The White Rose Resists

by Amanda Barratt

  It’s a strange kind of paradox, such a captivating land being the backdrop for the base act of kill or be killed. Last month, we were out walking when we came across the decomposing body of a dead Russian. Alex suggested we bury him, so we did, nailing a Russian cross together and sticking it into the ground as a grave marker. Will you think me strange if I say it felt somehow symbolic?

  Alex has been sick with diphtheria for several days, and Hans has a touch of something too. I think we’ve all given too much blood. There’s so much need here that one cannot help doing what one can, but it does put a strain on the system. Thankfully, they’re both on the mend now.

  As for me, I’ve been prosaically healthy, which is a blessing, as I’ve been needed in surgery almost every day. Ten men die here every day—some days even more. Everyone takes it all very calmly. To do otherwise would be to fall to pieces on a regular basis, and that won’t do anyone much good. It’s difficult to witness suffering and be unable to alleviate it as much as one would wish. I suppose that would be the case for a doctor even in peacetime, but it seems much worse in war.

  Some of your letters have reached me. Every day, during mail call, I hope for something from you. Alex teases me mercilessly about this. He says hello, by the by. He’s looking out for a samovar to bring home. It makes the best tea, rich and hot. We drink cupfuls of it!

  Now, Annalise, I want you to pretend we’re walking side by side through the Englischer Garten and tell me of yourself. Can you tell I’m stealing a glance at you, wondering if I ought to take your hand?

  In your last letter, you mentioned you’d cracked open your Bible. Well done! I wish I were there with you so we could discuss it. I’ve had plenty of practice, listening to Vater’s sermons over the years. Knowing you, you probably have all sorts of questions.

  But until that day comes, let me tell you this. In a world full of hate, there is a God of love. It’s a love that, in spite of everything, still fills me anew each time I see fresh evidence of it. God loves you, Annalise Brandt. And His is a love that remains unshakable, no matter what storms may come. Because not only does He love, He is Love itself.

  I have to report for duty, so I’ll close now. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

  Yours,

  Kirk

  I lower the sheets, fingertips still wrapped around their edges. I lie back on my bed, the paper resting against my chest, over my heart.

  God loves you, Annalise Brandt.

  If only I could believe it’s true. If only it were. All my life, I’ve craved unconditional love. The kind that says: You don’t have to be the brightest or the most pleasing or perfect. I love you in spite of, and because of, your inadequacies. To me, you are perfect. This longing to be known and understood, to be the giver and recipient of such love has never served me well. Mutter loves me in her own way, and my brothers do too. Even Vater would, I’m sure, call his desire to see me settled as the wife of a high-ranking officer a kind of love. But like a hungry youth who’s never full, human love has always left me empty.

  If God is love, then surely His is a better, higher love?

  For years, I’ve ascribed to Vater’s belief that God doesn’t exist. While he called the Führer our savior, I chose to believe there was none.

  But in the midst of the brokenness, I’ve begun to question again. To search for meaning in this life so easily snatched away. There has to be something beyond the world and its weary trappings.

  There has to be hope.

  And as I’ve paged through the Bible I purchased at a second-hand bookshop, reading long into the night, I’ve grasped for threads of it with a desperation I didn’t know I possessed.

  I settle at the desk in the corner of my bedroom and reach into the top drawer. My hand trembles as I hold up a tiny square of black and white. It’s of the two of us, smiling into the camera, arms around each other, my hair tangled around my cheeks, a laugh tugging his lips.

  I swallow, loneliness overwhelming. Though alone, I must continue to form my own views and ideas in a world hostile to both.

  I pick up my pen, imagine what I’d say to him if we were sitting side-by-side in my apartment or walking together across the university grounds. A droplet of ink hovers on the tip of my pen as I form the first words.

  Dear Kirk …

  Kirk

  November 4, 1942

  The Polish Border

  “I will never wash the soil of Russia from my boots.”

  Alex spoke those words our last night in Gzhatsk. Now he sits beside me on the train taking us back to Germany, smoking moodily.

