Prisoner of Night and Fog

by Anne Blankman

  Uncle Dolf stood and kissed the backs of their hands, teasing them with compliments as he always did. “Such a pretty pair! The boys won’t know whom to look at first.” He made one of his funny, awkward bows toward Eva. “Until we see each other again, my little siren from Hoffmann’s.” He patted Gretchen’s head. “And you, my sunshine. But that hair! I declare, I shan’t grow accustomed to it. Isn’t that like a woman, changing her hairstyle constantly, just when I have become used to it!”

  Gretchen and Eva said their good-byes and hurried out, stopping only for Eva to snatch up her hat and pocketbook. Outside, Eva dissolved into giggles. “His lovely siren from Hoffmann’s! I’ve never met a man who gives such old-fashioned compliments. But he is awfully nice.”

  Gretchen barely heard the words. She seized her best friend’s hands. She knew she would need Eva’s steady, reassuring presence to help her cope with whatever she might find out today. “I have to go to the police. And I want you to come with me.”

  Munich’s central police station stretched along the Ettstrasse. The multistoried connected stone structures reminded Gretchen of the castles she had read about in fairy tales: massive, forbidding, labyrinthine. As she and Eva hurried up the steep flight of steps, she heard the snorting of horses, presumably coming from the police stables, and the rumble of the force’s motorized wagons starting up.

  The front door groaned shut behind Gretchen and Eva. They found themselves in a narrow, high-ceilinged room with scuffed pine floors. A uniformed officer sat behind a desk, filling out papers. He didn’t look up as they approached.

  “Yes? Do you have a crime to report?”

  “No. I need to learn about a mur— a death.” Gretchen clutched Eva’s hand so hard, her friend flinched. But she squeezed back, and Gretchen relaxed a little. Her best friend was on her side. During the streetcar ride, Gretchen had explained as much as she dared, without mentioning Daniel. Although Eva didn’t care about the Jews one way or the other, it seemed safest to keep him a secret.

  The officer glanced up from his papers. “Is this some sort of trick?” he snapped. “I haven’t time to play games.”

  “My father was killed on November ninth, 1923.” Gretchen waited for recognition to sharpen the officer’s eyes before continuing. “We were told he was shot by the state police, but I should like to see the autopsy report.”

  The middle-aged man sighed heavily and went back to his papers. “That’s private police business, Fräulein.”

  She slapped a gold ring onto the desk. It had been Papa’s mother’s wedding band, and had been one of the few pieces of jewelry he hadn’t had the heart to pawn, but had given to her instead, to keep for her own. She ignored Eva’s shocked gasp. “It’s real gold. Now please show me the autopsy report. Klaus Müller. November ninth, 1923.”

  The policeman pocketed the ring, his expression never changing. “Follow me, and not a word.”

  He led them down a whitewashed corridor whose walls flickered with the light from old-fashioned gas wall sconces. A supply closet, filled with reams of paper and ink bottles and official-looking forms, stood near the hallway’s end. Saying nothing, Gretchen and Eva stepped inside and waited as he swung the door shut, enclosing them in the darkness.

  “Gretl!” Eva fumbled for her hand. “This is madness!”

  “Shh! He’ll be back any minute.”

  They waited, listening to footsteps tramping by outside. Finally, the door opened again, the policeman thrusting a thick book at them. He pulled a string attached to an electric lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. The bulb’s illumination was barely enough to read by.

  Gretchen opened the book at random and scanned a page. Lists of names. She watched as the policeman came into the closet, shutting the door. “This isn’t the autopsy report.”

  “There isn’t one.” He shrugged under her disbelieving stare. “An ordinary oversight, Fräulein. The morgue was overwhelmed with dead that day, as I’m sure you can imagine. The staff was terribly overworked. Besides, the cause of death would have been quite obvious. An autopsy would have been superfluous.” He nodded at the book. “All the information you need is written there, in the death book.”

  The death book. She tried not to shudder. A tidy collection of the names of the dead, on neatly lined pages. Beside each name was written an age, an address, and the cause of death. She flipped through October 1923. The space of three weeks filled one page, the reasons ranging from “old age” to “weak heart” to “self-murder.”

