War Girl Anna

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Anna stood in front of the mirror, applying mascara to her eyelashes. As she glanced up to appraise her work, the gaunt skull of a woman stared back at her, the sunken black eyes full of accusation. Anna blinked. Once, twice. But the images of emaciated prisoners kept haunting her. Murderer, one of the ghosts called out. Betrayer of humanity, another one chimed in. Scum.

Anna stepped back from the mirror and slipped on the simple but elegant black two-piece suit Doctor Tretter’s ration cards had bought her. The pencil skirt ended mid-calf and showed off her beautiful calves in the new pumps with a sturdy two-inch heel. The jacket was tailored, with shoulder pads and peplums, making her waist look impossibly tiny.

She did a turn, and was satisfied with the way the suit fit her like a glove. Dressed for the occasion! Prostitute! The images in her head continued to haunt her.

Today had been another repulsive day at work. Anna had become a nurse to help people, not murder them. Although she technically didn’t kill anyone, she was part of the system designed to annihilate large parts of the population. She didn’t have the slightest idea why the Nazis even employed nurses in the camps. There was nothing she could do for the prisoners, besides giving them a smile, when nobody was looking, and a day off from work in the hospital ward – with reduced rations.

I never wanted to work here. I had to do this to save Lotte.

At least the gruesome medical experiments had stopped, because T the devil was busy writing his conclusion to the gangrene research he’d done on those poor Polish women. Anna’s breath froze in her chest as she remembered the high-pitched, soul-wrenching cries of the condemned prisoners. After a tense shake of her head, she blocked the memories out. There was nothing she could do.

Satisfied with the way she looked, she smoothed her perfectly straight blonde hair one last time, and applied bright red lipstick. Makeup articles were hard to come by these days, but Doctor Tretter’s ration cards had not only sufficed for the new suit, but also to buy much-wanted mascara and a red lipstick to replace the ones she’d treasured for years until she’d used up the last morsel of color.

Ursula will be so jealous, she thought, before she shuddered and questioned her own sanity. How could anyone envy a woman who’d become a handmaiden to the Grim Reaper by day and a prostitute by night?

Shame burnt up her face, shimmering through the carefully applied powder makeup. She closed her eyes for a moment, willing away shame and guilt. Tonight she would seize her opportunity to meet – and impress – the man she’d admired since she was a child, dissecting frogs and snails. Professor Scherer.

A glance at the alarm clock on her nightstand told her it was high time to meet Doctor Tretter. He wouldn’t be pleased if she was late. Or actually, he would be. During the past weeks she’d learned that he enjoyed the tiniest of her mishaps or objections, because it gave him a reason to punish her. Make her wince. Cry out in pain.

Anna’s brain still couldn’t fathom how a fellow human could be so cruel. And T the devil wasn’t the only one. Most of the guards at the camp derived pleasure from torturing the prisoners, dreaming up new, crueler methods every day. The doctors competed with each other, orchestrating repulsive experiments, ones that more often than not left their patients dead. Hadn’t they taken the Hippocratic Oath to help their patients, not harm them?

Doctor Tretter had demanded Anna meet him in front of the building where he lived. After she arrived, he appeared minutes later in his SS dress uniform with his decorations. They walked to the parking lot, where he’d parked his automobile. The car alone was a testament to how much power he held in the regime. Since the government had seized most private vehicles to be used for the war effort, private citizens no longer owned vehicles of any kind and resorted to bicycles, walking, or public transportation.

Half an hour later, T the devil stopped his car in front of a magnificent castle-like building. Uniformed men approached the automobile and opened the doors. Doctor Tretter showed his identification and then handed over the keys before walking around and clasping Anna’s arm tightly above the elbow. He guided her up the impressive flight of stairs, flanked by Roman statues made of white marble. Does he think I would run away? Where would I go?

At the front entrance, a liveried butler greeted them, inspecting their invitation and then guiding them to the big salon. All troubling thoughts faded away as Anna surveyed the magnificence spread out before her. She’d never seen such splendor. Sparkling chandeliers, long case clocks with shiny golden frames, and paintings by old masters adorned the entrance hall.

Her breath caught in her throat as she admired every single piece of tasteful decoration. While the mansion reeked of wealth, it wasn’t obnoxious or overdone. The big salon was exactly what the name indicated: big. An immense, sparkling chandelier hung from the high ceiling, casting a shimmering light onto the beautiful wooden furniture.

Most of the important-looking men wore highly decorated dress uniforms, and the small minority of civilians wore tuxedos. The women wore evening gowns that made her own two-piece suit look like one of Cinderella’s pinafores. Momentarily bedazzled by the sparkling fabrics, elegant hairdos and, carefully applied makeup, Anna had the sudden urge to flee this place.

Doctor Tretter approached a group of people and joined their discussion after the usual greetings and Heil Hitlers. Anna felt a blush stain her cheeks as she realized he had chosen not to introduce her to anyone, effectively letting them know she was not important.

Anna ignored the nasty feeling creeping up her spine, but held her head high and her shoulders straight. With nothing else to do, she followed Doctor Tretter like a shadow, stopping when he did, and unobtrusively listening to the conversations going on around her.

“There is Professor Scherer.” Doctor Tretter grabbed Anna’s arm again and hissed, “You’d better do your best to charm him. It’s very important to my career that I make a good impression on him this evening.”

She wanted to refuse, for the sole purpose of diminishing T the devil’s chances for the coveted professorship at the Charité, even if that meant she’d burn at the stake for her insolence. But when she spied the handsome man in his fifties, she forgot how much she despised Doctor Tretter and saw only the professor whose work she’d admired for more than a decade.

Anna had always aspired to become a renowned biologist. And if it weren’t for the war, she’d have found a way to convince her parents to support her dreams. Anna burnt with ambition. One day she would claw her way into university, and work hard enough to achieve a career most men could only dream of. I will make an impression on him, all right.