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The Angel Called 'The Smile of Reims'

MY WIFE, UTCHKA (whose nao shortened to Utch), could teach patience to a tiht ht call duress She was born in Eichbuchl, Austria - a little village outside the proletarian town of Wiener Neustadt, which is an hour's drive from Vienna - in 1938, the year of the Anschluss When she was three, her father was killed as a Bolshevik saboteur It is unproven that he was a Bolshevik, but he was a saboteur By the end of the war, Wiener Neustadt would beco site of the German Messerschmitt factory Utch's father was killed in 1941 when he was caught in the act of blowing up Messerschmitts on the runway in Wiener Neustadt

The local SS Standarte of Wiener Neustadt paid a visit to Utch's ht and killed The SS e to the 'seed of betrayal' which obviously ran thick in Utch's faers to watch Utch's mother very closely, to make sure she wasn't a Bolshevik like her late husband Then they raped Utch's mother and stole froht in Hungary Eichbuchl is very close to the Hungarian border, and the Hungarian influence can be seen everywhere

Utch's ain, several e menfolk hen questioned about their assault, clai Utch's mother very closely, to ed with a crime

In 1943, when Utch was five, Utch's mother lost her job in the library of the ht be foisting degenerate books on the young Actually, she was guilty of stealing books, but they never accused her of that, nor did they ever find out The small stone house Utch was born in - on the bank of a streah Eichbuchl - connected to a chicken house, which Utch's mother maintained, and a cow barn, which Utch cleaned every day from the time she was five The house was full of stolen books; it was actually a religious library, though Utch ree poster-sized records of church and cathedral art - sculpture, architecture and stained glass - froh the late Rococo

In the early evenings as it was getting dark, Utch would help her ers would pay for the es, wood (rarely coal), wine and potatoes

Fortunately, Eichbuchl was far enough away fro field in Wiener Neustadt to escapeAt the end of the war the Allied planes du field than on any other target in Austria Utch would lie in the stone house with her ht and hear the cru in Wiener Neustadt Soe, and once Haslinger's apple orchard was boround under the trees was littered with apple petals thicker than wedding confetti This happened before the bees had fertilized the flowers, so the fall apple crop was ruined Frau Haslinger was found hacking at herself with a pruning hook in the cider house, where she had to be restrained for several days - tied up in one of the large, cool apple bins until she ca her confinee ement at the loss of the apple crop

It was no fantasy when the Russians got to Austria in 1945, when Utch was seven She was a pretty little girl Her mother knew that the Russians were aomen and kind to children, but she didn't know if they would consider Utch a woary and from the north, and they were especially fierce in Wiener Neustadt and its environs because of the Messerschh officers of the Luftwaffe they found around there

Utch's ht cows left Going over to the largest cohose head was locked in itshitch, she slit the cow's throat When it was dead, she unfastened the head fro hitch and rolled the cow on her side She cut open the belly of the cow, pulled out the intestines and carved out the anus, and then reat cow's scooped-out ribs She put as much of the innards back into the coould fit, and took the rest outside in the sun where it would draw flies She closed the slit belly-flaps of the cow around Utch like a curtain; she told Utch she could breathe through the cow's carved-out anus When the guts that had been left in the sun drew flies, Utch's ed the around her head, the cow looked as if she'd been dead a long time

Then Utch's h the asshole of the cow 'Don't you , slim wine bottle filled with camomile tea and honey, and a straw She was to sip it when she was thirsty

'Don't you move or make a sound until someone finds you,' said Utch's mother

Utch lay in the belly of the cow for two days and two nights while the Russians wasted the village of Eichbuchl They butchered all the other cows in the barn, and they brought some women to the barn too, and they butchered soo near the dead coith Utch inside her because they thought the cow had been dead a long time and her meat was spoiled The Russians used the barn for a lot of atrocities, but Utch never made a sound or moved in the belly of the cohere her mother had placed her Even when she ran out of camomile tea and the cow's intestines dried and hardened around her - and all the slick viscera clung to her - Utch did not uage and she did not respond The voices sounded disgusted The coas prodded; the voices groaned The coas tugged and dragged; the voices grunted - so

agged And when the coas lifted - the voices heaved! - Utch slipped out in a sticky mass which landed in the arms of a reen cap He was Russian He dropped to his knees with Utch in his arms and appeared to pass out Other Russians around hiht water and washed Utch Ironically, they were the sort of Russians ere kind to children and in no way thought Utch was a woht she was a calf

Piece by piece, what happened grew clear Utch's hter had been raped Almost everyone's father and son had been killed) Then onea Russian had decided to burn the barn down Utch'spower; she had already been raped So she had been forced to kill the Russian with a trenching spade, and another Russian had been forced to shoot her