His Majesty's Hope

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  The truth was that Canaris was part of the undercover German resistance movement. In September 1939, the Admiral had visited Poland and seen the atrocities committed by the SS Eisengruppen. He learned, through Abwehr agents, about other incidents of mass murder throughout Poland. These murders weren’t the actions of a rogue Nazi squadron but actions on orders from Hitler himself.

  Shocked and horrified, Canaris began working covertly to overthrow Hitler, posing as a loyal Nazi and trusted friend. He climbed the political ladder at the Abwehr and was instrumental in recruiting like-minded men, all determined to work against the Nazis and for the enemy for a Germany free from Hitler.

  He used his position in the vipers’ nest of the Abwehr to control both the information and the so-called disinformation the Nazis received. Although he was technically Clara Hess’s boss, because of her connections with Hitler and Goebbels, she was beyond his sphere of power. Today, however, even they couldn’t help her.

  And he took a moment to rejoice in the fact that he would soon be rid of her.

  Clara Hess was not used to being summoned. She’d always sided with Ribbentrop, usually against Canaris, in Abwehr politics and policies—and knew the Admiral was no admirer of hers. After powdering her face and applying a fresh coat of scarlet lipstick, she strode reluctantly into his office, leaving behind her a trail of Chanel No. 5.

  As a former stage performer, she knew not to let any fear show, and held her head high. Canaris stood up behind his massive desk when she entered. “Heil Hitler!”

  “Heil Hitler!”

  “Please have a seat, Frau Hess.”

  Clara did so, displaying her silk-covered legs in spectator pumps to their best advantage. Canaris sat as well. He picked up a file. “We’ve received the photos from your man in Britain,” he said.

  Clara smiled. She’d been in touch with Krueger and knew things were on track. “Fantastic,” she said. “May I see them?”

  Canaris passed the folder to Clara, and she opened it to look at the glossy photographs. When she saw the first, of a crate emblazoned with the sloppy challenge IN LONDON IN 1914, YOU MURDERED HUGH THOMPSON, SR., she blinked, and became very still.

  One photograph after another showed wooden crates, painted with personal messages: I GREW UP TO TAKE HIS PLACE.

  WE OUTWITTED YOU AT WINDSOR & WE HAVE OUTWITTED YOU AGAIN. She paged through them, one by one, her face betraying nothing.

  And then, in stark black and white, was a picture of Hugh, from behind, trousers pulled down, displaying his lean and pale buttocks to the camera.

  Clara closed the folder and swallowed hard. She slid the folder across the desk, back to Canaris. He took it and slipped on a pair of glasses. “I’m afraid, Clara, in light of the Windsor situation and now, this botched mission—”

  “My spy was turned,” Clara interrupted. “He was weak, susceptible …”

  “You were in charge. You must take responsibility.”

  “I hope they hanged him,” she spat. “Bullets would be wasted on him.”

  “Clara—” Canaris put the folder into a desk drawer and locked it. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but there have been too many mistakes. It’s hard enough that you’re a woman, working in a man’s world—”

  “You won’t get away with this!” Clara raged, standing. “Wait until Goebbels hears about this!”

  Canaris spoke gently but firmly, the way he would have with a child or dog. “It’s over, Clara. I’m sorry. I’ve spoken with Goebbels—he’s the one who interceded for you, actually.” He pressed a button on his telephone.

  Two SS guards appeared at the door. Canaris nodded. “Please escort Frau Hess to the car we have waiting to take her home.”

  “I need to go back to my office,” she insisted. “I’m going to the opera tonight and I have to change.”

  “Still playing the part.” Canaris sighed. “All right, you may go back to your office.” He nodded at the waiting guards. “Tell the driver to take her directly to the Berlin Opera House when she’s finished.” He looked back to Clara. “Any personal effects you have in your office will be packed and sent to your home.”

  She looked down at him with a cryptic, almost pitying smile. “Jawohl,” she said, and swept out.

