by Susan Isaacs
If I heard the apartment door open, I would take out the gun and do to myself what I’d done to Margarete. I would not let them get me.
I crawled into the room. A large one. A bed with a foot-board loomed in front of me, gigantic. If I could just lie in that bed…and drink a Coca-Cola from the bottle and listen to George Fisher from Hollywood on WOR…But I wasn’t going to get home. I knew that. Until the end, though, I had to make it harder for them.
I looked around. Lace curtains, lace bedspread, a lace skirt on a vanity table covered with makeup and bottles of nail polish, which reflected in a gold-framed mirror. Margarete’s room. I pulled myself along the floor near her bed, toward her night table. I couldn’t get up to see what was on it, so I took a deep breath and pushed. It crashed down to the floor. The neighbors, I thought. But if they missed two gun-shots…There was a telephone. I put the receiver back on the hook. Then I went through the drawer in the table.
Earrings, maybe twenty pairs. Gold, gold, opals, garnets, diamonds. She’d tossed them all in. Hand lotion. A diaphragm and a tube of jelly. A leather-covered telephone book: dark red leather, with tiny flowers tooled in gold.
I had to make it harder. I picked up the phone and dialed a number from the phone book. Under S. Let it not be him, God. I really prayed. It rang just once. “Colonel Sommerfeld.” But a woman’s voice, thank God.
“Listen to me,” I whispered.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Margarete von Eberstein.” This was it. No more berlinerisch. I put on the accent I’d heard but never spoken: John’s, Herr Friedrichs’s, Margarete’s.
“I am sorry, it is difficult to…”
“Is the colonel…”
“He is not here, Miss.”
The bleeding had stopped. Maybe it had been some sort of release, because now the pain was unbearable. The whole inside of my arm was trying to shove its way out of the tiny bullet hole…. I wanted to howl. I covered the mouthpiece the best I could with my one hand, and a small, terrible sound came out.
“Miss?”
“I must send word to him.” I breathed into the phone. “Urgent. Lina is just inside. Good news. I have convinced her to take me to meet her contact. In Potsdam…Do you hear?”
“Yes, Miss. I will convey the message.”
“I will ring him tomorrow. As soon as I slip away from her. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes. Shall I try—”
I hung up. I curled up on my side, closed my eyes. If the pig would believe what his secretary told him, I had eight, twelve hours. I opened my eyes and thought: Stay awake. You’ll be dead a long time. It would be a shame to spend the rest of your life sleeping.
Maybe I should say some prayer. Or think of all the good things that have happened to me.
Or just think of one wonderful thing for eight hours. Every detail. Something to treasure, to take along with me. Remember the time…
A few minutes later, I passed out.
I woke up because cold water was spilling down my neck. I opened my eyes. Someone was pressing a glass to my mouth. Dear God. As I reached to my waistband, for the gun, I saw that the man bent down before me was Konrad Friedrichs. Oh, did I smile! Who cared if he’d never crack a smile back. Was I glad to see him!
“Drink,” he said.
“What time is it?”
“Sixteen hundred hours.” Four in the afternoon. The next day. “Drink, please.” He angled the glass to help me, and some water dripped onto my blouse. “Then you must tell me about Margarete. What horror is this? Such a beautiful—”
“We have to get out,” I told him.
Suddenly I realized! Konrad Friedrichs had understood the consequences of staying in Berlin; that’s why he’d been willing to steal away, without even telling his beloved witch of a housekeeper. He’d known his choice was Lisbon—or death. So now, if he was in Berlin, it was because he felt safe. Oh God, he was one of them.
And then I was sure: I glanced beyond him. He was no friend. In the doorway was a man in uniform. SS; high rank, from so far away; all I could see were the boots, the trousers, the holster. But that’s all I had to see. With what was left of my strength, which wasn’t much, I shoved away the glass. The water spilled over Konrad Friedrichs, and as he gawked at his soaking wet shirt and tie, I went for the Walther.
