Lazlo’S Revenge

By Glen Thomas Hierlmeier

It is the story above all, and Lazlos Revenge is an excellent story, inspired by true events in places devastated by war, and those who suffered greatly. Readers develop a personal relationship with the characters, Lazlo, Gertrude, Captain Koz, and others, leaving them wanting more. Max Fischer (Maxine Schoellkopf Fischer, fictional narrator of Lazlos Revenge), a writer and Swiss war correspondent whose parents lived the tragedies of the Great World Wars, set out to see the very places, and events her parents survived on their odyssey to escape danger and death.
Lazlos Revenge is the story Max unearthed in her travels back through time. She is the fictional daughter of Hank and Roberta Fischer, the main characters in a previous book, Honor and Innocence: Against the Tides of War. Hank and Roberta are an unlikely couple to fall in love (Hank is an American soldier stationed in Germany after the war, and the German girl, Roberta, is the daughter of a Nazi SS Officer being sought by American and British security forces for war crimes). Max is their daughter, born at the end of the previous novel, and now returning to write their story of love and war.
Fascinated by the characters who influenced the lives of her parents, in Lazlos Revenge, Max pursues her quest for understanding. She follows the life-story of Lazlo Floznik, the man who saved her parents lives, and helped them escape catastrophe in Europe, seeking safe refuge beyond the reach of security forces that sought to imprison them. The years leading up to World War I, the time between the wars, and the experiences of World War II release their secrets as she explores her family roots, a deeply emotional story bound by the intense love stories of Lazlo, and his father, Miklos, before him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514489307

Glen Thomas Hierlmeier

The author graduated from the United States Air Force Academy, then earned an MBA at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Wisconsin, and completed studies in Advanced Cost and Economic Analysis at the Air Force Institute of Technology. His active duty during the Viet Nam War, and early military assignments on the manned Orbiting Laboratory and the design phase of the F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft provided insights into the workings of the military and developed a keen interest in military history. These experiences served as a unique foundation for this novel as well as a previous companion novel, Honor & Innocence, Against the Tides of War. After leaving the Air Force in 1974, Glen returned to his home state of Wisconsin where he joined the First Wisconsin National Bank of Milwaukee, and attended the Rutgers University School of Executive Bank Management. In 1979, he moved on to become President and CEO of MGIC Development Corporation, followed by several real estate development and management companies. Glen retired in 2009 to devote full time to his grandchildren and his writing. He resides with his wife, RuthAnn, in Bakersfield, California.

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Copyright © 2016 by Glen Thomas Hierlmeier.

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: 06/15/2016

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CONTENTS

List of Characters

Author’s Note

Prologue

PART I

World War I August 1914

Chapter 1    Bukovina

Chapter 2    Lora

Chapter 3    Beginning of the End

Chapter 4    Reckoning

Chapter 5    Flight

Chapter 6    Father Joseph

Chapter 7    Refugees

Chapter 8    Danya and Mariya

Chapter 9    A Little Good

Chapter 10    Lazlo Floznik

Chapter 11    Destruction

PART II

The War Between the Wars 1919–1933

Chapter 12    Budapest

Chapter 13    People’s Commissars

Chapter 14    Avital Weismann

Chapter 15    Reason to Live

Chapter 16    Hunger

Chapter 17    Send Your Angels

Chapter 18    White Terror

PART III

Rise of Evil 1933–1939

Chapter 19    Nuremberg Race Laws

Chapter 20    Vigilantes

Chapter 21    Kristallnacht

Chapter 22    A Second War

Chapter 23    Captain Koz

Chapter 24    Eternal Hope

Chapter 25    Forces of Good and Evil

Chapter 26    I Love You

Chapter 27    Marseilles

Chapter 28    Love Begs

Chapter 29    Departure

PART IV

Despair in Budapest January 1939

Chapter 30    Zurich

Chapter 31    Desperation

Chapter 32    Habsburg Royal Chapel

Chapter 33    Man in the Hut

Chapter 34    Border Crossing

Chapter 35    If Not Us, Then Who?

Chapter 36    Hungary at Last

Chapter 37    Home in Budapest

PART V

Approaching Apocalypse 1939

Chapter 38    Gertie’s Honor

Chapter 39    Walking Dead

Chapter 40    Mauthausen

Chapter 41    We’ll See

Chapter 42    Road Home

Chapter 43    Midnight

Chapter 44    Danube Rose

Chapter 45    Tatjana’s Plan

Chapter 46    Rescue

Chapter 47    Blood Bond

Chapter 48    Men at War

Chapter 49    Resolution

Epilogue

All wars are full of stories that sound like fiction.