  At St. Hedwig’s, Elise and Father Licht decided that Maggie would go to Elise’s. “I know I prepared those rooms for the children …”

  “Children?” Maggie asked.

  “The children of the euthanasia program,” Elise explained. “Operation Compassionate Death.”

  “What?” Maggie was bewildered. Children? Euthanasia?

  “I’m being selfish, telling you any of this—but I can’t bear to keep the secret any longer. Nazi doctors are murdering children. ‘Life unfit for life’ they call them—blind, deaf, epileptic, schizophrenic …”

  “Wait—” Maggie was still trying to wrap her mind around the terrible things Elise was telling her. “Yes, Gottlieb told me—the blind, the deaf. But—how are you involved?”

  “I’ve seen the children at the hospital,” Elise said. “I’ve seen how they’re evaluated. And I’ve seen them put on the black buses and taken to places such as Hadamar, where they’re—” Elise swallowed. “I’m a witness. And I’m trying to get the paperwork the resistance needs to publicly denounce this program, which was approved by the Führer himself.”

  Maggie shuddered. Suddenly, the papers in Oberg’s office made sense. Those weren’t “units.”

  The “units” were children.

  It clicked, the way numbers did when she was solving a maths equation. “And Herr Oberg is in charge,” she said slowly, putting the pieces together. “At least of the financial side of the operation.”

  “Herr Oberg?” Elise said.

  “Yes,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “He ostensibly works for the State and Party Affairs office. I looked at his papers—they deal in what they’re calling ‘units.’ Units being sent, by bus, to places like Hadamar. He’s in charge of the”—a chill went through Maggie—“the business end of the operation, the bus drivers’ salaries, the buses, the fuel …” Maggie pulled out her handbag and started to unlock the fake bottom.

  “There are some of us”—Elise looked at Father Licht, who nodded—“who want to expose these monsters. Father Licht and some of the Bishops have already gone to the Pope. But because the German Catholics signed the Reichskonkordat, we can’t protest. Or at least, we can’t protest without absolute proof. They’ll deny and cover up anything and everything. But if we had proof …”

  If they, Germans, could actually expose such atrocities to their own people, the film she had would be far more important to these people than to the British. If the British told people about it, it could be dismissed as war propaganda. But if it came from Germans themselves—and from the clergy …

  Maggie made her decision. “Here,” she said, taking the camera out of her bag and popping out the film cartridge. “I was able to photograph some of Oberg’s papers, about the costs and the ‘units.’ I think they might be of use to you.”

  Father Licht accepted the film. “Thank God,” he said. “And, thank you.”

  Elise took Maggie’s arm. “Now let’s get you into hiding. We need to work on an escape plan.”

  Clara Hess returned to her office in a daze. She closed the door and then locked it, shutting out the guards escorting her.

  It was time to face facts. Her marriage had long been over. She had only a distant relationship with her daughter. Her looks were fading. And now, the only things she could count on—her work and her status in the Nazi party—were gone. Still, she had friends—powerful friends. And there was the opera tonight …

  She poured some schnapps, downed it, and then poured some more. Her lipstick had migrated to her teeth, and her mascara had run, leaving smudges under her eyes. In the haze of alcohol drunk too quickly on an empty stomach, she placed a call to Goebbels’s office. “I’ll see you at the opera tonight, won’t I, darl
ing? Miles is conducting—it’s Lohengrin, after all—your favorite …”

  Goebbels cleared his throat. “Clara, I know what happened with Canaris today. And I think it would be best”—he paused, trying to think of a delicate way to phrase it—“if you kept a low profile for a time. Take a holiday. Leave Berlin.”

  “What?”

  “Please, Clara …”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Tell me.”

  “You are—how shall I phrase this?—out of favor with the Führer at the moment. I think the less you’re in the spotlight, the better. You know how capricious he can be.”

  He went on. “Your best bet is to be quiet, stay at home. It may be too late for you to have any more children of your own, but you could be of use. Perhaps adopt one of the Liebensborn?”

