else was illegal."
"I made a fool out of myself because no one told me I was working with an adult," Halle said to himself, going over to the table full of instruments. He grabbed a scalpel and syringe full of morphine. "You took me away from Dachau to work on whatever you call that? I've seen children in better condition! I could be doing so many more important things than wasting my time here with this disgusting excuse of a soldier!"
Halle went back over to Toris, his teeth clenched so tight his ears rang. "You," he said in a low voice, shoving Toris onto his back. He put his hand on the man's shoulder, forcing him to lay flat. Toris didn't bother to resist again, knowing it was worthless to fight a monster like Halle. "You have made the biggest mistake of your life. I can't believe what the Soviets call a soldier now. My daughter doesn't even cry as much as you do, and she's two."
Toris didn't say anything, instead watching the scalpel.
Halle put the scalpel's point right over Toris' heart, giving him a devilish grin. "Accidents happen here, Toris. If my hand slips…well, is there anyone in nowhere you'd like to have me notify?"
"E-e-everyone I know is dead."
"You may very well be joining them. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but I'm a liar," Halle said. "I was going to be generous and put you under halfway through. Now that I know you're a man, I see no reason to. We are going to preform everything while you are conscious. And if you happen to pass out, I'll bring you right back." He held up the syringe of morphine, waving it back and forth. "And who's to say you don't get any infections after this? I will do the basics of my job, which do not entail cleaning you up.
"You are dead, Toris. So, so dead."
Down, down, down.
Solitary confinement hid in a hillside, deep beneath the earth. If Elizabeta were claustrophobic, she wouldn't have dared to take one step inside the dungeon beneath the camp. The walls seemed to close in more and more the farther she went down the stairs, crushing her with the weight of the world above. Silence hung heavy in the stairwell, making the haunted feeling worse. Accompanied with her own heart pounding in her chest, Elizabeta would've thought she was in a horror film.
"…Hello?" she called out when she reached the hall with the cells. Echoes rang out in the darkness for what seemed like a century, fading into the shadows at the end of the hall. Had Ivan escaped?
"Elizabeta? Is that you?" Ivan whispered, his voice barely audible. "Did you find out about Toris?"
Elizabeta went over to the cell she knew was Ivan's, pulling a loop of keys from her pocket. She opened the door with a gentle click, slipping inside. Ivan did not tackle her or hold a gun to her head like she'd partially expected; he didn't bother to get up. He was sprawled out on the cot, fingers clutched around what looked to be a blanket.
"He is dead, no?" Ivan's voice was ragged and hoarse, violet eyes unmoving, staring blankly up into the ceiling.
"As of twenty minutes ago, he was still alive."
Ivan didn't say anything. He didn't look at her. He didn't even smile, but rather clenched more of the blanket in his fist.
"I have some bad news, though," Elizabeta continued, coming over to the man. Only then did she notice that it wasn't a blanket in his hands, it was his scarf. His scarred neck was bared, the scars red and bloody.
"Which is?" Ivan said, his eyes moving to a different place on the ceiling.
"Are you alright? My God, Ivan, you're bleeding."
"I know." One hand went to his neck, smearing the blood over his pale skin. "I got too angry tonight. I'm sorry, I didn't think of how you would react." He slowly sat up, starting to put the scarf back around his neck. Ivan winced as he draped an end over his shoulder, teeth digging into his bottom lip.
"No, no, don't do that," Elizabeta said, taking the scarf off. "Don't hurt yourself."
"I don't want to bother you."
"It's not bothering me, more worrying," Elizabeta said. "Did you do that to yourself?"
Ivan nodded.
"Oh, dear, you don't have to do this," she whispered, wiping the blood smears away with her sleeve. Ivan brushed her hand away, hiding the scars with his thick fingers. Elizabeta tried not to stare at the rust red around his fingernails, tried not to think of how long Ivan had been down there ripping himself up.
"If I don't punish myself, who will?" Ivan dug his fingers into his neck again. "It's always better to do things yourself."
