The Arms Maker of Berlin (16 page)

“I understand.”

“Very good. All right, then. You may go.”

So where had he gone? Straight back to Liesl’s. Exactly the place his father wanted him to avoid. And as Kurt stood on the Wannsee beach, gazing at the white villa across the water, he now realized why his father’s chat had prompted him to come here. Defiant or not, it was a triumph of action over words. Because now he was certain that action, not talk, was the only possible means of winning Liesl back. He must do something bold, something to convince her that he was mature, and courageous. As he stared across the waves he decided on his approach. He would take the first risky step that weekend.

H
IS FATHER WAS RIGHT.
There was indeed a surveillance man hanging around outside Bonhoeffer’s house when Kurt pedaled down the narrow lane that Sunday afternoon. The man was brazen, stationed beneath a telephone pole just across the street. His black trench coat and dark hat made it painfully obvious who he was working for. Perhaps that’s the way the Gestapo wanted it, planting the fellow like a scarecrow to keep everyone away.

Kurt pedaled past him until the pavement ended, then turned onto a dirt path that cut into the forest at the end of the street. Screened by the trees, he circled back to the right, behind the Bonhoeffer home. He leaned his bike against a tree and set off on foot, working his way toward the rear garden, where he ducked through a hedge and between bare rosebushes to the home’s rear door. He knocked lightly.

An elderly woman in an apron, who must have been Bonhoeffer’s mother, answered, not seeming at all surprised to receive a visitor at the back door. She invited him inside without asking his name, and then called upstairs to her son. The pastor appeared a few seconds later with a quizzical expression, but he immediately recognized Kurt.

“Come up to my study,” he said.

The room was small and spartan. Bookshelves took up an entire wall, and there was a dark wooden desk in the corner. A stack of foolscap, a fountain pen, and an inkwell indicated that Kurt had interrupted the pastor’s writing.

“Sorry to disturb you,” he said.

“Quite all right. It gets a bit desolate here on Sunday afternoons anymore. The rest of my family often goes out walking, so I take advantage of the solitude. I take it you must have noticed my little friend out front?”

“Yes.”

“Of course, you realize that if he saw you going around to the back, that will only make him more suspicious.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Don’t worry. He’s usually pretty bored by this time of day. He doesn’t even come every day anymore, although he is always here on Sundays. I suppose one of my neighbors must have gotten nervous about all the students who were coming here and mentioned it to the authorities.”

“Do you really think that’s what happened?” He didn’t have the guts to tell Bonhoeffer about Stuckart.

“I only know for sure that one Sunday there he was, with a camera and a notebook. So, sadly, I felt I had no choice but to advise your friends to stop coming. But, of course, by then you had already stopped coming.”

Kurt realized the timing made him look suspicious.

“I can assure you that I never—”

“It’s quite all right. I never thought you did. I had already attributed your absence to girl trouble.”

Kurt blushed.

“You’re right,” he said. “It was Liesl’s decision.”

“I gathered as much. Especially from the way she defended you to the others. Almost like she was feeling sorry for you.”

“Defended me?”

“Some of them concluded from your absence that you were to blame for the man out front. But don’t worry. She set them straight.”

“It must be hard getting used to things like that.” He nodded toward the front window.

“Oh, that’s pretty mild, actually. Here, let me show you something.”

Bonhoeffer reached up to a shelf and plucked a postcard from between two thick volumes. He handed it to Kurt.

“I came across it in a bookstall in 1936. The ‘CC stands for the Confessing Church, of course. A reference to my seminary, the one the Nazis shut down.”

It was a short poem, quite nasty:

After the end of the Olympiade
We’ll bash the CC to marmalade.
Then once we’ve chucked out the Jews,
The CC we will terminate, too
.

Suddenly there was a loud blast of static from below. Hitler’s amplified voice shouted up the stairwell. More promises of death and damnation for the enemy. A roaring crowd. It was only the radio, but Kurt felt wobbly all the same.

“Excuse me, will you?” Bonhoeffer said.

He disappeared for a moment. The volume of the broadcast dropped to a dull murmur just as he returned.

“My apologies. My mother likes to turn up his speeches.”

“She does?”

“Only so the neighbors will know we’re listening.” He shrugged. “She thinks she is teaching a lesson to whoever informed on us. Or maybe she only wants my little shadow out there to write it down in his notebook.”

“He looks like such a fool when he speaks,” Kurt said, blushing immediately. He wasn’t sure where the remark came from, and at some level he supposed he was only trying to ingratiate himself with this calm man who might be able to help him.

Bonhoeffer studied his face. Kurt hoped the pastor didn’t think he had been trying to bait him into an inflammatory response.

“He does twitch and flail about,” Bonhoeffer said. “But whatever you think of his words, or of the terrible things he does, when he is up there on that podium he speaks with a genuine passion, and that is one reason he is able to connect with so many people. I am not saying I admire him, far from it. But we in the church would be more effective in spreading the word of God if we, too, exhibited some genuine passion, instead of being so didactic and precise.

“When I spent a summer in New York, years ago, I often attended a Baptist church among the Negroes of Harlem. And I have to say, no one ever fell asleep in their pews. Maybe you would have made fun of all their shouting and carrying on, but to me it was quite rapturous. If we pastors had spoken straight from our hearts instead of from our minds, maybe we would have gotten through to more people before it was too late. Instead, we droned on like chemistry professors while that little man with the mustache played the pantomime fool and lured away most of our flock.”

Kurt sensed the opening he had been seeking.

“But it seems too late to change that now. Haven’t we passed the moment when mere words are enough?”

Bonhoeffer gave him a long look before speaking again.

