Prisoner of Night and Fog

by Anne Blankman

  The sky’s bright blueness hurt her wounded eye. Protectively, she curled her hand over the battered eye socket, conscious of the curious looks of passersby. What a sight she must present: blackened eye, bandaged hands and knees, the imprint of her brother’s hand still pink on her cheek. She wished she could crawl into a darkened room and never come out.

  “I don’t know. Somewhere. I can’t go back. I’ll find a rooming house somewhere, I suppose. Herr Hanfstaengl said I could return to the Braunes Haus as soon as I was well, but I might bump into Reinhard there. . . .” Her voice started to shake.

  “You can stay with me,” Cohen said.

  She stopped walking. Stay with a Jew. In the same apartment, under the same roof, bound by the same walls. She couldn’t. She saw Uncle Dolf’s face last night, cold and distant, his eyes fastened on the wall while she stood before him in her bloodied dress.

  She knew how he thought. Now it was her turn to figure out her own mind.

  Cohen was smiling at her. “I can’t promise the food will be very good, or even edible, depending on whose turn it is to cook, but it’ll be hot. I share an apartment with my cousins,” he added. “One of whom is a girl, which would lend the whole arrangement an air of respectability. The setup could work to our advantage if you could teach any of us to cook. We’re rather hopeless in the kitchen, I’m afraid.”

  To her surprise, she laughed. The movement tugged on her sore mouth, but she didn’t care. How had he disarmed her so completely with a few casual words and a smile?

  She considered the boy beside her. A breeze had kicked up, ruffling the brown strands that had escaped from the newsboy cap he was wearing today and hung over his forehead. His clear, dark eyes met hers without hesitation, as though he had nothing to hide. He was nothing like the monster she had been taught about. He was human.

  Once the thought would have terrified her. Now she felt it lifting her heart up, back to where it belonged.

  She couldn’t force her battered lips into a smile. But she hoped he knew she would smile if she could. “Thank you,” she said. She kept her voice light, as he had. “With such an appetizing endorsement, how could I refuse? And yes, I can cook, and quite well. You can’t be brought up preparing meals every day in a boardinghouse without learning how.”

  “Splendid. That’s settled, then.”

  They fell into step again, Cohen wheeling the bicycle between them. Up ahead, a streetcar trundled along the avenue, and he started to hurry to catch it before glancing back at her and slowing his pace. She was grateful for his consideration, since each step pulled on her throbbing knees.

  Overhead, pigeons tilted in a bright blue sky, and somewhere, church bells rang the hour, twelve long, low notes reverberating in the warm air. Finally, Cohen spoke again. “Once you throw in your lot with me, you can’t go back. I need to know: Are you certain you want to go home with me?”

  She didn’t need to think it over. The one time she had asked something substantial of Hitler, he had pushed her away in disgust and embarrassment. “I’m certain. And my choice isn’t because of my brother. I saw something in Uncle Dolf last night, a coldness I didn’t expect. If he could turn me aside so easily, when I needed him so badly, what else is he capable of?”

  He nodded, but didn’t comment. “Since you’re coming to my home, shall we drop all this Fräulein and Herr business? It gets a bit cumbersome.”

  Heat rushed into her already burning face. She understood what he was proposing. She felt her head nodding yes, even as her heart lurched.

  “Good.” He glanced at her. “Gretchen.”

  The sound of her name from his lips sounded so intimate. Shyness forced her gaze to the sidewalk, but she was determined not to be afraid of him, not ever again. “Daniel,” she said. His name should have tasted like ash in her mouth, but it was smooth and sweet as honey.

  He walked along with that quick, loping stride she already recognized as distinctively Daniel’s. Although the cap shaded his eyes, she somehow knew their expression when he glanced at her—quietly appraising, as if trying to decide whether she was strong enough for whatever loomed before them.

  “You realize once you’ve been to my home, you’re dividing yourself from the Party. You won’t be able to turn back.”

  “I know.” She raised her chin, feigning a confidence she didn’t feel. “You needn’t keep giving me chances to back out; I’ve made my decision.”

