Conspiracy of Blood and Smoke (10 page)

GRETCHEN KNEW SHE WOULD PROBABLY NEVER
see her mother again. They embraced, stiff as strangers, but she saw the pleading in Mama’s eyes before she and Daniel started on their long trek back to the station to catch the night express to Berlin.
Pleading for what?
Gretchen wondered as they walked across the snow-dusted marshlands. Forgiveness for hurting Reinhard? Or had Mama been silently asking her to stay? Gretchen was incapable of doing either.

It was a long night on the train, fractured by a dream of Papa beating Reinhard. She had woken up, the smack of Papa’s belt on her brother’s flesh echoing in her ears until Daniel had heard her crying, and had wrapped his good arm around her, asking, “What’s wrong?”

Out of habit, she glanced around their first-class compartment, even though she knew they were alone. Then she told
Daniel about the way her father had “trained” Reinhard, the words hesitant at first, then spilling out so fast she barely stopped for breath. Daniel didn’t speak until she was finished, but his arm tightened around her a few times. When she was done, he had said, sounding furious, “Don’t you dare start feeling sorry for Reinhard. When I think about what he did to you . . .” He trailed off.

In the moonlight streaming through the curtain, she saw the muscles in his throat constricting as he tried to talk. “Whether or not your father mistreated him, your brother still chose to beat you. Nobody made him do it.”

“Maybe my father did, by raising him like that—”

“No.” Daniel’s tone was sharp. He held her close, his breath a warm flutter on her cheek. “Maybe your brother was predisposed to act a certain way because of the things your father did to him and the people he grew up around. I don’t know much about psychoanalysis, but I don’t believe that we can blame our actions on our upbringings. If we could, then nobody would be responsible for anything they do.”

For a moment, she was silent, thinking. There were no simple answers, and she doubted that she would ever fully understand the inner workings of Reinhard’s and Hitler’s minds. But she had to admit that she agreed with Daniel: People were accountable for their actions.

The tension melted from her body, leaving her muscles as smooth and pliant as liquid. She turned into Daniel’s embrace and slept undisturbed until dawn.

Early in the morning, they got off at the Anhalter Bahnhof. The station was crowded with passengers: thin-faced, shabby,
clutching umbrellas and wax-wrapped sandwiches, the two things that Daniel said Berliners never left home without.

As they joined the throngs of people streaming out of the station, Gretchen caught the black flash of four men’s uniforms. They stood at the entrance, their heads swiveling as they surveyed the people walking past. SS men; she recognized the death’s head emblem on their caps.

Her legs shook so badly she wasn’t certain if she could keep walking. Who were they looking for? Had they guessed that Daniel had come to Berlin, or learned that she was back in Germany? If she stopped and reversed direction, people might wonder why. Somehow she forced herself forward. She glanced at Daniel. He stared straight ahead, his lips compressed into thin lines.

They walked on the edge of the crowd, so close to the SS men that she brushed against one of them as she passed. His eyes flickered over her without interest, and then went on to the people behind her. She let out the breath she’d kept inside. The men hadn’t been looking for her or Daniel. Hitler didn’t know she was in Berlin. They were still safe.

She followed the mass of passengers outside into air so bright and cold that her teeth turned to ice. The city exploded all around her: double-decker omnibuses trundling along the avenue, an S-Bahn train roaring overhead, a streetcar rumbling closer while its cables shot off blue sparks, and gleaming automobiles gliding past.

The sidewalks were jammed with pedestrians. By the station entrance, a couple of men were singing a folk song, their caps on the ground to catch spare pfennigs. Strips of traffic-blackened snow lined the curbs.

A wall of smells hit her: roasted chestnuts, perfume, cigarettes, car exhaust. Berliners’ crisp accents wrapped around her like a cloak; they sounded so different from the slower, blurred sounds of the Bavarian dialect that she was accustomed to. She had been to the capital once before, but the trip had lasted a matter of hours, and time had turned the memory into a distant haze. She had forgotten what an
alive
city Berlin was. The panic from the Reichstag fire almost two weeks ago seemed forgotten now, or at least skillfully hidden. Here, Hitler seemed far away, as though his influence hadn’t yet touched the capital.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. Daniel gave her the first genuine smile she’d seen since they’d found each other at the train station.

