The Words I Never Wrote

by Jane Thynne

  Reinhard Heydrich.

  A second later the last of the cars had vanished into the drive, and the barrier clanged shut.

  * * *

  —

  DEATH NOTICES, TOTENZETTELE, LIKE the one in her hand, were common now. They dropped regularly through the door like postcards from the grave. Most took the form of small rectangular studio portraits of the fallen soldier in uniform, surmounted by an iron cross and a patriotic inscription that put the best possible spin on a senseless death. After Ernst’s death, a fortnight ago, his mother had had a hundred sent out, and while a funeral was not possible, all Weissmuller workers were ordered to contribute a portion of their wages to a bronze memorial bust for the main factory entrance.

  Irene probed her feelings like an aching tooth. She should be grief-stricken, she knew. Instead she felt only icy numbness, cruelly appropriate to the conditions in which her husband had died. Horror stories abounded of what the Wehrmacht were suffering through the devastating Soviet winter; soldiers with their ears, noses, and fingers, even their eyelids, frozen off. She could hardly bear to think of Ernst’s strong features blurred and eroded by snow. Yet, for her, his face was already fading.

  She had not seen Ernst for more than a year before he died. Even then relations between them had been strained. Frustrated by her failure to give him a child, he had carried on womanizing unchecked. When he turned to her in bed, she’d had to stop herself from flinching at his touch. Where once she had arched and relaxed like a cat into the curves of his body, now all his other women lay between them.

  When war broke out, almost three years ago, the chance to join the Waffen-SS in the struggle against subhumans and inferior races was irresistible to Ernst. Although his status as a major industrialist would have exempted him from military service, this was, he explained, “an ideological battle to spread decency and culture to the East.”

  Some days she couldn’t remember his face at all.

  * * *

  —

  REPLACING THE DEATH NOTICE on the mantelpiece, she glanced at the painting above. A spirit of grim humor had prompted her to hang Oskar Blum’s portrait in the room where she had discovered her husband’s first infidelity. For an instant she saw Oskar again as he had painted her back in 1937; grimacing whenever she shifted position, scowling at her and the canvas, pulling off his horn-rimmed spectacles, gesturing extravagantly with the brush in his hand. Endlessly joking, keeping up a stream of banter. He was like the younger brother she’d never had.

  She wondered where he was now.

  Life for a Jewish man in Germany had worsened beyond Oskar’s most extreme imaginings. From 1941, exactly as he had predicted on the day they first met, Jews had been obliged to wear a yellow star; they paid ten pfennigs for the privilege and were obliged to stitch the stars as close as possible to their hearts. Deportations intensified. Yet hundreds of clandestines remained, moving from safe house to safe house, surviving underground. You knew this because you still saw the roundups, terrified men and women escorted from houses or tenements, faces bleached with fear, arms in the air.

  The thought prompted Irene to check her Cartier watch, the one that Ernst had given her on the day of their wedding.

  It was almost midday. Snatching up her shopping basket, she made her way quickly to the S-Bahn.

  * * *

  —

  NEWSPAPERS WERE THEIR CHOSEN method of communication. Unlike Cordelia, Irene had never been a great newspaper reader. Yet now she felt a pleasing shiver of irony that journalism had become the tool of her resistance.

  Generally, Waldo would indicate the date, time, and place of their next meeting in the newspaper he passed her. Finding the information was a puzzle in itself. Often Irene would search the pages in mounting frustration before coming across a faint pencil scrawl in a margin or a series of names and numbers jotted carelessly like racing tips on the sports page. Occasionally the details would be hidden in the crossword, so the casual observer would see only a filled grid, rather than the address and time of the next pickup.

  To each rendezvous Irene would bring her own newspaper, into which she had taped a pass, or an envelope full of letterhead notepaper, or some equally precious piece of documentation. The two of them would meet apparently by accident, their newspapers identically folded, and make the exchange without comment, either swapping as they brushed past each other, or sitting side by side without speaking. If Waldo took out a cigarette, it was a signal they were being watched and the swap should not take place. In the four years they had been meeting, Waldo had selected random venues for their assignations: a bench by the statue of Goethe in the Tiergarten, a musty bookshop in Wilmersdorf, a pew in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. That day’s rendezvous was at the Nussbaum bar in Fischerinsel, on the far side of Mitte.

  Flecks of snow were falling and drifting into banks at the side of the road as Irene picked her way toward the meeting place. Named for the walnut tree that grew outside, Zum Nussbaum was the city’s oldest bar; here, Berliners had been resting their steins on the scratched oak tables for hundreds of years. With its sweet white frontage and steeply gabled roof, the bar was a Teutonic fantasy straight out of the Brothers Grimm.

