Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke

by Anne Blankman

  Well, she’d never locate it if she didn’t get started. She ran her hands over the walls, squinting for the white flash of paper concealed behind a loose panel. Snowflakes drifted through the empty ceiling, hitting her shoulders, pressing dampness into her skin and making her shiver.

  For several minutes, she worked methodically, finishing one section and moving on to the next. By now the Reichstag session was probably over, the Enabling Act passed, and the deputies on their way out to celebrate. Göring might come into his foyer at any second.

  Laws can be repealed, she promised herself, working faster, yanking down panels, the heat-weakened wood giving easily in her hands. Somewhere behind her, a hissing sound cut through the air. She stopped, trying to identify where it had come from, but all had gone silent again.

  She ripped another panel down and stared as a white piece of paper fluttered loose from it and drifted toward the floor. This had to be the report. She let out a half-gasping laugh. I did it, Daniel, she thought, tears spurting into her eyes. We’ve got them, at last.

  Her hands were shaking so badly that the paper crackled as she picked it up. By the glow of the flashlight, she saw that about twenty lines of type filled the page. According to the heading, this was an official press communiqué compiled by a Herr Sommerfeldt. At nine p.m., she read, a fire had been discovered in the Reichstag by a passing civilian, who in turned notified the nearest policemen. When the police brigade entered the Reichstag minutes later, they found a man running in the Bismarck Hall. He was carrying a Dutch passport and firelighters, small tablets used to spark wood or coal fires. He was taken immediately to the Brandenburg police station.

  In blue pencil, someone—obviously Minister Göring—had scribbled all over the report. The words “a single arsonist” had been crossed out and Göring had written over them “ten, perhaps twenty men.” Near the end, he’d added, “Clearly the terrorist attack was the signal for a Communist uprising.” A large G that presumably Göring used in lieu of a full signature had been scrawled across the bottom.

  All the evidence she needed was right here.

  Her heart throbbed against her ribs. Tonight Herr Delmer would wire the story to his paper, and when the morning edition appeared, the truth would come out at last. The German public would be furious at having been duped; there would be an outcry and the Enabling Act would be repealed. Hitler’s career would be over.

  Even with tears running down her face, she couldn’t stop smiling as she slipped the paper into her coat pocket. We did it, Daniel, she thought. When they find me, I only hope that somehow I can be with you again.

  She picked her way over the debris-covered floor. As she reached the door leading into the lobby, she heard the hissing again. This time she recognized the sound: it was the slithering whisper of shoes on water-logged carpet.

  Someone was outside the door.

  Blood started pounding so loudly in her ears that she could hear nothing else. She ran from the door, stumbling over piles of burnt furniture. The far wall had fallen into shadow—she didn’t even know if there was another exit—but she charged toward it, nearly tumbling over a chair lying on its side. She jerked herself upright, gasping at the wrenching in her knee. Behind her, the door burst open.

  She looked back. Several men were running toward her. They wore the brown uniforms of the SA. Frantic to get at her gun, she scrabbled at her purse’s clasp and looked up just in time to see a man fling himself at her.

  They fell together to the floor. Gretchen landed hard on something that felt like broken chair legs; the impact shoved the air from her chest, and all she could do was wheeze for breath. The man’s face pressed against hers, his stubble rough on her cheek, the scents of linen and tobacco swirling around her.

  She pushed at him, but his body lay heavily on hers, his hand closing around her neck. She pulled desperately at his fingers, but his grip didn’t loosen. Her vision narrowed to a pinprick.

  “That’s enough,” someone said. He sounded as though he were underwater.

  The man released Gretchen’s neck, and her hearing roared back. She heard herself gasping and coughing. Tears smarted her eyes. She rolled onto her hands and knees. Gray patches obscured her vision. Wildly, she ran her hands over the floor, searching for her purse. It had to be here, somewhere.

  “Get up,” a voice snapped.

