A guarded look enters Kirk’s gaze, the same kind my own must hold. Neither of us trusts the other completely, despite the attraction between us.
“I’ve always been a pastor’s son,” Kirk says slowly. “When I was young, my vater pastored a Lutheran congregation in Munich. During the church struggle, he broke away and is now employed, if you can call it that, by the Confessing Church.”
My mind reels. I stifle the urge to laugh out of shock. Of all the young men at university, I, the daughter of a man who claims God doesn’t exist and our salvation rests in Hitler, find myself attracted to the son of a pastor. Not just any pastor, mind you, but one who broke away from the Reich Church to join what Vater calls “a group of lunatics and rebels who need the teaching of Dachau to straighten them up.”
“A pastor.” I mutter the word to myself, my hand falling from his arm and down to my side.
“Why? Are you surprised?”
I have to tell him. I shake my head. “My vater is … he’s an SS standartenführer. Personally acquainted with the Führer, a guest at the Berghof more than once, and a favorite dinner companion of the Goebbels.” I stop, the false bravado in my words little masking the misery beneath.
Kirk regards me, something sharp and guarded in his eyes. “I see.”
I clutch my handbag with both hands. With that look in his eyes, I’m fifteen again, ignored by the other girls, the darling of the teachers, but the friend of none but those who seek my acquaintance for advancement. It’s not that way with Kirk. He’s not interested in rising in the ranks of the SS, but he sees me now in a different light.
I’m Standartenführer Brandt’s daughter. Not Annalise.
“I should be getting back.” I try and shield the hurt from my tone, but some of it escapes anyway. “I have studying to do.”
He nods, shifting, hands in his pockets.
I give a brief nod in return. “Auf Wiedersehen, Kirk.” I turn, walking away with my shoulders straight and my head high, the crush of gravel beneath my heels. Not once do I look back.
I leave the Englischer Garten with its grassy parklands and sunset lake. My feet begin to ache, courtesy of the heels. Wearing them was a stupid idea.
Accepting his invitation was even more so.
The streets are drowsy with the approach of nightfall. A group of adolescent boys kick a ball across the cobblestones amid rowdy laughter. A uniformed officer strolls with his sweetheart, putting an arm around her waist with the abandon of a man on three-days leave.
I want nothing more than to go home, brew a strong cup of tea, and rest my feet. The bobby pins pulling my sculpted curls back from my face dig into my scalp. Kirk’s taut face fills my mind.
Why, oh, why did I let myself like him?
Stubborn tears press against my eyes. To let them fall would be childish and stupid. My pace quickens.
“Annalise? Annalise Brandt?”
Startled, I turn, swiping my eyes with the back of my hand. A man walks toward me, the door of a bierhalle swinging in his wake. He wears a crisp gray-green uniform, a matching black-brimmed cap marked with the SS insignia. His face breaks into a grin, revealing crooked front teeth.
“Can it really be you? Annalise Brandt?”
I frown, confused. I’m a stranger in Munich, and I don’t recognize this man, though he apparently knows who I am. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“Herbert Mayer.” His grin broadens. “Don’t you remember?”
Recognition slowly dawns as I take in his blue eyes, the faint white scar on his chin, his face an older version of the boy I remember.
If I’d ever had a childhood playmate, it was Herbert Mayer. When we were eleven, we discovered we both shared a love of art. Sitting at Herbert’s kitchen table, we talked of someday being famous artists and stained our fingers with cheap paint. Four months later, Herbert moved away, his parting token of our friendship a sketch he’d done of Alpine roses—my favorite flower. Mutter had thrown away the painting while spring cleaning my room, and with its absence, I’d almost forgotten Herbert.
“Herbert! I don’t believe it.” I reach out and clasp his hands, smiling. “How long has it been?”
“It was 1932, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, that seems ages ago. Do you remember what we did that summer?”
“Remember?” He laughs. “How could I forget?”
“That mural we painted in your room.” I grin. “Was your mutter ever cross when she saw it.”
