Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke (18 page)

They joined the groups swarming inside and entered a cavernous room. Enormous swastika banners hung from the ceiling. Hundreds of folding chairs had been set up in rows across the floor, which Daniel had explained during the bus ride lay beneath an ice rink or a bicycle arena on other occasions. A main aisle ran between the rows of seats; it was lined with poles topped with National Socialist standards—carved metal swastikas surrounded by garlands, with silver eagles perched above.

Hundreds of people, perhaps as many as a thousand, walked to their seats, chattering with one another. The sight took Gretchen’s breath away. She’d been to the shabby Circus Krone in Munich countless times to watch Hitler talk, but back then the audience had usually consisted of a few hundred people. She had sat in a position of privilege in the front row, so close she could see the sweat pearling on Hitler’s forehead and hear the rasp of his voice. It had been nothing like the spectacle unfurling around her now.

“That’s him,” Birgit whispered. “Third from the left.”

A wooden stage had been erected at the stadium’s far end; it contained a dozen chairs and a podium. SA men ringed the stage, their feet wide apart, their arms folded behind their backs, ready to spring forward and drag out hecklers. The fellow who Birgit
had indicated was burly and blank-faced. Gretchen suppressed a shudder. Just the sort of brainless hulk that Hitler preferred for his SA troops.

“Let’s go. Remember to follow my lead.” Daniel wove between the crowds, Gretchen and Birgit following. They stopped a few feet away from Weiss. Birgit fished her compact out of her purse and peered into it, pretending to fuss with her appearance, a ruse they had agreed upon during the bus ride. Gretchen fiddled with her wristwatch, trying to look bored. From the corner of her eye, she watched Daniel amble toward the stage, straining to hear him above the song blaring from the loudspeakers. He looked relaxed, his hands in his pockets.

“Big crowd tonight,” he said to Weiss, who grunted. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a quote or two? I’ve got to turn in an article tonight to my editor or he’ll have my hide. They’re terrible taskmasters at the
Berliner Zeitung
.”

Weiss grunted again. “Filthy rag. Owned by a couple of Jews.”

“Well, we’ll see how long they can hold on to it.” Daniel flashed him a grin. “My boss has been giving me a rough time ever since that girl got killed in the street a couple of weeks ago—maybe you heard about it. Monika Junge? Shot in the head?”

Weiss shifted. “You’d better find a seat. The chancellor should be here any minute.”

“We’ve got time yet.” Daniel stepped closer to Weiss, giving him a conspiratorial smile. “Take pity on me, will you? My boss is convinced that Fräulein Junge’s death is some sort of cover-up, no matter what I say to him. I’ve got to come up with a scoop tonight or he’ll sack me.”

“Your boss is a fool,” Weiss snapped. “That’s your scoop.”

“A fool?” Daniel grinned wider while Gretchen watched, her heart in her throat.
Be careful
, she thought at him, but he continued talking. “Come now! You can’t say something like that without backing it up.” He raised an eyebrow. “I heard you fellows took the girl’s possessions. Sounds significant to me.”

Weiss leaned closer to Daniel, his face hard. “Tell your boss to drop the story. There’s nothing in it. I know—we were looking for the girl’s diary. Her diary!” He snorted in open disgust. “What sort of task is that for me and my men? We didn’t even find it. Stupid waste of time.”

“Thanks,” Daniel said cheerfully. “I’ll convince him to find another pet story.”

Whistling, he strolled away. Birgit looped her arm through Gretchen’s and they followed him, skirting the rows of chairs while Gretchen’s thoughts spun. What secrets were hidden in Fräulein Junge’s diary? And, most important of all, where was it now?

Most people had sat down, talking quietly with one another. Several yards away policemen in dark blue uniforms guarded the entrance; Gretchen wondered if they were expecting trouble tonight. It was hardly her concern, though. A few more minutes and they would be out of this place.

The German anthem started up. People stood, turning to look at the back of the stadium. Their arms whipped up in the National Socialist salute.

“Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!”

That was the signal that Hitler was entering the room. Gretchen let out a half-strangled gasp. They were too late. They couldn’t reach the doors and slip outside before Hitler came in.
If they tried to leave, they’d attract the attention of the hundreds of people in the stadium.

The apology was clear on Daniel’s face. There was nothing they could do.

