The Last Innocent Hour

by Margot Abbott

  “Thank you, sir,” said Sally, “but that was not very difficult. Try proving that two people in two different pictures taken twenty years apart are the same person, especially when you can only see one face from the side—if the picture is blown up five or six times.”

  “I see what you mean,” said Eiger. “Well, it served our purpose. Now, how are your quarters? Things are still pretty rough here, although you should have seen it six months ago.”

  “I can imagine—or, rather, I can’t imagine.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, flying into Tempelhof—I’d read about the bombing, but seeing the results, even a year afterward . . .”

  “And we’ve all been clearing up like crazy. Especially the Russians, they’re much better housekeepers than we are. Do you know those bastards have actually dismantled factories and set them up in the USSR?” He let out an abrupt laugh, then began to tell Sally about his attempts—unsuccessful—to bring his wife to Berlin when he found he would be stationed here for over a year. “Although,” he added, “I’m not sure I’d want her to see this place.” Their sandwiches and coffee finished, he picked up a pencil and began to fiddle with it. “Tell me about your years here before the war,” he said, catching Sally unawares.

  “What do you want to know?” she said, resentful of his tactics. She had just begun to like him.

  “Did you like it? How aware were you of what the Nazis were up to? You were here four years, weren’t you?”

  “Three, just barely,” she said. “Can I bum another cigarette? I promise to buy you a pack.”

  “Sure. You’ll have to remind me to tell you about our PX.” He held out his pack for her. “I’m still waiting,” he said, when they both settled back in their chairs. She watched him manipulate the pencil. “I was here almost three years, and yes, for most of the time, I liked it. I loved the city. Did you know I was born here? My father was working on his doctorate then. We came back to Germany for summers when I was a child. That’s when I learned to speak the language. I have a real Berliner accent.”

  “That ought to come in handy,” he said.

  “Being a Berliner, Colonel, is sort of like being a New Yorker. You know, being tough and resourceful, with a sense of humor. Not believing anything anyone tells you. And very proud of the city.”

  “Yet they voted for Hitler.”

  “No, they didn’t. The Nazis never took Berlin. The Communists were much the stronger party. Red Berlin, the Nazis called it. The Nazis were always nervous about their support in the city. Hitler was supposed to hate the place.”

  “Those were Berliners under Hitler’s window, carrying torches.”

  “True. Something happened to them. Maybe their history—they’ve always been subjugated by some king or dictator. That’s partly why the capital of the republic was in Weimar. I don’t know what happened, Colonel.”

  “Don’t expect you to. But, back then, what did you think of the government?”

  “Well,” she said, thinking carefully through the conflicting feelings the conversation had aroused in her, “I was one of those foreigners who, at first, thought everything was just great. You’ve got to understand that it all seemed so . . . so terrifically healthy. This was early, in ’33 and ’34.”

  “What happened to change your mind?”

  “I wish I could say it was some sort of political awakening, but it wasn’t. The trouble I got into . . . it was . . .” She stopped, not knowing what to say. “I was a naive kid, really. Not that I’m so wise now. Just not a kid anymore.”

  “Yeah, I sure know what you mean. But you never admired them for, you know, making the trains run on time?”

  “No, I was just, or I tried to be, neutral. I had lived in Italy as a child and we traveled a great deal. I suppose I had the notion that the host country’s politics were none of my business. That was how I was raised. Also, I just wasn’t interested in politics. My father never talked to me about his job, either, so I didn’t have that advantage. Looking back, though, I can clearly see how much he disliked, hated, really, what was going on.”

  “I see,” said Colonel Eiger thoughtfully, still playing with the pencil.

  “Sir?” Sally said tentatively. “What do the rest of the fellows know about me?” She laughed nervously. “Lord, I really sound like I have a past, don’t I?”

  “Let’s look at it this way, Lieutenant. The men know you lived here and who your dad was. Your past is part of why you’re here now.”

  “You sound as though you have a specific plan for me.”

  “No. It’s just what I said. Your experience here, especially your . . .” He paused, searching for the right word “. . .your friendship with Heydrich makes you a valuable eyewitness for us.”

  “Heydrich’s dead. I mean, if you’re expecting me to identify someone.” Sally thought of the photograph she had seen of his Mercedes, the door hanging open, a small team of Gestapo agents investigating the broad street around it. The commandos had thrown a grenade under the big car, which had disabled it, but Heydrich, as grievously wounded as he was, had jumped out and run after his attackers waving his side arm. She could imagine him doing that; his will had been so strong, his discipline so fierce.

  “No, of course not we don’t expect you to identify anyone,” the colonel was saying. “But you were here. At the very least you know what the lay of the land was.”

  “Hardly,” Sally laughed bitterly. “I saw what was in front of my nose and then I did my best to ignore it.”

  “Well, Lieutenant, that may be. But you’ll be there if we need you, and meanwhile you are the best picture person we’ve got.”

  “I’m the only one.”