He shakes his head ruefully. “Don’t remind me. I was the one who had to use the money I’d been saving for a pair of ski boots to repaint it. But look at you now. All grown-up.”
“How did you recognize me?” I notice the freckles on his nose, only added in number since we last met.
“Your hair. I’ve never forgotten that shade of gold and red. You’re wearing it differently.”
I nod, its strands brushing my jawline. “A recent alteration.”
“It suits you.” A streetcar speeds by a distance away, its silhouette cutting through the fading light. “Why are you in Munich?”
“I’m a student at the university.”
“Let me guess? Art?”
“Ja.”
“Marvelous.” He tilts his head. “What are you doing tonight? I’m staying at a hotel not far from here. A chat about old times would be just the thing to brighten up a lonely evening. What do you think?”
Had it been anyone but Herbert, I’d have emphatically refused. It’s been a long day, and the memory of my exchange with Kirk still stings. But Herbert looks at me so hopefully, I can’t bring myself to decline. Herbert, in his innocent youth, never flattered or snubbed me. All he cared about was that I brought my box of new paints and liked sneaking kuchen from the icebox as much as he did.
“I’d love to.” The answer falls from my lips.
“Excellent,” he says, and we make our way down the street.
Half an hour later, I’m seated in an easy chair in Herbert’s hotel room. Blackout curtains cover the windows, muted light from a desk lamp illuminating the space. Herbert sits on the edge of the double bed, boots planted on the thick rug. His cap rests beside him, green and black against the cream coverlet. In one hand, he holds a full tumbler poured from a brandy bottle on the bedside table. He offered me some, but I refused. I didn’t eat much before going out with Kirk, and the emptiness in my stomach makes it unsteady. Herbert is already on his second glass.
We spent the walk here reminiscing, the past overruling the present in our dialogue. I didn’t ask why Herbert wears an SS uniform. Its cut and insignias, marking him with the rank of untersturmführer, suddenly brings back the twist of unease that always tightened through me in Berlin, where similarly garbed officers and my vater populated the landscape of my male world.
“Remind me again, what type of mural we wanted to paint?” Herbert takes a swallow, the golden liquid now halved in his glass.
“You wanted to paint the Alps, so you could look at them every morning when you woke. I don’t know how I got roped into being the assistant to your Michelangelo.”
He chuckles. “Sistine Chapel, it was not. And if I were to judge between us, I would say you were the Michelangelo, and I your obedient serf. You always had lots of opinions about art.”
I arch a brow. “And you didn’t?”
“But you … you always won our arguments.” His voice slurs. He reaches for the bottle and refills his glass.
On our walk, I noticed the scent of bier pervading him, but we were laughing and talking so I didn’t think much of it. Now that I’m here, and he’s continuing to drink, I’m starting to regret coming to the hotel. I suppose that ought to be a lesson for me in how people change. I’m not the little girl I was then, and Herbert isn’t the same boy.
I cross my ankles, hands in my lap. “What do you do now?”
“Currently, I’m on leave. I visited my sister in the country for the first two days, and I’ve been in Munich for the second two.” His
syllables blend into each other. “I’ve got to go back tomorrow.” The liquid swirls as he puts the glass to his lips. Alarm cuts through me.
“To Russia?”
He looks up, hunched forward on the bed. “Nein.” A shadow crosses his face, making him look older, almost hardened.
“Do you still paint?”
He shakes his head and gulps another drink. “Nein … no time for things like that.”
I should go. Herbert seemed so sober when we met, despite the waft of bier on his breath. Though I guess I wouldn’t know. Vater has many faults, but like the Führer, he doesn’t imbibe.
“Art is fine for women and children.” Herbert’s words slur. “But I have no time for childish pursuits. I’m engaged in … important work for the Fatherland.” His hand wavers, the drink slopping onto his hand, the sleeve of his uniform coat.
I rise. That’s it. I’m leaving. “Herbert.” My voice is firm.
He looks at me, gaze unfocused. “SS Untersturmführer Herbert Mayer. Pretty good for a butcher’s son, eh? A valuable asset to the Führer. Someone has to wipe out the parasites invading the Fatherland’s lebensraum. The diseased limb.” He makes a chopping motion with the hand not holding the glass. “We must cut it off before gangrene infects the healthy body.”
