by Bonnie Toews
At the disbelief expressed on his face, her nervous chatter trailed off.
“As much as I would enjoy that, Fraulein, NOW is not the best time.” He was warning her.
“If not now, WHEN?” she said and feigned an injured pout.
He grinned despite his concern, and she knew he recognized her response from their face-to-face meeting at the International Press Club in Berlin.
“Later,” he said. “I’m off duty at 1500 hours. I can make the rest of the weekend yours.”
“I’m afraid I am going to be too busy.” She felt genuine distress.
“Too busy to eat?”
“I hope not.”
He glanced at his watch. “If you have the time, we could have lunch together. I’m not expected back at headquarters for at least another hour.”
“Where is … your headquarters?”
“We’ve taken over the old Shell building.”
Alarm widened her eyes. “You mean Gestapo headquarters?”
“Yes.” Observing her nervousness, he suggested, “We could picnic in the Gardens.”
Her face relaxed. “That would be nice. I just have to pack up my music, and then we can go.”
He helped her gather up the orchestral scores and music sheets, which she slid into her valise. “You’ll need your coat,” he reminded her and reached for her trench coat. “It’s a bit cool outside,” he said, helping her slip into it.
She quickly tied a scarf around her hair and knotted it behind at the nape of her neck before she picked up the valise and her shoulder bag.
“Do you realize I don’t know your name, Fraulein?”
“I don’t know yours either,” she returned, carrying on with the pretense.
“I’m Colonel Erich von Lohren,” he said and clicked his heels.
She felt heat creep into her cheeks. She offered her hand.
“I’m Astrid Andersson.”
They shook hands shyly, withdrew their hands hesitantly and moved side-by-side. As they walked along, he asked, “Are you Swedish?”
“Did my German give me away?”
He chuckled, “Your German is good.”
She swung into her cover story. He listened intently, with his head cocked to one side. Concentration puckered his wide brow. He squinted as she talked about the concert she was expected to play. To Grace, his blue eyes seemed weathered and tired.
In the years since she had last seen him, his face had changed. His dimples, once boyishly cute, had cracked and sunk into craggy rivers, which ran into his jaw line and around his squared chin. Maturity had taken youth’s perfect features and made them rugged and lean. Walking beside him, Grace became painfully aware of how homely and clumsy she must look in her disguise.
He stopped at one of the outdoor cafés to pick up a basket of smorrebrod and two Fadols, the Danes’ draft beer, and borrowed a small, checkered tablecloth for their picnic. Carrying their lunch, he led her across a footbridge onto a tiny island.
“We have the world to ourselves here,” he said, switching to English. “Let’s set up over there.”
He pointed his head in the direction of a weeping willow tree. They settled down on its burrowing trunk. He fluttered open a fresh tablecloth on the grass, and Grace laid out their food and drinks on top of it.
“You’ll have to get used to smorrebrod, while you’re here. The Danes eat it for every meal.”
He handed her a plate, knife and fork. “Don’t eat it with your fingers though. That’s a foreigner’s dead giveaway.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, reaching for one of the open-faced sandwiches.
“I must always use a knife and fork. Mme. Orsted already told me. Are we being watched by the Gestapo?”
“I don’t think so, but you can never be sure.”
He removed his SS cap and laid it beside him. Sunny peepholes opened up through the cloudy overcast. White beams streaming through the overhanging boughs dripped like shredded silk and tipped his golden hair with silver specks. He stared at her. His jaw clenched.
“Why are you here?”
“Sir Fletcher sent me. He doesn’t want you to detonate Dr. Nielsen’s lab.”
“Why?”
“It’s a bluff. By leaving Dr. Nielsen’s lab intact, he wants the Nazis to think the Allies don’t consider his experiments valuable enough to destroy. Churchill’s hoping the ploy will sidetrack Hitler from discovering how close Dr. Nielsen is to building an atomic bomb.”
“And where is the good doctor through this big … bluff?”
