The German Suitcase (22 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

At about the same time that Jake bolted from the meeting room with Max and Kruger in pursuit, the two SS men were ushering Hannah into the entrance of Block 31, the Prisoner Brothel. A loud, intermittent buzzing was coming from the reception area. Hannah’s eyes darted to the desk where the heavily made-up and tattooed Madam sat, wielding a tattoo needle. The intricate, multi-colored images visible on her arms, chest and neck were powerful testimony to her skill. Certain clients paid a premium to see the snake that spiraled up her leg and across her inner thigh, the position of its forked tongue leaving no doubt what she expected of them. Cigarette dangling from her mouth, she was deftly guiding the needle’s tip as it danced across the bare shoulder of one of the provocatively attired girls who worked the place.

On the desktop, along with tattooing equipment, a pack of Sturms and a butt-leaden ashtray, was a logbook in which the Madam recorded the name and ID number of each client, and a metal box in which she kept the camp scrip—paper money issued in 1 to 3 Mark denominations —with which they paid her. The staff of professional prostitutes, all Aryans, would service any non-Jewish inmate who could pay the 2 Marks the SS charged per visit. Political dissidents, resistance fighters, former members of the Reichstad, and those with vital skills who were employed in the workshops at the rate of 4 Marks per week made up the clientele. But the breakdown in the camp’s administrative systems had kept the workers from being paid regularly, if at all, and business at the brothel had fallen-off sharply.

The Madam set the needle aside, blotting the excess ink from the girl’s shoulder as Hannah and her SS escort, one of whom was a sergeant, arrived. “We’ll finish this later,” she said with a veiled look to the SS men. She had done this many times and Radek paid her well for it. “This way, doctor,” she went on, feigning a sense of urgency, as she led Hannah and the SS men down a short corridor to a door with a sign that read:
PROFUNG ZIMMER
. The fully equipped Examining Room was where gynecological tests and procedures were performed on the dozen or so women who worked there. “Hurry! In here!” the Madam exclaimed, opening the door.

Hannah strode through it, clutching her doctor’s bag. Neither the madam nor the SS men followed. She came to a sudden stop just inside the room which appeared empty and darkened except for a tall gooseneck lamp on the floor next to an examining table. Its narrow beam imparted an eerie sheen to the table’s black leather pad and made the metal stirrups gleam despite their worn plating. Hannah heard the door close behind her, then the decisive clack of the latch. She whirled and turned the knob, frantically, to no avail. “Open this door,” she called out, pounding on it with a fist. “There’s no one in here. What’s going on?”

The Madam slipped her brass key from the lock with a cunning smile. It could open any door in the brothel, and was affixed to a long lanyard that hung around her neck. She went down the corridor in a triumphant stride, leading the two SS men back to the reception area where the young prostitute that the Madam had been tattooing and one of her co-workers were waiting to reward them.

In the Examining Room, Hannah had her back pressed to the door, and was squinting into the sharply angled shadows created by the gooseneck lamp.

“Fraulein Friedman?” a man’s voice called out.

The voice which Hannah thought she recognized came from the right and somewhat behind her. She stiffened and turned to see Lieutenant Radek sitting in a shadow-streaked corner with his legs crossed. He had removed his greatcoat and tunic and was wearing boots, jodhpurs, shirt and tie. The tip of a cigarette glowed in the darkness just above the arm of the chair where his wrist draped, casually. He took a deep drag and exhaled, sending a stream of smoke curling toward the ceiling.

“It’s Doctor Friedman,” Hannah corrected, her voice breaking with anger and trepidation. “I was told there was an emergency, here. What do you want?”

“I want to explore your kosher wetness,” Radek replied in a chilling whisper. “Take off your clothes, Hannah, and get on the table. I’m sure you’re familiar with the position.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hannah said with a defiant sneer. “You’d be violating the Nuremberg Laws. Unlock this door and let me out of here.”

“The Nuremberg Laws prohibit sexual intercourse between Aryans and Jews to insure racial purity,” Radek said slyly. He took a final drag of his cigarette which he threw to the floor, crushing it beneath a boot as he stood and came toward her. “I have no intention of impregnating you or catching any of the vile diseases you Jewish whores carry.” He eyed her lasciviously and began toying with her hair; then, in a swift and sudden move, he grasped the top of her striped uniform with both hands and ripped it open, exposing her breasts.