  Leaving Russia is hardest for him. In the days before our departure, he disobeyed many an order. All of us got into a brawl with some Party officials at the tavern a few nights before we left. Hans and Alex had drunk too much schnapps and started singing a song the officials took offense at—probably because it was a parody of a popular Wehrmacht marching song. If it weren’t for my and Willi’s smooth talking, I doubt we’d have gotten ourselves out of that one. And instead of standing in line for delousing before boarding the train, Alex talked us into pooling our resources to purchase a packet of tea and our own samovar. Though we still have lice, we also have the richest, strongest black tea I’ve ever tasted.

  The train jolts. I cup my hands together and blow, trying to get warmth into my stiff fingers. Bitter air seeps through cracks in the windows. Hans and Willi sit reading across from us, while Alex blows smoke rings into the air.

  I reach into the pocket of the overcoat covering my uniform, brushing against the bundle of letters wrapped in twine. All from Annalise.

  What will it be like when we’re together in Munich again? Our letters have drawn us closer together, paper providing opportunity for conversations we haven’t had time for in person.

  There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of her, missed her, dreamed about her.

  The train wheezes to a stop. A corporal strides down the crowded aisle, uniform pressed, boots gleaming black. In sharp contrast to us, dirty, unshaven, Alex’s boots crusty with Russian mud. Not to mention the lice.

  “You’re free to disembark. We’ve a wait ahead of us.” His tone is crisp.

  The men begin to stir, and we file off the train. Outside, the sun is startlingly bright, the cold biting. I tug my collar up around my chin. Train tracks stretch across the flat landscape, endless as the sky.

  “Look at them.” Hans’s voice catches my attention.

  I turn. A group of ragged men, dirty and skeletal, are being herded away from the tracks, hammers and picks slung over their shoulders. Two German guards walk in their midst, goading them with rifle butts.

  Behind me, Alex draws in a sharp breath.

  One of the guards jabs a man with his rifle butt. He falls to the ground with an oompf.

  Alex’s unshaven jaw hardens. A pulse jumps below his eye.

  “Get up, you Russian swine.” The guard stands over him. Face pressed against the brown grass, the prisoner lets out a low moan. “I said, get up!”

  It’s almost physically painful to watch him struggle to rise. His shoulders protrude like wooden knobs from his loose gray shirt. His hair is patchy, his nose bent at an odd angle, as if recently broken. Another prisoner, a younger, dark-haired man, helps lift him to his feet, and they shuffle toward the shivering huddle of other prisoners, waiting for their next directive.

  “I can’t take any more!” Alex’s eyes flash. “My countrymen …” He strides toward the prisoners.

  Hans, Willi, and I exchange glances before following.

  By the time we reach him, Alex stands beside the injured man, handing him a cigarette and helping him light it. He speaks quietly in Russian, while the man listens, face pale.

  A few of the other prisoners cast longing gazes toward the lit cigarette. I walk over to one—the younger man who helped his friend stand—and pull a cigarette from my coat. I hold it out, an offering.

  His eyes burn into me like coals. Breaths cloud fr
om his cracked lips. I expect him to refuse. Then slowly, he reaches out.

  I offer him a light, and he puts the cigarette to his lips with a slow inhale.

  One of the guards marches over.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” His swarthy cheeks redden. Before I can answer, he rips the cigarette from the man’s hand and stomps it out with his boot.

  “Showing our gratitude for the repair of these tracks by sharing our cigarettes.” I keep my tone even. As a sergeant, I outrank this corporal.

  “Gratitude to a Russian prisoner of war? Or are you such a dummkopf you didn’t realize what these were?”

  “Whom these were, you mean.” Alex comes toward us, tone edged in steel. “I believe you mean whom, Corporal.”

  “I can call these subhuman wretches anything I like.” The corporal leans forward, teeth gritted. Spittle flies from his mouth and lands on my face. The prisoners watch, motionless, bodies shrunken into themselves.

