A WISP OF HEAVEN

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C. HAMPTON JONES

Edition  A WISP OF HEAVEN

©  201 7 Author C. Hampton Jones

Publisher HamptonJones Books, The Netherlands

MMXVII-IX

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Editor and part-translator (Dutch to English)

ALEX BLACKBURN

ISBN/EAN: 9789492397324

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Copyright/all author’s rights  201 7 C. Hampton Jones,

HamptonJones Books, Netherlands

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C. Hampton Jones’ right to be identified as the author of

this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and

78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 198 8

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters,

places, and incidents are fictitious, and are not to be construed

as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead,

actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any

matter whatsoever without written permission, except in the

case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and

reviews.

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All rights reserved.

Nothing from this publication may be  reproduced, stored in a

database and/or made public in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, through photocopying, recording or

otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

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Everything in this book is fictitious (the invention of the author): any resemblance to actual or already deceased persons or situations, places or characteristics is entirely coincidental.

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I dedicate this book to all my wonderful friends of my former spiritual group in Amstelveen called Gateway and all the friends around it.

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I especially express my gratitude to my husband and friend for life:

Jan-Herman without whose help and patience with my projects this

book would never have been possible.

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Constance H.J. August 2016.

I Ching Hexagram 49:  The Revolution

Mixed Signs: The Revolution denies a Status Quo

The opposite is made possible only when the time is right.

You only become a Chosen One

once you

have earned

the confidence

of the whole of Mankind.

You passwords are:

Order and Clarity.

*

*

*

AIGUILLE DU MIDI

*

She crouched morosely on the icy deck, trying her best to stop her teeth chattering.

God in Heaven, she was cold! Her designer  jeans were practically frozen before her buttocks had even touched the icy ground.

She forced herself to stop thinking about the cold. She clutched her head with both hands, feeling as though she had an incurable hangover. Her jaw tingled while the inevitable 'afterwarp' migraine speared its venomous way into her brain.

“Eli, Eli...” she chanted softly.

Her friend Karlijn had taught her that sometimes the chant helped. Her friend who had, for many years, occupied a lonely grave in a cemetery in The Hague. Oh,  Karlijn! You reaped the nasty rewards of playing with things you were not ready for…

Lucinda tried to refrain from shivering. That thought was pure arrogance from her part, she knew. Who was she to judge Karlijn’s motives?

The chant had been Jesus' lament on the cross, when he had called upon his Father in Heaven for deliverance. Not that Karlijn had seen more in Jesus than only ‘another spiritual guide’. She had been adamant that the meaning of  Jesus was no different from Buddha or all the other spirits known world-wide.  Lucinda had never known  where and

with whom Karlijn found her spiritual solace. Karlijn had

her own ideas about gods, devils, monks, vampires, and

angels.

Lucinda had often despaired about Karlijn’s wayward

ideas. She had even expressed her concerns to Royal  Riek;

the woman who she thought was Mary, Jesus' mother, in a  distant past life.

“Karlijn will get herself into hot water if she carries on  like that!” she had anxiously declared.

Then she had blushed. Who was she to criticize Reiki-

master Karlijn? Lucinda was at that time only a newcomer  to the spiritual world of the Rieken, the Karlijns and the  Rolandas. She was the youngest present and she was  supposed to know nothing! Nothing!

Riek had looked at her in alarm. Lucinda knew that

Riek, for one reason or another, always held her in high  regard.  Riek with her strange  antics had always taken  Lucinda for who she was: as a newcomer in the spiritual  circle of the women, Lucinda was not troubled by 'hang- ups' and prejudices. It made her feel even more of an ugly  duckling, although Riek had joked that  she was actually  the swan among the ducks.

“If she carries on this way she'll become very ill, Riek!  Someone should warn her!”

The corners of Riek's mouth, along with her shoulders,

drooped.

“Things are as they are, sweetheart. There will not be an  easy way back for Karlijn... She knows what you think, of  course, but she does what she wants.”

“I hate being right!”

Lucinda had gritted her teeth as the beautiful, gleaming  white coffin was slowly lowered into the deep grave. She  had wanted to add a resounding “Goddamn”, but her  respect for the universal Great One had grown over the  years to extraordinary proportions, now that she knew  what she knew, so she prudently kept her sacrilege to  herself.

Now, years later, all that was left was Karlijns chant...  Eli! Eli! And that chant was derived from the one Great  Spirit to whom her heart always seemed to go out to again.

Damn.

-

He found her huddled against the icy railing.

“Luce?” he asked, concerned.

She grimaced at him through the slits of her eyes.

“Damn, not again, eh?”

He stuffed his big hands into the pockets of his ski jacket.

“Or was it the Chablis?”

She shook her head, while her  strange  brown eyes tinged with blue,  filled with tears.

“I'll send the  heli  to the middle level,” he said gruffly,

“Jean-Paul will pick you up there. I'm going back inside.”

He turned brusquely around, but changed his mind in  the same moment. He kneeled beside her, immediately  regretting his less than gentle reaction, and kissed her  softly on the lips.

She was his star, his lead- star. He always seemed to  forget that so quickly of late!

“Your face will freeze at this altitude...” he muttered,  catching a tear on his finger.

He smiled at her, joking: “Shouldn't you be used to  living in higher planes?”

“I don't know...” she whispered with difficulty. “Those  damn warps! I wasn't expecting to have one here, but  straight away in the first lift I began to feel so nauseous.  I'm sorry, love. I'm simply no longer like most women!”

He chuckled bitterly. Wasn’t it true that every advantage  has a disadvantage, just like every disadvantage has an  advantage?

“Jean-Paul will take you to Geneva. I'll come later!”

“Red high heels later?” she asked innocently.

“Mm, you've given me an idea!” he grinned.

“You'd have to be crazy to come up here in red high

heels. Typical!”

Lucinda heard a nasty tone in her otherwise melodious

voice.

“Oh, come on now!” he mumbled guiltily, reaching out  to help her on her feet.

He supported her to the icy tunnel and beckoned Jean- Paul.

“I had a surprise for you, but it can wait. I'd rather see  tears of joy in your eyes than from a headache!”

“Oh,” she replied regretfully, “did I ruin another  surprise?”

She stared at his long, straight back as he walked away  and heaved a deep sigh. It was so difficult not to love him  to distraction, even when someone else, who was wearing  red high heels at 3950 meter altitude, was probably  waiting impatiently for him to return to the restaurant. The  stupid woman!

*

*

*

A  SHROUD

*

“I just don’t know how you always get things done,”

she remarked, looking around cautiously.

André shrugged with glistening eyes.

“You know money opens all doors, right? It also works

with garage doors in cardinals' basilicas.”

He grinned at Lucinda.

“We were driving around and around in very busy

traffic and now we're in a multi- story car park that is

almost completely empty. And luckily high enough for

your doors.”

She indicated the lifted doors of André's Ferrari.

“Are you ready?” André asked.

She furrowed her eyebrows.

“You still haven't told me what we're going to do.”

“I want you to test something for me.”

He turned away from her and walked to the elevator

shaft.

“Test something?” she repeated blandly, walking fast to  catch up with him on her wobbly Jimmy Choo’s. She  hoped she would not sprain an ankle on the damn things,  but she knew better now than not succumbing to his fetish  for high heeled shoes.

He nodded while he pressed the button for the third  floor.

“The Chevaliers have asked me if you can test

something for its veracity.”

“Here in the Duomo of John the Baptist?” she asked,

“but, that's... that's where the Shroud is!”

