Vixens: Anna’S Story

Chapter 1

By C J Grant

Berlin winters are known for their unforgiving cold. This winter was no exception. The dark gray clouds raced across the sky ahead of the icy winds. Snow had fallen nearly continuously for the past week. It was slow going for Ivan, who owned The Book Shoppe, a combination bookstore, and restoration bindery, located down in the Old Town District of Berlin. He had not failed to open his store since he had inherited it from his father, nine years ago.

Ivan made his way through the snow. His wooden leg was usually barely noticeable, but in the drifts it was more difficult to maneuver. He was nearing fifty, not old by many standards, but he was weary, as word of a new war laid heavily on his mind.

In 1929, Ivan had been a good German Soldier, at almost thirty years of age, he was in his prime. He had been a battalion leader as the Nazi army swept into Poland. The Nazi Commanders had felt that the fall of the Polish Government would come in the first forty-five days. The attacks went well into the next two years. That first winter, Germany lost more soldiers to frostbite, and starvation, than from bullets administered by the other side.

Ivan did not lose his life, but he did lose his left leg from the knee downed, and three toes on his right foot. He couldn’t say that he had lost them in a battle, no bullets were responsible, nor was it from stepping on a land mine. It was because of the snow, and below freezing temperatures had cut the men off from the supply lines. His men were trapped in a mountain pass. Snow fell, then blew, forming a natural dam at both ends of the pass. When a new storm moved in they were trapped.

Ivan, and one hundred men, were now reduced into, Ivan, and forty-one survivors. They had been forced to strip the dead, trying to gain another layer of warmth. The suppliers of food ran out the first week. The snow was so heavy that even the woodland creatures were embedded down somewhere.

When the men were finally found, nineteen were blinded, eight of them permanently. The rest, though sighted, were in various stages of frostbite. Many lost fingers, toes, ears, and noses. Feet, and arms, were less common, but to Ivan, that never mattered. They had all taken a vow of silence, as to how they had survived. It was not important how, but just that, they had survived.

After everything that Ivan had been through, he still believed in the values, and the dream of a Greater Germany. It had taken a long time for him to recover from the physical damages, the emotional scars would take longer to show themselves, and even longer to heal.

Chapter 2

By C J Grant

Germany found herself floundering after her failures of World War I. The prosperity of her people was all but gone. The Agrarian Society was not yet ready to keep up with the world. Depression had left the German people hungry, cold, desperate, and eager, for change.

The Nazi Party held up before the people of Germany, a new dream to follow. One where they not only kept up with the rest of the world by becoming a twentieth century industrialized country, but to become a leader in the world. The philosophy of refusing failure carried itself into all parts of German life. The Nazi Party preached the inevitability of an Aryan Nation, as a world Power.

A rather scrawny, but very charismatic, young man had stepped from the lower ranks of the military to become the struggling ranks chancellor. As he traveled around Germany, he gained the support, and the respect, of his people. His speeches were such, that he could sweep a crowd away, or rile them, enrage them, and enthrall them, all at once. His speech was clear, and crisp. As he paced the length of a stage, he was greatly animated, and the facts he used were to a point, verifiable.

He was born to lead the great nation of Germany to the forefront of the world. The Nazi Party had been his set up, but it was God who had ordained his destiny. Of that, every German was inclined to believe. In a short time, the people of Germany would see new jobs as factories sprouted up. A country that had relied on horsepower, would take to the tractor, and a great railway would become the spine of the now, healthy, economically, sound Germany.

Ivan had heard his leader speak at the Chancellors Quarters in Berlin. He spoke of a cleansing, a healing, and the splendor that would be the New Germany. Now under the iron fist of Hitler. Germany was well on her way to being the most powerful nation, Europe had seen, since the fall of Rome.

Chapter 3

By C J Grant

When Ivan finally returned home from the war in Poland, to his beloved Berlin, he found his father a broken man, his mother insane. His father, a bookbinder, worked to restore books of antiquity. After nearly losing his son, and losing his only daughter, he was a shell of a man. He hung on long enough to teach Ivan how to restore the old pages, and to rebind the leather covers, as well as the less common paper covers.

Ivan tried not to blame his father for his baby sister’s death, but in the back of his mind, he felt she should never have been allowed to marry that American Photographer.

Marie had left Berlin to study ballet at the famed School of Dance, in Stuttgart. Marie was a tiny five-foot tall dynamo. Ivan couldn’t blame the American for falling in love with her; many a young man had found themselves under her spell. It was her father, their father, who had granted the wish of the young American to wed her, and take her off to America.

The pictures were everywhere to remind him of his loss. There was a child; a little girl that had been born first, Marie’s second child was to be a boy. They were both buried in a grave somewhere in America, mother and son together.

The letter that Ivan’s brother-in-law had written was explicit enough. Marie had some complications during the birth of their son. Both mother and child were lost. Ivan’s father carried the letter with him until the day he died. Ivan’s mother passed away shortly thereafter. Ivan believed that the American man, Michael Williams, was responsible for the death of his sister, and nephew. Though Michael would correspond and send pictures of the little girl, Ivan only knew as Anna, he rarely returned the favor. Finally, the letters stopped.

