Berlin blood

Winter came too quickly. Hilda, sitting in her office and taking notes, didn’t even have time to look back when the first snow turned into snowdrifts. The days just flew by. The girls had time to get comfortable, each fulfilling their duties. Hilda filled out the test subjects' charts, took notes, followed the doctor and recorded his every word. Hilda helped the doctor when he conducted experiments. There was no blood on her hands. Even when they were asked who wanted to do what, she was the first to express a desire to sit with reports and papers. She only saw how new prisoners were brought in from left to right, and from right to left they were taken to the crematorium. She didn’t try to remember them. It’s not her concern. In addition, the smell of death here is so strong that you need to go out into the air at least twice a day, otherwise you will suffocate. The cries of pain and agony that come from the rooms where the experiments are carried out are unbearable. For the most part, they ended in death, and it was the results of the experiments that became especially unpleasant for Hilda. At the moments of her dying screams, she went out to breathe the air, which was also saturated with smoke and ash. There was never any sun over the camp. Just ash clouds. Corpses were burned in pits dug in the camp day and night. All this is on the shoulders of the prisoners; the administration is only in command. Hilda gets the impression that the most inferior and failed people from all over Germany have gathered in the camp. And in order to somehow show that they are someone in this life, they mock the prisoners in every possible way and take out their anger on them. Hilda did not see any facets of human cruelty in this place. And everyone has their own way. One forces them to dig huge holes in the middle of the camp, and then dig them back in. And so a hundred and twenty times. For the day. Another is to exercise from morning to evening. The third is to move objects in boxes from place to place. And all these things have one thing in common: futility. People are dying in droves. They’re dying like flies. From uselessness. So days, weeks, months pass. Hilda finds herself lost in thought when a voice speaks: — Hilda, why are you sad? Let’s go to the dining room and eat,” Louise looked in after four o’clock. — Okay, let’s go, just quickly. I still need to work. — Oh, oh, since when did you become such a bore? — the girls went down the stairs. — Not at all, I’m just worried about Tilike. — Oh, that’s why you’re so sad? Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Soon he will come to you with medals. By the way, did you write to him where you are? — Louise opened the door to the dining room and her friend, who followed her, sat down at one of the free tables. — I wrote, but there was no answer. I am starting to worry. Maybe send another letter? — the girl picked up the tea that her friend put in front of her. — Write again. Tomorrow the newspapers will be delivered, we’ll see the latest news. — Well, yes. Do you think ours is doing well? — I think yes. Listen, if they come looking for me after lights out today, tell them you don’t know where I am. — What are you planning to do? — Hilda raised an eyebrow. — Nothing, I just want to have a romance with one officer. — Louise, are you crazy? Where are you going? No, you can have a romance, as you said, but if you have difficulties, you will have to sort them out yourself. Don’t even think that I will help you or intercede. Wrong place, wrong time. — Well, you don’t mind, purely theoretically? “Purely theoretically, no,” they rose from their seats. Approaching the exit, Hilda noticed how Mengele’s assistant was looking at her — carefully, looking from the top of her head to her feet. He is young and alive. His moon-like smile makes him mysterious. And the look beckons to itself, and after looking once, you can get lost forever. Hilda knows him and knows that he doesn’t care for her, but she rejects any of his attempts to show her any signs of attention. This man is a boy who has just graduated from university. Hilda remains loyal to Tilika, and Jakob is another reason she regrets getting involved in the war. Louise glances at her with envy. Wherever a friend appears, she is surrounded by men and showered with attention. Louise is not so lucky, she is not noticed, especially next to, as it seems to her, the more memorable Hilda. Why is everything to her? Hilde doesn’t need Jacob, but Louise likes him. Well, even before entering this fight, Louise knows that she will lose to his friend. “Hilda,” Jacob appeared out of nowhere, before the door leading to the dining room had time to close. — What are you doing here? You should be on duty, not loitering here. — Well, how could I not see you today? It would be a crime, I was waiting for you. — Are you going to follow me? Jacob, I went with a friend to have tea, and that’s because she invited me, you have absolutely nothing to do with it, I’ll immediately return to my workplace. Goodbye. — Hilda, wait! — Jacob shouted after the leaving girl. She is like the night for him — beautiful, but always slips away. Like the wind, like snow, which you can only admire, but not touch, snowflakes will definitely melt in your hands. He turned his gaze to Louise, who clearly expected that with the departure of her friend, he would pay attention to her. But the guy did not intend to do this. Despite all her efforts, Louise could not even get a little closer to her friend, who had been popular from the very day she arrived at the camp. Jacob is not averse to having an affair with her friend, but he does not want to give false hope to Louise. He sees the sparkle in her eyes. Jacob doesn’t feel the same way about her. “I beg your pardon, Louise, but I don’t want to give you false hope.” “I don’t like you,” with these words Jacob returned to the dining room. Louise, standing in the corridor and feeling extremely humiliated