“Unusually sharp of you!” he laughed, “I believe that  we have to go this way. Ah, the cardinal’s secretary  himself!”

“Do I have to kiss anyone's ring?” Lucinda asked

uncertainly.

André suppressed another grin.

“Cara did not say anything about kissing rings.”

“Cara?” asked Lucinda, “What does she have to do with

the test for the Chevaliers?”

“Nothing,” replied André while they followed the

secretary of cardinal Poletto, “but she is the only one in

the family who is a practicing catholic and not divorced.

She arranged this visit, with the help of an enormous

donation, naturally, for repairing the roof of the Shroud

Chapel.  It was practically destroyed by a fire in 1997.

Appropriate, don't you think?”

Lucinda nodded speechlessly. She caught herself

thinking that even after six years of marriage to André she

was still not used to the power generated by the great

fortune of her in-laws and her husband.

“What is also appropriate...,” André opened a door for  her and let her pass, “…is that this Duomo is devoted to  Saint  Andreas.”

He winked at her.

“Where are we going?” she asked, still impressed, as  they zoomed up another few floors in an entirely stainless  steel elevator.

“To a fireproof vault that was purposely designed after  the fire in 1997. The Shroud seems to attract fire. Not a

strange thing, as it’s the Devil’s element. I think we're

there. Shall I leave you alone with it?”

She looked sideways at her husband.

“I know that you're not really a believer, and probably  not so acceptable after all your divorces, but I know you're  burning with curiosity. Just come along! The guardians of  the Shroud are not apt to leave me alone with it, so I don't  see why you can't also have a look.”

She stared down at a linen cloth streaked with brown

from fire and water damage.

She gripped André's hand tightly.

The guardians of the shroud, a few high-ranking priests,  watched her severely. It was  forbidden for her to touch  anything. The guardians wore white gloves themselves,  even though the Shroud lay under armed glass in a special  rectangular chest, and could be mechanically moved in  and out of the vault as a whole.

“Oh, my heavens!” she whispered, pressing a hand to  her temple.

She felt the warp -migraine and the accompanying  sickness coming on.

“Alright, dear?” asked André, holding her by the waist.

“A chair,” she moaned, “I’m having a warp. Oh André,  there is no doubt about it! It was His.”

André sat her carefully on a nearby chair. From there  Lucinda stared at the rectangular box in rapt fascination.  He studied her face unobtrusively. Another warp? She once explained to him that warps were periods that made her hover outside any time-period. Hence the bodily reactions. Which did not make any sense to him at all.  Truth be told: nothing ever made sense with Lucinda. He knew of course that was why he had always been attracted to her and always would be.

“What did you mean ‘it was His'?” André asked

curiously.

They were back in their suite at the Principi di Piemonte

hotel, seated on a comfortable sofa.

Lucinda seemed to be slowly coming out of her last

warp-reactions.

“It is... I'm not supposed to tell anyone...” she

stammered.

“In the same way that you're not supposed to talk about  The Hierarchy?”

There was a hint of mockery in his voice. Lucinda knew  that he resented the fact that she withheld some spiritual  secrets from him, but some commandments about those  secrets were set in stone.

“Apart from  that, it's so strange.”

“Nothing human is strange to me!” he quoted, taking  her hand.

She lowered her head.

“I was there, you know, in a life with Him.”

He nodded. Gradually, during the years of their marriage, she had taught him about reincarnation and her firm, deeply-rooted ideas about it.

“Don't tell me that you were Mary Magdalene in a former life!”

She laughed half-heartedly.

“No, not Mary Magdalene. Someone else. I believe without a doubt that I knew Him in His life on Earth. I felt

His presence  still in that cloth. No wonder that Hitler wanted it!”

“What did Hitler want with the ultimate artifact of

Christendom?” André asked. “As far as I knew, he loved everything Aryan and all that was rooted in Norse and  Celtic myths.”

“He also stole the Lance. Maybe he believed that the  artifacts would make him invincible. He was enormously  superstitious. Why did you want me to see the Shroud?”

Lucinda was happy to find that she was slowly  starting to feel better.

“The Chevaliers appreciate your judgment, you know  that. If we ever accept a woman into our midst, you are  likely to be the first. Be that as it may: we have received

an offer to test the recent discovery of a different artifact.  In all probability it's Celtic, but it takes months to properly  test authenticity and we want to buy it quickly if it's real. It  is a large golden cauldron. Some people think that it's the  Grail, but it seems more likely to be the Cauldron of  Abundance created by the Celts.”

“Oh!”

Lucinda clutched at her head again.

“Great God, André, are you doing it on purpose?”

He kneeled in front of the sofa and took her head in both hands.

“Does this reaction mean it's real?”

She barely managed to shake her head.

“No,” she ground out, “a warp... again!”

*

*

*

CHIEMSEE

*

The woman pulled on the collar of her mink fur coat. It was freezing cold and she regretted that she had not thought to put on a warm woolen scarf to protect her face.  Everyone knew that fur coats weren't made to keep the wearer warm, due to their unfortunate fashion design, but to show that one had status.

She peered along the stone wall of the hidden boathouse and saw that Hans was straining under the weight of the large cardboard box.

“Hans!” she called softly, “I'm here. Put that thing in the boat. Quickly!”

Hans threw her a quick look.

“Nearly done, ma'am.”

He carefully placed the huge box in the front of the rowing boat.

“On the bow, Hans, then I can handle it more easily!” she urged her loyal butler.

“I'm going with you!” Hans put determination in his voice.

He was not going to let his seventy year old employer row all alone on an ice cold lake in the middle of the night.

“Hans, I don't want you to know anything about what

I’m up to. It is much too dangerous!”

Hans clenched his jaw shut. He was not going to stand there and argue with her. He was already far in over his head, so what difference would this last trip at the

Chiemsee make?

He shook his head.

“Two can do this better than one, ma'am.”

“If he ever finds out that I dumped it here with your

help, we will die a gruesome death!” she warned him.

“Why is that thing so important to you?” Hans asked.

She laughed bitterly.

“That thing only interests me because  he values it so.

He told me himself, that bloody murderer!”

Hans tried to suppress a shudder. No one, absolutely no

one, dared to speak about the Führer in such a fashion.

She gazed suddenly at the path where the DKW,

borrowed from the gardener, was parked. Had she heard

someone?

“Quickly!” she commanded.

They could argue later about her reasons for sending

Hitler into a fit he would not easily come out of. Ah, she

knew the villain so well! Some justice would be served!

*

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RETURN TO BERLIN (1943)

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I Ching hexagram 41: The Sacrifice

Mixed Signs:

Only after Death through Sacrifice will there  be room

for the Blooming into a New Life.

*

Evil shows itself

High as a mountain

While the Heart drowns

In the depths of the Black Waters

the Soul soars.

*

She had to walk the entire way from Wannsee to  Monbijou. There hadn't ever been a good connection between Wannsee and the neighborhood of villas where her grandma  lived; for the simple reason that none of the villas’ owners ever had to use public transport.

To her enormous disappointment Hans hadn't been waiting at the Friedrichstrasse station with  the car. She had searched between the remains of the roof of the big station and the bombed streets, but Hans, grandma's legendary

butler and chauffeur, was nowhere to be found. She had  wondered if her telegram, sent before she boarded the train  in Travemünde, had been delivered at all.

Grandma's house was situated in a corner of the stately  section of Grunewald. It had indeed been best to get off at  Wannsee, but that didn't mean that she didn't have to walk  quite a distance to get to the gate of the villa.