—Javier Cercas, The Wall Street Journal

Author Glen Hierlmeier has done a wonderful job in creating characters, especially Max, that his readers will connect with, relate to and truly come to care about, thinking of them long after the last page has been read. If that isn’t a hallmark of a great author and a great book, I’m not sure what is.

-Tracy A. Fischer,

Reader’s Favorite

. . . the plot unfolds in an improbable web of relationships that soon pull at our heartstrings, challenge our moral compass, and expose our proclivity to nationalism, prejudice, hatred, greed and war.

- Robert Doozan

Glen Hierlmeier weaves an intricate tale with settings, characters, and situations all so relatable and genuinely enjoyable. As a reader you can really tell that he is devoted to the time period and subject matter that he has chosen. If I could give it 10 stars, I would!

-Kelsey McBride

A provocative and touching examination of the ravages of war fallen on two generations of a family caught in the anvil of evil between two Great Wars. A story that changes how we think and feel about war … and about love.

Victims of the hubris of hatred will find no comfort here; to perceive the realities of war we must view wars through the lens of human experience.

-Dr. RuthAnn Hierlmeier

List of Characters

(In order of appearance)

Author’s Note

Maxine Roberta Fischer, Max to friends, family and associates, is a fictional character and is the narrator of this novel. Max is the daughter of Hank Fischer, an eighteen-year-old American army soldier sent to Germany at the end of World War II, and Roberta Schoellkopf, the German daughter of Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Schoellkopf, a high-ranking Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) officer who was being pursued by the Allied Forces as a war criminal. Max is a character created in an earlier novel, Honor & Innocence: Against the Tides of War, which was also narrated by Max.

After Max retired in 2013 from a long career as a war correspondent, covering wars and civil conflicts around the globe as a front-line journalist embedded with the combatants and living among innocent civilians, she was haunted by the desire to better understand human conflict. What you are about to read is the truth of what Max discovered of her own heritage by retracing the path of her parents, Hank and Roberta, and their closest compatriots, as their improbable romance blossomed even as they were forced to flee the war-torn aftermath of World War II in Germany, barely staying ahead of vengeance seekers who would have had them imprisoned or put to death.

The knowledge and insight Max gained from her emotional journey into her family’s past led her to narrate Honor & Innocence: Against the Tides of War to forever chronicle her parent’s improbable and extremely perilous adventure. The saga recorded for history by Max now continues as she explores the heritage of her most favorite uncle, Lazlo Floznik, a Hungarian refugee, a close family associate, and the hero whom she credits with saving the lives of her mother and father, and in doing so, her life as well.

This is Maxine’s continuing story.

Prologue

Well, the 19th century as [U.S. Secretary of State John] Kerry calls it, lives on and always will. Forget about the world being flat. Forget technology as the great democratizer. Forget the niceties of international law. Territory and the bonds of blood that go with it are central to what makes us humans.

—Robert D. Kaplan, Old World Order: How geopolitics fuels endless chaos and old-school conflicts in the 21st century. Time. March 31, 2014.

Maxine Roberta Fischer (Max Fischer) – narrator

When I wrote my first book, Honor & Innocence: Against the Tides of War, I had no intention of writing another. My journey through Europe and Asia in search of my roots retraced as closely as possible the path traveled by my father and mother, Hank Fischer and Roberta Schoellkopf, in the bitter aftermath of World War II. My book was intended as an end in itself, to give me comfort and fulfillment through understanding their improbable union and the ordeal that followed. Though I was able to write the book that chronicles their heroic romance and escape, I was left wanting more … so much more, about the people who helped lay the foundation of my life, forming my inner drive to become the strong, sensitive woman I am.

After a lifetime as an international journalist covering incessant wars all over the world, I was utterly frustrated by my lack of insight into the senselessness of the killing of millions, even hundreds of millions of innocent people in the covetous quest for territorial, political, religious, and economic gain, or perhaps, simply to satisfy the wanton hubris of powerful men and women. I had no thought that my journey to discover my own heritage, in search of my roots, as personal and emotional as I knew it would be, might lead me to a renewed desire to understand, and share my story. Reading Robert Kaplan’s article this morning, I was struck very deeply by the empty feeling that my life of chasing after the truth has led inexorably nowhere—chasing my tail would be more accurate. What he wrote about the battles blazing in Ukraine and Crimea pierced my soul. I am left with no choice but to acknowledge how little has been accomplished in the realm of human conflict over the millennia of civilization and particularly since the formal end of World War II, in spite of all the pompous rhetoric to the contrary.

