The Ivan

By Erin Eldridge

Berlin, April 1945. A terrified young German woman huddles in a cellar as the final battle for the city rages overhead, bracing herself for the arrival of the rampaging Red Army. Her husband, missing in France since D-day, is not there to shield her from the coming hell that WWIIs endgame brings, as triumphant Soviet soldiers make German women the targets of their vengeance.

An unlikely savior arrives in the form of a young Soviet officer who takes her under his wing and with whom she begins a torrid affair. But what are his motives for seeking her out and protecting her? What will she do if her husband returns? Can she love two men simultaneously, or will she have to choose? This story will grip you from the first page, make you laugh, make you cry, and remain with you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499023039

Erin Eldridge

I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, along with most of my family. I teach deaf students and love my job. I have been an English teacher for a number of years and have worked all over New Zealand as well as in Africa and Brunei and I have travelled extensively to many parts of the world. Besides my family, my interests include animals, reading, writing and having adventures.

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Copyright © 2014 by Erin Eldridge.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4990-2302-2

                eBook           978-1-4990-2303-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/20/2014

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Contents

Berlin May 1945

France May 1944

France 6 June 1944

France D-Day

Berlin May 1945

The rumble of artillery was, by now, such a familiar backdrop that Elise found she could slumber fitfully through it, most of the time. There were occasions, however, when the explosions felt very close, and they all reacted in unison, tensing, clutching at their breasts or each other, their eyes dilated with fear. Little plumes of plaster dust dropped lazily from the cellar’s ceiling with every shockwave, fouling the already foetid air and settling in a grayish patina on clothes and bedding.

‘If the building comes down they’ll never find us! We’ll be buried alive!’ wailed Rosa, while Rolf did his best to calm her, and Elise prayed silently to God to spare their lives. ‘Oh, dear Lord, make the guns stop, please!’

The rockets were the worst though, the infamous Katyushas. They made an unearthly, high pitched, howling sound that shredded already strained nerves and aroused deep terror. The German flak guns, atop their monolithic towers, kept up their steady pom pom pom rhythm, vainly trying to compensate for a now defunct Luftwaffe, and finally aiming down into the streets in a, by now futile, attempt to prevent the relentless Soviet advance into the city.

It was early May 1945, and the Russians were no longer coming; they were here. On 16 April, the Red Army’s juggernaut had launched its massive assault on the fascist beast’s lair with two and a half million troops drawn from their seemingly limitless supply of manpower. Stalin’s shrewd exploitation of the fierce rivalry between his Marshalls, Konev and Zhukov, ensured further bloodletting for the Soviet soldiers. Many died as they charged blindly into German minefields in the opening attack on the heavily defended Seelow Heights. True to their culture of willing sacrifice and stoicism in the face of suffering, three Russians perished for every German casualty. The fatalism that centuries of harsh deprivation had built into Russian DNA gave them the edge in this final battle against Nazi fanaticism’s last stand. Trapped in his underground bunker beneath the Chancellery, Hitler continued to inhabit his delusional world of a last minute victory until, with the Soviets at the doors of the Reichstag, he committed suicide on 30 April, having made an honest woman of his devoted mistress, Eva Braun, only hours before.

Quite suddenly, after days of constant barrages, the guns had fallen eerily silent. The round-the-clock bombing had stopped some time ago too, the Americans and British unwilling to risk hitting their Russian allies as they closed in on the heart of the devastated city. The Soviets carried out their own strafing and bombing, but it was nothing compared to the Western Allies’ carpet bombing. The Polikarpov U2s, nicknamed sewing machines by the German troops because of their rattly engines, carried nowhere near the destructive firepower of Lancasters and Flying Fortresses, but they maintained their stubborn assault just the same. The little biplane that had been so roundly derided, yet grudgingly admired, by German troops, was now attendant upon the final demise of the Third Reich.

Teetering on the brink of the abyss of historical oblivion, the fatally wounded beast that was German Nazism lashed out in its death throes, determined to drag down with it anything and everyone within its reach. All escape routes from the city having been closed, the remaining citizens of Berlin cowered in their cellars and makeshift bomb shelters while roaming SS troops hanged anyone suspected of desertion from lamp posts. There was little food or fuel, and no milk for the children or babies. Armageddon had arrived on the doorstep with only one driving desire – vengeance, on a biblical scale.

