Prologue

 

No matter how many aliases Irma Fuchs adopted, it always came back to: Irma Fuchs, Brockhorst Camp guard, ranked Oberaufseherin or Senior Overseer. Irma Fuchs sentenced to be hung by the neck until she was dead. Irma Fuchs who awoke in a Siberian Gulag wondering if it was indeed hell. Maybe her redemption was permitted because in the dying months of that living hell of Brockhorst she saw a light. Not a conversion to angelic humanitarian, more the scheming of a desperate mind. But there a spark of candour burned, refused to die and caught the attention of a Russian Colonel.

Released through chicanery and post war confusion, and then hidden within the disorder of Stalin's autocracy, dreams began to first trouble before escalating to horrors tossed from a disturbed subconscious. Beleaguered she lived for the waking hours and began to dread the depths of sleep. Often waking in a ball of sweat fearing the proffered comfort of those that cared, and they were few enough.

If the nightmares as they were, didn't scold the conscious then a mysterious old man certainly did. He appeared when Irma trod a questionable path to seemingly steer her back on one that was straight and narrow.

 

Chapter One

 

A warm but wet spring day met Irma's emergence into an apocalyptic outside world. The distant thunder of Russian artillery had commenced earlier than usual and the woman guessed her daily malicious routine would soon be ended. Other guards were discussing what they would do as well as the last order from the SS hierarchy. They could go their different paths but Irma would remain and seek a mix of duplicity and clemency. She would maintain that above all she only followed orders, that not to do so meant certain death.

When the main body of guards forced more than twenty-four thousand remaining prisoners to march to Mecklenburg, Irma remained, losing her military uniform and adopting one from a deceased nurse, one she had carefully garrotted so as not to stain the uniform. Then she acted the angel of mercy tending the sick that were left. There starved exhaustion didn't kill their memories though and many a needy patient shrunk before the abrupt change of attitude, though remaining silent when the Reds did eventually arrive, their trust far from won.

Irma found herself in one of the cells she had slammed the door on so often. As far as the communists were concerned pretty as she was, she was not worth their usual lustful hand out. Circumstance until then had seemed real and sane. Logical progression was about to slip. Reality would become unreliable, fantasy unfathomable. Though never enough to adamantly say 'this is total madness.' The mind is an incredible organ and has the ability to adapt to most traumatic events. Time in her case would be an ally.

Eventually the Red Army found time to interrogate Irma; having left her to think matters over for a week. In that time she suffered the confinement horrors she had inflicted on countless prisoners. A bucket for the latrine. Stale bread and watery cabbage soup, which was more than she fed her victims. Irma remained resolute. Her motto was 'it wasn't done until the chair was kicked from beneath her'.

A stony po-faced officer sat behind the previous camp commander's desk, Fritz Suhren who paid for his infamy in June 1950. The Russian spoke reasonable German. "You are Irma Fuchs?"

The captive shook her head. "She left with the forced march. I am Gelda Schulze."

"Several inmates have informed us that you are Oberaufseherin Irma Fuchs."

"Those patients are extremely ill. Most are drugged. They don't know where they are let alone know who's who."

"I could sit you down with the brigade medic but I feel you have probably done your homework." He tossed a nursing handbook on the desk. "Found in your room. Irma's room. Anything to say?"

"The sadistic bitch had ideas about posing as a nurse, but she couldn't learn fast enough and went with the others."

"You will be interested to know that our advanced scout unit have caught up with the prisoner column and we have captured one Greta Maier who we will ask to identify you. If you tell the truth then you will be released. If not you will be tried for humanitarian crimes. Is that understood?"

"Greta will tell you who I am," Irma replied fingers crossed behind her back.

"You may wait on her return in your cell."

Irma remained buoyant, she was a firm believer that she would prevail, that luck wasn't about to leave her high and dry. That perhaps the devil looked after his own. She only had to wait a day, Greta being brought to the Russian Commander's office. He told the SS guard. "We have a young woman captive whose identity I would like to know. When we bring her in just tell me her name."

Irma was dragged from her stinking cell and brought in hands tied behind her back. "Now tell me. Who is this woman?" the Russian demanded.

