Leni's Ordeal Ch. 01: Berlin 1945

As the General stood in the center of the room ordering everyone about, Leni saw a squad of soldiers erect a marble topped wooden pedestal on the dais before the windows. To one side, a tall battery operated spotlight was set up. The U shaped banquet table sat open to the windows. Apparently, some kind of entertainment was planned. Leni had little doubt she would be one of the attractions. When the table was set to his satisfaction, the General turned to Leni, nodding in approval at her appearance. Freeing her from the harpies, he helped her up on the pedestal, instructing her to kneel, knees wide apart, hands on her thighs, eyes down. Some little trouble with the spotlight delayed things. The General impatiently ordered the technicians to adjust the light but, when that failed, he ordered Leni to instead lean back with her hands clasped behind her neck to afford the audience a better view.

"You must not speak this evening," he ordered. "My comrades are eager to see you. To them you are the living symbol of the defeat of your country. You will obey without question."

"Ja, mein herr!"

At that he pulled the snakeskin whip from his pocket, whistling it through the air, making her flinch. "No talking!" he barked, turning away. The man had not stopped drinking, Leni knew. He moved carefully, as if on parade. His words were few and bitten off. Her female guards did their best to catch up with the rest of the Russian Army, sipping discreetly from Pockmark's flask while keeping watch from a corner, just out of reach of the light.

Looted gold candelabra lit with wax tapers revealed a banquet table filled with hams, roast goose, sausage, white fish, herring, caviar, bread, hard boiled eggs and a liter of vodka for each of the thirty high ranking officers. All braid and starch as they entered, rows of medals on their chests, many only in their late twenties or early thirties, they clapped their hands, laughing wildly as they strutted around Leni. The hot spotlight over her head brilliantly showcased the beauty which even cheap, badly applied makeup couldn't hide. Entranced, many ran their fingers over her welts, turning to complement the General on his strict discipline.

When each stood at attention at his place at the table, an older, white bearded officer in a simple uniform entered. All of them, even the General, saluted stiffly. Smiling, the old Kommissar returned the salute. They sat down together, eating and drinking like pigs. One after the other, officers called for toast after toast until the vodka bottles grew light, some emptied. Finished eating, many began staggering about, doffing hats and jackets, singing together, even dancing arm in arm as they celebrated. The General also participated until standing before them all, ramrod straight in shirtsleeves, he called for quiet. He spoke briefly in Russian, addressing his elderly superior. He pointed to Leni and bowed, offering her to him for his pleasure. The old man laughed, tipped his cap to his comrades and, with an arm from the General, unsteadily mounted the pedestal. When the Kommissar stood before Leni, the General told her, "Unbutton his pants and suck his cock."

Wanting to retch, she nevertheless obeyed. The man was limp but made a great show of enjoying the experience. Leni licked the slug of flesh until told to stop, spitting and coughing as she buttoned the Kommissar's pants. Generously, the General held a bottle of water for her to wash her mouth out.

Leni had never imagined she could hate as much as she hated now. How could she have imagined the General might be human, might ever have any shred of respect for her, might even let her go? It took all of her self control to hide her emotions. But still the show continued.

The General turned her chin to see little Erica on a chain leash, brought to the pedestal by the harpies. Almost naked, wearing the same tawdry makeup, a rush of emotion washed over Leni. Erica alive! But that face! Erica had no reaction seeing Leni--zombie like, she was placed on the pedestal beside her. In her happiness, which she couldn't completely hide, Leni wondered at Erica's appearance. Erica had lost weight in captivity, perhaps ten pounds, greatly accentuating her curves, her small breasts now prominent, her tummy flat, her face revealing high cheekbones. For a moment Leni hated herself. How disgusting to think of looks at a time like this! The poor thing is terrified.

Loud shouts and cheers came from the drunken crowd. The General, slurring his words, had to repeat himself. "Kiss her," he ordered Leni. "Fuck her." Astounded, Leni blushed deeply. How, she wondered, do women make love? She'd heard of it of course, but only as a medical oddity. "Kiss her, stroke her," the General went on. Tentatively, she turned stricken Erica's face up to hers, pecking her lips. "Put your tongue in her mouth!" the General insisted. Erica opened her mouth obediently. Leni put her tongue in and moved it around. Tears rolled down Erica's cheeks.

It went on far too long, of course. In the end Leni was made to move her body over Erica's, their legs entwined while the crowd hooted and shouted at them. "Leni," Erica whispered, her mouth in Leni's ear, "I'm going to kill myself tonight."

"No!" Leni hissed. "No, please!" Suddenly it came to her, suddenly she saw it all. "We're getting out tonight. You and me together! We're going home!" Erica's thin arms grasped Leni tightly. "But how?" she said. "Never mind! Just do as I say."