  “Subhuman!” Alex lunges forward. “I’ll teach you—”

  I have to stop him. This time, we might not be so lucky. The train wheels screech. “Sergeant Schmorell.” My voice rises above the fray. I grab the back of Alex’s coat, yanking him away from the corporal. “We have a train to catch.”

  He looks at me, panting, hair falling into his eyes. He nods, swallows. Giving the corporal one last look of disgust, he follows us toward the train. We swing aboard just as the wheels begin to move.

  The clacking of the train’s gears fills my ears as we move down the crowded aisle to our seats. Sweat slides down my back despite the cold air. Alex sits heavily beside me, refusing to meet my gaze. He’ll thank me later.

  I glance out the begrimed window at the group of prisoners still guarded by the corporal. They pass from view. I close my eyes, leaning my head against the hard back of the seat, willing rest to come. To pass the time in sleep until we reach Munich.

  Munich, the word floats through my semi-consciousness as I drift off.

  Munich. And Annalise.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Sophie

  November 7, 1942

  Ulm

  ALL DAY, INGE, LISL, and I have been making ready for Hans’s arrival. The heavenly aroma of sauerbraten wafts through the house, mingling with that of fresh-baked kuchen, ration coupons saved for just this occasion.

  My stint at the armaments factory ended in late September, and in a few days, Hans and I will travel to Munich to move into a new apartment on Franz-Josef-Straße for the winter semester.

  I should be overjoyed. Sometimes, I wonder what’s wrong with me because I’m not. Vater was released from prison after serving half of his four-month sentence. Hans, Werner, and Fritz wrote clemency letters, which, coming from three Wehrmacht soldiers, impressed the authorities. Vater is thinner, gray threading his hair more liberally than before, but the external changes aren’t the most startling. Despite how he puts up a front around Mutter, his spirit has been broken. Deemed politically unreliable, he’s no longer able to run his business, and though he can still work as a bookkeeper, our financial situation looks bleak. Eugen Grimminger, Vater’s close friend, did his best to manage the firm in his absence. But Eugen’s wife is Jewish, and thus, their own future hangs under a cloud of uncertainty.

  I continue to write to Fritz, the volume of our letters vacillating by will of the army post. It seems a lifetime since our time in Munich, ages since his lips last pressed against mine.

  I can’t put my feelings for Fritz in a box and label them. If only life were so simple. If only love were. It would be easier if the distance between us were spanned instead of yawning wider, if the secrets of resistance didn’t lie between us.

  I want to believe in something better, brighter for the two of us. Once I did. But hope has become something I no longer trust.

  The news from the front grows grimmer with the approach of winter (where are our German victories now?). The battle for Stalingrad grinds on, and from the BBC, we’ve learned of Field Marshal Rommel’s retreat in North Africa at El-Alamein. Fritz writes candidly of the horror he’s witnessed, millions of soldiers on both sides consumed with mutually killing one another. War makes animals out of the best of men. I can’t help but wonder who Fritz will have become if … when he comes home.

  A knock sounds on the door to my bedroom.

  “Come in.” I call, doing up the buttons of my navy dress.

  Inge pokes her head inside.

  “We’re all downstairs. Hans should be here any minute.” A sparkle glimmers in her eyes, overtaking the weariness. With Mutter’s ill health, capable Inge shoulders much of the household burdens.

  “I’m just changing.” I slide my arms into my gray cable knit sweater and follow Inge downstairs. The family is gathered in the parlor—Vater beside Mutter on the sofa, Lisl in the armchair opposite. I perch on the edge of Lisl’s armchair, while Inge heads in the direction of the kitchen to check on the evening meal. The carved wall clock chips away the hour. Almost seven.

  The final moments are always the hardest. Russia will have changed Hans. What course will our work with the leaflets take now? No matter what my brother decides, I can’t return to the old ways of doing nothing.

  A knock sounds on the front door. I jump up.

  “I’ll get it.” I race into the hall, Vater’s booming laughter in my wake. I unlock and throw open the door, bringing a gust of chilly air into the foyer.

