Hans cranks off a few more leaflets. Finally, the machine rests. Silence fills the room for the first time in hours. My ears still ring with the reverberations of typewriter keys and Hans’s labored breathing.
We work quickly to stash our supplies, storing the duplicating machine under a drape cloth, the typewriter in its case. My mind is fuzzy, my limbs heavy. I could fall asleep standing up.
“We’ll reconvene for delivery within the next few days. In mailboxes, telephone booths, over propaganda signs.”
Alex and I nod.
Hans grips my hand. Both of our fingers are streaked with ink. “Good work tonight.” He claps Alex on the back. “Moving forward, Shurik.”
Hans says something to Sophie about walking her home. She nods, smiles up at him. He slips an arm around her shoulders and gives a quick squeeze.
Alex and Hans exit the room followed by Sophie, going single-file up the narrow staircase. I give one last glance at the empty studio, then flick off the light and follow the others into the night.
Annalise
June 24, 1942
Every night, I lie amid tangled sheets, fighting to stay awake.
Failing to escape the nightmares.
Since that night, whenever I’ve slept, I’ve dreamt the scene again. Men, women, children lined up against a brick building, armed SS facing them in a solid wall, barrels raised. A little girl at the end of the line clutches a doll against her chest. Herbert strides forward, the command issuing from his lips. “Ready.” The little girl looks up. Soft curls frame her round face. I try to cry out, to move, but my lips are immobile, my limbs as if mired in quicksand. “Aim.” Her innocent eyes gaze into mine, pleading, begging, as if to say: Why? Why won’t you do something? Everything in me wants to move, to act, but I’m frozen. Slowly, she turns her face away, as if in resignation. A burst of gunfire rings out.
I wake then, pillow wet with sweat and tears.
After another night of fitful sleep, I rise and dress, body as weary as if I hadn’t gone to bed at all. Standing in front of the mirror, I run a brush through my hair, smoothing the curls. Bruised circles stand out beneath my eyes, evidence of my sleepless nights.
I wish I could talk to someone. Give vent to the emotions shredding me from the inside.
But who? Though Kirk’s rejection has faded in comparison to what happened afterward, I’m still raw from the way he looked at me when I told him who Vater was.
According to the Führer, Vater has chosen the path every man should aspire to. High military rank. Leadership.
While my interactions with those I feel drawn to have been hindered by those very things. Were I the daughter of a grocer or even a low-ranking corporal, everything would be easier.
I can’t do this alone. Maybe someone braver, better would be able to, but I’m not that person.
Sophie.
Could I confide in her? She’s challenged my thinking before. Could I ask her for counsel now? Would she look at me in disbelief, think I’ve concocted the story from imagination? After my initial horror wore off, I doubted whether or not Herbert spoke the truth. I soon dismissed that though. His drunken, boastful rambling was a recounting of experiences. Doubtless he has no memory of the incident, seeing as he was so drunk. Whereas I cannot erase it.
I brace both hands against the sink, hair falling into my face, head bent.
I have to tell someone.
That evening, a knock sounds on the door.
I cross the room and open it. Sophie stands outside. I managed to catch her this afternoon at the university and asked if she’d like to come for tea. She agreed.
“I’m glad you found it all right.” I smile.
“It wasn’t difficult.” She steps inside, taking in my apartment. It differs little from her brother’s, a four-room affair containing a living-dining space, a tiny kitchen, and a narrow hall leading to bedroom and bathroom. I’ve tacked up a couple of pieces of my artwork—one my attempt to copy Franz Marc’s Blue Horses, the other a sketch of a lake at sunset.
“Nice place.”
“Danke.” I smile self-consciously. “I’ve only just cleaned it up today. I haven’t been feeling well lately.”
Sophie’s expression sobers. “You’ve been ill?”
I move toward the pot of tea, which I’ve arranged on the low table next to the sofa. I pour the steaming liquid into cups. “In a manner of speaking. Please, sit.”
She crosses the room and sits on one end of the sofa. I hand her the cup. For several minutes, we drink tea and make small talk, most of which I barely hear above the thrum in my chest.
