Prisoner of Night and Fog

by Anne Blankman

  The dance floor dominated the room’s center; it was a massive wooden rectangle where men in tuxedos and women in short satin frocks danced a peculiar routine Gretchen had seen in films. The Charleston, she thought it was called, a popular dance from America. She couldn’t help feeling a burst of excitement. How beautiful and glamorous everything seemed.

  “That music,” said a voice behind her, “is American swing.”

  She turned. Daniel Cohen leaned against the bar. Tonight he wore a black suit. At some point, the bow tie had come undone and the shirt’s top button had popped open, exposing his finely wrought collarbones. She could see the pulse beating in his throat, a rapid tattoo beneath the skin, and the sight relieved her. He was nervous, too.

  “Swing music is degenerate.” She forced the words out.

  He studied her with watchful eyes. “Do you like it?”

  Yes. But she wasn’t supposed to. “I’ve never heard anything like it before,” she evaded.

  Cohen spoke a few words to the bartender. Gretchen leaned against the counter, trying to appear as though she knew how to act. This was madness. She glanced toward the exit. Maybe she should leave. But then she wouldn’t know what had happened to Papa.

  She didn’t move.

  Cohen pressed a glass into her hand. “You National Socialists clean up well.”

  She flushed and resisted the urge to look down. Geli had given her the dress last summer, after she’d tired of it. The short black cocktail dress glittered with thousands of sequins. Gretchen had untied her usual braid and let her long hair ripple halfway down her back. A beaded band with a dyed-black ostrich feather encircled her head. The dress was a perfect fit for Geli’s curves, but on Gretchen’s smaller frame the bodice dipped lower than she liked, and she kept yanking the neckline up.

  “Thank you.” She tried to hand the glass back, but he didn’t take it. “I can’t accept a gift from you—”

  His mouth twisted. “From a Jew, you mean? You certainly do march to your Hitler’s drum, don’t you?” He grabbed the glass, setting it down so hard on the bar that liquid sloshed over the edge. “Will sitting with me offend your delicate sensibilities or must we stay standing?”

  She had angered him. She wasn’t sure what surprised her more—that she was sorry for it, or that he was bothered by her. Somehow he had struck her as the sort who would never permit someone else to make him feel uncomfortable.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but he waved her off.

  “Forget it. Let’s sit down.”

  They found a tiny table against a wall. Gretchen watched the men and women at the bar, laughing too hard over their drinks, and the dancers, moving too fast, as though trying to forget their troubles for one night.

  “Why do you keep looking about?” Cohen asked. “You needn’t worry about being caught with me. I doubt any of your NSDAP friends would come into a place like this.”

  “No, it’s just I’ve never been to a nightclub before.”

  Surprise widened his eyes. “How is it I’ve lived in this city for only a month and I suspect I’ve seen more of it than you have?”

  “I’m not allowed.” She spoke defiantly, to hide her embarrassment. How babyish she must appear, a child who wasn’t permitted to go out to nightclubs or listen to popular music.

  “Then how did you get here tonight, if it’s forbidden?”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “I snuck out.”

  He laughed. The unexpected mirth transformed his face, softening its strong angles. She caught her breath and had to look away.

  “Really?” Cohen said. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet. There’s a city hidden beneath the one your National Socialists want you to see—music and culture and art and dancing, all the things they’re trying to blind you to.”

  His approving tone shamed her. She couldn’t imagine Uncle Dolf’s reaction if he found out.

  “I don’t need your advice,” she said. “I snuck out so I could speak with you again. I need you to explain this story you seem to think you’ve uncovered about my father.”

  She spoke softly, so he couldn’t hear how badly her voice shook. Never show your enemies how much you care, Papa had taught, because then they have power over you.

  All traces of merriment fled from the reporter’s features. He leaned across the table, the dim lamplight touching his cheeks. “You set those brownshirt thugs on Dearstyne, didn’t you?” His gaze clapped onto hers. “You were afraid he could damage your family’s precious favored position in the Party. No one else could have done it. I’ve kept him a secret from everyone except my editor.”