  Shakily, she rose. Gray dots receded from her vision, and she saw that an SA man stood in the doorway, staring at her. He was unfamiliar: middle-aged, his expression flat, his eyes icy. One hand held her purse, which he gave to another SA man. Gretchen tried to ignore the lurch in her stomach. Now they had her gun.

  “How did you know I was here?” The words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them.

  “The steel plates in the tunnel,” the man replied. “The porter heard you from his lodge and summoned us. Minister Göring will be very interested to know why a girl sneaked through his tunnel to the Reichstag.”

  Two SA men jerked her arms behind her back. Nothing felt real, as though she had split into two selves—the girl standing in the ruined room, and someone else standing to the side, watching. This couldn’t be happening. She had failed. Now nobody would know the truth about the fire, and she would be dead by dawn. She bit the inside of her mouth so she wouldn’t make a sound.

  Another SA man patted her down. He grinned when he found the report in her coat pocket and handed it to the man who seemed to be in charge. As he scanned it, his eyebrows lifted. “Well, now we know why you broke in here.” He shoved his face into hers, so close she smelled his tobacco-scented breath. “Who told you where to find this report?”

  She said nothing. All of her muscles tensed for the punch she knew was coming.

  The man slapped her across the face, so hard that her ears rang. “It was the fireman, wasn’t it? Were you the one who helped him escape? You shot two of my best men! I ought to have you ripped limb from limb right here!”

  The ache in her cheek dulled to a steady throb. She pictured Daniel: his lopsided grin before he threw his head back in laughter. I’m coming to you, she thought. I won’t be afraid.

  Faintly, she heard the SA man panting, as though struggling for control.

  “Take her out of here,” he said at last. “I’ll get word to Minister Göring.”

  She didn’t fight the three men as they marched her outside and down a long a flight of steps. There was no use. They had won.

  Two black automobiles were parked in the Königsplatz below, cockeyed, as though their drivers had jerked to a sudden stop. The guards pushed her into the nearest car’s backseat. She sat, sandwiched between two of them, their bodies so close their knees ground into hers.

  The driver sped them across the square. When she glanced in the back window, she saw the other car gliding in the opposite direction, carrying the lead SA man on his way to Minister Göring.

  A young-looking fellow put his lips to her ear. “Why’d you break in? Are you a filthy Jew?”

  His words couldn’t touch her; nothing could now. She stared at her hands clasped in her lap. Somehow they didn’t look like her hands, and she stretched her fingers, noting the way her tendons flexed. Soon she wouldn’t witness the miracle of blood and sinew responding to her thoughts. Soon she wouldn’t feel anything at all. A sob rose in her throat. She swallowed it. She wouldn’t give these men the satisfaction of her fear.

  The car coasted to a halt. Gretchen peered through the window at the rows of apartment houses. Her heart seemed to stop for an instant. She recognized this street: It was the Lange Strasse, where the captured trade union building was located.

  They weren’t simply going to kill her. They were going to torture her first.

  “No!” she gasped as the men took her arms, pulling her outside into the darkened street. She twisted in their arms, but their grips were too strong. “Please!” she cried, even though she hated herself for begging them. A quick, clean kill she could face, but she didn’t want to be reduc
ed to tears and blood until finally she couldn’t stand the pain anymore and told them everything, said anything they wanted her to say, just to make the agony end.

  They dragged her up the stairs and into an unlit lobby. Her legs trembled so badly that they almost collapsed beneath her.

  “Hurry up!” the men growled at her and pulled her along the corridor until they reached a closed door. One of them opened it and they yanked her down the concrete steps. She squinted in the dimness. A couple of bare lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling flickered in and out of life. She saw a dirt floor, four cinderblock walls, a couple of chairs. In a corner of the room, a man lay huddled into a ball on his side, his face curled into his chest, his hair falling forward and shielding him. Silver handcuffs winked at his wrists and were attached to long chains that had been bolted to the wall.

  The man lay still. His dove-gray woolen overcoat was streaked with dirt, his dark hair matted with blood. He had crossed his arms protectively over his chest. One of his hands was twitching.