"Yes Leni!"

The General left them together on the pedestal while he and his comrades huddled in groups, talking, laughing, even wrestling. One of the officers began drunkenly screaming at another. Soon a crowd gathered around them insisting they fight. Without hesitation the two began punching each other until the fighting spread--chairs, dishes and food flying through the air. The General allowed it to go on for a bit before ordering it to stop. When no one listened, he grabbed two officers by the throat with his huge hands, knocking their heads together, ordering them to leave. In this manner he soon chased everyone away. The Kommissar sat slumped at the table, passed out. Drunk and tired, the General sat on the floor amongst the debris of the banquet and vomited. Wiping his face, he heaved the old Kommissar up on his shoulder, brusquely ordered the Russian women to mind their captives and left.

Seeing the General's tunic and hat hanging on one of the few unbroken chairs, Leni boldly leapt off the pedestal, threw the General's tunic over her shoulders, his hat on the back of her head, brazenly asking Pockmark, "Willst du mich ficken?" meaning, Do you want to fuck me?

Pugnose, comatose, lay crumpled in a corner. The eyes of the energetic Pockmark, however, gleamed at Leni. Looking nervously around, tongue sweeping her lips, the girl nervously said, "Komm."

"Nein, liebchen", Leni commanded, "Komme zu mir." As the short girl came towards her, Leni pulled the plug of the spotlight. Letting the tunic slide from her shoulders, she raised her arms, sadistically enjoying for a split second the look of raw lust on Pockmark's face. Holding her tight, Leni bent to kiss her, at that moment jabbing two fingers deep into the bitch's eyes. Blinded, Pockmark's hands went to her face. Falling on her, Leni put the girl on the floor, knees firmly on her back. Pulling her jaw up and back with one hand while pushing the back of her head down, Leni twisted until she heard the spine snap.

"Quickly, now." Leni ordered Erica. "Take her clothes and shoes."

Plunging hands into the General's pockets, still trembling with rage, Leni found the gun. Rushing from chair to chair she found a left behind trench coat which just covered her. For shoes, she snapped the heels off the cheap pumps they'd made her wear, hoping they might do for a bit. Glancing at Pugnose asleep in the corner, she saw her stir and mutter. Without thinking twice, she cut the woman's throat with a meat knife from the table. Dropping the bloody knife , she turned to see Erica in skirt and blouse, quite ready to go. In the darkness, she let Erica down by the hands through the window onto the canvas top of a truck. Leni followed, both of them darting between parked vehicles the few yards to the street. The rain began to come down as they watched the sentry pass, turn and head back along the sidewalk. Walking quietly a few yards the other way they found a pile of bricks to lie behind. On the sentry's next circuit they were able to make the corner.

In the black murk of the storm, they were only able to make their way because they knew the neighborhood so well. Not more than a kilometer from their home, they hid in the wreckage of the city whenever one of the few vehicles on the streets passed. Turning a corner they saw a group of soldiers beating a man in the street. Slipping into the courtyard of a burned out building, they waited until the soldiers moved on. Leni kept the pistol in her hand every minute, even as she groped in the darkness for a lost pump.

Creeping carefully around the corner of their street, the spotlight of an armored car flashed somewhere not far ahead. Dropping flat, the two crawled down the basement stairwell of a nearby building, wondering if they'd been seen. The rain fell hard, flooding the broken streets. A thin torrent of water streamed down the steps where they hid. The armored car passed above, the spotlight feeling for them as they pressed back against a wall.

Desperate, Leni kicked off her useless pumps telling Erica, "Hurry, hurry, before they come back!" They ran the few doors down to Vati's window, hoping he was home. She tapped on the shutters until a thin, dim crack appeared. Cautious, the old man never showed himself. "Who is it?"

"Leni, Vati! Leni and Erica."

"Thank God," he whispered. "You're alive."

"Yes, yes, but please let us in. They're after us."

At once the bolt on the door slid back. When Vati saw them in the Russian trench coat and uniform he insisted they tell him everything. Leni quickly told of their escape, including the murders, but would not say more about their week in captivity except it was unbearably bad. Vati thought quickly. "You both must leave Berlin. The Russians will scour the city for you."

Looking Leni in the eye he asked weakly, "Did you really have to kill them?"

"Yes," she said quietly. "There was no choice."

This is why in later years, after the Americans moved in, when Vati told the story in the bars and nightclubs around the Ku'damm, he would somewhat unfairly say, fiendishly, "Leni war ein Deustche, sie wollte Blut," meaning, Leni was a German, she wanted blood.

