His Majesty's Hope (28 page)

In for a penny, in for a pound
, she decided, and threw it in.

Then, looping the handbag around her neck, she opened the window and crawled out, leaping down to the lower-floor roof—an insane distance, but she had no choice. When she’d recovered from the impact, she climbed down a trellis. She hit the ground, looked around her, and then began to run. In the yard next door, a chained dog began to bark.

Only when she reached the U-Bahn station did she slow, affecting a shuffle and limp, as though her joints were arthritic. She kept her eyes down and tried to focus on her breath.
In and out, Hope—in and out—just like Thorny taught you …

Her train pulled away from the station just as an SS van pulled into Herr Oberg’s drive.

The Berlin-Mitte that Maggie returned to had changed. The RAF had been making nightly raids—there were more bombed-out buildings, some completely leveled, others decimated. The hot morning sun shone red through the haze of dust and destruction. The acrid stench of smoke wafted on the breeze as air-raid sirens throbbed in the distance.

Maggie glanced surreptitiously at the people on the street and realized that the Berliner invincibility she’d noted when she first arrived had been punctured. She could see it in the people’s eyes—a flicker of realization, of panic, of the knowledge that the war wasn’t just something happening in the abstract but was now coming home to them.

On the one hand, she felt sorry for them. She knew, all too well, what it was like to mourn civilian deaths, to spend nights in a bomb shelter, to see a beloved city attacked.

And yet, these were the same people who had given Hitler his absolute power, who didn’t question the Nuremberg Laws, who turned a blind eye to the horrors of Kristallnacht. Some—many?—were people like Herr Oberg, who wanted Berlin to be
“Judenrein.”
And his daughter, who’d been brainwashed into becoming a soldier-making machine for the Reich. As terrifying as it was to be on the run, there was relief in leaving the Obergs’ stolen villa. She longed to be home in London.

Maggie shook her head.
Focus
, she scolded herself. By now the SS must be looking for her. And she had to make contact with Madame Defarge before she was spotted.
Gottlieb
, she thought, heart pounding,
Gottlieb will be able to help me
.

When she reached his apartment, however, she pressed the buzzer again and again. Nothing. She leaned on it for a full fifteen seconds. Still, no response. Then she went to the street and threw a pebble at his window.

Above her, a window opened. “Go away!” she heard Gottlieb’s voice call down.

“Let me in!” Maggie called back. “You must—”

“I don’t know you.” The window slammed shut.

Hot, red anger welled up inside her, and all the German profanity she’d ever heard came unbidden to her lips. But his window did not reopen.

Maggie saw the knitting woman on the bench, took a calming breath, and crossed the street. She sat down near, but not too near, her.

The woman moved closer. “Your young man’s tough,” she said under her breath. “I saw him once in a boxing match—he has a technique of tiring his opponent out but not throwing any punches, and then, in the tenth round, scoring a knockout. Don’t take it personally.”

“He’s not my young man. And if I don’t make it back,” Maggie said, taking it quite personally, “you have to tell them that I’ve been found out and I’m on the run. I don’t suppose … that you …”

Could hide me?
The unasked question hung in the air.

“No, child.” The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“One of your associates?”

“Nein.”

“I understand.”
Splendid
, Maggie thought,
here I am risking my
neck, and before the cock’s crow, they’ve denied me thrice
. She saw a man in a black trench coat walking closer to them. And it wasn’t the usual quick, eyes-down Berliner walk. He was looking at everyone. Taking everyone’s measure.
Looking for me?

“Goodbye,” she said, getting up slowly, in character.

The old woman kept her eyes on her knitting and nodded.
“Viel Glück.”

In her office at the Abwehr, Clara Hess was seething. “What do you mean, they
lost
her?”

On the other end of the telephone line, Goebbels was unflustered. “She must have suspected something when I mentioned your name. By the time we reached Oberg’s, she was gone. We sent men by Gottlieb Lehrer’s flat, and one of them thought he spotted her, but she gave him the slip.”

Clara drummed her long red-painted nails on her desk. “Then she
has
to be a spy.”