  Gretchen couldn’t move. She knew those fingers and the injury that made them convulse.

  It’s impossible, she thought as the men shoved her so hard that she fell to her knees. As she stared at the man on the floor, scarcely daring to hope, to breathe, one of the SA men strode past her, bent over the man’s body, and grabbed him by the hair.

  “Look, Jew, we’ve brought you company,” the SA man said, laughing.

  The man raised his head. Through the tangle of his hair, his eyes met hers and all the air seemed to go out of the room. It was Daniel.

  36

  GRETCHEN COULD ONLY STARE AT DANIEL. HE couldn’t be real. She was imagining him. It was her brain’s way of protecting itself from the horrors to come. Part of her mind registered the cold dirt of the floor under her legs and hands, but the rest had blanked to a cool whiteness. This couldn’t be happening. Daniel couldn’t be alive; Hanfstaengl wouldn’t have lied to her. She was hallucinating.

  She drank in the sight of Daniel, though, unable to look away from him. Both of his eyes were bloodshot. One only opened a slit and was surrounded by a purplish-black bruise. Blood had dried on the corner of his mouth. A rust-colored streak stretched from his ear to beneath his collar. Dirt, possibly from having his face shoved into the floor again and again, had left a film of gray on his skin. When he raised his hands to push his hair out of his eyes, the chains around his wrists clanking, two of the fingers on his left hand hung at awkward angles, the knuckles swollen. They must have been broken.

  Shock tightened his face. His eyes burned into hers, but he didn’t say a word.

  The room seemed to shrink, gray cinderblock walls pressing in on her until she could no longer breathe. He’s dead, she told herself. She couldn’t let herself hope that he was real. Somehow, she had to be dreaming. She was vaguely aware of the SA man holding Daniel’s hair saying something; she saw his mouth moving, but she couldn’t hear what he said over the buzzing in her ears.

  The men gripping her arms hauled her upright and marched her across the room. She stood motionless as they fitted handcuffs on her and pulled on the chains linking her restraints to the wall, making sure they held.

  The blackness receded, the room sharpening into focus again. Daniel was still there, crouched on the floor, his gaze trained on her face. She shook her head, as if to clear it, but he remained. She curled her hands into fists, letting the fingernails dig into her palms, hoping the pain would break through the fog in her head. His image never wavered. Something seemed to explode under the left side of her ribs, and she let out a choking gasp.

  He was real.

  Warmth burst in her heart, flooding her rib cage and down her arms and legs until all of her body felt tingling and alive. Tears rose to her eyes, and she smiled so hard she thought her face would crack. She couldn’t form a coherent thought; all she could do was repeat his name in her head, and she opened her mouth to say it out loud.

  Daniel shook his head slightly, and she understood at once, biting her lips to keep herself silent. They mustn’t let the SA men figure out that they knew each other. They would use the information against them—taking turns torturing each of them in front of the other until one of them shattered and told them everything.

  The men clattered upstairs, leaving her and Daniel alone in the flickering darkness.

  They crawled toward each other. The chains tightened, holding them in place, a foot from each other. Gretchen stretched out her hand, desperate to touch him, and he reached for her. The tips of their fingers brushed. The feel of his warm skin, even for an instant, was enough to flood Gretchen’s eyes with tears. He was real, and he was alive, and he was with her.

  “Herr Hanfstaengl told me you were dead,” she said hollowly. “Minister Göring ordered you to be shot.”

  “I changed his mind.” Daniel’s voice sounded weak. “It doesn’t matter—are you hurt? Did they”—his face twisted—“did they touch you at all?”

  “No,” she said quickly, and he let out a shuddering breath, bowing his head.

  “I’m so glad you were spared that.” He was crying. “Oh, Gretchen, I’d give anything for you not to be here. I’ve seen them kill two men this week. They took them apart, piece by piece. By the end, they were begging to die, just to be put out of their misery.”

