The Last Green Valley - Mark Sullivan (black female authors .txt) 📗

Adeline said nothing.

Lieutenant Gerhardt smiled. “And you take advantage of your position as well, don’t you, Frau Martel?”

She didn’t know what to say.

“You always seem to forget something after you have paid for the colonel’s needs,” the secret police officer went on. “Then you buy what you want and give the sentry a bribe on your way out. Or you buy something for someone like Frau Schmidt or Frau Holtz and then bribe the sentry on your way out. Yes?”

Adeline swallowed hard and then nodded. “Yes. I . . .”

“You are a black marketeer, Frau Martel. That is a crime against the party and the state. You could be sent to prison like your husband and have your children made wards.”

“No, please,” Adeline said, panic-stricken. “They were small things. Treats for my young sons. Some things Frau Schmidt needed. She’s old and—”

“The party does not care about Frau Schmidt’s age or her needs,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said sharply. Then her face softened. “But it does care about you, Adeline. So you are going to stop your black-market activities, and you are going to tell me what Colonel Vasiliev buys on a weekly basis, or does out of the ordinary, or says when he is drunk and full of your food. Do you understand?”

Adeline did understand. She’d grown up under Stalin. She knew how Communists turned neighbor against neighbor, worker against boss, husband against wife, sowing fear into the culture in a way that stifled all thought. And when they had enough on you, for crimes you did not even commit, you were sent away, never to return.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Adeline said, bowing her head. “I understand.”

“Good,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said. “Isn’t this where you live coming up ahead?”

Adeline felt so disoriented, she had to look twice before nodding. “Yes, there, with the big gates and the barn.”

The driver pulled over. Adeline reached for the door handle, only to feel the secret police officer’s hand like a claw on her shoulder.

“Another question before you go,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said, and smiled in that knowing way Adeline had already learned to fear. “In Berlin, you put your name and Frau Schmidt’s address on a list with the International Red Cross.”

How does she know that?

“Yes,” Adeline said, nervous again. “The list is for refugees, families trying to find one another. I put Frau Schmidt’s address because I didn’t know how long I’d be at my present place.”

The secret police officer said, “Why would you do such a thing?”

“I put it there, hoping Emil might see it someday.”

“In Berlin? When he is in the East?”

“I . . .”

For several long moments, Lieutenant Gerhardt said nothing.

Feeling her throat close, Adeline quivered with emotion, forcing herself to look the woman right in the eye. “I want my husband back. Is that so wrong, Lieutenant?”

“No, but if I were you, I’d stop thinking about him ever coming back. From what I understand, the prison camp where he was sent is riddled with disease. Men dying every day.”

“Emil?” she said, hearing her voice shake.

“I don’t know. All the party has been told is that there’s hardly anyone left alive there. I’m sorry, Frau Martel. But the sooner you deal with the fact that he’s dead or soon will be, the quicker you can get on with a new life. You can get out of the car now, Frau Martel, but we will meet next Friday after you leave work, yes?”

Adeline felt dazed by the news of Emil’s fate—a prison camp riddled with disease . . . men dying every day . . . hardly any prisoners left. She nodded dully and opened the door. When she went inside, she did not answer Frau Holtz, who called from the kitchen, asking why she’d been gone so long. She just hung up her coat and scarf, took off her boots, and went into the bedroom.

Closing the door behind her, she stood in the darkness, listening to the sounds of her sons sleeping. Emil’s sons sleeping. Adeline started to cry but steeled herself enough to undress and climb into bed. Walt stirred and rolled over beside her. She stared into the blackness, hearing Lieutenant Gerhardt’s soft, brutal voice.

I’m sorry, Frau Martel. But the sooner you deal with the fact that he’s dead or soon will be, the quicker you can get on with a new life.

Adeline wrapped the pillow over her head with both arms, bit into the fabric, and finally let herself scream.

Chapter Thirty-Four

March 10, 1946

Two hours west of Poltava, Ukraine

Emil was shivering so hard atop the coal car, he could not control it. His heavy wool clothes were now caked with wet snow, and he was exposed to the howling wind. What was he thinking when he climbed on this train? He might have escaped the prison camp, but he was going to die soon if he didn’t get to some kind of shelter.

Emil had tried digging in the coal, figuring he could bury himself under it and leave an airhole to breathe through. But down a few centimeters, he hit a layer of ice frozen into the coal below. He tried kicking at it with his boot, only to succeed in knocking himself off balance and almost falling off the side of the train, which stopped often at crossings but overall moved much faster than the one he’d come east on. He believed he was close to seventy-five kilometers away from Poltava now, maybe more.

The shivering got worse. His thoughts were becoming foggy. He knew he was minutes from freezing to death. Hearing brakes squeal and the train slow yet again, Emil began crawling until he reached the rear of the hopper car. He spent the moments before the train came to a full stop bending and unbending his fingers, trying to get blood into them, making them functional before he climbed down the ladder.

Emil jumped off the low rung into deep snow. Slogging rearward, he grabbed a rung on the front ladder of the next hopper car and climbed up, only to