Fic: City of Eagles, Part IV
Previous Chapter: Part III
Sarah Gardner leaned back into the spray of the showerhead letting the cold water flow over her face and down her back. The one thing she desperately wanted right now was to feel clean, and the one thing that she doubted she would be, no matter how long she spent in the shower, was clean. Stepping out of the shower and toweling her hair dry and brushing it out, she slipped into a robe before walking out into the middle of her small apartment in East Berlin.
She opened the cabinet by the stove and debated between the box of five-year-old instant coffee with lend-lease markings on it or the bottle of Russian vodka. Neither were particularly good versions of what they were trying to be… but even on this side of the city things were sparse, and coffee was hard to get except for exorbitant prices and if one wanted to get plastering drunk it was vodka or nothing.
After the night before she very much wanted to get drunk, but she would have to go back to the prison today so instead she pulled down the box of coffee and set the water to boiling. Tossing a handful of coffee into the pot she was rewarded with a satisfactory coffee-like smell not long after.
Elizabeth Weir had invaded Sarah’s dreams the night before, standing there alone in a cell and condemning her with her striking green eyes. At Cambridge, Sarah had known a few people stupid enough to cross intellectual swords with the American, only to come away limping with a wounded ego. She had no doubt that she was in store for woman’s venom at some point, but last night she had not risen to any of the bait dropped in front of her.
With her hair now only a little damp, Sarah twisted it up and finished her cup of coffee, and willed herself awake the last bit and headed to the prison. The British Communist Party had sent her to Berlin to help their Russian colleagues catalogue and crate thousands of archeological treasures found in the museums of Germany. As it had turned out the Russians did not really care so much about the cataloguing or being that careful in their plunder, so they found other uses for her.
The guards knew her on sight, and she just flashed her papers at the gate and headed towards where Weir had been kept over night. A Soviet Ministry for State Security, or MGB officer, Captain Daria Varonkova, joined her and they both went to see their American prisoner. Weir had been kept awake all night by the guards, secured by her wrists from a pipe in the ceiling so that her toes touched the ground but she could not stand flat footed.
In this vulnerable and demeaning position, though, Sarah could not help but admire the woman’s grace and dignity. She suspected that the more they degraded her, the more Elizabeth would draw strength. But everyone had a limit and it was just a question of how long it would be before they reached Weir’s.
“Good morning, Elizabeth. Did you sleep well?” Sarah managed a smile as she asked.
Elizabeth coughed a moment, and then spat in Sarah’s face. The Englishwoman wiped it off and reflexively slapped her. “No one spits on me, you arrogant little bitch.” The slap was sufficiently hard that the side of Elizabeth’s face remained red, and Sarah glanced over her shoulder at the Russian officer who seemed very pleased with the display.
Gardner felt sick, knowing that the story would probably be repeated among the Russian officers. In a way, Sarah was glad when Veronkova began to speak. “Doctor Weir, you have been arrested for being a bourgeois opponents of communism. We know that you are involved with the so-called Galen network and with the Central Intelligence Agency. All we want from you is your confirmation of information we already know, and your complete confession.”
“So you can put me up in front of film cameras at a show trial? No thank you. I don’t work for the CIA, I’m a college professor. You can contact any number of people I knew in Spain and they will tell you that I worked with many Communists during the war who I’m sure will vouch for me.”
“Really now, your father has been destroying the lives of Party Comrades. I doubt you would be so willing to say such things to his face. It doesn’t matter, though. Senator Weir will have to deal with the indisputable facts once your trial shown in the West.”
Elizabeth watched the Russian for a bit in silence before speaking. “You are trying to destroy my father.” It seemed to dawn on Elizabeth, and strangely enough Sarah thought she saw the woman gain a little strength from that knowledge.
“Among other things, you are going to confess to a great many of your crimes, Doctor Weir, in that clear, articulate voice of yours, in as many languages as we deem fit, so all the world will see what sort of dirty tricks the West is playing in Berlin.”
Elizabeth looked past the Russian officer and into Sarah’s eyes, sending a shiver down the Englishwoman’s back. “But everyone is playing a game in Berlin, aren’t they?”
Sarah felt ashamed by her words, and Elizabeth was rewarded with a punch to the gut, this time from the Russian. It was one of many blows Sarah knew she would receive.
**~**~**
Elizabeth had taken some degree of pleasure in the look on Gardner’s face before the blows began to land, and they didn’t stop until the Russian seemed to grow tired. The Englishwoman had stayed back watching and Elizabeth had made it through the beating by fixing her eyes on Sarah’s, willing her to feel how much she despised her. Anything to distract herself from counting the blows from the blackjack, though she acutely began to feel them when she was finally pulled down from the hanging position and dumped back in her cell.
In her gut Elizabeth knew that today was a luxury she could not long afford. The beatings would get worse, and it could be years before they put her on trial. The Soviets were patient and they’d probably do it at just the point that it would most hurt her father.
In a way, the idea that they were trying to use her against him carried a surreal quality to Elizabeth. She barely talked to the man in the last four years, but all she wanted right now was to curl up by his feet and listen to him tell stories of hunting with President Roosevelt in Africa as a young man. Hell, afternoons with her mother were starting to sound gloriously wonderful as she thought about what the next few years would be like.
There wouldn’t be a rescue, of course. That was one of the things you signed up. Spying was such an inglorious occupation when it came down to it. You suffered and even died in secret, only for your government to deny you even existed.
As the pain and ache in her body started to dull, Elizabeth focused on the cell wall. There were names carved into the paint, followed by dates. The names were German and Polish, Russian and Jewish, with dates going back to the 1910s… but most from the last ten years. They were mute witness to men who were very likely dead, not of their innocence, but of their very existence. With grim determination she dragged herself over to the wall and carefully scratched into the paint.
Elizabeth Weir, 1949.
Next Chapter: Part V