It was only when they hit a pothole in the road and the car shuddered that Jenni felt herself returning to sobering reality. She’d just struck the mayor, in front of everyone. And she didn’t care.
‘Are you all right?’ she heard Celia ask.
Was she? Her heartbeat had returned to normal but her limbs felt like a quivering mass of Jell-o.
‘I think so.’
Celia shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you just slapped the mayor of Meadow Hills.’ She found Jenni’s fingers on the seat and squeezed them. ‘He deserved it for saying that.’
‘He deserves it for a lot more than that,’ Jenni said. ‘Unfortunately, I’m probably going to regret it. That man holds grudges longer than anyone I’ve ever seen.’
‘Maybe. Or maybe he’ll realize he can’t treat people like that. But gee whiz. I can’t get over how many people were down there. It looked like the whole town!’
A memory suddenly niggled at the edges of Jenni’s brain. There had been someone in the crowd, a stranger, someone not from Meadow Hills. Glasses, a beard…
‘It was him!’ she shouted, frightening Celia so much that they narrowly missed hitting the kerb. ‘Celia, turn around. We have to go back!’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Celia said, regaining control of the car. ‘Who?’
Jenni gripped the dashboard as if her fingers could make the vehicle move through sheer force of will.
‘The man I saw leaving the cottage, the one who might have taken the diary,’ she said, suddenly breathless. ‘He was there, in the crowd!’
* * *
Katya pulled at her leash, impatient for a pace quicker than Max’s current stroll. But he couldn’t make himself move any faster through the park, too absorbed in the way the world and everything in it looked different compared to when he woke this morning.
He’d spent the morning and most of the afternoon listening to Kooky relate the history of Meadow Hills. Now that he knew the extent of the town’s past, of their zealous desire to remove any trace of their German culture, the landscape itself throbbed with mourning. Low on the horizon, the sun turned the snow on the sloping hillside into sheets of fire, and the black tree branches clawed against the sky. A flock of geese cried as they flew overhead in a V shape, the sound so sorrowful that Max wanted to plug his ears.
Kooky’s memory of that night of the Oktoberfest, when the church burned down and Dietrich Stanwick was killed, remained shrouded in fog. Instead, he related mostly what happened afterwards. A statue of the town’s founder, Gustave Gottfried, torn down and replaced with the patriotic George Washington. The German-language newspaper, the Schoneberg Zeitung, ordered to cease publication. German food dishes renamed, business names changed, family surnames spelled differently.
Max stared at the large houses across the street with their pristine shingles and gleaming windows, front porches with curlicue adornments and snow-covered evergreen bushes. A façade, he realized. It was easier to construct a perfect world with material items than to try and confront the past.
He turned down another block and saw a name on the mailbox in front of a white bungalow. The Janssens’.
Phillip Janssen’s photo sat in his coat pocket and part of him wanted to run and slip it into the mailbox, then duck out of sight. But no. One didn’t bungle a situation as delicate as this one. Kooky wouldn’t be the one to deliver the photo. He’d made that abundantly clear. Why he thought the Janssens would welcome Max into their home remained a mystery. But it was something he must do.
Lights burned in the windows, a sight that normally produced feelings of safety and comfort. But not now. They reminded him he was an outsider, a stranger, the other, and he would never be welcome within those hallowed walls.
Katya’s sharp bark jolted him out of his reverie. ‘All right, girl. We’ll go a little faster.’
Returning from Kooky’s, Max had come home to find Chief Thompson and one of his officers waiting for him. Hostility had burned in the chief’s eyes, and Max had feared the worst.
Thompson had flashed a piece of paper. ‘I’m here to search the cottage.’
‘For what?’
‘Black paint and a sledgehammer.’
Realization dawned. While at Kooky’s, someone had phoned to tell him about the vandalism. ‘You think I desecrated the statue downtown.’
‘I don’t think, I know,’ Thompson had said, pushing around Max into the cottage. ‘Don’t try to interfere.’
