Werner woke up with an aching head. His vision was blurry, his eyes were teared up even though he wasn't sad; all he knew was that his skull felt like it was about to split apart and every bone in his body ached. He shut his eyes again and lay in silence. He could hear the buzzing sounds of the hospital, and the beeping heart-monitor. His heartbeat was steady. He smiled a little and fell back asleep.
***
Nikolai rushed to the telephone post. He spun the wheel to dial Marie; he had to tell her, if he wouldn't than who would? Werner had never given him her number, but he'd found it written down in Werner's handwriting. The phone rang twice before she picked up. "Hallo?"
"Hallo, here's Nikolai."
"Hi! You're Killian's friend, right? He's told me a lot about you!"
"Listen..."
***
Werner awoke again, this time he felt a little bit stronger, but he still felt hungover, in a way. He opened his eyes, and through his vision still swayed drunkenly, he could make out the outline of a woman...He smiled again; Nikolai had taught him a few things; if you see a woman, smile. She smiled back. And then he closed his eyes again, letting the spell of tiredness overtake him.
***
Nikolai blew warm air into his hands. He'd given the mittens to Marie who'd come all the way from Berlin, just to say good-bye to Werner in Warsaw. But, just as Nikolai had told her, there was no body. "I don't know if I'm not allowed to see it...but I haven't and-." Nikolai's voice broke. Marie had thought that she'd be the one who needed comforting, but Nikolai's best friend seemed worse off than she was.
"I'm sorry." She said. She didn't know what else to say.
"I'm sorry to. I should never have let Wojciechowski..." He started to cry. They were silent tears, the passion of pain would overtake him after, drive him to go all the way back to the cursed place he'd promised to never return to. It would drive him to the biggest heist in Nazi Germany, a heist where he stole a doctor right from under the nose of one of the most powerfull men in Germany. But for the time being, he was still just Viktor Anatolyevich, crying on the steps to the hospital.
***
Alle guten Dinge sind drei. The sentence was the frist thing that Werner heard when he came to his senses again, or maybe it was what had ripped him out of his sleep. He opened his eyes, and this time he could see clearly. He saw his mother, and he saw his father and he saw Brian and they were all looking at him. The doctor, who's spoken german a few seconds before, was gazing at him too.
"Mom?"
"Yes, honey."
"I missed you." To all of them in the room it seemed like the sweetest thing the sixteen-year-old boy could say. He'd seen them just yesterday. To Werner of course, it was not sweet. His memory promised him that he'd been in Auschwitz for months, that the last thing his parents knew about him was a plane crash. The doctor smiled at him. Werner opened his eyes wider, and then he lifted his head and he looked to the side. The hospital was incredibly modern. Was Warsaw so...? No. This wasn't Warsaw. This wasn't Poland.
"Mom, where's Kolya?"
"Who?"
"Kolya, where's Kolya!" He started to panic and he sat up, even though he was still too tired too. "Where's Kolya, Mama? Where is he?"
"Honey, who's Kolya?" She said. Then she turned to the doctor. "Is this normal?"
"Where's Kolya!" Werner kicked the sheets off, he was blessed by a surge of energy. "Where is Kolya? And where is Wojciechowski?" The polish doctors name got the doctor to stop. He regarded Werner with a funny expression. He turned to Werner's mom.
"Funny, most kids don't know this. Wojciechowski was the man who created the cure to cancer."
"Wojciechowski did it?" Werner asked. His voice cracked. "How?"
"Well," the doctor sat at the foot of Werner's bed, "a soviet spy who'd been working in Auschwitz rescued him from certain death and brought him to Moscow, where the doctor worked alongside Russian doctors and they created the cure for cancer a little over three months later."
"Wojciechowski really did it..." Werner said breathlessly. "And the Russian spy? Kolya?"
"I don't know his name."
"Can you google it, please? I need to know what happened to Kolya..."
"I'll go to the computer and tell you once I've got it alright."
"Yes please..." And Werner started to cry. Kolya, what had happened to Kolya? He sat curled up on the bed, his Mom slung her arms around him and tried to comfort him. But Werner couldn't be comforted.
***
Nikolai and Marie slowly walked away from the hospital. They'd tried to see their friend, but they'd been kicked out. Nikolai was, for the first time, completely worn out and so down, that one would never believe he was the same man he'd been fourteen hours ago. Marie was still in shock; she really hadn't thought that Werner would die. She'd thought that she'd had luck with this new relationship, it had seemed so good. To good to be true, maybe.
"I want to tell you something, Nikolai."
"Alright."
"I don't feel like I can tell anyone else about this...my family would hate me and Werner...God, I wish I could have told him."
"Spill the beans, Marie." Nikolai said and gently elbowed her. She laughed and then kind of cried a little but pulled herself together.
"I slept with someone. Not him. But after he left a friend of my fathers came...he was the Lagerführer at Auschwitz." Marie admitted quietly and shamefully. Nikolai burst out laughing.
"Oh dear God! You slept with Joseph?"
"Yes, why? You know him well?"
"My dear Marie, I've slept with him to!" Admitting his bisexuality felt good, and joking about it with his new friend felt even better. For a few seconds both of them laughed in disbelief and amusement, but then Marie grew quiet and solomn.
"I cheated on Killian..."
"You weren't even dating, Marie." Nikolai reassured her. "But I knew that he liked you a whole lot. You're a good girl, don't let anyone tell you differently."
"I guess. I still would feel more honest if I could tell him."
"Oh he knows. He's watching us now, from above."
"You believe in God?"
"No, but sometimes I like to believe in ghosts." Nikolai answered. He slung his arm around Marie's shoulders. "But wherever Werner is, he's going to want me to save Wojciechowski. So that's what I'm going to do."
***
"I found out about the Russian." The doctor said, once again sitting at the edge of Werner's bed. "His name was Viktor Anatolyevich Malinkow, but he lived under the name Nikolai Hart in Germany."
"Kolya...Vitia." Werner muttered. "And what happened to him?"
"He managed to get Wojciechowski to Moscow, by train, without being caught though everyone was on the look-out for him. And he guaranteed him a safe lab to work in and the best of Russian scientists to work with. And so Wojciechowski managed to create the cure for cancer. And that's what we injected in you yesterday."
"And what happened to Nikolai?" He pressed. "Afterwards?"
"He returned to Auschwitz because the Soviet Union wouldn't guarante him safety, he pretended he'd just been on vacation. And less then a week later they...they had pictures, concrete evidence. He was lined up and..."
"Kolya was shot?"
"Yes." The doctor said. "He was shot."
"Kolya...." And Werner started to cry. He wouldn't let anyone near him, not even his mother. Kolya had been shot, probably in the back of the head, the way it was done to the Russians! "Oh Kolya!"