At precisely two forty, as Ilse starts her concluding paragraph (While it hasn’t been reported by the Jew-controlled press, cases of Jewish ritual murder have been authenticated as recently as 1932…) her vigilance is finally rewarded. Renate emerges from her apartment in her familiar green coat, looking typically flustered and rushed. As she races off toward the Charlottenburg station Ilse imagines her bursting into class, breathless and pink-cheeked, spouting the same apologies that used to drive Ilse herself mad: The underground was slow. Franz stole my shoes. I couldn’t find my hairbrush/change purse/jacket/Kennkarte.
For a moment Ilse almost smiles. Then she remembers why it is that she’s been waiting here in the first place, and the smile slides from her face like shifting light.
* * *
She has come back to the Bauers’ because her last mission to the household was judged unsuccessful by the only judge who matters in this situation: SS Obergruppenführer von Helldorff, Berlin’s notoriously sadistic chief of police. “This was a very generous opportunity that we’d given you,” he’d reminded Ilse after her last summons to his office. “A chance to redeem yourself after what I, at least, consider the rather serious transgression of interfering with the people’s justice.”
The reference had made Ilse’s hands prickle with sweat.
Eight months after “Berlin’s Night of Righteous Retribution” by I. M. Fischer had gone to press, two Gestapo agents had burst into the BDM editorial office and dragged Ilse outside and into a black sedan. They took her to national Gestapo headquarters, a darkly Gothic-looking building that wears its manicured front garden the way a dragon might wear a tiara. She’d been unsure on the drive what they wanted of her—after all, over half a year had passed since her Kristallnacht encounter with the Bauers. But it quickly became clear as they grilled her: Why had she given a false name to the stormtrooper last November? What was her history with the Bauer family, and Otto Bauer in particular? What were her views on the Jewish question? On Party loyalty? On “the underground Bolshevist movement”?
She’d denied everything, of course. Retrieving the excuses she’d prepared months earlier in anticipation of just this event (even as she dared hope that she wouldn’t actually have to use them) she’d said the SS thugs had misheard her name, which was no surprise as they were utterly drunk. She said that while she’d been friendly with the Bauers at one point in her life, she’d had no idea that they were actually Jews. She’d said she truly had believed that the stormtroopers had made an error, and that her goal had been to protect them from the possible repercussions.
Still, for more than four hours the agents wheedled, cajoled, shouted. At points they’d even screamed directly into her face, a tactic that frightened Ilse enough that she’d almost urinated right there on the spot, especially since they’d also denied her use of the washroom. Even more frightening, however, was the sickening expectation that sooner or later the attack would turn physical. After all, she wasn’t naïve. She knew that suspects brought to this particular basement quite often only left it on stretchers—or in coffins.
Instead of beating her, however, the agents had driven her to von Helldorff’s office, where she was again denied the use of the washroom. Her bare thighs tightly crossed and her stomach knotted in terror, she’d stood trembling as the Obergruppenführer—whose round blue eyes and pointy ears might have reminded her of Dopey the Dwarf, had they not been topped by the death’s-head-emblazoned cap on his head—laid out her options. Option A was securing evidence of Franz Bauer’s suspected involvement in illegal activities, in which case not only would the black mark on her record be expunged, but von Helldorff would support her application for a choice position in the newly opened propaganda offices in Lodz—and after the war, perhaps even a university scholarship.
Option B was a return trip to Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8. This time, he implied, it would be one-way.
It was a choice that, in other words, was not a choice at all. Still: “I’ll think about it,” she’d told him breathlessly, hoping to at least buy herself time.
“Don’t think too long,” he’d said coldly. “I’ll be away for the summer’s remainder. When I return I’ll expect some intelligence.”
True to his word, he’d called her back in October, his eyes glinting when Ilse confessed she still hadn’t carried out her mission. “It’s been very busy since the invasion,” she’d said desperately. “There is so much to write about, and we’ve been quite short-staffed on the editorial desk.”
“I will give you one more month,” he’d said, ominously. “If you still come up empty you’ll have far more to worry about than your schoolgirl newsletter.”
Now, slowly walking the few short blocks to the Bauers’ front door, Ilse reviews her plan. She isn’t certain when Renate’s class ends, but she doubts she’ll be home until sometime after six. Her mother should be home at roughly the same time or later (she works late a lot at the Jewish Hospital, Renate had said). And Professor Bauer, hopefully, will remain in his room, where according to Renate he now spends all his time.
Which leaves just one unknown: Franz himself. Renate had said nothing about his schedule. And since Ilse hadn’t thought to ask, she has no idea whether he is even home. During her three-hour vigil she’d been hoping to catch him en route in or out, or for a deliveryman or a letter carrier who might summon him to the door. She’d even toyed with the idea of sending something herself, as it rather strikes her as something Madeleine Carroll might have done in I Was a Spy. In the end, though, she had to recognize that she was really just procrastinating. And when she reaches the front door she still finds herself hesitating before finally lifting the tarnished brass knocker. After the three rat-tat-tat’s she presses her ear against the painted wood.