For the next ten minutes, Max had lived in terror that they’d find the offending items. It would take little effort to plant the right objects, especially since he’d been out all afternoon. To his credit, Thompson hadn’t ransacked the place in his search, and to Max’s relief, he found nothing.
‘You’re crafty,’ Thompson had said. ‘But you’ll mess up sooner or later.’
Max had wanted to throw back an insult, something about watching too many Humphrey Bogart movies, but he held his tongue.
‘I won’t mess up, as you say, because I am innocent.’
‘Yeah, and I’m President Roosevelt.’
Thompson and his officer had left, the patrol car’s tyres spinning on the ice, and Max had held back a laugh as he watched the officer get out and push the car past the slick spot, then speed away.
Max let himself laugh now, but as he turned the corner by the museum, he abruptly sobered. Special Agent Williams’s black Chevy was parked by the cottage. Scheiße!
Stay calm. You’ve done nothing wrong.
As if that mattered. But Thompson had found nothing. Neither would Williams.
Katya growled deep in her throat and Max jerked the leash slightly. ‘Steady, girl,’ he soothed. ‘Let’s see what he wants first.’
As he watched, Special Agent Williams stepped out of the car and slammed the door. Max kept his gait normal, trying to see by Williams’s stance just what kind of meeting to expect. But it really wasn’t hard to figure out. The agent stood with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed into slits, that square jaw clenched.
‘Good evening, Agent Williams,’ he said when he reached him.
‘Want to tell me why you desecrated the war memorial by the courthouse?’
‘Why would I do a horrible thing like that?’
‘Because it was dedicated to the soldiers in this county who beat you Krauts in the Great War.’
‘And since I’m one of those “Krauts” I must have sought my revenge. Is that it?’
‘You tell me.’
‘I did not vandalize the memorial, just like I didn’t vandalize the businesses on Main Street.’
‘And you didn’t take the diary either.’ Williams shook a cigarette out of his pack and put it in his mouth. ‘I wish you’d just tell me the truth. It would make things a whole lot easier.’
‘On the contrary,’ Max said through gritted teeth, ‘it would make things a whole lot easier if you’d believe me.’
Williams snapped the cap back on his lighter. ‘But you’ve given me no proof to believe otherwise.’
‘Other than my word, you mean?’
‘Your word doesn’t mean much, Herr Professor.’ He paused, puffing on his cigarette. ‘You should save yourself some time. Turn yourself in.’
‘You want me to admit guilt even though I’ve done nothing wrong? How very American of you.’
Williams ignored the insult and absently scratched his neck. ‘Oh, you’re guilty all right. It’s taking longer than I expected to find the evidence, but I will.’
Max felt like a ball in a tennis match. Williams deliberately wanted to keep him bouncing and off-balance to get him to admit to something. So did Thompson and Lowe.
‘Look, why haven’t you arrested me? I’m sure you’ve interned other Germans for far less.’
Williams actually laughed and it was a deep, baritone sound. Katya’s ears went back and a low growl emitted from her throat. Max reached down to smooth the fur at her head.
‘Because I kn
ow you’ve got something planned. Maybe a little sabotage? Hell, you might have a network of spies here in the Midwest. Maybe even some here in Meadow Hills seeing as how a bunch of Krauts live here.’
Now it was Max’s turn to laugh. ‘Agent Williams, forgive me, but I think you need a good, long rest. You’re starting to imagine ludicrous things.’
The end of the cigarette glowed orange, reflecting in Williams’s eyes. ‘Y’know, all I have to do is put a little bug in someone’s ear down at the bakery or the café about how one of your Jewish colleagues at the university had a problem with you. I’m betting things would happen pretty quick then. You might suddenly “find” the diary.’
‘Go ahead. Tell them. I have nothing to hide.’
It was a bluff. And a bold-faced lie at that. But he couldn’t afford to play the role of the snivelling coward in front of this man.