My cup clinks as I set it down on its saucer. I place both on the table. Having something as formal as a teacup in hand doesn’t seem appropriate for what I’m about to say.
“A few evenings ago, I ran into an old friend.”
“Oh?”
“We knew each other as children. He was visiting the city on leave and invited me to his hotel room.”
Sophie tucks her hair behind her ear. Usually, she keeps one side pinned back with a bobby pin. Today the bobby pin is absent. Her gaze fixes on me, and I realize she must be thinking this story is about to head in a very different direction.
“I don’t mean it like it sounds,” I hasten. “We were just friends, and there was nothing in his manner that suggested he wanted us to be otherwise. It was nice, at first. But once we were in his room, he started to drink. A lot.”
I swallow, meeting Sophie’s gaze. Retelling is reliving, and I’m there again, in that cloistered room, Herbert’s face reddening, amber swirling in his glass, his voice filling my ears.
A chill crawls up the back of my neck. “I’ve never been around someone who drank like that, so I wasn’t sure what to do.” I draw in a jagged breath, gathering my next words. “He started to talk. He’s SS, stationed somewhere in Poland. They’re murdering people. Innocent people, because they’re Jewish or partisans or God knows what else.” My voice cracks. “Herbert, this man who was once my friend, boasted about it. He shot a child because an underling wouldn’t do it. A little girl.” I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking my head. “It’s … I can’t believe the things he said.”
I open my eyes. Sophie sits motionless, the tea forgotten. Her lips are pressed in a tight line.
“I couldn’t listen after that. I ran out.” I glance down at my hands. My knuckles are white from clenching my fists. “What kind of world are we living in?” My voice rises. “What has Germany become? Why has no one raised their voices and declared, Enough!”
“Our instincts for evil have been nurtured. Once, acts of violence were condemned. Now, they’re condoned. As long as one targets those deemed deserving.” Sophie’s voice is quiet.
I stand and start to pace. “I don’t know what to think. I’m so angry. At my vater, for being one of them. At the Führer, for feeding us lies, leading us into this mad fight for dominance.” My words are treasonous. But right now, I don’t care. If it’s treasonous to be angry at injustice, the injustice of innocent lives being taken, then I’d rather be a traitor than in concord with those in power.
“What are you going to do about it?”
I stop pacing, gaze on Sophie. I wanted answers, not questions. Rarely have I seen such a direct stare as the one she gives me now. As if she’s telling me only I can be the answer. Only I can make the decision to change and be different.
“Something. I don’t know what. I don’t know what I can do. I’m nobody. If I told my vater, he’d say I was insane. Or that the Poles deserved it. It’s not as if I can barge into the Führer’s office and declare the truth.”
“Perhaps if enough people had, it would’ve been stopped before it went this far.”
“Perhaps.”
“But you’re wrong about one thing, Annalise.” Sophie gives a slight smile. “You’re not nobody. Each of us has been given one life. It’s ours to spend as we will. Every voice matters. If they arise as one, change can happen. But first, one has to rise
. There has to be a beginning.”
Her words soak through me, lingering long after she goes home, our conversation ended without my receiving any concrete answers. That night, lying in bed, waiting for the dreams to claim me, I turn onto my side, facing the blackout-curtained window, whispering over and over, “There has to be a beginning.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kirk
June 26, 1942
FROM THIS MOMENT FORWARD, there will be no turning back. After two hours fueled by kaffee, debating the wording of our next leaflet, the three of us venture into the darkness. Each of us carries rucksacks containing the pages we’ve toiled over.
Three different mailboxes. Three parts of town.
Three chances of discovery.
I don’t acknowledge the others, not even looking at them as we separate. Compared to some of the packs I’ve carried, the rucksack on my back is light.
Yet its weight seems to buckle me, mire my feet in quicksand.
It’s eerily quiet. The air is cool and still, the darkness murky. Were it not for the luminous paint on curbs to aid pedestrians in the blackout, and the gleam of moonlight, I’d be walking blind.
