How well she remembered those heady months of the previous summer. They were like a golden time. All through Europe, it was the best weather than anyone could remember. Sunny blue skies, just enough rain. It was as if winter would never return.
That had been the summer of the big Nuremberg rallies. Thousands of men, rank upon rank, and presiding over it all was the Fuhrer on the marble dais. Seeing the massed power of Germany and the strength of its people, it was easy then to believe in the Third Reich and Hitler’s dream of a German empire that would last a thousand years. That was the summer that she had met Kurt Von Stahl.
The young Wehrmacht captain was from an aristocratic family near Munich. His grandfather was a baron, a proud old man who had helped command the Kaiser’s armies to disaster in the Great War. Eva had wondered at the time if the baron had helped lead to her own father’s ruin, but she was too caught up in a summer romance to worry much about that. Eva wasn’t making any films that summer and so they did what a thousand other couples did on the brink of war — they lived as if there was no tomorrow. Those months were a blur of champagne and music, sunshine and dancing. They were married in August. Someday, Eva would be a baroness.
And then the war came. Blitzkreig. The very sound of the word made sense when you thought of the German legions rolling across Poland, Belgium and France. How Eva had come to hate the sound of that word and her own naiveté about war — and Kurt’s as well.
On September 1, 1939, one of the most symbolic incidents of the war had taken place when Polish cavalry attacked German tanks leading the blitz at a town called Krojanty. Kurt’s own Panzer was among them. The Poles on horseback were no match for tanks and machine guns. They were cut down mercilessly. Eva imagined sometimes how it must have been — horses screaming in pain as they were torn apart, men out of another century brandishing lances and revolvers as they died under the machine guns. It helped her understand what Kurt had done. Taking pity on a wounded Polish officer whose leg was pinned beneath his dead horse, Kurt ordered his tank to stop and climbed down to help the man. According to the tank crew, Captain Von Stahl had walked up to the wounded man unarmed. The Polish officer had then shot him dead at point blank range.
When the Abwehr sought her out a few weeks later, Eva said yes.
Her thoughts were interrupted as Petra entered the parlor to bring coffee. Eva set the letter aside as Petra put the tray on the table next to her: pot, cup and saucer, cream, sugar and plate of cookies. Eva sighed. “Take the cookies away,” she said in German. “You’re always wanting to fatten me up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
It was the girl who could have done with a little fattening up, Eva thought. She was too thin, her bony shoulders like coat hangers holding up her dress. Blond and blue-eyed, Petra might have passed for a poor country girl from the farms around Frankfurt until she spoke and mangled perfectly good German with her Polish accent. Petra claimed that her grandparents were ethnic Germans, part of the wave that had settled in Poland in the nineteenth century for the rich farmland there. She had come with Eva from Germany, a refugee of the blitz.
Even now, Eva felt as if she hardly knew the girl. Petra would only let her go so far into her personal life; talking to her was like walking into a house full of locked rooms. Eva understood now how war could do that to someone. Petra never had much to say to anyone. She was plain-looking and tended to break out in red splotches of embarrassment around men. Nonetheless, Eva knew for a fact that two or three of the delivery boys who came to the kitchen had taken Petra out to the movies or on picnics. How far they had gotten with their Polish date was hard to say. Her English was rudimentary at best, but you didn’t need to speak the language to know what the boys were after.
Petra glided silently out of the parlor, bearing the cookies away. Eva took a sip of coffee, annoyed at the interruption and with herself for speaking in German. They were alone in the house but speaking German was a bad habit to get into. No one would be surprised — everyone knew she was German — but Eva had made every effort to give the outward appearance of having embraced all things American. That included refraining from snapping at the servant in Deutsch. No good would come from reminding everyone that she was still German at heart.
She went back to Ty’s letter. I will be coming back to Washington on New Year’s Day. I know I can’t presume for us to pick up where we left off. Too many months have gone by for that. But perhaps we could still spend some time together. I would like that. Of course, I will have to work around the general’s schedule while he is in Washington. He is supposed to be on vacation but a man like Ike won’t sit still for long and I’m sure he will be busy at the War Department…
Eva’s hands shook. The coffee sat forgotten, growing cold as the winter shadows lengthened in the room. Eisenhower was coming to Washington.
For some weeks now, she had been told to be alert for any such news. This was the opportunity that Eva had awaited. Finally, she could be useful to Berlin. She would radio the information to the Abwehr tonight.
Eva heard the doorbell ring. A man’s voice echoed in the hallway. Alarmed, she thought for a moment that it might be Colonel Fleischmann. He was the last person she wanted to see right now. Eva jumped up from the chair and put Ty’s letter in the fire. The thin military stationery turned to ash almost instantly. She wished she had time to scatter them with the poker. Fleischmann was the type who only had to sniff the ashes to know what the letter said. Then, with a certain amount of relief, she recognized General Caulfield’s voice. He slipped away from the War Department whenever he could, reminding Eva of some stray dog, gray around the muzzle, that kept turning up at one’s door.
As the general came into the parlor, Eva turned to him with a radiant smile and said, “Darling, I was hoping you would come.”
Machine gun fire rattled after the Junkers Ju 52 as the twin-engine plane swept down the icy runway. The Russians pushed harder every day so that even the airstrip had come under attack. Hess braced himself in his seat. He didn’t like the idea of being shot at but not being able to shoot back. The Mosin-Nagant rifle was gripped in his hands, but it wasn’t much use. He was seated near one of the few windows and watched at the ground beneath rushed past in a white blur. Snow and ice. Hess would be glad to be someplace warmer for a while. Even Berlin sounded tropical compared to Stalingrad. Then the engines surged as the Junkers rose and banked heavily to avoid puffs of anti-aircraft fire bursting at the end of the runway. In the seat beside him, he noticed that Colonel Brock had shut his eyes tight.
“You don’t like to fly, Herr Obersturmbahnfuhrer?”
“I wise man once told me that falling wasn’t so bad, Hess. It’s hitting the ground. I think of that wisdom whenever I’m in a plane.”
“Don’t worry. If we get hit the plane will blow up long before we ever reach the ground. I’ve seen it happen many times.”
Brock opened his eyes long enough to look sideways at Hess. He was disturbed to see what might have been a smile on the sniper’s face. Either Hess had cold water running through his veins or the months of fighting in Stalingrad had made him mad. Maybe a little of both. Brock shut his eyes again and tried to imagine that he was somewhere else.
Hess looked around the crowded belly of the Junkers. The plane was mostly filled with wounded going home. Many of the bandages hadn’t been changed in so long that they were crusted over with dried blood that was hard as oak bark. The frigid air in the plane smelled of wood smoke and sweat from dirty uniforms, damp metal from the puddles of melted snow at their feet, along with a whiff of cordite. One man cried out as a bursting shell made the plane shudder.