She hurried along the Hardenbergplatz toward the zoo, still trembling with the accomplishment of her first act of treason. She willed herself to walk more slowly, to smile like the others celebrating in the street, but her heart thudded so violently she was dizzy. She had delivered the little package of papers. The balding, spectacled little man had looked alarmed when she slid it toward him under the Völkischer Beobachter, but she gave the code phrase, “A nice day to be home listening to music,” and he replied, “Myself, I prefer Handel.” Obviously accepting her replacement of Frederica, he casually slid Katja’s packet toward him and let it drop on the floor before turning away to wait on another customer.
She had expected to be afraid, but had never anticipated having to make the drop on such a day as this, plowing her way through triumphant crowds. She forced a cold smile as people passed her, waving their flags. Shame on them. The British, Dutch, Belgian, and French soldiers who fell on the battlefield were one thing. They had declared war. But innocent Germans, men and women who wanted only to live, were in the camps now in their thousands. And the victory in the West increased the power of the regime that held them. Every cheer sickened her.
A few years ago she would have cheered as well. Did cheer, at the hollow ceremonies. How could she have been so blind? What else that she took for granted would prove to be false?
She was through the zoo entrance now and away from the cheering crowds, so she quickened her pace. No one was visiting the Lion House since everyone was outside cheering, so she went immediately to the storage room and knocked.
The door opened to the pale, sun-starved face of Peter, and without a sound, he drew her in and closed the door behind her. “You’ve heard the news, of course,” he said glumly.
“Yes, of course. But I refuse to believe it’s the end.” She sat down next to him on a crate and laid a package in his lap. “I know you get food in the canteen, but it can’t be very good.”
He laughed. “It’s all right. A lot of soup. And now and then I steal a tiny bit of the lions’ meat. It’s horseflesh and I roast it over a candle. It’s not so bad with salt.”
“Ah, I never thought of that. Very smart. Just don’t let them catch you.”
“Who? The zoo directors or the lions?”
She chuckled softly. “I don’t know which would be worse. But I’ve brought you something you can’t steal from the animals.” She helped him unwrap the package. “There’s sausage and cheese, of course. But my father loves prune cake, so I made a double portion, one for him and one for you. He never noticed.”
“Oh, God, I love prune cake.” He broke off a large corner and bit into it. “You have no idea how I’ve been craving sugar,” he mumbled through a full mouth.
“I’ll try to bring you more when I can get sugar again. Unfortunately, I’ve used up this month’s ration.” She hesitated for a moment, not wanting to suggest what she was thinking. “Now that the Nazis seem to have won the war, have you thought about trying to leave Germany?”
“Strange that you should ask. A number of people besides you know that I’m here. People on my mother’s side, who are members of a Zionist organization. They’re still managing to get Jews out of Germany. Mostly to Palestine.”
“Have they offered to help you?”
“Yes. My cousin Günther knows an expert forger who’d made a passport for a man who looks a lot like me. He died of pneumonia before he could use it, so Günther offered it to me. I told him no. I asked if they could make me a ration card instead.”
“Why didn’t you take it? Things are bound to get worse and it could save your life.”
“Because I don’t want to go to Palestine. I don’t believe a word of the Old Testament, and no one in my mother’s family has been to a synagogue in a generation. I’m only a half-Jew because the Germans say I am. Let them give that passport to a real Jew to go and live in the Jerusalem of their dreams. They’ve suffered enough and thousands of them would love to go.”
“That sounds very noble, but I don’t understand how you can pass up a chance to escape.”
“Well, the real reason is Rudi. I refuse to leave him here alone. I only wish I could do more to reach him. When I hear the thugs outside celebrating their victories, I get sick to my stomach.”
“Me too. But I’ve started working against them. I won’t tell you how, it would just put you in even more danger, but finally my conscience is clear.”
Peter threw his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, my brave Katja. I’m terrified they’ll arrest you, but I’m so proud you’ve finally seen what a monster Germany has become.”
“I’m terrified sometimes too, but I’m also relieved. I don’t underestimate what’s out there. I know it’s powerful and lethal. But it feels good to stand up to it.”
“I’m sure it does.” Peter looked at the clock over one of the iceboxes. “You’d better stand up now, in fact. Herr Riedel will be along in about ten minutes to measure out the food, and I don’t want to have to explain you. Will you come again in a few days? I need to see you from time to time so I don’t give up hope.”
“Of course. I’ll come as often as I can. I promise.” After a quick embrace, she slipped out of the storage room and into the corridor. It was still empty of visitors, and the only sound other than her own footfall was the low rumble of the big predators.
*
Katja worked a morning shift at the hospital and so was able to arrive at Frederica’s apartment shortly before she returned from the ministry. She stood at the top of the staircase waiting until the double clack of the handle on the downstairs door told her that someone had entered the building. She peered over the bannister and relaxed when she saw the familiar navy-blue beret over amber hair.