My footsteps on the cobblestones are too loud. My heart drums inside my ears.
What if I’m stopped? Searched? They’ll read the words we’ve written to rouse our deaf countrymen and call it sedition.
It will mean arrest. Imprisonment.
I can’t think beyond that. If I do, I might stop walking altogether.
Stars scatter the sky overhead. Are angels looking through these pinpricks of heaven, down upon the three of us?
My heart breathes a silent petition, and I pray it is so.
A car passes in a blur of sleek black. I don’t turn to see who is within. I walk on, fighting the urge to look back. Dressed in a dark overcoat, I blend into the landscape. Hopefully.
Every sinew is on alert, my senses sharpened by the kaffee I drank less than an hour ago. I don’t let my thoughts drift, wander to Annalise as they have for the past week.
I near the street where the mailbox is located.
Footsteps sound, a set other than mine. I taste the tang of fear, bitter in my throat. Straighten my shoulders and keep my head high. The stranger walks at a brisk pace, bulky frame garbed in a long overcoat. My gaze centers on his left bicep, noosed in a swastika armband.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead.
Like two dogs sniffing, testing, we approach each other. The man looks me over, gaze hooded.
My right arm flashes out. “Heil Hitler!” It’s the salute of a fanatic, not like the limp gestures I usually try to get away with.
He returns the greeting, his own salute perfunctory. “Heil Hitler.”
I deign to nod. If Hitler has taught me anything, it’s that power will win a situation better than anything else. With one last glance, I stride past him with the swagger of a Party faithful. I will not be detained, my bearing seems to say. I’m a loyal citizen of the Reich, and my business is for the Führer.
It’s for the Führer all right.
I don’t look back, rerouting my steps until I’m certain the man is out of view. The mailbox is paces away. I approach, glancing both ways, then cross the street. It gleams in the darkness, the slot a gaping mouth of metal.
My hands shake as I swing the rucksack from my shoulders and fumble with the buckles. The quicker I tell myself to work, the slower my movements seem to be. Finally, I loosen the buckles. I reach inside and pull out a handful of envelopes.
I let go. They fall into the box, out of sight, with a fluttering rustle. I dive back into the rucksack and repeat the process twice more. Each time, I glance both ways, scanning the empty street.
I sling the empty rucksack over my shoulders and walk away.
Tomorrow, a hundred German citizens will leaf through their stack of mail. In the midst of bills, newspapers, and letters, they’ll discover one of our envelopes, their name on the front in neat black type. What will their reaction be when they read our proclamations?
Nothing is more unworthy of a civilized nation …
No doubt many will promptly turn them in to the Gestapo out of self-preservation, the ever-present fear of being informed on. What of the rest? Will they heed our call?
Action. The word fills my mind like a prayer with every step I take.
Let them take action.
Sophie
June 30, 1942
Weariness fogs my senses like steam over a mirror. Tension draws a thick line through the steam, clearing my mind enough to focus on typing addresses. The keys clack as I type, glancing from the typewriter to the list, then back again. Hans and Alex run the duplicating machine. Across from me, Kirk folds leaflets, seals them into envelopes, affixes stamps.
Last night, we stayed up until 3:00 a.m., composing and finalizing the second leaflet. I managed to sleep from four until eight, when I had to get ready for classes.
Now, night blanketing Munich, we’re back at the studio. I blink, stifling a yawn with my ink-smudged hand. What I wouldn’t give for real kaffee, rich with sugar and milky with cream. The ersatz stuff does little to alleviate fatigue. But the men used up what rations remained the night they delivered the first batch of leaflets.
In spite of my exhaustion, the risk of discovery, the nagging anxiety, I wouldn’t go back to doing nothing. Pain is better than emptiness.
My gaze falls on the stack of printed leaflets.
Here we see the most terrible crime against human dignity, a crime unparalleled in the history of mankind. The Jews, too, are human beings …
Listening to Alex and Hans dictate that passage, interjecting and interrupting each other, on fire with passion, thrilled me like nothing has in years. Truth. Finally truth.
