Chapter 3: Chapter 1
A temple to Death.
As Negev reached for the steps of the government building, she could not overlook how ominous and imposing this concrete structure was. Besides it´s gate, two flags were unfolded from the building´s windows, one at each side, the flag of Reichskomissariat Ukraine, Germany´s colonial government. The dark atmosphere, the men clad in dark colors and military uniform who went by it, the cold wind who reached for each crack in its wall, the snow about to fall in its roof.
"This is a temple to Death, to Death itself." She whispered to herself.
Here the fate of a nation is decided by criminals with blood-soaked hands. Here unspoken atrocities were ordered, and the plea of the innocent was not heard.
She took a deep breath and entered the building.
Government officials, civil servants and minor army officers were squabbling about. It was early in the morning, and the higher-ups weren´t around. Helga, a young woman who worked as the main attendee, gave her a quick look, while not being ignorant to the small talk she was having with one of guards. The guardsman rifle, an old K98 from the war, was lazily by his side, leaning against the wooden desk.
Despite being new, she already had made herself known to some people, and lightly nodded at them while she walked towards her department. While reaching for the door handle, she stopped for a moment´s notice, realizing that someone had already entered the room. The hesitation lasted only for a split second, only for her to open the door and hastily close it.
"Guten morgen, Herr Otto." She looked at him with a serious face, stiffen up body, like a soldier to his commander, the sound of her shoes lightly clapping echoing through the room, followed by a nazi salute. "Heil Hitler!"
She stood there emotionless until he shifted his gaze from the window and looked at her.
Herr Otto, a young man not so many years old as her, first of all was not the model Aryan men people saw in the propaganda posters, a blond muscular figure, with a perfect body and always smiling face, the vandal who smashed Europe and enslaved it´s peoples.
If someone did not pay attention to details, he would appear as just another officer of the Wehrmacht, a somewhat forgettable figure, the common men with his ordinary black hair, simple eyes and stern face. The fact that he didn´t wear his medals and any other prideful attire in his uniform made him plain looking. Only one thing caught people´s attention, and that was the double lightning near his neck, the symbol of an SS officer.
He looked straight at her eyes. He took a sip of the coffee cup he held in his hand, and after it slowly placed it besides the window.
"Heil Hitler!" He replied, the shock of his boots reverberating through the room, and then reaching out for his cup, shifting again his gaze to the window.
Negev finally relaxed and walked to her desk. She soon started to shift through the many documents who were still unfinished, looking for the ones who she thought were the easiest to finish. Something was wrong, however.
"These aren´t in the order I left them yesterday." She lowly said this to herself.
While still handling them, she quickly glanced to Otto, who was still fixed at the window and his coffee. Someone had stirred in her desk. Did she do something that was suspicious? A small film started to roll in her head, as she searched in her memories for an answer. Her right eye-brow lightly broke, as the stress started to take hold of her.
The fate of a spy in this curse old world is not worth discussing. The pain, the humiliation, the torture, the- no, no. She dispersed the thoughts. Everything was alright. But what if they discovered that she was a jew? Right? Alright? No, it´s alright, nothing to worry about. She already accepted that fate the moment that boat departed her homeland, the land of the free. The hate of that moment, that feeling, that was what made her move forward.
"…" She tried to concentrate on her work.
He only searched her desk, nothing more. It´s his right, no, his duty to do this. After all, no one would want to have a spy among it´s subordinates.
"..!" She stopped for a brief moment, there was movement in her field of view.
Otto laid the coffee cup by the window side. While still looking at the window, he gave a long sigh, and then slowly shifted his gaze to her. He still had the same, uninterested and stern looking face, his young looking eyes ready to pierce something, like the sights of a small arm.
"Why are you concerned, Dame Negev?"
"!" She laid down the paper´s in her hand.
"Heh." He let out a malicious smile, yet his expression relaxed. "A jew or something payed us a visit. There is nothing to be alarmed of. It was just a small rat, and this house is full of them."
She lightly bit her lips. Otto slowly walked towards her.
"They tend to leave clear signs of their presence, like the fact that they didn´t even care to put back your papers in the right order. You will get used to it."
Otto arrived at her desk and suddenly stared at her. His face was empty of emotions, like it had been frozen in time, as if a picture or a painting, bound to stay the same forever. Negev tried to look back, but his gaze was as menacing as an eagle, making her awkwardly look away.