  He blurred behind a sheen of her tears. “We’re together,” she managed to say through her clogged throat. “When I thought you were dead, all I wanted was to see you one more time.” Somehow she smiled. “I’m getting my wish.”

  “I love you so much.” He looked up. His tears had cut lines through the grime on his cheeks, so she could see the soft skin beneath the dirt. “I’d hoped never to see you again—because that would mean you were safe. What happened? How did you end up here?”

  As quickly as she could, she told him the events of the past three days. When she reached the part about freeing Herr Schultz yesterday, she faltered in confusion. Why hadn’t he told her that Daniel had been imprisoned alongside him? The answer came to her before she could ask it: She hadn’t mentioned Daniel to him, and he hadn’t known who she was, so he hadn’t guessed that Daniel was important to her.

  While she talked, they remained on their hands and knees, stretching out their right hands so they could press their fingertips together. She closed her eyes, savoring the comforting sensation of his fingers on hers.

  After she finished, she opened her eyes to see Daniel gazing at her intently, as though he was memorizing each one of her features. “I wish I’d never met you,” he said through cracked lips. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be safe.”

  “Don’t you dare say such a thing!” She was suddenly furious. “If we hadn’t met, I would still believe every lie Uncle Dolf told me. I would”—her voice wobbled—“I would have become a monster. You saved me from that.”

  Everything in his face seemed to crumple. He lunged toward her, but his chains pulled him back so hard that he lay on the ground for a moment, gathering his strength.

  “Thank you,” he said after a moment. “It means the world to hear you say that. I was afraid you’d hate me for bringing you into danger. And I wouldn’t have blamed you in the least.”

  “I could never hate you.” The ludicrousness of her statement struck them at the same time—because she had hated him, just as he’d hated her when they’d first met—and they smiled at each other. Then Gretchen glanced at their surroundings again: dirt floor, solid walls, a bucket in the corner, no sign of food or beds. This was where Daniel had spent the last three days, being beaten and watching men die. The smile slipped from her lips. “How have you managed to survive this long?”

  Daniel got up, sitting cross-legged on the ground. “Göring showed up the other day—I’m not sure when, I’ve lost of track of time in this place—and he told the guards to shoot me. Said I was worthless. I made up a crazy story about Fräulein Junge being alive and someone looking like her having been shot instead. I told Göring that Fräu
lein Junge had been hidden by a rival Ringverein. I gave him the name of a fictitious Ring, saying they controlled the Wedding district, and he went off to investigate. Since then, he’s come back a few times, saying I’m a filthy liar and I deserve to be killed immediately, and then I make up more details and he sends his men to look into it further.”

  Gretchen remembered how quickly he’d come up with a story when they were leaving the train at Dachau, and she shook her head in admiration. “I don’t know anyone else who can think so fast on his feet.”

  He sighed. “I couldn’t make up a tale to get me out of here. Oh, Gretchen, I’m so sorry you’ve wound up in this place. I—” He broke off as the cellar door creaked open and footsteps thundered down the stairs. Three of the SA men were back, their hands on the knives and guns at their belts.

  “Get up,” the one in charge growled at Gretchen. Her mouth went as dry as sand.

  “Where are you taking her?” Daniel demanded.

  Gretchen had thought the man would hit Daniel for asking, but he grinned instead. “The Chancellery. Herr Chancellor Hitler was most curious when Minister Göring told him about the break-in at the Reichstag. He wants to meet this would-be girl thief.”

  She closed her eyes as they unlocked her handcuffs. It was going to happen—what she had feared for the past eighteen months. She would have to see Hitler again.

  The instant they saw each other, he would recognize her. Of that, she had no doubt. She could already picture his blue eyes blazing in fury as they surveyed her, his old sunshine, the race traitor. She might survive the night, if he wanted to prolong her torture. But she was going to die, and soon. She had become an inconvenience to him, like her father and brother had. What would death be like? The fields of wildflowers and angels her childhood priest had preached about, or a void of blackness and silence? Dear God, she wasn’t ready to find out. Her legs started shaking so badly they threatened to buckle beneath her.