Chapter 10

The following afternoon Bruno and his fellow guard burst into Anna's room.

"Get ready, Anna," the other guard barked. "We will be here to pick you up at three o'clock. You will be going to the suite of Lieutenant Albert Zimmerman. He's one of our great heroes who has just returned from Paris. We expect you to give him some excellent times. Do you understand?"

"Yes. I will be ready."

"Good. We'll see you then."

The two guards left and Anna immediately undressed, walking into the bathroom and taking a long bath. Several times she burst into tears, thinking about how truly lonely she was in Baden-Baden, many miles away from her father and mother. She kept wondering just how they were, whether they were still alive, and how badly they were being mistreated by the guards.

As for her, she cursed herself for engaging in self-pity. After all, she was at least being well fed and was being kept in a lavish hotel room of a German resort hotel. She knew that her beauty of face and form had been the only assets that the Nazi High Command had been interested in. She was really no more than a trained seal, just as Bruno had told her, but even though that was the case, she was in much better shape than most other Jewish people like herself who were within the control of the Nazis.

She took a long bath, then slowly dried off her body. Eventually she climbed into a robe and slipped into her slippers, sitting on the sofa and waiting for the two guards to appear.

They re-emerged at three o'clock precisely. They accompanied her to the elevator, then to the eighth-floor suite where Lieutenant Zimmerman was staying.

The guards knocked on the door.

"Please come in," the Lieutenant called out.

Anna's heart began to race with fear. Every time that she met a strange man that she knew she would have to engage in sex with, it made her feel extremely uneasy. The same had applied when she had met the Lieutenant Colonel. She had been pleasantly surprised over the fact that he was a basically gentle man, certainly a whole lot nicer than Bruno had been. She hoped that Lieutenant Zimmerman would be the same way.

Zimmerman was a tall, handsome man with light brown hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. He was decked out in full Nazi splendor, wearing his uniform, which bore many medals.

"Heil Hitler," he greeted the two guards.

"Heil Hitler, sir," they replied.

"So this is the young lady," Lieutenant Zimmerman smiled, walking back and forth in the room and sizing her up from different angles. "Are you wearing anything under that robe, my dear?"

"No."

"Very good," Lieutenant Zimmerman laughed, winking as he looked at the two guards. "I must say that whoever selected this girl had excellent taste. She's a perfectly beautiful woman."

"We feel that one of our heroes from France is certainly entitled to the best," Bruno exclaimed.

"Thank you very much. Well, if you gentlemen will excuse us, I want to get better acquainted with this young woman."

"We certainly understand," the other guard said.

"You'll be outside the room?"

"At all times," Bruno nodded.

"Fine. And thank you, men."

"Heil Hitler," they saluted.

"Heil Hitler," Lieutenant Zimmerman replied.

As the door closed behind the two men, Lieutenant Zimmerman walked over closer to Anna. She at least liked the fact that he was tall and handsome. As long as he wasn't brutal, she thought, then maybe she could tolerate having sex with this man.

"You may call me Albert," he said, "at least in private. I'll tell you if the situation changes."

"Yes, sir. Or yes, Albert."

"Better, my dear," he laughed. "I want us to get very well acquainted. The first thing I want to do is to pour a little champagne. You can pour it for us. This way."

They walked into an adjoining room of the suite, where there was a huge table. The Lieutenant sat down in one of the two chairs at the table. Perched atop it was a magnum of champagne. There were two glasses resting next to it.

"Pull it out of the ice and open the champagne," he said. "I was specifically waiting for your arrival. I like the fact that the Fuhrer believes in doing things in style. When he thinks that an officer has done a good job, he doesn't mind rewarding him. That Fuhrer is a very clever man, don't you think?"

"Yes, Lieutenant."

"That's Albert."

"I'm sorry. Yes, Albert. He is a very clever man."

"This is delicious champagne. You know, I brought it with me from Paris. I spent quite a few months there. It's a very interesting city."

"I've heard that it is."

"That's right, I don't suppose you've ever been there."

"I've never been outside of Germany," Anna told him.

He watched as she poured the champagne into the two glasses. She handed Albert one of the glasses, then retained the other for herself.

"To your health," Albert said, raising the glass in a toast. "Better yet, to our health."

They clinked glasses together, then devoured the champagne. By sipping the champagne with Albert Zimmerman, Anna began to feel a little less nervous about things. So far he had been a considerate and gracious man, very much on the order of Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Von Schumann. She hoped that his good conduct would continue, and that she could form at least a tolerance toward him. He was such a handsome man that, under other circumstances, she concluded that perhaps she could even like him. But after all, she thought, he was a Nazi officer and he was taking her in a captive sex situation. In addition, it had practically turned her stomach to listen to him speaking so glowingly of Adolf Hitler, the man who above any and all others on earth she despised.

As she took another sip from the champagne, lovely Anna began to think about how wonderful it would be if she could under any pretext get into Adolf Hitler's bedroom. She personally wouldn't care what the ultimate cost would be as far as she personally was concerned. If she could just get into a room alone with him, she would find a suitable means of killing him. The longer that she thought about it, the more wonderful the whole idea seemed to her. She thought about the lives that she could save if she could just wipe out this madman.

"You look like you're in a trance or something," the Lieutenant interrupted her reverie. "What are you thinking about?"

"Oh, nothing."

"It certainly looks like you're thinking about something. At any rate, I won't press any further. But just try not to daydream. It makes me feel self-conscious if a woman I'm with engaged in daydreaming. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yes, I do. I'm very sorry."

"No need for apologies," he laughed. "Just see that it doesn't happen again."

As the Lieutenant finished his champagne, he pointed toward his empty glass.