Secrets She Kept (18 page)

HANNAH STERLING

JANUARY
 
—–EBRUARY 1973

Grandfather was quiet at dinner that night, picking at his food, not enjoying his beef or beer or even his after-dinner coffee as usual. I knew he suspected I’d pried in his office. No telling what spin Dr. Peterson had cast on my words or actions. I didn’t trust the man as far as I could throw him, but dared not bring up the subject for fear I’d look as guilty as I felt.

We sat across from each other, both restless. I excused myself early, claiming I was worn out from my shopping trip. I hoped that a good night’s sleep would calm his nerves and mine, that we could begin again tomorrow.

But I feared him, this old and feeble man
 
—so silly on my part. At the same time I’d grown angry, hurt, uncertain after seeing the ledger. Despite all of that, I craved his good opinion and grandfatherly affection.

I wasn’t ready to submit to Carl’s accusation.
There must be another
explanation for the ledger. But I need to know, need proof. How can I get that proof? How can I tell him
 
—ask him? He’d be heartbroken to know I doubted him. There’s just one way, the only way.

It was after midnight before Grandfather stopped rummaging through his library and pacing his bedroom floor. I held my breath, waiting to hear his even breathing. Creeping downstairs with a flashlight to snoop through someone’s personal papers was not something I’d been raised to do, but I was desperate to better understand what I’d seen that afternoon.

The floorboard creaked as I stepped onto the first floor landing. I stopped, switched off my light, and held my breath, straining my ears. It’s hard to tell how long a person stands in the dark, waiting. But after a time, I switched on the flashlight, minimizing its glow with my other hand, and made my way to the library door. Locked.

I closed my eyes and silently sighed.
Back to square one. He doesn’t trust me now. Which means
 
—which may mean
 
—he has something to hide.

Three days passed. The library door remained locked. Gradually Grandfather grew less reserved
 
—not at all playful in his banter as before, but at least we ate together more companionably. I dared not ask about the library door, even though I knew not asking made me look guilty.

We’d just finished luncheon and I was washing the dishes when Grandfather stopped in the kitchen. “Dr. Peterson will be coming by tomorrow morning, and Herr Eberhardt. Could you serve us some luncheon?”

How can I not after Grandfather invited me, took me in?
But the idea of serving Dr. Peterson anything
 
—of being in the same room with him
 
—both frightened me and set the whole marching band playing inside my stomach.
Hannah Sterling, you’re turning into mincement. Buck up!
“No, I’m sorry, Grandfather
 
—Grossvater
 
—I can’t. I’m going out tomorrow and won’t be back until late in the day.”

The silence stretched so long I was tempted to turn around to see if he’d gone.

“What I can do is prepare something cold and leave it on the dining
room sideboard just before I leave. You can help yourselves.” I kept washing the same dish. It was my last one, but I wouldn’t turn, couldn’t look at his face.

Half a minute passed. “I see, Hannah, that it is too much to ask. Do not trouble yourself.” He walked out.

I couldn’t stop the first tear that spilled, nor the second or the many that followed.

I waited that night until Grandfather’s soft snores came steady and even, then crept downstairs to the hallway telephone. I pulled the card from my robe pocket and dialed the number. A sleepy, weary male voice answered.

“Are you there?”

“Hannah. Hannah Sterling.”

“How did you know it was me?”

Carl’s chuckle came warm through the phone. “What do you want, Hannah?”

I swallowed, humiliated and needy and eager to see him. “I need to talk with you. I’d like to invite you to lunch tomorrow
 
—early.”

“Early?”

“Ten thirty?” I whispered.

“That is early for lunch.” I could hear his smile. “Why are we whispering?”

“Well, yes,” I whispered again, ignoring his question. “The café?”

“Let’s meet there, and then let me take you somewhere new. I’ll have the car.”

“That would be wonderful,” I sighed.

“Until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.” I replaced the receiver, relief flowing through my bones until I heard the closing click of Grandfather’s bedroom door.

The four-star Parisian Bistro surely ran well beyond Carl’s budget.

“You are in Europe, and yet not planning a trip to France. So you
must experience the closest thing possible.” His smile held all the light of a spring sunset over North Carolina mountains.

I was homesick.

“You are not happy, Hannah?” His hand covered mine, twining our fingers. I should have pulled back. But I didn’t. I needed a connection to someone.

“I’m confused.” I laughed softly, self-consciously. “That’s an awkward confession.”

“Tell me.”

It was so hard to formulate my thoughts, so hard to articulate what I knew with my heart but desperately hated to acknowledge with my brain, my mouth.

“Herr Sommer?”

