by Susan Isaacs
“Oh, Margarete, I really think I do. I’m terrified.” She stood and led me back through the long hallway, into her bedroom. I took out my hairpins. She wrapped them in toilet tissue and buried them in a wastebasket that was full of cold-cream and makeup tissues. She handed me her brush. Silver. I brushed my hair and she said, “Don’t leave the underground too early—even though there are always a few people who get up and go around dawn. Wait a little later, for the main part of the crowd to leave, and go out with them, blend in. Now listen to this: Do not take the train from that station to Rolf’s. No one does that. Everyone goes home, to see if they still have a home and to wash up. Take your time. Walk to the Französische Strasse station. You should plan on getting to Rolf’s between seven-thirty and eight. Even if the store is still closed, he will be there; they go to market early.” I put down the brush. “How is his fish?”
“Not bad,” I said, “but probably not up to your standards.”
“Isn’t it odd?” Margarete said. She looked in the mirror of the dressing table, picked up the brush and ran it through her long brown hair. “All these years I’ve never even heard there was a fishmonger in the movement.”
“It’s too bad you don’t know him,” I said. “There’s something really admirable about him,” I said. “I mean, I don’t really know him. The only strong opinion I’ve ever heard him express is that it’s wrong to cut the heads off fish. But I know, to me, he really represents everything good about Germany. Well, Rolf—and you.”
“Oh, don’t flatter me. But him. Lina, there you have it: the greatness of the common man.”
“And the greatness of the uncommon woman.” And then I turned to her and said, “Thank you, Margarete.”
25
I didn’t dare risk sleep, so I sat up. All night long I felt the damp chill of the wall of the Friedrichstrasse underground through my coat. I couldn’t risk taking it off and rolling it into a backrest or a pillow, as I’d done in the past; the report on Captain Grayson was slipped into the slit I’d made months before, in the lining of the cuff of the sleeve.
Lives could be saved or lost; I had to get the intelligence to Rolf. So I leaned against that clammy wall all night, listening to the slow, heavy night breathing of the crowd, just waiting to get free, and thinking about Captain Grayson. Either he was an OSS jewel—the world’s supreme conveyer of disinformation—or one selfish, rotten, weak son of a bitch. Selling his country down the river. For literature! I smiled for a second, imagining the army recruiting Nan and all the other little cerebralettes into a special WAC battalion to take care of morale for guys like him: Oh, Captain, forget the three panzer divisions. Tell me about Verlaine’s metaphors.
Seven-thirty or eight, Margarete had said. Your friend should be there by then.
I half closed my eyes and pictured Rolf’s store: the sawdust-covered wood floors, the scrubbed counters, the orderly rows of fish on their beds of chopped-up ice. They were all laid out whenever I got there—usually around ten o’clock. But, I thought, by ten o’clock the ice was always partially melted. I remembered it clearly then; I was careful always to lean forward, not to step too close to the counters, because the freezing, fish-scented water would drip onto my shoes. I figured they must set out the ice about five-thirty, six in the morning.
I couldn’t stand the waiting. And so, soon after the “all clear” signal, just after daybreak and the end of curfew, I copied the first of the early risers; I yawned, stretched my neck and made my way on cautious tiptoes among the still-sleeping mounds.
But when I got to Rolf’s, a little after six, he wasn’t there. No one was. The door was locked, the store dark. I walked to the corner. The old man who ran the newspaper kiosk, a man I’d seen a million times, glanced up at me, not so much suspiciously as curiously. I couldn’t afford curiosity.
“I was told to get here early,” I said, to explain. “To the fish store. They might have some haddock.”
“No haddock today,” the newsdealer said. “The policeman told me.” Oh, God, I thought. “The man who worked there was killed last night. The one-armed man.”
You’re effing falling apart! an instructor at OSS Training School had roared to me one time. Don’t give me any of that tender-maiden crap! No flutters! No fainting! This is war, girlie.
“The one-armed man?” I showed surprise. A little regret. “How was he killed?”