“Oberg said all her paperwork was in order, that it had been checked when she interviewed for the position with Göring. But I dug a little deeper—since she didn’t get an interview, they actually never
did
check her papers.”

Clara wrapped the silver telephone cord around her fingers so tightly that they became white. “Bring in Gottlieb Lehrer for questioning.”

“Questioning by you, or by the SS?”

“Me. Immediately.”

It didn’t take long for Maggie to realize the man in the black trench coat was following her.

She began walking slightly faster, but still limping and not fast
enough to draw attention to herself. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to break into a run. She stopped in front of a butcher’s window to see if he was still following behind.

He was.

Walking faster, she went to the entrance of the Gleisdreieck U-Bahn. The man followed, relentless. Maggie stood waiting on the platform, heart in mouth, for the train. When it pulled into the station, she stepped aside to let the passengers off, then stepped on.

The man stepped on, too, into the car behind her.

Then, moments before the train left the station, Maggie muttered, “Oh no! I’ve forgotten my ration card!” and pushed her way through the crowd. Just as the train pulled out, she slipped through the doors and jumped back onto the platform.

She turned to look at him—and saw the rage burn in the man’s eyes as he realized she’d given him the slip. Maggie looked across the tracks. Nazi guards were shouting at people to leave their luggage on one end of the platform, and line up on the other. The uniformed men held large dogs on leather leashes; the barking echoed off the station’s tiled walls. The people being herded were men and women, young and old, some rich, some poor, some alone and some in family groups. A few of the smaller children wailed.

“I’m thirsty, Mama,” a little girl with dark curls cried. “I’m so thirsty!”

The woman turned to one of the guards. “May I get my daughter some water?”

“Nein!”
he shouted, and struck her in the face with the butt of his gun.

The woman fell, then put one hand to her face. Blood ran from her nose. “It’s all right, Mama,” the little girl said. She had stopped crying. She had forgotten about the water. In that instant their roles had been reversed, and it was her job to comfort her mother. “It’s all right.”

They’re Jews
, Maggie realized. She had heard about the deportations of Berlin’s Jews to ghettos and work camps, of course. Still, that was nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to seeing it for herself.

Another train pulled up. It was rust red and boxy. Not a passenger train at all but one used for transporting cattle.

Maggie watched in horror as the people boarded, trying to catch a last glimpse of the little girl before she got on the train. It seemed as though hundreds were being packed into each car.

“Don’t look,” a young woman said softly to Maggie. She was blond and awkward, with fat braids and pink cheeks.

There were no toilet facilities on that train, Maggie realized, no water. If they were going to one of the ghettos in Poland, it would be days before they reached their destination.… She couldn’t look away.

Another train pulled up on the track in front of her with a shriek of brakes and a cloud of steam. She must put miles between her and the man in black, she realized. She stepped on, letting the doors slam behind her.

Gottlieb knew he had to get out, and fast.

Stopping only to put his papers, his wallet, and his rosary in his pockets, tugging his black hat’s brim low over his face, he opened the door to leave.

The SS officers had already reached his floor. Their commander pulled out his gun. “Get back inside,” he ordered Gottlieb.

Across the hallway, Frau Keller shuffled to her own front door, opened it a crack, and peeked out. Her dog started to yap. “Shhhh—quiet, Kaiser!” she admonished. She watched as the SS soldiers followed Gottlieb into his apartment. Then there was a single gunshot.

After a few moments of silence, Frau Keller could hear profanity, and then furniture being smashed. She saw one of the men take Gottlieb’s crucifix and throw it into the hall. At her feet Kaiser lowered his head and whined in fear.

That was when Frau Keller closed the door softly, bolting and then chaining it. “Come, Kaiser,” she whispered, reaching down to pat the dog’s head. “Let’s get you something to eat now, shall we?”

Maggie didn’t know what to do. She sat, paralyzed, as stop after stop passed by, hunched over, her hat hiding her face. She knew it was insane to stay on the train—at any minute the Gestapo could enter the car and demand to see her identification.