and insignificant, decided not to give up. It is unbearable! Hilda doesn’t put in even a fraction of the effort that Louise puts into being liked. Although Hilda is her only rival here, other women have already surrendered to the hard, terrible work and have faded. If only she weren’t here… *** Hilda tossed and turned and could not sleep all night. I tried to think about nonsense, I thought about Tilik, about whether he was alive? I replayed the terrible scenario in my head over and over again. His death. Hilda met the dawn and with it the rise of the prisoners. It was the best alarm clock, everyone woke up. Therefore, the camp commandant’s house was located quite far away so that he could not hear. Having not really had breakfast, Hilda, sitting at her workplace, could not begin to do anything other than shift papers from one side of the table to the other. The letters were confused. The tables were filled out only because they had to be turned in. She waited for Louise to run for the newspapers and bring them here. Hilda will read that everything is fine and will know that he is alive. “Here you go,” Louise, who had just come from the cold, handed her the paper. Hilda greedily snatched it and began to carefully read the text. One page after another, but the information she needed so badly did not catch her eye. And then she finds the right paragraph. Louise, watching her friend’s reaction, slowly takes off her outerwear and sees how she becomes darker than a cloud. The news from the front is really not the most rosy. “Louise, I understood why he never answered the letters,” Hilda folded the newspaper and, looking at her friend, shook her head. — He died. — Hilda, where the hell did you get that from? — Louise once again began to convince her sworn friend. — Well, look, it says here that ours have given up some positions. If everything was fine with him, he would answer. “Hilda, don’t rush to conclusions,” Louise said all the more patiently because she had already decided everything about Hilda. — Maybe it’s not about him? And how do you know where he is now? Maybe the letters haven’t arrived yet, and you’re sitting here and afraid of what doesn’t exist. — No, for some reason this seems to me the most logical option. Is there no way to check this? — No. Hilda, calm down, please,” Louise walked up to her friend and hugged her shoulders. “Everything will be fine, you just need to believe, do you hear?” “Yes,” she hugged her back and later both got to work, but Hilda acted automatically. She returned again and again to thoughts about the newspaper, once again re-read the paragraph in which there were news about the retreat and losses, and again tried to understand the language and meaning of the words. And only now she realized how important it is to choose the right words so as not to inadvertently ruin someone’s life. *** In the evening, returning to her room, Louise again ran into Jacob right outside the door. The guy was obviously going to inquire about his girlfriend. Of course, who else? — Louise, good evening. Have you seen your friend? “She is upset by today’s news, it would be better for her to rest, please do not disturb her.” If you need company for conversations, then I can join you,” the girl smiled, hoping for the favor of fate and good luck. — No, thank you, I’d rather talk to the moon. And tell Hilda not to be sad, her smile is beautiful. “Yes, of course, I’ll tell her,” Louise smiled and, as soon as the guy disappeared, she stamped her foot. Crap! Why Hilda again? — Louise, who came there? — the friend left the room. — Jacob, I asked you to tell you not to be sad. — He again. When will he stop chasing me? — Well, I don’t know, take a closer look at him, he’s handsome. Besides, you’re not the only woman here. — If you’re implying that I give it to you, then please. I don’t know what’s wrong with Thielike, his death is not confirmed, why should I care about Jacob? “He cares about you, this is how he walks around you,” thought Louise, but said nothing. Seething inside with her own envy of her friend, she decided to carry out her plan, which she had been mulling over for several nights in a row. “Let’s go get some sleeping pills and some headache pills, you haven’t been sleeping well lately.” And your fidgeting on the bed gives me a headache. It wasn’t enough for us to be reprimanded. — Okay, let’s go. But why is it suddenly so late? “Don’t make things up, it’s not too late,” they approach the stairs. Louise holds her friend by the elbow; she was completely weakened by bad thoughts in the evening. At the right moment, Louise, as planned, successfully substituted her leg and Hilda, stumbling, flew head over heels and hit her head, from which a small trickle of blood flowed. “How lucky, he’ll definitely die!” — Louise stood upstairs for about five minutes, and then, turning on the actress, ran downstairs and began to call for help. Security immediately came running to the girl’s voice. Noticing blood on the floor, they picked up the victim and carried her to the medical staff block. — What’s happened? “When Jacob saw Hilda on the bed in the room, he became worried. “She fell down the stairs,” Louise, feigning fear well, briefly told him what had happened. Jacob, after listening to her, began to examine and treat the wound on the girl’s head. “It doesn’t look like she fell on her own,” the nurse who examined Hilda suggested. “Do you also have the feeling that someone pushed her?” — Jacob, leaving the room, looked at the silhouette of the victim’s friend, who was disappearing into the darkness of the corridors. “It doesn’t really look like she just fell down the stairs.” She hit her head, broke her wrist, and has quite a few bruises. Maybe she was beaten? — Hardly. More likely they pushed her, but who could hate her so much? — Jacob, looking at Hilda, felt something was wrong. And Hilda arrived in darkness. All she wanted was to meet Thilike and finally understand whether her guesses were true.