I nodded. “The day we talked in the café . . . When I got back to the house the greengrocer’s son had followed me with a delivery. I didn’t have the right money, so I went to the library to get the purse Grandfather said I should use. Grandfather was upstairs with his doctor.”

“Peterson
 
—his cohort.”

“Yes. You know him?”

“I know of him
 
—that he and Herr Sommer have long been colleagues. Go on.”

“Ah,” I said, not really understanding what or how he knew. But that didn’t matter now. “The key to Grandfather’s desk drawer was in the lock. He never leaves it unlocked.” I searched his eyes, praying I could trust him. “Inside, I found a ledger
 
—a ledger that began in late 1938.” I hated to say what came next. “There’re lists
 
—names, addresses, and dates. I think they were family names, and some sort of inventory of things. Cash, possessions
 
—I don’t know what exactly. I could read so little of the German.”

“How many pages were filled?”

“I don’t know. I’d barely read the first page, or tried to, when the greengrocer’s son came looking for me and the noise brought Dr. Peterson thundering down the stairs. He went ballistic when he found me in the library.”

“He caught you with the ledger?”

“No
 
—I shoved it back in the drawer before he came in. I claimed I was looking for the purse Grandfather told me to use.”

Carl sat back and massaged his chin, considering, and shook his head. “You were very lucky.”

“I don’t believe in luck.”

“God is watching over you.”

I nodded. “Yes, I think perhaps He was. But I was scared,” I whispered. “I don’t know what’s up with that man, but he’s a total creep. Obsessed with Grandfather’s ‘privacy,’ as he calls it. He as much as threatened me.”

“Can you get another look at the ledger?”

“No. Grandfather locked the library door. Everything’s changed. You could cut the tension in that house with a knife.”

“Has Herr Sommer asked you to leave?”

“No, he still seems to want me to stay. He asked me to prepare and serve lunch today for him and Dr. Peterson and Herr Eberhardt.”

“Herr Eberhardt meets with them?” Carl seemed surprised.

I shrugged. “I don’t know why they’re meeting.”

“He’s a much younger man
 
—mid-fifties at most. I don’t know if he’s a native of Berlin. It’s possible he might not know of Herr Sommer’s past.”

I waited.

“After the war, when Germans were arrested and ostensibly held accountable for their crimes, they were not able to find proof that Herr Sommer broke any laws, no matter that Jew after Jew testified against him. Dr. Peterson spoke in his defense.”

“They tried to send Grandfather to prison?”

“If my parents and their friends were correct, your grandfather sent dozens of families
 
—men, women, children
 
—to their deaths. Do you not think he deserves prison?”

“Of course he deserves prison
 
—at least, if that’s true.
But he’s an old man, and what if you’re wrong? Arresting him now won’t bring them
back
 
—if that’s what you’re suggesting. And I didn’t see enough of the ledger to know. I couldn’t read what I saw.”

“The irony is that if he did that
 
—no matter how heinous his crimes against humanity
 
—he was not breaking the law of his time. He was simply ferreting out ‘law breakers.’ Taking a cut of the plunder was normal practice.”

“The whole thing is immoral, criminal.”

“Today, we would say that. It’s criminal because we look at it with the justice of God. The goal of the Reich was to rid Germany of Jews and confiscate
 
—Aryanize
 
—their wealth.” Carl pushed his hand through his hair. “Those things might be returned to their owners
 
—if they still exist, if he hasn’t sold them. But a ledger . . . You remember nothing? A name? An address
 
—anything?”

I closed my eyes, sitting back, breathing in and breathing out.

“Hannah?”

“I’m trying to remember.” The music in the bistro played on and on. I summoned the words in the ledger in the same way I remembered answers from textbooks for school tests as a child. “Goldstein . . . Martin, Roseanne, and two more
 
—I don’t remember them. But there were four names. The last one crossed out.”

“A date? An address?”

The figures, scrawled in German, broke apart in my mind and reassembled themselves. “
Rochstrasse; Wohnhaus
 
—I don’t remember the numbers. Something about
Geld
 
—I think that’s money.”

“
Ja
, very good. What else?”

“There were other columns
 
—I think one said
Juwelen
, and something that said
Ausgabe
. Another . . . I can’t remember the word, but it might have had to do with artwork. At least there was a painter’s name
 
—Renoir. I don’t remember what else.”

“You said there were dates on the pages?”

“I only saw the first one
 
—November 1938. I don’t remember the exact date on that page.
Verhaften.
It said
Verhaften
at the top of that column.”

“
Verhaften
means arrest.”

