Prisoner of Night and Fog (31 page)

The trip back to the train station was silent. Gretchen and Daniel didn’t speak until the railway car lurched forward, going faster and faster until the brightly lit buildings of Berlin fell away and the green fields stretched out, the long grasses brightened by late afternoon sunlight.

Their third-class compartment was crowded and noisy. A group of grimy-faced children and their exhausted-looking mother had claimed the seats opposite, but they were so busy teasing and scolding one another that Gretchen and Daniel could talk quietly.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to see your family,” Gretchen said.

Daniel looked startled, then smiled. “That isn’t why we came here. But yes, I would have liked to see them.” He hesitated, then took her hand in his, turning it over and twining their fingers together. “I would have liked to introduce them to the girl I’ve fallen in love with.”

She didn’t want to cry but couldn’t help it. The moment should have felt like a miracle, but it was sad instead, like broken bootlaces, cracked glass, missing buttons on a blouse, everything once whole but now damaged. How could she and Daniel hope to stay together in Munich, that great cauldron of a city whose cobblestone streets were slowly turning the National Socialist colors of brown and red and black?

“You and I are impossible,” she said.

“No.” Gently, he brushed the hair back from her face. “We are what’s real and true.”

And even though the children in their compartment started to shriek with laughter, he leaned closer, pressing his lips lightly to hers.

It didn’t feel like a kiss; it felt like sharing a breath. Somehow, everything tumbled away, the giggling children, the train’s monotonous rocking, the smells of burned coffee and yeasty bread from the food trolley rolling down the corridor. Nothing existed except Daniel and the steady pressure of his mouth.

Even as his lips touched hers, she felt tears tightening her throat. This boy, whom she had feared and despised. This boy, whose hands were supposed to press an infectious virus beneath her skin.

This boy, whom she loved. Even if she couldn’t bring herself to say it yet.

When they pulled apart, Daniel ran his fingers beneath her eyes, wiping away the tears. “I’m sorry, too, for what you had to hear today.”

She looked at the mother and children, but now they were busily scarfing down currant buns. “My father didn’t deserve to be shot in the street. My parents’ friends always said that he came back from the war much changed, as though part of him had been blasted away by the shells. I wonder . . . if he hadn’t had shell shock, if he would have followed Hitler.”

Sadness softened his face. “We’ll never know.”

Beyond the glass, the darkened fields flew past, tangled grasses in the darkness. Somewhere in France, in fields like these, her father had crouched in trenches and waited to die. He had watched the dirt-packed tunnels fill with smoke; he had watched as his comrades didn’t put on their gas masks fast enough and died on the spot. He had sat beside Hitler, soaked with rain, dirty from mud, hungry from low rations, shaking with fear. Desperate.

“Daniel,” Gretchen said softly, “I think my father may have said something about Hitler’s diagnosis during the ride to the beer hall. He kept mentioning Hitler’s overwrought nerves until everyone told him to be quiet.”

They looked at each other. Blood thundered in her head. No. It was impossible. Papa couldn’t have been cut down by his dearest comrade. . . .

The children had finished their currant buns and were watching them curiously. Gretchen and Daniel went into the little corridor that ran along the compartments. Through the windows across the way, a steady blur of shadows flashed past. At the end of the corridor stood a man in a dark conductor’s uniform, glancing over a handful of ticket stubs.

Gretchen turned her back to him and stood close to Daniel. The train’s wheels rumbled rhythmically, nearly drowning out her voice.

“But it couldn’t have been Hitler,” she said. “He’s always said how grateful he is for my father’s sacrifice, and he has kept my family close to him all these years. Perhaps it was Amann. He fought along with them in the war, and he would have known they were quarantined from their regiment. Maybe he wanted to protect Hitler’s reputation. If the diagnosis got out, the Party would be destroyed, since Hitler and the Party are one and the same.”

Daniel nodded. “Yes, but how can we know for certain
what
got your father killed? And Forster won’t discuss Hitler’s diagnosis publicly. He said his position as a physician prevents him from speaking about a former patient’s condition. Besides, he has a family and won’t put them in danger.”