Across the generations of my family, accounts of war through the two great wars of the twentieth century reveal a vision into a world constantly in turmoil—not essentially different from the present-day conflict between Ukraine and Russia and the countries aligning themselves on one side or the other. Ironically, my new story begins early in World War I—at that time, Russia and Ukraine were also prominent players in the evolution of European and Asian history. The Empire of Austria-Hungary, situated precariously in Eastern Europe, was surrounded by three hostile empires, Russia to the east, Germany to the west and north, and the Ottomans to the south—all hell-bent on expansion for their own sake: what I call hubris.

At the onset of the war, Hungary was the second-largest country in Europe, behind only Russia, and was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My "Uncle Lazlo’s (not related by blood but a close friend of the family), father was Hungarian by birth and was one of thousands of soldiers dispatched to the Kingdom of Bukovina in the far northwest of the Empire. Bukovina had been a peaceful and rare refuge for displaced Jews who for centuries had roamed the continent like gypsies before settling in the sparsely populated region—coming from the east, west, and south, centuries after the first of many conquests of Israel and the exile of Jews beginning with the invasion of the Babylonians in the fifth century BC, collectively referred to as the Jewish Diaspora. In Bukovina, they thrived, building a safe harbor where prominent Jews dominated all aspects of public and private life.

However, Russia sided against Austria-Hungary in WWI, aligned with Germany, and seized the opportunity to invade Bukovina at Russia’s western border for its natural resources, its industrial capacity, and to eliminate its hated Jewry. Under the command of Colonel Eduard Fischer, Lazlo’s father found himself fighting to save the Jews of Bukovina. That is where my story begins, a story I had not intended to tell but now weighs heavily on my heart as my pen is once again readied for its emotional task. After a lifetime of reporting conflicts all around the world, I am haunted by the specter of war. Every breath of my life rages in protest against the disregard of the mortal body by those who, through tyranny, seek to control all matter of life in a selfish, uncontrolled, and endless quest for power.

PART I

World War I

August 1914

Chapter 1

Bukovina

August 1914

Czernovitz, Bukovina

Austro-Hungarian Empire

Maxine Roberta Fischer

The earth trembled ominously. Nervous whorls shivered through knee-deep water under ferocious waves of cannonade piercing the air, crushing the breath from his chest and shaking the blood in his heart—one, then another, and another, and still another. An unyielding rain of destruction whistled overhead and cruelly pounded the earth, drowning out all natural humanity. The death he had come to expect lay all around him. He was not afraid—under the collapse of his world, death was his hoped-for escape. He fell painfully back against the muddy wall of the freshly dug trench. Death would be a welcomed escape from the hell that surrounded him.

Welcome, death. Save me from this grip of hell.

Gasping frantically for air while splashing desperately in the putrid, muddy water, odorous and red-brown from the blood of the previous days’ slaughter, his feet slipped from under him. Struggling to his knees, he saw the horror-struck face of a comrade, a boyish lad he did not know, perhaps sixteen years old, mouth contorted into a scream he could not hear in the deafening din. The boy flew awkwardly through the rain, splashing face-first into the muck below. His childlike eyes, so innocent, foretold the freakish story of his death—they would haunt Miklos. Eerily, a strange sensation gripped him—this lad had escaped the mindless madness, the devilish fury. Surreal … to wish the lifeless form now lying at ease, quiet and still … was his.

The shelling ceased as suddenly as it began—an unexpected calm, broken only by screams of the dying and severely wounded, muffled by the incessant, driving rain. Struggling to stand, he reached down into the fetid water to turn the limp and lifeless body lying at his feet, as if perhaps he might still save him, but turning the lad revealed a fist-sized hole in his chest where his heart once happily beat. As blood drained life into the murky water, Miklos screamed.

He wouldn’t remember what he thought at that moment—he wouldn’t remember thinking at all. He only remembered climbing out of the trench, slipping, grabbing roots protruding from the steep sides until his foot struck something solid on which to push himself out. Glancing down, he saw his own boot planted firmly on top of the head of a dead soldier whose swollen form leaned grotesquely against the earthen wall. A surge of fear and repulsion propelled him onto the rain-soaked ground above. Vaguely, he remembered running—running for his life—afraid to look back, in fear of who, or what, might be catching him.