Quickly Vati took Leni and Erica to their mothers upstairs. Everyone cried for a few minutes until Vati ordered, "Change in to men's clothes and hats! Leather jackets, strong boots!"

Leni showed Vati her gun. "Lucky you didn't have to use it,' he told her. "Did you know the safety is on? And, too, no bullet in the chamber."

"My God," Leni cried.

"No matter, that's a Russian officer's pistol. They will shoot you on the spot if they see it. Give it to me."

In the few minutes it took to dress in her father's clothes, Vati was back. "Here's the pistol for you, a Walther, very small." He showed her how it worked. "See? Just six shots, but it's small, easy to hide. You must be close to hit anything. "Shoot below the belt," he said, tapping his crotch. "That will stop any man."

Leni smiled. Her mother told her, "Now that I know you're alive, I'll be fine, don't worry about me." Then one last kiss.

Out the rear door of the building, Vati led Leni and Erica through several courtyards to a damaged pumping station where they could descend into the sewers. "An old friend has a barge he runs from here to the Havelsee. He's here on the Spree River tonight with a load of potatoes. You both will leave with him in a few hours."

Leni suddenly remembered her friend Hannah Ehrenburger from before the war. Jewish, she and her family had disappeared, no one knew where, until one day Vati showed Leni a photo of Hannah with her parents in New York, in America. "Is this how you took Hannah?" Leni asked. Vati smiled, put a finger to his lips. "Hannah has a child now," is all he said.

The strong smell of human waste choked them as they waded through the flooded tunnels. Even though very little light penetrated below, the black passages posed no riddle to Vati. Counting his steps along ledges and catwalks, using a small torch he shielded with his body, he found the innocuous marks and signs left by himself and others to guide them to the river.

The several kilometers underground seemed endless to the girls but it was still dark when they emerged from a drain under a wharf. The rain had ended and the moon was out. They picked their way along the riverbank, wading when they had to, until they found the barge. Vati went ahead waking his old friend Helmut, the barge master, then waved the girls up a rope ladder by the stern. When Leni's head reached the top he crouched low on the deck and warned, "There is a sentry on that bridge 100 meters away. Don't stand, crawl up on deck. He might see you in the moonlight."

They crawled to the open hatch before the tiny wheelhouse and went below. The small hold was filled with sacks of potatoes. When the barge master saw them his wrinkled eyes became moist. "No matter how bad it gets," he promised, "I will help you. Thousands of innocent girls have destroyed themselves because of these animals. You will have to hide in the ballast tank," he told them. "You must not fall asleep. It will be five or six hours before we are safely on the Havel."

Vati took a sack of potatoes, first pulling out a bottle of benzedrine tablets. Vati gave two tablets each to Leni and Erica. "These pills will keep you warm and awake." The rest of the bottle he gave to Helmut in payment for the potatoes. Then he was off.

As Helmut led them over the pile of sacks to the stern he explained, "The ballast tank is under this hold. When the cargo is unloaded, the barge will be light. I let water into the ballast tank to keep the propeller in the water and the barge stable. By dawn, all these potatoes will be gone. Then I'll fill the tank. The way the tank is made the water will not rise to the top in the end towards the bow. You will just have space to keep your head above water. There is a vent to provide air."

When he saw their look of fear he said, "Don't worry too much. My barge is known. I travel the river several times a week. I've been searched many times. No one has ever found anything or anyone I hid in the tank."

Helmut unscrewed the access panel in the deck, using a long wrench. It was a very tight fit for Leni, easier for Erica. Not much bigger than a large coffin, the tank was damp and smelled. "When we are safe I'll knock three times, then two, then one before I open the panel. If you hear the panel being unscrewed before that, it will be the Russians." He handed each a thin, hollow tube. 'Then you must get under the water and breathe through these."

Leni put her pistol under the old leather cap of her father and pulled it down tightly over her ears. But her mind was made up. If the Russians found them she would fire at the panel so they might duck back, then shoot Erica in the head before committing suicide herself. They would not be taken alive.

In minutes, as dawn broke in the east, dozens of feet were heard up above, people come for the potatoes that might keep them from starving. Erica hugged Leni tightly. She began giggling as the drugs kicked in. Leni scolded her, "We must be very quiet."

Leni felt better, too, from the pills. Strong and wide awake, all her aches and pains felt distant. She tried to be hopeful. "Leni," Erica asked in this most secret of all places, "Did you enjoy kissing me?"

Now Leni giggled. She took Erica's soft face in her hands. Why not? she thought. She felt Erica's lips with her own, pressed her tongue warmly, deeply, lovingly inside her friend. "Oh Leni," Erica whispered, "Isn't it good to be with someone you love?"

"Of course, little one." They held each other tightly, waiting for the water to rush in.