"Ivan, you haven't done anything –"
"Wrong?" he finished. "I've done everything wrong. I am one big mistake. One big worthless mistake."
"Stop saying that. You are fine the way you are and don't you think otherwise."
"That's what you want me to believe," Ivan said, pulling his hand away from his neck. "I don't know what I believe anymore. And I don't know if I want to believe anything you're trying to say to me. You're a Nazi's wife, as bad as the rest of them."
"What's hurting yourself going to do?" Elizabeta asked, sitting down on the edge of the cot. She took the scarf from Ivan's shaking hands, folding it up into a neat square. She'd never seen the man without the trademark scarf; it almost made him look like a different person.
"I don't know," he said. "I never know. It makes me remember that I am nothing more than a failure. Which keeps me what you people call humble."
"Just stop, then. You don't have to hurt yourself."
Ivan didn't reply. Did he understand? Or were Elizabeta's efforts in vain, Ivan too shell-shocked to listen to anything she had to say?
"I'm…I'm going to tell you something you may not want to hear," Elizabeta said. "But it's the truth and you need to hear it. Toris is in Graz at the moment, and he's no longer sick."
"You mean he's going to live?" Ivan asked, his words dull and brittle and nothing like they should've been. He should've smiled and shouted and hugged Elizabeta and kept rambling on about the lone person in the world he cared about.
Elizabeta didn't know if she should continue. Was it wrong to get Ivan's hopes up and then crush them immediately? "I can't say yes, and I can't say no. Today, the hospital called here. I overheard Gilbert talking with them. They wanted to run tests on Toris."
"So he is dead."
"The hospital called again about an hour ago," she said, finding herself clutching the scarf. "He's in critical condition. They're sending him back tomorrow, even if he needs medical attention. Gilbert still doesn't know this. What I'm going to do is bring Toris to you, along with someone from the infirmary. Can you take care of him down here? I'll bring you the things you need to fix him up."
"You are bringing him back to me," Ivan repeated. "And then he will die."
"It's the least I can do, Ivan. I'm not a doctor, and whatever they did to him must've been unimaginable."
"You are bringing him back to me, and then he will die." Ivan showed no sign of emotion as he spoke.
"Yes, I am bringing him to you. And yes, he probably will die," Elizabeta choked, wiping at her eyes. "I just thought it would be nice for you to say goodbye to him."
"Why are you crying?" Ivan asked. "You have nothing to be sad about. He is a Soviet. A number on a page."
"He's a human. And I don't want to see a human like him die like this," Elizabeta said, cursing herself for getting so worked up over one man. Ivan was right; Toris was only a Soviet, another number on another page.
He was so much more than that to Elizabeta. He was an innocent man who spent his time protecting other people, never once bothering to worry about his own health. Toris taught the enemy how to speak Russian, helped accustom Gilbert to Stalag XVIII-A, took Raivis into his care when the POW hierarchy was considering sending the boy to Dachau, and risked his life to take care of Raivis and Eduard. He didn't deserve to become a Nazi experiment, a number on a page with a few notes written beside it. A mutilated hero.
Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder, a strong arm holding her close. Elizabeta put her arms around Ivan, sobbing into his chest.
"Everything will be alright," Ivan said, stroking Elizabeta's dark hair. "Please, solnishko, do not cry over Toris. He wouldn't want you to cry."
"He shouldn't be dying! My God, we sent him away to get killed!"
Ivan's heartbeat started getting faster. "Yes, we did. There's nothing I can do about that. All I can do is take care of him when he gets here. I have to stay with him until the end."
"And then what?" Elizabeta asked. "What about when Raivis comes back? They'll send him to Dachau or have him shot! And you'll be alone and I'll be lost and this whole place is going to be a disaster."
"Wounds take time to heal. And after time, we will be back to normal."
"What is normal anymore?" She looked up at Ivan, begging for an answer. "We're in the middle of a war, I left my husband, I'm crying to you about a Slav dying! There is no such thing as normal!"