Instead of responding to Max’s challenge, the agent threw his half-finished cigarette on the ground and stepped on it with his shiny black loafer. ‘As the song says, I’ll be seeing you, professor,’ he quipped, opening his car door. ‘That is, if you don’t decide to skip town. ’Course, I’d still see you anyway. You wouldn’t get far.’
When Katya growled this time, Max didn’t try to calm her. He watched Williams drive off, fighting the urge to throw snowballs at the back window.
‘C’mon, girl,’ he said, trudging towards the cottage steps. He sank onto the cold bricks and stared at Tallulah House, a deep ache curling around his ribs. He missed his family home in Stuttgart, missed his parents, his sister. Missed his language, his culture.
If only he’d never left Stuttgart, never answered the siren’s call of an enticing position at Berlin University. Then he never would have met Ilsa and how different his life would be.
For a moment, he allowed himself to remember, to let her in again…
* * *
Ilsa wore a flirty blue dress with ribbons that accentuated her hips, and as they darted across the street to a café on Potsdamer Straße, she held his hand tight, her fingernails digging into his palm. The wind ripped her scarf from her hair and it floated to the pavement, then danced in ivory circles across the road.
Without hesitation, she dropped his hand and went after it, dodging cars and buses, and laughing as she did so, while he stayed rooted to the pavement, watching in horror, certain she would be killed at any second.
When she came back to him, tying the scarf around her neck, she had the same look as she did when they made love. It was the danger she craved, the danger that made her feel alive.
‘You’re crazy, you know that?’ he growled, taking her elbow and pulling her close. ‘You could have been killed.’
‘But I wasn’t, Liebchen.’ She kissed him. ‘Come. Ernst is waiting.’
When they approached the café, Ilsa called out a greeting and Max’s steps faltered when he saw the recipient. A large man wearing the black uniform of Himmler’s elite Schutzstaffel with silver lightning bolts on the collar sat at a tiny metal table, sipping from a cup that looked ridiculously dainty in his brawny hand. His military peaked cap bore a grinning silver skull.
Max’s encounters with the SS had been few, but he liked to give them a wide berth. These men were functioning lunatics led by the biggest lunatic of all, Himmler. He’d heard stories of how they delved into the occult and tried to resurrect the ancient German heritage of their forefathers.
And of course, Ilsa hadn’t bothered to tell him her brother was a member of this psychotic squad. Another of her tricks.
Still, it would delight her to see Max squirm at the convenient omission, so he decided to think of Ernst as an annoying little bug that he could easily squash. Ridiculous, of course, since the man could probably kill him with one well-timed blow to the temple.
‘Ilsa tells me you have not joined the party yet, Herr Koenig,’ Ernst said after they’d ordered tea and sandwiches. ‘I must say that is disappointing to hear.’
‘Ernst has been a member of the party even before 1933,’ Ilsa said and Max could hear the pride in her voice. Of course she would be proud. She herself had joined in 1930, another fact she’d neglected to tell him until she had him so thoroughly hooked that it mattered little whether she was a Nazi or a communist as long as she was his.
‘The Third Reich will last for a thousand years,’ Ernst pointed out. ‘You would do well to be a part of that rich history.’
Max refrained from shuddering at the thought of his beloved country being ruled by these baboons for the next year, let alone a thousand.
‘As a historian, I prefer to remain neutral in matters of politics so as not to interject my own bias into the historical narrative.’
Ernst’s face turned an alarming shade of red. ‘What poppycock! You are living in a monumental period of history right now, and you must participate! To do otherwise is an affront to the Führer.’
While Max stammered in an attempt to answer, Ilsa laughed merrily. ‘Oh, Ernst, Max wouldn’t think of offending our beloved leader. He is only teasing.’ She turned her brilliant blue gaze to him and lifted his hand to her lips, pressing hot kisses on the palm. ‘Aren’t you, darling? Go on, tell Ernst that you are teasing.’
And he did.
* * *
Max jolted back to the present, hot shame flooding him. He remembered clearly what had happened next. Ernst had launched into a tirade about the historical profession and, coward that Max was, he’d agreed with him, castigating his colleagues for failing to be relevant in this new era.