Pull yourself together. You can have a nice big breakdown after you get back to London
.… She looked up at the S-Bahn map and realized that she was heading north, into Berlin. Two stations away, at Potsdamer Platz, not far from the Brandenburg Gate, there would be an intersection of four subway lines. It seemed like her best option for throwing the agent off her scent.

At Potsdamer Platz, she kept her head down and walked swiftly. She boarded the first train that pulled in. At Brandenburger Tor, she realized she was in Mitte-Berlin, the city’s center.

Charité was in Mitte.

Charité was where Elise worked.

Could she get there without being followed?
There’s only one way to find out. And, since I’m running out of options
 … She took yet another train to Lehrter Bahnhof and then stepped off, exiting from the ceramic-tiled station into the punishing midday sun. There was a telephone booth outside the station marked
OEFFENTLICHER FERNSPRECHER
. Maggie opened the door and then slammed it closed behind her. She searched through her handbag for the correct change with trembling hands. Then she picked up
the black and silver receiver, slipped a coin into the slot, and dialed Elise’s work number, which she’d memorized from the slip of paper her half sister had given her at Clara’s birthday party.

“Charité Hospital in Mitte,” she told the operator.
Pick up, pick up, pick up!
Maggie urged as she heard the shrill, metallic rings.

Finally, someone did. “
Guten Tag
. Charité Hospital.”

“Hallo,”
Maggie said. “May I speak with Elise Hess? She’s a nurse.”

“Please hold. I will transfer your call.”

There was a silence, then a voice answered, “
Hallo
, fourth-floor nurses’ station.”

“Hello, I’m trying to reach a nurse named Elise Hess.”

“I’m not sure if she’s working today.”

“Would you be able to check, please? It’s a family emergency.”

Oh, it really is a “family” emergency, Elise
.

There was an interminable wait, and then Maggie heard a voice that made her weak with relief.
“Hallo?”

“Elise! This is Margareta—Margareta Hoffman?”

“Of course!”

“You remember how you said I could call if I needed anything?”

“
Mein Gott!
Are you hurt?” Elise’s voice, warm and reassuring, poured from the receiver.

“No. But I need you to get me inside the hospital. I can explain later.”

There was a silence so long that Maggie feared the other woman had hung up. The line crackled. “Meet me at the delivery entrance,” Elise said finally. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

As Maggie crossed Hannoversche Straße in the nearly unbearable heat, she heard a voice. “Stop!”

Slowly, as though she were achy and arthritic, she turned around.

It was a police officer. He was young, blond, pockmarked. Could he be older than fourteen? Too young for the Eastern Front, Maggie realized. “Show me your papers!” he ordered.

Maggie kept her head down. She prayed her limp, gray hair and humpback fooled him, but she knew her face would betray her. Still, do young people ever really look in the eyes of the old? Her breath came faster.

With gloved hands, she pulled up her purse and fumbled at the catch. Maggie hoped it looked like tremors from old age. She knew the SS had been alerted. But the local police? Was this a random stop, or were they actually looking for her specifically?

It seemed to take forever to get the catch open. “Oh, never mind,” the officer said, finally, watching her struggle. “Sorry,
gnädige Frau
. Have a good day.”

“Danke,”
Maggie managed without looking up, grateful for the wide brim of her hat.

She took several shaky breaths to compose herself, and then shuffled on.

Exactly as she’d promised, Elise arrived at Charité’s delivery entrance, out of breath from running.

“Mein Gott!”
she murmured, and put one hand over her heart. Maggie knew how she must look—ashen, shaken, wild-eyed. Not to mention gray-haired and humpbacked.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m in a bit of trouble …”

Elise looked around to see that no one was watching them. She put her arm around Maggie’s shoulders, as though to help the old woman. “Come with me. For God’s sake, keep your head down.”

Maggie shuffled with Elise through back corridors until they reached an emergency stairwell. The two women climbed to the door that Elise and Frieda had propped open to the roof.

“We’ll stay here, out of sight,” Elise told her. Exhausted, Maggie sank down to sit, back against the wall, finding momentary relief in a small rectangle of shade. Elise followed suit.