“But… I don’t understand,” said Marte. “He sent me away before. He told me I had to leave…”
“A man may change his mind, yes? Especially when the circumstances change. Germany is at war now; it is besieged by both international Jewry and Bolshevism. The Fuhrer has weightier matters with which to concern himself, Fraulein Helle. The movement of armies, a military strategy that takes in half the globe – these are the things that receive his attention. And if I may say so, the Reichsminister has learned something of the art of discretion. He and his wife Magda, the mother of his children – they both have taken it upon themselves to foster the morale of the nation by preserving the appearance of their marriage. So many good, trusting Germans look up to them; it would be cruel to shatter their illusions. And those who tried to, those envious, whispering voices who carried scandal to not only the ear of the Fuhrer, but to the professional gossip-mongers as well…” The consulate official shrugged. “The Reichsminister has succeeded in dealing with such as those. Silence can be purchased, with coin of one kind or another. If the Reichsminister now finds that he has a personal debt to certain forces, certain people… that doesn’t matter. It’s a small price to pay. And he has paid it on your behalf, Fraulein Helle. That is what you must remember.”
She felt herself growing dizzy as she listened to the man, as though the ground itself were being drawn from beneath her feet. The night filled the windows of the house, the darkness wrapping tightly around the brass lamp’s glow. The things the consulate official spoke of, the ways of the land from which she had come so far… just hearing of them made her feel both nauseous and frightened. She seemed once more to be walking down a hallway of apartment doors, walking slowly as she did in dreams and memory, toward the one door that stood open, with the broken, overturned furniture and papers scattered across the floor on the other side, her mother and father gone…
Silence could be bought. With a small red coin, shiny enough for her to look down and see her face reflected in it, in the string of red coins that trailed into the corridor, the last of them soaking dark into the fibers of the worn carpet runner.
Even speaking of Joseph made her feel strange, insubstantial. To know that was still there in that dark world, waiting, thinking of her… She could feel his hands grasping her arms, drawing her close to him, his thin body against her breast. And the fierceness of his hungry gaze, searching her eyes as though the reflection of his own face there could speak and tell him what he wanted to know.
Marte bit her lip, clenching her fists in her lap until they were two trembling white stones. “No -” She looked up from her hands, into the consulate official’s amused regard. “I won’t go. I won’t leave this place.”
“Your hasty decision is not completely unanticipated.” The cigarette had died in the ashtray, leaving the smell of the cold cinder hanging in the air. The consulate official tilted his head back against the armchair’s leather, his eyes hooded. “An involvement with someone so powerful as Herr David Wise is not easy to abandon. This is how the Jew maintains his control over his victims. Nevertheless -” He reached over the side of the armchair. “I have come prepared with further arguments to be made.” He straightened, laying in his lap the thin leather portfolio he had picked up. His manicured hands undid the clasp. “I’m sure that you will find these of interest. And that you will take them into consideration before giving me your final answer.”
She took the group of large glossy photo prints that he handed to her. The top one showed a woman her own age, smiling and pointing the camera out to the little boy whose hand she held. The child scowled suspiciously into the lens.
“Who are they?” Marte looked up from the photograph.
“Ah. It would have been too much to expect, that you recognize the boy. You have never seen him – at least not like this. But the woman? You don’t remember her?”
Marte bent over the photograph, examining it more closely, trying to read its silent depth. Something about the woman troubled her, a memory barely discernible, a shape gliding beneath the dark surface of a night ocean.
“Look at the next picture, Fraulein Helle.” The consulate official’s voice came from far away. “Perhaps that will help.”
She drew out the one beneath and held it up. The photo had been taken outside – beyond a stand of trees could be seen a flat expanse of water, a river with hills mounting from the far bank. The picture had been taken in the springtime, with the shadows of leaves dappling the woman’s bright hair. And it was home, her old home of Germany – she could recognize the countryside even though it was someplace she’d never been to, far from Berlin.
The woman in the photo held the little boy in her arms, leaning backward to balance him against her breast and shoulder. The shutter had snapped as she had smiled and said something to the boy, his gaze still dubious as he looked into the lens and sucked a fingertip of one chubby hand.
“Do you see, Fraulein Helle?” The consulate official spoke softly. “Look carefully. The eyes – look at the eyes.”
Not the eyes of the woman in the photograph. The little boy; Marte brought the photograph closer to her own face, searching it.
And finding…
“Now you see. Don’t you?” The official whispered to her.
She nodded. “Yes…” The photo held her, so that she could barely speak. But she saw. There in the little boy’s face, gazing silently back at her.
One eye light in shade. That was the blue one, blue as her eyes. And the other, the little boy’s left eye – that was darker, almost black in the photograph. That was the golden-brown one.
How old was the child? He looked to be about three years old, with a serious, unsmiling expression. That would be the right age. Three years – so much had happened in that time, but so little as well. Nothing had happened at all, she was still exactly the same, still the girl in the bed with her swaddled newborn in her arms, listening to the step of the hostel’s director coming down the hallway outside the door, coming toward her and the infant with eyes of mismatched color, one blue, one brown…
Marte turned back to the first photograph, where the woman’s face could be seen more clearly. “I remember her.” Not the girl’s name, but the way she had laughed and spoken. “She was there… she was at the Lebensborn hostel…”
“That’s right.” The consulate official nodded. “She bore a child for the Fuhrer. And she was given another child to raise with hers. Your child, Fraulein Helle.”
The top photographs slid off the stack and dropped to the floor at her feet. A close-up of the child’s face was revealed, showing the bicolored eyes even more clearly. Marte touched the glossy surface of the photo, as though she could reach through and stroke the child’s soft cheek. She could see behind the child’s face, to an even younger one, an infant, its pink cheek pressed against her own skin…
“You’re lying.” She snapped her head erect, trembling as she glared at the man sitting across from her. “This is some kind of a trick. This could be anyone’s child. You retouched the photos, you found another one. You did… you did something…”
“ Fraulein Helle – please calm yourself.” Again, the consulate official touched his fingertips together. “I assure you that the Schutzstaffel keeps excellent track of its own. The ties of blood are important to us.” He had dropped all pretense of being other than SS himself. “This child is the son of an officer in the Leibstandarte SS , now serving at the Eastern Front. A child conceived in further service to Germany, a child to whom you gave birth, with no shame. The shame, the Rassenschande, was in your concealing of your racial background. But that’s of little concern to us now. What is important now is that your child is alive, and in good health, I might add – the foster mother has taken excellent care of him. Though none of us expected that the child’s true mother would become a film star of note one day, and even more importantly, the object of a Reichsminister ’s desire. That made it easy for us to render this valued service to him. To come to him and tell him that here is the way to bring the woman he loves back to Germany. For surely this means more than even being die Konigen des deutschen Filmes, does it not? To be close to your child once again, whom you had thought was lost forever to you – I don’t believe Herr David Wise can offer any enticement to match that.”