She counted herself lucky that there was still a  connection from Friedrichstrasse to Wannsee as so many  Allied Forces’ bombs had fallen on Berlin recently.

Grandma's father, great-grandfather Friedman, had the  villa built in Grunewald after he'd become rich from

investing heavily in the German steel industry of the  Ruhr Area. Lisa remembered him as an almost comical,  mustached, somber, and domineering man who always  walked around dressed in a black long-tailed suit. He was  always very dignified, his only known extravagance being  his marriage to Elisa Meyer, the beautiful Jewish daughter  of Eli Meyer, the “dealer in everything, but mainly gold.”

Sarah Friedman, her grandma, was their only daughter,  much to the chagrin of great-grandfather Rudolf Friedman,  because he’d never had a son to inherit his great empire.  He had been unimaginably and unwaveringly patriarchal.  As far as he was concerned, Grandma was there to behave  and be obedient.

Grandma Sarah was never really bothered by her domineering father. She had even dared to marry the handsome blond Dutchman Thomas Vellinga, with whom she had fallen deeply and irrevocably in love when he visited her father for business in Berlin. Thomas was an

unruly Dutchman, who lived far away from Berlin in  Rotterdam. When  he died at fifty-nine Grandma Sarah  returned to her parental house ‘Monbijou’ in Grunewald.

Her daughter Elisabeth, at that time already married to the ship-owner Jan Voerman, stayed in Rotterdam, with her two children Lisa and Hans.

Lisa put the suitcase down to change hands. She sighed dejectedly. The whole journey from Travemünde to Berlin had been decidedly difficult.

Grandma had sent her to a distantly related German cousin on her father's side when the first Allied bombs

started to fall on Berlin.

Grandma had asked her to come to Berlin in 1939, for the chance to have a come- out in the German high circles.  Grandma's timing seemed in a way perfect: the Germans conquered Rotterdam in 1940 and since the bombing the city was reportedly still in chaos. The city underwent hard times, not least because of the frequent abduction of workers for the German Arbeidseinsatz, Adolph Hitler’s slave work force.

Lisa's parents, who realized what it would mean for a girl to have a Jewish grandmother and a German grandfather in those times, were happy that Grandma wanted to have her with her in Berlin.

Her father’s shipping company had been sitting idle in  1939 due to lack of orders. Father was at least wealthy enough to maintain their household in their Kralingen villa,  until eager Germans confiscated the house in 1940.  Father, Mother and Hans had been forced to take refuge in  IJsselmonde, where their uncle Dirk Voerman owned several small houses for his laborers.

It was a somewhat difficult transition from the spacious

villa to a small house consisting of only three rooms, but  Lisa’s parents counted themselves lucky with their new  house.

Jan Voerman was happy that he had never boasted about the German origins of his wife, due to the fact that he had married her only two years after the end of the First World  War. The Dutch, despite their neutrality in that war, quickly stopped being very impressed with anything  German. If anyone wondered about his wife’s slight accent, he told them she came from Limburg: people there speak a mix of German and Dutch.

Uncle Dirk let his brother the small laborers -house, but he always remained nervous about it. His sister-in-law was admittedly only a quarter Jewish, but according to the  Jewish laws she was considered to be fully Jewish becaus e being Jewish is determined through the female line of descent. What's more, Lisa’s mother's parents were definitely German. In the occupied Dutch Provinces nothing could be worse during the Second World War.  Elisabeth’s mother had stopped practicing the  Jewish faith a long time ago. The day Elisa Meyer married Rudolf  Friedman she did away with the Torah and all of its complicated and restrictive rules. Her father Eli had watched those developments with sorrow, but since the death of Sarah's mother there was no dealing with Elisa on

the subject.

The financially beneficial marriage came as a gift from  heaven for Eli, and when the Jewish community began to  exclude him he considered it with characteristic Jewish

resignation.

“Oh yes, a daughter with an unfortunately stubborn

mind! These children with their modern ideas…” he

tended to complain to Rabbi Pratzman. He would then  provide the synagogue with a sum of money, not too  much, but enough to pacify the Jewish council. Of course,

the situation caused him some pain in his heart: a Jew

should always be a Jew!

The population of IJsselmonde didn't cooperate  wholeheartedly either. In those dangerous times every  ‘new’ family was viewed with suspicion, especially a  family that came to live in the Mosermans’ house. The  Mosermans had been put into a German truck one night  and were never seen again. Everyone in IJsselmonde  harbored suspicions about the fate of the Moserman  family, but they refrained from speaking them aloud.  Whatever might have happened to the Moserman family  caused pity, but also fear. With the Germans you never  knew. People knew too much about preferential treatment  and betrayal. How brave can one remain if you have kids  to keep alive while your husband is gone; in hiding or  taken away for the Einsatz somewhere in Germany or  beyond?

Elisabeth was seen as an outsider in IJsselmonde and  the story of her origins in Limburg was only half believed.  No, it was better to stay out of the way of the Voerman  family, even if they were somehow related to the family  who provided half of IJsselmonde their livelihood.

-

Lisa had been anxious during her journey, but fortunately inspections along the route had not been frequent. For the benefit of any prying interrogators, Lisa had concocted a story that she was  travelling to Grunewald to work there as a housekeeper. Everyone should be able to understand that the grand old lady of the family of

Friedmann Stahl needed the caring company of a sprite young and active woman. Fortunately, neither Lisa's surname Voerman nor Grandma's name Vellinga-Friedman

aroused any suspicion among the conductors and other  train-inspectors.

Naturally, mother Elisabeth had never found it  necessary to adorn her clothes with the yellow and black  Star of David. She already was a quarter Jewish against  her will, and her children, in her opinion, had nothing at  all to do with it. Moreover her own mother was, according  to the new German law, a 'Halbjude' and therefore not  governed by the same rules as the 'Volljuden', especially  because she had entered into a so-called 'mixed marriage'.

Apart from her beauty, Elisabeth had also inherited the  good sense of her mother and grandmother, and her  decision about the Jewish star always filled her with a  sense of righteousness.  Lisa drew another sort  of  attention during her journey that had nothing to do with  being Jewish or not: she was inordinately attractive. Apart  from that: most Germans were too busy with the news of  their Führer’s wars, the Allied bombings, and the  mobilization for Russia,  - where the battle for Stalingrad  had begun at the start of the year and was seemingly  quickly turning into a disaster for their admired leader.

Lisa remembered how sad her mother had looked when

she had eagerly taken up her Grandmother's offer to come  over in 1 939. Lisa had just turned eighteen and she hadn't  yet attached herself to any boy in the Netherlands.

The Dutch boys in Kralingen, who were eligible enough  in mother Elisabeth's eyes to be allowed to come and court  her daughter, had something else on their minds when it  seemed that a full scale war might be looming. There was  always the nagging factor of Lisa's German origins. No,  Lisa most likely had nothing to lose by trying her luck in  Berlin. Being half-Dutch in Berlin was always a better  combination than half-German in Holland!

During her train journey, Lisa had looked anxiously at the sky. The Allied bombardment of the German ports and the Ruhr Area were daily occurrences. She could only pray and hope that her train would not be hit by a bomb.

It was  an unpleasant surprise for Lisa that she couldn't find Hans with Grandma's black Adler at the

Friedrichstrasse Station. She had been forced to find out at

what time the urban train to Wannsee departed and  discovered to her chagrin that the offered timetable did not  exactly correspond with reality. Although she had arrived  at the station at half past one, it was late in the afternoon  by the time she was able to secure a place on the tramway  of the South line.