“We’re taking him out today.”
Erich smiled bitterly. “The Gestapo has already issued a warrant for his arrest. I’ve been stalling that arrest order for nearly two weeks.”
“Can you give us another twelve hours?”
“You have until Ketmann returns Monday morning.”
“Who’s he?”
“A thoroughly disagreeable man. If I don’t deliver Nielsen then, we’ll both be arrested.”
“What happens to you when Dr. Nielsen disappears?”
“I arrange a fatal accident for myself.”
“NO! You can’t!!” she cried out in horror.
A smile teased his lips at her reaction. “I don’t intend to die, silly. I just want the SS and Gestapo to think I’m dead.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling foolish, “I’m glad to hear that.”
She hesitated. “How did you know I was here?”
“I didn’t. I was taking my usual stroll through the Tivoli…”
He stopped, noting her surprise. “Didn’t you position yourself where I could hear you and make contact?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Grace frowned. Mme. Orsted had arranged for her rehearsal this morning at the Concert Hall. Was it just a crazy coincidence she should meet Erich like this? Lee, she remembered, didn’t believe in coincidences. The eerie feeling that a master hand was fitting together a million separate pieces into an intricate puzzle gripped her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“My stomach’s twisting.”
His lips tightened into a grim line. “I still don’t understand why London sent you.”
“Sir Fletcher feared you wouldn’t believe Churchill changed your orders. Anyone else he sent, except me, you might suspect is a Gestapo plant and carry out your original order.”
Grace shifted into a more comfortable position on the grass and inclined her head shyly towards him. “I’ve often wondered where you were, if you were safe …”
Her voice trailed off, and her eyes sought his. “I’m glad you’re all right. I prayed you would be.”
“You’ve been in my thoughts from the first time I saw you,” he admitted hoarsely. “What happened after I saw you in Berlin?”
“I worked as a nurse’s aide. Then my parents were killed in a bombing raid, and I became a radio operator for Project Amanita. Playing the piano was great training for transmitting.”
They sat silently, feeling and enjoying the sight of one another. Seven endless years of mutual longing and secret devotion crammed through the sieve of the moment. Theirs was a love born of the spirit, and they recognized it.
“How are you involved with Dr. Nielsen?” Erich eventually asked as he picked up the last smorrebrod.
“Sir Fletcher thinks I am the only one who can convince him to flee to England.”
“That nut should have been taken out a year ago!”
His voice thundered with disapproval. “After your people scuttled the Germans’ heavy water supply, do you know what a nightmare it has been keeping him out of Gestapo and SS hands?”
“We’ve lost many good agents protecting Dr. Nielsen.”
“Let’s make sure you’re not another one. When do you go back to England?”
“As soon as I radio back to Amanita Dr. Nielsen’s lab has been neutralized.”
“Do you have a transmitter?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m to deliver my message to
the safe house at Palae 1254v—our PUFFIN station.”
“That’s in the Nyhaven District!” he protested. “You can’t go there. It’s crawling with drunken sailors. How do you contact Dr. Nielsen?”
“Mme. Orsted has arranged for us to meet him at a café near the university this afternoon. At 1400 hours actually.”
“Then what?”
“I was to find you?”
“How?”
“Now you’ll never know,” she teased.
“Too bad,” he twinkled. “When is your rendezvous at the safe house?”
“1900 hours.”
“Isn’t that cutting it close to concert time?”
“I’m not required on stage until after the intermission.”
“How are you getting there?”
“Bicycle.”
Erich ripped out a blade of grass and chewed on the tip thoughtfully. “Where does Mme. Orsted live?”
“Three Hindegade.”
“I’ll pick you up at 1700 hours,” he said decisively. “Be dressed for walking.”
And then he quickly rose to his feet and brushed himself off. “You’re not going alone.” His tone discouraged any argument.
“I’m glad Fate gave us a chance to meet again,” Grace told him.
