Bridget's hospital room was dark, comfortable, and most importantly, silent. The other hospital bed in the room was empty as she lie under the thin sheets, an oxygen mask nearby in case she found it difficult to breathe during the night. The attending nurse was certain to point out the nurse call button which would light up a blue bulb on the outside of her room. For the first time in four months, she felt at complete peace.
She thought about her house, which presumably she'd left unlocked, being as the paramedics insisted upon bringing her out on a stretcher. Would someone take the opportunity to genuinely rob it in her absence?
Well, it really didn't matter anyway. Her furniture was expendable, and she'd hidden most of her valuable jewelry. The only item she cared about in her entire home, as cheaply furnished as it was, was her prized radio. It was the only major piece of furniture she had brought with her from Germany, a gift from her parents after her first film had been released. German radios were much better quality than the tinny and chintzy American radios, for this one had been built before the advent of the war and was constructed of top quality mahogany wood—in addition to having dials made of genuine gold.
Her thoughts drifted to the baby within her, the product of a brutal rape from a man who had today attempted to finish the job, as it were. What was she going to do now? She had shot Hans Landa, had watched him suffer on her floor—and hopefully soon they'd be giving her the news: that there was nothing that they could do for her so-called husband. She would not be spending her money burying him. If the U.S. military loved him so much for his contribution to ending the war, they could very well do it… Not that she'd be divulging his actual name, of course. His identification was as good as gone.
It was not long, however, before she was awoken from her sleep at the sound of metal striking wood. A gurney had struck the doorframe of her room door. Her eyes squinted open to the sight of a nurse pushing in a patient under a white sheet, the patient lying still under white hospital sheets.
"Guess what, Mrs. Haynesworth," the nurse murmured in the dark, "your husband's going to be alright!"
She was shocked beyond belief and couldn't hide her astonishment.
"What? How is that possibl—he was bleeding so—"
"Well, you can ask him that—here he is, though it may be awhile before he comes to. I hope you don't mind sharing a room with him, but I figured it'd be alright."
In the dark Bridget could see the nurse winking and suddenly felt the urge to gouge out her eye.
As the gurney swung around to be positioned parallel to the hospital bed next to her, she saw Hans Landa's peacefully sleeping face—and felt ill.
Shit. He survived.
After positioning the gurney properly, the nurse began to approach Bridget's bed.
"I hope you don't find this too nosy, but I have a question to ask you," the nurse explained in a worried whisper. She moved to a table near the foot of Bridget's hospital bed and turned on a rather noisy fan with metal blades, one that kept a study hum that overpowered speech at a normal volume. She returned with a sneaky little smile on her face.
"Your husband—John, is it?—well, he has a rather strange scar in the middle of his forehead."
"Yes?" Bridget pressed. She hadn't actually seen the entire scar, so hopefully the woman would reveal details of its appearance.
"It looks just like a swastika," the nurse murmured. "I can see it's not fresh—who did that to him?"
Bridget was barely able to stifle a smile as she stole a glance at Landa's still form. So the Basterds had left their mark on him. Perhaps they weren't as stupid as she first suspected. That explained the change in Hans's hairstyle. It was a fitting scar, to be sure.
Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by the nurse, who had a hand pointed in the direction of Hans Landa's bed as she whispered, excitement in her tone.
"Mrs. Haynesworth, is your husband a Nazi?"
Bridget's mouth threatened to break into an all-out grin, and she had to use every ounce of will power to keep her feelings inside her.
"I can't talk right now," she murmured quietly, her voice cracking. Though he appeared to be sleeping, Hans Landa was a master of deception.
The nurse was not satisfied with this statement. The fact that this woman was neither confirming nor denying this accusation was intriguing, to say the least.
"I assure you he won't be regaining consciousness for several hours at least. The ether won't be wearing off for a good while. You can tell me…."
"No, I can't," Bridget replied matter-of-factly, the temptation to turn him in right now very strong. But first, she had to return to her home and destroy his wallet and all identification. She wanted to be certain that the only thing marking him irrefutably would be the swastika; any link back to that damned Medal of Honor would be torched, short of the Medal of Honor itself.