-

After Lisa had turned down the wrong street for the third time, she put her suitcase down in the grass of the large oak- and linden-tree-planted avenue. Panting slightly, she sat on her suitcase and fiddled with her low black

pumps, which, due to the scarcity of the war, she had been  wearing for almost two years. She decided to take off her  headscarf and shook out her full red-brown locks, which  danced over her shoulders. She reached into her black  leather handbag for her powder compact box with mirror.  In the mirror a slightly sweaty and tired face gazed at her.  Small pearls of sweat beaded above her full, rosy red lips.  Summer had come early this year and it was an unusually  warm May evening. There she sat, somewhere in the  middle of Germany, a country that was at war with her  own, while it was also the home of her ancestors. She was  twenty-one years old since April 25, 1943, which was only  a week ago. She narrowed her grey eyes against the still  abundant rays of the setting sun. She would like to take off

her heavy, lined raincoat, but that would mean  she would  have to carry it on her arm. She decided that it would be  best to keep it on and rose stiffly.

Lisa had always been a little plump, but the time in  Travemünde had not been a stay of milk and honey. There  had been food to eat, but she had not been able to indulge  in such luxuries as candy and sweets. Her plumpness had  disappeared like snow in the sun. Her love for rowing on  ‘das Meer’ had given her a long muscularity that definitely  looked good on her. It was not really in keeping with the  fashion of the time, but who would think of fashion-trends  in a country at war anyway?

She swiped her grey pleated skirt and resumed her  journey with a sigh. If only she was already there...

-

The fat man with the heavy double chins delightedly tapped his cigar while speaking into the telephone’s mouth- piece.

“So, you found the damned old Jew?” he shouted into the phone. “Her servant too? What, resistance? What was that idiot thinking? Huh? Beaten up? What do I care about his Aryan appearance? Huh..? Well, it’s entirely up to you... Just put that Friedman on a transport, and do it immediately! And the house? Well done, the  Stadtscommandatur will be proud of you!”

Pleased, he put the phone back on the hook. He laughed harshly and could not resist rubbing his fat  hands together.

“Right, Sarah Friedman,” he muttered, “that was just between you and me!”

He sank into deep thought. He had always known that there was something amiss about the origins of the  Friedman family. But, as long as he harbored hope of an alliance with Sarah Friedman and her fortune, her secret

had been safe with him. Ten years ago Sarah Vellinga,

born Friedman, had moved heaven and earth to get into the  archives of the municipal administration of Berlin in order  to falsify her mother’s civil status. Her falsifications had in  the end not been necessary: the records were destroyed  during a recent bombing.

And let's face it, he thought with a grin, everyone knew  about Rudolf Friedman. The press covered that marriage  extensively more than sixty years  ago. Romantic nonsense,  of course! That Jewish Meijer-bitch had steel magnate  Friedman by more than his hair. You only had to look  through the old newspapers to find out about her Jewish  background.

She must have thought she was safe, the tramp...

Bitterness welled up within him when he remembered  the humiliating way in which Sarah had responded to his  proposal. It had been a few weeks ago at a splendid dinner  at the State Chancellery, with all the highest-ranking SS  officers. It had been difficult enough to get her to attend it

- she rarely accepted such invitations. And then she had  been chatting for hours with a guy from Grüppentransport,  an almost nobody in a room full of people who shone like  diamonds.  All of the Reichsicherheits Hauptamt’s highest  officers had been there, for God's sake.

She had laughed when he had found the courage to ask  her. She had screamed with laughter!

“Not if you were the last man on earth,” she'd said, “I'd  rather take a woman!”

Oh my God, the memory!

He leaned far back in his  wood-and-leather desk chair.

Power is so delicious! One phone call from him to the  Juden-Referat of the Gestapo and Sarah Friedman’s time on this Earth would be up. It had been a great idea to

shadow all she was doing. She’d almost escaped him in  that car she borrowed from that gardener. God knows what  business she had, going to that Chiemsee, but he had  managed to have her dragged away from that spot,

together with her Aryan butler!

Tomorrow he would inspect that house. From now on it  would be  his  house,  with everything in it. He could hardly  wait, but if he went today he might raise suspicions.

Who distributed everything at the

Vermogensverwaltung again? Karl Guttmann?

He grinned when he heard Guttmann’s measured voice  on the phone.

“Hi Karl,” he shouted  into the mouth-piece, “I just need  to know something, my friend. On which list is that Jew  Friedman’s house? I want to bid on it!”

He felt hot anger when Guttman replied that he didn't happen to have that list and that he would ask his secretary to find it for Herr Doctor Meister Lowenau.

“Dammit, Guttman, you must know how urgently bids have to be placed?”

He almost spat into the phone. He, the Staatsanwalt of  Berlin, and then to get such answers!

The following remark almost caused him a heart-attack.

“Herr Doctor Meister, the house has been recovered by the housing department of the Reich Chancellery...”

Guttman deliberately paused after that remark. Giving  Herr Doctor Meister Lowenau, Staatsanwalt of Berlin, the deception of his life was something to be savored.

With the “What did you say?” from Lowenau, Guttman almost chuckled his reply: “Herr General Heinz Guderian, of Germany's second cavalry division of the Wehrmacht, will need the house when he stays in Berlin, when he is home in between battles.”

He further deigned to explain that the Führer himself had so decreed. Guderian’s nephew, who is a housing officer and quartermaster for the troops section of BerlinSpandau, would go over there as soon as possible to sort things out.

Herr Doctor Meister Lowenau's phone barely survived the force with which it was slammed down.

-

Grunewald was at least peaceful and rustic. Villas were scattered along the main road that led through Berlin's admired villa area. She lost her way a few times in the long avenues that all looked the same to her, but eventually she reached the imposing wrought-iron gates of

Grandma's house.

Great-grandmother Elisa had known what she wanted when she persuaded Rudolf Friedman to build a house in posh Grunewald. The Berlin high society  resided there after all, as well as the wealthier members of the Prussian aristocracy who wanted to have their pied-a-terre in

Berlin. Elisa had turned the residents of the neighborhood against her by naming her house Monbijou, after the old demolished city castle Monbijou of Frederik the Great,  (such arrogance!) but Elisa Friedman had been as stubborn as she was beautiful, and for many years she was the leader of the ‘cliques and chic’ of Grunewald.

-

It took a while before they reacted to her insistent ringing of the front door bell.

She had finally recognized the gates of Monbijou down one of the many avenues of Grunewald. The whole area had been miraculously spared from the bombing of the allied planes. Few villas showed signs of destruction. To her surprise, the beautiful wrought-iron gates with their

Renaissance curls were wide open and Grandma's Adler was carelessly parked by the center flowerbed of the front garden.

She wasn't surprised to see the two official-looking black cars with Nazi flags on the side. For years Grandma had tried to find her balance in a rapidly changing  Germany and in Grunewald you always drew a lot of attention; sometimes you had to howl along with the wolves in the forest.

Still, Lisa felt sudden apprehension. She looked around her with intuitive suspicion before hesitantly ringing the doorbell.

She was unprepared for the young German non-commissioned officer who opened the door.

He looked her up and down and then said haughtily:

“What?”

“I uh... Frau Friedman is expecting me. ..” she

stammered, uncertain.

Why did Hans not answer the door, or Sofia, the bell

girl?