Gretchen started to speak, then froze. In her mind, she saw the potato bins and her mother’s old trunk in the boardinghouse cellar. The trunk filled with old letters and dusty photographs, an album of dried wildflowers, hers and Reinhard’s school marks.
And a doctor’s report
.

A piece of paper, stamped with a doctor’s name and address, covered with his scrawling handwriting. At the time, she had tossed it aside, intent on finding her father’s old letters. Now she realized how strange the note was. The Müllers never went to doctors; they couldn’t afford the fees. Could Reinhard’s increasingly disturbing behavior have convinced their parents to take him to a doctor?

She clutched Daniel’s hand. “I think I know where we might find medical information about my brother. And there’s one person whom my father would have told about Hitler’s treatment, and if I’m right, she’ll tell us everything. She has to.”

His eyes flicked onto hers. “Your mother.”

35

FOG BLANKETED THE CITY LIKE VELVET. IT HUNG
in thick patches as Gretchen walked along the Amalienstrasse. Grimly, she focused on the sidewalk before her, trying not to think of riding back into Munich last night on the express train, reaching Daniel’s apartment at dawn and lying alone on the sofa, falling into a gray, dreamless sleep while Daniel and his cousins slumbered in their rooms. Opening her eyes to find light from the noonday sun flooding the tiny parlor and a heavy silence hovering over the apartment. Glancing into the bedchamber the boys shared and seeing only Daniel’s dark head on his pillow, the sheets rising and falling with his steady breaths, the other bed empty. Ruth and Aaron were probably at the university.

She had left a note for Daniel on the kitchen table, explaining she would be back soon, and crept out. Thank God, he hadn’t woken. He would have tried to stop her. But he couldn’t understand how tightly the years of friendship bound her to Eva. Not even Herr Braun’s disapproval could keep her away.

The street was busy at half past twelve, the sidewalks brisk with shoppers and businessmen and storekeepers. A new collection of photographs perched in the front window of Heinrich Hoffmann’s photography shop, gilt frames gleaming against the black cloth backdrops, pictures of apples and flowers and Hitler—the lover of Bavarian culture in traditional leather shorts and a cap with edelweiss tucked in the brim; the father of Germany smiling at a group of schoolgirls presenting him with a bouquet of daisies; the friend of all animals, standing beside his favorite German shepherd, Muck, his pale hand resting on the beast’s head.

Gretchen ripped her gaze away and pushed the door open. Eva stood behind the counter, fiddling with her bracelet and looking bored. A young man, probably a new camera apprentice, was hanging photographs along the wall.

“Gretl!” Eva gasped. “Where have you been? Your mother rang me last night, looking for you. She said you never returned from Herr Hitler’s mountain house!”

Somehow, Gretchen stretched her lips into a smile she hoped looked reassuring. “Is there some place private we can talk?”

“The boss and his friends are in the back courtyard,” Eva said. “Discussing some campaigning trip that he’s leaving on with Herr Hitler tonight. We could speak in his office.” She glanced at the young man. “Watch the counter for a moment, won’t you?”

Eva didn’t bother waiting for a reply. Together, she and Eva hurried down the corridor into Herr Hoffmann’s office. Through the open window, Gretchen heard men’s voices. The low, rich chocolate of Uncle Dolf, mingled with the harsh sandpaper of Herr Hoffmann. They were so close. Only feet away. They might come inside at any instant.

She seized Eva’s hands. “I’m so sorry my mother got you this job. If it hadn’t been for us, you wouldn’t have met any of these people. And I’m sorry I kept so much from you, but I didn’t want to get you in trouble, too. But you need to know the truth.”

Eva’s mouth dropped open in an O of surprise. “Good heavens! Whatever is the matter?”

The men’s voices rumbled through the window. Someone was talking about the upcoming elections. They would push that lily-livered Chancellor Brüning out of office, and President Hindenburg couldn’t live much longer. Soon everything they had worked so hard for would come to pass. . . .

Gretchen pulled Eva out of the office, into the dim corridor, away from the men’s conversation. “You can’t trust anyone in the Party! Eva, I know you don’t care about politics, but you must listen to what Herr Hitler is truly saying. He’s dangerous and he’s a fraud.”

