Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

by Anne Blankman

  “Oh, Miss Whitestone, please come in.” She ushered Gretchen into a parlor crowded with old-fashioned furniture and around a wooden table so wide that Gretchen had to walk sideways to reach the sofa. Daniel often joked that he was afraid to breathe in there or risk breaking one of Mrs. Mitchell’s precious things.

  Gretchen folded her hands in her lap, waiting for Mrs. Mitchell to go to the foot of the stairs and call to Daniel to come down, as she usually did. Instead, she went to the desk in the corner, unlocked a drawer, and took out an envelope.

  “Mr. Cohen asked me to give you this,” she said, crossing the room and pressing the envelope into Gretchen’s hand. “I’ll give you a moment to read it.”

  She strode from the room, leaving Gretchen staring after her in confusion. Daniel had never left a note for her before. She tore open the envelope.

  My Gretchen,

  Aaron was attacked. He’s in the hospital and the doctors aren’t sure if he’ll survive.

  She gasped. She remembered Aaron Pearlman, Daniel’s cousin, so well. He’d let her stay with him and his sister, Ruth, for a night, when she’d had nowhere else to go. She turned back to the letter.

  The National Socialists were having a parade through Munich. Apparently, nowadays everyone is supposed to salute as they go past. But Aaron didn’t. Several of the National Socialists left the parade and beat him in the street, while others watched and did nothing. Ruth screamed at them to stop, and they only laughed at her. The doctors say he has massive internal injuries.

  I must go back. By the time you read this, I’ll have already left. The men who beat Aaron need to be brought to justice. Don’t worry—I’ll be careful. I’ll use my false papers, and I’ll contact my old colleagues at the Munich Post. They have a far-flung network of informants, and if anyone knows who’s responsible, they will. Once I have the men’s names, I’ll give them to Ruth, so she can tell the police. I don’t know if they’ll arrest the guilty men, as there are plenty of National Socialists on the police force. But I’ll have done something, at least. I can’t live with myself if I don’t try.

  I will come back to you as soon as I can.

  Your Daniel

  The paper shook in her hands. Returning to Munich was suicide. Daniel couldn’t hope to sneak back into the city undetected; surely his face was too well known. As the despised Jew who’d dared to fall in love with Hitler’s “sunshine,” he would be hunted down and killed.

  She read the letter a second time, as if by seeing the words again she could somehow change their meaning. Daniel had written in German, even though they’d been careful to talk only in English since they’d disembarked from the ship at Dover months ago, tired and hungry and with only nine pounds between them. No possessions, no spare clothes, nothing but each other and the false identification papers they’d paid so much to get. Gretchen’s dry eyes burned. And now Daniel had plunged back into the nightmare.

  She got up and stumbled out of the parlor and down the front steps. Her legs were trembling so badly she could barely clamber onto the bicycle. She pedaled down the road, heading northeast, toward home, all of her movements automatic. Dimly, she heard automobiles gliding past and the rattle of a pram’s wheels on the pavement. Daniel’s letter rustled in her coat pocket.

  Somehow she got back to the Whitestones’ house, although she couldn’t remember bicycling there. Moving like an automaton, she went through the parlor, where Julia, the governess, and the boys stopped talking to stare at her. The effort to lift each foot onto the next step seemed like too much, but she managed to get up them and into her room. Then she curled into a ball on her bed and let the tears come.

  What if Daniel made a mistake—trusted the wrong person, walked down a street where somebody recognized him, or forgot to respond to his false name, Leopold? There were so many things that could go wrong.

  She had to concentrate on the flow of air in and out of her lungs, just so she could breathe. In her mind, she saw Daniel flashing his confident, lopsided grin, and her heart ached. Daniel wasn’t who she had thought she wanted, when they had met. But he was who she needed. Now and always, he was who she needed.

  The door opened, but Gretchen just pressed her wet cheek to the bedspread, rounding her shoulders, as if she could pull herself into her own private grief. The mattress dipped as someone sat down next to her.