I opened my eyes. “I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid you were right. But what I saw isn’t enough. What if there’s some other explanation? I want there to be some other explanation.”

“You need to get that ledger.”

“He keeps the door locked, and the drawer in his desk. I have no idea where he keeps the key. And even if I did, Grandfather never leaves the house. He listens at keyholes. I think he even listened to me talking to you last night.”

“He was on the line? He knew who you called?”

“I think he only heard me talking. I didn’t say your name. I was afraid to.”

“You’re right to be afraid.”

“I don’t believe Grandfather would hurt me for anything. He loves me. But that Dr. Peterson . . . I don’t know. I don’t trust him.”

“Open your eyes, Hannah. You must understand that that ledger may stand between your Grossvater and the public assassination of his character by Nazi hunters in and outside of Germany, between life as he knows it and the end of that life. It could mean the confiscation of his wealth to be restored to its rightful owners and probably Dr. Peterson’s wealth. Maybe the loss of Eberhardt’s ability to practice law, if he knows too.”

“I can’t believe Grandfather would do anything to hurt me, even to save his own skin. He might send me home; that’s all.” I prayed that was all.

“Send you home?” Carl straightened the knife by his plate. “If he believes you’re connected with Nazi hunters
 
—”

“I’m not a Nazi hunter! I just want to know about my mother and father. That’s the only reason I came to Germany.”

“We will find out about your mother. It may take time, but I will help you. And I’ll look into the street you saw
 
—who lived there, what happened to them. So many of the streets were renamed after the war. If this was in the Eastern Sector, we might have more difficulty, but we’ll find it. You must be careful. Be very careful.”

LIESELOTTE SOMMER

DECEMBER 1943–JUNE 1944

Weeks passed with no word from Lukas. But I’d known it would be this way. That’s what “
Wait for me”
meant. . . .

As Christmas neared I dared hope he might come home, at least for a few days. I dreamed of our meeting. Then I struggled with how it would happen
 
—where we could meet in private, what his parents might say considering the danger of his mission, how Vater would react once he knew our relationship had grown serious.
Serious about what?
The future . . . planning a future together in this uncertain world?

Vater would object to Lukas’s lowly Abwehr status and lack of impressive connections with the SS, but he could not object to Lukas’s bloodline . . . “impeccable,” as Dr. Peterson would say. Lukas’s father descended from Prussian noblemen. His mother was Austrian. Together, we’d produce lots of lovely Aryan babies. That should please him. I could fulfill my “duty” to the Reich.

But Lukas did not come home for Christmas. The Kirchmanns either did not know where he was or would not say.

By March my hope began to wane and Vater began speaking again of my marriage. “We have put it off too long, Lieselotte.”

“I told you, Vater, Lukas and I have an understanding. It’s just not time yet. The war . . . and everything.”

“In wartime most couples marry quickly, start their families quickly. I’ve seen no sign of such intentions. In any case, it is a marriage I do not approve. You will choose by August or I will choose for you.”

“With Lukas’s work
 
—”

“Yes, Lukas’s work. You know, I suppose, that there have been numerous arrests in the Abewehr.”

“That has nothing to do with Lukas.”

“That is the only reason I haven’t forbidden all association with the Kirchmanns, though Perterson urges me to do so.”

“They’ve been great friends to us, Vater
 
—always. Remember how Frau Kirchmann cared for Mutti, day and night, like a sister.”

“
Ja
, I remember. But your association with them will not please your husband. You should expect to
 
—”

“My hus
 
—”

“By August, Lieselotte. It will be a year since Rudy’s death. It’s time. And once you are married, I believe Fräulein Hilde will accept my proposal. I intend an October wedding. I’ll wait no longer.”

“We conjured Rudy’s death date to match his birthday, Vater. It doesn’t mean
 
—”

“August. That is final.”

“And if I don’t
 
—”

“Then Dr. Peterson will make arrangements for Lebensborn.”

“Vater!”

“You have five months to lure a husband, Lieselotte. Do it.”

If Vater watched me like a hawk, Dr. Peterson tracked me with the beady eyes of a vulture. Their scrutiny made it all but impossible
 
—and too
dangerous for everyone
 
—for me to run my circuit of food procurements and deliveries to those in hiding.

That, in turn, placed more pressure on Marta and Frau Kirchmann. Each time I saw them they appeared thinner and more worried. Gray had begun to streak Frau Kirchmann’s beautiful auburn hair. The lines in Herr Kirchmann’s forehead deepened, and Marta had long since lost her buoyant step, her winsome wit.

Fear grated our nerves raw, and severe rationing took its toll on the strongest. We could not adequately feed those in our care, and week by week we saw them waste away until their lives sometimes seemed too great a burden
 
—for them and for us.