Run, run, don’t look back! Run for your life, before the cannons fire again!

He slogged desperately through the muck and around deep, mud-filled potholes left by the shelling and dodged past dead bodies, his mind hopelessly glazed.

Only days before, the armies of Hungary and Austria sent thousands of brave and ambitious young men to save the city, expecting to be heroes. They dug trenches and strung barbed wire a mere few kilometers outside the city of Czernovitz, the largest in Bukovina, but it was a frail barrier against the impending onslaught of the Russian Cossacks they knew would come. Hopelessly, the mayor and burghers of Czernovitz could only watch from a hill outside the city they loved, set precariously along the eastern slope of the Carpathian Mountains—offering no protection from an attack from the east. For so long, so many times, their ill-fated city, once the crown jewel of the Principality of Moldavia, was being overrun by evil, power-seeking madmen bent on the expansion of empires for their own enrichment. But … let me allow Miklos to tell his own story.

Miklos Floznik

I approached the first houses, gasping for breath, horrified to see the destruction being wrought by round upon round of artillery fusillades. There was no cover to be found. Dazed, I continued running, desperately trying to save myself. I passed perhaps a dozen or more homes laid nearly flat. Mutilated bodies lying all about and the wounded wailing like nothing I had ever heard. As I neared the outskirts of the city, the shelling began again as suddenly as it had stopped. Cannonade pounded in the distance. The earth trembled ferociously at my feet. Turning a corner behind what still stood of the only remaining wall of a large stone building, another round of explosions pounded the city as I leaped down into a now-exposed basement filled with debris from the collapsed upper floors—only one wall and half another standing. Hope drained from me. Each deafening blast shook my senses, sending shards of glass and cracking timbers high into the air with a sickening burst.

Darkness fell quickly in the gloomy gray of dark as I slipped over a broken wall of stones and fell into the pit of the decimated structure. I pushed tightly into a corner of what was once someone’s home, protected from the drenching rain by a small portion of what remained of a badly damaged wall hanging precariously overhead—a welcome but uncertain shelter in the midst of chaos. I pushed tightly back against the cold stone walls on either side, finding as much safety as possible against a new round of explosions that pounded above and around. Each blast shook the skeletal rubble of the house, wrenching stone and wood from tenuous perches and sending more flying debris into the desolate hole that would be their final resting place … and perhaps mine as well. I was trapped—I couldn’t move for fear of being crushed in that dreadful place or being shelled to death outside. I pulled my knees to my chin … all I could think to do was pray … and as I prayed … tears came but did not assuage my fear.

Mercifully, with the darkness, silence also descended—even warriors need their rest. Only screams of the wounded and desperate pleas of survivors who searched frantically through the rubble for lost loved ones pierced the cold, wet, bleak night. Soon, darkness also shrouded them in silence, all but the woeful cries of the dying calling out miserably in their hopeless plight—my hopelessness too, I thought. In my corner hideaway, I could see nothing but the black of night illuminated only by the flickering dance of fires burning what remained. I knew without seeing that only rubble lay before me, and there was no hope to be found.

Bombardment of the trenches and the city paved the way for the Russian ground troops, armored cars pulling cannons, and the dreaded Cossack horsemen. I knew they would come—surely, by morning they would come. Everything in their path would be destroyed, everyone who resisted would be killed, and all others would be taken prisoner. There was no doubt. It was their way—what Colonel Eduard Fischer and the Hungarian Army had come to Bukovina to prevent, what I bravely thought we could accomplish was lost. I had not even seen a Russian, but I knew there was no hope of saving anyone. The Kingdom of Bukovina was doomed, and surely none of Austria-Hungary would be safe. With the Hungarian Army defeated and the stronghold city of Czernovitz overrun, no one remained to save us. Even Colonel Fischer might be dead, leaving no leader to stand boldly and hold the remnant together.

In the barren darkness, my youthful excitement as a proud Hungarian soldier on a mission to save the Kingdom of Bukovina, and ultimately the empire, suddenly struck me as a foolish notion. Wearing my uniform once made me very proud, but now I was only frightened and angry. My comrades and I were assured that victory would quickly prevail, but war and death tragically became very real, fearful, foreboding, and final. I questioned myself: Was I a coward to run? Do I really know what bravery is? Do I really know what all these good people are dying for? Do I know what this war is all about? Do I even care about Jews? After all, these people in Bukovina are Jews, many of them. Are they worth the death of so many fresh, hopeful young Hungarian and Austrian men? Are they worth my life?