“A bomb.”
“Oh.” All the energy I had left seemed to seep out of me. Was it horror? Relief that Rolf hadn’t been caught? I felt so weak. The apple in my pocket that I’d taken from the Dreschers’ weighed me down.
“His wife came first thing, the policeman told me. Before dawn. Took his knives, the kind fish people use, and some other things that were his. Said she didn’t know if they would bother opening the store again.”
A bomb? I kept thinking. But what did I expect? A special RAF note engraved on each casing: Abstain from detonating in presence of friends.
“Did he own the store?”
“Yes.” He cut the cord on a pile of papers. “You know, I never knew how he lost his arm. I couldn’t ask. He was quiet, kept to himself.” He looked at me expectantly. “Do you know?”
“No,” I said. “I never…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man walking down the street toward Rolf’s. Maybe it was nothing more than my own dread that made the whole world seem menacing, but I felt something was wrong about him. He looked okay, not tight, cold Gestapo. But even from a distance, his raincoat looked too clean and well-pressed. Or it could have been that his walk was not quite brisk enough for a government worker getting an early start on his day.
Maybe Rolf had been carrying something on him when he was hit, and when they found his body, searched it…
“Well,” I said to the newsdealer. “It is sad. He seemed like a nice man.”
“A good business, if you don’t mind smelling like that all the time.”
“Yes,” I said. “Goodbye.”
And then I turned the corner, out of sight of the man in the raincoat, and walked fast. Not too fast. Just the sharp pace that an energetic cook would take when she is on the trail of haddock.
I went to the zoo. There was no grass; the ground was black, and the air was absolutely still. It had been bombed a few weeks before. The cages had been so badly damaged that the police had had to shoot the animals, for fear they’d get loose and run wild in Berlin. Boy, had everyone gotten all weepy over that. Poor animals! The slaughter of the innocents! The Germans were so compassionate.
I sat on what was left of a bench. The jagged ends of the wooden slats were scorched; when you touched them, they broke off into cinders. I took the apple out of my pocket and bit into it. It’s funny; when you read about people who know their time is up, they’re always tasting or smelling something and going Ahh! at the beautiful sense experience they never noticed before. Don’t believe what you read. My time looked like it was almost up, and what might be my last meal was an ordinary, unexceptional, mealy apple.
I put it back in my pocket. I couldn’t eat. My nerves were shot, and so was my stomach. For almost two years I’d done almost nothing but sauté, roast and stew. I’d lived in the middle of abundance, and yet in all that time I hadn’t been able to get down one entire meal. I’d tasted a little. I’d drunk tea. And on those nights when I didn’t have to hide from bombs, I’d gone to bed with a hot-water bottle clutched to my aching belly. My clothes hung on me. My skin had turned ashen. Finally I looked as if I belonged in Berlin.
Oh, I was so tired. A couple of times I felt my head drop to my chest. I made myself sit straight, the way aristocrats do. Back at right angle to seat: like Margarete, or Nan. It was an awful, uncomfortable position for a regular person to have to stay in, but it made me breathe in deeper and kept me awake. Maybe that’s why all those sleek upper-class girls had that special air about them; they just took in more oxygen. Then I wondered about what kind of jerk I was to be sitting there, o
n a fragment of a bombed bench, doomed in a doomed city, thinking about my not being classy. If Edward was sitting where I was, knowing the chances were pretty good he didn’t have much more than a day or two to live, what would he be thinking about? Apples and stomachaches and rich girls? Concepts: good and evil; the nature of justice? Or something I never even dreamed about?
It was time to get moving. The news about Captain Grayson had to get to the OSS before he could meet that agent for a home-cooked dinner, a few poems, a couple of drinks and then a confidential chat—fascinating, old bean—about the invasion of good old La Belle France.
Except I didn’t know what to do. Fifteen, twenty minutes passed. I was crazy to be staying in one spot like that. A policeman or a soldier could come along any minute and demand my papers. But I was unable to move because I couldn’t think of where to move to.
