These weren’t normal circumstances, however. These days, nothing could be described as ‘normal’ even by her twisted standards. She was used to ducking the Stasi. Even after spending her time in the black cells, she had gotten used to flying under their radar, avoiding any untoward scrutiny. And yet, it appeared that she had finally rung her own bell. She had been warned. And now that she was in a different country, with different rules and different alleyways, well, it appeared that the devil had finally come to take his pound of flesh. She knew he was coming, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Yet, as the heavy boots tromped quickly after her through the foggy slime of the dark locales, she only wanted to stave it off just a little longer. She knew the wearer of those boots, and she knew what he meant to do to her.
“Vivika!” The whispering voice taunted, harsh in the cold air, “Oh Vivika!”
She feared him. She had feared him from the moment she had laid eyes on him. Victor was supposedly their lowly, mild-mannered tour manager. But she knew the truth. She always knew the truth that lay behind the eyes of men. He was a liar—a very talented liar, and precisely the opposite of the persona he had assumed. And as he called her name behind her in that annoyed-yet-triumphant tone, she knew there would be no more forestalling the inevitable.
“Vivika!” he menaced, “It’s been a long night, and I don’t want to play games. Show yourself.”
She knew it was the right thing to do: to just rip the band-aid off and let the chips fall where they may. There was no sense hiding; he would find her. There was no use fighting; his was the kind that could (and would) beat her to a bloody pulp and leave her for dead without a second thought. Her best chance for survival—now that she had run out of road—was to confront him and give him what he wanted. It would be better this way… even if not much better.
Shuddering, less from the cold and more from intense personal terror, she stopped and turned. Goosebumps spread like a rash on her skin as every second brought fate closer and closer like a knife’s edge slowly splitting the back of her shirt in two.
“That’s right,” he spoke from an ever-decreasing distance, recognizing that she had stopped, “no need to be uncivilized about this.”
“I… I…” she stammered, but no particularly helpful words helped her.
“Oh, don’t try,” he jested, as he came into view. “Talking isn’t your strong-suit, my dear.”
There he was: an otherwise handsome young man with otherwise beautiful eyes that flared wide with power. He smiled, but it wasn’t friendly… no, it was sadistic and triumphant. He smelled of victory and reeked of violence. Whatever he had spent the previous hours doing had emboldened him in no small way. He looked the way a wolf would look, paws wet with raw flesh and breath steaming from the kill. His eyes were wide with gore, and his memories were filled with the scent of the dead.
“Patrick…” she tried to start again. This was a mistake, and he caught onto her immediately.
“Shut your mouth!” he hissed. “You know the rules! On this side of the wall, we are different people, you and I.”
“W-we are in an alleyway… V-victor… what could our real names matter?” she whimpered.
“They matter. So long as you are alive, you will play the game, or else I will have no further use for you. And you know what that means.”
“Yes,” she answered, stemming the flow of fear that welled up in her throat. “Yes… I’m sorry. You are right… I do.”
“Good girl,” he said softly. “Now. We have much to discuss.”
“Wh-where are the others?” she said, attempting to buy herself some time. “I haven’t seen them since the show ended.”
“Oh, they… finally escaped to the West. You know, made a better life for themselves.”
“I’m happy for them,” she said. They were the right words to say, of course, but she knew better. She knew they were dead. She had known this would happen since she first laid eyes on their killer. And now it was her turn to suffer, “Did they… escape… painlessly?”
“Of course. I’m not a monster. I do what I’m told because I have to; not because I want to.”
“But you still…” she said, “uh… let them escape.”
“You know I have no choice. We can’t have folks sleeping in our country who sing the songs that they sing. The wrong song to the wrong set of ears, and it could jeopardize me and my organization.”
“But… you didn’t ki-… I mean, you won’t let me escape.” she caught herself.
“That’s because I like you,” he taunted. “I already told you. I’m never going to let you escape. You mean too much to me.”
She knew he was still speaking in code—but he wasn’t. The words burned like fire. Theirs was an arrangement of secrecy. She knew this, and she wanted to be thankful to him for it, but sometimes it was really, really hard to be. Especially once he moved towards her and started slowly kissing her neck.
“Victor…” she started slowly.
“Yes?” he said, as he nibbled on her.
Oh, how she missed the days when she could pretend she enjoyed this. Those days were now long gone. She couldn’t even convince him she liked it anymore. Yet that didn’t seem to deter him one bit. He may have been some sort of super spymaster, but he was a man all the same and men told themselves what they wanted to hear.
“…in… i-in an alleyway?” she asked, as tears and a familiar urge to vomit began welling up.
“We are far from home,” he said between kisses as he lowered the strap on one of her shoulders. “And this is the real world. No one here cares what’s happening to you.”
Schadenfreude
The van rolled slowly through Checkpoint Charlie, this time going the other way. Again, the American soldiers yelled crazily, and again the Germans yelled back. The word ‘back’ could perhaps be loosely used, as while the soldiers were indeed yelling at each other, it seemed to be more for appearances and personal entertainment than anything else. Indeed, everyone here seemed to be caught up in yelling about nothing in particular, for no apparent reason, as if this were the daily state of things. No particularly convicting reason could be found for all the pandemonium, and none of the van’s occupants seemed all that interested in watching intently. Although, Lena did catch one loud exchange.
“Knocking, knocking!” one American shouted in very bad German.
“What do you want?” a German soldier responded in his native tongue.
“Nothing, in joke!” the American responded, stuttering as if trying to repeat a phrase another soldier was giving him.
“What in the hell is wrong with you?!” the German soldier yelled in good English, “We speak English too, you know!”
“Well… then, knock, knock!”
“What are you knocking on? Are you calling me a name?!” the German soldier responded, obviously upset at whatever insult the American was levying. The response from the American was frustrated laughter and a string of poorly-formed German cuss-words that he had likely just learned.
“Knock, knock?” Lena thought to herself, “What the hell does that mean?” It must have been some sort of military thing.