I’ve heard such rhetoric before, mostly from Vater. In Herbert Mayer’s slurred tone it isn’t anything but repellent. I grab my handbag, shoving it beneath my armpit, and stride toward the door.
“If only … if only they didn’t tempt me. The Poles are a very convincing lot, you know. Making you believe they’re human.”
I still, turning.
“When you shoot them, they die like anyone else. Their blood looks the same. But it isn’t. We must always remember that. To pity is to weaken and to weaken is to stab our Führer in the back.” He stares directly at me, but it’s as if he doesn’t see me. “There’s this village, near where I was stationed. Some partisans thought they’d be clever and blow up our supply trains. What a mistake.” He chuckles.
I stare at him, frozen.
“We caught them … in the act. My men went into the village and the forests, rounded up the whole town. It was crawling with partisans, mostly Jews.” He coughs and drains more liquor from his glass. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Not anymore. I ordered them to cleanse the area. When I have a problem, it’s dealt with thoroughly. But it takes the right kind of man to handle it. That day, one of the men on the firing squad was new. Fresh from training. He shot the men, but the girl … He stood there, holding the gun, shaking like a leaf. Just couldn’t do it.” He shakes his head with a chuckle. “What weaklings new recruits can be.”
My throat goes dry. The heat in the room (or perhaps it’s not heat, but my imagination) stifles me. The rank odor of my sweat mingles with the scent of the alcohol.
“I taught him a lesson though. Cut him down to size. The girl he wouldn’t shoot … I did the job. I grabbed her, pulled her away from the wall. She was so small …” He rubs a hand across his jaw. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but for an instant … she tempted me too. She had … brown curls and blue eyes, like my sister’s child. She had a doll, a little rag of a thing. She was crying for her mutter. Her screaming … I didn’t like that. So I raised my pistol. A click.” He looks up. “The screaming stopped. It’s astonishing how easy it is to die. One minute screaming, the next … nothing. But I can still hear it. It’s in my head.” His gaze darts wildly. “Her ghost is haunting me.”
My legs shake. The room spins. Herbert’s red face blurs, his wavering hand bringing the glass to his lips, the insignias on his collar gleaming in the light. My stomach churns. I’m going to be sick.
I whirl around. My hand shakes as I open the door. Herbert is still talking as I slam it, cutting him off from view. The narrow corridors and steep staircase pass in a haze. I fling open the door to the hotel, heedless of the gaze of the clerk behind the counter. Blessedly cool air fans my cheeks, the street clothed in semi-darkness
My stomach cramps, and I bend double, vomiting onto the cobblestones. Heaving shudders convulse my body.
After a few minutes, I stand, bile acrid in my mouth. Numb, I turn toward home. I force myself to concentrate enough to follow street signs, reach my apartment, unlock the door, and relock it behind me.
Fully clothed, I climb on top of my bed, curling into a ball, hands fisted beneath my chin. I squeeze my eyes shut, but Herbert’s face, his words, follow me still.
“Cleanse the area … dealt with thoroughly … she was so small … crying for her mutter … a click … the screaming stopped.”
These are my countrymen. Men like Herbert, who was once my playmate, men like my own brother murdering hundreds, thousands. Not only military executions or killing in warfare, but a ruthless extermination of those who have committed no crime.
I want to scream at the top of my lungs, yell down curses at the lot of them, tear them apart with my bare hands. This is what blindly following our Führer has reduced us to. Murdering as if those killed are no more than the parasites Herbert spoke of. The lust for dominance has poisoned us, made us believe we have the power to decide who lives and who dies.
No one has that power over an innocent human being. No one.
I blink, my eyes dry. This is not something to cry over. Tears would render it among that which is human. Which it is not.
Something hot and fierce rises inside of me as I lie huddled on my coverlet in the darkness.
The Germany we’ve become is mine no longer.