The boots rushed across the floor. I yanked the gun out of my waistband, raised it toward my head, and as I cocked the safety, the SS man grabbed my wrist. I screamed. I tried to bite him, but he twisted my arm. The gun fell into his hand.
“Linda.” The man knelt over me. He was going to take me away. “Linda, look at me.” English. I lifted up my head. And I saw Edward Leland.
I couldn’t speak.
“Linda, are you all right?”
“What are you doing here?”
He lifted me so I was sitting up, resting against him. “I thought I’d just drop by and say hello.”
I tried to laugh, but instead I started to cry.
He put his arms around me. “It’s all right. I’ve come to get you out.”
“It’s too late.” He didn’t answer. Instead, he stood and hauled me up.
Herr Friedrichs was sitting on the bed, staring at us, as if we were some terrible show he’d been dragged to. “Did you go to Lisbon?” I asked him.
“I do not speak English,” he said in German.
I felt so woozy. I must have swayed for a second, because Edward grabbed me and held me up.
“What happened to poor Margarete?” Herr Friedrichs demanded.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said to him. Then I switched to Edward, to English. “Can we make it out of here?”
“We’re going to damn well try. Can you walk?”
“Yes. I don’t know how steady I’ll be, but I can walk.”
“Tell Friedrichs to wait here, that I’m taking you to the bathroom to get you cleaned up.”
I stared at Edward. “He doesn’t speak English at all?”
“No. It’s been quite a pleasure, traveling with your friend. Such a pleasant, relaxed fellow.”
“You were in Lisbon?”
“Yes. Come on now: Get a grip on yourself, Linda. Don’t start crying again. We don’t have time.”
I told Konrad Friedrichs to stay put, and Edward helped me out into the hall. I stopped short. Margarete’s body was still there, the linen napkin over her face. Her hand, with its ornate gold ring and ruby nails, rested on her chest. Her fingers looked stiff. Edward tried to lead me away; I couldn’t move.
“I killed her.”
“I assumed that. Let’s go.”
“I can’t.” I started to shake, seeing her there.
“You had a reason for killing her, didn’t you?”
“Yes! She was the one. The traitor in the movement. And she was going to kill me.”
“Well, you did what you had to.” That didn’t help. “Do you want to stand here and wait for her friends to show up so you can tell them how abhorrent you find their political philosophy? Or are you a professional?”
“Sometimes I can’t stand you.”
“I know. Let’s move now, Linda.”
He took me into the bathroom, filled the sink with warm water and gently lowered my arm into it, to soak off the napkin. The water turned dark pink. I guess I turned green, because Edward began to talk. “Two nights ago, we got word that your contact, Rolf, had been taken. I took the next plane out to England. When I got there, there was a message about Friedrichs. I flew to Lisbon right away.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Look, this cloth isn’t going to come off without some pulling. Shall I do it, or do you want to?” I reached into the water, pulled, and let out a scream of pain. Edward clapped a hand over my mouth and, with the other hand, lifted my arm out of the water, grabbed a towel and patted the area around the wound. “It’s infected,” he said, and he opened the medicine cabinet. No iodi
ne. A lot more makeup. “I can’t read the German. Is there anything there with alcohol?” I pointed to a bottle of astringent.
As he uncapped the bottle, I said, “You’re going to tell me, ‘This is going to hurt, Linda. Be brave.’”
“It’s nice to see you haven’t changed.”
“Just pour the whole thing over, fast.” It was so bad. I kept my teeth clenched together, and all that happened is I started crying again.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“It’s okay.”
“There’s a train leaving at six tonight. We have to be on it, so we ought to put some speed on. Are you up to it?” I nodded. “All right, let’s wipe your eyes, and then you’ll put on some makeup.”
“Are you kidding?” He reached inside his uniform pocket, pulled out a passport and held it up before me. A blonde, about thirty. Very pretty. Round face. Short hair with a wave that fell over her cheek. I looked at her name: Ingeborg Hintze. “Ingeborg?” I said. “I’m supposed to look like that?”