Hannah shrieked and slammed a palm into Radek’s chest staggering him. She retreated to a corner, clutching her uniform top with one hand and her doctor’s bag in the other. A sadistic grin tugged at a corner of Radek’s mouth. “Yes, there’s something about violent sex, isn’t there, Hannah?” he gushed, stimulated by her reaction. “The mere thought of it makes me salivate.” He gestured to the examining table and, in an icy whisper added, “See? You even have your own personal Whipping Block.”

Hannah cringed, knowing he was referring to the torture rack to which prisoners, singled out for punishment, were strapped and forced to count the lashes aloud while being whipped.

“It’s perfect for what I have in mind,” Radek went on, his eyes aglow at the prospect. He slipped his riding crop from inside one of his boots and came at her again. Hannah swung the physician’s bag at him. It struck the side of his head, raking across his face. One of the metal latches slashed his cheek. Radek yelped and reached to the wound, releasing the riding crop. The sight of his blood-smeared fingers enraged him. “Jewish bitch!” he shouted, backhanding Hannah across the face. The blow sent her spinning into the wall with such force that she slid to the floor and remained there, moaning. Radek retrieved the riding crop, and struck her with it several times, then dragged her to the examining table and lifted her onto it. In a controlled rage, he pulled off her striped bottoms and tossed them aside, placing the riding crop on the table between her thighs before setting her heels in the gleaming stirrups.

Outside, in the frigid darkness, Jake had sprinted the length of the corridor that connected the fifteen blocks of the Revier, and was, now, running on the gravel path between Blocks 15 and 16 on the eastern side of the compound. The narrow alley that separated the three-hundred-foot-long buildings concealed him from the guard towers and their sweeping searchlights. He kept running until he reached the Lagerstrasse that divided the eastern and western rows of barracks. Unlike the alleys, it was ninety feet wide and completely open to surveillance from the guard towers. All Jake had to do to reach Block 31, which housed the brothel, was get across it without being seen. He took a moment to catch his breath and get his bearings, then darted out from between the buildings. A blinding circle of light came sweeping down the middle of the street, driving him back. The crunch of boots on gravel rose behind him as he waited for the searchlight to pass; but he made it across the darkened street well before Max and Kruger, who were in pursuit, could catch up with him.

In the examining room, Radek was standing at the foot of the table on a small platform that enabled patients to climb onto it more easily. In a deranged frenzy he had shed his suspenders and unbuttoned his jodhpurs, letting them fall to the top of his knee-high boots. Now, grasping Hannah’s bare hips, he slid her on the black leather surface toward him. She had come out of her stupor, but moaned groggily, pretending to be dazed; then, with a terrifying scream, she lurched upward and attacked, clawing wildly at Radek’s face with her fingernails. He screeched in pain, snatched the riding crop from between her legs, and slashed her hard, several times, knocking her back onto the table where she remained, whimpering and barely conscious.

Outside, after crossing the Lagerstrasse, Jake made his way in the darkness to Block 31, next to last in the western row of seventeen barracks. Thanks to the typhus epidemic, SS guards were no longer posted inside the compound, and the entrance was unguarded. Gasping for breath, Jake burst into the brothel’s reception area, startling the Madam. He stood there wheezing and looking about frantically, trying to locate Hannah.

“You can’t come in here!” the woman screeched, seeing the yellow triangle sewn on the pocket of his uniform.

Jake’s eyes were wild with fury. He lunged as she came around the desk, and grabbed a fistful of her hair. “Radek?! Where is he? Where?!”

“Examining room,” the frightened Madam replied, hoarsely. “That’s where he takes them,” she went on, pointing to the corridor.

Jake’s eyes darted to the key hanging from her neck. He yanked the lanyard, snapping it, then ran down the corridor. The Madam’s eyes were wide with alarm. She hurried down the opposite corridor that was lined with evenly spaced doors in search of the two SS men. She rapped on one sharply, and had just entered the room when Max and Kruger came running into the brothel’s reception area.