  “Very well, then.” Daniel grinned. “Welcome to the other side.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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  PART THREE

  IN DESPERATE DEFIANCE

  One can try to re-create the world, to build up in its stead another world in which its most unbearable features are eliminated and replaced by others that are in conformity with one’s wishes. But whoever, in desperate defiance, sets out upon this path to happiness will as a rule attain nothing. Reality is too strong for him. He becomes a madman.

  —Sigmund Freud,

  CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS, 1930

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  21

  DANIEL LIVED ON A SIDE STREET IN THE Isarvorstadt district. Gretchen’s steps faltered when she saw the narrow avenue, crowded with shoddily constructed stone buildings crammed so tightly together that if walls needed to breathe, these would have suffocated years ago.

  Although she had spent all of her seventeen years in Munich, she had never walked Isavorstadt’s streets, or entered its homes, or frequented its shops. This was where the Eastern European immigrants, mainly Jews, lived.

  Wait, she wanted to say, but then Daniel’s eyes met hers—challenging, as though he knew why she moved more and more slowly—and she raised her head and walked faster, even though the movement tugged on her aching knees.

  The shabby fourth-floor walk-up looked nothing like what Gretchen had expected. She had anticipated vast, luxurious rooms and thick Turkish carpets. But the room she stood in was small and plain, with threadbare furniture and worn pine floors.

  “Just because I’m Jewish doesn’t mean I’m rich,” Daniel said, sounding amused, and Gretchen flushed, turning away from the plain white walls dotted with family photographs and cheap watercolor prints.

  “Your home is very nice.”

  “No, it isn’t.” He grinned. “It’s a hole. But it’s fine for me and my cousins.”

  Confusion hampered her tongue. “You—you shouldn’t have paid the doctor.” She had assumed he could easily afford the physician’s fee, but now, looking about, she knew better.

  Daniel smiled easily at her, unaware of her traitorous thoughts. “The fellow owed me a favor, so he wouldn’t accept payment anyway. I got wind of some SA men planning to vandalize his office, and warned him. When the SA showed up, they found the good doctor and twenty of his strongest Communist comrades waiting for them.” He laughed. “I’m told it was quite a street fight, but the man’s office was unharmed, so he’s grateful toward me no end.

  “Here, sit for a minute while I hunt my cousins down. Aaron! Ruth!” He moved along the cramped corridor leading to what she presumed were the bedrooms.

  The room Gretchen stood in clearly doubled as kitchen and parlor: a small rectangle crowded with a sagging sofa, a scarred round table, and four mismatched chairs. Stacks of books looking ready to topple over covered every surface—the sofa cushions, the table, the narrow strip of kitchen counter. The smell of something spicy wafted from the pot on the tiny stove, and Gretchen was glad for the approaching footsteps that covered her stomach’s rumbling.

  “These are my cousins, Ruth and Aaron Pearlman. They’re students at the university,” Daniel said. Two petite teenagers stood with him. They had such lustrous black hair and pale, even features they might have been Sn
ow White and her twin brother brought to life. Both stared at her.

  “Aaron, Ruth, this is Fräulein Gretchen Mül—” Daniel started to say when Ruth interrupted.

  “I know who she is.” Ruth’s voice was so filled with venom that Gretchen stepped back. “This is the Nazi you’ve told us about. What is she doing here?”

  “She needs help—” Daniel began.

  “A Nazi needs help from Jews? That’s rich.” Ruth pushed past them toward the stove, where she ladled steaming soup into three bowls. “I don’t know what silly sob story you’ve spun for my cousin, Fräulein, but I promise it won’t work on me. You’re not welcome here.”

  This reaction was the one she had half-expected. “I’m sorry,” Gretchen said. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you, Daniel—”

  “Daniel?” Ruth spun around. “She calls you by your first name? Are you actually friends with her?”

  “She isn’t like the others, Ruth,” Daniel said. “Give her a chance.”