Φ

‘Please, Frau Schumacher, you must try to be quiet. They are coming now and they will hear you.’ Elise knelt by the distraught old woman, soothing her, stroking her brittle, white hair, trying to ignore the sour smell of body odour and stale cologne that exhaled from her clothing. They’d all had to get used to going unwashed, and while you could tolerate your own smell, others’ was a different matter. The old lady’s eyes were wild with terror as she pressed a bony fist against her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle her sobbing and moaning. Elise often wondered which was worse: the bombardment, or Frau Schumacher’s histrionics.

‘Where is Herr Schumacher? Where is he?’ she repeated, her frail hand gripping Elise’s with surprising strength. ‘He’s been gone two days. He’s dead, isn’t he? Rolf’s dead!’ She feebly thrust Elise away from her, as if the young woman were somehow responsible for this latest misfortune, and began to sob loudly, wringing her spidery hands.

‘No, of course he’s not dead.’ Elise smiled reassuringly, keeping her voice as calm as possible. ‘He’ll be back any minute, you’ll see. He’s very smart and resourceful. The guns have stopped now, so all will be well. Calm yourself and try to rest.’ She placed her arms around Rosa’s thin shoulders.

The old woman continued to whine softly as Elise looked away, biting her lip. If only Erich were here, but they were all women without men, except for the very elderly like Frau Schumacher, although she was probably one of them now. She was tired of being brave, being strong, when she felt anything but. Rather than soothing Rosa, in her present state of nervous exhaustion what she really wanted was to give the old lady a good shaking. Hopefully, though, she was right, and the sprightly Rolf would reappear unharmed at any moment. Although he was too frail to protect her, she drew strength from his indefatigable optimism and resilience. Rolf Schumacher, a man in his eighties, had been sheltering in the cellar with the two women, but despite Elise’s pleas and impassioned attempts to dissuade him, he had stubbornly insisted on venturing out in search of food as soon as the guns fell silent. He had not yet returned. Elise had lost track of time, but the old woman was probably right: her husband had been gone close to two days.

They had no news about events outside their hiding place, no way of knowing anything about the status of the final battle for Berlin. The radio was useless because there was no electricity. One of the final broadcasts had informed the hapless populace of the Fuhrer’s death and the news had been received with universal indifference. There was no gas and no water either, apart from the outdoor pumps and hydrants, but, in a bizarre touch, telephones kept ringing spontaneously, even under the rubble.

The odd little trio was cocooned in their cramped confines of the dank, gloomy cellar, furnished with makeshift beds, a bucket latrine in the farthest corner behind a crudely erected screen, and little else besides a dwindling cache of stale food. They covered the bucket with a towel between uses, but the stench was getting steadily worse nonetheless. Rosa was now refusing to use it altogether, and the faint smell of ammonia Elise was picking up from her surely indicated that she had soiled herself. A small cast iron stove had provided enough heat to boil potatoes and dried lentils, using scraps of wood for fuel, but the potatoes had dwindled to a few sad, shrivelled specimens, the lentils were finished, and the fuel supply was exhausted. Life had been stripped to the bare bones of its carcass, a grim preoccupation with survival, alongside an equal sensation of apathy, of needing to accept whatever fell to their lot. Frau Schumacher, indulging her flair for the dramatic, had stated quite matter-of-factly that, with no gas, they would all have to hang themselves or find poison somewhere. Elise had shushed her, but she knew full well that suicide was an option now being taken by many, even whole families. Four thousand Berliners would commit suicide during this final campaign. The rest steeled themselves for whatever was coming.