"The war will end. You're happy with Gilbert, a lot happier than you were with Roderich. And there is no problem with crying to me about your problems," Ivan said. "I'll listen. I'd listen to you forever if that's what you wanted."
"…Why aren't you crying?"
Ivan shrugged. "I've cried so much over the years that it doesn't do me any good. It's not that I'm not sad, it's that I don't have any tears left."
"I want Toris back," Elizabeta whispered, feeling so wrong for saying the four words. The good Nazi wife in her screamed for her to get out of a Soviet's arms before someone saw her.; the bad part urged her closer. "Everything was fine when he was here. You and me and Gilbert. We weren't fighting or anything."
"I cannot keep someone alive. If it is his time to die, so be it. You can stay with him tomorrow. You should. I won't mind. To be honest, I probably need company down here."
"I don't want to intrude on anything personal."
"Believe me," Ivan said, "We don't need to speak. I want to be there for him, and you should be there, too."
"No, I can't take your time with him away," Elizabeta insisted, although her conscious was begging for her to take Ivan's offer. She wanted to be with Toris in his last moments, to be remembered as a good person and not the scandalous wife of a Nazi.
Ivan held Elizabeta away from him so the two could see each other, his indigo eyes locking with hers. "Stay with me. I need you, Elizabeta. Toris needs you."
"I can't."
Ivan paused for a moment, looking over the woman before him. She hid her face in shame, knowing how terrible she must've looked, sobbing and begging for a nearly dead man to come back to life. It wasn't her fault Gilbert sent Toris away, that he agreed to the tests. Elizabeta did nothing. She was just a bystander, another face in the endless crowd. A hopeless dreamer who couldn't hold a steady relationship and couldn't decide whose side she was on.
"You stay with me tomorrow and help me with Toris," Ivan said. "Right now, you need to go back to Gilbert. He'll be worried if you're gone for too long." He brushed her bangs aside, giving her a kiss on the forehead. "Good night, solnishko."
Elizabeta didn't say anything as she got to her feet and left the cell, locking the door behind her. She didn't say anything as she climbed back up the real world. She didn't say anything as she walked solemnly past the barracks and into her private quarters. She didn't say anything as she got into bed next to Gilbert.
"I love you," Gilbert whispered. "You know that, right?"
"I love you, too."
Those words felt so much emptier than they had the day before.
"It looks like our brave hero has returned," Ludwig said with a smirk as he stepped into Hochstetter's office. The kriminalkomissionar was slumped over his desk, head buried in his arms. Already he'd given up being in uniform, his jacket draped over a chair and tie crumpled in a pile next to him. Ludwig expected as much, if not a completely hungover Hochstetter.
"I missed that voice," Hochstetter grumbled without glancing up. "What the hell do you want, kid?"
"Answers."
"Alright, you want to know where I was?" Hochstetter sat up straight, rubbing his bloodshot blue eyes. He hadn't shaved in a long time and undoubtedly hadn't slept for more than two hours in longer. "Or are we talking about someone else?"
"No, I want to know where you were. And then I'll tell you what happened while you were gone," Ludwig said, going over to the man's desk. He'd somehow destroyed Ludwig's careful organization in the less than five minutes he'd been at Headquarters, files strewn over the surface and pens scattered among pages on criminals.
"Can't you give me a break?"
"You don't deserve a break."
Hochstetter smiled, running a hand through his hair. "No, I really don't. I was in Berlin, for your information."
"Doing what?" Ludwig asked, folding his arms over his chest. He wasn't going to settle for the typical "I was in Berlin" answers, not this time around.
"Visiting my parents. Th' hell do you think I was doing?" Hochstetter snapped. "I was called back to my old Gestapo clique. They wanted me to help them with some assassination that just happened to come up when we had our fight, and I took it as an excuse. And I didn't want to tell you because you would've begged for me to take you along."
"I have no interest in going anywhere with you."