“If it was Fate,” he said dubiously, while scooping up his SS cap and adjusting it to his head.
“I have to get back now, Grace. Be careful contacting Dr. Nielsen. He is being watched,” he warned her and crisply walked away, leaving her to clean up the luncheon leftovers.
THIRTY-ONE
Saturday, October 9th, 1944
Boisterous laughter tripped out of the sailors’ inn in Copenhagen’s old waterfront district. The cheerful tunes of the accordion playing softly in the background mixed with the rowdy voices of old sea dogs and their salty mates trading tale for tale and drink for drink in the crowded tavern. Their drunken revelry was never more than a beer away from sobriety, a conditioning triggered by unpredictable German raids on the dock-side life of the Nyhaven Canal.
Two swaggering merchant seamen stumbled out of Tattoo Jack’s. Their raucous titters and bold shouts invited German sailors lounging outside the next café to inspect the needle man’s handiwork on their chests. They lifted up their tunics to reveal the torso of a stripper with gigantic balloon-shaped breasts. Under each tattoo was the name Rosa.
The sailors stared, fascinated, while the two drunks flexed their chest muscles to make Rosa’s busts jiggle up and down. Behind them, over five thousand different designs hung in the tattoo parlor’s window.
Further down the cobbled street, the giant hands of an astronomical clock towering over a shabby bar approached seven o’clock. Next to it, in chipped paint, was Palae 1254v. A red and yellow awning, striped and shaped like a puffin’s bill—the resemblance to the bird had inspired the call station’s name—covered the entrance way into the quaint bistro. Its long narrow windows, overlooking the quay, framed a limited view of sturdy fishing boats and whalers bobbing in their berths along the canal. Somewhere, out in the harbor, a ship’s siren hooted like a night owl with whooping cough.
Everything was carrying on normally as far as the couple inspecting the junk shop across from the bistro could tell. Seemingly intrigued with the transformation of other people’s castoffs into beautiful artifacts now cluttering the storefront, they watched the shopkeeper heap forlorn-looking rejects from a horse-drawn cart onto the sidewalk. Once the pile threatened to topple over, he began picking up the items, one by one, and carrying them into his store, forcing the man and woman to move inside the doorway, out of his way.
While he shuffled back and forth with his loads, the old gray mare in front stood sleepily flicking her tail. The rakish straw hat plunked between her donkey-like ears distracted attention away from the couple loitering inside the window.
Grace clutched Erich’s hand. The closer they had drawn to PUFFIN, the more jitters she felt. Despite the natural rhythm of the nightlife along Nyhaven, a feeling of foreboding—an icy patch between her shoulder blades and hairs prickling at the nape of her neck—warned her something was terribly amiss. But what was it?
After Erich arrived at precisely 1700 hours, she had not let herself slip into English until they were well out of earshot of Mme. Orsted’s apartment and on their way through the oldest part of Copenhagen. The diva suspected the Gestapo was listening through her walls.
As Grace described her meeting with Dr. Nielsen, Erich walked beside her, engrossed in her every word. Feeling as distraught as she was, she failed to notice that, out of uniform, in his gray flannel slacks and Herringbone double-breasted jacket, Erich’s Nordic features and sun-bleached hair, like spun silk dipped in gold, had lost their rigid control. A fleecy forelock fell boyishly over his right brow and invited touching. All at once she became aware of his unguarded vulnerability and slipped her hand through his arm.
“Something’s quite wrong, Erich,” she told him. “I didn’t have to convince Dr. Nielsen to go. He wanted to go. In fact, he accused British Intelligence of exposing him to unnecessary risk leaving him here so long. He said he had run out of ways to make his experiments fail. He even knew you’ve been protecting him.”
“He said that?”
She nodded.
“He’s never given me the slightest hint. Does he also know I was ready to kill him rather than let him be arrested?”
“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
Grace glanced off into space and back to the 300-year-old street, struggling with the premonition that pecked like a humming bird up and down her spine. She felt as out of touch with the present as these baroque gas lamps and tiny orange-painted houses with their dwarf-sized doors.
