Orphan Monster Spy

by Matt Killeen

  She became scared and slipped away early on half-empty buses. But Owens’s wins, all four of his gold medals, thrilled her in a way she couldn’t quite grasp. Until now. She realized he was the enemy of her enemy. He had embarrassed the Nazi Party and the nation in its own backyard. He cowed the people until they couldn’t help but follow him. She yearned for a fraction of that power.

  She shut off the gold taps with her feet and floated. She could hear voices, muffled but just about distinct enough to make out.

  “. . . worth it. What were you thinking?” Tense. Agitated.

  “Just do it . . . and as quick as you can.” The familiar voice, dismissive.

  “You’re getting soft. That’s dangerous.” The accent was thick and difficult to pin down. “Now we’re a bloody Underground Railroad.” English. Two words of English.

  “Shut up.” Voice like a slap. Reproving. Warning. In charge.

  They moved away. A door slammed.

  English . . . or American? No, English. Sarah had been sure that he’d be French. She trawled through remembered conversations. He was good. Very good.

  You haven’t a clue who he is. Not the slightest idea.

  Doesn’t matter. Not at all. I’m . . .

  Safe? Is that the word you want to use?

  Fine for now, is what I was going to say.

  Sarah slid a sponge down a leg, removing some of the most superficial scabbing and leaving lines of new pink skin in its place. She could hear his voice again.

  “. . . yes, I’ll hold.”

  She nudged a larger scab into the water, and the skin welled up bright red, dripping blood into the suds. She scowled at herself.

  “Yes, thank you . . . this is Herr Haller, yes, good morning. My sister has sent her child to the city in totally unsuitable clothing. I’ll need a whole new wardrobe sent out to me immediately . . . Some travel clothes, a formal outfit . . . oh, yes, a Jungmädel uniform would be excellent . . . about twelve years old . . . an average twelve . . . If I wanted to trail down to Schöneberg with a poorly dressed niece, I wouldn’t be speaking to you, would I? You have experts in this area? Make some judgments, Fräulein . . . yes, yes, yes . . .” Sarah listened to him bully and overrule, cajole and manage, from a position of total ignorance. Just carry on, stand up there like you’re meant to be there and people will believe it. He was very, very good—her mother’s acting lessons made flesh. She couldn’t help but be impressed.

  So all the information you have about him is automatically suspect.

  Yes, it is.

  “Ursula!” Sarah jumped at the closeness of the voice, just outside the door and too loud. “I have to leave. There’s food in the kitchen, I assume your mother got that far in your education?” A question not expecting an answer.

  Footsteps. Door. Silence.

  Sarah was alone. Again.

  * * *

  • • •

  Sarah had grown up in some luxury, even if it had been fading, slipping away in pieces her whole life. That meant everything had been thick. Thick carpets, thick curtains, thick doors, thick gowns. This apartment was expensive in every way, more expensive than anything Sarah had seen in some time, but it was different. This was about the absence of things. Polished marble and white walls, untouched. A barely used leather sofa and an armchair made of chrome pipes. The low glass table had a small pile of magazines that seemed to float in midair, and there were no curtains, just white fabric covering one giant window through which a directionless sunlight flooded the room. Even the decoration, where it existed, consisted of right angles, lines, and angular birds.

  And dominating one wall, as if appearing next to her, a huge portrait of the Führer.

  At least the bathrobe was thick. She huddled inside it against the sudden chill.

  The kitchen was of similar design but showed signs of habitation. There were fresh bread, meats, and cheese, which she pushed hungrily into her mouth without assembling the components into a meal. The bread was warm and fluffy, the sausage spicy, and the cheese unbearably creamy on her tongue. An icebox revealed milk, clean and cold and topped with cream. She gulped it down, letting it trickle from the corners of her lips and down her neck.

  Further investigation revealed empty cupboards, the kind she’d come to associate with slow hunger and shortages. He isn’t here much, is he?

  She took the remaining bread to gnaw on and went in search of closed doors.

  The main bedroom where she had slept had one closet with mirrored doors. Inside were four suits, shirts, and ties, all identical. A row of shoes gleamed black. No dust, someone cleans. That means that nothing truly revealing will be found in the open.

  There was a box room, with no boxes, or windows, just a poorly assembled camp-bed. It didn’t look slept in, so he must have folded the sheets. Soldiers do that.

  One door was locked. Sarah knelt and peered through the empty keyhole and saw a small room lit by daylight, maybe a desk and chair. She cocked her head to one side and examined the lock itself. The brass gleamed like it had never been used, so she looked down and examined the paintwork below it. There were no telltale scratches where a bunch of keys would have left a mark. A long key, on its own, that he wouldn’t risk losing outside. Somewhere easy to get to from here, but somewhere safe from the cleaner.

  Sarah had played this game endlessly as a child. Left alone and bored in the big house in Elsengrund as her mother slept the afternoons away, she had explored, figuring out where things were and why, where there were keys and why there were locks. She uncovered the puzzle pieces and wove stories from things she found. It didn’t matter that she didn’t always understand the secrets. It was enough that they were there to be discovered.

  By the time she was breaking into houses in search of food, she was not just a formidable thief but an insatiable voyeur.

