“We are trespassing, I suppose, even though we came onto the beach south of the fence. But it’s not like they charge admission this time of year. Still …”
He stood up and squinted across the water. A voice called out from the boat.
“Kurt? Is that Kurt Bauer?”
“Yes. Hello, Erich!”
“Erich Stuckart?” Liesl asked.
“His family has a villa just across the way. They’re probably visiting for the day.”
She tightened her grip on Kurt’s arm.
“He’s always seemed nice enough. Although I can’t say I’m a fan of his father’s.”
Erich swung the wheel around just before he would have run aground. He throttled back on the engine, and the boat settled into a gentle rocking motion a few yards offshore.
“And Liesl Folkerts, too, I see!” He said it with an air of revelation, reminding Kurt uneasily of what Erich had said about her at the party. “Skiing on the beach, are you? Can’t say I’ve ever heard that recommended. Of course, boating’s not the sanest activity on a day like this, either. I’ve got little tracks of ice on my cheeks from the tears the wind caused. All very masochistic. I could hitch you up to the stern and pull you across the Wannsee if you liked?”
That coaxed a laugh out of Liesl, and Kurt relaxed.
“Her bindings broke, so we came down for a rest,” he explained. “We were just about to walk over to the Wannsee Bahnhof.”
“The Nikolassee stop would be closer from here, but even that’s about a mile through the woods. Why don’t I give you a lift farther across the water, to shorten the walk?”
“That’s kind of you,” Liesl said.
“No problem. I’ll just beach this crate, and you can climb over the side.”
He gently maneuvered the boat into place, just close enough for Liesl to make it aboard without soaking her feet. Kurt handed over the rucksack and both pairs of skis, then joined Erich at the helm, where his friend pulled a leather-covered flask from inside his coat.
“A little fuel for the trip back,” Erich said. “Part of Dad’s secret stash of cognac from the Paris pushcart express. Not that you should breathe a word of it to him, of course.”
“My lips are sealed. So what brought you to the villa today?”
“The whole family’s here. My dad had some big appointment nearby so he decided we’d all make a day of it. Unfortunately it’s boring as hell. Nothing to do but sit there staring at the boar heads lined up on the wall. And it’s cold as a cave, or will be till he gets the fireplace going.”
“So you decided to warm up with a little dash across the waves?”
“Yes. I’m brilliant that way aren’t I?”
Erich flashed his goofball horsey smile, gritting his teeth into the biting wind as he revved the engine back to full power. They headed down the shoreline. New tears were already streaming from the corners of his eyes.
“You know,” he shouted above the noise, turning so that Liesl could hear as well, “if you two were interested, it would sure help warm the place up if you could stop by for a while. By now they should have a fire going, and afterward I could give you a lift home in my dad’s car. He’s got the ministry ration allotment, so gas isn’t a problem. It would be quicker than taking the S-Bahn.”
Kurt sensed potential trouble in the arrangement and was on the verge of saying no. But when he glanced at Liesl she nodded. Perhaps she was more tired than he had realized.
“I’d like that,” she said. “And thank you.”
“Splendid! Then let’s change course. Hold on!”
He turned the wheel sharply to starboard, and they leaned into the sweeping curve, heading west toward what remained of the dusk, a faint glow in the bare treetops along the far shore. So much for keeping his two worlds apart, although Kurt supposed they were bound to have collided sooner or later.
“I heard yesterday that congratulations are in order for your sister,” Erich shouted. “When’s the wedding?”
“No date yet. Depends on when he’s posted to the front, I guess.”
Liesl gave him a look, and Kurt felt like a fool.
“Wedding?” she said. “Traudl’s getting married and you haven’t told me?”
“Well, it’s not really a sure thing until the background check is finished.”
“Nonsense,” Erich said. “He was probably just afraid you wouldn’t approve of his new in-laws. Bruno’s an SS man. Spit-polished and shiny, with all the lightning bolts. Very fearsome. Except to Traudl, of course.”
Leave it to Erich, even in jest, to zero in on the real reason Kurt had kept the news from Liesl. He didn’t dare look at her.
“Well, I’m sure that if he’s all right for Traudl,” she said awkwardly, “then he’s probably a fine young man.”
Later, when Kurt would look back on the progression of the whole disastrous evening, he would decide that this was where events had begun to veer off course. Not only did it wreck their earlier sense of ease, it primed them for what turned out to be their most fractious disagreement.
“So what was your dad’s urgent business?” Kurt asked, hoping to change the subject.
“See that big white villa on the far shoreline, dead ahead?”
“The one with the huge lawn?”
“That’s it. Normally it’s some sort of guesthouse for visiting security police, but this morning there was a big powwow there. Or boring powwow, I should say. Invitation only—not that anyone would have wanted to crash it. Especially since the host was the even more boring Reinhard Heydrich. Talk about someone who loves to hear himself speak. My dad said he hardly shut up the entire morning.”
Heydrich was the chief of the Reich Main Security Office, which made him boss of both the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD, and the Gestapo secret police. Rarely, if ever, did anyone toss around his name as lightly as Erich just had. Liesl shifted uncomfortably at Kurt’s side.
“I don’t know about boring,” she said, “but he’s certainly dangerous. Supposedly he’s the reason Professor Schlösser’s been detained. Another faculty member complained to Heydrich’s office about something Schlösser said in a lecture. Three days later he disappeared.”
“Yes. He can be meddlesome that way.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
Erich glanced back at her, then broke into an awkward grin.
“I suppose you’re right. I’m too used to hearing about him from my dad’s perspective. To him, Heydrich’s just a power-crazy bureaucrat nosing into everyone else’s business.”
“What was the meeting about?”
“Jews, of course. My poor father had to go because the minister wouldn’t. Frick is such a milquetoast. My dad doubts he’ll even last out the war. But maybe it was all for the best, because Frick doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground where the Jews are concerned, and ever since the Nuremberg laws everyone assumes that my father is some kind of expert. He’s not, of course. He just knows how to write an airtight law.”
“Airtight,” Liesl said. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Her face was stony, which made Kurt nervous. His earlier fears were right on the mark. Mixing these two in close quarters was volatile. And while Kurt sympathized with Liesl’s views, he believed there was a proper time and place for expressing them, and this wasn’t one of them.
“So you think my dad’s too hard on the Jews?” Erich said it with an amused air, which Kurt knew would only provoke her. “Believe me, he did them all a great favor by keeping their big noses out of certain places. The best thing a Jew can do right now is lay low, and with those laws in place they have to play it safe.”
“Next you’ll be telling me that all that cold weather in Russia is actually good for our boys at the front, because bullets don’t hurt as much when you’re numb.”
“Very good!”
Erich laughed, apparently oblivious to just how close he was to pushing her into an explosion. To him this was all in good fun. For all of Kurt’s love and admiration for Liesl’s boldness, there were times when he wished that she, too, wouldn’t take things so seriously.