“A year, give or take a few months,” Q hedged.
Becker’s nostrils flared. “Give me the names of everyone else involved.”
Q shook his head, giving him his most earnest look. “I worked alone.”
“That is a lie. Your wife helped you.”
Q gasped. The seeping chill in his bones intensified. Not Hilde. “No! She would never. She’s innocent. My wife has no idea of my actions. She would never approve. It was all my own doing.”
Kriminalkommissar Becker didn’t respond. Instead, he stood and retrieved one of the scattered papers from the floor. He scrutinized it, as if intently interested in its contents. Q had a sense of foreboding. A very bad foreboding.
“There are no corrections on this sheet. Do you know how to type this well?” Kriminalkommissar Becker tapped the documents in front of him.
Q shook his head. He was a dismal typist. “It is true that my wife often typed the information I needed, both for my patents and for my intelligence work. But, as you can see, those are complex technical documents, and she had no idea of their meaning. I always let her believe it was a technical description I needed for my research.”
A rap on the door interrupted their conversation. Q wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or more frightened.
“Herein,” Backer called out, and another Gestapo officer peeked inside, making a gesture Q couldn’t decipher. Becker nodded in response, then scooped up the papers and walked to the door. Just before stepping into the hallways, he turned. “Doctor Quedlin, I said this at the beginning of our little chat, and I will say it again. You are in severe trouble. The way I see it, you’ll be accused of high treason and receive the death sentence.”
Q’s mouth went dry. He knew the punishment for treason, and he’d been expecting it for such a long time, he thought he’d come to terms with the prospect of such a sentence. But hearing it from Becker’s mouth was totally different than imagining it in his own mind.
I want to live!
Becker stood in the doorway, closely observing Q’s struggle with that prospect before he spoke again. “But I’m no monster. You are an intelligent man, and I’m sure you’ll see the benefits of my offer. If you agree to work with us and give us the names of everyone involved in your subversive work, I will see that you receive a mild punishment. Or none at all.”
The door closed with a creak, and Q’s mind raced with a million thoughts. Here was his chance to save his life. This interrogation had been short and easy. The next one wouldn’t be.
A short time later, two officers stepped into the little room and escorted Q to a holding cell. They shoved him inside and slammed the door shut. Q gazed at the empty five-by-eight-foot space that was now his. The ceiling hung barely above his head. It reminded him of an oversized closet, and he wondered how long he would be kept here before they moved him or…killed him.
The cell was completely made of stone and brick, the walls a dull grey. Previous prisoners had scratched or drawn on the walls, no doubt in the quest to leave some bit of evidence of their existence and suffering.
A shiver ran down Q’s spine. Reluctantly, he sat on the corner of a bloodstained mattress lying on the floor. A rough woolen blanket was the only dressing on the mattress – no sheets or pillow. He looked away from the stinking bucket standing in one corner. Q forced down the bile rising in this throat and closed his eyes.
When he was certain he wouldn’t throw up, he opened them again and inspected his cell more closely, peering into the dimness surrounding him. There was a small window with iron bars over the glass, but the glass was opaque and would only let in a small amount of light when the sun shone. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, but it was switched off. This time of year, it got dark around four-thirty in the evening, and he had no means of estimating the time that had passed since his arrest.
Judging by the rumbling of his stomach, it was past midnight by now. The guards had thoughtfully left a bowl with an unidentifiable, stinking liquid in the corner opposite the bucket, but he wasn’t hungry enough to force it down – yet. He had no doubt, though, that in a few days from now he’d be gratefully devouring whatever food arrived.
Chapter 3
Hilde sat in the car, squeezed between two Gestapo officers. Despite the chilly November day, she was sweating. The air was too thick to breathe and pure panic tied up her throat.
The car passed the familiar streets and places of Berlin, but she had no eye for them; neither for the natural beauties of Nikolassee where she lived, nor for the once majestic art nouveau buildings that had been reduced to rubble – skeletons rising into the sky as a reminder of the harrowing war raging across the world.
Hilde’s limbs were numb with fear when the car arrived at Gestapo Headquarters, and she was shoved into the building. Inside the dreary interrogation room, she was left alone. Paralyzed with fear, she plopped down on one of the two chairs and lifted a hand to her chest. She clasped the red jasper pendant on the gold necklace Q’s mother had given her for their wedding. This is the lucky stone for your zodiac sign, Ingrid had said. Hilde could use some luck now, although luck alone wouldn’t be enough. She would need a lot of strength and endurance to bear what was to come.
The door opened, and a Gestapo officer walked in and shut the door with a long creak. “Frau Quedlin, I am Kriminalkommissar Becker.”
Hilde inclined her head, trying to hide her fear. Kriminalkommissar Becker took a seat opposite her at the metal table and leaned back in his chair. He could be called handsome, with his broad shoulders, short blond hair, and classic features, if it weren’t for his soulless grey eyes.
