“It’s about Zara, she needs penicillin.”
“Zara? I thought she was in the occupied territories? Oh well they’re not occupied anymore. At least not by us.” Bruni smirked.
“Zara showed up at my house about a week ago, badly beaten up and, you know…” Marlene shrugged. “Anyhow, she caught an infection and Dr. Ebert says if she doesn’t get penicillin soon, she will die.”
“You can’t get penicillin anywhere in Berlin. It’s not as if you could walk into a pharmacy and buy it.”
Marlene laughed. “That’s exactly what Dr. Ebert said. I thought maybe… I mean your Russian captain, maybe he could get some.”
“He’s not a medic.” Bruni raised her eyebrows, clearly indicating what she thought of Marlene’s plea. Then she sighed. “Alright. I will ask him. But I can’t promise anything.”
“I love you. Thank you so much.”
Chapter 7
Werner entered General Sokolov’s spacious office with the dark wooden panels on the walls and the prestigious white ceiling crisscrossed by wooden bars painted in gold. It must be an important occasion, because all Russians officers and German Muscovites were there.
“Comrades,” General Sokolov raised his voice, returning everyone’s attention to the meeting. “Reparations are too slow. The target is ten billion Reichsmark worth and the actual amount is far beneath what Moscow expects. You need to redouble your efforts and repatriate more valuables the Soviet Union.”
Uncomfortable mumbles spread through the room. There was a reason for the slowdown in sending reparations to Russia, but nobody dared to tell the general.
Finally, Captain Orlovski raised his voice, “Comrade General, we certainly agree with your assessment, but the Americans have tightened their stance and won’t allow us to take anything out of their sector. They even have seized our trucks at the sector limits and forced us to unload captured reparations.”
Sokolov’s fist slammed onto the table and his irate voice cut through the ensuing silence. “That’s illegal! An affront to our sovereignty! We have a right to these reparations. They were agreed in the Potsdam conference.”
Again, nobody dared to say a word.
“This is an incredibly vicious move by these imperialists to hurt our people.” General Sokolov raged on about the despicable Americans and how the peaceful world would be better off without their constant warmongering.
Werner had met several Americans over the course of the past weeks. Much to his surprise, all of them had been friendly laid-back fellows, open to reason. In this particular issue he even sided with their position. It was detrimental to Berlin’s reconstruction to dismantle everything without thought or reason – as had almost happened at the university. Naturally, he never uttered a single sound about that.
He might not agree with everything the Soviet Command decided, but certainly they must know best, because they had the full picture. It wasn’t his place as a lowly party official to question the decisions made higher up the hierarchy.
“When will the newspaper be up and running, Comrade Gentner?” General Sokolov asked. It was another directive shoved down on them that had to be enforced within days and Werner had been the unfortunate person chosen to scout for a place to host the editorial office.
“Comrade Böhm has identified a suitable location in our sector,” Gentner answered, cleverly pushing the responsibility away from himself.
Cold sweat trickled down Werner’s forehead. He’d wanted to search for another location, because he hadn’t had the heart to evict the current tenants.
“Great. When did you move in?” Sokolov asked and Norbert Gentner peered expectantly at Werner, motioning for him to answer.
“Not yet, General… there is a problem.” Werner could see the tick in Sokolov’s eye, a sure sign that he was annoyed. “It’s just, there’s a hospital in the building and I thought…”
“A hospital?”
“An unauthorized place to treat Germans set up by a German doctor,” Norbert offered.
Sokolov moved his hand as if shooing a fly. “Evict them. I expect the first issue of the Tägliche Rundschau to be published by the end of this week.”
“Yes, General, of course.” Werner acquiesced and took out a kerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. As much as he hated the idea of evicting bedridden patients for the benefit of an editorial office, there was no way to openly defy the general’s orders.
He consoled himself with the notion that it didn’t affect innocents. The Germans had started this war and deserved everything they were getting. Only after a thorough re-education in which he would play an important part, could they earn the trust and benevolence of the Soviet people.
Thankfully General Sokolov moved on to the next matter on the agenda and seemed to have forgotten about Werner’s shortcoming. But Norbert hadn’t.
As was customary, after all official agenda points had been worked on, the informal part of the gathering began, with vodka flowing generously to celebrate the victorious end of the war.
In twenty years of living in Moscow, Werner never understood what the Russians liked so much about this beverage, but he had learned to drink like a local. Still, he preferred wine or beer, but for obvious reasons would never say so. The party demanded absolute obedience and even something as innocuous as not liking vodka might be considered if not betrayal, then at least a suspicious act of defiance.
“Great stuff, directly imported from Moscow,” Captain Orlovski toasted with his full glass.
“Sure is,” Werner replied politely, raised his own glass and swallowed it in one big gulp. The soft burn ran down his throat and caused a warm feeling in his stomach.
“More?” another officer asked with the bottle in hand.
“Yes,” he said and downed the second glass as quickly as the first one. Thanks to years of training, he could easily drink half a bottle without feeling the effects.
Orlovski grinned with appreciation. “You might be a German, but you drink like a Russian.”
“Thanks for the compliment, Comrade.” Werner put the empty glass on the next available surface. “It comes in handy when mingling with the Western diplomats. Their tongue loosens latest after the second glass.”
Both Russian officers guffawed. Orlovski held his glass with the pinky finger stretched out and added in a mock French accent, “Especially the French, who only drink their sophisticated wine.” Roaring laughter followed, and Werner hurried to join his comrades in mocking not only the French, but all the mollycoddled Westerners who didn’t know how to drink hard liquor.
Getting them drunk was a preferred method to gather intelligence. Fill the foreigners up to the toby collar with vodka and listen to them spilling the beans. Approximately an hour later, Norbert approached him and led him into a quiet corner.
“What was all that about? You’re shedding a bad light on me with your reluctance to follow orders,” Gentner demanded to know.
“I’m sorry. It’s just…” he probably shouldn’t voice his concerns, but the alcohol had loosened his tongue and decreased his mental alertness. “I’m worried about our image with the German populace. The horror inflicted by our troops does nothing to endear them to us, on the contrary, they are turning with open arms to the Americans, who are much softer in their treatment of civilians.”
Many officers had hinted, in private conversations, at their dislike for the behavior of the troops and Werner believed Norbert would agree with his assessment.
But Norbert said coldly, “This is not a problem you should concern yourself with. Moscow knows what is opportune to do or not to do. If they think the violence should stop, then they will stop it.” He looked at the younger man and added, “There aren’t enough women in the Red Army and our poor boys have fought so hard, they deserve the distraction of a warm body.”