"Please, just one word—yes or no," the nurse asked with a smile, her voice much more insistent now.
Bridget bit her lip.
"I'm sorry—I can't say," she murmured. "If you want to talk later I'd be happy to. Just not right now."
The nurse seemed perturbed by Bridget's reply. She crossed her arms defensively in front of her.
"Ma'am, I highly doubt there'll be any consequences for you, if that's what you're worried about. It's just—well, we've never seen such a scar. If you're afraid of getting in trouble, I can ask my neighbor if you want. He was a Staff Sergeant stationed in—"
"Please…. Later," she replied with a dismissive flick of the wrist.
The nurse checked on the motionless Hans Landa's cast and dressings and promptly left the room, disappointed that the woman hadn't confirmed what was strongly suspected. The man did have a foreign accent, though it wasn't as heavy as one might predict. Hopefully his wife would divulge tomorrow. Though, was it possible that she could warn him of the impending questions, allowing him to make a hasty escape?
She halted for a moment in the hallway, considering as she glanced back at the closed door of the hospital room.
The man's right femur had been shattered by the bullet, but his left leg had superficial wounds that wouldn't greatly impede walking. Even so, he had just had major surgery on his leg and the pain and swelling would be intense. The hospital staff would be made immediately aware of when his anesthetic had worn off because there'd be moaning. She predicted that his pain would be intense and he'd have to be doped up on morphine until the swelling subsided, which would mean that he'd be in no condition to leave his bed, let alone leave the hospital. She returned to the nurse's station shrugging her shoulders. Her curious coworkers standing in the vicinity of the desk sighed with disappointment.
As the nurse closed the room door behind her, the vertical sliver of light from the hallway becoming thinner and thinner then altogether disappearing, Bridget sighed and adjusted the covers. She would be glad to tell the nurse of his past, just not right now.
Though the door was shut, a sliver of light existed under the door. Thankfully she was not in total darkness with the man who had only hours before tried to kill her. The fan's steady buzz drowned out any outside noise and served as a kind of white noise.
She thought about the situation. She couldn't very well turn Landa in with his given name because he had received the Medal of Honor under that name. No, she had to think of another high-ranking Nazi official that was infamous—and deceased. She couldn't be certain that everyone in the cinema had been obliterated, but there was one officer that was most certainly dead—Major Dieter Hellstrom. With the devastating death toll in Germany, that name would easily slip by the Americans, who would then dispose of Landa or at the very least extradite him back to Germany. Yes, Hans Landa would be no more—she would guarantee that.
Bridget von Hammersmark had to make Hans Landa pay. Not only had he raped and impregnated her, but he had cheated her out of the medal she so deserved for her long-term allegiance to the allies. She had imagined that after Operation Kino had been carried out she would be acting on the American silver screen under her given name, a famous heroine who acquired the meatiest Hollywood roles. Instead she was reviled, hiding under an alias, unable to find steady work, with a growing womb. Before she could close her eyes and attempt to sleep, she had to steal one more glance at the man who had completely altered the course of her life.
Landa's eyes were shut, his expression peaceful and unassuming, chest rising and falling with each smooth breath. The hair tumbling over his forehead had been rearranged so that his forehead was now exposed. The dim light streaming from under the door did not allow a view of the scar on his forehead. Bridget felt a surge of hope course through her veins. She simply had to see what the Basterds had done to Landa's face. Hopefully the scar was deep enough that removal of it would be forever impossible.
The hospital bed creaking ever so quietly, Bridget sat up and scooted her legs to the edge of the bed, holding her breath until her feet firmly touched the floor. She could feel the fan's breeze billowing her hospital gown, and tucked the thin fabric modestly behind her. She stood up shakily and shuffled over to Landa's bed, which was parallel to hers and a bed-length away.