“Umm...” the young man thought deeply for a moment,

sucking on irregular teeth.

“Come inside then, Miss!” he decided.

He looked appreciatively at the red-haired beauty in

front of him. He  had seen many beautiful girls in Berlin,

but this one took the cake in his opinion. He wondered

absently where in Germany her accent was spoken.

Lisa turned bright red when she noticed the way he

stared at her. She hesitated for a moment and then

followed him into the hallway. Her suitcase was left  standing in the doorway as the young man did not take it  inside for her.

Lisa's eyes widened: Grandma's usually tidy hall was in chaos. In the vestibule coats were thrown in a heap on the floor and the long Persian carpet lay curled in a strange arc, as if someone had lifted it and then thrown it down again.

There was no sign of Grandma, Hans or Sofia.

Lisa stopped abruptly.

The young corporal turned around and frowned at her.  Lisa looked coolly at him. He looked no older than twenty.  He had a pleasant face, with almost comic traits, which was caused by his pointed chin, slightly slanted eyes and curly hair, which peeked out from under his Wehrmacht

cap.

“Fräulein.?”

“I uh...”

Lisa hated to show him her uncertainty.

“I am here for Frau Friedman. She wants me to work for

her.”

Thumping sounded on the stairs.

“What is it, Rolf?” asked a cheerful voice.

An officer leaned over the upstairs railing and looked  down on the young woman with open interest.

“A visitor, apparently, Herr  Untersturmbannführer !”  Rolf responded while he jumped to attention.

“Himmel!” the officer replied. “What a nice find, Rolf.  Why are you here, Fräulein ?”

Without waiting for a reply he suddenly said: “Take her  to the side  study in the hall, before the Gestapo feels  compelled to interrogate her. And you both; keep your  mouths shut!”

Rolf nodded and pushed Lisa into a small antechamber,

opposite the stairs.

“Wait here  Fräulein and make as little noise as possible!  Those Gestapo men are a bunch of maniacs who might  make things very unpleasant for you.”

Whispering, he added: “It would be better to talk to my  boss, than to them.”

Bewildered, Lisa slumped down onto a chair in the  antechamber. The little space was a mess: the curtains  were ripped from the walls and paintings lay in a heap in  the corner of the room.

She had to keep her teeth from chattering at the remark that the Gestapo were in the house. Who had not heard the dark  stories of that secret police force, who apparently could dictate life and death in Hitler's new Reich? They were mainly concerned with espionage and... Jews. Lisa wondered if the Gestapo was in the house for that reason: because her Grandma was half Jewish. But Grandma had

been safe! She was the widow of a Dutchman of Aryan  appearance and Frisian origin. She was supposed to be a  Halbjudin, an enormously rich one as well. Grandma used  to say that the advantage of money was that it opened all  doors and closed all mouths.

Lisa bit thoughtfully on a lip. All in all she'd have to be very careful...

Rolf was still looking at her.

“Fräulein stay here until they're gone. They're searching

the upper floors of the house for eh... crimes against the

German Reich.”

His look seemed to transfer a warning to her.

“The  Untersturmbannführer  and I are here on orders

from the Reich Chancellery. The Wealth police started to  clean out the house, but now the orders are changed,  because someone else has to come and live here by order  of the Führer himself. It is a  famous general.”

In a confidential tone, he added: “It is coincidentally the uncle of the Untersturmbannführer!”

“Crimes against the Reich?”

Lisa turned white.

“Frau Friedman?”

“She hid the fact that she was Jewish.”  Rolf said curtly.

His training with the Hitler Jugend and then with the

Wehrmacht had always been focused on hatred for the

Jewish population.

“It would be better if you had nothing to do with her,

Fräulein.”

He stated it with concern, but also menace. Li sa's beauty made him milder than normal, but the idea that she might have something to do with the Jewess filled him with aversion.

“N... No...” stammered Lisa.

She knew she had to think hard.

“Frau Friedman hired me for her household. Uh... my  mother worked for her when she was still living in  Rotterdam. Frau Friedman felt alone and she was

helpless...”

She realized that the latter wasn't so smart to say to a

boy who had learned to despise Jews.

“I'm going to talk to the Unterstürmbannführer,”

concluded Rolf after thinking hard.

He knew his young boss would get to the bottom of

things and to deliver a girl, and such a good looking one,

into the hands of the Gestapo just because she had rung the

bell of a front door at an unfortunate time, was going too

far  for Rolf.

-

Kaj Guderian scrutinized Lisa harshly.

He had immediately gone to the antechamber after his unfriendly colleagues from the Gestapo had left.

Lisa was still shivering after hearing the Gestapo pass by the little room where she'd been hiding from them.

“My Hauptscharführer tells me that you came here as a housekeeper for the Jewess,” he said sharply.

Lisa was startled by the threatening tone in his voice.

“There wasn't anything much left to eat in  Travemünde,” she said weakly. “They gave me a chance...”

“What,” asked Kaj harshly, “to make Jewish food?”

Lisa protested feebly.

“No, no, to care for her! I am sure she had a cook or some such? Nobody ever mentioned Jewish food. I did not even know she was Jewish!”

She blushed as she gave those answers  to the officer.

Forgive me, grandma, she thought helplessly.

The Unterstürmbannführer frowned.

“Do you know how to cook and manage a household?  Even in a big house like this?”

When she nodded, his attitude changed.

“Nah, Liebchen,” he said suddenly, most definitely in a better mood, “then you can prepare a meal for us now and work temporarily for the Wehrmacht.”

He laughed when he saw the stunned expression on her face.

-

That night Lisa lost her virginity to Kaj Guderian,

Unterstürmbannführer in the Wehrmacht.

He had unceremoniously taken possession of her. He had brazenly stepped into her room and positioned himself on her bed, holding her down with one arm. Lisa had

chosen one of the largest rooms in the servant's quarters of  the house.

She understood completely that he was doing exactly  what he had planned to do with her from the first moment  he had seen her. She had only resisted him when he began  his rapid invasion into her maiden body, which caused her  a sharp pain. When he did not let off she tried to cope and  noticed that the pain gradually disappeared.

It surprised Kaj that she had still been a virgin.

“So, my Liebchen, I'm the first, am I not?” he gloated  afterwards, while he lit a cigarette.

After that first time he treated her with gentleness.

Apparently she had managed to win him over with her  innocence. She became his mistress: he gave her little  housework to do because he had summoned the staff of the

Intendance of Spandau.

She now only had to endure him in her bed, often several times a day.

The twenty-four-year-old Kaj Guderian was the only nephew of Heinz Guderian, General of a cavalry division of the Wehrmacht. Kaj got instructions to prepare the

Friedman house for the arrival of his uncle. Because he

had suffered dysentery during his training with the cavalry,  he had been temporarily placed at the Dienst Haushaltung.  In the course of the wars that led Hitler to conquer  surrounding countries, this proved to be an easy job and a  welcome solution for a young man who valued his life in  times of war. On the other hand he started to resent his job,  especially as his uncle had a shining military career to  show off and had even became a confidant of no one else

but the Führer himself. Kaj did not even care to explain

the non-existent rigors of his j ob to his friends.

Kaj hoped that a reunion with his uncle would bring something beneficial his way; German officers had died in droves in the battle of Stalingrad and with a bit of luck a place alongside his uncle seemed entirely plausible.

Meanwhile, he  enjoyed staying in the luxurious villa in  Grunewald as he normally had to live in rented rooms in  Spandau where most of the Berlin barracks were situated.  Life in Spandau was not really bad, although due to  Hitler's bloody wars the number of his friends there was rapidly decreasing. A lot of officers lived in Spandau with its numerous bars and brothels for evening entertainment.

