“That looks good,” Johan said, eying the potatoes with interest. “You think mother cooked them in gravy?”
“Go ask her,” Gudrun snapped. Johan needed to learn, the sooner the better, that she wasn’t there to answer his every whim. It was a service to his future wife. “And seeing you’re just sitting there, why don’t you put out the knives and forks?”
“Do it,” their father agreed, stepping into the room carrying a pair of bottles in one hand. “If you want to be lazy, you can go join the Luftwaffe and sit on your bottom all day.”
“I like flying,” Johan protested. “I’m going to sign up for the Luftwaffe next year.”
Gudrun smiled. “You might not learn how to fly,” she needled. She’d looked up the figures when one of her fellow students had started to date a pilot. “For everyone who gets accepted for pilot training, there’s three or four who get accepted for work on the ground. That’s not quite as impressive.”
Johan’s face fell. “But I’m a natural pilot.”
“The Luftwaffe needs more than just pilots,” their father said. He gave Gudrun a look that sent her scurrying back into the kitchen, just as Kurt arrived, still wearing his uniform. “And if you learn how to maintain a fighter jet, Johan, you will have something to build on when you return to civilian life.”
“I’m going to become an astronaut,” Johan said. Gudrun could still hear him, even over the sound of sizzling sausages. “If I manage to do well as a pilot, I can put in for space training and go to the moon.”
Gudrun smirked as she took the sausages and carried them back into the dining room, her mother following her with the vegetables. Johan was hardly alone in wanting to fly aircraft – a third of the boys she’d known in school had had the same ambition – but the odds were against him. And if he did manage to join the Luftwaffe without actually becoming a pilot, he’d be forever branded a REMF, rather than a fighter. His chances of winning the hearts and bodies of countless girls, as he had seen on television programs, would be sharply reduced.
“This is Victory Day,” her father said, once the food had been served and the beer had been poured. “Let us remember, just for a moment, how we became the most powerful nation in the world.”
Now tell me, Gudrun thought. Is that actually true?
It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but it had to be faced. The state had lied, at least once, and no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t think of anything that disproved her theory that Konrad wasn’t the only wounded soldier to be kept away from his family. And if the state had lied once, who knew what else it had lied about? How much of what she’d been taught had been a lie? She was pretty sure they couldn’t have lied about basic maths – she could prove that two plus two equalled four – but it was a great deal easier to lie about the social subjects. Had there really been a great war?
Grandpa Frank fought in the war, she thought. He was hardly the only old man with a military background. She had several friends who had elderly relatives living with them or staying in veteran homes. So there must have been a war. But what really happened?
She ate her food slowly, barely tasting the sausages and potatoes as she thought. What could she do? Konrad’s family might make a fuss, if she told them the truth, but it was equally possible they’d report her for sneaking into a hospital. She could keep it to herself, yet the part of her that loved Konrad wanted to do something about his case. But what? If she tried to protest herself, she’d wind up in an asylum, if she was lucky.
“I need to speak to you,” her father said, once the dinner was over. Gudrun had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed that the meal was coming to an end. “You too, Kurt.”
Kurt gave Gudrun a sharp look as their father rose to his feet. Gudrun shrugged; their father might know they’d slipped out of the house, but he didn’t know where they’d been. As long as they stuck to the cover story, they’d be safe. Or so she hoped. If the nurse Kurt had been trying to flirt with reported their presence, after he stood her up, the SS might start looking for a pair of intruders. And if they got lucky, they might catch her before she could tell anyone what they’d seen.
Two more days of parades, she thought, and then I can go back to university. And then…
She sucked in her breath. Officially, the university was politically neutral. Unofficially, students talked all the time. They were, after all, among the smartest people in the Reich; many of them had worked hard to escape conscription by passing the exams and winning a place in the university. And almost all of the students would know at least one person in the military. How many students had seen a relative go to South Africa and not return?
But it wasn’t something she dared discuss with Kurt. Who knew which side he’d take?
Talk to the students, she told herself, as she led the way into her father’s office. She had a feeling her father would just tell them both off, but there was no point in dawdling. And then decide what to do next.
Chapter Five
American Embassy, Berlin
19 July 1985
“Well,” Ambassador Samuel Turtledove said. “Thoughts?”
Andrew allowed himself a smile. Ambassador Turtledove had no time for the persistent rivalry between the Office of Strategic Services, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defence Intelligence Agency, to say nothing of the military itself. They were, after all, right in the heart of Berlin, in the first building that would fall if war ever broke out between the North Atlantic Alliance and the Third Reich. There was literally no time for inter-service rivalry or disagreements. Everyone in the room was cleared to hear everything up to TOP SECRET and beyond.
“It was an impressive show,” he said, as he accepted a cup of coffee from the Ambassador’s aide. “I counted over thirty long-range heavy bombers in a single fly-past. They certainly look as though they can reach New York.”
“Assuming they don’t get bounced halfway there,” General William Knox pointed out. The military attaché frowned down at the photographs the observers had taken during the parade and placed on the table. “We still have fighter bases up and down the east coast, despite the best efforts of Congress. The Brits have their fighters too.”
“One would assume the Brits would have other things to worry about, if war broke out,” Andrew said, mildly. “But I tend to agree. The long-range bomber isn’t a major threat unless they build them in far greater numbers.”
“Which leads to the obvious question,” the Ambassador said. “Can they build them in far greater numbers?”
Andrew looked at Penelope Jameson, who shrugged. “The German economy is a mess, Mr. Ambassador,” she said. The CIA had attached her to the Berlin Office as an expert in economics and charged her with gauging the strength of the German economy. It wasn’t a task Andrew envied her. “I honestly think that most Germans are unaware of just how badly their economy is performing, certainly when compared to ours. Funding a few hundred long-range bombers would be very difficult right now.”