In the examining room, Radek had Hannah positioned where he wanted her, now: hips pulled down toward the foot of the table, heels firmly in the stirrups, knees bent sharply, pelvis splayed vulnerably. His eyes were fixated with obsessive madness on the lush mound that rose in gentle waves from deep between her thighs and broke across the delicate whiteness of her stomach. Radek drew the tip of a finger along the crimson line that cleaved it; then pursed his lips and slipped it between them with an exuberant smack. He grazed her nipples with his palms, then pinned her shoulders to the table, and prepared to violate her.

“Get off her you bastard!” Jake shouted as he unlocked the door and lunged through it.

All in one motion, Radek whirled and came charging at him. At least, that’s what his brain had determined was the most effective course of action; but to Radek’s horror and confusion, something entirely different and beyond his control seemed to be happening. Indeed, the unexpected and startling intrusion had caused Radek to lose his bearings—to forget that he was standing on the platform, that his jodhpurs were down around his knees, hobbling him—and when he whirled, instead of charging Jake as planned, Radek pitched headlong off the edge of the platform like a felled tree.

Jake was seized by a massive surge of adrenaline that was fueled by his hatred for the Nazis, for the atrocities they had committed, and for Radek and the monstrous atrocity he was committing, now. He side-stepped and, drawing instinctively on his knowledge of anatomy, drove a fist into his falling adversary’s throat. The force of the blow, intensified by Radek’s momentum, crushed his larynx and ruptured his windpipe. Simultaneously, Jake grabbed a fistful of his hair and, continuing to use Radek’s momentum to advantage, drove him head first into the corner of a steel cabinet. The impact shattered his eye sockets and forehead, driving sharp-edged pieces of bone up into his brain, killing him, instantly.

It was over in a matter of seconds.

Hannah was screaming in horror and crawling off the examining table. She had slid down onto the floor and was retreating to a corner like a wounded animal, when Max and Kruger burst into the room.

“My God,” Kruger hissed shaken by the gory scene.

Radek was kneeling on the floor, bent forward at the waist like a praying novitiate. His head had struck the cabinet with such force that the steel corner had remained imbedded deeply in his forehead, leaving his eyes bulging from their sockets, one staring blankly at the front of the cabinet, the other at the side. Blood was flowing down the steel leg to the floor, forming a pool which sent bright red rivulets running in the grout lines between the limestone tiles.

The sight of Hannah cringing half-naked in a fetal position staggered Max and set his mind to reeling with thoughts of Eva: Was she alive?! Safe in Venice?! Or, had she been captured?! And like Hannah, being beaten and raped by deranged thugs?! He removed his greatcoat, and covered Hannah with it; then turned to Jake who was wheezing and staring in shock at Radek’s corpse. “Jake? Jake!” Max called out. “Jake, Hannah needs your help!” he went on, almost saying Eva, instead. Jake stared at him blankly for a moment, then his eyes came to life and he hurried to Hannah’s side. He was holding her comfortingly when the Madam entered the room followed by the two SS men. Both of them appeared disheveled and were pulling on shirts, buttoning trousers, and fumbling with belt buckles in a frantic effort to get back into uniform.

“Lieutenant? Lieutenant, are you okay?” the Sergeant called out as they came through the door.

“What the hell?!” the other shouted at the sight of Radek’s corpse that stopped both of them in their tracks and set the Madam to screaming.

“Silence! Close the door. Now!” Max shouted at the frantic woman, causing her to scurry toward it. “Stand over there!” he ordered, directing the two SS men to the other side of the room. “And stand at attention in the presence of superior officers!” He waited until they had complied then, pacing back and forth in front of them in thought, Max prompted rhetorically, “What happened here, tonight? As I understand it, you were contacted by the Madam because of a medical emergency, involving Lieutenant Radek. You fetched these doctors from the Revier and found him like this on arrival. The doctors examined him, but he was already dead. Am I right so far?”

“Yes, S-S-Sir. Yes, yes you—you are,” the sergeant stammered.

“Since you weren’t here when this happened, you have no first hand knowledge of what happened,” Max went on, like a pedantic schoolmaster. “However, the lieutenant reeked of alcohol, and it was obvious that he was drunk and stumbled head-first into the cabinet. Furthermore, smart SS men that you are, you deduced that all by yourselves because Captain Kruger and I were never here. Do you understand?”

The sergeant nodded. “Sir?” he said, still barely able to speak, “What should we say if…if someone asks what…what the lieutenant was doing here?”