"You should, because it was a damn fun time!" Hochstetter leaned back in his chair, propping his feet up on the desk Ludwig so painstakingly cleaned. "Some asshole put a bomb in an SS meeting room. All seven of them died. All seven. And you know what they tell me?"
"Do I want to know?" Ludwig asked; he could never be sure with Hochstetter.
"They tell me, 'oh, hey, I'm sorry we sent you out to Vienna, but we need you back to solve this. We have initials and a record of who was in the building that week. Nothing else. Have fun!'" Hochstetter mocked in a high pitched voice, fluttering his eyelashes. "I got nothing more than a list and a bit of burnt leather. And honestly, I wish you would've come with me, so then we could've suffered together.
"You'll never guess who was in the building that day," Hochstetter said. "Roderich von Wolffe," he continued before Ludwig could say anything. "And so I tracked him down first. He obviously didn't do anything; I wanted to double-check to be sure. I spent the next week or so tracking a Jean Traver down to middle-of-nowhere, France. Almost got shot a few times by farmers," he said. "They're not too fond of Gestapo men out there."
"And I'm presuming you found this Jean Traver?"
"No! I went back to Berlin only to find out the other guy they'd sent out had already found Jean, and by the time I came back, he'd already been hanged. And then some other bullshit happened, I almost got married, who cares."
"What was that about getting married?" Ludwig asked. Hochstetter couldn't commit to bringing the weekly files to the kriminaloberassistent, never mind get married.
"We were really drunk, alright? It was a good idea at the time."
"Like when you wanted to go swimming in the Danube at three a.m. and nearly drowned? That was a good idea until I had to pull you out of the water."
Hochstetter's face flushed red as he flashed Ludwig a sheepish smile. "Ja, a lot of my ideas are good at the time and then downright stupid when I look at them later. But," he said, holding up his hands, "Look. I am not married and probably never will be."
"Which is a good thing. Can you even imagine what your children would be like?" Ludwig said. "The devil incarnate."
"And there'd be a lot of them, too," Hochstetter muttered. "So, what happened in this boring ass city while I was gone? Probably nothing, seeing as I'm the lone exciting thing here. Anything new from Basch?"
"He's the same irritating brat as before, only now he's hiding from me," Ludwig said, sitting down beside Hochstetter. "I've gone over there a few times, and either no one's home or it's Roderich, Lilli, or Christian. And then I go to Christian's, and he says Basch is at his own house. And if I go to Roderich's, he'll say Basch is at a bar downtown."
"So he's done something wrong?"
Ludwig shrugged. "He could be messing with me. And the real excitement started with my lovely brother calling again. We've got information on Roderich's father now, and he wants me to go to Salzburg sometime and scope out this man."
"What'd he do?" Hochstetter asked, sounding excited for once. He sat up straight again, actually making eye contact.
"Gil and I haven't worked out the details; we think Roderich's father converted to Judaism at some point in time. Roderich doesn't appear to have any ties to the religion and there's no reason for us to arrest him. And if we do arrest his father, I'm under orders to keep it quiet."
"You mean Roderich von Wolffe's father is a Jew?"
"It's looking that way. I figure I'll go out to Salzburg around Christmas, make a quick and quiet arrest, and come home. Nothing big or dramatic."
"Oh, my God," Hochstetter said, putting a hand over his mouth. "You actually figured something out. And without me."
"I'm not completely dependent on you," Ludwig growled. "I could get a lot more done without you."
"This is amazing, kid! Hitler's Beethoven has a Jewish father, and you figured that out!" Hochstetter gave Ludwig a hard slap on the back, his grin lightening up the gloomy December day. Ludwig hated to admit that he'd missed seeing that smile.
"It was mostly my brother –"
"Shh," Hochstetter said, putting a finger to his lips. "You figured it out, and that's what matters. I don't want to hear about your brother. You said you're going to go out around Christmas?"
"Uh, ja. It seemed like a good time, and I do have a break from work," Ludwig said.
