Beauty and the Beast

The Wrath of Lina Heydrich

Pre-chapter Authors Note: this scene isn't for the faint of heart. Just ignore this update if you can't stomach scenes depicting the murder of newborn children. Again, (and I'm not saying you will but just saying) plz don't be mean and go report my story for this. Just wait for when I have the next chapter up.
And a quick clarification: just because I write about this stuff doesn't mean I condone it in any way, shape, or form.
Thanks, and for those of you who are still going to proceed, I hope this chapter doesn't scare you away and/or discourage you from finishing the rest of the story and enjoy! if you can...;)
With all my love,
Amal ❤️

How else can I say it? You knocked me up again that night. Fucking outdoors must have its upside. To all the infertile, barren women in the world whose husbands are on the verge of leaving them for that very reason—you all should try it. You'll be glad you did. At least your otherwise outlandish act will culminate in something that will bring joy to your life and not eternal sadness like it did to mine.

To my shock, your behavior towards me after Anna informed you changed 360 degrees. You no longer demanded me to do the most disgusting things imaginable to you every night. You didn't even show up most nights, and when you did, you spoke to me graciously, kindly, like I was any German woman and not the whore you said I was. You brought me food straight from the table you ate at, and even brought me new clothes—dirndls made from lavish satins and silks, embroidered with intricate designs I could lose myself staring into.
At first, I was extremely skeptical of your sudden pampering of me. I wondered if this was yet another one of your schemes to butter me up before you had me dragged down to that cold room and beat the life out of my unborn child. But as the days dragged on, and my stomach continued to swell, I figured that you would possibly let me keep the child. Maybe you would finally allow a ray of light to penetrate the darkness that my life had become.
Years later, I realize how wrong I was to even let that thought cross my mind. I realize how wrong I was to erase months of suffering in the face of months of living the good life.
"What do you want to name it?"you asked me one night. You were sitting on the edge of the bed, your hands gripping your knees, a glass of blood red wine on the night table.
"I don't know yet," I said. "I haven't given it much thought."
"All I ask is that you give it a German name," you said, "not a Czech name. And that it is given your surname and not mine."
I had looked at you with a blank expression and gone back to absentmindedly sipping my water. Did I really want to bring a child fathered by such a volkisch man into this world? Then again, I assumed all—or at least most—Germans were like that.
I've thought a lot about the culmination of that pregnancy, Reinhard. I've come to realize that maybe what happened wasn't entirely  your fault. Yes, you had a hand in it, but I'm sure even you wouldn't have done something so hideous to anyone. You may have ordered the death of millions of women, children, and men, but you delegated platoons of soldiers to carry out your orders. You would never have been able to draw a bead on a Jew yourself—or anyone else for that matter.
You know who I blame the most for this? Your wife. That hateful bitch, formerly known as Lina Von Osten before she was Lina Heydrich, the First Lady of the Protectorate Of Bohemia and Moravia. And although I'm sure you haven't forgotten, I'll tell you why.

It was Anna who had me carried down to the courtyard when I began to feel the first pangs of labor. I felt like someone was stabbing me with a double-pronged sword, slowly trying to hook my insides and pull them out. It was all I could do not to cry out as Anna and Axelina helped me downstairs.   Anna gripped a rosary in her hand, having looped it around mine, and prayed under her breath. Axelina didn't say anything—couldn't say anything—but concern was etched on every inch of her face.

Anna had been beside herself with dismay when I had refused her suggestion to give birth myself and insisted on going to a hospital. She said that no hospital in the Protectorate was safe—for me especially, given my link to you, and that no doctor or nurse could save me from you if you gave the order to murder my child. She was right, so right. I was just so blinded by all the favors you had bestowed on me that I refused to believe that you would do something like that. Why kill the child now, when it was already fully developed and capable of feeling, hearing, seeing?
It was my mistake; I realize that now. The only thing I did wrong was fail assume the worst when it came to you and your wife. I could attribute certain inhuman acts to you, but not the murder of innocent children. I didn't know the extent of your—and your wife's—cruelty and sadism. I didn't know what the two of you were capable of.
I was carried downstairs, past your home office and into the courtyard of the chateau, where a shiny dark green closed-top Mercedes awaited me. The SS men standing there shrank back as Anna and Axelina approached, looking visibly horrified. I don't know if it was because they as men weren't used to such a sight or if they already knew what horrors awaited me at my destination.
I was loaded into the car and it took off immediately for the heart of Prague. I recognized the driver as Josef, the same SS guard that had escorted me to and from your room when I used to live in your basement. He looked almost beside himself with worry, and I was sure that he would have expressed himself if not for his companion in shotgun beside him.