She would have to see Hitler again.

Everything in her went hot, then cold, at the thought. Dear God, what if he recognized her? Or she couldn’t control her fear and burst into frantic sobs as soon as she heard his voice?
I can’t do this
, she thought, but the chorus of
Sieg Heil
s had risen to a roar. Hitler was coming, and there was nowhere she could run.

Daniel grabbed her hand and tugged her toward a row of seats. She stumbled after him, her knee connecting with the back of a chair. Dimly, she was aware of pain flaring up and down her leg, but she barely felt a thing. She stood woodenly. As if lifted by an invisible string, her arm rose automatically in the Nazi salute. On either side of her, Daniel and Birgit raised their arms, too.

The shouts of
Sieg Heil
filled the air. Through the crush of bodies, Gretchen had to strain to see a figure striding down the aisle. He looked to be about average height and wore a brown Party uniform with a red swastika brassard on his right arm. The sloping line of his shoulders was instantly familiar. The blood in her veins turned to ice.

It was Hitler.

AS HE CAME CLOSER, HIS IMAGE SHARPENED INTO
focus. His face still held that half-starved look she remembered so well. Beneath the stadium’s harsh lights, his cheeks looked pale and paper-thin. Above them, his electric blue eyes were focused on the stage ahead. Brilliantine glistened on his brown hair. The lips that used to kiss her hands were tight lines now—exactly how she recalled he used to set his mouth before launching into a speech, as though he had to hold the stream of words inside. His mustache was the same dark smudge. He didn’t look as though he’d changed at all.

She shrank back and ducked her head, blood roaring in her ears. All it would take was one glance, and Hitler would recognize her. She and Daniel would never escape. On all sides they were surrounded by Party members who wouldn’t hesitate to kill or beat them.

Through the strands of her hair, she watched Hitler approach her row.
Please don’t look, please don’t look
, she begged silently, staying motionless, fearing the slightest movement would catch his eye. As he neared, she glimpsed his uniform—a suit jacket and matching khaki-colored trousers. It was finer than anything she’d seen him wear before. Back in the old days, he’d usually worn a blue serge suit, much mended, but of which he was terribly proud.

Then he swept past her, and her legs turned to water. She grabbed the chair in front of her for support. Ahead, he climbed the steps to the stage. The thousand or so people were screaming now.
“Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!”
Hitler looked down at them sternly, then saluted them. The people shouted louder.
“Heil, Heil!”

Hitler raised both of his hands. The crowd immediately quieted and sat down. Mechanically, Gretchen sat, too.
There are a few hundred people between us
, she told herself.
I’m not afraid
.

It was a lie. The pressure on her chest was so heavy she feared she was going to pass out. Daniel’s good hand found hers and gripped it hard.

“The great epoch for which we have waited for so long is finally upon us,” Hitler said. The loudspeakers magnified his voice so it sounded as though there were dozens of Hitlers speaking all around the stadium in unison. Gretchen wanted to cover her ears. He sounded different; there was a scratchiness to his voice that she hadn’t heard before. Perhaps he’d damaged his throat by screaming so much during speeches, as her mother had warned him.

“Germany has awakened,” he continued. “For years, our great nation has struggled against the perils of democracy, of
parliamentarianism, of Communism. Those political systems pledge freedom, but their promises are illusory.

“The Communists’ goal is the destruction of all non-Jewish nations.” Hitler shook his fist in the air. Gretchen remembered seeing him practice the same movement while Papa nodded admiringly. The whole thing was nothing more than a carefully orchestrated performance. “The Communists’ cowardly act of setting fire to the Reichstag was a God-given signal that a new epoch in German history is upon us! Through all of the Communists’ assaults, we have remained steadfast and strong. The virtue that has sustained us is bravery. That is what will assure us of our eventual victory!”

With each word, he spoke faster and louder until he was almost screaming. He leaned over the podium, clutching its sides, strands of sweat-dampened hair hanging over his forehead. His face had turned bright red. The audience roared its approval.

“Beat the Red Front to pulp!” a group of men in SA brown shouted from a few rows behind Gretchen. It was the same rallying cry she’d heard during countless speeches over the years, after Hitler had warned the audience about the dangers their strongest political opponents, the Communists, posed. Once she had shouted those words, too, convinced that Communism was like a foul disease stretching across the Russian steppes to infect so many European countries. Now she understood why Hitler hated the Communists so much: They were strong and they were in his way.