  She didn’t know why the anger in his voice surprised her; Uncle Dolf had warned her that Jews were vipers in the grass, ready to turn and strike at any second. “I didn’t tell anyone. And who’s Dearstyne? The old man from the Circus Krone last night?”

  “Yes, Stefan Dearstyne.” He sounded bitter. “Your brother and his mates beat him and kicked him when he was on his hands and knees, looking for his knocked-out teeth.” An image of Reinhard, bending over the defenseless elderly man, his arm raised in mid-strike, flashed before her. She felt sick. “We’re not here to talk about them, but my father—”

  Cohen surged to his feet. “I can’t listen to your evasions. Not even for the best scoop of my career. Good-bye, Fräulein Müller.”

  “Wait!”

  She hurried after him. Her arm flashed out, her fingers closing around his wrist. He stopped and looked down at her hand, as if the sight disgusted him. “Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked. “Touch a Jew? Isn’t that against the rules?”

  “I don’t care about the rules right now!” She pitched her voice low, but the people at the surrounding tables turned to look at them. “People are staring at us.”

  He pulled away without replying, moving quickly across the dance floor. She mustn’t let him leave, not until she knew Herr Dearstyne’s story. She darted in front of him and seized his hands. Revulsion roiled her stomach. But she must know the truth about Papa.

  “Please,” she whispered.

  Herr Cohen stared down at her, his eyes hard, his expression unreadable. “I can’t figure you out,” he said, so quietly he might have been speaking to himself. “Every time I think I understand who you are, you seem to change.”

  What he thought of her didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except for the small, circular hole in the back of Papa’s Great War tunic.

  “Please,” she said again. “I swear to you, I haven’t told a soul about your letter. I only told my dearest friend that I was coming here tonight, nothing about you. One of the SA boys said they’d received orders from SA-Stabschef Röhm to throw the old man out on sight, but that’s all he knew.”

  His expression didn’t soften, but he pulled her into his arms. When she started to jerk away, he said, sounding annoyed, “We’d better dance, if we want people to stop staring at us.”

  Uncertainty froze her in place. But she sensed the others’ curious gazes. Reluctantly, she placed her hands on Cohen’s shoulders. Beneath her fingers, his tightly corded muscles flexed. Tense and hard, as though he were barely holding himself together. His hand fit into the curve of her waist, his fingers felt warm through her dress’s thin fabric. The orchestra slid into a slow number, and they began to waltz.

  Their eyes were only inches apart. As their bodies moved together, repeating the same box step, she watched his pupils, waiting for them to enlarge and swallow the brown-and-gold irises, to turn into black pools as Uncle Dolf had promised.

  But nothing happened. And the sour stink of sweat and decay she had expected, she didn’t smell. Only a light scent of soap and cologne. The fingers holding hers felt smooth and soft, not rough with tangled hair.

  Could she have been wrong about him?

  He twirled her around. She spun across the dance floor, the other couples blurring into a whirl of blacks and reds and greens and blues. He drew her close to him again. His hand, at the small of her back, gripped he
r too hard. As though he hated having to touch her.

  “We can be useful to each other,” he said, his breath a warm flutter on her neck. “I tell you what I know, and you use your connections to get me the information I want.”

  Nerves prickled the back of her neck. She could easily imagine Uncle Dolf’s disappointment if he learned she had worked with a Jew. Then she thought of the bullet hole in her father’s shirt, and everything else fell away. “Explain to me why Herr Dearstyne is so curious about my father’s death.”

  “Dearstyne started wondering about the street shoot-out after he read his late brother’s diary,” Cohen said, his hand relaxing on her waist as they swayed back and forth. “And before I tell you anything else, I think you need to share something, too. What convinced you to search me out here tonight?”

  “I remembered something. About the clothes my father was wearing when he died.” She took a deep breath, like a swimmer bracing herself before diving into icy water. “There were powder burns on the back of his shirt.”