"…"
Otto remained silent, then took a stroll across the room, with the same fixed-looking, static gaze, until finally returning to the window.
"Coffee." He lifted the now empty cup towards her.
Negev finished to organize her papers in a hurry and soon picked up the cup.
"Why he has chosen me?" She asked herself.
Remembering her interview, she was heading for the rest room, since there was no coffee remaining in the bottle.
She didn´t got to know much. It was a proceeding for the CIA bureau in all of the Reich. Her job was only to give reports and be on the look out for a possible contact. If they had a mission for her, a disguised agent would be approach her. It had been one month, and as far as she knew, she was alone here in Kiev.
It was wooden cabin inside the woods, near the port city of Sebastopol, in Crimea. She didn´t even got an introduction. As soon as she arrived, they already had a backstory for her, documents and even an apartment for her in Kiev. She was rushed in to the city in a hurry. The interview was only 3 days after she arrived in the country.
After she left Sebastopol, she didn´t met any other american on the way. All the men and women were clearly part of the Ukrainian Resistance, excerpt for one or two germans. She didn´t speak their language very well. She was expected to "learn on the way".
The door to her apartment, not so far from where she was going to work, was cold and full of rust when she first touched it. It was past midnight, she was alone, and her neighbor's probably didn´t care for the creaking door sound that echoed through the building. This was a cursed, dark land after all.
She advanced into her apartment. There was a feeling inside of her of fulfillment… now it had started. From now on, this was enemy territory. A cold wind blew, and her long pink hair was stirred by it, as if some kind of light had awakened in her eyes. With a determined step she got inside, and with a quiet movement, she locked the door behind her.
The apartment was old and dusty, the wooden furniture worn out. On top of a table in the main room there were more documents for her to read, giving more information to her mission. The job, the government, the situation in the country. Most things she had already read before leaving for her mission, but one document stood out among them: the one who talked about her possible managers. If possible, they wanted her to be employed by a powerful politician connected to the Komissar himself. The morning soon came, and as she burned down the papers, Negev headed to the interview.
It was held in the underground on the same building that she now works. She was surprised to find between her rivals girls who were clearly Ukrainian. They were all put in a waiting area, and besides it there was a wooden door who led to the room were supposedly they were to be interviewed. There was a glass window between the two rooms, and one could see the table and two chairs inside of it.
They waited for a long time, but when finally there was some movement inside the room, it wans´t the interviewer, but the managers themselves who appeared. The girls became distressed as each manager took a stand besides the mirror and started to discuss.
The politician was a blond and somewhat old man, who looked exactly as a bureaucrat of the Reich. He was a bit taller than the rest, but this was offset by his chubby appearance. His uniform was full of medals and distinctions.
Negev could somewhat tell what tell were talking about, despite not being able to hear tehem.
"This batch of candidates are good looking." He said to someone besides him.
"Yeah, they chose the best ones for this." He replied.
Their looks soon fell upon Negev.
"I´ve never seen a hair like that." The politician said while scratching his chin.
This is a beauty contest, Negev realized. They weren´t here to employ the most capable. She started to review herself, looking for any faults in her clothing or her hair. She knew she was beautiful and hair color would make her stood out among the rest. "The CIA chose the perfect candidate for the job", she thought to herself and slightly smirked. "There is no way I´m losing this."
In the corner of the window sat a somewhat indistinguishable figure, with a barren uniform. He wasn´t in the report, so Negev mistook him for some kind of subordinate. He was the only one with papers in hand, leafing through them.
"That one is mine." The politician said, pointing out his finger to her.
The young man in the corner looked up to her for a split second, then returned to the papers. As if finding her´s, he started to read through it with a serious look. The politician started to discuss with the others.
"…" He finished reading it, and gave an intense look at her. "No, that one is mine."
"What?" The politician replied. "Are you crazy? That one is mine."
"No, it is mine." He replied, emotionless, while Negev became puzzled and the other managers in the room looked surprised.
"Are you really going to defy me?" The politician said, somewhat angered by his posture. "I will have the Komissar punish you harshly."
The young man turned his head to him. Negev could distinguish now the SS symbol in his neck. He stood there with his stern face for half a minute straight, as the politician started harassing him with swear words and threats.
He then suddenly smirked, a big smile as covering almost his entire face, a malicious one and the gaze of a hunter who takes pleasure in inflicting pain to a struggling prey. "Jewish pig, in my not handling you a pure blooded german for your degenerate pleasure." He said, slapping the papers 3 times. "Her place is in the SS, not in the hands of a fat degenerate like you."