Elise froze. Frau Schumacher may have been hard of hearing, but she wasn’t, and she’d distinctly heard voices outside the cellar door. Sensing the girl’s sudden tension, the old lady ceased her wailing to watch Elise’s whitening face, followed her rigid gaze to the door, and began to tremble violently. Her mouth opened and closed like a beached fish, but no words formed. Slowly, Elise lowered her down on to the grubby sofa that served as her and her husband’s bed, pulled the blankets up to the old woman’s chin, and then rose to her feet facing the door and whatever lay behind it. They had all heard the horror stories about Russian soldiers raping German women, from young girls to grandmothers. Goebbels had used these stories to foment and strengthen opposition to the approaching Soviet Army, exhorting the populace of Berlin to fight to the last or face the barbarism in store for the defeated. The Nemmersdorf massacre in East Prussia was well known, the appalling images widely circulated to motivate resistance to the ‘Asiatic horde’. There was no other source of information besides the rumour mill, and it had been in overdrive.

With ample time on her hands, confined to the cellar, Elise had thought carefully about what she’d do if confronted with rape. She hadn’t menstruated for three months due, no doubt, to stress and malnourishment, so the likelihood of pregnancy resulting was remote, although venereal disease remained a distinct possibility. She’d decided that, in the event, she wouldn’t resist because she’d heard stories about what happened to women who did. Quite pragmatically, she felt she should just submit without a struggle, however harrowing the experience, and try to detach herself while it was happening, disown her body temporarily. She had to stay alive for Erich, and if it did happen to her, then she would never tell him. Her mind raced. Please God, don’t let there be too many of them!

A sudden blow against the door saw her jump violently and by now her heart was pounding so hard she thought it would tear itself from her chest. She tried to swallow, but her throat was completely constricted, her mouth bone dry. Despite her efforts to reconstruct the rudimentary barricade after Rolf had left, the door began to jerk open gradually as successive blows rained down on it. The Hindenburg lamp, fixed to a support beam in the cellar, guttered as a sudden draft wafted in. Elise watched fascinated, as if disembodied from herself, gazing impotently at a horror unfolding with slow, relentless intensity.

And then the door burst open, scattering the slats of wood and loose bricks with which they’d futilely tried to shut out the violence and mayhem that was Berlin under siege. Into the cellar stepped two well-built Soviet soldiers. They wore the fur hats, ushankas, and bulky, belted greatcoats of the Red Army uniform. Rubble dust powdered their black boots and each cradled a Russian ‘burp’ gun, the iconic shpagin machine pistol, with the distinctive circular magazine. After pausing momentarily, they stepped further into the dimly lit cellar, their eyes darting suspiciously around before returning to the thin young woman who stood motionless facing them, experiencing a weird kind of relief that the unbearable tension of waiting was over at last. One of them pointed to the sofa and said something in guttural Russian to the other. They both laughed, and then one strolled over to prod the blankets with the barrel of his gun, prompting a thin, cat-like wail from Frau Schumacher. He laughed again, turning to his comrade. ‘Babushka.’ Then he turned his gaze upon Elise, his eyes taking her in slowly from head to feet and back again. He spoke again to his companion and again both laughed. To Elise, it sounded like a very unpleasant, sinister laugh; she clenched her fists, reminding herself of her strategy, telling herself to be strong. Even though she was thin, she was still a pretty girl, blue-eyed with wavy blonde hair and a nice figure; the two Russians couldn’t disguise the naked lust in their eyes as they appraised her. The soldier standing closest to her removed his ushanka, thrust it into his coat pocket, and stepped nearer, his body language tense and menacing. Elise continued to stand very still, offering no provocation, her face expressionless. The strangest image formed in her mind: of facing down a cobra as it slowly spread its hood, ready to strike. Like many Russian soldiers, his hair was cropped into a short stubble, exposing the bony contours of his skull and his prominent ears. She could see he was only about eighteen or nineteen, just a boy, his eyes bright and hard as he looked at her, fired with the knowledge of the unspeakable act he was about to commit, and far beyond any appeals to chivalry. He handed his gun to his companion and began to unbutton his coat, leering at her as he did so. Just as she had vowed, Elise felt herself begin to drift away, to detach and distance herself from her own body, as if she were merely an impassive observer of the ugly scene about to unfold. It won’t be so bad, she thought. It will be over quickly.

A shadowy movement caught her eye, harshly jerking her back to reality as she realised with sudden shock