All the Lights Above Us by M. B. Henry

Author:M. B. Henry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

Emilia

CAEN SS/SD AND GESTAPO

Emilia’s fingers whisked over her typewriter. The clack and grind of the keys drowned out all the chaos around her. So did the darkness, since the power was still out, and a blasted-out window served as her only light source.

Glass shards glimmered at the window’s base, and the view outside showed a world that had begun to unravel. People in the streets moved like herds of panicked animals. Many were on bicycles, and others hobbled or ran as they were able. Smoke plumes clawed at the red-hued sky like demonic fingers. The only thing to break them up was the swarms of planes still flying over.

Emilia reached for a cigarette and lit up. A long drag gave her a familiar and pleasant burn, but it didn’t dull the sharp and frightened voice in her brain. The one reminding her that as time ran out for Germany, it ran out for her too. Fears she had buried for years bubbled hard to the surface, like air pockets in a pot of boiling water.

Of course, the Germans of Hitler’s almighty Reich would fight. They would have to; even if they didn’t believe in cause and country anymore, desertion meant their families would pay. They would be imprisoned, tortured, and maybe killed. And there were plenty of Germans left who did believe in cause and country. The room she sat in was filled with them. They would die for Hitler—they were that foolish or brainwashed. Sometimes they were just that evil.

She should know. She was once just like them.

Thanks to them, the Reich’s end wouldn’t be immediate, but it wasn’t far away. Screeching, diehard Nazis or not, there was only so much they could do against this kind of might, this Allied army with its endless supplies, manpower, and machinery. They would chip away at the Reich until only granules remained. Once the dust settled, the victors wouldn’t play nice.

The end of the cigarette shriveled as Emilia took another drag. She couldn’t deny her part in the complicated Nazi wheel. The SD had employed her for multiple years. The BDMs had brainwashed her for years before that. Then there were her parents, who indulged in the scarlet carpets and shiny chandeliers of high-level membership in “the Party.”

She also partook in the killing. Her hands didn’t inflict the bruises or deaths, but her fingerprints were all over the crime scene. How many of those prisoners looked at her with pleading eyes while they bled on that damn carpet? How many begged her with silent stares to stand up and put an end to the cruelty? Even if she didn’t allow herself to pity, she still knew right from wrong, and she just stood by. She even recorded the whole thing on that cursed typewriter. Not just the torture, but also her own complicity. It was all there in black and white for any Allied eyes to see.

The tables would turn now. Some other woman in some other uniform would take the notes.

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