  Yet if the Nussbaum was a fantasy from a mythic Germany past, its surroundings were an abject reminder of Germany present. Immediately next door the scorched remains of a bombed shoe shop lay scattered, the shelving miraculously still standing amid a twisted rubble of concrete and girders. Splinters of glass studded the walls and showered the paving outside. Of the shoes themselves there was no sign. New shoes were a rarity when everyone walked on cardboard soles.

  The bombing of Berlin that began in 1940 had brought a fresh nickname for Hermann Goering. Before the war, the Minister had declared that if ever Allied planes managed to bomb the city, My name is Meyer. Now, as people coughed incessantly from the dust that bloomed out of buildings and caught at the back of the throat, Goering was universally referred to as Meyer.

  The Nussbaum was crowded—presumably why Waldo had chosen it—yet there was no sign of him, so Irene installed herself in a wood-paneled booth near the dirty window. Across the street a Blockwart was frantically sweeping a pavement to remove the words Hitler Verecke—Hitler Drop Dead—which had been scrawled into the snowy canvas with a stick. Street art had been outlawed in Germany, punishable by stiff fines, but the penalty for urging the death of the Führer was certain to be distinctly more unpleasant.

  “Something about the snow brings out the most wonderful creative impulses, don’t you think?” inquired a voice over her shoulder.

  She was startled. Waldo never addressed her directly. Glancing up, she saw that he had transformed again. Throughout the time they had been meeting he had adopted a variety of personas and disguises, and that day he was sporting the twirled mustache and starched collar of an old colonel, even though he himself could be no more than forty. He wore a small silver cross on his lapel, a gold watch chain on his waistcoat, and an air of crusty bonhomie.

  “This place is not what it was,” he grumbled, squeezing himself alongside her.

  He was right. The stuffing was seeping out of the chairs and the only dish on offer was fish smeared with a yellow mustard sauce called “Senftunke” that tasted like glue.

  Waldo extracted a half-smoked cigar from his top pocket. He lit up with a flourish, beckoning the waitress over to order two cups of Malzkaffee, a gritty concoction of acorns and chicory. It was the first time that they had sat for coffee together since their initial encounter in the Konditorei am Bahnhof, and Irene was nervous at open communication in such a public place. It felt risky.

  “So your husband was killed,” he observed, as the waitress moved away.

  She rested her copy of Das Reich containing a couple of work passes from the factory on the top of her basket. “How did you know?”

  Waldo nodded down at th
e copy of the Der Angriff he had brought with him. Of course: the death of the Weissmuller company president had been respectfully reported in the press. “Please accept my condolences.”

  “Thank you.”

  The coffee arrived, enabling her to shield her mouth as she sipped.

  “I was thinking about our mutual friend this morning,” she said. “The painter. Do you ever see him?”

  “Not for some time.”

  “Any idea where he is?”

  Waldo made a business of relighting his cigar, cupping one hand around his mouth as he spoke.

  “The last I heard was months ago. He received a summons to attend Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse.”

  Irene knew that Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8 was the most feared address in Berlin, the headquarters of the Gestapo.

  “He would have done everything in his power to avoid an appointment like that. I worry the Jew catchers have found him.”

  Jew catchers were the turncoats of their own community. Employed by the Nazis to identify and trap those in hiding, the catchers traveled without their yellow stars, looking out for fellow Jews existing underground. If they recognized anyone, they would get talking and confide that they were living illegally, in the hope that the unsuspecting Jew would confide in return.

  “I still can’t believe people would do that.”

  “You’d better start believing what people will do.”

  Irene took a quick, instinctive glance around the room. “But you have no proof?”

  “No. What I do know is, the Nazis won’t rest until every last Jew is transported from Berlin.”

  “Not all of them, surely. The factories need workers.” She remembered Ernst saying that. With all able-bodied German men being conscripted, Weissmuller’s, like every other munitions factory, had seized on the thousands of Polish Jews arriving in the capital and marshaled them for forced labor. “Albert Speer told Ernst the regime depended on the skilled labor of Jews.”

  “Perhaps he did. Trouble is, the rest of them don’t agree with him. Goering, Hess, and Goebbels have told our dear Führer that the war against Jews is more important than the war against England.”

  He reached a hand down to her side and caught her wrist, as though they were lovers engaged in a tiff.

  “But forget that. It’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  She tuned in to the babble around them, alert for signs they were being overheard.

  “What then?” she asked, softly.

  “Now your husband’s gone, who’s in the house?”

  “Only me. The maid’s working in the factory. Our gardener is air crew for the Luftwaffe.”

  “Good. Because we need it.”

  “My home?” She was shocked. “For what?”

  “For people I’ll send to you.”

  “So you’re not here to give your condolences.”

  “With respect, no. The death of a member of the Waffen-SS was not top of my concerns. It’s not your husband, but his house I’m thinking about. You will take people for one night at a time, then pass them on.”

  “That’s out of the question,” she said, brusquely.

  “These people are desperate, Frau Weissmuller. They will stay for no longer than a night.”