“You’ve got three minutes.”
Edward left the bathroom, and with one hand and my mouth, I opened a box of mascara. I wet the brush, put on a few coats, then went on to rouge and lipstick. I looked into the mirror and then slumped against the sink. I looked lousy. No one would ever look at me and then say, Hi, Ingeborg.
Edward came back in less than three minutes. He was cutting a pillowcase into strips. “You’d probably be better off without a bandage, but I don’t want to risk your bleeding.”
“Ed, cut my hair.”
“What?”
“Look at that passport picture. Come on. We still have about forty seconds left.” So Edward Leland gave me a haircut. Not a good one, but at least I looked like I could be Ingeborg’s plain, distant cousin. “Why did you pick her?”
“Most blondes have blue eyes. This passport had brown. I wasn’t in a position to be fussy.” He threw the hair down the toilet, flushed it, then put the makeup away.
“I didn’t know you were such a neat person.”
“When her friends get here, should they find a display of cosmetics and evidence that a blond woman cut her hair short? Do you think that would make an interesting dispatch to send out to the army and the Gestapo?”
He bandaged my arm and led me into the hall again, past Margarete’s body, back into her bedroom. Konrad Friedrichs was where we’d left him, sitting on the bed, looking exhausted, almost lifeless. Edward motioned him to leave; he didn’t understand.
“Herr Friedrichs,” I said, “please wait outside.”
“She is there. The beautiful—”
“The beautiful Nazi.” His mouth dropped. “Please,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure why Edward wanted him out. He couldn’t understand English. He got up from the bed and slowly, like a man of eighty, shuffled out of the room.
“Take off your clothes,” Edward said. “For God’s sake, Linda. You’re a bloody mess. You’re going to be passed off as my mistress, and—”
“Again? Can’t I cross a border as something else?”
“What the hell do you want to be? A goddamn cowgirl?” He stood in front of me and unbuttoned my skirt.
“I can manage.”
“We don’t have time.”
“I can—”
“Do you think my goal in life is to see you in your underwear?” My skirt fell to the floor.
“Why are you being so rotten to me?” He took off my blouse. I wasn’t wearing a slip, just an ugly German brassiere and pants. He turned away and went to Margarete’s clothes cabinet and took out a black silk dress with long sleeves. “It’s too somber for this time of year,” I told him.
“This isn’t a fashion show, for Christ’s sake. If you start bleeding again, it won’t show up on the black.” He held the dress so I could step into it, then eased the sleeve over my arm. “You need some jewelry or something.”
“You just said it wasn’t a fashion show.”
“You don’t want to look like you’re going to a funeral. Where would she keep necklaces and things?”
My dress wasn’t buttoned, but I walked away from him, to her bureau, and opened her top drawers. In the left one I found boxes. More earrings. Bracelets, probably more than fifty, beautiful, expensive ones, tossed into a box. Necklaces.
“I can’t wear these.”
“What are you talking about?” He came over with a pair of black shoes. Heels, with a big grosgrain ribbon. He put them on the floor beside me.
“The jewelry has to be from her boyfriend. It’s probably taken from…from people they sent away.”
“Do you think the people who owned these things would begrudge you? Or do you think they’d want you to look like a proper concubine who’s going over the border to Switzerland with her married SS boyfriend to have an abortion?”
“That’s my cover?”
“Yes. If they call the clinic, they will be assured Ingeborg Hintze is coming in to take care of a female problem. Let’s get going.” He grabbed my good arm and slipped on three or four bracelets. Then he handed me a heavy gold necklace. “Friedrichs has a car downstairs. Oh, by the way, he has new papers. He’s Werner Reinke now. He’s going to put us on the train. Big send-off for the general and his floozy.”
“Why don’t you just lay off!” I blurted out.
“Why don’t you keep your mouth shut! Do you want the whole building to hear you yapping away in English?” He was pulling out underwear, stockings, sweaters. “Go find a suitcase. Fast.” I stood there. “Come on, Ingeborg. Move!”