Kaj had always had a lighthearted approach to life. He had a semi-aristocratic Prussian background. If it had not been for Hitler’s hunger for wars, his parents would have probably had him study at one of the country's famous universities. Now he was a career officer like his father’s

brother and he never worried about anything. The girl,  who had just been thrown into his lap, with her gorgeous  chestnut-red hair and blue eyes, enchanted him. She must  have the most beautiful legs and breasts in the district.

He liked to teach her how to please him. Little Lisa  wasn't as  averse to having sex with him as she had shown

that first night. It didn't matter a whit to him whether she

did it out of fear or self-preservation.

-

Lisa ultimately had to force herself not to sink into a deep depression. She was afraid that Grandma Sarah had fallen into the hands of the Gestapo, not just because she

was half-Jewish but also because she was the sole heir of a

gigantic fortune. She was convinced that the SS would  certainly know how to find ways to take all Grandma’s  possessions away from her. She  shuddered  when she remembered hearing of the  acts the SS  had  implemented to

completely destroy Grandma. She knew also that she was  powerless against them. She considered fearfully that she  was glad that she had a roof over her head in Berlin, even  if it meant that she had to share her bed with Kaj  Guderian. She knew by now that she should definitely  hide any and all evidence that she was one of the heirs of  Sarah Friedman's golden legacy.

In the day-time her terrible longing for her parents and  her brother in Rotterdam haunted her. She felt like

screaming when she remembered the distance between her  and her beloved family. She nurtured, morosely, very few  illusions that she would ever see them again. Lisa hoped  that she could escape whatever dire fate might await her as  long as Kaj used her as the object of his lust. In a matter of  days she had changed from an innocent pampered girl into  a woman trying to maintain herself in a crazy world. She

at last understood what men desired when they eyed a  beautiful woman and came to realize that she could use

her sexuality as a weapon in her struggle for survival.

-

A noise at her bedroom door startled her out of her

ruminations. She was sitting on the chair beside her bed  when Kaj entered her bedroom. Lisa saw that he was not  in the best of moods.

Kaj immediately put his  hand under her skirt and looked angry when he discovered that she had put on her panties.

“Verdammtes Weib! I told you that you have to be ready for me, every hour of the day!”

“I'm not some whore!” she replied angrily.

“Hah...” sneered Kaj.

He tore her panties off with a  heavy tug, rolled her onto the bed and thrust himself roughly inside her.

“Dirty whore...” he ground out, “Nasty bitch slave...”

His grunted words didn't shock her anymore. Rather, it embarrassed her that she felt a deep sense of excitement and at the same time an immense sense of power. She,  Lisa Voerman, alone in a crazy world, in a changing city, had Kaj Guderian in her power:  she was not the slave,  he

was  – a slave to his own lusts.

“You're going to go a long way, Lisa Voerman!” she  promised herself, closing her eyes at the delight of the  orgasm that was suddenly taking possession of her.

*

*

*

CHRIS 1

*

Lucinda van Noord stretched on the long chair that was covered with sheets and pillows.

“Do you think it would have made a difference if I had not been so filled with pride and a sense of power?”

Chris Lucassen smiled at her.

“Oh, yeah,” she laughed, “what do I think, right? The  therapeutic response.”

She sank into deep thought.

“I think it would not have made much difference,” she  said finally. “Pleasure is sinful, that's drummed into us, so  pleasure with a Nazi... Yes. Officially there should be  punishment, right? I think  that made the feeling of being  cheated worse, eventually, and the betrayal. But what was  happening was already  written, even the way it happened.  Just my way of interpreting the things, then, that was my  own thing... Whether I was a proud and power-hungry  sheep or a patient lamb, the slaughter would have been the  same, right?”

“Right?” asked Chris.

She sighed.

“It's easier to pretend that everything was fated in  advance, which makes me feel less guilty… a martyr.  Otherwise, I feel I have a great deal to blame myself for! I  gave myself to a Nazi and willingly let him  - them  - abuse  me. Well, at least one, in any case . And what happened  after that is my own fault...”

“Gee...” smiled Chris, “You're not here to talk about  yourself feeling guilty. You have to do away with it. With

everything you had, you couldn't change history in that

life, you could never wipe out Ravensbrück on your own.  You were a Part of the Whole. A particle of dust, a moment  in a moment. But I understand what you mean. Pleasure is  not very esoteric, at least not in that way. Especially not  when it takes you somewhere where you absolutely didn't

want to go...”

“But it still had a function,” she replied defensively, “it  helped to eventually make sense out of it, from then to  now... at least... It is the human factor.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“If you manage to think that, then you are probably  further than you think,” he nodded.

She plucked thoughtfully at her half-length red-brown  hair.

“How does it all fit in with what is predestined?” she

asked pensively, “I cannot stand the fact that the l onger I

think about it, the more confused it gets. And Above is

also  very sparing with answers...”

“Above?”

“Yes,” she shrugged, “what I call the Hierarchy, you

know.”

“Not really.”

She knew his interest was piqued.

“You're a seer...” he hesitated, “there  is no study for

‘seeing’, like a study to become a regression therapist...

How else does someone become a seer, than by

predestination?”

She smiled.

“I must confess that it is pure grace to be a seer. I  consider myself a seer in the Light.”

Her laugh was uncertain and she raised her finger  theatrically.

“Remember, it always gets more complicated, the more  I explain. My best friends always say that I have to start  again in the middle of my demonstrations because they  can't follow me anymore.”

She paused again.

“It comes down to this: we are all born with a package  in our head or our heart. One person gets a handbag, the  other a  briefcase and some have a trunk with them,  figuratively speaking. As with having a talent for  languages or a high IQ, I seem to have  been chosen to  have a very special package.

My gift is a very special one. It may sound boastful, but  I don't mean it that way. I have been given a little bit more  of that specific package in this life, because it is probably  intended that I do something with it. Whatever.”

She shrugged and continued with a wavering smile: “I  do not mean something like Jesus had to perform on the  cross. The intent of the things usually lies in a tiny corner.  You're lucky to find that intent before you die.”

She now smiled  broadly at him.

“Sometimes the result is not worth the method used to

obtain it. Maybe I have been given my fantastic gift just

to, let’s say, learn to formulate one specific sentence in my  head. To learn to understand one concept. And that would  then be the purpose of my life. Strange, don't you think?”

He frowned at her, but she continued without asking  him why.

“Getting a gift is always a grace. The mystery of the gift  is that it can also be taken away, if you've reached your  goal, or abused it in some way... You name it...”

She could not resist a naughty laugh.

“The manual is never the same. The gift is the  reciprocal learning process. You possess its end already,

but have no clue about the start. There lies my job as a  seer. Not everyone can just find the beginning or the  starting point. I have it in me to help people with it, but,  between the two of us, I just don't know if I really want  to.”

She pointed an index finger to the ceiling.

“Heaven helps me. I call that Heaven ‘Above' or

'Hierarchy’. I may  have contact with ‘Above’, at some times more easily than other times. At night it's usually easier than in the daytime, but unfortunately it doesn't work like, say, a telephone. It's not a question of dialing a number once you've picked up the earpiece. It's hard to explain. On the other hand, you have the adage that 'gods, angels and even the devil have a disadvantage compared to children of men.'”

She giggled when she saw his astonished gaze.