  He grinned at her and she had to grin back at him. “Right,” he said, tossing the pencil onto his desk and standing up. She stood as well. “I’d say you see a little farther now,” he continued. She looked at him, questioning. He held his hand up in front of his face. “Than in front of your nose, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, you can’t say I don’t learn.” He laughed out loud at that and came around the desk.

  “I believe Finkelstein had an interview with a guy we think was a guard at a work camp. You should sit in, okay? Learn something interesting about the Krupps and the business they ran. God, what a time we live in, Lieutenant. What a time.”

  She stopped on her way to the door. “Colonel?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do they know I knew the general? Do they know about my marriage?”

  “They know about the general. Not about the other. I figured that was private.”

  “Yes, Colonel. Thank you.”

  ONE BEAUTIFUL MORNING a week later, Mavis, as promised, took Sally to visit a DP camp outside of Berlin. The camp was being closed down shortly because of the growing tension between the Allies, and there weren’t as many people sitting in front of the barracks or standing in line at the kitchens.

  “You should have seen it a month ago,” the doctor said, as they got out of the jeep. She had driven them, handling the recalcitrant machine with ease. She pulled her large bag out of the back, waving off Sally’s offer of help. “I’m so used to lugging this thing around, I’d feel lost without it. Listen, I’ll be in here for a while.” She indicated the whitewashed building in front of them. “I’ve got some paperwork to do. It’ll take me about half an hour. Then I’ve got my rounds. Stay close and you can come with me on those. All right?”

  The camp was laid out in a grid, much like an army base, and, as Mavis had explained, that was exactly what it had been. Sally walked around the grounds, stopped, facing the gate to smoke a cigarette. Some of the DPs eyed her, one or two drifted closer, but none approached. Still, their keen interest in her smoking made her throw the cigarette down half-smoked and walk away without stamping the fire out. She heard the scuffle behind her, but didn’t turn to watch. It was too disturbing.

  The hospital where Mavis took Sally was emptying day by day, as patients either g
ot well and were sent to other camps, or didn’t get well and were sent to other hospitals. Some were still dying of malnutrition.

  “The effects of that will last for years,” Mavis said, peering into the eyes and ears of a teenage girl who, because of her thinness, looked twelve. “These kids, even if they live, will suffer from tooth decay, respiratory ailments, backaches.” The doctor stood up, smiling at the girl, who obviously did not understand English. “We learned that after the last war, from the blockade of Germany.” As she went from patient to patient, carefully, efficiently examining them, Mavis told Sally about her Quaker parents, who had sailed to Germany with powdered milk for the starving children of the defeated and humiliated country in 1918.

  “They were heroes,” Sally said.

  “I know. I have a lot to live up to. But I’m afraid I’ve got none of their nobility of character. I get too mad,” she said, pulling off her examining gloves.

  “Still,” said Sally, looking about the neat ward, with its scrubbed wood floor and white bedsteads, “it must be worth it to know you’ve saved even just one person, let alone a whole ward.”

  “These? Save these? Oh, my dear, these children are all dying. I don’t expect to save any of them. Not a one.”

  SALLY WAS SITTING on the front steps of the hospital when Mavis came out.

  “Ready to go?” the doctor asked.

  Sally stood up and followed Mavis to the jeep. “Mavis, all those kids! How can you manage? I’d be in despair.”

  “And I’m not?”

  “You don’t seem to be.”

  “Well, perhaps not. I guess I still have hope.”

  “For what?”

  “Maybe I’ll save one of them.” Mavis put her arm through Sally’s. “They’re as comfortable as we can make them, clean and fed and gently treated. And you know what? I’ve even seen one or two of them smile.”

  “That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. I couldn’t do it,” Sally said.

  “Well, you have the worst of it.” Mavis climbed into the jeep and Sally walked around to the other side.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. Looking at those gruesome photographs.” Sally had told Mavis about the colonel’s setup. “I’d rather treat real people. You never get anything back; none of those people ever, ever smile at you.”

  “No, no, they don’t. But I don’t think I could take care of those kids like you do, not without breaking down.”

  “Well, they are sending me on R and R, so maybe they think I am. Come, on, climb in. Let’s go.”

  Sally sighed with relief as they passed under the chicken wire and wood arch of the camp gate, glad she didn’t have to go back.

  CHAPTER 4

  “THERE.” SALLY POINTED excitedly at the apartment house Lisa Mayr had lived in. “There it is. Number twenty-three, you can even can even see the number.”

  “Almost looks normal,” Doug Finkelstein said. He had unexpectedly agreed to accompany Sally when she decided she should try and find Christian’s family. She explained that they were old friends of her family, which was the truth, just not the entire truth.

  As Doug stopped the car in front of the building, a man in a well-worn Wehrmacht overcoat came out of the front door and down the steps. Sally quickly got out of the car and walked up to him.

  “Good afternoon,” she said in German. The man looked at her, his expression guarded, but noncommittal.

  “Good afternoon, miss,” he answered.

  “Do you live in this building?”

  “Why?” he answered, immediately suspicious, his gaze going past Sally to the car and Doug.

  “I wonder if you could help me find someone?”

  “No, no, no one. I know no one here,” he said, moving off.

