HEAVENLY WISPS

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CONSTANCE J. HAMPTON

Edition  HEAVENLY WISPS

©  201 8 Author  Constance J. Hampton

Publisher Hermesse James Boekerij,  The Netherlands

MMXVIII-IV

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Editor and part-translator (Dutch to English)

ALEX BLACKBURN

ISBN/EAN: 9789492980144

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Copyright/all author’s rights  201 8 Constance J. Hampton,

Hermesse James Boekerij

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Constance J. Hampton’s  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 nd 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 J. Hampton

Amsterdam 2018

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I  Ching Hexagram 49: The Revolution

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Mixed Signs: The Revolution denies a Status Quo

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The opposite is made possible only when the time is

right.

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You only become a Chosen One

once you

have earned

the confidence

of the whole of Mankind.

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You passwords  are:

Order and Clarity.

*

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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 di sadvantage, 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!

*

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*

A SHROUD

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“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  tempered  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

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Mixed Signs:

Only after Death through Sacrifice will there be

room for  the Blooming into a New Life.

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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  because 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 1939. 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 handb ag 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

Berlin-Spandau, 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 te eth.

“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. Lisa'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 job 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 hadfallen 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. S he  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 longer 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 lip s. 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 impossible 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 dres s 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

*

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I Ching: Hexagram 11: Well Being

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Mixed Signs :  When Heaven bends down to Earth

there will be a short time of peace

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Inner harmony can exist