  “We have an SS guard post a hundred yards down the road—”

  “They will arrive under cover of darkness.”

  “It’s not safe.”

  “For them, or for you?”

  “Both, of course.”

  “You’re worried about the penalties for sheltering illegals?”

  “No.”

  Irene could not be sure, but emotion had raised her voice slightly, and she sensed the conversation at the next table had dipped as the two customers there listened in.

  “Shall we walk?” she said, tersely.

  She didn’t need to say more. Waldo tucked some money beneath the saucer, scooped up his newspaper, and strolled out of the bar. Irene followed.

  Outside, the snow was falling faster, speckling her copy of Das Reich, so Irene pushed it deeper into her basket. They walked swiftly, hands deep in pockets and shoulders hunched against the piercing cold. Looking around covertly, she saw nothing suspicious; only pedestrians, their necks huddled into their collars and their attention focused on the sidewalk’s treacherous ice.

  “As I was saying, I’m right next door to an SS conference house. So sending anyone to me would place them in greater danger.”

  “That’s not for you to say.”

  “Official cars were passing my house all morning. There’s a high-level meeting on today. I think I saw Heydrich.”

  “We appreciate what you do. And now we’re wanting you to do a little more.”

  “Is this not enough?” She gestured to the newspaper in her bag.

  “Circumstances have changed. Ask yourself, Frau Weissmuller. Why are you here?”

  She took a gulp of icy air before replying. “We both know why I’m here.”

  “Then you should understand what is required of you.”

  “I’m sorry. I simply can’t take anyone in. It would be madness. Please don’t ask me again.”

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS AS THEY rounded the corner into Breite Strasse that she saw them. Two men in trench coats, moving in a resolute, measured tread along the narrow sidewalk. Unlike most citizens with their cardboard soles, both wore good leather shoes, and for a split second Irene found herself speculating what profession might pair a man with a face as wrinkled as an old balloon with another so boyishly handsome. The younger man’s eyes flicked appreciatively over her face and figure.

  As they approached, the two men made no move to give way, so Irene and Waldo stepped to one side, but found their path blocked.

  “Your papers, bitte.”

  The younger man opened his coat and flashed a warrant disc hanging from a chain inside his jacket. Irene recognized it—as would every citizen in Berlin—the flat silver oval with an eagle on one side and on the other the words GEHEIME STAATSPOLIZEI. So they were Gestapo. Even if she had not known she might have guessed it from the professional calm with which they kept their eyes fixed on Irene and Waldo as both searched obediently for their identity documents.

  Irene fumbled the gray Kennkarte from her wallet while Waldo clamped his copy of Der Angriff under one arm and rummaged around in his jacket.

  “I’d forget my head if it was not fixed on.”

  Panic had intensified his persona. Waldo was acting the old colonel, and the role was incongruous, for both his age and his looks. It was amateur dramatics at its worst.

  “In your pocket perhaps?” suggested the older Gestapo man, stonily.

  Waldo padded down his trouser pockets, then shrugged. “We fellows should have handbags like ladies.”

  “Take your time, old guy,” said the younger man, playing along.

  Despite the cold, sweat was trickling down Waldo’s face, causing a ribbon of hair dye to leak onto his brow. “Perhaps you would hold my newspaper…”

  “Sure.”

  He handed over Der Angriff, one of the more virulent Nazi papers, like an exhibit brought in evidence for his defense. Irene felt dizzy with fear.

  After a few more rummages, Waldo produced his identity document with a flourish, and the older officer scrutinized it minutely. Irene felt a tide of nausea rising in her. Why was he taking so long? Waldo’s papers were surely perfectly authentic. A man who spent his life providing others with documents would not have neglected his own.

  “We must ask you to accompany us to Alexanderplatz.”

  Waldo attempted another jovial shrug. “Is it not in order?”

  “Leave the questions to us.”

  Curtly the younger man turned to Irene. “You. Is this man with you…” He s
crutinized her pass again. “Frau Weissmuller?”

  “No.”

  “Yet we saw you talking to him.”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  She hesitated only a split second.

  “The time. He asked me the time.”

  Placing the shopping basket on the ground, she extended her wrist to show off the Cartier watch with diamonds around its face. Her hand was trembling.

  “He admired my watch and I couldn’t help telling him that it was a wedding present from my husband. Ernst Weissmuller. And that my husband has just fallen at the Eastern Front.”

  She was intensely conscious of the newspaper, with the passes taped inside, still bundled deep inside her shopping basket, now pressing against her woolen stocking. Pray God they did not ask to see her basket.

  The older policeman offered a slight nod of respect. “My regrets, Frau Weissmuller.”

  “Thank you. Forgive my confusion. I’m still quite dazed.”

  “So you don’t know this man?”

  “I have absolutely no idea who he is.”

  Sometimes the truth came as easily as lies.

  The officer considered her for a second, then seized Waldo’s arm and in a sharp about turn, led him briskly away.