At first there is no response. But just as she is breathing a sigh of sheepish relief she hears a door upstairs slam. The sound is followed by the forgotten-yet-familiar rhythm of Franz’s uneven footsteps, syncopated by the drag of his weak leg, punctuated by the thud of his cane.
With a deep breath, she forces herself to remain rooted, reminding herself of every reason she has found for coming here in the first place: the dank basement of Sicherheitsdienst headquarters. The fragrant farmlands of the New Germany. The once-forbidden and hallowed halls of higher learning…
Franz reaches the entrance. There is another brief silence before the inside bolt is thrown back.
And then: there he is. Taller than she’d remembered, or than she’d noticed last November; he must have grown several centimeters. But there’s the same mass of dark curls, though now shaggier and longer. The same brown eyes, warm and liquid and even larger-looking because his face is so much more drawn and thin. But they are still framed by those ridiculously long lashes. The most lovely eyes of any woman I know.
“Ja?” he says.
“Hallo.” It comes out between a giggle and a croak. Feeling her cheeks heat, she fakes a cough, forces a laugh. “Sorry,” she says. “Fighting a cold.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” His expression is wary but not surprised. “Ren’s not here. She’s off at the Community Center, learning how to finger-wave and backward roll.”
This time the laugh is real. “You make it sound as though she’s practicing gymnastics.”
The quip slips out almost before she’s aware of having come up with it. She worries briefly that she’s already ruined it all; that now he’ll know that she’s really here for him.
But Franz just smiles the same smile she’d forgotten she’d always loved: sleepy. Sweet. Just a little bit impish.
“I’d give her ten seconds before she fell on her face,” he says.
“If that.” She manages another laugh. “What time is she back?”
“Six-ish, I think. Unless she burns the place down with her curling tongs before then.” He shrugs. “I’ll tell her you stopped by.”
“Actually,” she says quickly, “I’m glad you’re here. I had a question for you.”
He pauses, his hand still on the door.
“Renate and I were talking about a Kafka quote,” she goes on. She hopes desperately that she sounds as natural and nonchalant as she did while practicing it in her head. Lying effectively, she has learned, requires sticking mostly to the truth: finding just enough honest bits to land on amid the flow of her fabrication that, by hopping from one to the next, she can credibly navigate her way through the deception.
“I was trying to remember which book it came from,” she goes on now. “I even popped into your room, because I thought I remembered that you had it. But she said you’d gotten rid of your Kafka.”
“She told you I’d dumped them?”
“Because of the ban.”
“And you don’t believe it?”
She shrugs, though the question sets off an alarm. What answer does he want? Of course I do? I know you’re a loyal citizen? Though of course, that would be a lie in and of itself—not just the loyalty part but the citizenship too. They both know that he’s no longer, legally, a German. He is simply a “subject of the State.”
Franz is still waiting, his expression indecipherable. Ilse hesitates, then takes the leap.
“Of course I don’t,” she says, and offers a guileless smile.
As his dark eyes narrow there’s a plunging sensation in her stomach. I’ve ruined it, she thinks again. But then he breaks into a laugh, those deeply husky peals of hilarity that always feel like their own rewards for unlocking. The relief is so sharp that her limbs weaken with it.
Stepping back, he opens the door fully. “I’ll admit I’ve missed you, von Fischer,” he says.
“Me as well,” she says, and steps in.
* * *
His room hasn’t changed much since the days when Ilse was a regular household member here. The carpet is gone, as are most of the carpets in the house (sold, Ilse assumes). So is the Karl Marx poster he’d had above his desk for years. In its place (and Ilse can’t help but smile when she sees it) is a red-toned French movie poster for Une Nuit à l’Opéra, with cartoon pictures of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico.
“Have you switched political parties?” she asks, indicating it with her chin.
He smiles. “You might say I’ve raised my standards.”
Giggling, she lowers herself into his creaky desk chair. As he surveys his crowded bookshelf, she surreptitiously studies the rest of the space: the worn leather armchair. The rumpled bed with the paisley bedspread. The ashtray perched precariously on the leaning tower of books that seems a permanent extension of his bedside table. There is no sign of anything even vaguely illicit.
“So when are you really leaving?”
“Two days, ten hours. Actually—” A quick glance at his bedside clock. “Nine and a half hours now.”
The immediacy makes her gut plummet. Had Renate mentioned it would be this soon?
“I take it you’re excited,” she manages.
“Relieved, mainly. They made us jump through more hoops than you can imagine. On both sides.” He is running his hands across the eighteen-volume set of the Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon that has resided on his top shelf for as long as Ilse remembers. “What was the quote?”
“Something about warding off life’s despair with one hand, but writing about it with the other.”
“Doesn’t sound like one of his novels.” Pulling several volumes of the Brockhaus down, he limps to where she is sitting and sets the encyclopedias down with a thud.
“Would it really be in that?” When Franz likes an author, she knows, he becomes obsessive about collecting their works. Given how much he loves Kafka it seems odd to her that he’d seek the quote in a secondhand source.