Chapter 4

By C J Grant

Ivan sat at his workbench in the back of his shop. The smell of old leather, and dusty books,’ lingered in the air. The fine female script on the envelope that sat untouched, beckoned to him. His fingers traced the delicate swirls, then finally, he turned it over, using a letter opener that had been used by three generations of the Griskalls, he opened the envelope very carefully. He pulled out a letter, and a sepia tone photograph. As he held the picture in his trembling hand, tears welled up in his dark blue eyes.

***

Back in America, Anna walked up to the mailbox everyday. Her anxious nature, and youth would not culminate the thought that it would take a bit of time for a letter to make its way across the ocean, to the European shores, especially in view of recent events that had people wondering if another war was looming in the near future.

Your last photos are really quite good, her father stated as she entered the kitchen door.

You think so dad, really? she plopped down at the table.

That wasn’t very lady like, my love, he said, kissing her forehead. She stuck out her bottom lip, pouting a bit. And why is the princess down in the dumps? Michael asked her playfully.

Daddy, I’m not a little girl, you can lay off that princess stuff. I am eighteen!

Ohhh! Michael said, rolling his eyes.

I just hope mommy’s brother will write me back, she finally said seriously.

Give him time honey; responded her father lovingly, The mail won’t get there overnight.

I’ve given it three days, she said, under her breath as she sipped her tea.

***

It was very late in Berlin; there he sat all alone, in the big old house. A cozy fire burned in the fireplace, the fire danced, and sizzled, as it devoured the seasoned logs. He held two photos in his large hands. Glancing from one to the other, the tears fell from his wary eyes as he read the content of the letter.

Please Uncle Ivan, would you write to me? he looked at the letter that ripped its way to the center of his heart. "I love you, and if you would give me a chance, I’m sure you would love me too.

Your Niece,

Anna Marie Williams,

From Spring Brook, Wisconsin (that’s just outside Milwaukee if you have a map), USA."

Ivan placed the pictures side-by-side, Mother and daughter, he thought so much alike. He pulled his stationary from the drawer of his side table. Taking a pen in hand, he began to compose, what he deeply hoped would only be the first of many letters. He did love her, with all his heart. She was, he thought, the reason love could manage to survive the worst of times, and in the darkest of days. In her, his beloved sister continued to live, how could he have been so blind.

Chapter 5

By C J Grant

Michael had been working with a film company for a couple of years as a war- time photographer in the big war, World War II. He begun to tinker with the images he could capture on film. He was close to developing a high-speed film that could be used to take a series of photos from moving vehicles, and from the air. He was to take a risky step, to prove his film, and camera, techniques. Michael would put himself in the middle of a developing war. If his techniques worked, as well as he knew they would, it could aid the allied armies in locating, and verifying, enemy troop movements, placements, and arms plants. It could save hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent lives.

To Michael, it had been a simple plan. He would make his way to Germany on the guise of filming the new, modern German factories. The office of Economic Development had feigned some interest, and the American Ambassador had planted the seeds that just perhaps, if the American Industrialists showed interest in the powerfully rising national economy, some of the less important matters, such as the invasion of Poland, might not warrant the attention to the U.S. The invitation came as expected, but Anna had a few plans of her own. Her father was about to find out his daughter, could be just as immovable as her father, when her mind was made up.

Michael did everything he could to sway his young daughter away from the crazy notion that she had about going to Germany with him. He had even resorted to using his enemy, her boyfriend, Jerry. Unfortunately, Jerry proved to be of little to no help, his zeal for flying had lured him to sign up with the Army Air Corps. A crop duster turned B-29 Pilot. He was home on leave before going to England to repair the big bombers.

Michael felt sure that the god’s were against him, for it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do, take his Anna to Germany, when war was brewing. Her mind was also made up. She would visit her uncle, and get to know him, and hopefully, learn more about her mother. After all, she was only three when her mother passed away, and her father knew little of his war bride’s life before she had met him. Anna’s arguments were questionable, but her tactics won over.

Chapter 6

By C J Grant

Ivan received her letter stating that she was going to accompany her father to Berlin. Ivan had written that she was always welcome, but he never dreamt that he would meet her, let alone meet her just before Christmas, this very year. He looked around at the home where all the family memories resided; he had let it go pretty much untouched for years. It was fine for a bachelor, but Marie’s daughter was coming. The place needed to be cleaned and brightened up. It needed a woman’s touch.

Louisa was happy to see Ivan so excited. For years they had been friends, perhaps more, but friends would do for now. When Ivan had stopped writing his brother-in-law, she tried unsuccessfully, to urge him to keep the lines of communication open. She wanted to meet the young woman who had taken the initiative to write to an uncle she had never met. A young lady who was strong and sure of herself, to travel the globe to meet him, and stay for a while, to get to know him. Louisa had always thought Ivan was special, and maybe now, this young American niece, had broken through the wall he had built around his