Martina’s eyes lit up. “You never told me you were seeing anyone. Is it serious?”
“I think it might be. He’s a medic, but he’s back from the front. We’re taking some time together while we can. We have a problem, however. He broke his leg skiing, and we’re snowed in.”
“Oh, no.”
“It’s not been easy. I managed to set a cast on his legs myself.”
“I thought it was just one leg?”
“No, it’s two. I meant to say two.”
Franka could feel her heart thumping in her chest. Martina’s expression changed to grave seriousness.
“He’s okay, and in casts, but he can’t get around. I need some crutches. I was wondering if you had any old sets lying around that I could borrow for a few weeks until the snow melts.”
“Does he need a doctor? Shall I ask—”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I just need crutches. I was able to set his legs, and they seem to be healing well.”
Franka stopped talking. Martina finished her cigarette and crushed it under her foot. She looked around to see if anyone was listening in.
“When do you need them?”
“Now, if possible.”
“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Franka waited outside in the cold for fifteen minutes and was just beginning to wonder if she was coming back, when Martina emerged, a pair of old crutches under her arm.
“These have seen a few winters, but they should do the job. I don’t think they’ll be missed either.”
“Thank you so much,” Franka said as Martina handed them to her. “This is going to mean the world to Tommy.”
Martina stayed with Franka a few more minutes before duty called and they said their goodbyes. Franka tied the crutches to her backpack and made her way out of town, explaining to the guard who stopped her that they were for her war-veteran boyfriend. He didn’t ask questions after that and handed her papers back.
Franka arrived back at the cabin, brandishing the crutches like a trophy. John slipped them under his armpits and pushed himself upward. Movement was still difficult, and he had to drag his legs behind him, but his situation now was miles ahead of being stuck in bed. His first journey was to the kitchen. They sat at the table together as Franka made up a meal of soup, bread, and cheese, and they ate it like it would be their last.
Later that day, Martina Kruger thought long and hard about the meeting with her old friend. Why hadn’t Franka wanted her boyfriend to see a doctor? Even if the bones were healing well, surely it would have been better to make sure? The thought stayed with her through Christmas, and even into the new year of 1944. She couldn’t shake the way Franka had looked at her and how unusual her request was. It was with some regret that she went to the local Gestapo office to report her friend. It was probably nothing, she reasoned, and surely Franka didn’t have anything to hide, but it was best to let the professionals deal with it. She suppressed any feelings she had about loyalty to friends, because in times of war like these, it was more important to put the führer first. Franka Gerber was a criminal after all, and Martina couldn’t risk getting involved. She had her family to think about. The Gestapo agent agreed with her—she had done the right thing.
Christmas came. They spent it together. They talked for hours on end. She went through every idea that the White Rose championed, and he told her he’d heard of the massive drops all over Germany of the Munich students’ manifesto. That was her Christmas present—the quiet satisfaction that what they’d done hadn’t been in vain. She told him of her childhood in the mountains. They had time to go through every summer she spent here, every memory she had. He taught her some English phrases—military language mostly. He told her of Philadelphia, his parents’ house, and sunny days at the shore during the summer. He talked about his father’s business and how uncomfortable he was with the privilege he’d been raised in. But the way he spoke about it was different from before. It wasn’t something to hold a grudge over. There were far more important things to live and die for.
He told her about meeting his wife in Princeton, and about how happy their first few years together had been. She married her airman a week after the divorce went through, a month before John shipped out. He’d never told anyone his story this thoroughly before—his ex-wife, his childhood, his parents, and where he’d grown up. He’d never had the time. He went through every conceivable detail he could remember about Rudolf Hahn and told her everything he knew about his work, which wasn’t much. There were parts of the mission shrouded even from him. He didn’t need to know everything.
They talked about how they’d get Hahn back to the cabin. It would be best to wait until John’s legs healed. That would be at the end of January. Only then could they strike for the border. With all they talked about, all the hours they spent together, they never mentioned the future. They never spoke about what Franka would do once John set off for Switzerland with Hahn. Only the mission mattered. He repeated those phrases over and over in his mind, until they became a mantra, words to live by.
Franka moved his bed above the pried-up boards in the bedroom. They developed a drill—what to do if the Gestapo did come looking for him. They went through it dozens of times. The only warning they would have would be the sound of a car pulling up. In that case John was to go to the bedroom immediately and slip the boards over himself as he lay in the space beneath that she’d made as comfortable as she could. The bed would cover the floorboards, which in turn would cover him. There would be no hiding if the Gestapo conducted a thorough search, but what reason would there be to do so? No word had come in the local papers of missing Allied airmen, or of spies. It seemed that they didn’t know he was in the area, let alone hiding in her father’s cabin.