  Ruth tossed the dishtowel onto the counter. “Give the Nazi a chance when her kind is trying to exterminate all of us? I never would have taken you for a fool.”

  Exterminate? Gretchen froze. What the devil was Ruth talking about?

  “Ruth, can’t you see she’s been hurt?” Aaron asked.

  “I don’t care if she’s dying. We know what Hitler is trying to do to us, and if you insist on sheltering her, I’m leaving.”

  “Ruth, she has nowhere to go.”

  The truth of Daniel’s words hit Gretchen like a punch. He was right; she was alone. Not even the Jews wanted her.

  “That’s a lie if I ever heard one!” Ruth cried. “Haven’t we heard her name bandied about by the Nazis at university often enough, or seen her about town on Hitler’s arm? She’s his darling golden girl. She must have dozens—no, hundreds—of Nazis eager to take her in, in the hopes of getting into Hitler’s good graces.”

  Gretchen flinched. How wrong Ruth was.

  “Those bruises you see,” Daniel said, “were put there by her brother. When she went to Hitler for help, he turned her away. None of her acquaintances would dare to help her now.”

  Ruth’s gaze flickered over Gretchen again. Gretchen couldn’t guess what she was thinking, but finally she said, “Sit down. I’ll fix another bowl.”

  They ate at the tiny table, surrounded by books. The meal was simple—vegetable soup, crusty bread, and beer—but Gretchen found herself as anxious as if she sat at a five-star restaurant and didn’t know which fork to use.

  Aaron and Ruth said little—they were probably afraid to say much in front of her—but Daniel talked readily. Somehow, he must have sensed her discomfort, sitting in the apartment of people she scarcely knew, and Jews to boot, for he filled the silence, telling her about his life in Berlin.

  His childhood had been an easy, comfortable one: He had grown up in the Waidmannslust district, in a small white house surrounded by cherry and apple trees. He spent hours in the study, reading old fairy tales, classics, foreign authors like Ernest Hemingway and E. M. Forster, and German writers like Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. In the evening, he and his three sisters gathered at the kitchen table, the four siblings teasing one another as they finished their homework and their mother cooked dinner and hummed along to the wireless.

  His father was an electrician at the Berlin Electric and Power Company, his mother a seamstress, and they had been furious when he graduated from Gymnasium this past spring and announced he wouldn’t get a university education after all but would become a reporter. He wanted adventure and action, not classrooms and textbooks, and when he reminded his parents they had taught him to question his beliefs but never himself, they were forced to let him go.

  His boyhood sounded like a fairy tale. Gretchen listened, rapt, grateful she didn’t have to fumble for conversation. Every bite hurt. Her mouth was so swollen she could scarcely chew, and her throat so sore that each swallow ached.

  When the meal was over, Gretchen helped Ruth carry the bowls and cups into the kitchen area. She was filling the sink with a pot of hot water heated on the stove when Ruth left, returning with a bar of soap and a towel.

  “Here.” Ruth thrust them at her. “I expect a bath will make you feel better.”

  Such kindness, even from someone who considered her an enemy. Gretchen stammered her thanks.

  Ruth turned away and started scrubbing the spoons. Her slender back looked stick straight. “Just basic decency.” She aimed an annoyed look over her shoulder. “Would you hurry up!”

  “Yes. Thank you.” Gretchen fled.

  By the time she returned to the parlor, Ruth and Aaron had already left. “I hope I haven’t made you late for work,” she said, alarmed when she saw Daniel sitting alone on the sofa.

  He smiled and placed a bookmark between the pages. “Do you always worry about everyone else before yourself?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose.”

  “It’s a miserable habit. You ought to put yourself first sometimes. And no, I’m not late for work; I have a meeting with a potential source, but not for another half hour.” Now he looked at her. “I see my cousin’s idea of a bath seems to have agreed with you.”

  She flushed. She knew how improper she must look—her hair wet and holding the tracks of the comb, her legs bare because she had forgotten to pack her other pair of stockings and the ones she had been wearing had been torn when Reinhard threw her to the floor. “It was kind of you and your cousins to have me for luncheon. I shall always be grateful for your hospitality.”