  The armchair was on the other side of the room, and the sofa was too far to be convenient, but there wasn’t really anything else in the room. She looked back at the lock, which read Chubb of Wolverhampton. Well-made and tough to pick, even if she’d had anything to do it with. Chubb locks were a challenge she relished, and she delighted outthinking them. She leaned her head against the door. Maybe behind the painting? Too easily discovered, bound to pique interest if it was found by whoever cleaned.

  She looked along the surface of the wall stretching away to the window. She realized that the column shape in the middle was merely decorative. The rather severe bird shape attached to it stood a few centimeters from the rest of the plaster. She shuffled over to it with a chuckle. She slid her small hand underneath and found what she was looking for halfway up. The key was on a rubber hook and rested on soft bumpers. It couldn’t have been dislodged by accident.

  It slid into the lock silently, and the well-oiled barrels rolled inside with an irresistible elegance. British locks were excellent, she thought, not like most of her mother’s German knock-offs that barely opened even with the right key. She covered her hand with the end of the robe and turned the polished door handle. No telltale smudges to give her away.

  What if you don’t like what you find?

  She looked back to the painting. You mean, what if he really is a Nazi, but one who rescues Jews?

  He hasn’t rescued you. You rescued him.

  Shhhhhh . . . thought Sarah.

  The door opened to reveal a small office. It was lit by a skylight high above, with a bookcase that covered most of the back wall, a green metal filing cabinet, and a walnut desk. It was a mess of papers, files, magazines, and open books. A small and ugly rug lay wonkily in a corner. One revolving chair sat facing the door.

  Another girl would have been disappointed, but Sarah knew better.

  The desk was scattered with maps and magazines, or rather dull tomes with titles in several languages like Physikalische Zeitschrift, Physical Review, and Die Naturwissenschaft
en. There were no identifying papers or keys, no notepads to investigate, and even the blueprint for an airship that she found underneath it all told her nothing new.

  The only personal item was a letter, sitting on top of a blank envelope. A quick shuffle revealed it was from a Lise Meitner, “with thanks.” It contained some drawings that Sarah couldn’t make sense of, something about drips of water, bunches of grapes, zigzag arrows, and numbered letters, but in the absence of anything else she turned to the front page and skimmed through it.

  Dear Helmut,

  Uh-huh, thought Sarah.

  I am writing this letter “in the clear” as I think they call it and entrusting it to Otto to deliver to you in person, as time is short. First, thank you for your help getting to the Dutch border. Your plan was a good one and now I’m safely in Sweden.

  The phrase Underground Railroad drifted again through Sarah’s mind. So she was not the first.

  It was these events that have made up my mind to entrust you with this. I have been denied the resources, lab time, money, and access required to prove the following beyond doubt, as I always have been denied these things, first as a woman, then being classed as a Jew

  Bull’s-eye.

  and now a refugee. So rather than attempt to persuade the governments of France, Britain, or the United States without the appropriate proof, I am hoping that you will see the danger and act.

  Sarah glanced at the clock. Plenty of time.

  We have talked about “nuclear” physics, Fermi, Otto Hahn, and my work in some detail before, so you know the background

  Sarah kept reading, but the words grew more technical and more complex until it seemed she was reading a new and unfamiliar foreign language. She skipped farther and farther ahead and was about to put the letter down when she spotted a phrase in capital letters and underlined.

  a bomb, about the size of a GRAPEFRUIT, with ENOUGH DESTRUCTIVE POWER TO FLATTEN A CITY.

  She read back, but the preceding paragraph was impenetrable. She read on.

  Trust me when I say that the construction of such a device will be possible, along the lines I’ve described. When the war comes and sides will finally be chosen, my conscience will not let me build such a thing, but I am only too aware that human nature will happily demand such a thing of others less inclined to refuse.

  One such is Hans Schäfer, of whom I have talked before. Not only does he know all this, but now he has access to the notes and materials I had to leave with Otto. He has no respect for academia, and he has the personal fortune to follow this up in his own time and to his own agenda. Worst of all, he has the connections within the new order to turn research into production under conditions impossible elsewhere.

  I have little fear . . . That said, he scares me, like I am a little girl with a monster under my cot. He has scent of a weapon the likes of which God himself would hesitate to use in all his vengeance. He will build it if he’s allowed to.

  Helmut, DO SOMETHING. Stop him, or at least slow him down in some way.

  With thanks,

  PS: BURN THIS.

  Sarah carefully replaced the letter, struggling to control a prickling excitement. Evil scientists and shadowy experiments. It read like a cheap paperback. But when she thought about bombs, she pictured the cannonball and burning fuse from the cartoons. How would one throw a bomb that powerful? She delved into her head for more and unearthed a memory of a man talking about the Weltkrieg, the World War, of endless mud and giant holes.

  She gazed up to the skylight as the light brightened momentarily. The sun had escaped the cloud, and now tiny motes danced in the golden column. She tried to grab them, delighting in their ability to escape her.

  Escape. The skylight was too far for her, but within the reach of a grown man, standing on the desk. The people who had started hiding communists and others preferred attic spaces, because there was always a way out onto the roof. Cellars were coffins.