Konrad Friedrichs sat in the front with the driver, a man in an army uniform who was so tall his hat touched the roof of the car. Friedrichs twisted around to speak to me. “I will be putting you on the train, Lina. The conductor knows he will be taking care of a very important officer and his lady. He understands the general’s disability and will not embarrass him.”
“What disability?”
“He is mute.” I turned and stared at Edward. I couldn’t tell if he had arranged this chat in German or whether his mind was someplace else and he wasn’t listening. Herr Friedrichs continued: “When he came under fire in Russia last year, they shot him in the chest; the bullet lodged in his throat. If they ask questions, you will, of course, answer for him. He is General Manfred Steinhardt, First SS Panzer Corps. He replaced Dietrich and Peiper. Dietrich’s now with the Sixth, and he is a close friend of General Steinhardt—”
“Isn’t a general too high a rank? Won’t they be suspicious?”
“They may, but there was no time to create papers for a colonel. He was quite insistent—perhaps that is too mild a word—about getting to you; you were in mortal danger, he was going in to get you, and that was that. I had the interpreter tell him that he could not manage alone, not knowing the language. I would accompany him.”
I didn’t know what to say, but I figured Herr Friedrichs could live without a speech. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome. Now I will see you onto the train. Then I will say goodbye.”
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to stay here.”
“Are you crazy? Herr Friedrichs, you’re the one person in Berlin they want more than me. You’ve got to come with us, or—”
He held up his hand. Then, almost kindly, he asked, “Don’t you long for your America?”
“Yes. I long for it.”
“Then you will understand that I cannot endure being away from my country. I will stay. Your gentleman here has arranged sanctuary for me. I will do what I can to help others here to get rid of the pestilence and, later, to help begin anew. But if I die…I would rather go down in flames in Germany, for Germany, than live anyplace else.”
As we got to the train, an army officer saluted Edward. He saluted back and then handed over our papers and train tickets; we would not get them back until we reached the Swiss border. They would have sixteen hours to examine our papers, to discover us.
The officer opened my passport
, looked at the photograph, then at me. “I know,” I told him. “I’ve lost some weight. All of us in Berlin have.”
He looked back down at the travel documents. “You are going to the clinic in Basel?” I nodded. He glanced down at me; the clinic must be a popular one. Official Nazi policy did not discourage illegitimate children; the more Aryans to carry guns, the better. But apparently, upper-echelon officers, married officers, were allowed to make sure their mistresses kept their trim figures. The way the officer had said “the clinic” had a nasty, knowing edge.
Konrad Friedrichs, standing behind us, inched forward. He gave the officer a “watch out” look. With reason. Edward looked displeased; he glared at the officer. It worked as well in Germany as it did in the United States. The officer turned pale, then quickly stepped back, allowing us to board the train. Edward took my arm. For the first time, I noticed he was wearing a white silk scarf around his neck, tucked into his general’s uniform. A scarf to hide his mute, injured throat.
“Goodbye, General. Miss Hintze,” Herr Friedrichs said. He inclined his head, and then simply walked off, to disappear into Berlin.
Edward helped me up the stairs onto the train. On the door was an official SS notice, with the death’s head insignia. It said: “Reserved. Do not enter.” We entered. It was for us. He closed the door behind us.
The sleeper was large, but it was hard to see what it looked like. The blinds were drawn, and there was only one dim light on. I sat down on a couch. It was a hard, scratchy velvet.
Edward sat beside me and put his mouth to my ear. “How are you?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“In a lot of pain?” I nodded. “I have some morphine with me, but if you can hold off, I’d like to wait until we’re under way. They may have questions, and you’ll have to answer…and I have to take my signal from the way you behave.” He was businesslike. Professional.
“I can wait.”
We sat in silence, listening to the activity outside on the platform. Then, without saying anything, he put his arm behind me and eased me down, so I was stretched out, my head in his lap. “It will look good for the conductor and give you a chance to rest.”