  “What’s happened?” It was Julia’s voice. She smoothed Gretchen’s hair from her face, just as Gretchen used to wish her own mother would do. Gretchen closed her eyes, clinging to the sensation of Julia’s fingers, light and cool on her scalp, and the whole story streamed out.

  When she had finished, there was silence for a moment. Then Julia sighed. “He’ll return as quickly as he can. Daniel loves you with his whole heart. Alfred and I knew that from the moment you two showed up on our doorstep.” She laughed a little. “I’ll never forget the sight of you—so pale and skinny and exhausted. It was obvious Daniel was in terrible pain, but he wouldn’t let Alfred inspect his arm until he saw that I’d gotten you something to eat.”

  She hesitated. “You’re lucky, Gretchen, to have a young man who places his duty to his family above his own safety and happiness. There aren’t many who would be so brave. He’ll be back before you’ve had time to miss him.”

  Shaking her head, Gretchen said nothing. Julia didn’t understand. How could she, when she had never attended a Party rally in the Circus Krone where the hundreds of people in the audience roared, “Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!” or lingered over coffee at Café Heck, listening to Hitler go on and on about his future plans? I shall do the thing the rest of the world would like to do, he’d muttered to one of his comrades while she’d traced the wet circle left by her glass on the table, sixteen and bored. They don’t know how to get rid of the Jews. I will teach them.

  If Hitler found Daniel, he would show him no mercy.

  “Rest,” Julia said. “Everything will seem better in the morning.”

  But nothing would be different tomorrow; Daniel would still be gone. Gretchen opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. Beside her, Julia murmured reassuringly and smoothed her hair. They stayed that way for a long time.

  Six days dragged past. At breakfast, Gretchen half listened to the wireless and scoured the morning newspapers, reading every article about Germany, searching the tiny print for Daniel’s name without finding it. During the day, she lost herself in her lessons and could almost forget Daniel had left. But then the memory of Daniel’s leaving would crash over her like a wave, pinning her to the ocean floor.

  After school, she slumped on the parlor sofa, staring at the same geometry problem, willing her frozen brain to work. Alfred and Julia were listening to the wireless. From the kitchen, Gretchen heard Cook humming as she prepared supper, and thumps and shrieks of laughter drifted downstairs from the nursery. It should have felt like an ordinary afternoon, but everything seemed unfamiliar, the mundane routine transformed by Daniel’s absence.

  The tinny voice from the wireless sliced into her thoughts. “Germans are in a state of shock today,” he was saying.

  Gretchen bolted upright. “What did he say?”

  Julia set down her knitting, concern etched on her face. “Gretchen, are you all right—”

  “Shh!” Alfred leaned forward. “We need to hear this.”

  The announcer continued in a smooth voice, “At nine o’clock last night, February the twenty-seventh, Berlin was the target of a terrorist attack heard around the world. Person or persons unknown set fire to the Reichstag, the building where the German legislative assembly convene. According to some sources, the fire may be the work of either the Nazis or the Communists, Germany’s two most powerful political parties. For our listeners who don’t follow German politics, the parties are bitter rivals and have battled each other for supremacy in the Reichstag for the past few years.”

  Gretchen barely breathed, afraid to miss a single word.

  “Today, President Hindenburg and Chancellor Hi
tler declared a state of emergency and issued the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and the State,” the announcer went on. “The decree suspends all major civil liberties, including freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom to assemble. Letters, telephone calls, and telegrams may be intercepted by the police at any time. We have been told that there is widespread panic in the streets of Berlin, and its residents fear more imminent terrorist attacks.”

  The announcer paused for breath and then launched into another story. Gretchen’s mouth had gone as dry as sand. Was Hitler responsible for the fire? Throughout her childhood, the Communists had been the National Socialists’ fiercest opponents, and Hitler despised them. He had taught her that Communism was like an infectious disease spreading down from the vast Russian steppes. A political system designed by Jews meant to enslave non-Jewish nations, he used to say, tapping her nose playfully.

  “My God,” Alfred said in a hushed voice. “Gretchen, do you think Hitler is behind this?”

