“Come now, fraulein. There’s no need to fear. I am a doctor.”
Esther looked at her sister and then up at the doctor. He was smiling like a gentle grandfather. She felt suddenly foolish. Here she was in a foreign land, beaten, exhausted, starving, in constant fear of death, and yet still afraid to disrobe in front of a man. What more could they do to her? She turned to her sister.
“Come on, Sarah,” she whispered quietly in her sister’s ear. “We better do what he says.” She began unbuttoning Sarah’s tattered, filthy dress. Sarah did not move.
“That’s better,” the doctor said and then turned away to arrange his instruments on a rolling, stainless steel table.
The examination lasted about half an hour. It was awkward, invasive and uncomfortable but not overtly painful. The doctor spoke little except to comment on the scrapes and bruises he discovered on their naked bodies and to ask what and how often they’d eaten.
“You are not identical twins,” he said, a little disappointed, “but you’ll do. Your sister appears to be suffering from shock. I’d like to give her a little sedative, if you don’t mind.” He didn’t wait for an answer, picking up a syringe from his metal table and injecting it into Sarah’s bare arm. Sarah did not even flinch. The doctor put the syringe back on the table and removed his gloves. There was a knock at the door and then the bull guard appeared in the doorway with an evil smirk on his ugly face. He was about to enter but the doctor held up his hand.
“Well, my dear frauleins, it appears our time is up.” He put the empty syringe on the metal table and removed his rubber gloves. “Report back to me tomorrow, will you, before heading to the tunnels.” The doctor pushed his metal table into the other room, apparently oblivious of the guard who stood leering in the doorway. Esther grabbed her dress immediately to hide her nakedness, but Sarah lay naked and motionless on the bed.
The bull guard laughed. “Come as you are. It matters not to me.”
Esther dropped her blue dress and reached for her sister’s brown one. “Come on, Sarah.” She pulled her sister up to a sitting position and pulled the dress over her head. Then she grabbed her own filthy dress and slipped it on. She looked back at the guard, but he was no longer in the doorway. Was he waiting outside, allowing them this last shred of dignity? She felt a presence behind her and spun around. The guard was directly behind her. Panic gripped her. Would the doctor return if she screamed? Would he even care if the bull guard beat them right in his hospital or maybe even raped them?
“Don’t forget your boot,” the guard scorned, holding up the stolen leather boot in his huge, ape-like hand. “It cost you so dearly.” He dropped the boot and headed out the door, laughing.
Esther scrambled to finish dressing her sister, her heart still racing. The guard would not wait long. She knew that. She abandoned the buttons on Sarah’s dress and quickly dressed herself. The guard was already twenty yards down the path by the time Esther and Sarah reached the door. He looked back and swore at them in German. He was reaching for his whip.
“Come on, Sarah.” Esther dragged her sister through the doorway and along the path. She would not talk. She would not even respond. She would not let anything of this cruel world into her mind, not even her own sister’s voice. Maybe it was better this way, Esther thought. Block it out. Block it all out.
The whip flashed, its long, snake-like fangs seeking the creamy white flesh of Sarah’s partially exposed back, and for the first time, Esther did not step in its way. She stood aside and watched as the lash came down directly on her sister’s back, causing a thin line of red to appear almost instantly. A sound escaped from Sarah’s mouth—not a cry as such, more like an unnatural exhaling of breath, like the last gasp when a soul leaves a dying body. It was a horrible sound and Esther felt as if her heart would break.
The guard felt nothing at all, except a mild bewilderment that his weapon had not drawn forth the intended scream. He coiled it, ready to strike again, but by this time Esther had regained her sister’s hand and pulled her out of reach. The guard cursed them but did not hurry to follow.
The cave was not far away—a gaping hole blasted into the solid rock face. Esther couldn’t guess what it was for. A mine? A prison? The doctor called it a tunnel, but a tunnel to where? To hell? Soulless women were toiling at the entrance, loading jagged rocks into buckets, their hands bleeding, their eyes all the more bitter for their extra hour of labor. Henrik would never find her here. She was buried under a mountain in the middle of Germany.
And what would she do if he found her? Would she leave with him and abandon her sister? But these were just foolish thoughts. They were trapped behind miles of barbed wire and machine guns and he was only one man and a German. He couldn’t do anything. He probably wasn’t even looking anymore. He would never come. He’d probably forgotten all about her.
Esther looked up at the cave and all at once she knew what it was—a tomb. Despite what other purpose the Germans had for this ghastly hole in the ground, it would be her tomb, and she would never leave it.