“You didn't know that?” she asked, “Gods, angels and devils can be called upon. If a child of man tells them they need to come, then they have to listen: they cannot but obey. We summon them more often than we think, although most people do not realize who they have called.  Just as well, really. Most people absolutely cannot handle such a visit. Even I can't always. What's more, Heaven can punish abuse.”

She contemplated her words for a moment.

“The largest part of my gift is actually that I call and He comes, my Master from the other side.”

“Jesus?” frowned Chris.

She shrugged.

“Maybe. I live in the Christ-energy, and thus it is easy to imagine that the Master is Christ. But if you're Malaya-

acc-al'Am, you live in that energy and if you are Buddhist,

the energy is normally similar to what you live in. You

might wonder who your master is. I don't think it's very

important to name the man behind the scenes.”

“Malaya what?” he asked.

“That's the Atlantic energy. There are so many.”

She fluttered her hands.

“About the calling: in Heaven we all have different  names. Everyone has his or her own karmic name. The  name is written on your karmic wheel, as it were, which  turns and turns throughout your life, until we reach  Nirvana. Something like the eighty- sixth dimension where  God lives.”

“Fantastic!” he sighed, “And you can reach it?”

“It's limited,” she muttered, “on a one kilometer road I  walk a maximum of five steps ahead of you. It still seems  to turn me into a visionary.”

He nodded and suddenly pointed at her chair.

“Thank you for your explanation, but you still have a

few things to solve.”

She reluctantly lay down on the chair.

“I always feel suspicious and threatened in this  position,” she mumbled, “and I don't even want to think  about what's coming next, let alone root around in it  again.”

The fear began to rise in her  chest like a big sour ball.

Chris leaned towards her.

“I will try to save you the details of the suffering,” he  whispered. “Some things are unnecessary. However, it is  important for therapeutic reasons that you go back into  some events, so you can view them again, but now from  the perspective of the person you are in this life, with  everything you have learned and gained from this  existence. To be able to process it, not to feed your fear.”

When he saw her frightened face, he said: “You can do it in a later session...”

She shook her head.

“Let's get it over with... Otherwise it'll be difficult for  me the rest of the week. No, Chris, I just want to get it  done...”

She wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and closed  her eyes to concentrate.

The hypnotherapist slowly began the exercise to put her  back in her trance, gazing with intense compassion at the  tears that already started to drip slowly onto her cheeks.

*

*

*

GRUNEWALD

*

I Ching Hexagram 1: Creation, 6th  poetry  line

-

If you suppose

To fly so  high

You will surely burn your wings

And crash down

into the deepest depths

*

The good life at Monbijou could, as far as Kaj was concerned, carry on forever. General Guderian was still too far away from Berlin to come and live in the villa.

Lisa had gradually taken the opportunity to avoid all household work in the villa. Kaj had enough people at his disposal to manage his uncle’s household. She never felt at ease among the servants affiliated to the Wehrmacht. They were all well past fifty, but that didn't protect her from their bold and contemptuous looks once they understood that the General’s nephew had taken a lover into a house that belonged to the Wehrmacht.

Kaj always took care that they had enough food and drink so she never had to ask a favor of any of the servants in the house. In the end she barely left her room.

She considered that Kaj wasn't such a bad man. Under all his pompous arrogance, seemingly characteristic of his

class and  rank hid a friendly young man. She was happy  that she obviously satisfied him enough that he didn't seek  his pleasure and companionship elsewhere as she saw him  every day and almost every night.

She read a lot: there were enough books in Grandma's  big office on the first floor. She also read as much as  possible to avoid thinking about herself. She was afraid  what her future might bring, while the past had no function  anymore in her daily life. She knew she was drifting, but  was at a loss how to change her situation.

One day she wandered into Grandma's office and found  a pack of Tarot cards. She wasn't sure what it was, or what  it represented but she understood that the pack had  something to do with divination.

When she turned the pack of cards it slipped out of her  hand and three of them fluttered into her lap. They

represented a picture of ten swords, an ace card, which

showed a down-turned sword, and a sinister devil's head.

With nimble fingers she put the cards back on the pile,

muttering to herself that it was lucky she didn't know the

meaning.

After several weeks  Kaj appeared less and less at

Monbijou. Sometimes he was gone for three days and

when he couldn’t come to Monbijou for official inspection

and therefore couldn't use an army car, he rode a

motorcycle.

His absence made Lisa very nervous: she felt the

constant threat of the sword of Damocles over her

relationship with Grandma Sarah more intensely when Kaj  was not at Monbijou. Her pride about her power over Kaj  vanished and was replaced with the obsession that she  wanted him near her. She wanted him to protect her from

the evils of a world that consisted only of an echoing

Monbijou and its scornful elderly servants.

-

One afternoon there was an impatient banging on her door and before she could get up from her chair the door flew open.

“So...” said the tall figure in a black leather coat which reached down to the shins of his boots, “Gudy’s  little love dove... Mm, not bad indeed! Come here, sweetheart!”

Lisa rose with mortification from her chair. With wide eyes she looked at the tall blonde German who entered her bedroom without being bidden. He had a long unsympathetic face. The eyelid of one eye was half closed, and bore a small scar. Like most officers in the Wehrmacht this man was clean shaven. His eyes were cold grey-blue spots, with irises like pins. She only dared breathe again when she heard Kaj's voice behind him.

“A dish, as I said, right Andreas?” she heard him ask.

He came to stand in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. Lisa wanted to respond happily to his arrival, but she saw with disappointment that all his attention was focused on the unsympathetic man.

Andreas sat down into the only other chair in Lisa’s room. He studied her without a word.

“Ach Gudy, so this is the piece of candy that you keep

hidden...”

Lisa shuddered at the  way he kept looking at her.

Kaj sat down on the bed next to Lisa's chair and began to kiss her with purposeful roughness. His hand disappeared under her skirt and he pushed her thighs apart.

Lisa struggled to get out of his ‘embrace’. She felt hugely embarrassed about the way he was treating her in the presence of the scary Andreas.

“Kaj, Kaj, wait a minute...” she cried out.

She suddenly remembered Kaj's penchant for schnapps  and exclaimed: “Where is the schnapps? Did you bring  schnapps?”

Kaj was immediately distracted.

“Sure, Puss,” he grinned.

He pointed at a cardboard box next to the door.

“Go get it.”

He hit her hard on her behind as soon as she got up and  the two men roared with laughter when she uttered a  squeak.

“Nah,  Andy?” asked Kaj when all three  of them were  clutching full glasses of schnapps.

“It's a pigsty here,” Andreas answered, studying the  room with disdain, “I can't even stand properly.”

He took a big gulp of schnapps, sent a keen look at Lisa  and licked his lips.

“Downstairs,” he concluded.

Lisa's eyes went wide with shock. The glass in her  hands trembled and she quickly took a sip. Best not to  show fear now, not in front of that creep, she told herself.

“There is a nice big room down the staircase,” Andreas  said. “That dirty Jewess slept there, but I believe they've  pretty much fumigated everything last time I asked. It is  better than this here, in any case.”

He nodded contemptuously toward Lisa's bed.

Lisa's breath caught in her throat as soon as Andreas  mentioned her grandmother.

“What happened with that woman?” she asked,

trembling.

Andreas' eyes bored deeply into hers. Then he laughed

harshly.

“You do not want to know!” he sneered.

Kaj was already at the door, clutching the box with the bottles, sausages and bread. They both stood  waiting for her, as if they feared that she would escape. Dizzy from the liquor and anxious foreboding she let herself be carried away by both men.

