Three Hundred Seconds

Chapter Three

Elsa kept her eyes closed. If there had been some way of closing her ears, she would have done that, too. As such, she had to listen to everything that was going on around her; she could not even huddle in a corner and block out the noise – she had tried pushing her arm through the wall and confirmed that she was once again about as solid as a cloud.

The Commandant's heavy boots thudded along the floor and the door clicked open. He said sternly: "Dispose of it."

Each thud of limp arms and legs on the floorboards made Elsa flinch. Even after the dragging ceased and the door slammed again, she would not open her eyes. She kept them closed until she was certain there was no breathing in the room – the Commandant was no longer in his study.

The sky out of the window was a dull gold, and a summer haze had settled on the distant horizon. It cast a half-light on the still figure on the ground, illuminating his features as he lay, unconscious, his soft brown hair over his eyes. She was a little taken aback.

He looked asleep.

Elsa approached the body warily, understanding that something similar must have happened to her a few hours ago. Carefully, so as not to wake him, she sank to the floor and crossed her legs.

She sat with him, for a while. Her insides were screaming no, telling her that this was the last place she should be - she should not be sitting next to the man who had killed her, even if he was dead now too. But still, she sat, her gaze drifting over his body: his leather boots, polished to a shine; his black, unnaturally starched uniform; his slender, dexterous fingers. He looked like a museum exhibit, or a corpse ready for a post-mortem examination. She only hesitated when she noticed his chest softly rising and falling.

Elsa was not sure what it was – fear, perhaps, instinct – but something made her hide. She could not stay here, not if he woke up.

Like a mouse hunted down by a cat, Elsa shuffled backwards, slowly, flinching with every creak of the floorboards, until she was crouching under the general's desk. She did not dare to breathe as she watched him. His breaths were small, but in the otherwise silent room it was all she could hear.

All of a sudden, his eyes opened. It was like a warning alarm; she immediately retreated into her burrow, her muscles tense, her back to this latest threat.

Why had she not run out of the door yet?

There was a bang from behind her as a loud groan, which could not be deciphered into a word at all, filled the room. Elsa remembered the first time she had tried walking; it could not have been more than an hour or so ago but to her it felt like an age.

Like the sound of a long-held note on a piano, the noise hung in the air for a few moments then cleared, and everything was silent again.

"Who's there?" the voice called. Its nervousness was inexpertly masked by its volume.

Elsa kept quiet, her eyes closed tight.

"Come out, or, or-" his throat ran dry at the emptiness of his threat.

Still she did not move. Footsteps were pacing shakily around the room, combined with the occasional sigh of sheer exhaustion.

Elsa was not sure what was preventing her from screaming – she had always been terrified of the SS, for it had been the tyrannical presence that had controlled her life for years. But now, now she knew that he was as vulnerable as her, Officer Lazalski seemed more human, and less like the faceless voice of authority she had come to associate with Nazi soldiers. She tried telling herself this, but knew that ultimately, it was guilt keeping her quiet.