“Everything went like clockwork,” she went on. “He got on his bicycle and peddled down to the Havnegade docks. That’s where Mme. Orsted told him fishermen working for the Resistance would be waiting to smuggle him out to Lanskrona in Sweden. By now, he should be safely flying his way to England. I should feel relieved, shouldn’t I? Instead of feeling so scared.”
“Easy,” Erich cautioned her, patting her hand resting on the crook of his arm.
The warmth of his hand covering hers sent sharp tingles charging through her body. Now conscious of his strength, she felt an urge to be held. Sensing it, he pulled her more tightly against him, locking her arm over his. Her hip touched his thigh, and with instinctive rhythm, their strides became welded into one effortless gait, like dancers flowing together.
Once they reached King’s Square, Erich took Grace to a cellar café, which dated back to 1723. It was the favorite haunt of Copenhagen’s great rhetoric thinkers before German occupation, he explained, while their main course was being served.
Erich poked Grace and signaled her to stand still. They listened to the rattle of a car slowly inching its way over cobblestones outside the junk shop.
The shopkeeper, stacking shelves in the front of the store, eyed them nervously. He had heard the smothered clatter as well.
Across the street, a black Mercedes pulled up in front of the bistro’s door. The old gray mare and the junk cart blocked Erich’s line of sight He angled sideways for a better view.
A man in a slouch hat and a dark trench coat emerged from the Palae 1254v.
“Gestapo!” he hissed.
Two SD officers followed dragging a woman between them. The three Germans and the woman stood briefly under the red and yellow awning. Something vaguely familiar about the slim blonde woman struck Erich.
Grace! She looks like Grace! My God! It’s a trap! They think they’ve arrested Grace.
He grabbed Grace in a crushing embrace, burying her face in his chest to prevent her from seeing the woman. Who was she? Why was she pretending to be Grace? Question after question buzzed through Erich’s mind. He unconsciously pressed Grace’s face more deeply into his chest, almost smothering her.
One of the SD offices pushed the woman into the back seat of the black sedan and
climbed in beside her. The other officer jumped in front on the driver’s side, while the Gestapo agent climbed into the passenger seat. The driver gunned the Mercedes’ engine before swiftly making a U-turn and heading back towards them. When the car swerved out to avoid the old gray mare and the cart, Grace twisted her head in time to see what Erich was watching. Before he could stop her, she saw the blonde woman sitting beside the SD officer in the back seat, and when the Mercedes wheeled back close to the curb, she clearly saw her face.
“LEE!”
The scream tore from her throat as she impulsively reached out to grab her.
Erich quickly muffled her second cry and held her struggling against him. From his peripheral view he could feel the shopkeeper watching them with growing distress.
When the black Mercedes safely passed out of sight, Erich released Grace.
“Whom did you say?” he asked.
“Lee.” Tears filled her eyes. She swallowed before she spoke. “Lee Talbot.”
Erich was taken aback. “I didn’t recognize her. What’s she doing here?”
“She’s my conducting officer.”
Her anguish hurt him. He gathered her back into his arms to comfort her. She pressed her head against his chest.
“Lee …Lee… Lee… Why, Lee? Why?”
“Obviously you’ve been betrayed,” Erich muttered harshly. “Somehow Lee found out in time and sacrificed herself to give you a chance to escape.”
“Oh no!” Grace shook her head in denial.
Erich’s mind raced. “How much does the Gestapo know, I wonder?”
“They must know everything.”
“How do you know that?”
“The call station in my official file was a decoy,” she explained. “PUFFIN was a last-minute switch we made ourselves. No one knew about it except Lee and me.”
“Someone found out.”
“Mme. Orsted!”
Grace moaned in despair as the impact of what exposing her cover fully meant. She grabbed Erich’s lapels.
“Mme. Orsted! She’s in danger too. We’ve got to warn her.”