From that day forward, Max had found himself in Ernst’s company often, along with Ilsa’s other friends. All of them shared the same political view, that Hitler was Germany’s saving grace, that the Jews had poisoned the people of Germany, and that the Reich had been badly maligned in the Versailles Treaty. Thanks to a lack of fortitude, Max had not argued with their twisted logic.
The longer he’d stayed in their company and the tighter Ilsa’s hold on him had become, the more his own moral compass had begun to falter. As the university’s standards began to drop, owing to the fact that Hitler despised intellectuals, Max began to care less and less about his profession and his research. Instead, he and Ilsa had spent their evenings in the nightclubs of Berlin, dancing and drinking and living the hedonistic lifestyle that he had once so abhorred. He’d turned a blind eye to the escalating persecution against the Jews, the nasty rumours circulating about concentration camps, Hitler’s tightening control over every aspect of German life.
Max had even asked Ilsa to marry him. She’d refused. He’d tried to turn her own propaganda against her, telling her the Führer wanted women to be the backbone of the family, to marry and raise children for the Reich’s future. She flatly told him her place in the Reich wasn’t as a mother, but as a leader, and that someday he would see.
That someday had never come for Ilsa. Max had made sure of it.
CHAPTER TEN
A knock on the door interrupted Max’s supper of tinned ham and boiled eggs. He was surprised to find Jenni standing on the step, hunched over, her cheeks lacking their customary colour.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Max, but I need to talk to you.’
He didn’t like the sound of this. ‘Of course. Come in.’
She sat at the kitchen table and when he asked if he could take her coat, she shook her head. ‘I can’t stay long. I have to go pick up Marty from his grandparents’. But I had to talk to you about what happened today.’
‘You mean the memorial.’ He sighed and rubbed the ache at the base of his skull. ‘Both Thompson and the FBI questioned me tonight.’
Jenni’s hands closed into fists. ‘Of course they did. Big oafs, both of them. But, Max, I saw the man who was in the cottage, the one I think took the diary. He was in the crowd this morning.’
The news stunned him. ‘Did you tell the police?’
‘Yes. And Chief Thompson told me I must have been seeing things. I’m afraid I wasn’t very calm in my respon
se. But it didn’t matter. He’s not going to look for him.’
Anger and frustration pushed Max to his feet. He said nothing, only cleared his dishes from the table and fought the urge not to throw them into the sink. Why was this happening to him? Life had been dismal in Lincoln, true, but this situation was even worse. Here, people deliberately tried to frame him for something he’d not done. They had no evidence and yet they persisted simply because he was German.
‘But his appearance might mean that the diary and all of these incidents are linked,’ Jenni continued. ‘If we could just find him…’
Unable to contain it any longer, he slammed his fist on the counter. ‘But we are the only ones who want to find him. That is the problem!’
Jenni fiddled with her gloves, exhaustion rimming her eyes. ‘We’ll just have to keep putting pressure on Chief Thompson. Sooner or later, this man, whoever he is, will make a mistake and drop his guard.’
‘And in the meantime, who knows what else he’ll do? Do you think he could be the one vandalizing everything?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe? But it could be anyone. If our theory is right, Mrs Stanwick spilled some secrets about this town, and whoever stole it could be retaliating in anger. It could have absolutely nothing to do with you.’
‘But everyone else thinks I am the one responsible.’ Max sat at the table and let his head drop into his hands. Despair engulfed him in a suffocating embrace. ‘I do not know how to fight against this. It is hopeless.’
There was a brief touch on his arm and he glanced up to see Jenni had moved into the chair beside his.
‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘There is always hope. If you give up hope… there isn’t anything left.’
He met her gaze and held it, certain he saw a flash of understanding in her eyes. Thank God he wasn’t alone in this. He didn’t know if he could make it without at least one person on his side.
‘Hope isn’t easy to hold on to,’ he finally said.
But if only he could hold on to her, just once, and somehow absorb her energy and strength…
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