“You never know what’s in good old Brockhaus.” Eyes twinkling, he pushes one toward her. “Take a look.”
Ilse hesitates. She remembers this expression. It’s the one he wears when he’s pulling off a prank: pie-sheeting Renate’s bed on a sleepover night. Replacing sugar with salt for afternoon tea. When Renate got her first two brassieres Franz hung one from the second-floor flagpole as she and Ilse approached the house after school. Ilse vividly remembers Renate’s face upon spotting it: the way it went almost as white as the lace-trimmed cotton on public display.
“Go on,” he says mildly. “It won’t bite.”
Holding her breath, she lifts the battered cover of the volume closest to her—and gasps. The tome’s pages have been almost completely carved out, creating a large, hollow box. Nestled inside like bookish Matryoshka dolls are three slim volumes: The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and Amerika. Delighted, she lifts them out.
“Is the whole series hiding contraband?” she asks, looking back at the bookshelf.
“Just every other volume,” he says. “That way if some dunderhead of an officer is sharp enough to take one down, the odds are that he’ll open up a real book. Though I’ve enlisted a few other genres in the resistance.” Turning back to the bookshelf, he points to a 1927 world atlas, the combined Iliad and Odyssey, and Volumes I and II of Musil’s ponderous The Man without Qualities.
“You took a knife to Homer?” Ilse asks, covering her mouth in mock horror.
“We’ve got four editions. It’s not as if Otto is going to miss one,” he retorts dryly. Picking up the Brockhaus Glied through Henare edition, he drops onto his bed with it. “Especially not these days.”
“Is he here?”
“In a sense. Locked in his room and his head.”
His expression doesn’t change, but there’s a bleakness in his voice that makes Ilse want to reach for his hand.
“Renate told me about his condition,” she says instead. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You’re the first one yet who’s really tried to help us.”
Ilse finds she can’t look at him. “Surely there’ve been others.”
“At first.” He’s pulling another volume from the hollowed-out encyclopedia. Setting the gutted shell beside him he begins flipping through its pages. “At first everyone was horrified. No one believed it was happening. No one believed it would last.” He recites it in a mocking drone, running a fingertip down a margin. “But that’s the strange thing about hell. The longer you’re stuck in it, the less those who’ve been spared seem to notice.” He flips a page. “Do you remember my university friend Diederich Schuchard? Tall fellow, blond? Long skinny nose? He used to come here to copy my Weimar Law notes every week.”
“Was he the one with that insufferably affected Viennese accent?”
“Ha.” A quick, approving look. “You’ve still got a memory like a trap.”
She blushes again, absurdly pleased by the compliment.
He continues, finger still planted on the page. “About two years ago he, like almost everyone, had stopped coming round. Which is fine. No, really. It’s dangerous to be seen with Jews, and I understand that. You just happen to be braver than most.”
She picks at a cuticle, feeling loathsome.
“Anyway,” he resumes. “I bumped into him outside a music shop. My mind is on something else, because it’s always on something else nowadays. But I stop, just reflexively. Just for a quick fancy-meeting-here kind of exchange. ‘Why, hello, Schuchard,’ I said. ‘It’s been ages.’ ”
He looks up at her. “Do you know what he did?”
She waits, holding her breath.
“He spit on me,” Franz says. “Landed right on my shoulder.”
He lifts his finger to indicate the spot on his worn-looking navy jumper. “And it wasn’t a very delicate sort of spit, if you get my meaning. I think he was coming down with a head cold.”
The way he recounts it—a bitter-tart blend of humor and resignation, as though the main point is not woe is me but see this f
oolish, marvelous world we inhabit together—nevertheless makes Ilse’s throat tighten.
“Odd,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “He never struck me as an ideologue. I actually considered him more of a Marxist. Like you.”
He just shrugs again. “He was. At first. And when Hitler landed as Chancellor he was as disgusted as any of us.” He drops his gaze back to the book, turning a page. “But now that the current’s swung the other way he just wants to ride it along. Who gives a damn if people like us drown.”
“I do,” she says, with an indignation that surprises her.
“I know.” There is no trace of laughter in his voice now.
For a moment neither speaks. She feels his gaze like a ray of late-afternoon sun, its golden warmth just barely lessened by the melancholy promise of sunset.
He doesn’t deserve this, she thinks, with a stab of remorse so overwhelming she grips the sides of the chair. I should make up an excuse. I should leave now.
And in her mind, and in that moment, Ilse does precisely this: gets out of the creaky chair. Races out the door and home to her room. In her mind she types up a report saying she found no evidence whatsoever that Franz Bauer or anyone else at the house was involved in anti-Reich activities. And when questioned about this by Obergruppenführer Helldorff, she looks him straight back in his fish-pale eyes and confirms it.
Because, after all, it is still the truth.
But then her mind shifts to the basement of Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 8, the two agents circling her chair like preying panthers.
Looking back, Ilse will later try to pinpoint the moment she decided to remain in Franz’s chair, in Franz’s room, and she will come up empty. But this, nevertheless, is exactly what she does: she stays just where she is. She holds the course.
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