  Clara, who’d always been the beloved, the admired, the feared, was speechless with fury. But she hadn’t risen to where she was by showing her cards too soon. “Well, thank you for your advice, Joseph,” she purred into the phone. “You’ve given me quite a bit to think about. Oh, one more thing—any word on the whereabouts of Margareta Hoffman?”

  “Nein,” Goebbels answered. “She disappeared from Oberg’s house sometime in the night. We have our men looking for her. Don’t worry, we’ll find her.”

  “And Lehrer?”

  “He resisted arrest. Then shot himself.”

  “You mean he’s dead?”

  “Yes—why so upset?”

  “Because he might have been our connection to a larger resistance ring, that’s why!” And, with that, Clara banged down the phone.

  She would not hang her head in shame, she would not disappear. She would not adopt a child and chase after the Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter, the cross-shaped medal Hitler awarded to dutiful German mothers.

  She opened her desk drawer and pulled out a small mother-of-pearl-handled gun. Before she left, she had to take care of the unfinished business in the attic.

  Elise snuck Maggie, still with her gray hair and humpback, up the servants’ staircase of her home.

  “How long have you been hiding people here?” Maggie whispered as they tiptoed up the stairs.

  “Only since the party. I snuck the first man in that night, actually.”

  Maggie raised an eyebrow. “You snuck someone into your house the night of Clara Hess’s party—with all those Nazis around?” She whistled through her teeth. “As they say in Britain, you have stones, Elise. Big stones.”

  “Do I even want to know what that means?”

  “I’ll explain when we get out of here.” She stopped and grabbed Elise’s hand. “You are coming with us, yes? We are all going together?”

  “I’m not sure,” the other girl said. “My biggest concern is getting the three of you out. As for myself … Well, I love my country, even though things are horrible right now. If I leave …”

  “Who’d be left to pick up the pieces?” Maggie finished for her, realizing that Elise was going to stay, regardless of the danger. “I understand.” Then, “Do you still want to become a nun? Even after witnessing all this?”

  “I’m trying to keep in mind what Thomas Aquinas said in his Summa Theologica.”

  “Sorry,” Maggie said. “I’m not familiar with it.”

  “St. Thomas said that there can be both an all-powerful God and evil in the world—because an all-powerful God is powerful enough to turn evil into good—even if we don’t know exactly how or when He does it.”

  Maggie shrugged. “If an all-powerful God is going to turn evil into good, I really wish He’d hurry up.”

  In the attic, John was sitting up in the armchair while Ernst was sprawled on the mattress on the floor, reading a book.

  Elise gave the secret knock at the door, and then opened it. “Gentlemen, we have a new guest,” she said. Maggie followed her into the room.

  Maggie saw a man in a chair, head raised from the book he’d been reading. “John?” she managed finally. He blinked.

  “My God.” She unpinned her hat and dropped it to the floor, then took down her hair. As it spilled out, the red became visible against the gray.

  His eyes widened. And then he said, “Maggie?”

  “John.” She took a step forward. “Are—are you all right?”

  He rose. “I’m … How did you find me?”

  Maggie and John continued to stare at each other. Finally, she moved toward him, tentatively traversing what seemed to be an enormous, perilous distance. Right before she reached him, she tripped on the edge of the carpet and stumbled, falling on one knee.

  “Ouch,” she said, and then found she couldn’t move.

  “Easy there.” John knelt and held out his hand. It was thinner than she remembered, she could see the blue veins through translucent skin, but she took it, fighting back hot tears.

  “You look absolutely terrible,” John said, helping her to her feet and brushing the ash off her cheeks with his fingertips.

  “You look pretty awful yourself,” Maggie found herself retorting. He did. His hair was streaked with gray, his eyes were shadowed, his shoulders held so much tension they looked hunched. “Like you’ve been through a war or something.”

  “Or something.”