"W-what did you call me?!"
"Are you deaf, old man? I said I´m not giving a german beauty to the likes of you. I can see through your eyes that you are here just looking for another personal prostitute as your secretary." He took a somewhat martial posture, and then spoke as if with great authority. "My tongue will not name the crimes you want to commit with these women, but as a proud german citizen, I cannot fathom the possibility of handling such an artwork to satisfy your depraved soul."
The politician grabbed him by his collar.
"Jewish pig, if I spit out everything you did you are done for. If you want to do it, do with the women of lesser races, not with an aryan woman."
Negev was baffled by all of this. The men discussed for half an hour, but in the end, the young officer managed to force his will through, much to her surprise.
The interview finished without even starting. Everyone was led outside and it was said that they would get in contact if one of them were hired.
By this time, Negev was already in front of the door, holding the now full coffee bottle.
"So, you´re the lucky girl aren´t you?"
It started snowing. Negev was in a local park not far from her apartment building, sitting on a somewhat broken wooden bench. She wans´t exactly prepared for the cold that had settled in, so her hands were slightly trembling while she handled a water bottle she had stored in her purse.
She stayed put while looking at him, dazed by the situation. Now that he was closer, she could see that, despite having not a single detail that stood out, his uniform was in perfect shape. His shoes were properly shined, despite the wear of the morning use. The "lines" were all straight, not a single wrinkle on his clothes. The politician´s uniform now looked like a stuffed potato sack in comparison, despite all the shiny medals he had on his chest.
Negev stood up, unsure about what to do. He had a smile on his face, full of satisfaction. For some reason, the thought of a child looking at his newly bought toy came to her. He wans´t on the papers. Did her higher-ups messed up? Or was he that messed with them? Anyway, a man like him, a member of the SS, wasn´t trustworthy. To work for a man who wore such a symbol… how cursed was she?
"M-my name is Negev." She replied with a broken smile, awkwardly raising her hand to greet him. She felt as if a sword had pierced her heart. To shake the blood-soaked hands of such a man… she was filled with disgust. "Nice to meet you."
He looked at her trembling hands. The tips of her fingers were red because of the cold. And then… he slapped her hand.
"!!" Negev let out a small grunt. He didn´t even held back, he slapped her with full force!
"Hm! Don´t think high of yourself, woman!" He glared at her, the smile now buried in a hateful expression. "I don´t need any help, specially from a woman."
Negev could not hold herself, and glared back at him… how could he? Be so rude?!
"I will kill him." She thought to herself. "I´m 100% gonna kill him."
"I´m not dismissing you right now because if I did that degenerate jew would soon add you to his collection." He picked up a folded paper from his pocket and unfolded it. "Born to german parents in Bremen, both now deceased. Your father died fighting on the eastern front. Can you believe it that you were the only one who was a proper german in that room? The rest was half german at best."
He crumpled the paper and threw it at her.
"I don´t know how did you end up here, but you must be quite unlucky."
Before Negev came into the room, she thought to herself how to best humiliate her boss. He was an ardent member of the SS, wasn´t he? She wondered how he would react if some day he discovered that his personal secretary was a jew. How shameful would it be? How much ridicule would he suffer? The politician could be a depraved degenerate, but at least he was the kind of proud, egoistic man we could find in every society, the opportunistic who climbs the social ladder by trampling the ones below him. But Otto was different, he was the kind of monster only the Reich could breed, a fanatic barbarian who killed convinced of his disgusting ideals, who thought it was civilized to make the non-aryan suffer.
"Hurry." Otto said, as she entered the room.
The was a specific desk on the room, with cups, spoons and sugar, for the coffee bottle. Negev soon prepared a cup for him, but then she had an idea.
"He finds the jew disgusting, doens´t he?" She thought to herself. "What if there is a bit of jew in his cup?"
Hidden from his view, she gave the cup a spit and bathed her tongue in it.
"Damn you! You will sleep tonight not knowing that you drank the spit of a jew! May it forever taint you, you sick lunatic!"
She gave her the cup with a smile a bit too obvious.
He didn´t appear to notice, and as he first drank from the cup, and gulped, a strange feeling of fulfillment took over her.
"No, this is better." She thought to herself. "Thank you for saving me from that woman defiler..." She returned to her chair, and grimed. "… and let me have the opportunity to destroy the main enemy of my people."
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