Special thanks to blackrandi for the invitation to participate in "The Magical Mystery Tour." It was a great opportunity to try something different. I typically don't write graphic sex and that remains true here. I normally thank everyone up front, but those acknowledgements are at the end of this story, as they are a bit more extensive than usual.
MAUSEFALLE
Mousetrap
Prologue:
With Josef Stalin's death on 5 March 1953, an epic struggle for the control and future of the Soviet Union commenced. Four major players emerged very quickly: Stalin's presumed successor, Central Party Secretary Georgy Malenkov; the hardline Stalinist, Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov; The ruthless
head of the MVD Internal Affairs and MGB State Security, Lavrentiy
Beria, and the respected, but displaced, Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. These were hard men shaped by the Revolution and the Great Patriotic War, each with a different vision of the future. They quietly fought for Chairmanship of the Party and near absolute power. On the heels of 25 million war dead, and more killed in purges, the Soviet Union was a place of uncertainty and terror. Fear of a military coup, or even another civil war, this time between the Army and the State Security Forces ran through the country.
In such dangerous times, even a mouse may tip the balance.
Die Maus im Labyrinth
The Mouse in the Maze
Ankara: 23 April 1953
"There were no heroes at Stalingrad. Only survivors and the dead."
The chill silence of a graveyard settled instantaneously over the room, the fine white tablecloths suddenly resembling nothing so much as burial shrouds, covering unnamed corpses in the stark cruel cold of winter.
The Russian was nearly perfect, but the accent was very German; the voice, even and firm, never wavered. The interpreter stood motionless, completely unsure what to do. I saw the Embassy Political Attaché freeze with his mouth open, like some kind of bizarre fish. He'd proposed the toast as an honor to me, one of the few female Heroes of the Soviet Union, and he was completely unprepared for the German's response. He was absolutely stricken, terrified to make eye contact with me. Useless, like all political officers. I'd even seen that exact stunned expression before.
Stalingrad: 28 December 1942
I staggered past the masses of soldiers in their dull yellow-brown uniforms, mostly sitting on the cold concrete of the factory floor with their squads, listening intently, or at least pretending to listen intently to the "Zampolit," the Political Officer responsible for the morale and revolutionary purity of the soldiers of the unit. At first, none of them noticed me, especially Zampolit Pavov, who was so entranced with the sound of his own voice, at his own pointless yammering, that even when soldiers began to turn away from him to watch me, he didn't notice.
It wasn't until I stepped into the cleared area around him that he really noticed me. I must have looked like hell. My shredded and burned uniform, the flash burns on my face, the singed hair half-gone, and the ball of gory rags I was holding against my stomach seemed to render him speechless.
He fought to recover from his shock with his usual tactic, mockery. "Tovarishch Kornilov, returned to seek shelter so soon? If you've even managed to kill two of Hitler's soldiers, bring back two tags, I'll personally put you in for a medal."
I began to laugh. The pain and emotion of the eternity I'd spent in this hell finally breaking through. The laugh was disturbing, even to me, and I felt like it was never going to stop. I took eternities to get it under control, then I reached into my coat pocket and began dropping German identity tags in front of him. Fifty-three tags clinked like leaden bells as they hit the ground. I had one more, still on its chain around my neck and I lifted it up. "Then you can put me in for twenty-six medals, Tovarishch. There were more, many more, but some of them were bad soldiers; they weren't wearing their tags. Maybe you want me to go kill another to make it twenty-seven medals?" I unslung and dropped Papasha, "Papa," on the ground in front of him; there were three bullet holes in the receiver of the submachine gun and the barrel sleeve was half crushed. The drum magazine fell loose and rolled a few inches in a wobbling drunkard's path, like a child's toy, before falling over. "I will need a new weapon, though." The laughter came back dark and vicious, twisting around me in spinning madness. I unwrapped the blood-soaked rags from my right arm and held up my mangled hand. "And if I could get a new hand, it would make it much, much simpler."
The look on his face was utter shock. He half turned to look into the shadows behind him. A figure stood up and stepped forward. "Commissar..."
The stern man stepped past him as if he didn't exist. I felt my knees give as the shock and exhaustion finally overcame my willpower; and so, Commissar
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev
caught the slight form of the collapsing, badly wounded, half-starved, half-scorched scout directly in front of the official photographer sent to capture the political speech. That picture would appear in poster after poster, right next to the picture of that gaunt peasant girl being awarded the discreet gold star of a Hero of the Soviet Union by Stalin himself.
Ankara: 23 April 1953
I couldn't afford to let this devolve into arguments and tension. I stood and raised my glass in my left hand and spoke across the silence. "Very well. To the survivors and to our Hallowed Dead."
Across the room, the tall German in his perfectly tailored tuxedo raised his glass in a precise toast and gave a single, respectful nod. "The Hallowed Dead."
I could feel the room relax as glasses came up and the rest of the room intoned the same toast. I looked out over the crowd. The Ambassador gave me a look of appreciation. Our hosts, the Turkish government, hadn't missed the gesture, and that might help him in his mission of forging an agreement between our two nations. With the death of Stalin, and our retraction of territorial claims, there might be a chance of forming some tentative bonds to counter the massive American influence in Turkey, but that could hinge on the least of issues.
Issues, perhaps, like an angry Hero of the Soviet Union calling out a German businessman over a battle fought ten years ago. I'm sure the Ambassador wondered if the whole incident was calculated to cause problems, maybe even engineered by the Americans for that very purpose.
A few rounds of meaningless toasts later, I sat to eat my meal, some indescribable Turkish dishes that no doubt cost enough to feed a small town. They weren't really to my liking, but I'd learned long ago to eat what I was given without complaint. Better to eat anything than starve. Hunger is a monster that lurks in everyone. As bad as it had been at Stalingrad, I'd heard Leningrad had descended into far, far worse. Rumors of murder and cannibalism were echoed in the haunted eyes of the people when I'd visited shortly after the end of the Great Patriotic War.
I watched, aloof, as the meal ended and music began. Despite the lectures and indoctrination, I could tell the younger girls of the Embassy staff were eagerly anticipating the music and the dancing. Unlike me, most were wearing lipstick and even other types of make-up. It was surprising that the Embassy let this kind of thing go on; everyone knew it was far too easy for bourgeoisie niceties to sway the mental purity of the young and easily influenced.
A few minutes after, some type of dessert, made of who-knew-what, one of the servers brought over a small tray, and set it in front of me. A small black bottle with a gold leaf label trimmed in cherry blossoms sat next to a liqueur glass and a small note card. I looked at the fanciful figures on the label, amazed at the sentimentality. "From the German, Madame. I am supposed to carry your answer back to him."
I smoothed the note with the back of my scarred right hand and looked it over.
Major Kornilov,