  She reached November 9. One day covered an entire page. Under the “cause” heading, beside each name someone had printed, in dark ink, “bullet wound.”

  Slowly, she closed the book. Now she understood why no one had questioned her father’s injuries. She handed the book to the policeman. Why the coroner hadn’t wondered why her father had been shot in the back, too. Riots sweeping the streets, an exhausted and overwhelmed staff at the police morgue, a starving public who cared more about bread. Papa’s murder had been easy to overlook.

  “Thank you,” she said to the policeman. With slow steps, she retraced her route down the corridor, Eva trailing and whispering her name nervously. Someone, somewhere, had spent the last eight years congratulating himself on his good fortune. Faster now, the worn pine floor flying beneath her feet. Bureaucratic incompetence, laziness, luck—all had combined to shield her father’s killer.

  Faster and faster. She burst out the front door, pounding down the steps, Eva calling after her. Police scooters streamed down the street, heading off for patrol duty, their riders’ faces concealed behind heavy driving goggles. Her throat tightened. Off they went to protect Munich’s citizens. But no one had protected Papa. In death, he had been abandoned.

  Eva grabbed her arm. “Gretchen! What the devil is going on?”

  “I don’t know,” Gretchen said. The sheer hopelessness of the situation struck her, and she cried out, “I don’t know!”

  As Eva drew an arm around her shoulders, guiding her down the sidewalk, whispering they mustn’t make a scene, Gretchen felt herself sinking into misery. Maybe Papa hadn’t deserved protection. When he died, he had been committing a crime. If he had lived, he would have been imprisoned for high treason, along with Uncle Dolf and Rudolf Hess and all the rest of his friends.

  Eva chattered on, but Gretchen didn’t hear a word. Uncle Dolf and his friends . . . Uncle Dolf arriving at the beer hall, with a group of companions. Including her father and Amann, the dwarfish man she’d heard about at Osteria Bavaria, the man who’d just lost his arm. In last night’s confusion, she’d forgotten about him. She climbed up the streetcar’s steps after Eva, her movements automatic, her thoughts spinning. What had happened during that automobile ride to upset her father? And how could she find Amann and trick him into telling her?

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  26

  “MAX AMANN,” DANIEL SAID. THEY STOOD beneath the shade of a towering chestnut. All around them, daylight was slowly dying. Trees clustered tightly together, their interlocking branches and lacy leaves blocking out the fading rays of the orange-pink sunset, enclosing Gretchen and Daniel in a well of shadows. Although she heard Müncheners walking the nearby paths that curved through the Englischer Garten, Gretchen felt as if she and Daniel had stepped into a private world.

  “The fellow you’ve described in the photograph can’t be anyone but Amann,” Daniel said. In the slanting shadows, his face was a pale oval. “He went to the beer hall with Hitler that night, and he’s just lost his arm in a hunting accident. He’s an old Party comrade, I believe, who fought with Hitler and your father during the war.”

  That made sense. Only those closest to Hitler would have been granted the honor of riding with him to the beer hall. She glanced at Daniel. The sight of him, whole and unhurt, gladdened her heart.

  This evening, after she had someh
ow managed to get through an afternoon at the Braunes Haus following her trip to the police station, she had rung Daniel at the newspaper, her hands shaking with relief when he answered and she knew for certain that he hadn’t been attacked last night by Hitler’s men. This was the first time they had seen each other since she had left his apartment to return to the boardinghouse. Seventeen days, and she already felt so different. She wondered what he thought of her now.

  He had said little about her improved wounds, only murmuring she had healed well. But she had felt his gaze, steady and probing, as it moved over her, lingering on her left eye socket and shorter hair.

  “Amann used to be the NSDAP treasurer,” Daniel continued. “Now he runs the Party’s publishing business. And there are rumors he’s Hitler’s personal banker. Imagine the sorts of secrets he must know. I can start looking into him tomorrow.”

  He leaned against a tree trunk; he was only a foot away, and yet it might have been a mile. Gretchen yearned to step into the circle of his arms, lay her head on his chest so she could hear the reassuring beating of his heart against her ear.