My head swirled with doubts. My heart ached for answers I didn’t have. Life became too real, too fast. My tortured mind flashed back to the wretched face of the too-young boy, dead in the trench, and the unknown soldier whose bloated corpse had lifted my escape. I sat in my wretched corner and questioned why I had come to such a place—why anyone would engage in such brutality.

Was this worth it … for them … for us … for anyone?

After being drenched for nearly all of three days, the rain finally stopped. The choking smell of charred remains of buildings, gunpowder, and the rotting dead hung heavily in the air. I wished for the rain again, to dilute the ghastly stench. Time slipped slowly by. The dying must have passed through death’s mercy in the eerie silence and the wounded attended to, for as I listened—no sound. Strange, I thought, that in the midst of all this evil, there should be silence. I knew it could not last. Fear grabbed my throat again. My impulse was to get up and go, take action, do something, anything, but my mind held me back—there was nowhere to go, no escape, no hope. The Russian Cossacks would be here by morning—nothing to do but hide and wait, then fight to my death, to salvage whatever honor there might be in resisting.

Below the woeful mute of night, I crouched and cowered. Shivering in fear, my mind drifted back to happier days in Budapest when, as a young boy, I …

Just then!

Something fell on the far side of the rubble, sounding as if it came from behind the largest pile of debris—perhaps another dislodged stone. I leaned forward to hear and peered vainly into the darkness as my heart leaped in my chest and immense fear gripped me. The worst of my thoughts seized me—the Russians were coming in the night and rooting out survivors! Desperate, I slowly reached to my side, and silently drew out my pistol. Another sound. Someone was moving, and not more than ten meters from me.

I raised my pistol and aimed in the direction of the sounds, I was prepared to shoot anything on sight, at any slight movement—my hands trembled against the trigger. A faint light appeared, flickering behind the rubble, like the light of a small candle casting a very large, daunting shadow around me, barely visible as it slowly danced in the eerie candlelight, nearly scaring the life out of me as my finger tightened on the cold trigger.

Crying—quiet, sorrowful weeping—as if the person hidden by the pile of debris knew she had to be very quiet but could not help herself … clearly a woman, perhaps a very young woman, maybe just a girl. I was still … very still … and listened for perhaps fifteen or even twenty minutes, until the light wavered and died. The soft whimpering continued for a long, long time in the fearful dark that kept me huddled closely against the walls of my corner as though I wished to disappear in its grasp. I would wait. By the dim light of morning, I would see who my companion in that hellacious hole might be. Though I resisted, sometime later I dozed, exhausted, dreamily wishing for the safety of my home in Budapest.

I woke to the constant patter of a dreary rain as the breaking dawn cast a ghastly glow over the destruction strewn around and about me. My eyes fixed toward the sound and the light of a few hours earlier; I listened but … only quiet and stillness … no sound but the steady falling rain.

Chapter 2

Lora

The invisible sun rose slowly behind menacing dark clouds billowing overhead, releasing their swollen moisture upon the woebegone city. My eyes remained rigidly fixed across the rubble-strewn room. My hand firmly grasped the pistol laid over my chest, still hidden beneath my rain poncho. I assured myself the lone figure behind the pitiful voice that had frightened me in the night was not a danger, but my mind cautioned—after everything I had already been through, I didn’t want to die in that strange, dank cellar. I was prepared to shoot at any slight movement—there would be time for questioning after.

Tick by tick, the minutes slowly absorbed the darkness as I peered intently across the room. Still weak and tired after only a few hours of fitful sleep, my eyes grew heavy. I dozed briefly, jerking awake upon hearing the muffled sound of a voice through the rain … the sad, gentle, sweet voice of a young girl in great distress, and very weak. Sorrow echoed in her voice in tones of woeful suffering. Quietly holstering my revolver, I sat upright and leaned forward, straining to hear more clearly.