Okay, I said to myself. Enough with the inaction. This is war, girlie. Make believe you’re Edward Leland and you’re stuck in enemy territory and you’ve got an urgent message you’ve got to get out. What do you do? You think: Who do I know? Who can I trust? All right: I know Margarete. Oh, and I know old laughing boy, Konrad Friedrichs, the guy with the million-dollar smile.
But stop. Think like Edward. Analyze. Who has a better chance of getting that message out?
At about seven-thirty that morning, I lay behind a hedge, flat on my stomach in the dirt, and, with my shoe in my hand, hammered at a window gently, until it cracked. Slowly, patiently, I picked out the pieces of glass so the frame was clean. Then I slithered down through the narrow basement window—into my old bedroom at Herr Konrad Friedrichs’s.
My number two fear was that when I showed myself to Konrad Friedrichs, he’d have a heart attack and drop dead on the spot. But number one was his housekeeper, the Wicked Witch of the West, Frau Gerlach: Just my presence in the house would probably be enough to set her warts humming. So I stood with my ear against the door of my old cubicle, going through my familiar count to three hundred, listening for any sounds. A little after two hundred, I thought I heard footsteps moving across the room above me. That would be the pantry; she was getting out dishes to set the table for breakfast.
I climbed up to the first floor and put my ear against still another door. No sound. I opened it a crack and peered out. That always works terrifically in movies, because the hero can always see the villains having a meeting forty feet down the hall and around the corner. But the only thing I could see was a tiny strip of wall. So I slid out the door and, fast, looked to the right, to the kitchen. Nothing. For all I knew, she could leap out with a skillet in her hand and attack me, but she might just be sitting and having a cup of tea; I wasn’t going to hang around and count to three hundred again. I rushed off to the left, to the narrow wooden staircase, and, throwing all my Training School techniques aside, ran right upstairs, straight into Konrad Friedrichs’s bedroom.
He didn’t have a heart attack, although he seemed to stop breathing for at least a full minute. He just gaped at me. I gaped back. He was standing beside a high chest of drawers, wearing a starched-collared shirt and a tie, but he didn’t have on his trousers. He had old man’s legs; white, knob-kneed, hairless, “My God!” he said. I put my finger on my lips to signal him to keep quiet. “How dare you!”
“I don’t have time to listen to you now,” I told him softly. “I’m only going to stay two or three minutes, and then I’m going to get out. No one will know I’ve been here. But listen to me. My contact, Rolf, is dead.”
Herr Friedrichs walked over to his high, old-fashioned bed and, unmindful that he was in white undershorts and black hose, sat down and shut his eyes. “They killed him?” he asked.
“No. At least I’m pretty sure they didn’t. It seems to have been a bomb. But they know about me.” He rolled his eyes, one of those weary, it-was-inevitable expressions. I got so mad! “Look,” I said, “for a year and a half I’ve been giving the OSS first-rate intelligence, so don’t give me any of your speeches about foolhardy amateurs. You try living in the same house with a Nazi like Horst Drescher, sneaking into his locked study four, five, six, seven nights a week, and see how long you’d last.”
He said, “You have made your point. Proceed.”
“I have a message that has to get out, and there’s no Rolf anymore.” He started to shake his head. “Listen, there’s a German agent near an American army base in England. He’s getting top-secret information about the Allied invasion of France.” Konrad Friedrichs’s eyes widened. “You’ve got to let them know.”
“I cannot. I have just returned from Lisbon and Madrid. I am unable—”
“You don’t have any choice.”
“Don’t threaten me!”
“Herr Friedrichs, I’m not threatening you. I’m trying to save lives—including yours. Horst Drescher is no analytical genius. We both know that. But he’s no fool, either. In a day or two, maybe even today, he’s going to realize who recommended me so highly.” He covered his face with his veiny old hands. “You have to get out.”
“If I leave my country now, I might never come back.”