  Cohen’s eyes widened. “Then I was right! I knew it! I—” He broke off with a curse. “What’s your brother doing here?”

  She twisted in his arms. Standing near the nightclub’s entrance, washed by the golden chandelier lights, stood two familiar figures. Reinhard and Eva. And it was obvious from the way their heads turned, surveying the milling crowd, that they were looking for someone. It had to be her.

  Hastily, she pulled away from Cohen. “Get out of here! Go, go!”

  “Why, Fräulein Müller,” he said, sounding sarcastic, “I might almost believe you care about me.”

  “Just go! My brother probably outweighs you by fifty pounds. He could crush you in an instant.”

  Cohen laughed. “Fräulein Müller, don’t you know it’s rude to insult a man’s ability to fight?”

  The unexpected flash of humor startled her. She had thought the boy could fit into a small box of fierceness and determination and loyalty to his ideals, however misguided they were. Now she saw that he couldn’t be contained, or understood, so easily.

  She watched as he cast a speculative look toward the entrance. How could he be so reckless with his own safety? Or did he think other things mattered more than his well-being? She couldn’t figure him out.

  “Please, Herr Cohen.” She touched his shoulder, nudging him forward. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt. We can meet some other time.”

  His head snapped back so he could stare at her. “You wish to see me again?”

  “Yes. I—” The words stuck in her throat. “I need your help. And you said you need mine. We can work together.”

  He nodded, his expression wary, as though he wasn’t sure if he believed her. “A Jew and a National Socialist, joining forces. I never thought I’d see it. Very well. I accept your proposal. I shall contact you soon. Watch for my message.”

  “Yes, but go!”

  To her relief, he turned away. He had barely taken two steps into the whirling mass of dancing bodies when Reinhard reached her.

  “Who was that?” he demanded.

  “Nobody.” She twined her fingers together so her brother wouldn’t notice that they were shaking. “Nobody,” she repeated, and Reinhard watched her with his blank eyes, a muscle twitching in his jaw, before turning and heading toward the bar for a drink.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  9

  “HOW COULD YOU BETRAY ME?” GRETCHEN SAID to Eva as they walked into the powder room. Her friend wore a short beaded dress with a dropped waist, and she’d curled her hair into tiny ringlets. She looked like the American flappers in the film magazines she loved to read.

  “What?” Eva sounded scandalized. “Gretchen, I would never—”

  “Wait.” Gretchen glanced under the wooden stalls—no feet—and peered into the adjacent lounge, where a couple of fraying upholstered chairs sat—empty. The mirror reflected the room back to them, a mix of wood and gilt that should have looked rich but seemed tired in the harsh lighting. The patterned paper had begun to strip from the wall; the sink basins were chipped, the wooden stalls splintered. It looked like everything else in Munich, beautiful once but slowly decaying. Only Hitler could reverse this gradual rot, he had promised so many times.

  “You told Reinhard where I would be tonight,” she said. “I didn’t mention it to anyone but you.”

  “He rang me up, looking for you. I didn’t realize it was a secret—”

  “I should have thought it was obvious! You knew I was sneaking out to come here—”

  “Yes, but this was your brother telephoning me! I would hardly expect you to hide things from him.”

  Gretchen rested her head against the mirror. The glass felt smooth and cool. Eva didn’t understand. She never would, for how could she possibly comprehend the fear that welled within Gretchen whenever her brother came near? The way Reinhard treated her was her most shameful secret.

  “I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”

  “That’s all right.” Eva touched Gretchen’s shoulder. “You never told me why you wanted to come here. Is it a boy?”

  “Yes. In a way.” Although she yearned to tell Eva everything, she said nothing more, fearing that someone might come in and overhear. Or that Reinhard, waiting in the dance hall, would grow impatient and demand to know why they had taken so long.

  Eva leaned close to the mirror, smoothing the rouge on her cheeks with her fingertips. “I suppose we girls must have our secrets.” Her high giggle sounded unnatural, and Gretchen frowned, thinking how different Eva sometimes seemed since coming home from the convent school two years ago—concealing her face beneath layers of cosmetics and wanting to bleach her hair, as though she yearned to turn into someone else. Eva added, “What a darling frock. Wherever did you get it?”