The new year came. She had seen no one but him since her last trip to town almost two weeks before, when she had only spoken to Martina, the officer who’d asked for her papers, and the people working in the various stores she visited. John was spending more time outside the room. When she returned from her daily walk, she often found him sitting in the rocking chair by the fire, reading banned literature. He wanted to read only the books that the Nazis would throw her in jail for. The stiffer the sentence for having it, the more he wanted to read it. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann sat on the table where he’d left it, his bookmark jutting out. They only listened to illegal, foreign radio stations, reveling in the freedom of their solitude. She was fascinated as he told her about what was going on elsewhere in the war, the battles in Russia and Italy, the combat in the Pacific.
She cooked stew most nights, and he helped cut and dice the vegetables so thinly that they melted in her mouth. They had started eating together on Christmas Day, and it was a habit now.
They were silent as they ate that night in January. His table manners were exquisite. She tried to imagine him sitting down with his fellow soldiers and eating the C rations he’d described in such detail. It was hard to picture.
He raised his napkin and dabbed away breadcrumbs on the sides of his mouth before continuing with his meal.
“I see you looking at me with that smile on your face,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m just trying to picture you with your fellow soldiers, the ‘grunts,’ as you called them.” She was proud of herself for using the English slang he’d taught her.
“It took a while for some of them to accept me in basic training. Once they saw that we were all on the same side, and prejudice against your own could cost you your life . . . I’d like to think I earned their respect.”
He put his fork down, his meal unfinished.
“I know you’re nervous about tomorrow,” he said. “Everything will be okay. You only need speak to him for a few minutes. No one will suspect a thing. As far as we know, he’s not under any suspicion.”
“As far as you know . . .”
“Of course, there are things we don’t know, but I wouldn’t trust this job to just anyo
ne.”
“You don’t have much choice.”
“Of course I do. I could wait. Hahn might change his mind, or finish his work, or get caught, or something else could happen in the meantime. But I can’t wait, and I can’t go myself.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “When are you going to realize what a valuable asset you are to this mission? I can’t believe I found you. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead already.”
Franka pulled her hand away and picked up the cup of coffee in front of her. “What makes you so sure I can do this?”
“I can see the strength in you. Who else could have done what you’ve done and still keep going?”
“The fire needs tending to.”
“Never mind that. It can wait a few minutes.” He reached for her hand again. His hands were warm, strong. “You can do this. You have every quality inside you to do this. You’re brave, and—”
“I’m not brave. I’m a coward.” She felt the tears coming and was ashamed to cry in front of him. “I sold out to save my own skin. I pretended I didn’t know what was going on, and what Hans and the others were doing.” She turned away from him, grabbing for the wood stacked in the corner. The fire under the stove crackled as she tossed on a couple of logs. “They were the real heroes, prepared to give their lives for what they believed in.”
“The fact that they’re dead doesn’t make them heroes any more than you are. Don’t you think they would have chosen life if they could have? What good would have come of your death? What would one more death have achieved?”
“I should have confessed to the truth of what I did, and what I knew. I played the ‘stupid blonde.’ I acted out the role of the ‘idiotic girl.’”
“You did what you needed to do to survive. I would have done exactly the same thing in your place. You were brave, you were smart, and now you’re alive. And because of you, so am I. You are blond, and you are a woman, but you’re as far from stupid, or cowardly, as anyone I’ve ever met.”
His kind words did nothing to halt the tears, which came harder and faster and dripped off the end of her chin. He used his crutches to struggle out of his seat and get to her.
“You might be the bravest person I’ve ever known, Franka Gerber.”
“I left him,” she said.
“What?” John said.
Her words were as faint as ash on the wind.
“It’s my fault he died. I left him. My father couldn’t care for him alone.”
“Oh no. That’s not true.” John could feel the warmth of her on his skin.
“I should never have gone. It’s my fault Fredi died. If I’d stayed in Freiburg, we could have taken care of him together. He would never have been in that home, and they would never have gotten their claws on him. He’d still be alive.”
“It’s not your fault Fredi died. The Nazis murdered him.”
“Why did I have to go to Munich? Why did I leave him?”
“You wanted a new start. You were twenty-two.”
“You say that but—”
“Fredi’s death isn’t your fault. Who’s to say that they wouldn’t have come to your house for him? There was nothing you could have done about it. There was no way you could have known.”
“He would never have died.”
“You have an opportunity to strike back at the heart of the regime that murdered your brother and your boyfriend. They don’t realize how important this nuclear program is. We have to stop it before they find out. According to Hahn, they’re ahead of us. If we let the Nazis develop their program first, they might never pay for murdering Fredi and so many others.”
“It’s too late. The damage is done.”
“It’s never too late, not while you’ve got breath in your lungs and life within you. The Nazis have left a trail of millions of victims throughout Europe. You’ve been gifted the chance to fight for justice on their behalf.”
“Or revenge?”
“Either,” he said. “Both. There are many different combinations of reasons for what we do. Revenge is one of them. I need to know if you’re in this a hundred percent, Franka. Any less and you’re endangering both our lives. Are you with me?”
“I am. One hundred percent.”
