The Linz Tattoo by Nicholas Guild

finally. He was
holding a typed sheet in his hand, as if he wanted to make certain
that he had the right prisoner. After a few seconds his eyebrows
lowered into a frown. “We are informed you were born in
Kaliningrad—is that not correct?”
    “I was born in Königsberg, sir. In East
Prussia. I don’t know what it is called now. I was a German until
1935, and after that I was a Jew.”
    “Then you are Polish. All of that is Poland
now. You will be repatriated to Poland when your sentence is
completed, where you can work to build socialism and make amends
for your crime. What is that on your arm?”
    He pointed with his pencil and, without
thinking, Esther brought her hand up to cover the tattoo just under
the curve of her right elbow.
    “Is that a number? Where did you get it?”
    “At Waldenburg, sir,” she answered, her voice
hardly above a whisper.
    “Waldenburg. eh? Then you are lucky to be
alive.” His expression betrayed no sympathy, nothing beyond a mild,
disinterested curiosity.
    And then, suddenly, something seemed to occur
to him.
    “Isn’t it on the wrong arm? I always thought
the Germans tattooed the left arm.”
    When she didn’t answer he appeared to lose
interest. His eyes fell as if by gravity to the papers on the desk
in front of him.
    “You are accused of currency smuggling,” he
said after a long silence, just managing to glance up at her as he
finished the sentence. “You were arrested trying to pass the
checkpoint into the International Zone with twenty thousand rubles
sewn into your clothes. How do you answer the charge, innocent or
guilty?”
    He had already made up his mind, of course.
Esther had been told during her first week in prison that if one
tried to plead innocent they merely doubled the sentence. She kept
her eyes on the floor.
    “Guilty, sir.”
    “Fifteen years. Take her away.”
    The floor outside in the corridor was smooth
hardwood, but she would stumble. If Filatov had let go of her arm
she probably would have forgotten to keep walking.
    “Now, you see?” he whispered. “This is what
you get for being so regal with everyone. You made a bad
impression. You will have to learn to be a nicer girl.”
    But she could hardly make out what he was
saying. She was too stunned. She had no will for anything. Fifteen
years.
    She would be an old woman by the time they
let her out, dried up and good for nothing. No, she would never be
able to live through fifteen years. She would die. One day she
would run her head against a stone wall and crack it open like an
eggshell. She would die or go mad.
    They came to a plain wooden door with a
number painted on it in white at eye level. The number was “263.”
The paint was chipped away with age along the bottom. She had
assumed she was being taken to an isolation cell—that was what
happened here after sentencing, perhaps they were afraid a prisoner
might kick and scream or try to harm herself—but the cell doors
down here were all made of iron. She merely noted the neutral fact.
It didn’t mean anything to her. She had stopped caring about things
like that.
    Fifteen years. She wished they would kill her
instead.
    Filatov took a bundle of keys out of his
pocket and began fumbling with them until he found the right one.
His fingers closed over her shoulder and he pushed her inside.
    When the light clicked on she saw at once
that this was a broom closet. There were shelves overhead and in
one corner a collection of shiny zinc buckets. What was she doing
here?
    Then she noticed that someone had spread a
blanket out on the floor beside the rear wall. There was even a
pillow.
    Esther turned around as she heard the door
slam shut behind them. There was a brassy taste in her mouth and
she felt as if she were being smothered, but she told herself not
to scream. It would do no good to scream. It would only make it
worse.
    Filatov was grinning at her, no longer afraid
of anything. He was already undoing the buttons of his coat.
    3
    Munich,