  “Maybe.” She knew too well that he would stop at nothing, even murder, to advance his political career. Now, in one night, he had been granted two of his most fervent wishes: a means to destroy the Communists and to monitor the German population. Thanks to this presidential decree, nobody was assured of any privacy in Germany.

  And that meant no letters from Daniel. He wouldn’t contact her for he wouldn’t want anyone to read his mail and learn her location. Thank God he was in Munich, hundreds of miles from the chaos in Berlin. But that was no guarantee he was safe.

  Julia crossed the room to sit next to her. “Hitler can’t hope to get away with it,” she said firmly. “Sooner or later, people will realize how wicked he is and have him removed from office.”

  Gretchen couldn’t find her voice. Maybe Julia was right, but what if Daniel was in trouble right now? He could be dead or imprisoned, and she had no way of finding out.

  Somehow, Gretchen managed to slog through her lessons, bicycle home, sit in her bedroom staring at blank pieces of paper that should have been covered with her homework assignments. She read every newspaper she could get her hands on, but none of the articles about Germany mentioned Daniel’s name. They focused on the Reichstag blaze instead. A twenty-four-year-old named Marinus van der Lubbe had been arrested on the scene. As he was half blind, it seemed impossible that he could have set the fire by himself, and no one else had been accused yet.

  The information gave Gretchen pause. If Hitler had ordered the fire set in an effort to frame the Communists and create a national emergency suspending civil liberties, then wouldn’t he have chosen a better scapegoat? It didn’t make sense. The sensation of déjà vu swept over her. Something about this fire seemed familiar, but she couldn’t pinpoint what it was. As far as she could recall, Hitler hadn’t been mixed up in arson before. She was too worried about Daniel, though, to puzzle over it further.

  At school, nobody asked what she thought of the mysterious fire in her homeland, although several of her friends wanted to know how Daniel was faring and when he would be back. She shrugged, too heartsick to answer.

  “Now, Gretchen,” Mary said five days later, linking their arms and guiding Gretchen away from the cluster of girls on the school’s front steps, “you needn’t put up a brave front with me and the other girls. It’s obvious what’s happened to Daniel.”

  Gretchen started in surprise. “It is?”

  “Of course.” Mary gave her a sad smile. “He’s gone back to Germany to live, hasn’t he? I daresay he’s awfully handsome, but there are plenty of other fellows out there, and any of them would be lucky to have you. Just wait. It won’t be long before you’ve forgotten all about him and moved on to somebody else.”

  A hysterical laugh bubbled in Gretchen’s chest. This was what her friends thought she was worried about? That Daniel had broken things off with her? How little the English understood what was happening in her country. In a way, she supposed she couldn’t blame them—the terrorist attack in Berlin must seem like a dream to them, here in their snug homes, where they had enough coal to warm them and food to fill their bellies.

  Many people in Oxford were poor, too, for the Depression had struck here, as well. But they didn’t know how it felt to see the streets of their city swarming with men in different political party uniforms, truncheons in their hands. They didn’t know how it felt to watch one shoddily constructed government after another collapse, and to go to bed hungry most nights while your parents wept because they didn’t have the money to feed you.

  Gretchen’s eyes met Mary’s, which were shining and sympathetic. She pushed her laugh down deep inside. It wasn’t Mary’s fault that she didn’t understand.

  “Thanks,” she said. Mary beamed and they returned to their cluster of friends to talk about the upcoming geometry exam.

  When she got home, Gretchen slipped into the front hall and leaned against the wall. It was a relief to be alone, where she didn’t have to paste on fake smiles for anyone’s benefit, answer Julia and Alfred’s concerned questions about Daniel—No, I’ve heard nothing yet—or smile at her friends’ misguided concern. She could clutch her throbbing head in her hands, praying that she would get something from Daniel, a letter, a telegram, anything to let her know that he was all right. Even though part of her knew he wouldn’t dare getting in touch with her.