I shared my fears and agony about Vater’s demands with Marta, but what could she say? What could she do? I would never marry another than Lukas. Lebensborn crept into my nightmares.

June arrived and the white and crimson roses in our front garden bloomed as they hadn’t done in years. Why that was, when they received the least amount of attention, I don’t know.

Fräulein Hilde claimed it was because we were both planning weddings and portended a brilliant fall blooming just in time for her wedding with mein Vater.

That’s how she told me she’d accepted Vater at last. Vater’s delight in the prospect was nearly contagious. I was glad for him to be happy, and I think Mutti would not have minded him remarrying. She would have cautioned against marrying someone barely ten years older than her daughter, but in the New Germany that was no longer surprising. Mutti would have been appalled at his threat to me, or that I should be ejected from our home in time for Vater’s nuptials.

At least, those were the things I told myself as I lay awake at night. I wanted
 
—needed
 
—someone to champion me . . . even if it was Mutti from beyond the grave.

Fräulein Hilde insisted I walk as her maid or
 
—as she said she
prayed
 
—
matron
of honor. I protested, but it did no good, and I dared not make an enemy of the neck that turned my father’s head.

It was the last day of June. We’d just finished a first fitting of her beaded ivory wedding gown and my attendant dress
 
—fitted apricot with a sheer overlay
 
—and stopped for luncheon at an outdoor café near the Tiergarten. Fräulein Hilde knew everyone of consequence and everyone
 
—of consequence or not
 
—knew her. Each course was interrupted by well wishers and curious admirers, especially when she told them I was to be her new daughter.

“I love being told I’m entirely too young to be your mother.”

I smiled, confessing in silence that I was glad she was not my mother at all.

We’d finished consommé and were awaiting the next course when I looked up. Across the street stood Lukas, in uniform, staring at me as though he’d never seen me. And then he broke into a smile that would shame the sun, and my heart soared higher than the towering Linden trees.

“Lieselotte?” Fräulein Hilde whispered. “Who is that young man?”

“Lukas
 
—my Lukas.” I stood and my napkin fell to the pavement. Before I could step away from the table he was running across the street, laughing, heedless of the traffic. Two horns honked angrily and he threw up his hand in apology, but kept running.

Tears that I didn’t know had been pent up burst through my eyes, with gulping sobs to match. “Lukas!”

He swept me into his arms and spun me around
 
—not once, but twice
 
—and hugged me to his chest. I looked up, laughing, barely able to catch my breath. He bathed my cheek, my lips, my forehead with kisses.

“Lieselotte.” Fräulein Hilde tugged the hem of my skirt. “Heads are turning.”

Lukas pulled away. “I beg your pardon, Fräulein.” But he couldn’t stop grinning and neither could I.

“Won’t you join us?” Fräulein Hilde’s curiosity and amusement laced her question.

“I would love to, Fräulein
 
—”

“Hilde von Loewe
 
—soon to be Frau Hilde Sommer, Lieselotte’s new
mother.” She smiled, as if sharing the season’s best kept secret, to good effect on Lukas.

His mouth gaped, appropriately flabbergasted. “The wedding? It is soon?”

“October 12. Lieselotte will walk the aisle with me. Lovely, don’t you think?”

Lukas sat back and did not hide his astonishment. “Indeed.” Lifting my glass, he proposed, “I raise a toast to the two most beautiful women in Berlin. May all others weep for the honor that is taken.”

Fräulein Hilde laughed, delightedly. “Quite the charmer, your young man, Lieselotte.”

“Quite the charmer,” I repeated joyfully, as astonished as she.

Lukas smiled and lifted my hand to his lips. If only we’d been alone.

“This is the mysterious young suitor your father told me about?”

“This is my Lukas.” I squeezed his hand.

“You were at Rudy’s memorial service,” she remembered.

“This is correct,” he said, growing serious. “A very sad day. Rudy was my friend
 
—all our growing-up years.”

“Then I don’t understand. Why haven’t the two of you married? You’re quite obviously head over heels. What are you waiting for?”

Lukas’s eyes grew wide and I felt the heat creep up my neck. He moistened his lips, as if that gave him time to think of how to respond. I held my breath. What had Father told Fräulein Hilde
 
—that I’d claimed Lukas and I had an understanding? That wasn’t exactly true, and now it would out. Then what?

Lukas looked from Fräulein Hilde to me, and back again. He nodded his head, as if considering an important proposition. “You make a very good point, Fräulein Hilde. Why have we waited? Why should we wait longer?”