Careful not to alert anyone above, and trembling, I inched toward the sound. I stepped gingerly over debris and through standing water until I crouched behind the remains of a large door leaning awkwardly against the ruins, behind which I hoped to find only a harmless girl. Peeking ever so slowly around the corner through a gap in the pile of stone and timbers, I could make out the forlorn figure of a young woman, no longer a girl, pressed awkwardly against the far wall. She was unsteady, limp, and dazed, soaked in mud-covered, tattered clothing, her dark brown hair matted around her head and neck. My mind flashed back to the death I witnessed in the trenches—I feared I might again stand witness to its awful clenches. Death stalked very near for this sad victim.

I rose guardedly to approach. My heart raced as I heard the roar of Russian trucks rumbling in the distance. There was little time. Throwing caution aside, I lunged toward her, thinking, I can’t save them all, but this one I can save. She turned her head slowly toward me. I whispered loudly, Don’t be afraid, shhhh, we need to be very quiet! With the pale of death in her eyes, in a blank stupor she weakly turned her head just a bit and feebly reached out her hand. She took a small step toward me, collapsing as I reached to catch her, falling to my knees. I struggled to my feet with her nearly lifeless body in my arms. I knew we had to get away from the open basement and into my corner, where we might not be seen from the road above … when the Russians came.

I stumbled, nearly breaking down under the weight of the near-lifeless girl I carried. My foot slipped off muddy, soaked timber, and again I fell to my knees in the ankle-deep water. It was all I could do to keep her in my arms. Kneeling under my burden, my gaze met the bare, blood-splattered, death-gray and grossly swollen foot of a body that had been buried in the midst of the debris. Once again, fear struck deeply within me. A rush of horror brought a new surge of strength into my body, deeper than I could have imagined, enough to bring me to my feet under the weight of her limp body. I scrambled quickly away from the ghoulish horror and into the fragile safety of my hideaway—now our hideaway.

Breath came slowly to her. The pulse in her neck was faint and irregular. I was losing her. I knew I had to get her warm; her cold, damp clothing had to come off. With no thought of modesty as I stripped off my poncho and removed the fatigue shirt I wore—the only thing I had that was still dry, other than the scarf I had tucked into my waist, my mother’s gift to me on the day I left for Bukovina. Carefully removing her badly torn dress, her undergarments, and soaked shoes, I quickly dried her shivering skin with Mother’s scarf and wrapped her in my shirts. I pulled her close so my body heat would warm her, wrapped us in my coat, and covered us with my poncho. With nothing to put on her feet, I pulled her legs up tightly to her chest and grasped each ice-cold foot with a hand, then gently massaged her feet to bring warmth. I felt life slowly dribble back into her.

The rain grew heavy, falling but a few feet away. A strange sensation of relief came over me—the dreadful rain now provided protection, a cover for our tenuous hiding place. Pressed together as one, warmth mingled through our bodies. Life flowed back into her. Her breathing soon became steady, and I could see the pulse in her neck growing stronger. Her softly beating heart against my chest invigorated me. With my hands still holding her feet, I leaned over, my cheek pressed against hers—she was warm to my touch. I believed she would live and I prayed to God for his help because I had done everything I could. We would both be in his hands now, whatever his will would be. I was grateful—the first good thought I had in days.

She slept, didn’t move for several hours, then began to wiggle slowly, nearly imperceptibly at first, adjusting her arms, then her legs. Soon after, her eyelids began to flicker very gently, like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, gracefully stretching and testing its wings. It was a beautiful sight, perhaps the most beautiful I ever experienced before or after; a life emerging in a life-changing moment. She woke slowly, slipping surreptitiously past an anxious, dismal death so close at hand just hours earlier—saved by our bodies pressed tightly together!

I studied her face, endeavoring to soak in every movement and remember the slightest detail. Her hair nearly dried, and I could see that her left ear, just below my chin, was folded over just a bit—I would always remember that. Hers was a strong face, not what could be called an unusual beauty, but it was nonetheless attractive, even under the circumstances. New sensations coursed through my body. I wanted to remember everything. When she finally awakened, she was startled to find herself lying next to me and immediately realized she was not fully dressed.

Who are you? What are you doing to me? she crossed her arms over her bosoms and shrieked—too loudly. Are you a Russian? she shrieked.

Shhhh, quiet. I won’t hurt you. No, I’m not a Russian. I can explain, but you have to be very quiet so the Russians don’t hear you. I put my finger to my lips.

Hearing the word Russians, she recoiled, pulling away from me with a terrified expression, craning to look above toward the street, through the falling rain, as if to see them for herself and still not yet sure who I might be.

"Come quickly, get back under the poncho before you get wet again. I