  Hans stands outside, wearing his uniform, the darkness a silhouette behind him. He drops his suitcases. I take him in, gaze seeking, anxious. A smile broadens his lips, bringing an answering one to mine.

  He pulls me into an embrace, and I press my cheek against the cold wool of his jacket. I’ve missed him. Our late-night talks, his half grin when he’s laughing at his own private joke, the strength of our shared ideals.

  When I draw away, I read the answer to my question written in his eyes.

  Once in Munich, our resistance will begin again.

  Annalise

  November 16, 1942

  Munich

  It’s been 116 days since I bid farewell to Kirk at the Ostbahnhof—116 days of aching loneliness, questions winging through my mind (is he thinking of me as much as I’m thinking of him?), letters bridging the space between us, 116 days of wondering if my heart will still be as twined with his when the last one has elapsed. Now I find that it is so.

  Standing on the corner of Franz-Josef-Straße, I check my reflection in my compact mirror. My hair hangs in soft curls, reaching to just above my shoulders. My eyes are wide in my pale face, and a hint of lipstick brushes my lips. I’m wearing a double-breasted black wool coat over a white blouse with tiny black polka dots and a burgundy skirt—clothes I purchased in Berlin.

  I admit my sole purpose in buying new clothes was to look nice for him. Our intimacy has deepened through letters, but I can’t help but think the Annalise of reality differs sadly from the Annalise of letters. In letters, it’s easier to modulate oneself, control the picture presented. Reality is … well, reality. I don’t know if I could endure the distance, the disappointment if the new dimensions to our relationship fail to carry over.

  I tuck the compact in my satchel, heels clicking as I walk down the street. Air raids have scarred Munich, but Franz-Josef-Straße remains untouched. I go through the narrow alley, around back to the stucco garden house, and press the bell.

  A few minutes later, the door opens. Sophie stands inside. She breaks into a smile, one that crinkles her eyes and lights up her whole face.

  “Sophie!”

  “How good it is to see you.” She closes the door and pulls me into an embrace. I hug her tightly back.

  “Someone’s been shopping in Berlin.” She grins, looking me up and down. Sophie is wearing her old cable knit sweater, paired with a brown skirt. Her hair is pinned as she always wears it, right side pulled back with a bobby pin, the rest hanging straight, brushing her jawbone. She looks as simple and sensible as always. Wh
ich reminds me …

  I rummage through my satchel. “I brought you something.” I pass over a parcel wrapped in brown paper. “An early Christmas present.”

  “Oh, Annalise.” Sophie takes the package and unties the string. The wrapping falls to the floor, as she holds up a burgundy sweater. She gasps. “It’s beautiful.” She runs a hand over the soft knitted fabric.

  “I thought the color would look nice on you. I hope it fits.”

  She holds the sweater to herself, hair falling into her face as she looks down at it. “It’s perfect. Might even make me look fashionable.” She smiles again. “Danke, Annalise.”

  Voices sound from somewhere in the house. My heart trips as I try to discern the cadences. “Is everyone else here?” I take off my coat and hang it on a hook alongside other coats and scarves. Two bicycles lean against the wall next to a standing hat rack.

  “Hans, Alex, and Willi have been here for hours. I told them to make themselves sandwiches for dinner, because I certainly wasn’t going to cook for them. I did enough of that in Ulm.” She laughs, bending to pick up the wrapping paper.

  “What about Kirk?” I try to sound casual, but a renegade flush rises in my cheeks.

  “Not yet.” Her knowing grin says she sees right through my subterfuge. “I don’t know why. It’s not like him”—the bell rings and both of our gazes swing to the door—“to be late.” She pauses. “I’m going to join the others. Why don’t you answer the door?” Then she’s gone, the sweater in her arms, footsteps receding up the stairs.

  The bell sounds again. I stare at the door, throat dry.

  I’m not ready for this. For so long, I’ve waited for it. Now that it’s here, I’m scared and unsure again. Will we disappoint each other? Will he find me changed since we last met, and if so, for the better?

  I turn, about to call Sophie back.

  Nein, Annalise. You can do this.