Hitler raised his hand, signaling that he wanted silence. A hush fell over the crowd. “Communism,” he said slowly, “is the product of Jewish minds. The time has come at last to expose the
Communists as the foul Jews and cowards that they are! Germany awake!”

“Germany awake, perish the Jew!” the audience chanted back. It was the same phrase Gretchen had heard and parroted when she was younger, little realizing the meaning behind it. Not understanding that Hitler was saying that if Germany wanted to survive, then its Jews had to die.

Daniel’s hand tightened on Gretchen’s. His expression was calm, but the way his fingers grasped hers told her how furious and helpless he must feel. He looked at her, a muscle clenching in his jaw, and she tried to smile, hoping he realized what she was trying to tell him: She didn’t believe the lies anymore. He smiled faintly back.

When the speech ended, Hitler strode out while the music was still playing, his old trick to avoid his supporters who might want to haggle over points he’d made. Gretchen’s heart pounded when he approached her row, but again, he didn’t look at her, only straight ahead. It was his custom, Gretchen knew, his way of disconnecting slightly from his audience, so he could seem above them. But what if he happened to glance her way? He would recognize her, she knew it. The hair dye and cosmetics wouldn’t fool him.

He was coming closer, so near she could see flakes of dandruff dusting his shoulders, white flecks on brown. Her heart surged into her throat.
Don’t look, don’t look
, she begged. She tried to tear her gaze away, but she couldn’t keep herself from staring at him. Even now, she felt herself as drawn to him as a moth to an open flame. There was something impossibly mesmerizing about him—something glittering and powerful, a lightning strike that
dazzled the eyes long after it had sizzled into nothingness.

He was only a few feet away now. Her arm, raised in the salute, shook from the effort of holding it aloft. Soon he would see her. He must.

But he passed her row, his eyes still focused in the distance. She sagged in relief, letting her arm fall, her fingers curling around the back of the chair in front of her for balance. Around her, the audience broke into little clumps, talking about those wretched Communists. Daniel placed his hand on the small of her back, jolting her. She followed him and Birgit to the exit. It took all of her self-control not to push people out of the way and race from the hall.

They caught an omnibus at the corner. It was crowded, and Daniel insisted that Gretchen and Birgit take a seat together while he sat at the only other empty spot, among a cluster of drunkards singing “Mack the Knife.”

“So he’s your ‘sort-of’ beau?” Birgit nodded at where Daniel sat at the back of the bus. “What’s sort-of about it? He’s rather gorgeous. You ought to lay claim to him before someone else does.”

Heat rushed into Gretchen’s cheeks. “It’s not that simple. There’s no way we can stay together and have everything we need to be happy.”

Birgit rolled her eyes. “Of course you can’t have everything. Why the devil did you think you could?”

Gretchen opened her mouth to reply, then shut it in surprise. Was Birgit right? Was it impossible for any one person to have each of the pieces she needed to make her existence whole? She and Daniel had already sacrificed so much for each other’s sake.
How could she give up the Whitestones, the first proper family she’d ever had, or Daniel, his cherished career, and not watch their love warp into loneliness and anger? Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. It was impossible.

“I’ll give you some advice, though Lord knows you probably won’t want it.” Birgit settled back in the seat, all the merriment gone from her face. “I grew up very poor—there were seven of us in a one-room apartment. I left school as soon as I could, four years ago when I was fourteen. I wanted to help support my family, so I’ve done—well, you know what I’ve done.”

Her usual confident manner was gone, her voice soft and hesitant. “Monika was a lot like me. She came from a rich family in the Charlottenburg district, but she’d left home when she was quite young, too.” The corner of her mouth pulled up, a flicker of a smile. “She wanted to be an actress, you see, and her parents thought that was beneath her. So she supported herself however she could while she went on auditions. I don’t think she ever landed a role. She got so discouraged. That’s when she turned to cocaine. I—I need it, too. To help me forget what I have to do at night.”

She pulled a handkerchief from her purse, but her eyes remained dry. Gretchen shifted uncomfortably. “Birgit, you don’t need to tell me any of this, if you don’t want to—”

“I want to so you can understand,” Birgit interrupted fiercely. “You have something beautiful with him and you’re ready to throw it away because it isn’t easy. I saw how he looked when you said you wanted to go to the Sportpalast with him. As though he’d been punched in the stomach. As though he’d do everything in his power to protect you.”