Becker observed her for a few minutes and suddenly smiled what seemed to be a genuine smile. Hilde felt the fear easing out of her system. Maybe the rumors were highly exaggerated, and this wouldn’t be as bad as she’d imagined. If she could convince him that she was innocent, he might even let her return to her children.
“I have a few questions to begin with. Could you please state your name, including your maiden name?” Becker’s voice was pleasant, friendly even.
Hilde nodded. “Hildegard Quedlin. Born Dremmer.”
“Age and place of birth.”
“Thirty. I was born in Hamburg on August 23, 1912.” Hilde focused on answering his questions, suppressing the tremble in her voice.
“You are married to Wilhelm Quedlin?”
“Yes, Herr Kriminalkommissar.”
“Do you have children?”
Hilde cast her eyes down, the thought of her two precious babies bringing tears to her eyes. “I have two sons. Nine months and three years old.”
“Could you find someone to care for them right now?” Becker asked, showing an empathetic smile.
Hilde met his grey eyes and believed she saw a spark of compassion, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. She willed her tears away and said softly, “I was allowed to call my mother. She’s with them now.”
“That must be a relief for you,” Becker said and leaned forward. Hilde shivered. Despite the polite, even friendly, manner this man emitted a bad aura.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Your husband was arrested earlier today and will most likely be accused of treason. What do you have to say to that?” Becker launched his question without warning.
Hilde caught her breath. Treason? She knew what that meant. Q had warned her about the consequences, but she’d always believed such a thing would only happen to other people, not to them. They’d been careful. They wouldn’t be caught.
“I…don’t understand. My husband is a good man, a good citizen.”
Becker sat up tall and pierced her with his steel-gray eyes. He doesn’t believe me.
“Frau Quedlin, you don’t strike me as being stupid. In fact, I would venture to say you are more intelligent than most women. It would be in your best interest to tell me everything you know about your husband’s subversive activities. Who he met with. How long this has been going on. How he makes
contact with them. Everything.”
“Kriminalkommissar, I’m as shocked as you are. This must be a misunderstanding. My husband is a gentle man–”
Becker slammed his hand down on the table, making her jump. “Who has been working with the resistance! And if you thought for one minute about your two sons you’d tell me everything you know.”
“I don’t know anything.” Hilde shook her head. “If he really worked against our government, which I doubt, he never told me. He was devoted to his work, making radio transmitters for the Wehrmacht. He’s not a spy.” The lies came easily enough.
Becker scowled at her, then withdrew some of the papers she’d typed for Q and slid them across the table to her. “Do you deny typing these?”
Hilde looked at the papers and inwardly cringed. Despair took hold of her. She steeled her spine and stuck to her story. “I’ve never seen those papers before.”
“You are denying that you deliberately tried to disguise the typewriter these directions were written on? You are denying that you were the person operating the typewriter?”
“Yes.” She nodded fervently.
“Do you have a typewriter at your home, Frau Quedlin?”
“Yes.” Hilde’s mind whirled, and she had difficulties following the staccato of Becker’s questions.
“Do you know how to type?”
“Yes.”
“And is it not true that you often helped your husband by typing up his research and documentation for his patents?”
“Yes, but I don’t understand where this is going.”
“And is it not true that you assisted him in copying secret and confidential documents, using blueprint and brown paper to distort the letters, making identifying the typewriter much more difficult?”
“I have typed things for him on blueprint paper, but not…I haven’t done anything wrong. My husband likes to make copies of his research, and he would dictate, and I would type. I never understood the technical contents of what I was typing. And surely, he would never copy secret and confidential material–”
Becker slammed his fist on the metal table again. The screeching sound curled Hilde’s toes. “Stop babbling.”
Hilde nodded, her eyes wide open. She expected him to hit her and was grateful when he leaned back and apologized.
“Please forgive my manners, Frau Quedlin. But I hate being lied to. And you are lying.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she protested.
“You need to come up with a better story than that. Preferably the truth. This could be smooth and easy. You could be back with your children in no time at all. Or…”
Her blood froze in her veins.
Becker slid the papers back to his side of the table and stood up. “Well, maybe you just need some time to think about things.” He opened the door and called two junior officers into the room. “Take Frau Quedlin to her cell. She requires more time to think about the truth. Frau Quedlin, I will see you tomorrow.”
Chapter 4
Q was alone in his cell, which was a surprise. He’d heard of ten to twenty prisoners being crowded into spaces as small as this one. While companionship might have been nice, he was actually thankful for the opportunity to think.
For ten years, he’d been waiting for this moment, fearing how his life might end if his resistance efforts were ever found out. The fear had always been present in the back of his mind. Every time he’d sabotaged the war production at Loewe, stolen another piece of intelligence, or met with the Russian agent, his life had been a catastrophe waiting to happen.
At least this constant worry was gone now. A tiny trace of relief took hold of him before the far-reaching consequences of his capture shattered all sense of relief, and a different kind of fear took hold of him. The certainty of torture and agony gripped him like the cold hand of death.