“You’ll find it very different from Munich.” Hefting his bag with his good hand, Daniel started walking, Gretchen falling in step beside him. “Liberal, diverse, full of art and culture and painting and music.” He frowned at a group of SA men across the street. They stood outside a café, laughing, patting their pockets, probably looking for cigarettes or loose change for a cup of coffee. “At least, it was when I was growing up.”

They walked faster. When they’d woken at dawn, they’d decided to go to his parents’ house first, to beg them to flee the city. Daniel was certain it wouldn’t be long before Hitler initiated a sweep of mass arrests in Berlin, as he had just done in Munich. The Cohens’ religion—and who their son was—meant they were in danger.

Daniel hadn’t been in touch with them since he’d returned to Germany because of the new decree that had suspended privacy for letters and telephone calls. Now he didn’t dare call them or
send a telegram. If they went to his parents’ street, though, he thought they should be able to tell by watching the house if it was under surveillance. It seemed the safest option.

They took an S-Bahn train to the Waidmannslust district on the northern outskirts of the city. As they walked from the station, Gretchen heard church bells pealing eight o’clock. The houses were small and tidy, set back from the streets by narrow strips of lawn. There was no clang of streetcars, no rumble of omnibuses, only the high-pitched giggles of children playing hopscotch. This part of Berlin was another world.

Clutching their suitcases, they walked down the quiet road. Although Gretchen hadn’t seen the Cohens’ home before, she recognized it, for Daniel had described it so many times: a tiny white house, surrounded by trees. Stripped of their leaves, the cherry and apple trees were black lines against the snow-scattered grass.

There were no men in brown or black uniforms walking the street; no faces peering through windows down at them. Her heartbeat slowed. The house wasn’t being watched; Daniel had been right.

Together they went up the front steps. Daniel’s mouth had relaxed into a smile. He rang the bell. They listened to it chime inside the house, then to the clicking of footsteps coming nearer. The door opened and a slender, dark-haired woman in a green woolen dress stared at them. Then she let out a low sob and flung herself into Daniel’s arms.

Quickly, Gretchen dropped Daniel’s hand and stepped back so she wouldn’t be in the way. She smiled as Daniel hugged the woman.

“My boy!” she cried. She pulled back, framing Daniel’s face with her hands. “You’ve grown too thin! And your arm!” She ran her fingers from his shoulder to his wrist, the color draining from her face. “Your arm feels so skinny. I had no idea the injury was so bad.” Tears glistened in her eyes.

“I’m all right.” A dull red crept up Daniel’s neck. “We’d better get inside, Mama, just in case.”

“Of course.” Frau Cohen held the door open for them. As Gretchen passed, Frau Cohen’s smile froze for an instant, then slipped away. Unease raced up Gretchen’s spine. She had imagined they would be glad to meet her at last—after all, Daniel was always saying how open and welcoming his parents were.

They walked into a parlor cozy with jammed bookcases, red velvet sofas, dark wooden tables, and brass lamps. They set their suitcases on the floor. Frau Cohen hung up their coats on hooks by the door, then led them into the kitchen, where a middle-aged man in a navy suit was setting his dirty dishes next to the sink. His long, muscular build and dark hair proclaimed he was Daniel’s father as clearly as any introduction. He glanced at them as they came in, then stilled, his bowl falling from his hand to land with a clink on the counter.

“Daniel,” he choked out, and grabbed his son in a tight embrace. Gretchen heard a strange gasping sound and saw that Daniel’s shoulders were shaking. It was the first time she’d seen him break down and cry. She looked away, her eyes stinging.

“I didn’t do it,” Daniel was saying. “I didn’t kill that woman—”

“We know that!” His father drew back. Tears glittered in his eyes, but he was smiling. “What are you doing here? You always said it was too dangerous for you to come back.”

“I had to warn you.” Daniel looked his father straight in the face. “You and Mama and the girls need to get out of Berlin. I’m in Hitler’s sights, and that means the rest of you are, too. Go somewhere else, start over where he can’t find you.”