“If you don’t leave now, you’ll be dead. Please, you’ve got to understand how critical this situation is. For you. And for the Allies. Yes, you do have to leave, but is the Germany you’re living in the Germany you want? If there’s any chance of saving the country you love, it lies in its defeat.” I paused for a second, but he wouldn’t stop hiding his face in his hands. “Don’t you want to stay alive so that when it’s all over, you can come back and help your people, guide them, show them what’s right?” Slowly, he lowered his hands to his lap. They were shaking. He was a man who did things by the book, and this time there was no book. He didn’t know what to do. “Is there any way you can get straight to the airport now and get transport out on an emergency basis? Please, think. Help me.”
“There might be.” His speech was halting. “But it will be harder for you. I would have to speak to Margarete, to try and get you…perhaps some sort of diplomatic passport.”
“No! You have to get out this morning, before Horst realizes your connection to me.”
“But what about you?” Give him credit. He was a cranky, rigid Prussian snob, but he was also a man of honor. Whatever I was, I was his ally. He would therefore save my life.
I wouldn’t let him. “Thank you, but if I go with you, there’s no chance of getting the message out.” I reached into the slit in the lining of my cuff and drew out the tiny slip of paper. I walked over and put it in his hand. “There will be copies of my passport photo at every train station, airport and border crossing in Germany. We both know that.” For a long time, he didn’t speak.
“What will you do?” he asked.
“Margarete’s already helped me once. I think I’m going to have to go back. I hope she’ll be able to help me again.”
“I hope so too,” he said. He showed no signs of moving; he just sat primly on the bed, the message clenched in his hand.
“Come on now, stand up. Finish getting dressed.” He looked down at his bare legs in shock. “I’m afraid we don’t have time for modesty now. As soon as you’re ready, you’ll have to go downstairs and keep your housekeeper busy so I can sneak out.”
I took him by the elbow and eased him off the bed. That was really all he needed. He marched to his closet, turned away from me, stepped into his trousers and began to button them. “Poor, dear Frau Gerlach,” he murmured. “What will I tell her?”
“Nothing.”
He spun around, all red-faced, huffy. “She’s utterly trust-worthy.”
“I’m sure she is.” I wasn’t sure at all. She’d probably sell him down the river for ten pfennigs. “But it’s her devotion to you that you have to worry about. She’ll fear for your life. She might call a friend of yours, a colleague, to get help for you. Promise me you won’t say anything to her.” He stood there, stubborn. I lost my temper. “Damn it!” I whispered. “You don’t have time to be noble. Don’t you wa
nt to live? Don’t you want to give me at least a chance to survive? For God’s sake, promise me.”
“You have my word,” he said at last.
A little more than sixty seconds later, I was back on the streets of Berlin.
I imagined Edward again. Think, he said. What is there besides your passport—with your photograph and fingerprints—that can be used to identify you? How would Horst describe you?
Well, he’d say I had blond hair—
Don’t waste time, Linda. All that information is on your passport. What else?
One of the maids would remember I have a brown coat.
Lose it.
I took off my coat and draped it over my arm. It was warm for April. At least I thought it was April; the trees that still stood were covered with the hazy green of new leaves. I used my last two coins for a bus ride. I climbed to the upper deck, took a seat and put the coat beside me. A few minutes later, when I was sure no one was looking, I gave it a light push; it fell to my feet. The bus rumbled on for another couple of miles; then I walked downstairs and got off.
I spent the rest of the day waiting in lines. I’d asked the imaginary Edward, Where should I go? Margarete’s at work.
Become invisible. There are two ways to do it. Find a hiding place that you know is absolutely secure. Or blend in with a crowd.
So at around eight-thirty or nine that morning, I joined the long line of women in front of a bakery. “Hot, isn’t it?” the woman in front of me said. Her dress was gray, the color of a mouse, and it had small white spots all over it from being scrubbed too many times.
“Yes, very hot. And so early in the day.”
No one had conversations that lasted longer than that. Berliners were too exhausted after a night of bombing, too wrapped up in their own hardship, to want to chat. This was a line for stale bread, not for tickets at Radio City Music Hall.