"Do you realize what this means, though?" Hochstetter asked, blue eyes twinkling. "Roderich's the key figure in every one of these cases, right? The one link to everything? So, when we arrest his beloved father, assuming they're on good terms, he'll be a mess. He'll get scared and start making dumb mistakes and we can make a ton more arrests."
Ludwig didn't say anything for a second – he'd never thought of it that way. Really, he hadn't thought past arresting Roderich's father. "Well, ja, I guess that would happen."
"This is going to be so good," Hochstetter said. "We're going to end these damn cases. Hell, they might promote us to kriminaloberassistents!"
"What do you mean, us?"
"Well, you don't think I'm going to let you go out to Salzburg alone, do you?" Hochstetter asked with a hint of a laugh in his voice. "You might get lost and I'd never see you again. Say, when we go, we should get your brother to come with us. I'd like to meet him."
"What is this now, some kind of vacation?" Ludwig said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Going on a trip with Gilbert and Hochstetter sounded like a recipe for another war. The two had bigger egos than all of Nazi Germany, talked at volume nine billion, and never shut up. Putting them in a car together was bound to create so many conflicts it made Ludwig's head hurt just thinking about it.
"If you want to call it that. It'll be fun," Hochstetter said, clearly not knowing the definition of the word fun. "You, me, your brother, and an arrest. And when we come back, we'll watch Roderich von Wolffe fall to pieces and reveal who he truly is. Then we step in and arrest the whole lot, Headquarters will make us into heroes, and everyone can move on with their lives. It's a genius idea."
"You've never met my brother, and you'll probably hate him. Are you sure you want to drive out to Salzburg with him?"
"Who cares if I hate him? Let's go on an adventure, kid. Let's get lost and arrest a few Jewish converts. What could be better than that?"
Ludwig held his head. What was he getting himself into? "There's a million things I can think of that are dramatically better than that."
"Name one."
"Dying."
"Name a serious one."
"Spending time with my dog."
"Seriously?" Hochstetter asked. "Don't be such a hermit. Come on an adventure with me. Hell, I'll even let you bring your dog."
Ludwig arched an eyebrow. "Berlitz can come?"
"Bring the dog."
"You've got yourself a deal, then."
History notes:
Racial sciences/experimentation: I do not want to go into this deeply simply because it makes me sick. Experiments on "subhuman" races were common in Nazi Germany, ranging from simple blood tests to the things Toris has done to him. All of them were very, very disturbing in context. Most took place at concentration camps, where there were plenty of subjects from plenty of races to choose from. The most famous example of this is Dr. Mengele and his experiments with twins at Auschwitz. If you happen to be interested in this, look up "Dr. Mengele experiments," for more depth. The results can be quite graphic, so don't say I haven't warned you.
Kapo: Kapos were people in concentration camps chosen to be personnel. The idea behind kapos was to pit a victim against a victim, and make people pick favourites based on performance. They were still prisoners, but they weren't forced through physical labour as long as their performance remained satisfactory. Kapos were notorious for being brutal to other prisoners, seeing as most of them were criminals.
Translation notes:
Hitler stahlen unsere Worte – Hitler stole our words
Unsere Stimmen sind leise unter Hitler – Our voices are silent under Hitler
Sprechen Sie Ihren Verstand und gehängt warden – Speak your mind and be hanged
Solinishko – a Russian term of endearment meaning sunshine
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR THOSE OF YOU FOLLOWING THIS STORY:
I am back in school now and cannot keep up the chapter a week pace. I seriously am writing this minutes before it is posted. There will now be a chapter every TWO weeks until I can get everything under control. I'm sorry, but I have to do it. I'm going to die of pressure before this story ends.
THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING.
Thank you's go out to RebelWithoutACause1998, waterwielder25, audreyfan0215, ABCSKW123-IX, Polly Little, EllaAwkward, Swing-Stole-My-Heart, and Comix and Co! There's so many new and familiar usernames and I love it!
See you all next chapter!