Frederica’s face also brightened when she saw who waited, though neither of them spoke until she had unlocked the door and admitted them both to the apartment. Katja started to speak, but Frederica pressed a finger to her own lips and pointed at the radio. It was set to the state-radio broadcast frequency, so it needed no tuning. On that day, the Ministry of Health was discussing the widespread success of the Strength through Joy program, which brought the youth of Germany together for patriotic woodland hiking. With the volume on high, Frederica beckoned Katja into the apartment.
“Nosey neighbors?” Katja asked, as she took off her coat.
“Of course,” Frederica said, sotto voce. “Especially Herr Dehbus upstairs. A real Nazi, that one. The other families, across the hall and downstairs, seem decent enough. They say ‘Guten Tag’ when we pass on the stairs instead of that ridiculous ‘Heil Hitler.’ Dehbus says it so often it comes out ‘heitler’! If he saw you arrive, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was lying with his ear pressed to the floor right now, trying to hear us.”
Hanging up both their coats, Frederica led Katja to the table next to the radio. In order to hear over the din, they had to sit close and speak directly into each other’s faces, which Katja found very agreeable.
“So, how did it go?” Frederica’s eyes bored into her with interest and concern.
“Oh, it worked just fine. The vendor seemed a little thrown to get the delivery from someone new, but otherwise it went smoothly. Do we know his name?”
“No. He doesn’t know mine either. We only acknowledge each other with the code phrases. If he doesn’t reply with his, we don’t exchange anything.”
“It’s a strange phrase. Why not remark about the weather or request a paper he doesn’t carry?”
“First, because anyone might remark about the weather or ask for another paper. And second, because Handel is the man in charge of the Berlin circuit.”
“That’s right. Did you ever meet him, or talk to him?”
“No, never, but after all these years, he feels a little like a sort of fairy godfather. Someone invisible who cares about what happens to me. Otherwise I work alone and anonymously.”
“It must be awfully lonely operating in a vacuum.” Speaking th
e word “lonely” so softly, and so close to Frederica’s cheek, felt less like a question than a flirtation.
“It’s the price one pays. When any two people meet, each one is a liability to the other, and that includes us now too.”
“I wouldn’t betray you,” Katja murmured with utter sincerity, then realized the subject was torture. “I mean, I would try very hard not to.”
“I’m sure you would. But it’s difficult to hold out until the end if you know any names. That’s what happened to three SOE agents, Cecily Lefort and Violette Szabo and Denise Bloch. They were in the French circuit, and Cecily was the only one I knew personally. I made a brief trip back to London in early 1939, just before the war started, and met her. She was very young and had just signed up. In between training sessions we did girlish things like shop for shoes. That was before I was assigned to Handel. Anyhow, I didn’t think much about her until a few months ago, when word filtered back that she had been captured along with the other two, after parachuting into occupied France. I told you I don’t hear much from Handel, only when I have to know something important. But this message was the first sign I got that Handel was worried personally about me. In any case, the capture of the three women caused a change of policy.”
“Does anyone know where they are?”
“No. They just went silent. The theory is that an agent captured earlier knew their names and betrayed them to the Nazis. Since then, none of us knows any of the others.”
“Do Rudi and Peter know that you’re ‘Caesar’?” Katja asked.
“No, and I’ve taken pains to keep them out of it. But when I left the Riefenstahl project, Rudi came to see me and I hinted I was starting something dangerous. I asked him not to quiz me further and he honored that request. It breaks my heart that I can’t help him in Sachsenhausen, but I think he knows by now I’m working for him in my own way. Peter also suspects, of course. By the way, have you seen him?”
“Yes, and he’s safe for the moment. He even turned down a chance to escape. Zionist friends of his mother offered him a forged passport so he could emigrate to Palestine, but he said he’d rather wait here for Rudi. Love makes people do reckless things.”
“And heroic things,” Frederica murmured.
“Yes, heroic ones, too.”
They both fell silent for a moment and let the radio broadcast drone on, extolling the joys and benefits of girls joining the Bund Deutscher Mädel. Frederica’s fingers slid softly across the table to barely touch Katja’s. “Who would have thought, when the thirteen of us were eating our little supper in Nuremberg, that some of us would be committing treason?”
The electricity of the touch shot up Katja’s arm to her heart, which began to pound. How unutterably sweet was the first touch that connected them. More precious than their two combative kisses, their fingertips, reaching each other across the abyss of fear and the fog of Nazi propaganda, signaled a pledge.
Frederica took Katja’s hand and held it like a little bridge over which their talk flowed. “It’s terrible when you think of what we did there in Nuremberg. We contracted with the devil. We all added our voices, talents, even genius, to the creation of this state, this Vaterland intoxication. And look what it’s doing to us now.”
“What’s happened to the rest, I wonder,” Katja said softly. “The thirteen from that table. I know that Leni Riefenstahl and Sepp Allgeier are still filming as if nothing were happening.”
“Well, Rudi’s in Sachsenhausen and Peter’s in hiding, Dietrich and Marti are in the Wehrmacht, and Marti’s son by now is in the Hitlerjugend. Who else is caught up in it?”
“Erich Prietschke for sure. He’s in the SS.”
“Hans Gottschalk joined the navy. Last I heard he was on the Battleship Bismarck. Vogel and Koehler? I don’t know.”