Eva shrank back. In the gray light, Gretchen saw her skin beneath the rouge, pale and child-soft, and the shape of her mouth, slender and small, beneath the lipstick. She realized with a jolt how little her friend resembled her old self, the girl she had been when she returned from the convent school two years ago. As though she were burying herself beneath the cosmetics.

“Gretchen, how can you speak so about him?” Eva sounded scandalized. “He loves you as a daughter—”

“No.” In her mind, Gretchen saw him moving closer in the darkness and heard the whip whistling through the air. “He doesn’t love anyone.”

Eva tore her hands from Gretchen’s grasp. “That’s a lie. He loves
me
.”

Gretchen froze. She couldn’t have heard right. Eva couldn’t care for him. They barely knew each other, beyond chatting casually in the photography shop. It couldn’t be true. They couldn’t have concealed such a secret from her.

Tears glittered in Eva’s eyes. “He loves me,” she said again, a plaintive note creeping into her voice. “And I will adore him forever.”

Gretchen staggered backward. “Eva,” she breathed.

Eva beamed, but tears slid down her face, cutting lines through the rouge. “I met him two years ago when he came by the shop after closing. Afterward, he often dropped by with flowers and candy. Sometimes, he took me out, but he said we could only go to places where no one would see us.”

The words rushed out, as though she had been storing them inside for a long time. Gretchen stumbled another step back.
Two years
. Two years this had been going on, and she had never had any idea. How skillfully he wrapped parts of his life in separate compartments. How easily he must have manipulated Eva, so she would keep secrets for him. A low cry of pain tore from Gretchen’s throat. So easily that Eva had even kept secrets from her.

Horror stopped her heart for a beat. “The Jew in the alley . . . That’s how Uncle Dolf knew I had protected him!
You
told!”

“Of course,” Eva said. “He wanted to know why we hadn’t come with the boys to the Carleton Tea Room.”

“Have you told him everything?” Gretchen could barely choke the words out. “Does he know I’m investigating my father’s death?”

Eva looked startled. “That ancient history? Why should I bother him with inconsequential news like that when he must devote all his attention to the Party and the elections?”

Somewhere, a door banged open and shut. The men were coming inside. Gretchen stumbled back into the front room. The young man behind the counter glanced at her, his smile falling from his lips. She rushed past him, out the door, into the streams of people flowing up and down the pavement. A hand fastened on her wrist, jerking her to a stop. Eva. Pale-faced and crying.

“Why can’t you be happy for me?” she said. Other Müncheners walked around them, barely breaking their stride, too wrapped in their own lives to notice two upset girls. “I’ve never had a beau before!” She paused. “I love him.”

Gretchen found her voice. “If you think love means secrecy, then you don’t understand what love is at all.”

Eva dashed a hand at her brimming eyes. “If you honestly believe that, go and never come back!”

There was nothing else Gretchen could do. She turned and started to walk. Her movements felt awkward, as though she were a wooden doll. She and Eva as little girls, sitting in adjoining pews during Mass. Another step, faster. Eva at the convent school in Simbach and she at the
Gymnasium
here, their weekly letters to each other. Another step, faster still. Giggling over film magazines, stretched out on Eva’s bed while the cats purred at their feet. She started to run. Chattering about their goals to become a doctor and either a world-famous photographer or an actress. Her breath came hard and quick. The charcoal drawings of her and Geli and Eva, the girls Hitler wanted.

She tore around the corner, the Amalienstrasse slipping away behind her. Eva was gone to her. Hitler had taken her, too. Silent sobs filled Gretchen’s chest. She pushed Eva’s tear-streaked face out of her head and pulled forward the image of Geli standing among the sloe trees along the shore, murmuring that her uncle was watching her again. Eva had made her choice. Geli still had a chance to make one.

She didn’t stop running until she reached a hotel and slid into one of the telephone boxes in the lobby, closing the accordion doors and breathing hard in the sudden silence. For a moment, she rested her forehead against the wall, letting the smooth feel of the wood tether her to the world.

With shaking fingers, she dialed the exchange for Hitler’s apartment, hoping Geli had returned from the mountains by now.

She had. “Gretchen! How are you, darling? What a splendid time I had with you at Haus Wachenfeld!”

“I must speak with you.” The words tumbled out. “It’s about your uncle. He’s dating—”