  Heat flushed her face. What a foolish, inexperienced child she was. He had shown her decency and kindness, but he hadn’t treated her as though she meant anything to him. And yet she felt as drawn to him as to a magnet.

  “I must go,” Daniel said. “I’ve an important appointment to keep.”

  “With a girl?” The words streamed out before she could snatch them back.

  Daniel shot her a startled look. “A confidential source has given me a tip, and I must follow up on it. If he’s right, I shall be uncovering a big story the NSDAP is desperate to hide.”

  “Let me help. Please,” she added when his eyebrows rose. “You’ve done so much for me. I’d like to do anything I can, to help you and your newspaper expose Hitler as a fraud.”

  For a moment, he was silent, and she couldn’t guess what he might be thinking. “Won’t your mother grow suspicious, if you’re not at the boardinghouse to help with supper?”

  Even the mention of Mama was painful. “No. Not after—not after what Reinhard did. She lets me do as I please now.”

  She didn’t add how her mother’s gaze followed her nervously, as though Mama was unsure what Gretchen might do next. Or how Mama rushed about the kitchen, serving her breakfast, saving the best pieces of bread for her, and a lump of sugar for her tea. As though she could sweep aside the past with pampering.

  Daniel’s eyes flickered over her face.

  “It might be dangerous.”

  “I’m not afraid of getting hurt. Not anymore.”

  “No,” he said. His voice was surprisingly gentle. “I suppose you wouldn’t be, after everything you’ve already been through.” He held up the nearest branches, so she wouldn’t get scratched as she walked out. “Come,” he said, and they walked out of the woods together.

  In silence, they followed the long, straight main boulevards, finally turning into the twisting side streets until they reached a little lane where the patches of lawn in front of the houses were nothing more than congealed mud. Three- and four-story buildings lined the avenue, their wooden siding nearly stripped of paint. Chimneys poked up from the old-fashioned thatched roofs, but no smoke belched into the pewter-colored sky. The residents either couldn’t afford the coal for their stoves or wouldn’t waste it on a cool autumn night.

  “Once we’re inside, don’t say a word,” Daniel said. His face was so grim, she scarcely recognized him.

  The sagging wooden steps sank lower under their combined weight. The front door was unlocked, and they stepped inside.

  Gretchen had expected an apartment lobby—a collection of tidy wall mailboxes, perhaps, or a line of buzzers for the residents’ apartments. Instead, a man sat behind a curved wooden desk, picking his teeth with a pocket knife. The windows were shuttered, so the space was dark, lit by a single kerosene lantern on the desk.

  “One hour?” the man asked, setting the pocket knife down and reaching for one of the dozen keys hanging on the wall behind him.

  “We were sent to observe,” Daniel said. He slid a handful of coins across the desk.

  The man picked up the knife and resumed picking. When he spoke, he could barely move his lips or risk being cut, so his words came out slurred. “Next floor. First door on the left.”

  “Thank you.”

  Daniel motioned for her to follow, and they started up the stairs. The rotted wood nearly gave way under their feet, and she had to grip the banister tightly in case the steps broke. On the landing, she caught the flash of beady eyes. The cheep-cheep of mice nearly made her cry out.

  “Steady,” Daniel whispered. His hand found hers in the darkness. Warmth flooded her body. If only he would touch her because he wanted to, not just to reassure her.

  Four closed doors lined the corridor. The first one opened into a small, bare room. A worn duvet covered the narrow bed, and a side table held a guttering candle and a washing basin.

  “This is a cigarette house,” she gasped.

  “Yes.” Daniel ushered her inside, closing the door behind them.

  She had never seen a cigarette house before, at least not knowingly. They were notorious as fronts for prostitution businesses—places where men and women grappled in dim, dank rented rooms, paid for in hour or minute increments.

  Embarrassment forced her gaze to the floor. In this place with Daniel, smelling the warmth of his skin, feeling his arm brush hers as he closed the door, while her heart beat madly—

  Footsteps creaked on the steps. Daniel cursed softly. “I thought we had more time, so I could explain.” He bent down, his eyes locking on hers. “Do you trust me?”