Frederica held Katja’s hand in both her own, but seemed to look deep inside herself. “It’s going to last a long time, you know. People are saying Germany will win and it will be over by Christmas, but they’re wrong. I’ve read the ravings of Goebbels and I know what’s in his mind. He’s both servile and ambitious, and he burns to follow Hitler to the end. They’ll keep pushing east and they’ll probably get far. But Russia and the United States are sleeping giants, and who knows what will happen after that.”
Frederica brought the hand up to her own face, brushing her lips softly over the palm, then laid her cheek on it.
“I’m with you in this until the end, whatever it is,” Katja said. “I love you, you know.”
“I know. But your husband loves you too.”
Hurt by the remark, Katja drew her hand away. “What’s that supposed to mean? You’re trying to bring down the Third Reich, but about Dietrich you suddenly have scruples?”
“You don’t? He’s on a battlefield right now and he thinks he’s fighting for you.” She paused, forming her thoughts. “I shouldn’t have to tell you how precious you’ve become to me. I think about you day and night and can’t imagine carrying on without you. But don’t you see? How terrible it would be to tear you away from the man who loves you the same way that young Communist tore my mother away from me.”
Katja stood up and took a step away from the table, exasperated. “The situations are not parallel. Dietrich is not a child,” she said in full voice.
Silently, Frederica stood up as well, took Katja by the hand, and guided her back to the table and the protection of the radio noise. Caressing Katja’s cheek, she murmured, “You must believe me. I want you more than I ever realized I could want anyone, but it is possible to love someone without claiming them. Please, let that be enough for now.”
Katja took hold of the gentle hand, started to speak, then shook her head, resisting the retort she was about to make. She exhaled. “All right, for now. So, what’s next?”
“I carry on stealing information from the Goebbels diaries and you carry on passing them to Handel. Until the tide turns, or they catch us. I can’t live any other way.”
The radio broadcast ended and they no longer had protection from eavesdropping neighbors. There seemed nothing left to say, anyhow. Wordlessly, Katja stood up from the table and fetched her coat from the hook by the door. “I should be going, shouldn’t I?”
Frederica helped her on with her coat, then encircled her with her arms from behind. Katja relaxed into the embrace, close to tears with longing, until Frederica stepped away. “Until next time,” she said brightly, meaninglessly, for whoever was listening.
“Yes, next time,” Katja said, and cringed at the sound of the door closing behind her. She forced the first step away from the apartment, then the next one and the next. But by the time she was outside on the street, the magnitude of the day’s events struck her.
Within twenty-four hours she had committed treason, for which she could be executed, and she had fallen in love.
Chapter Twenty
June 22, 1941
At eight in the evening Katja returned home bone weary from work at the hospital. She was also depressed, since on her way home, she realized it had been a year since she had joined Frederica in their biweekly act of espionage, and nothing seemed to have changed.
Rudi was still in Sachsenhausen, Peter still hiding in the Lion House, Dietrich was still reminding her of the children they were going to have, and Frederica was still physically unavailable.
The love and loyalty they had implicitly pledged was deeply satisfying in every way but one. Something new had arisen in her that she had never known before, and that was lust, the overwhelming desire to learn every part of Frederica’s body and to engage in carnality of a sort she had no idea how to carry out. Its suppression was an engine that drove her, week after week, to risk her life, to carry out their mission, as much to be a part of Frederica’s world as for the redemption of Germany.
Yet the war hammered on, calling on ever more of Germany’s reserves, ever more of its young men. Bafflingly, the increasing hardship did not elicit resentment among the people, but rather a gro
wing fervor to enact the roles the party created for them. Just two days earlier, Germany had violated its non-aggression pact and attacked Russia, widening the war by a continent, and all Katja heard was the call to greater, nobler patriotism.
She hung her coat on the hook, grateful that her father cooked on the days she worked late, and was about to go to the kitchen when she saw Dietrich’s letter. The poor man had been home only twice in the past year, and each time for so short a period she didn’t need to lie to him about the work she did or the life she led. He was always so grateful to be near her that he never talked about anything but their future.
She was in no hurry to open the letter, and only after she had greeted her father and set the table did she read it, expecting the usual regrets and platitudes. But they were absent. Dietrich was in Russia now, and it was clear that Russia was changing him.
My dearest Katja,
It is a filthy job fighting the Russians, but finally I see why we must do it. The pitiful mobs that descend on us are lowlife criminals fueled by vodka and fear of their own commissars’ pistols at the back of their heads. The Bolshevik hordes really are animals, and finally meeting them has made a lasting impression on me. If I ever had any doubts about the importance of this war in the East, they are gone now. These sub-humans have been whipped into a frenzy by the Jews and our standing up to them came just in time. The Führer has saved Europe from chaos.
Katja set the letter aside as her father sat down across the table from her. “Anything new?” he asked, as he always did, serving out the eternal potatoes without listening for an answer. “We’ve got mushrooms tonight,” he added. “Our neighbor was in the woods this morning and I bought some from her.”
“The war is hardening him.” Katja returned to the letter. “Before he always talked about fighting for me and our children, but he’s beginning to sound more bloodthirsty.”
Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright Page 12