The girls lay on their bunks. It was quiet outside.
Anna was still upset about an exchange with the supply truck driver, who had shouted out the window, by way of taking his leave, “I’m saving two bullets in my handgun, one for me and one for a girl who’s been violated.”
“Why even talk to him?” Emma said now. “He’s always such an idiot.”
“Yes,” said Anna, “and this time I just couldn’t take it. But everybody seemed so shocked.”
“What exactly did you say?” asked Lilly.
“Let me see. I said: ‘if it’s me for whom you are planning the service, kindly ask first if I feel sufficiently devalued!’”
“Ouch,” said Walla.
“See?” said Anna.
“No,” said Lotte, “I don’t see the problem here. You made the only appropriate reply to the disgusting remark. How dare he!”
“You know what I was just thinking,” said Lilly, “no woman would have ever said such a thing.”
“Why do I feel so uncomfortable?” Anna said. No one replied for a while. Then Monika spoke.
“Do you think it has something to do with you saying you wanted to THINK about surviving ultimate dishonour? I mean, we’re always hearing there’s no possible alternative to victory, other than, you know, death. You challenged that.”
“No defeat with honour. Yes. YES! It seems so inhuman. But I wasn’t even thinking. I got so livid, it just popped out of me. Far too many innocent people have died, and here these princes are planning to check out instead of making themselves available to help clean up the hideous mess. Yes, I’m even mad at him for doing HIMSELF in.”
“I only meant you poked at a wasp’s nest,” said Walla.
“It seems to be my foremost talent. Anna and her poker.”
“So who all was so shocked?” asked Emma.
“Oh, Toni. He was helping carry the supplies in. Even the Medic. He looked unnerved.”
“So? It’s their business to come to terms with your opinion. They’re almost grown up,” said Lotte.
The girls lay in silence once again. They didn’t ask out loud whether the others would expect to survive ‘in the event of the ultimate emergency’ - the grand taboo.
Three days later, a Russian officer entering Monika’s house would find all family members in a coma, the mother near death. Cyanide capsules, obtained years earlier and usually lethal in seconds, had been too weak or become faulty. With the help of a Russian doctor, All but the mother survived.
Anna heard of this when bumping into a radiant Monika twenty-nine years later, in the Frankfurt Airport lounge, Monika on her way to Nepal with a shipment of medical supplies, Anna returning to Toronto. Both flights delayed.