"Why it's Gelda Schulze of course," the guard replied adding. "Camp nurse." The Russian really should have made Irma put on a camp guard uniform. It proved true, the devil did 'nurse' his own, Greta being a devil in her own right and soon to join her overlord.

"Very well put her with the others," Colonel Anatoly Kuznetsov ordered referring to who he temporarily regarded as Greta. The woman smiled at Irma and left with her guard.

"I am not convinced," he told Irma. "Hence you will be transferred for the time being. Somewhere where you can reflect on the last five years."

"Russian justice? You have no evidence."

"No, not at all. Russian justice like German honour would have put a bullet in your head by now."

"How long?" she dared to ask.

"There is a quaint English idiom I once heard. "How long is a piece of string? That about covers it. But I wouldn't make any short term plans. If you have living relatives then write down their names and where we might make contact and we will endeavour to do so." He knew she couldn't and smirked accordingly.

He leant back in the chair and invited. "I have dinner arriving soon. You are invited to share. I would accept as it may be the last thing you eat for some time."

She nodded and he indicated she sit. "Summer is not far away and Russia gets unbearably hot. However the winters are brutal, so if you have anything in your wardrobe that might fend of the cold then you should take it with you."

She hoped that Gelda did.

As dinner arrived she heard a rattle of gunfire close by. Again Anatoly smiled. "Russian Justice. You should be happy it wasn't you."

"The guards?" she questioned.

"Some."

"Greta?"

"Possibly."

"Damn the war!"

"It might have been better saying that in nineteen thirty nine."

"One voice would have had no effect," she argued.

Irma guessed it would be a trial by dinner, Anatoly seeking the piece of trickery that would reveal Irma's lies. He saw not a pretty face only a sadistic, murderous savage and he wanted a noose around her neck. As far as he was concerned she wasn't worth a bullet.

"Don't expect anything lavish," Anatoly told her. "I eat the same as my men."

"I haven't eaten lavish since the war began," Irma lied. "When your patients have little then one has to eat little too."

"Open your mouth," he suddenly ordered.

Bemused Irma obeyed expression questioning.

"I see no reason," he admitted finally.

"For what?" she asked intrigued.

"It looks like any other tongue."

"Why wouldn't it?"

"Because the lies slide so easily," he joked sarcastic, studying her face for a reaction.

She pushed her luck. "If you don't believe me why not shoot me?"

"Simply because there is an element of doubt. Once an execution is done it cannot be undone. Thus I give you the benefit of the question, is she or isn't she? There are still plenty to kill. I can give one a miss and still sleep at night."

"I cannot for all the sick I have lost," she admitted falsely.

"Keep it going Irma. You might wear me down yet. You need to find that crack in my defences. Then worm your way in and hit the sympathy button."

She leant forward and said quietly. "I have a clean, disease free cunt. How would you like a piece?"

The officer remained unshockable. "I don't think there is a man here either sane or insane that would touch your cunt with a three metre lance."

That struck her hard. The implacable Fuchs felt the cut of his well-aimed insult. "If I can ever prove to you I am Gelda Schulze then you will rue your distasteful remarks."

"There is as much chance of that happening as Hitler saying sorry."

"Can I have my hands untied? Please. The bindings are cutting off the blood."

"You have blood? That Irma would suggest there is a human lying hidden within you somewhere." He nodded to the guard to do so.

"Thank you," she said rubbing her wrists.

"Now you are thinking that is a step in the right direction."

"I am thinking I cannot feel my fucking hands."

Dinner arrived, Anatoly introducing the dishes. "To begin Kulesh with flat bread. A filling nutritious soup. Then the main course stewed beef and potatoes. And naturally vodka, to wash the shit down. Such is the life of a soldier."

Spooning the soup to her lips she surprisingly offered praise. "Not bad. Better than most of my meals for a long time." She took a slug of Stolichnaya and gasped. "That is some shit. Petrol by any chance?"

The man laughed. "You have been spoilt with schnapps. Four of the vodka and you will crawl back to your cell."

"Then six might be a blessed release."