“Lukas!” I gasped, not believing the conversation. Was he toying with me?

He turned to me, then left his seat and, bending one knee, clasped my hands. “Lieselotte Sommer, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Fräulein Hilde clapped her hands, delighted again, and heads swiveled to take in the scene.

“Lukas! I can’t believe you’re asking me this
 
—”

“But I am, and I need your answer, my Lieselotte.” He squeezed my hands, communicating something more, something urgent. “Will you marry me?”

My head moved up and down before my mouth caught up. “Yes, yes, I will.”

He broke into a relieved smile
 
—a glow
 
—and stood, cheering. “She said yes!”

The entire café broke into applause, Fräulein Hilde most of all.

I felt
 
—not for the first time
 
—that I stood at the center of a stage, played a role that might or might not be real. But this time I chose to play it to the hilt, to revel in the spotlight. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him until I knew he’d caught the fire in my heart. I didn’t hear the cheering stop, didn’t know when Lukas returned to his seat or returned me to mine.

“That was the most spectacular proposal I have ever seen,” Fräulein Hilde enthused. “Your father will be so pleased.” And then, as if suddenly inspired, “I’ll help you plan your wedding.”

“Oh, that’s not nec
 
—” I began.

But Lukas broke in with, “So kind. That is so very kind of you. With your knowledge of weddings, Fräulein Hilde, it will make things run so much more smoothly.”

“And quickly?” She raised her brows in conspiracy.

“And quickly.” Lukas grinned in return. “If that’s all right with you, Lieselotte. I’m here only for today and must return to Munich, but I can return in September and we can marry. I’ve already cleared it with my superiors.”

My head spun and my breath
 
—my breath was completely stolen. “You’ve
 
—Yes.” I stumbled over the word. “Yes!”

He sighed in pleasure, relief evident on his face. And then a shadow crossed it. “I should speak to your Vater. I should ask his permission. But my train leaves in half an hour.”

“Half an hour?” Panic set into my chest.

“I think I can grant that permission, Herr Kirchmann.” Fräulein Hilde smiled. “I believe on this matter I can speak for my future
husband. Herr Sommer and I will be delighted to welcome you to our family, and for one so gallant to spirit our Lieselotte away. We could not otherwise let her go so easily.”

The pit of my stomach rumbled. Nothing she said was true. They would not miss me. Vater would not approve of my marrying Lukas. But if Fräulein Hilde pushed him . . . would that work? Would that convince Vater? Would a marriage to Lukas prove a suitable alternative for sending me to Lebensborn?

Fräulein Hilde did her best to convince my father. Dr. Peterson was another matter. They all seemed to have forgotten I sat on the sofa in the library, in the middle of their argument.

“A celebrated wedding of a beloved daughter to an Abwher agent is preferable to dragging her kicking and screaming to Lebensborn, Wolfgang.” Fräulein Hilde lit a second cigarette and threw her lighter to the table.

“You shouldn’t be smoking, Hilde.” Dr. Peterson spoke with the patience of a tried saint, holding out his hand for the offending cigarette. “You know it is verboten for women to smoke.”

She smiled through narrowed eyes and flicked ash on his palm. “I’m telling you, the boy’s in love with her and she with him. Why not let her have her way in this? What harm can it do?”

“What good can it do?” Dr. Peterson answered for Father. “The Abwehr is under intense scrutiny since Canaris and his men were arrested for attempting to assassinate the Führer last week. Do you not understand what this connection means?”

“Was Lukas Kirchmann part of that plan?” Fräulein Hilde challenged.

My heart stopped.

Dr. Peterson ground his own cigarette into the ashtray on Father’s desk. “Apparently not. At least no connection has been established. But if that should change, it would put Wolfgang in a most detrimental light
 
—and by association, I might add, Fräulein Hilde
 
—”

“If there was a connection, it would have been found. You said yourself the Gestapo searched
 
—” She glanced at me and stopped. “They
are thorough. He’d have been arrested if there was something
 
—anything. I say let her marry him.” Fräulein Hilde walked behind my chair and tucked a curl behind my ear, momentarily clasping my shoulders. “You should have seen them today, Wolfgang. Young, beautiful
 
—both of them
 
—in love.” She smiled. “I believe Lieselotte will be happy to do her duty for the Fatherland with her Lukas.”

My face and neck burned, even my arms, down to my fingertips. I felt them all looking at me, imagining the process by which Lukas and I might meet the Fuhrer’s expectations.

“Perhaps,” Vater began.

“There is something not right,” Dr. Peterson objected. He frowned, concentrating, as if trying to remember something.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Fräulein Hilde insisted, hands on hips.