“Son, you’re being melodramatic.” His father smiled, probably to take the sting out of the words. “We’re safe enough, provided we follow the law and don’t get mixed up in things that don’t concern us—”

“This discussion can wait,” Frau Cohen interrupted. “He looks ready to drop, dear. Sit down and I’ll fix you something to eat.” She hesitated, her gaze sliding to Gretchen. “You too.”

Gretchen’s heart sank. She hadn’t expected this coldness, but she understood it: To Daniel’s parents, she must be the Nazi princess who had taken him away from them. Quickly, she sat down at the wooden table, folding her hands in her lap, as though she could draw into herself and disappear. Daniel sat beside her, beaming. For his sake, she must pretend she hadn’t noticed his parents’ snubs. She managed to smile at him.

Herr Cohen sank into a chair across from them while Frau Cohen bustled around the kitchen. His eyes didn’t leave Daniel’s face. “I can’t believe it. Daniel, you look so grown. The last time we saw you, you were still just a boy.”

“He turned nineteen without us.” Frau Cohen set their plates on the table. She had fixed them enormous sandwiches, with pickles and potato salad on the side. The bitter aroma of coffee percolating drifted from the stove. Gretchen’s stomach contracted with hunger. She murmured, “Thank you,” and ate with her head down, so she didn’t have to look at the disapproval on Daniel’s parents’ faces.

“I hated missing everyone’s birthdays,” Daniel said. His voice
was warm; thank goodness he hadn’t noticed his parents’ reaction to her yet. She knew that would hurt him. “Are any of the girls here?”

“Inge and Edda are at the library, studying for an exam, and Mathilde’s already left for a friend’s house.” Frau Cohen poured everyone a cup of coffee. Gretchen wrapped her cold hands around her mug, grateful for its warmth. She studied the kitchen while Daniel and his parents talked about his sisters. It was so strange to see Daniel’s childhood home for the first time, as though she were glimpsing a part of him that he had kept hidden until now.

The kitchen was small and plain, with a black cast-iron stove and a white metal icebox. Mint-green curtains framed the window overlooking the backyard. There were framed photographs on the wall, and Gretchen smiled at the black-and-white images of Daniel as a child, all legs and arms and ears. Then she thought of Mama’s dilapidated farmhouse, and her cheeks warmed. Part of her couldn’t help wondering if Daniel sometimes looked down on her—after all, his father was an electrician, his mother a seamstress, and they had a lovely, middle-class home, so unlike the shabby two-room apartment she’d lived in when her father was alive and a struggling, uneducated cobbler.

Then she looked at Daniel’s easy grin and her fears slid away. She knew him inside and out, and he didn’t care a pin about class differences.

“Gretchen, excuse my poor manners,” he said. “I’m so excited to see my parents again, I completely forgot to introduce you. Mama, Papa, this is—”

“We know who she is,” Frau Cohen interrupted in a voice like ice. “And she’s not welcome under this roof. A meal is fine, but she can’t stay.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Daniel said hastily, his grin fading. “Gretchen isn’t a National Socialist anymore—”

“You don’t even say Nazi now.” His father shook his head. “Perhaps it’s you who has changed, Daniel.”

“I won’t use derogatory terms anymore. Not for anything,” Daniel said quietly. Gretchen’s hands tightened on her cup until she thought the coffee-warmed porcelain would burn them. She’d taught Daniel that Nazi was Bavarian slang for country bumpkin, and he hadn’t used the word since, out of respect for her. Just as she no longer uttered the vicious terms she’d once used for Jews. They’d agreed there must be no more cruel words between them.

“Now you’re defending Nazis!” His father threw up his hands and paced the room. “Hasn’t this girl caused us enough grief, without you adding to it? She took you from us! If it hadn’t been for her, you would have returned to Berlin long ago and found a respectable newspaper job or gone to a university. We wouldn’t have to live in such agony. Every night we wonder if you’re still alive or if you’ve been arrested.” He shot Gretchen an accusing look. “Or hurt again.”