But death wasn’t cruel like the Gestapo bloodhounds were, and Q was sure that at some point in the near future, he’d welcome death as salvation from his torment. Despite Becker’s friendly façade, Q had seen the determined gleam in his grey eyes. The determination to get what he wanted, at all cost, by all means necessary. If only men like Becker would put their unwavering determination to a worthwhile cause and not destroy their fellow humans.
Q shuddered. Kriminalkommissar Becker had offered him a deal. Promised a mild punishment, a release, if Q worked with the Gestapo. The only thing he had to do was confess to his activities and rat out everyone else. It was the easy way out, and Q was more than tempted to take it.
But he couldn’t do that to his friends. Have them pay for his deeds? No. How would he be able to live his life as a traitor? A true traitor who betrayed his own ideals, not some despicable government. And what if this was just a ploy to get him to talk?
No, Q wouldn’t fall for their tactics. In the solitude of his cell, his will was strong. Whether that would hold true during his next interrogation, he didn’t know. I’m not a hero. Not a soldier trained to endure pain. I’m just a scientist. An ordinary man.
How could he ensure he didn’t betray his friends when the Gestapo came back for him? Q relaxed on the stinking mattress and did what he knew best: think. He devised a plan.
He would tell the Gestapo everything they wanted to know. Every little detail about his sabotage work at Loewe. How he’d copied the blueprints and given them to “Pavel.” He’d talk so much, Kriminalkommissar Becker wouldn’t have the time to ask about names. Because names he wouldn’t tell. Those he’d take to his grave.
Hilde.
Q’s heart grew weary. Images appeared in his mind. Their wedding day. Climbing Mount Etna. Holding Volker for the first time. Sadness choked his throat. Would he ever see her and his sons again?
He hoped she was safe. She was just a woman, a mother. Not even the Gestapo could believe she had something to do with his resistance activities.
Q listened to the silence. All he could hear was a distant shuffling. Other prisoners? Gestapo coming for him? The shuffling stopped. Judging by the small, opaque window near the ceiling of his cell, he was in the cellar of the building. The infamous Gestapo cellar? Q willed his mind to go down another road, but the threat of what was to come kept him circling back.
What happened to Gerald?
Kriminalkommissar Becker had been in possession of some of the paperwork Q had given the agent the last time they’d met. Gerald was a Wehrmacht deserter, and everyone knew what happened to them if they got caught.
Fear and cold crept into his bones. Sleep was impossible, and Q stood up to pace the tiny cell. Walk and think. Had he made the right choices in his life? Should he have stopped his subversive work? Not planned the attack on Goebbels? Never married Hilde? A thousand questions assaulted him. But no answers.
Much later that night, when he sank onto the mattress again and wrapped his freezing body with the rough blanket, his last thought was that he’d do everything again.
***
Hilde sat in a cell very similar to Q’s, thinking about the horrific events that she now thought of as Fateful Monday. After the interrogation, they’d taken her down a narrow stairwell, into one of those clammy and moldy basements that always reminded her of a medieval dungeon.
Goosebumps rose on her skin. After the uniformed man shoved her inside and closed the door, the silence became deafening. The window was barred and opened into a grey light well. Nobody would hear her cries. But she didn’t cry. Not yet.
Hilde paced the confines of the small room, her arms wrapped around herself. She was grateful for the cardigan she’d grabbed when the Gestapo had arrived for her. It was cold in here. But she’d have frozen even in plain sunlight because of the fear and sorrow filling her heart.
Kriminalkommissar Becker told her that Q had been arrested, too. She’d assumed that all along, but having the certainty had knocked the breath out of her lungs. Q would probably be held in the same building, and she willed herself to sense his presence. If he was nearby, she could tap into his s
trength and envision him holding her the way he’d done so many times in their eight years together.
It worked, and she calmed down – until images of her babies crept into her mind and tears started streaming down her cheeks. She’d weaned Peter just the week before, and for that she was thankful because it would have been so much harder for both of them if she were still nursing him. But she missed snuggling him next to her as he went down for a nap. She missed talking with Volker and watching his mind work as he played with his toys.
She consoled herself with the fact that her mother was with them. Despite Hilde’s differences with Annie, she’d take good care of her grandsons.
It’s only for a few days at most.
Hilde plopped onto the mattress on the ground and wrapped a stained, stinking blanket around her to find some warmth. But sleep was elusive, and she lay there, remembering the good times she’d shared with her husband and children.
Two weeks earlier, the weather had been unseasonably warm, and she and Q had taken both boys to the park. Peter had giggled and babbled in his pram. Volker and Q had walked hand-in-hand, both shuffling their feet through the autumn leaves. The little boy had fired a million why-questions at his father. Why are the leaves falling from the trees? Why is it autumn? Where did the summer go?
Hilde cried some more. Would they ever experience such a peaceful and happy outing again? She rolled over, allowing her tears to flow unchecked, and prayed to God.
Please. Allow me the chance to leave this place and return to my children. Please let me live to raise them, so they don’t have to grow up without a mother like I did.
Unwavering: Love and Resistance in WW2 Germany Page 2