  The black dress sparkled back at Gretchen in the glass. “From Geli Raubal. You know how she likes to hand off clothes she’s grown tired of.”

  “Oh,” Eva said flatly. “Her.”

  Gretchen watched Eva redden her lips. She had never understood why Eva disliked Geli. The two girls hadn’t even met—Geli revolved within Hitler’s elite inner circle, while Eva was merely a tiny fixture on the outer rungs of the Party, since she knew Hitler only through casual conversations at the photography shop. Once, Gretchen had suggested introducing the girls, but Eva had refused, muttering that they were probably too different to get along.

  When Eva was done, they went down the curving corridor toward the dance hall. With each step, the music swelled louder and louder, and Gretchen had to bring her lips to Eva’s ear to be heard.

  “Just out of curiosity . . . How did Reinhard act when you said that I’d come here?”

  “Oh, you know Reinhard.” Eva giggled. “He said we ought to meet you and have some fun ourselves. He wasn’t angry,” she reassured Gretchen. “He never is.”

  That was almost true. Which was strange, Gretchen knew after observing the three Braun sisters together. Siblings were supposed to grate on one another’s nerves. The continual rubbing together of their lives, the daily irritations of sharing homes and parents, should have ensured that she and Reinhard sometimes squabbled. But they never fought.

  She followed Eva into the dance hall, the music washing over them like the sea. And as she watched Eva, grinning as she swept by in Reinhard’s arms, she could almost pretend she was happy.

  The boardinghouse’s front door was locked at half past nine every night. Residents were given a key and told not to switch on the lights if they got home late, to save on the electric bill. But not Gretchen or Reinhard, and Gretchen suspected that this was their mother’s way of ensuring they stayed in their rooms all night.

  The tactic certainly hadn’t stopped Reinhard. For years, Gretchen had heard him scaling the neighbor’s back wall and jumping into the courtyard, so
metimes with a muffled curse if he landed on a broken bit of flagstone. Although Mama fastened the back door, the mechanism was old and unreliable, and some patient twisting was enough to jiggle the lock out of place. Or so Reinhard had boasted. Gretchen had never tried it.

  She stood now in the neighbor’s back garden, studying the stone wall. Not terribly high. She tossed her pocketbook and high-heeled shoes over, listening as they landed with soft thumps. She leapt as hard as she could. Her fingers grasped the ledge and she pulled herself up.

  Below, the courtyard was a narrow black rectangle in the darkness. The flagstones looked farther away than she had anticipated. But she couldn’t lower herself down; the walnut trees clustered against the wall, impeding any attempt to get down that way. She would have to jump.

  She flung herself into open air. Something shifted in the darkness below her. A man’s head, turning to look at her, the whites of his eyes shining—

  She swallowed a scream. When she landed, air rushed out of her lungs. Gasping, she scrabbled upright as the shape separated from the shadows and came toward her. Its fuzzy lines sharpened, becoming the hulking figure she knew so well. Reinhard.

  He was laughing. “You should have seen your face!”

  Her hands clenched, ready to shove at him. But she didn’t. There was no beating Reinhard at his games; she had learned that rule long ago. So she picked up her shoes and pocketbook and walked to the back steps, Reinhard loping along beside her.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked. “It took you longer to get home than I expected.”

  His words sent a shiver along her spine. “You’re spying on me,” she gasped.

  Reinhard laughed in his easy, careless way. “This city can be a rough place at night. What sort of brother would I be, if I wasn’t watching out for my little sister?”

  It was true Munich could be dangerous, as street fights often erupted between political parties. But Reinhard had never expressed concern for her safety before. He suspected something. That was why he had smiled and refused, when Gretchen and Eva asked if he wanted to take a streetcar back with them. Somehow, he had gotten here first. So he could wait for her. To time how long it took her to return, to determine if she had gone elsewhere first. To see if she returned alone.