Gudrun shuddered. Americans, she’d been told, regarded marriage as something that could be made or broken in an instant, but Germans took a more conservative view. For a husband to betray his wife in such a manner… it was unthinkable. Even having an affair could make a husband a pariah in his community, while a wife could face criminal charges for defiling her marriage. But then, in America, women had rights. Certainly, they had more rights than any German woman would have, once she entered a marriage…
She pushed the thought aside. “I think you should tell the Chancellor,” she said. “He has to know the truth.”
Horst frowned. “Won’t that cause problems for you?”
“Probably,” Gudrun said. If things had been different, she would have been Volker Schulze’s daughter-in-law. But if things had been different, she would never have become Sigrún and he would never have become Chancellor. “I think we have worse things to worry about right now.”
“I know,” Horst said. He shook his head, slowly. “It goes against the grain to have so many people know.”
Gudrun nodded, although she thought he was wrong. Schulze – and his son – had both been in the Waffen-SS. There were some people who would question Horst’s loyalties, after hearing that he’d been in the SS too, but she doubted Volker Schulze would be one of them. Besides, Horst had had ample opportunity to nip the uprising in the bud if he’d wanted to, a point that was firmly in his favour.
“I think he will keep it to himself,” Gudrun said, as she rose. “Are there likely to be agents in the Wehrmacht too?”
“Everywhere,” Horst said. “Disloyalty can come from anywhere and anyone, as my former instructors put it.”
“Including the SS itself,” Gudrun said.
Horst shrugged, then rose and gave her a tight hug. Gudrun was tempted, just for a long moment, to pull him onto the bed, but there was no time. Instead, she kissed him once and led the way towards the door, careful to keep a distance between them. It was probably futile – there was no hope of keeping their relationship a secret now – but she wanted to keep it from her parents as long as possible. Her father would go through the roof when he discovered she was practically living with someone before marriage.
Volker Schulze, she knew from past experience, worked late. His wife and daughter – his sole remaining child – often nagged him to come home early, but Gudrun had heard that Schulze often worked until midnight. There was just so much for him to master, before the war began, so much he needed to learn to keep more experienced political movers and shakers from outmanoeuvring him. And yet, Gudrun couldn’t help wondering what sort of strain it put on his married life. Her mother hadn’t been too happy when her father had started to come home late at night, after being given unpaid overtime by his superiors.
“Councillor,” Schulze’s secretary said. He was a middle-aged man, easily old enough to be Gudrun’s father, someone who’d worked in one of the factories before Schulze had asked him to work for him personally. “The Chancellor has asked not to be disturbed.”
“Please tell him that this is urgent,” Gudrun said. She wondered, suddenly, if Schulze was taking advantage of the servants, then dismissed the thought. It was unthinkable. “We need to speak with him.”
The secretary nodded curtly, rose and hurried through the door. Gudrun rather suspected he didn’t like the idea of taking orders from a young girl – his daughter was only a year or two younger – but his dislike was the least of her concerns. She waited, as patiently as she could, until the man returned. He didn’t look pleased.
“You may enter,” he said.
Gudrun thanked him and stepped through the door, into the Reich Chancellor’s office. It was striking, she had to admit, even though Schulze had removed some of the more ornate decorations that had lined the walls. Some of the paintings on the lower levels had been stolen from France, Gudrun had been told, even though the official line stated that the French had nothing worth stealing. She wondered, absently, just what the provisional government should do with them. Return them to the French… or hide them away?
“Gudrun,” Schulze said. He stood from behind his desk, looking tired. It was a bitter reminder that he was actually seven or eight years older than her father. His eyes flickered across Horst for a long moment, then locked on her. “What can I do for you?”
“We have a problem,” Gudrun said. She glanced at Horst. “Tell him.”
Volker Schulze kept his expression blank – with an effort – as Horst Albrecht outlined his story. He hadn’t paid too much attention to the younger man, seeing him as nothing more than one of Gudrun’s fellow students. Indeed, their closeness could easily be explained by shared struggles against the world, rather than a romantic relationship that might predate Konrad’s death. But to hear that Horst Albrecht was actually an SS observer… it was maddening. It was enough to make him wonder what else had escaped his notice over the last two weeks.
He wasn’t inclined to condemn Horst merely for being an SS officer. It would be hypocritical. Volker had been a paratrooper himself before his retirement; he’d certainly seen nothing wrong with encouraging his son to follow in his footsteps. A tour or two as a stormtrooper would leave Konrad perfectly positioned to become a paratrooper or a commando himself, if he hadn’t been critically wounded on his very first tour. How could he condemn Horst for serving the SS?
But he could – and perhaps he would – condemn the younger man for being a spy.
“So they made contact with you,” he said, when Horst had finished. “Do they not doubt your loyalties?”
“I tried to convince them I was fooled,” Horst said, bluntly. “They have little reason to doubt me.”
Volker scowled. He hadn’t had much to do with the observers, back when he’d been a paratrooper, but he had the distant feeling that Horst’s superiors would be watching him with a very jaundiced eye. They had to wonder just how much Horst had known – or suspected – before the uprising took place. At the very least, they would be questioning his competence and wondering just how far he could be trusted. And, at worst, they would be stringing him along while preparing their own surprise. If they had other sources within the Reichstag, why would they need Horst at all?
He rubbed his forehead. If they had no sources, they might try to bluff Horst into thinking they had… but if they did have sources, they could try to manipulate Horst into doing something stupid… he felt his head start to pound, reminding him that he had been surviving on caffeine since six o’clock in the morning. He just couldn’t think clearly now.
“You made sure Gudrun wasn’t kept in prison,” Volker said, flatly. “They are certainly going to be doubting your competence.”
“Better that than my loyalties,” Horst said.
Volker wasn’t so sure. If the SS believed that Gudrun and Horst were lovers – and their body language betrayed them – they would wonder just who had seduced who. Would they think Horst had seduced Gudrun to remain close to the provisional government… or would they believe that Gudrun had seduced Horst to distract him from his duty. Volker was no innocent. He knew just how often sex was used to bribe or corrupt government officials, from bureaucrats handing out ration cards to policemen who caught unescorted women on the streets after dark. The SS would know it too.