  “But, please . . .” Sally tried, but she was talking to his back as he hurried down the scattered sidewalk and away.

  “That was real successful,” she remarked as Doug came up to her.

  “Yeah,” he said, “you really won his heart.”

  “Bad approach.” Going up to the door, she gave it a push and entered the building. The hallway was dark, dingy, and dank with water and smoke stains. Heavy gouges marred the wood paneling and the marble floor was cracked. It was very quiet.

  There was a door on either side of the entry. The concierge had lived on the right. Sally knocked on the door; no one answered. She knocked again. Nothing.

  “Nobody home,” Doug said softly. Something about the place discouraged loud conversation.

  “Damn,” Sally said, “but I’m not really surprised.”

  “Your friend could have moved away before the war started.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed. She would have to try every tenant in the building. Surely someone would know something. She walked across the hall to the other door.

  But before she could knock, two kids, a boy and a girl, raced in from outside, nearly knocking Doug over with their energy. They stopped and looked at Doug and Sally, but did not respond to Sally’s smile.

  “Hi,” she said nervously, taking a step toward them. They backed away. Sally stopped her advance. The boy was about eleven and the girl about eight. The girl, after a good long look at Sally, finally spoke.

  “Lady GI?” she said in English.

  “Yes,” said Sally.

  “Gum?” the boy asked. Sally patted her coat and searched her bag.

  “Sorry,” she said, holding out her empty hands. They both looked at Doug, who was close to the front door. He shook his head. The kids shrugged and started up the stairs.

  “Wait!” Sally called. In German, she added quickly, “Maybe we can trade something.”

  The kids stopped, peering at her over the railing. “What?” the boy said, putting his hands on his hips.

  “Information,” Sally said. “I can pay you for it.”

  “About what?” The boy was impatient.

  “We don’t know anybody,” the girl said.

  “A friend of mine,” Sally said, opening her purse. She found two quarters and held them out on her hand. “As a sign of good faith,” she said. “Two now and two after—if you can help me.”

  The children looked at each other, obviously considering. Quickly grabbing the quarters, the girl hid them in her clothing.

  “A friend from before the war,” said Sally. “An older lady lived here. She was a friend of mine. I came here to visit.” She looked around at the ruined entry hall. “It was very nice.”

  “We weren’t here then,” the boy said.

  “But maybe my friend or someone from her family has come by,” Sally said into their young, closed faces. “I just want to know how she is.”

  “The name, miss. What was the name?” asked the boy.

  “Mayr was the family name. My friend’s name was Lisa.” The children studied each other for a moment, then shook their heads. “Frau Doktor Mayr?”

  “Not here now,” the boy said, although Sally was sure she had detected a flicker of recognition at the name.

  “Were they Jews?” the girl asked.

  “No,” Sally answered evenly.

  “Good, because if they were, they wouldn’t come back,” the little girl said.

  “Yes, I realize that.”

  “I’m going to wait in the car,” Doug told her and went out the door. Sally felt rather than heard a sound behind her. She turned back to the children in time to see the boy’s eyes shift to his right. He and the girl moved up the stairs. Looking toward the door on her left, Sally saw it closing. She stared at it for a moment, unsure of what she had seen, then she looked up at the children. They stood, almost lost in the shadows, watching her. She and the two kids stared at each other for a long moment, all three of them waiting to see what she would do.

  “You’ll remember the name?” she called, hating the way her voice echoed in the dank hall.

  “Yes.” The boy’s voice was nearly inaudible.

  “Do we get the money now?” the girl piped.

  “Oka
y,” Sally agreed, smiling. They were just kids, after all, and had been through more than kids should. She couldn’t be angry with them for watching out for themselves. It was probably one reason they were still alive. She tossed two more quarters through the damp air to them. Snap. Snap. The boy caught them and handed them to the girl, who stowed them away with the first two.

  “If you hear that name—Lisa Mayr—will you call me?” Sally asked them, and pulling a notebook from her purse, tore out a page. “Here’s where I live.” She recited the address as she wrote it, then did the same with her phone number. “Just in case you hear something.” She held the paper out toward the boy. “I’ll pay.”

  The children whispered together, then the boy said, “What will you pay?”

  “Anything you like,” Sally said, “that I can get. Food, money, clothes. Chocolate?”

  “Chocolate?” The girl was obviously unfamiliar with the word.

  “I know what that is,” the boy said.

  “If you call me with news of my friend,” Sally said.

  The boy nodded, then he and the girl disappeared up into the dark of the broad staircase. For a few minutes, Sally stood in the entry hall and listened, but she could hear nothing. She stared at the door that had opened and closed so mysteriously, wondering if she had the guts to knock on it. She took a step toward it, then, unaccountably, felt deeply frightened. At that moment, Doug came through the front door, startling her so that she yelped.

  “Sorry,” he said, laughing at her, “what happened?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said, pulling at the strap of her shoulder bag, at the belt of her coat, calming herself. “I was just spooking myself. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  In the car, he asked her if the kids had been of any help and she told him about her deal.

  “You’ll never hear from them,” Doug said, starting the car.