In her lap, she twisted the handkerchief into a rope. “Monika would have done anything to have a man look at her that way. Lord knows she tried to find a man who loved her so deeply.” She let out a shuddering breath. “But he had her killed instead. And I . . . I’ll never find a decent boy who can overlook what I have to do.”

Gretchen couldn’t help thinking of Geli and Eva. Had they, too, been desperate to find a man who loved them? Was that why Eva had carved herself down into someone Gretchen barely recognized?

Slowly, she became aware of Birgit’s stare. She didn’t know what to say to her. “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I had no idea how difficult your lives were. And I do love Daniel. So much that I’m willing to give him up, if that’s what it takes for him to find a place where he can be happy. If he goes back with me, he won’t be able to find work and he’ll be miserable,” she added in a low voice. “I can’t bear to have him abandon his career for me. I’d rather be without him than cause him any unhappiness.”

“Oh.” Birgit let out a heavy sigh. “That’s true love, then, what you have. And I’m the one who’s sorry.”

She rested her arm over Gretchen’s shoulders, drawing her closer. They sat in the jostling bus, their heads touching, just as Gretchen and Eva used to do when they were little and sharing secrets. Gretchen closed her eyes and let a few tears slide out from under her lids. It was too much—the possibility of losing Daniel, seeing Hitler again, reliving the old memories of Eva and her family.

Tears wouldn’t change anything. She opened her eyes. Through
the window, she watched the Tiergarten rise up. The massive park seemed frozen under a layer of snow. Little lamps flickered among the trees like dozens of fireflies, the tiny gold orbs reflecting off the snow so the ground glittered. Figures walked the pathways, moving from the shadows into the light from the lanterns and back again. They reminded Gretchen of the trapped souls in Dante’s
Inferno
, never fully in the dawn or the dark but caught somewhere in between. Like Hitler. She shivered and looked away. He wasn’t here. But she could have sworn she heard the low cadence of his voice and smelled his scent of toothpaste and sugar.

Back at the hideout, Daniel was jubilant. “That fellow Weiss walked right into my trap!” he told Friedrich, who had stopped by in between rounds of some of the nightclubs under his protection. “He said they were looking for Fräulein Junge’s diary, but didn’t find it.”

Friedrich tapped his fingers together thoughtfully. “Which means it’s still out there somewhere. And we’d better find it first. I can’t imagine where she would have kept it, if it wasn’t in her lockbox. We’ll see what I can pry out of Göring at the ball tomorrow night.” He thumped Daniel on the shoulder. “Excellent work, Herr Cohen. You and your girl should get some rest. Tomorrow night will be a long one.”

Grinning, Daniel took Gretchen’s hand and they walked to the bedroom they shared. Behind them, Gretchen heard the front door open and close; Friedrich was gone, and the only other occupant of the darkened apartment was tonight’s
Ringverein
guard. The place was so quiet, she could imagine that she and Daniel were alone.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “After seeing Hitler?”

She tried to nod, but tears filled her eyes instead. “He looks the
same
,” she burst out. “After what he did to Papa and Reinhard—he should feel
something
! I used to think he felt emotions so keenly. When I was little, I remember how he’d become so angry or depressed, sometimes for days at a stretch. But now he seems to go on and on and on without feeling a thing.” She took a shuddering breath, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. “He ruined my family, and he doesn’t care.”

Daniel wrapped his good arm around her. “No, he doesn’t. I’m so sorry, Gretchen.”

She pressed her face into his neck, her body shaking with sobs.

“Oh, Gretchen.” Daniel sounded desperate. “Please don’t cry. I can bear anything except your tears.”

He held her closer and kissed her cheek. Her heart started hammering. She had missed this—the feel of his mouth on hers, the sense that they were sharing a breath. Without thinking, she reached up just as he bent down and their lips met. The room seemed to fall away, and the thunder of Hitler’s voice in the stadium; the tight ache in her throat; the tinkle of glass as SA men smashed shop windows; the swastika banners snapping in the breeze; and police wagons rumbling over the cobblestones in Munich. All she felt was the heat of his mouth and his hands, rubbing up and down her arms.