  From upstairs, she heard the boys shrieking with laughter. Sighing, she automatically reached for the pile of afternoon post on a side table. Nothing from Daniel. But her hand paused over the final envelope, where “Miss Whitestone” had been written in unfamiliar script.

  She ripped it open. It was from Daniel’s editor at the Oxford Mail, saying that he had received a strange telegram this morning from Munich and was enclosing it in hopes that she would be able to decipher it.

  Her heart surged into her throat. She pulled the telegram from the envelope.

  They know the Lion has returned.

  The Lion—it must be a code word for Daniel. He’d been named for the Old Testament Daniel, who’d been thrown into a den of lions. Only a friend would have known that.

  Lion wanted for murder in Berlin. Not seen in days. Possibly dead.

  4

  A CRY BURST FROM GRETCHEN’S THROAT. HER mind seemed to have frozen; all she could think over and over was no. She stared at her fingers, tightened to white on the telegram; somehow they looked unreal.

  From the kitchen, she heard Julia asking if she was all right, but her mouth wouldn’t work. Dead. She wouldn’t believe it.

  She flipped the telegram over and shook the envelope upside down, as if there might be another piece of paper, something that said this had all been a terrible mistake, and Daniel was fine and on his way back to England even now. But there was nothing else except for the name of the man who had sent the telegram, typed neatly under the message: Fritz Gerlich.

  Then there was no mistake. Herr Gerlich was the anti–National Socialist journalist whom Daniel liked and respected more than any other. Although they hadn’t worked together, they admired each other greatly. She still remembered his quiet gaze and soft voice. He wouldn’t have written this telegram unless he was certain it was true.

  Something about the message swam to the front of her consciousness. She stared at the telegram again. Why would Daniel be wanted for murder in Berlin? He was incapable of killing, of course, and he was in Munich, hundreds of miles from the capital.

  She took a deep breath but the pressure in her chest didn’t ease. This must be how the National Socialists planned to get rid of him. They’d found out that he was back in Germany, but they mustn’t have been able to find him or they’d simply kill him. Instead, they’d set the police on his trail. Thoughts blew about her head like leaves in a windstorm. Focus, she ordered herself. Falling apart wouldn’t help Daniel.

  She began to pace. Daniel had been spotted by his enemies, but they hadn’t captured him. Somehow, he’d managed to get away. Perhaps he’d used his ol
d sources to help him—when he’d worked as a reporter in Munich, he’d had a network of contacts throughout the city, including in the police force. Maybe someone had tipped him off about the upcoming arrest. He was too clever not to understand his precarious position. He was brave, but he wasn’t reckless.

  He would have gone underground. He might still be alive.

  Gretchen stopped pacing. There was no decision to make; no options to consider. She knew what she had to do.

  Julia’s heels clicked on the floor as she hurried into the room, with Alfred close behind. “What is it?” Alfred asked. “We were just having tea when we heard you cry out. Are you hurt?”

  Her hands shook as she handed him the telegram. “It’s Daniel. I have to go to him.”

  Alfred and Julia scanned the telegram, then looked up as one, their faces pale. “I’ll get in touch with the police in Munich,” Alfred said, “and see what we can find out.”

  “They won’t tell you anything!” Gretchen shouted. “Many of them are National Socialists!” She took a deep breath, struggling to lower her voice. “I have to do it. There’s nobody else.”

  Alfred’s face seemed to crumple. “Absolutely not! It’s far too dangerous.”

  “Darling.” Julia laid her hand on his arm. “She loves him,” she said quietly. “And I think Gretchen will go, whether we give her permission or not. Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

  He started to argue, but Gretchen barely heard him. She made for the stairs, calling back, “Daniel’s in trouble. And I’m going after him.”

  Gretchen raced to the wardrobe in her bedroom and flung its doors open. What did she need? Her old false papers, and a few changes of clothing, nothing too English looking, pleated skirts and silk blouses and woolen stockings. She grabbed clothes off hangers and tossed them onto the bed. Money. She had thirty pounds saved, not nearly enough, and it was at the bank. Here at home, she had only a couple of half crowns in her purse.