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There were cries of protest from the people all around.
The tall man leveled his gun. Carla was terrified he would fire. He would kill and wound dozens of people if he pulled the trigger of a submachine gun in a crowded room.
Everyone else realized the danger, and they went quiet.
The two soldiers backed toward the door, taking Rebecca with them. She yelled and struggled, but she could not break the small soldier's grip.
When they reached the door, Carla stepped forward and cried: "Wait!"
Something in her voice made them stop.
"She's too young," Carla said. "Only thirteen!" She did not know whether they understood her. She held up two hands, showing ten fingers, then one hand showing three. "Thirteen!"
The tall soldier seemed to understand her. He grinned and said in German: "Frau ist Frau." A woman is a woman.
Carla found herself saying: "You need a real woman." She walked slowly forward. "Take me, instead." She tried to smile seductively. "I'm not a child. I know what to do." She came close, close enough to smell the rank odor of a man who had not bathed for months. Trying to conceal her distaste, she lowered her voice and said: "I understand what a man wants." She touched her own breast suggestively. "Forget the child."
The tall soldier looked again at Rebecca. Her eyes were red with weeping and her nose was running, which helpfully made her look more like a child, less like a woman.
He looked back at Carla.
She said: "There's a bed upstairs. Shall I show you where?"
Again she was not sure he understood the words, but she took him by the hand and he followed her up the steps to the ground floor.
The fair one let go of Rebecca and came after.
Now that she had succeeded, Carla regretted her bravado. She wanted to break away from the Russians and run. But they would probably shoot her down, then go back to Rebecca. Carla thought of the devastated child who had lost both parents yesterday. To be raped the next day would surely destroy her spirit forever. Carla had to save her.
I will not be smashed by this, Carla thought. I can live through it. I will be myself again afterward.
She led them to the electrocardiogram room. She felt cold, as if her heart were freezing and her thoughts becoming sluggish. Next to the bed was a can of the grease used by the doctors to improve the conductivity of the terminals. She pulled off her underpants, then took a large dab of grease and pushed it into her vagina. That might save her from bleeding.
She had to keep her act up. She turned back to the two soldiers. To her horror, three more followed them into the room. She tried to smile, but she could not.
She lay on her back and parted her legs.
The tall one knelt between her knees. He ripped open her uniform blouse to expose her breasts. She could see that he was manipulating himself, making his penis erect. He lay on top and entered her. She told herself this had no connection with what she and Werner had done together.
She turned her head to the side, but the soldier grasped her chin and turned her face back, making her look at him as he thrust inside her. She closed her eyes. She felt him kissing her, trying to force his tongue into her mouth. His breath smelled like rotting meat. When she clamped her mouth shut, he punched her face. She cried out and opened her bruised lips to him. She tried to think how much worse this would have been for a thirteen-year-old virgin.
The soldier grunted and ejaculated inside her. She tried not to let her disgust show on her face.
He climbed off, and the fair-haired one took his place.
Carla tried to close down her mind, to make her body into something detached, a machine, an object that had nothing to do with her. This one did not want to kiss her, but he sucked her breasts and bit her nipples, and when she cried out in pain he seemed pleased and did it harder.
Time passed, and he ejaculated.
Then another one got on top.
She realized that when this was over she would not be able to bathe or shower, for there was no running water in the city. That thought pushed her over the top. Their fluids would be inside her, their smell would be on her skin, their saliva in her mouth, and she would have no effective way to wash. Somehow that was worse than everything else. Her courage failed her, and she started to cry.
The third soldier satisfied himself, then the fourth lay on her.
CHAPTER TWENTY
1945 ( II )