Since she had been in the house she had avoided  Grandma's bedroom. When Andreas opened the door, she closed  her eyes to the emotions that immediately started to overwhelm her.

Andreas pushed her immediately and roughly towards

Grandma's large semi-circular bed. When they fell on it together, his hand lashed out and started to grope under her blouse. Lisa tried to stop his rough handling of her by crying out: “Don't you want some schnapps first?”

He sat up with menacing eyes and grabbed a bottle Kaj held out to him.

After a long swig, he pushed the bottle against her lips.

“You too, sweetie...” he grinned, bumping it against her teeth.

Lisa drank with difficulty, while Andreas continued to twist the bottle. The alcohol burned in her throat and she

had to do her utmost not to cough or gag.

“Give me more!” she said, because she knew that this  play with the bottle was distracting him from his groping.

Kaj stared at her. Lisa knew that look so well; it was  usually followed by his rough and wild lovemaking.

“You first, Andreas,” he growled softly, “I have done it  with her numerous times. Take her from behind: she has a

nice fat butt!”

Andreas did not hesitate and started to pull Lisa’s blouse from her body.

Lisa blessed the schnapps. Her drunken haze made everything seem remote as if what they did to her was not

really happening or as if she was watching herself from a  distance without feeling any emotion. Her half-drunken  stupor meant that she couldn't care less: Kaj, Andreas,  Andreas or Kaj. Her fear was blessedly tucked away under  a blanket of alcohol.

“Let’s do something else,” growled Andreas after a

while.

He turned her on to the bed so that her head was now

hanging down over the edge.

“Come, friend,” he beckoned Kaj while he opened her  legs wide. He pushed his penis deep inside her.

Kaj  already with his trousers on his knees , kneeled in  front of the bed and held his hardened penis close to her

down-turned head.

“Open that mouth!” he commanded.

When she didn't immediately obey, he pressed her nose

closed with his left hand, pushing the head of his penis

against her opening lips.

“Suck, bitch,” he muttered.

Lisa was afraid she would suffocate. Tears came to her

eyes and she opened her mouth wider.

Oh, my God, what were they doing to her? Andreas was

working both his fingers and his penis in and against her

sheath, while Kaj was moving his cock fast into her

mouth.

She had to endure it, she had to, she had to! She had noticed that the schnapps had brought them into a dangerous, impatient mood, where all feelings were removed except for lust; hard, dangerous lust.

Both men were apparently determined to make a long feast of their use of her body. Encouraged by the large amount of schnapps they were imbibing, they invented the

wildest and strangest positions. Lisa was being rocked  back and forth between the two men like a lifeless doll.

“Oh, mother!” Lisa wailed and at last she fell into a  merciful faint.

-

The following morning Willi Tannhäuser, one of the house servants, found her. Lisa was rolled in a  bedspread that showed blood spots and stank of urine and feces.

He sprayed water on her face to wake her, studying without surprised the bruises that seemingly covered her body.

“Andreas Messer, for sure,” he muttered.

He held  basin of luke-warm water in front of her and

she dabbed her face prudently with a washcloth.

He gazed at her with an earnest expression and shook

his head.

“Andreas Messer is a butcher,” he said softly. “Gestapo

of the Juden-Referat. Ordnungsschule as well. Not

someone to have in your circle of friends, Fraülein.”

A sob welled up in Lisa's throat.

“I know, but what can I do? I have nowhere to go.. .”

The desperate words were thickly spoken from her

bruised and cracked lips. She remembered that Andreas

had beaten her on her face when she had not reacted fast

enough to his atrocious demands. She stared dazedly at the  many semen stains on the bed and noticed they were even  on the floor. Beside her lay an empty schnapps bottle with  blood caked on the bottle-neck.

“Fräulein,” warned the man, “I have found your photo

in this room. You are in danger.”

Lisa only stared into nothingness.

“Grandma!” she whispered, choking.

Willi pretended not to hear.

“Please,” he whispered, “take a bath and then go back  upstairs to your room... Nobody else knows you are here.”

When he saw her frightened, startled look, he said  soothingly: “They left early this morning. Go now, Fräulein, please...”

-

Kaj only returned to Monbijou after more than a week. He had still been drunk when he left the villa at dawn.

Andreas had apparently already left: Kaj did not even try to remember when his friend had gone.

With some trouble he had  ridden his motorbike to

Spandau through the warm, early-morning June air. Once there he crawled into his bed and only left it to throw up or urinate.

The memory of their debauchery of Lisa filled him with both shame and excitement.

That Andreas was really a pig, he remembered excitedly, when he was feeling a bit better in the late afternoon. He'd had many a good party before, but this beat everything! He remembered almost all the things he and Andreas had done to Lisa and as soon as he was up to it again he masturbated frequently under the covers of his own bed. He tried to ignore the fact that he thought more about the sight of Andreas in one sexual act or another, than of Lisa, who had most of the time been squashed between them, as if she was a rag doll.

After a week he received the instructions that he had

twenty-four hours to prepare the house in Grunewald for

the arrival of his uncle. He knew then that Lisa would

have to go elsewhere immediately! He grabbed a  motorcycle, as he realized it would be impo ssible to  transport her in a Wehrmacht car.

Lisa had not expected him to come to Monbijou that day. She had been lying in her bed, keeping herself away from the servants in the house, too ashamed to face them.  She was afraid that Willi Tannhäuser had been  eager to tell

the other servants about her mishaps.

Kaj wondered if she'd lost weight. He noticed that her

mouth and one side of her nose still showed the shadow of

bruises.

“You have to leave here!” was all he said.

He threw a cloth bag on the floor, and she quickly started to stuff some clothes into it after putting a dress on and using a piece of string to tie her hair into a ponytail.

“Verdammt, Mensch,” he cried out, annoyed by the panicked questions she asked him, “we cannot bring your damned suitcase on my motorcycle. My uncle will be coming today, so be quick, for God’s sake!”

Once outside, she snuggled close to his body on the motorbike and he felt a raging horniness coming up.  Cursing, he rode onto a dirt road somewhere outside  Grunewald and stopped next to a few bushes, where he supposed they would be hidden from view.

A flash of fear crossed Lisa's face. She struggled to keep it at bay and smiled seductively at him instead.

“Oh baby,” she whispered, “so you have missed me?”

She would do anything, anything, to keep him near her.  He was all she had in this crazy world.

“Here,” she whispered, lifting her skirt to her waist,  “here, on the bike! Do it, do it.”

*

*

*

SPANDAU

*

I Ching: Hexagram 11: Well Being

-

Mixed Signs :  When Heaven bends down to Earth

there will be a short time of peace

-

Inner harmony can exist

When Heaven seeks the Earth.

*

His rooms at Spandau were not very spacious and they

were a hopeless mess: empty bottles, full ashtrays, plates  with leftover food, clothes in heaps outside the cabinets.  Lisa immediately went to work while Kaj took the  motorbike back to the barracks: to trade it for a car. He had

already left the necessary instructions at Monbijou, but he  didn't want to leave anything to chance where his powerful  uncle was concerned.

Kaj's rooms were at the Riessenstrasse, one of the streets that led into a circular parallel to the great citadel, where the headquarters of the Wehrmacht resided.

Lisa imagined that she could breathe again. She was in the city and not in that villa with the now mainly bad and creepy memories.

She searched Kaj’s room in vain for cleaning products and in the end decided to knock on the door of

the