“It’s crazy, isn’t it? The way they’re strung out all over Europe, and all over the east. I worry we’ve bitten off more than we can chew. But look at everyone, carrying on like it’s all but decided.”
“Oh, I’m sure they worry, too. I know my father does.”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t be so judgmental. It’s just that people are so timid now. They hide behind their laughter and won’t speak their mind. So when someone finally does, it can sound like treason by comparison, which only makes everyone clam up more. Are we no longer allowed to express doubt?”
“It doesn’t seem to stop you.”
He said it with a smile, which she returned.
“That’s only because I stay in practice. If I stopped I’m not sure I’d ever be able to start again. I’d be too scared.”
“And where do you go to stay in practice? To the Tiergarten, maybe, to declaim from a park bench?”
“Actually, there is a place. Very informal and comfortable, among friends. With a minister presiding, so even your parents would approve.”
“Yes?”
He sensed an opening. Some venue to which he might invite himself along without seeming presumptuous. Better still, maybe she would invite him, even though he was mildly alarmed by the idea of a minister who sanctioned loose talk of doubt and dissent.
“Have you heard of the Reverend Bonhoeffer?”
He had, but only in passing. The associations were vaguely negative, and he couldn’t help notice that even Liesl had checked her flanks before uttering the name.
“Isn’t he pretty outspoken?”
“I know he doesn’t have the best of reputations in some circles. But he’s very devout, very gentle, and he travels abroad for the Foreign Ministry, so it’s not like he isn’t doing his part for the country.”
“I hadn’t heard that.”
“All he wants is for Germans to do things for the right reasons. Mostly what we talk about is how to appeal to people’s better nature.”
“It sounds like a good thing, then. And you do this where? In his church?”
“Oh, no. He’s not allowed to preach anymore, and they closed his seminary years ago. He has us over to his home. Nothing official. Just a small group of students, on Sunday afternoons when he’s not out of the country and has time for us. We’re getting together tomorrow, in fact.”
She hesitated, and Kurt held his breath. To his relief, she plunged forward.
“You could come, too. If you liked.”
Hardly the sort of company his father wanted him to keep, but that only made the invitation more appealing. Kurt experienced a stab of nostalgia for the sorts of gatherings he had attended around the time of his sixteenth birthday but had given up after his father diverted him onto the narrow-gauge rails of the business world. A more relaxed and Bohemian world of books and music and ideas. It had great appeal.
“Yes,” he said. “I’d like that.”
His answer came in the nick of time, because shortly afterward his father again tracked him down. The next time he looked around for Liesl, she was deep in conversation with two elderly women, and it would have been rude to interrupt.
But they did have a final exchange of sorts, just as stirring in its way. It occurred not long after Erich’s mother, a fusty and traditional sort who seemed to enjoy bossing the servants around, loudly announced the commencement of Christmas carols. Erich’s sister struck up a tune on the piano, and the crowd joined in—sparsely at first, then in full voice.
The third and final song, which drew the evening to a close—making Kurt suspect that had been Mrs. Stuckart’s true purpose—was predictable enough. It was “Stille Nacht,” or “Silent Night.” Considering the venue, it wasn’t surprising that everyone, as if by rote, concluded with a secular third verse that had grown popular during the war.Silent Night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright
Adolf Hitler is Germany’s Star
Showing greatness and glory afar
Guiding our nation aright.
Guiding our nation aright.
Kurt searched out Liesl halfway through the verse and found her engaged in perhaps her boldest action of the evening.
Her lips were still. She wasn’t singing a word.
His heart leaped at this daring display, even as he feared for her. It emboldened him just enough to halt his own singing, although he did turn so his father wouldn’t see. He nodded just enough to catch her eye, and when she nodded solemnly back he felt the color rise in his cheeks, a holiday red.
When he noticed one of the Gestapo fellows glaring from across the room, it was all he could do not to join in for the final line. But he managed, barely, on the strength of a single inspiring thought:
Tomorrow he would see her again.
EIGHT
Berlin—January 20, 1942
TO KURT BAUER, the Folkertses’ house was a place of enchantment, and not just because Liesl lived there. Its pitched roof, gabled windows, and wooden shutters oozed Alpine charm, while the neighboring Grunewald provided a hushed backdrop of dark pines and fairy-tale beeches. Add a dusting of snow and a curl of chimney smoke, and you had the very essence of cozy German Gemütlichkeit.
That was the tableau Kurt came upon that morning as he pedaled his bicycle down a powdery trail with a pair of wooden skis strapped on the back.
It had been exactly a month since he had met Liesl, and already he had become a regular at her address on tiny Alsbacherweg, visiting at least four times a week. The route was happily familiar by now. He would haul his bicycle to his neighborhood U-Bahn station for the ride south to her stop at Krumme Lanke, where he would then pedal the final half mile to her doorstep in a rising bubble of anticipation. At times he went out of his way to pass by, even if it meant a detour of half an hour, simply so he could ping the bell on his handlebar to say hello, while taking a special thrill whenever Liesl flicked back the curtain of her upper window to wave.
Today he was expected. Neither Liesl nor he had classes this afternoon, and they were planning to ski the new snowfall on the mazelike trails of the Grunewald for as long as daylight permitted. Kurt had prepared for the outing as if for a minor expedition, using ration cards to buy bread and cheese, then tossing into his rucksack his last bar of Christmas chocolate, a vacuum flask of spiced cider, a first aid kit from his days in a Wandervogel youth group, and a flashlight for finding their way home after dark.
He needed a break like this. His father’s agenda of corporate visits had only gotten more hectic. In addition, his family was now preoccupied with the future prospects of Kurt’s sister, who on the previous weekend had accepted the marriage proposal of her SS boyfriend, Bruno Scharf.
His affairs at the university were also in turmoil. One of his favorite professors had just been arrested, or so rumor had it. The only official word was an ominous notice tacked to the classroom door, which said that Professor Doktor Schlösser would be “absent until further notice” due to sudden health problems.
That left Liesl as his only source of joy, although she more than made up for the rest. And today he would have her all to himself. No parents, no friends, and, best of all, no discussion groups to get everyone’s emotions in a lather. The last was Kurt’s only source of discomfort in this new romance. Not because he disapproved of Liesl’s views but because he cringed at the thought of their two social circles ever intersecting in some intimate setting. It was bound to happen, he supposed. But whenever he imagined, say, Erich Stuckart breaking bread alongside some of the earnest young men he had met at Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s house, he envisioned either a shouting match, a fistfight, or an arrest—and sometimes all three.