In The Skies

3. Zara

3

Zara

Every cell of her body was numb with fear and when she looked down at her clutched fingers, they were almost translucent. For a moment she listened intently, surprised her heart was still beating regular and strong.

The car ride seemed to go on forever, without anyone uttering a single word. The monotony only worsened things, because it gave her time to let her imagination run wild with the most horrid speculations.

When she glanced out of the window, she noticed the change in scenery and suppressed a shocked gasp when she realized that they had returned to Berlin.

The entire incident had been more than strange and she racked her brain to find out what they could possibly want from her. Surely, the alleged stealing of a necklace wasn’t a crime severe enough to justify being brought back to Berlin. A queasy feeling pooled deep in her gut, and with sudden clarity she knew that this was about something bigger. The necklace was just an excuse.

The revelation brought only a moment of respite, because when she grasped its significance, her skin was crawling and with every passing minute her anxiety skyrocketed. She tried to even her breath, telling herself that nothing bad had happened…after a few minutes it worked and she calmed down enough to massage some blood into her lifeless fingers. Until she recognized the borough of Hohenschönhausen.

If she hadn’t been squeezed in between the two men on either side of her, who in turn were handcuffed to the seats in front of them, she would have jumped off the car.

Hohenschönhausen was the location of the notorious NKVD prison where the Soviet secret police kept and tortured their prisoners. The panic pressed all oxygen from her lungs, and Zara distantly wondered how she was even still alive without the ability to breathe. Nobody who’d been inside the walls of this sinister building had ever returned to tell the tale, but rumors abounded.

Even her friend, the cabaret singer Bruni, who usually stayed well away from politics and kept on good terms with members of all four occupying powers, had refused to acknowledge the existence of this place, as if denying it was there could make the gruesome stories whispered behind closed doors disappear.

Zara closed her eyes and sent a prayer to the heavens that they were not headed to the infamous place of horrors. When she opened them again, the car had stopped in front of a large gate.

The sentry exchanged a few phrases with the policemen in her car and papers, including hers, were checked before he let the vehicle pass. They drove along past a large, low brick building, until they finally parked in front of a staircase.

Recognition hit hard when she spied the former canteen kitchen of the Volkswohlfahrt, the Nazi Social Welfare Service that had been requisitioned by the Soviets in May 1945 and transformed into a collection and transit camp for up to twenty thousand prisoners.

Everyone suspected to be a spy, terrorist, NSDAP official, or member of the Nazi police force, had been taken here to await their fate. But also, any and all persons deemed hostile to the Soviet Union could be sent here, and that included those people who criticized the communist regime, foremost journalists, radio reporters or members of opposing political parties. And now apparently people who were accused of stealing a silver necklace. She would have laughed if the circumstances weren’t so dire. Being brought to Hohenschönhausen prison was something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

From the outside, the huge brick building looked nice enough, with plenty of space and signs that indicated offices for Soviet officials. Zara scolded herself for being overly pessimistic. They would soon find out this was a huge misunderstanding and let her go free.

She willed herself to take a deep breath and relax her cramping muscles. The back door of the car opened and the burly, vicious-looking man sitting beside her was uncuffed and shoved out of the vehicle. Looking at his bull’s neck, she decided her biggest worry right now was the danger of being locked up in a cell together with him.

Then it was her turn to be hauled from the car and she stumbled, almost falling flat on her face. None of the Soviet officers came to her help, but the awful-looking criminal stretched out his arm to steady her, showing half-rotten teeth in something that might have been an encouraging smile.

The other prisoner followed and the three of them were shoved into a huge hallway that was being cleaned by several women, who didn’t even raise their heads to look at the newcomers, but kept sweeping the floor.

Zara swallowed and kept her eyes trained on the back of the man walking in front of her, determined to keep a positive attitude and not let herself get scared witless.

The officer leading their small group opened a heavy iron door that gave a bone-chilling creak, and then led them down the stairs into the basement. Zara instantly forgot all about being cheerful. Thick fear was creeping into her bones, like the chilly humid cold in the Austrian winters had done, and she shivered.

For a moment she forgot about her current predicament. Stepping into the cold, moldy air filled with anguish brought back memories she’d buried deep inside.

During the time her family had lived in the beautiful Austrian town of Linz, she’d only once visited the Mauthausen concentration camp that her father had commanded.

Usually her mother wouldn’t let her get near the place, but that one time, there had been some important guests – Zara couldn’t remember who it was – and her father wanted to show off his beautiful wife and daughter.

Zara was sixteen back then, and the images of the emaciated prisoners had shocked her to the core despite her father’s assurances that they were all enemies of the Reich and deserved their treatment. The awful scene had instantly impressed itself on her soul and remained there ever since.

But she’d run away before meeting the important visitor and henceforward had refused to ever set foot in that ugly place again. Of course, she’d received a heavy beating at her father’s hands for embarrassing him in such a manner in front of half the Nazi party, but the things she’d seen had distressed her too much to care about the physical punishment. As long as he didn’t force her to go there ever again, she’d gladly receive every leather belt stroke he doled out.

A rough shove against her back brought her into the present and she widened her eyes in shock at the sight unfolding in front of her. The basement, in hushed whispers given the sobriquet U-Boot, submarine, was a long hallway made of concrete with bright light bulbs hanging from the ceiling.

Left and right she saw metal doors with huge bolts. All of them were closed, except the last three at the end of the corridor, taunting her to dare and enter. Her steps slowed down and everything inside her wanted to scream and run away, but the officer next to her had anticipated her futile attempt and pushed the barrel of his gun between her shoulder blades, just as she heard the screeching sound of the basement door being locked and bolted.

Her fellow prisoners were shoved into the two cells to the right and the door slammed shut behind them, making Zara jump when the bolt was put in place with an odd sound of finality.

She felt as if she were suffocating and, within moments, her body was covered in goosebumps from head to toe. Without thinking, she instinctively turned around and ran, only to bump into the Soviet officer walking behind her. He gave an ugly leer, pressing her tighter against his body.

Her breath hitched in her lungs when she became aware of the growing bulge below his waist and she frantically struggled to get away from him. Moments later she found herself flung on the cold concrete floor of an empty cell, and the dull clacking sound from the other side of the metal door indicating that she was trapped.

Still reeling from the impact of falling to the ground, she came to her knees and looked around. The clammy cell was equipped with a bare wooden cot on one side and a bucket kitty-corner. From the ceiling hung the same sort of overly bright light bulb she’d seen in the corridor.

No windows. No sounds. No nothing. She crawled to the door and pressed her ear against it, but couldn’t hear anything, not even the retreating steps of her captors. She slunk to the floor, desperately alone, when suddenly pitiful moaning and wheezing cut through the eerie silence. Zara looked around the cell, but there wasn’t a human soul there except for herself.