  Maggie reached up, putting her arms around him. He smelled like John, her memory of John—warm and soapy. His muscles were still lean and wiry. He held her so tightly she could barely breathe. Neither of them said a word, but there was enough electricity between them to make Maggie tremble.

  They sat down on the bed, holding hands, faces wet with tears. “We all thought—I thought—” Maggie began.

  “That I was dead?” John wouldn’t let go of her hand. “Almost. But I never stopped loving you. I never gave up on you. And thanks to Elise …”

  “My God,” Maggie moaned, and buried her face in his neck, holding on tight. He was there, he was real, he wasn’t an apparition.

  “I love you, Maggie,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “I never stopped loving you.”

  Tears stung Maggie’s eyes. She thought of the memorial service they’d had for John.

  “I love you, too. And we need to talk. But first, we need to get out of here.”

  Ernst grinned. “At the risk of stating the obvious, I’d say you two know each other.”

  Elise wiped at her wet face, then cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but we must get moving. I have a plan—it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, but I was waiting for John to recover fully before I suggested it.”

  “What is it?” John asked.

  “My father, you see, is the conductor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin—the Berlin Opera,” she said. “He travels quite a bit, usually in Germany, but also sometimes to Austria. He’s about to go to Switzerland.”

  “We’d need papers,” Maggie said.

  “Not necessarily.” Elise took a deep breath. “I’m going to get you out of Berlin—out of Germany—and to Switzerland.”

  “Yes, but how?” Maggie said.

  “My idea—and bear with me—is to hide you in the Berlin Opera’s musical instrument cases—the double bass, the timpani—when they travel to Zürich.”

  Ernst, John, and Maggie looked stunned by the suggestion. “Would we fit?” Maggie asked, after a moment.

  “Oh yes.” Elise nodded. “My friends and I used to hide in cases all the time when we were younger. It’s absolutely possible for an adult to hide in a number of instrument cases.”

  “And could we breathe?” Ernst asked.

  “We’ll have to make some holes.”

  Maggie frowned. “Do you really think your father would do it? Isn’t your mother a high-ranking Nazi?”

  “Yes,” Elise said, “but surely you remember their argument, the night of her birthday? Her party membership put quite a strain on their marriage. It’s one of the reasons my father’s never around anymore—he can’t stand what she’s turned into. He’s been here for the last few weeks, but sleeping in one of the guest rooms. Bes
ides,” she continued resolutely, “he doesn’t need to know what we’ve done until after you’ve arrived safely in Switzerland. What other options do we have?”

  Maggie was impressed—her half sister’s plan was good. Impossibly dangerous, but good. She smiled. “I love it. Let’s do it.”

  Clara Hess stood in the adjoining attic room, her ear pressed to the thin wall. This new information, she realized, called for a change in plans.

  She tiptoed to the staircase, then made her way down. It was time to get ready for the opera.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Staatsoper Unter den Linden, or Berlin Opera House, was an enormous building with soaring columns and red Nazi banners snapping in hot gusts of wind. But to Elise, the massive structure was like a second home; she’d been coming here to see her father rehearse or conduct ever since she was old enough to walk.

  Elise bypassed the grand entrance and went in through the stage door around back. “Hallo, Herr Benz,” she called to the guard on duty, a bald man, squinting through his pince-nez, reading Der Stürmer, the weekly Nazi party newspaper.

  “Guten Tag, gnädiges Fräulein,” Martin Benz called back, tipping an imaginary hat. “You’re here to see your papa? They’re rehearsing now—room one oh eight B.”

  “Thank you, Herr Benz,” she said, with a mock curtsey, something they’d been doing for years. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  Elise walked quickly through the long corridors of the opera house until she reached the rehearsal room. She could see her father standing on a small apple box, baton in hand, behind a music stand that held a thick, pencil-marked score.

  The orchestra was just finishing the overture to Wagner’s Lohengrin, the violins almost angelic in their high fermate. Hess lowered his baton and observed a moment of silence, like a prayer. Coming back to reality, he spied his daughter. “Elise!” he said, opening his arms.