And neither it, nor I, will ever be the same again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kirk
June 20, 1942
OUR FIRST EFFORTS ARE fumbling, but soon, typed sheets roll from the duplicating machine one after the other, in perfect harmony. Hans feeds the blank pages. I crank the handle and pull out the freshly inked leaflets, adding them to the growing stack. Alex sits at the rickety table, hunched over the typewriter, a pile of envelopes at his elbow, typing addresses. Opposite Alex, Sophie takes the printed pages, folding and sealing them into addressed envelopes. The clacking of the keys and the pungent scent of ink become my world.
After an hour, my muscles ache. Perspiration trails down my back, my cotton shirt sticking to my skin.
I glimpse a typed sentence, the ink still glistening.
Offer passive resistance—RESISTANCE—wherever you may be.
I ignore the ache and keep turning the handle. Hans feeds a sheet of paper. Crank. The sheet slides free, imprinted with words we’ve labored over.
Hans works with single-minded concentration, feeding the sheets, urging us to work faster. Sweat stands out on his forehead.
It’s after nine at night. We three men have pulled long shifts at the hospital, finishing only a couple of hours ago. Another round of casualties came in from the front, with bloody stumps and gangrenous wounds and silent pain on every face.
“There’s another twenty,” Hans announces. “How are the addresses coming, Shurik?”
Alex holds up a pile of envelopes.
“Good.” Hans takes a moment to rest, kneading the muscles in the back of his neck. “Doing all right, Sophie?”
She looks up, dark hair brushing her cheek. She hasn’t left her seat except to fetch new stacks of pages fresh from the duplicating machine.
“Ja.” She nods with a hint of a smile.
“Then let’s keep at it. The night is young, and so are we.” He flashes a smile full of derring-do.
Hans and I trade places. Feeding sheets is easier than cranking the machine, and things regain speed. Alex’s fingers fly across the typewriter, as his gaze darts between the keys and the list of addresses. Some at random from a telephone directory, some targeted at acquaintances and professors at the university, some to proprietors of local restaurants in the hopes they’ll spread the word to their patrons. Sophie seals envelopes with a little brush dipped in water.
The bulb above our worktable flic
kers. Alex lights his pipe and continues typing with it in his mouth. The room is shadows and leftover plaster dust, haphazard stacks of artwork and architectural diagrams affixed to the wall with little brass tacks.
And the four of us, working with single-minded fervor.
Alex breaks the silence. “It seems strange to be doing this without Christl. After all the discussions we’ve had together …”
Hans looks up, as does Sophie. “You know he can’t get involved, Shurik. He’s got a wife. Children. More to lose than the rest of us.” As if that’s the end of the matter, he resumes cranking. His breath comes fast. Our gazes meet over the duplicating machine, and I sense the ache in his. Hans cares for Christl as we all do—his noble heart, his gentle soul. He seeks only to protect our friend.
My thoughts drift to Annalise. The wounded look in her eyes. When we met, I’d no idea who she was. Sophie just said she was a friend. I never expected a Scholl to befriend someone whose vater was SS.
How right the deepening of our friendship seemed. Not once did she hint at anything like allegiance to the Reich. Being on the side that’s not only unpopular, but treasonous, makes one attuned to the loyalties of others. It’s a fostered habit, like taking care while crossing a particularly dangerous intersection. Usually with new acquaintances, I keep my guard up.
With Annalise, I let it down. Not only did I reveal my loyalties (not outwardly perhaps, but by omission), I hurt her. Her face rises up, wind-teased curls, sparkling eyes, the curve of her smile. Her beauty tugged at me, but it was more than that. The directness with which she asked a question, and the honesty with which she answered one. Even about her vater, she was honest.
I wouldn’t blame her if she never spoke to me again. I behaved like a cad when I let her walk away.
We finish just after midnight, both pages of our leaflet duplicated. A hundred copies, two hundred sheets.
“That’s it then.” Alex lays the last envelope on the pile. “The last of them.”
Sophie takes the envelope, folds a leaflet inside, and seals the flap with a dab of water and a press of her fingertips.
The White Rose Resists Page 10