  He lifted one eyebrow—a trick Gretchen had tried to master as a child but had never managed. “That sounds suspiciously like a farewell speech.”

  “I was thinking in the bath. . . . There’s no way I can stay. Your cousins wouldn’t be happy and—”

  “That isn’t the reason.” He watched her steadily. “You’ve had time to think things over, and the prospect of staying in a Jew’s apartment is more than you can stomach, isn’t it?”

  She felt flustered. “No. Honestly,” she added when he looked unconvinced. “I don’t want to cause trouble between you and your cousins. I saw Fräulein Pearlman’s reaction to me—”

  “Ruth reacted that way because the Nazis want to exterminate us.”

  There was that terrifying word again. “What do you mean?”

  He snatched his satchel off the floor and swung it over his shoulder. “You needn’t put on a naive act with me, Gretchen. You’re far too smart to carry it off. Don’t you listen to any of your Hitler’s speeches? What do you think he means when he says the Jews must be removed from the Fatherland, like cutting out a cancer to make a person well again?”

  “Resettlement in the east, of course. That’s what he’s always told me.” She shrank back when he spun around and glared at her.

  “You sound like most of the Müncheners I talk to. What nobody seems to understand about Hitler is he usually says what he means. Everybody thinks he’s exaggerating to make a point, but he’s not. They grab on to his words about resettlement in the east, because his other suggestions are so outlandish they seem impossible. Listen to what he says, read his book, and you’ll understand what he’s truly proposing.”

  She didn’t know what she could say to combat the desperate anger in his eyes. She stood before him, twisting the damp towel with her battered hands, weighing his words in her mind. Resettlement in the east—those were the plans she had always heard. Uncle Dolf had promised their enemies would vanish into the night and the fog. Just as in Goethe’s famous poem Der Erlkönig, “The Alder King.”

  She had recited the poem to Uncle Dolf as they sat in the parlor together last year, sipping apple-peel tea while the old ladies knitted, and he had smiled, for he loved the tale about the supernatural being who attacked a boy held in his father’s arms as they rode on horseback through the night-darkened countryside.

  “My son, why do you hide your face so anxiously?”

  “Father, do you not
see the Alder King?

  The Alder King with crown and train”

  “My son, it’s a wisp of fog.”

  Uncle Dolf’s bright blue eyes had watched her above the rim of his teacup as she recited the rest of the poem, telling of the little boy’s growing fear as the Alder King tried to enchant him away from his ordinary life with promises of games and of lovely maidens rocking him to sleep, and then the boy’s screams as the Alder King seized him and the father saw nothing but shadows, and the father riding on to the farmhouse, cradling his dead son in his arms.

  How Hitler had smiled when he set his drained cup down. The boy’s life snuffed out by the night and the fog, while his father watches but sees nothing. He’d laughed. This is how we shall make our enemies disappear, too, one day. She had fallen silent, unease clenching her stomach.

  Fairy tales and discontented dreams, that’s all it was, she had thought. Nobody had the power to make someone else vanish into smoke, leaving behind no trace that he had ever lived. Foolish daydreams, and nothing else. She had asked Hitler about the opera he had seen the night before, and he had launched into a detailed dissection of the tenor’s performance, and the moment was forgotten.

  Until now.

  Fear squeezed her heart. Night and fog, disappearing into the darkness, loading Jews onto locomotives that would carry them far out of the Fatherland. Cutting Jews out of Germany like a cancer, so there would be no indication they had ever lived here at all. Extermination. What exactly did Hitler intend for his despised enemies?

  “You may be right—” she started to say, but Daniel was gone, banging out the door and leaving her alone, locked in, with nowhere to go and only her tortured thoughts for companionship.

  Sleep had dragged her like a stone to the bottom of a lake. A hand shaking her shoulder pulled her to the surface, and she opened her eyes to find Daniel’s face inches from hers, his expression serious.

  “Get up,” he said. “We haven’t much time, and you should eat something to keep up your strength.”