  Her hair got in her face as she shook it again. She needed a brush. So he had an escape route. Did he move into the top-floor flat deliberately, or was it a coincidence?

  She wandered over to the bookshelves. When she had visited other houses, she had always sought out their books. Like the contents of a desk, a library tells you about the person. There are books passed on in the family. That’s who they were. Then there are the books they think they should have. That’s who they want to be. There are the books they want you to see. That’s who they want you to think they are. There are books they want to believe they like and then the books they really like, the dirty little secrets. If they’re old and dusty enough, that tells you all you need to know about that person’s mind. Everything was there if you only troubled to look. Sarah read everything, voraciously and indiscriminately.

  Her desire for the written word was insatiable. When she had lost everything, there were still a few precious books for her to escape into. Even these small shelves were a feast for her eyes.

  She recognized a few names. Mein Kampf; Guderian the dull tank man; books from her father’s library, The Thousand and One Nights, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ; books in German, French, English, Russian, Arabic . . . Japanese? She ran a casual finger from right to left. Steinbeck, Shakespeare, Scholem, Sartre, Sade . . . Scholem? That’s a compromising possession, she thought. Doesn’t get more Jewish than that, just as Herr Haller had said to her in that filthy toilet so long ago . . . yesterday? No, the day before. H. G. Wells—she pulled The Time Machine off the shelf. Most copies of this had been burned when the Nazis came to power. The World Set Free? She hadn’t read that.

  It was a confused picture. The letter was incriminating, but that was new. Ordinarily, was there enough here to warrant an escape route? Only if he was hiding something else. On a whim, she tapped the wood behind the books.

  Nothing. Just a wall. Sarah laughed out loud at herself, and with a little skip she shoved the book back into place with the others. This time the wood made an unmistakable hollow bump.

  SIX

  “WAKE UP.”

  Sarah’s hair had fixed itself down over her eyes with sweat. Her face was stuck to the leather of the sofa and made a noise like an opening honey jar as she jerked up her head. She breathed heavily, like she had been running, and pushed herself into a sitting position with stiff arms.

  “Demons again?”

  “Dogs,” she croaked.

  The room was dim but lit from the walls somehow. He was a dark shape sitting in the armchair opposite her. The table in between had something on it.

  The lamp was unfairly bright when it came on, the bulb too vivid to stare into. She shielded her eyes and pulled the robe around her shoulders with her spare hand. A cloud of irritating smoke billowed from behind the shade and passed over her. She coughed.

  “So, what did you find?”

  Her mind was muddled from sleep, and she couldn’t think. Her head hurt. She had locked the door and replaced the key. She’d left the bread outside the office. She had spun the chair to face the door, again. What had she forgotten?

  “What. Did. You. Find?”

  She gave her head the tiniest shake and pulled her hair back from her face. She looked right past the burning light and glared defiantly at the darkness.

  “You dress the same every day, in freshly laundered duplicates. You’re rich. You’re rarely here and eat out. You’re used to getting your own way. Someone cleans, so you keep your life in perfect order and pretend to want nothing, lest something give you away.” There was a pause.

  “Go on.” Another cloud of smoke drifted past the lamp.

  “You haven’t read Das Schwarze Korps, Die Wehrmacht, or Der Stürmer, even though you keep them on your coffee table and up-to-date when you’re here. Like that painting, it’s a bluff. You’re no Nazi. You have . . . British friends . . .” She was guessing now but plowed on. “The
y’re not happy about my presence.”

  “And . . . ?” More smoke.

  Sarah swallowed. She needed some water. “And . . . what?” she asked, attempting to sound jolly and unconcerned.

  “What else did you learn?”

  She was about to lie, but thought better of it. “How did you know?”

  A hand emerged from the gloom into the light. Between a well-kept finger and thumb was something very long, gossamer-like and golden in the electric light.

  “Just the one, but enough.”

  Oh, dumme Schlampe, Sarah thought, to a chorus of agreement in her head.

  “Well . . .” she began with renewed brightness. “You go to serious effort to deny access to your office, where you have various banned and politically dubious books. You study airships, science journals, military history, and technology. You read at least five languages at a high level. You have a Jewish friend called Meitner whom you smuggled over the border to the Netherlands. She wants you to do her another favor. Is she pretty?”

  “Is she what?” He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.

  “Is she pretty? Beautiful? Why would you take the risk of helping her if you aren’t . . . what are the words? An Underground Railroad?” She finished in English. He almost laughed.

  “Professor Meitner is a formidable woman. Go on.”

  “She thinks you can make her problem go away. She thinks it’s everyone’s problem and that this is . . . ‘your area of interest.’”

  “Indeed? What else?” His voice was again flat and noncommittal.

  “No, that’s it.” She stopped, waited two beats of her heart, and then added, “Except for the secret compartment behind the dangerous bookshelf, where you have two guns, dark clothes, knives, tools, papers for five different people all with your face, stacks of high-value Reichsmarks, French francs, US dollars, and a stack of Krugur . . . Kruga . . . gold coins. You’ve a radio with an aerial you run up to the skylight, which is also your escape route.”