  Never had she trusted anyone so completely. She nodded.

  “Good,” he whispered. “Under the bed, and not a word, please.”

  Footfalls tramped along the corridor. Together, Gretchen and Daniel dove under the bed. She pressed her cheek against the cold wood floor, trying not to sneeze at the dust tickling her nose. The bed’s frame sat so low, she felt its metal rack pressing into her back. Beside her, Daniel turned his head, too, resting his cheek on the floor, his face only inches from hers.

  To her shock, he grinned. “You keep surprising me,” he whispered. “I’ve never met a girl like you.”

  Something warm and golden spread through her. He liked her, the girl he must have once despised.

  The door opened. Daniel nudged her shoulder with his, signaling her to remain quiet. She nodded, peering through the space between the bed and the floor. Two pairs of black jackboots. Only SA or SS men wore shoes like that.

  “A cigarette house?” A man snorted. “What sort of bloody meeting place is this?”

  “It’s private, isn’t it?” The other man sounded defensive. Age had roughened his voice, turning it into bits of gravel rubbing together. “Stop your complaining and listen. Orders have come through. The boss has decided on a strategy for dealing with the Jews within Germany.”

  The boss! Gretchen’s heartbeat quickened. The term could apply to so many men within the NSDAP: Hitler, SS head Heinrich Himmler, SA chief Röhm, Munich’s Gauleiter, the National Socialist district leader. She listened.

  “What is it?” The bed groaned as the men sat.

  “It’s top secret,” the other cautioned. “We can’t discuss it in public because the boss is afraid it’ll have a poor effect on foreign relations.”

  “Out with it,” the younger man growled. “These rooms are expensive.”

  The bed sagged lower, the metal brackets pressing into Gretchen’s back. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t make a sound.

  “Once we’re in power, we’ll seize Jewish businesses and property,” the older man said. “We’ll bar Jews from civil service and professional posts and limit who they can marry. The Führer also proposes using the Jews for slave labor or swamp cultivation.”

  Gretchen’s eyes met Daniel’s. His were unblinking and hard, as though he had retreated deep within
himself.

  Anger filled her mind, staining it red. What these men proposed was monstrous. Efficiently ripping away the rights anchoring Jews in society, until they had nothing left. Pulling them out of their jobs, stealing their possessions, breaking up their marriages, and finally forcing them into slavery in the swamplands.

  And the man she had loved as a father was behind it all.

  Only Uncle Dolf was referred to as “the Führer.” A title she had once smiled at, thinking it was a bit presumptuous for a man who wasn’t even in an elected office yet to call himself “the Leader.” An indulgent bit of vanity on his part, she had thought. The overreaching aim of the megalomaniac, she knew now.

  Silently, she lay next to Daniel as the men talked for another moment, snickering about the looks on the Jews’ faces when they finally figured out what was happening to them. She listened to the floorboards moan under their boots. The door opened and closed; the stairs creaked as the men walked down.

  Daniel slid out from under the bed, and she followed him. The candle had burned out, leaving the shabby room in shadow. Through the thin curtains, she saw the silvery sheen of the new moon, hanging low in the sky.

  In the half-light, Daniel looked angrier than she had ever seen him. There was nothing she could say to him—no words she could think of that might help. Together, they left the cigarette house, walking down the narrow lane until they had left the muddy lawns and rickety wooden houses behind.

  Gradually, the street widened. The buildings now were made of stone. Lights glowed from the windows of nightclubs and restaurants. Up ahead, a cluster of men, talking loudly, entered a beer hall, and across the avenue, a door opened and shut, releasing a burst of laughter from a cabaret. Bluesy jazz music cascaded from a nightclub, and men in fancy suits and women in satin frocks strolled the street, arm in arm, smiling, out for a special night on the town. Everywhere the city was alive, all these sweet, simple lives twining together. How blind everyone was, rushing into the restaurants, laughing at the comedians’ jokes, smoking and dancing and singing. Without the slightest inkling of what Hitler and his men were planning.