Chapter 11
Franka was awake before the dawn, and she watched as the dark of night submitted to the dull gray of an overcast morning. She waited an hour to climb out of bed, wincing as the cold of the cabin bit at her face. It was a two-hour train ride to Stuttgart from Freiburg. The roads were still impassable, her car little more than a reminder of how she got up here and how she might leave. Hot coffee warmed her. She checked the food supplies for John, though she already knew exactly how much food they had. She checked again. His voice came through his door, and, with steaming mug of coffee in hand, she went to him. He was sitting up in the bed.
“You can do this. You’re just meeting someone in Stuttgart.”
They talked about the journey for a few minutes before she went to the bathroom to wash up. He was in the kitchen as she emerged, her hair stinging her scalp in the cold air. They sat and ate breakfast together. John went over everything again, even though she had it all memorized. She was packed and ready to go fifteen minutes later, and he propelled himself to the door to shake her hand as they said their goodbyes.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.
She tried to show the best side of herself, to hide the anxiety that seemed to be eroding her from the inside out, but she saw the uneasy look in his eyes.
Franka didn’t move as the train pulled into the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof station. Her mind was blank, as devoid of color as the snow that fell in the mountains. The soldier sitting opposite her offered to help with her bag. She clutched it tight and declined with a polite word. He tipped his hat to her and stood to get off the train. She forced herself out of her seat, aware of how pale she must have looked. She hadn’t eaten, hadn’t moved since she’d boarded. Her hands were shaking. She stuck them in her coat pockets and stood up. Franka followed as the rest of the passengers shuffled off the train and onto the platform. The train was on time. The clock on the wall read 3:15. There would be more than enough time to find a hotel before she went to meet Hahn. Several uniformed Gestapo men stopped members of the crowd to check for papers. They left her alone—seemingly more focused on men of military-serving age. They were looking for deserters.
The air was cold as she stepped out of the station. It was a cloudy, misty day. A line of massive Nazi flags flew on fifty-foot-high poles, barely visible through the murk. An enormous portrait of Hitler stood ten feet tall at the entrance to the station. Franka stuck her arm out for a taxi.
She forced herself to eat something after checking into her hotel and made her way down toward the Schlossplatz, the large square in the middle of the city where Hahn would be for those precious ten minutes. She ambled through the baroque gardens of the plaza to the statue of the Roman goddess Concordia jutting out of the center, almost a hundred feet into the sky. Bombing had scarred the buildings around the square, which faded into one another in the poor visibility. Some were under construction once more. Some were not. A massive Nazi flag billowed in the air, and several off-duty soldiers sauntered past. Her entire body stiffened at their glances. There seemed to be enemies everywhere, and she could feel the eyes of every passerby attach to her like leeches to skin. She took a seat on a park bench overlooking the square, wishing she smoked—to calm her nerves if nothing else. She resisted the urge to look at her wristwatch. A man across the square stopped, seemed to look at her, and then continued on. The seconds drew out like days.
And then she saw him. A man in his fifties in a beige trench coat made his way across the square and sat down on a park bench thirty yards from her. He was wearing a hat, but he had the gray mustache that John had described. He raised a newspaper in front of his face, just as John had said he would. Should she go straight to him? She looked over each shoulder, trying to make it look like she was e
xpecting someone. A man in his thirties sat down beside her, glancing over.
“Beautiful place, isn’t it?” he said, and Franka’s heart froze.
“Yes,” she replied, barely getting the words out.
She didn’t bring her eyes to look at him, though she knew he was looking at her. She looked at her wrist, and then at the man in the beige trench coat. Hahn would be gone in eight minutes. Who was this man beside her? The sweet aroma of cigarette smoke filled her nostrils.
“Would you like one?” the man said.
He was holding the cigarette pack out to her. She shook her head. His smile betrayed crooked front teeth, and he had a deep scar down his cheek. His gray eyes were unreadable.
“I don’t smoke,” she said.
“Nasty habit. The führer himself has spoken out against it.” He took a deep drag.
“I’ve never partaken myself. If you’ll excuse me.”
She stood up and ambled away without another word. The man in the beige coat was still reading his newspaper and didn’t react as she sat down beside him. The man who’d offered a cigarette glanced at them.
“Fine weather for this time of year,” she said. “It’s a treat for the children.”
Hahn whirled his head around upon hearing her words. It took him a couple of seconds to regain his composure. He had an umbrella by his side, just as John said he would.
“Fine weather for ice-skating, not for the farmers trying to feed our brave soldiers on the front.”
His words were practiced, deliberate. They were the code words. He turned the page, keeping the newspaper in front of his face.
She knew she had to speak next but eyed the man smoking the cigarette. He was looking but averted his eyes as he noticed her peering back at him. A soldier in SS uniform walked past them.
“Is it safe to speak here?”
“Perhaps not,” he said, but didn’t move. “You’re not quite whom I was expecting.”
“There was a problem with the original operative. He wasn’t able to make it.” Hahn turned to her as she continued. “He’s alive and well. He had some issues, however, and won’t be able to travel for a few weeks.”
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