Beauty and the Beast

Silence

It occurred to me one day, Reinhard, to think about my plans for whatever was left of my future after my brother hopefully came to get me. While doing my daily ritual of icing my nose by the window, I looked down at the tiny cluster of houses that was my village, and thought to myself, What will I do once I go back there for good?
I was nineteen now. My twentieth birthday would be in a few months. If my brother didn't come through for me, I would be celebrating it here, within these four walls, with Anna, Axelina, and whoever else was here to celebrate  a new year of my life. I wondered what you would say if you knew it was my birthday. Maybe I should tell you, I thought. I should ask you what you were going to get me for my birthday. Another ring, maybe? A matching necklace? A bracelet? Or...a bullet to the chest?
I wondered where Josef was. Was he still in London, getting ready to come to Prague, or was he already in the city, prowling the streets looking for me? Did he know where I was being held? And even if he did, how would he ever get inside?
It didn't help matters that all over the conquered lands that comprised the German Reich, assassination attempts and try after try to kill top ranking Nazis had failed—all but in Prague. In Prague no one dared to lift a finger to you, let alone raise a hand against you. That was what brought you the most joy, Reinhard—at meetings with that dumpy, cabbage faced bastard known as Adolf Hitler, your Fuhrer, you boasted that you had successfully subdued the Czech people, and that we were too cowardly and had no guts to try to make an attempt on your life. You drove all around the Protectorate armed only with a pistol, in an open top unarmored Mercedes, with only your chauffeur to protect you. That cavalier, sporting attitude was what ultimately brought around your demise—you believed you were untouchable, that you were immortal because of all the power you wielded.
But if you were deluded and snobby, your superiors in Germany were not. As I would later learn, attempt after attempt to convince you to at least reinforce the sides and back of your Mercedes cabriolet with armor plating, as well as ride with a fully armed security detail, went unheeded. You were the only top ranking Reichsprotektor out of all of those dispatched to govern the conquered lands who didn't travel in heavily armored closed top cars, sandwiched between burly security guards armed to the teeth.
And, as I would also later learn, your arrogance was the same reason my brother and his comrades were able to attack and kill you in the streets, and inadvertently set me free. But that part of the story comes later, much later on, after I'd been reduced to such a state where all I wanted to do was die. When the moment of exoneration came, I was so apathetic about it those around me wondered if I had truly lost my mind. And I hadn't—but what was there to live for, anyway? You were dead. My mother had been arrested, tortured by the Gestapo and shot, and team after team of SS soldiers were on the prowl for me. Even as you were dying you couldn't leave me alone, Reinhard.
But I digress. That's a story for another day.
I thought about what I was going to do with my life after my brother came to rescue me as I sat by the window, a handful of quickly melting ice cubes wrapped in a rag pressed to my bandaged nose. Maybe I would leave Prague and go to the Paris, and become a fashion model or an actress. Because of the strict diet of watery vegetable soup and bread I was on, I was impossibly thin and frail, and I would fit into whatever dresses they asked me to model. I wondered what colors I would wear—pitch black, wine red, emerald green, cerulean blue. I thought of how good I would look in dresses of those colors on your arm. You would, of course, be wearing a fitted tuxedo and shoes shined to perfection. I imagined we would be the perfect Nazi couple. I wondered what it was like to be on your good side, the side you showed to Lina and your children, the kind you had showed to that other girl, Silke.
Who was she, anyway? Where was she now? Did she know what you were doing? Was she one of the people you had cast aside, like you had done to your parents and sister? Or had you allowed her to stay and observe your gradual ascent of the ladder of power and influence in the Nazi Party? Either scenario was probable.
I was too tired at this point in time to reproach myself for failing to imagine a future for myself without you. It wasn't my fault, anyway—we had been together for so long that thinking of a world without you in it simply didn't come easily to me. But the idea that I had a hard time shaking the memory of my rapist and torturer disturbed me to no end. Inwardly, it shocked and disgusted me. Outwardly, I did nothing about it because there was nothing I could do about the situation. Reinhard Heydrich was my present and he was my future. I suddenly realized that I had no idea what would happen to me if you died, or what would be my fate if you left me. Would I be killed? Would I be given to another high ranking Nazi? The second thought sent a shiver down my spine. I had only gotten accustomed to being systematically raped by you because I had to. The idea of having to go through a similar ordeal at the hands of yet another German made me shudder.
I don't know what came over me at that moment, Reinhard. Did I come down with Stockholm Syndrome? To this day, I'm not sure. But I know I felt a profound mental change come over me as I sat there, at the window, icing my nose. Suddenly, the thought of fucking you wasn't so abhorrent to me. I found I could conjure a mental image of your face and not be repulsed by it or have traumatic flashbacks. I felt like I had been doing you wrong all these months, that I deserved all the things you had done to me. My nose? I should never have cursed at you. My child? He or she had to go; to go through with the pregnancy would have been disastrous.
They're stupid rationalizations, I know. I feel disgusted with myself for ever thinking that anything you did was right, or had any moral basis. But those were my thoughts that day as I looked down at the village, the sight of the houses belching smoke from their chimneys suddenly abhorrent to me. I didn't want to go back there all of a sudden. This was where I belonged. I didn't even want my brother to come rescue me. There was nothing to rescue, anyway—I wasn't in trouble anymore. I knew my place now. It was here—or there, or anywhere, really—as long as you were in that place.
Given my mindset, it should come as no surprise to you that when you entered my room that night, the first thing I did was wrap you in the tightest hug I had ever given anyone. I felt you stiffen in my arms, like you were debating whether to push me away from you or let me stay. Then you slowly raised your arms and placed your hands flat on my back, gently returning my embrace. For a moment I just stood there, my face pressed to your chest, my arms around your waist, letting a strange new emotion I couldn't quite identify wash over me.
Was what I was feeling love? No. I didn't love you. Or did I? No, I couldn't love you. I'd be damned if I let myself feel anything that remotely resembled love towards you. It definitely wasn't hate, either. It was too watered down and warm and fuzzy to be hate.
I don't like to think about it too much, you know. It takes up too much of my time and energy. Ambivalence is a confusing thing, and I don't have all the time in the world to think about it like you do. I'm still alive on the outside, as dead as I am on the inside. You only live once.