I move down the list, inserting a fresh envelope into the typewriter.
“Hey, Sophie.”
I look up at Hans’s voice. He’s wearing only an undershirt, sweat glistening on his face and shoulders. The air in the studio is unseasonably warm, scented with ink and must.
“Switch with me. My arm’s tired.”
Excitement surges through me. I’ve never been asked to run the duplicating machine.
I stand. Hans and Alex are set up on a table beneath a hanging lightbulb. The duplicating machine sits in the middle, completed and fresh stacks of paper on either side.
“Show her how to use it, Shurik.” Hans crosses the room to take my place at the typewriter.
Alex stands behind me. “The paper goes in here.” He demonstrates feeding paper into the machine. “I do that. All you do is crank the handle. Think you can manage it?”
I nod, turning my head to smile at him. His half-crooked grin flashes, a look of shared exhilaration. Disagreements may come, but for now, our four hearts beat with unity. Over and over, I crank the handle. Alex works beside me, moving in synchrony. The fluid, even movements remind me of dancing.
How I once loved to dance. Spin and twirl, abandoning myself to the music. I haven’t done that in years, can barely remember dancing since the war began. The first time we met, Fritz and I danced together. He walked across the room, right up to me, tall and dashing, a smile on his lips, and asked me to dance. I was sixteen, half girl, half woman, my hair cropped short, momentarily shy in the presence of this attractive stranger. It was an evening of simple joy and easy laughter, the sensation of being held in strong arms, turning in three-quarter time to a waltz. How long ago that seems.
If we danced now, would either of us remember the steps?
We work in silence. My arm begins to ache. I pause to rub the sore muscles, then keep cranking the handle. Paper, envelopes, stamps, and ink are becoming costly. I asked, and Fritz loaned me a hundred marks. I didn’t tell him what it was for. Would he have given it to me if he knew?
“Liven up, everyone. Let’s keep things moving.” Hans strides over to us, clapping his hands together.
“It’s after one in the morning,” Alex gives a mock yawn
.
“Jawohl, Herr Kommandant.” Kirk salutes, grinning.
“Requesting permission to sing.” Alex turns to me. “Sophie, why don’t you pick something?”
I know instantly what to choose. “Thoughts Are Free.”
“Not exactly in the Hitler Youth songbook, but it’ll do.” Alex winks at me.
Alex’s voice rises onto the air, melodic and rich. I join in, and soon the four of us are singing in soft chorus, the words blending with the clacking of the typewriter and the sleek sound of the duplicating machine.
Thoughts are free,
Who can guess them?
They fly by
Like shadows in the night;
No one can know them,
No hunter can shoot them
With powder and lead,
Thoughts are free.
The song revitalizes us. It’s not kaffee, but the words speak to what we all feel. I tuck my hair behind my ear and look up, hand steadily cranking the machine. Hans, pencil behind his ear, striking the keys. Kirk, folding leaflets, features swathed in meager light. Alex, working alongside me, music spilling from his lips as if poured from his soul.
As we wrap up our work, I wonder what Annalise is doing tonight. Is she lying awake, robbed of sleep by haunting thoughts? The horror she spoke of is not news to me, but to hear the anguish in her voice as she told of it …
An idea dawns. I drop the handle, the last newly inked sheet sliding out. I pick up a stack of freshly mimeographed leaflets and carry them to the table. Hans and Kirk stand next to a crate of artwork, heads bent in discussion.
If I delay, I’ll change my mind. Each leaflet represents a danger, not only to us, but to its recipient.
I seize the opportunity and slip into the chair, taking up a fresh envelope. I slide it into the typewriter. Fingers poised, I wait only a moment before making my decision.
Quickly, I type Annalise’s name and address onto the envelope. I snatch up a nearby leaflet, and fold and stuff it inside. A completed stack of envelopes sits off to one side, and I slip Annalise’s in the middle of the pile. I stand before Hans notices me and begin to clear the table. My gaze lands on the rectangles of white waiting to be mailed.
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