But what you don’t know, you vicious cruel creature, she said to this hateful image, is that after you threw me out of your house I lived among Vienna’s back streets and alleyways, and I survived by selling my body. And if I could cope then with being fucked by half a dozen men in one night, I can cope with it now.
The small private obscenity helped to steady her, and it brought the defiance flooding back. I can’t escape this, but I can try to disconcert these animals. How? Well, perhaps by reminding them who I am and what I have been. Leo Dreyer knew the truth about her, but for reasons Alice had not yet fathomed, he seemed to be letting the legend stand. So to these German officers she was still the infamous baroness – the decadent aristocrat whose lovers were said to be legion, and whose private entertainments were whispered to be Bacchanalian in the extreme. Lucretia von Wolff, rumoured to have committed every sin in the calendar, and whose sexual proclivities had been unfavourably compared to those of Messalina…
As the first man approached her, Alice smiled at him and held out her arms.
The small unexpected act did not stop them, of course – Alice had known it would not – but it certainly gave them pause. They glanced furtively at one another as if each of them needed to check his colleagues’ reactions before doing anything on his own account, and this brought Alice a small shred of courage and self-esteem. You see? she said silently to Leo Dreyer. You thought I would be beaten and humiliated but I’m neither of those things and I never will be!
Even so, what followed was an appalling ordeal. The men were all relatively clean, and most of them had clearly bathed or showered in the last forty-eight hours – Alice knew from those long-ago black days that this was something for which to be grateful. But the enforced and brutal intimacy inflicted a mental uncleanness on her mind that she feared might never wash away.
Only one of the men displayed any degree of sensitivity, and that was the very young officer who had poured out drinks. He was fourth in line, and as he approached her he avoided meeting her eyes as if he found the whole business shameful. But his excitement was stronger and more frenzied than the others, and when he finally shuddered in climax Alice cried out in pain from the uncontrolled thrusting. As he withdrew he put out his hand to touch her face as if in apology, and their eyes met. But then he seemed to recollect his surroundings and he got up quickly, turning away, embarrassedly fastening his trousers.
The lower half of her body felt as if it was one massive bruise, and she thought she was bleeding as well, although it was impossible to be sure because the sofa on which she was lying was a wet squalid mess from the men. ‘Try not to impregnate the bitch,’ Leo Dreyer had said, and most of them had withdrawn before reaching orgasm. One – a heavy, fat-jowled man – faltered after a time, and Alice felt him slide flaccidly out of her. But he reached a hand down, guiltily and furtively, and fumbled frantically between his legs until there was the sudden wash of hot stickiness on her stomach. A wave of nausea engulfed her. Dreadful! This man is a Nazi murderer – he probably took part in the massacre of Kristallnacht – and he’s masturbating on to me!
She had expected Mildner to take his turn, but he did not; he remained near the door, the wolf-snarl strongly evident, and when the men had all finished, he rapped out a terse order and went out with them, closing the door behind him.
Leaving Alice alone with Leo Dreyer.
She had thought he had not been physically aroused by the rape, and she had thought that like Mildner he had obtained his satisfaction simply by watching.
But he walked slowly to the sofa, and looked down at her, and said, ‘And now it is my turn, baroness.’