She finally allowed herself to breathe again as she stared down at his face. The scar was disfiguring and very deep, making it so that any horizontal forehead lines would be wiped out. The lines of the swastika were surprisingly straight and yet the thickening of scar tissue seemed to be wider in some places and narrower in others. It was truly a hideous scar, regardless of it being the symbol of such a dark era. There was no confusing it with anything else; the swastika was unmistakable.
Landa's hands were out of sight, presumably resting under the white hospital sheets, his broken leg hidden underneath the coverings as well. This motionless, helpless man before her had attempted to murder her several times now. However, even if she had some kind of poison she could slip into his mouth, she wouldn't kill him. That kind of death would be too painless, too easy.
She muttered a curse in German, and then turned around to return to her bed, raring for the moment Landa's identifying papers were gone, when she could turn him in to the government as a fugitive Nazi. For now, she would sleep and regroup.
"What? No goodnight kiss?"
A hot spike of fear shot up her spine as she spun around to face the source of the voice. Landa was conscious, his mouth drawn up into a smile of complete satisfaction. Though his smile wasn't a toothy one, his cracked lips were now moist and rather pale in comparison with their usual appearance. Though his eyelids looked a bit heavy, he was most certainly awake. She flashed him a look of horror and trepidation, her intense fear of him causing her further anxiety.
"I now realize I was wrong about you," he said in German, his voice a low murmur, "I thought that in my letting you live you'd be grateful, at least." Landa's eyebrows lowered as disappointment swept over his features. He looked as if he was in the midst of scolding a child as he continued to speak. "It almost sounded to me like you were going to tell on me."
She found herself unable to reply, her jaw hanging slack as she gaped at him. His thighbone had been shattered and here he was, hiding the fact that he'd been awake during her entire conversation with the nurse.
"Don't blame me for that," she asserted, in English. "You have a huge swastika in the center of your forehead. I didn't do that to you."
"True, very true," he admitted, ignoring her attempt to steer the conversation into English, making a ticking sound with his tongue, his harsh German largely drowned out by the noise of the little fan. "Yet you could have outright denied my being—"
"Why should I?" she shot back, unintentionally switching to German. "Give me one reason why I should help you in any way."
"I can think of a great one, actually," Landa replied, his smile almost giddy at her unintentional concession. "Unlike the hundreds of people I condemned—maybe even more than a thousand, come to think of it…" As he considered the number he watched her expression, which did not look satisfied in any way, and continued. "…Out of all those innocents who didn't have to die, I let you live, a traitor who used her fame against her homeland."
"What about you?" she spat. "Betraying your entire country and taking credit for my operation, killing your coworkers and friends—just to save your own skin."
"You can't tell me you wouldn't do the same." He grinned knowingly at her, his eyes following her as she took a step forward out of the path of the fan's breeze.
"I wouldn't."
"Your entire life now—keeping a baby you don't want, changing your name—consists of saving your own skin."
She crossed her arms, adamant.
"No one is getting hurt."
It was then that Landa made a strange pouty face, sticking his bottom lip out and looking up at her with suddenly sad eyes.
"I'm hurt," he murmured through gritted teeth, amusement emerging from the dark depths of his eyes. He swallowed hard but the smile still remained. "If I hadn't tracked you down, I'd never had known I had a child with the most beautiful actress in all of Germany."
"You tried to kill me and the baby! After I told you it was yours! My life flashed before my eyes! If you'd held on for just one more—"
"Actually, I'm convinced that I did kill you, if only for a couple of minutes," he replied in a hushed voice, watching her eyes narrow, her pupils like slits though the room was dark. "I had to work to revive you."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better—" she hissed in English, her mouth in a snarl, as she stood several feet away from his bedside, "—because it sounds to me like you are irredeemable in every way."
"And yet, here you are as proof of my mercy," he replied in English with a disarming smile. "And more importantly," he proclaimed, raising his eyebrows, "here I am, still alive, thanks to you!—in spite of my being, as you say, irredeemable."
I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please share your thoughts with me on this story! I had some writers' block that I overcame by reading the reviews for this story over and over! So take heed--reviews really do help!