“Is that why you are here? To seek my counsel on how to best take direct action? Because I may actually be able to offer some advice. But first you must tell me something: Which cause are you here to fight for? The opposition to that man on the radio? Or the cause of winning back the affections of Liesl Folkerts?”

An outright lie would never have worked, so Kurt decided on a half-truth.

“Both. With someone like her, you can’t just strive for the one or the other. You have to prove yourself to Liesl in the way that you live, not just in the way you talk.”

In a moment of serendipity, Kurt then recalled something Bonhoeffer had said during his first visit to the house.

“It is like when you spoke of the difference between a cheap grace—one that comes easily and is all talk—and a costly grace, one where you are willing to make true sacrifice and take real risks.”

It seemed to clinch the deal, because the next thing Bonhoeffer reached for was a pamphlet that would forever change Kurt’s life, and Liesl’s too. Bonhoeffer gave it to him without a word. Simply holding it in his hands seemed like a provocative act, especially when he read the first sentence: “Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as to allow itself to be ‘governed’ without any opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to basest instincts. It is certainly the case today that every honest German is ashamed of his government.”

“Well?” Bonhoeffer asked. “What do you think of that? Mere words, perhaps, but a real action to print and distribute them, don’t you think?”

It was all Kurt could do not to immediately hand it back, and it took an effort to keep his hands from trembling.

“Yes,” he said. “It is quite an action.”

“Tell me,” Bonhoeffer said, “have you seen one of these before?”

“No. What is it?”

“It was printed last summer by a small group of university students in Munich. Some of them were soldiers, on leave from the front. One is a young girl, a student much like Liesl. They call themselves the White Rose, and since then they have printed three more flyers, growing bolder with every one. By the third leaflet they were calling openly for the defeat of National Socialism, and even advocating sabotage.”

“Sabotage?”

“Of Party rallies, newspapers.” He paused, his eyes boring straight into Kurt’s. “Even armaments factories. In the fourth pamphlet they dared to state, ‘Every word out of Hitler’s mouth is a lie.’ Now their work has begun making its way to Berlin. The flyer in your hand was carried into the city only last week by a volunteer. I would be happy to let you keep it, but, well, with our friend out front there, perhaps that wouldn’t be such a good idea.”

“Yes, of course. Here.”

Bonhoeffer took it from his fingers and slid it back onto the shelf, well out of sight. Kurt sagged in relief. How could such work be going on right under the government’s nose? It was both thrilling and terrifying.

“Definitely not ‘easy grace,’ associating with some movement like that, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely.”

Bonhoeffer stepped slowly to the window, where he stared across the street for a moment before turning around to again look Kurt in the eye. He seemed to have arrived at a conclusion. Or maybe he had only paused to give Kurt time to reconsider.

“I am going to tell you something in strictest confidence,” he said, “because it involves both Liesl and this concept of costly grace. Do you think you are strong enough to confront both, simultaneously?”

Kurt nodded, but a nod wasn’t enough.

“If that is a yes, then please say so.”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Because if you choose to take this step, there will be no turning back. Not only for your own sake, but for Liesl’s. This Tuesday, at four o’clock in the afternoon, several people will be meeting at Saint Anne’s Church in Dahlem. Do you know it?”

Kurt shook his head.

“Speak up, Kurt. This is not a time for timid silence.”

“No. I don’t know it.”

“It is Martin Niemoller’s church. You are familiar with his name, I would imagine.”

“Yes.”

Niemoller had helped found the Confessing Church along with Bonhoeffer.

“He no longer preaches there, of course. He has been in a concentration camp for nearly six years. His wife still lives next door in the parsonage, but it will probably be too risky for her to attend on Tuesday.”

“I see.”

“No. I’m not sure you do. This meeting is for the purpose of organizing a Berlin chapter of the White Rose. And your friend Liesl is one of the leaders. In fact, she was the one who brought me their pamphlets, at no small risk to herself. She picked up an entire box of them from the train station last week, and she is part of the effort to make sure that thousands more will be printed and distributed. If you attend this meeting on Tuesday, perhaps you will impress her with your fortitude. But in the eyes of the government you will officially be making yourself a party to these efforts. You will be seen as an active resister, an enemy of the state.”

“Who else will be there?”

“Perhaps only a handful. Perhaps more.” He shrugged. “One never really knows who will have the courage until the moment presents itself.”

“Will you be there?”

“No.”

Kurt raised his eyebrows.

“My presence would only make it more likely to attract unwanted attention. You see, I have been banned from preaching, or even teaching. For me, simply to enter a church is seen as a provocation, as terrible as that sounds. I would also be jeopardizing other activities of mine in which, frankly, the stakes are even graver. It is probably indiscreet of me to say even that. I just didn’t want you believing that I was choosing the course of ‘easy grace,’ not out of vanity but because it would certainly not be setting the right example.”

Kurt found it hard to imagine what could involve graver stakes than advocating the downfall of the government, and he wasn’t sure he would have wanted Bonhoeffer to tell him.

“If you decide to attend,” Bonhoeffer continued, “then you should gather in the pews beneath the organ loft. Quite a lot of people go there to pray, even at odd hours, so the authorities are accustomed to people coming and going in small groups. The building is historic, so secular organizations meet there as well. If anyone else asks why you are there, tell them you have come for a history discussion. Early Christian settlements in Dahlemdorf.”

He then placed a hand companionably on Kurt’s shoulder and walked him downstairs. The sun was low in the sky, and soon it would be dark, but the man in the black coat was still at his post, smoking a cigarette. It now seemed more important than ever that Kurt not be seen.

“I’ll leave by the front door and go for a walk,” Bonhoeffer said, turning from the window. “That should distract him long enough for you to make a clean exit from out back. Good luck, and God be with you.”

“With you as well. And thank you.”

“No. Thank you.”

Kurt was fearful, he was excited, and he was already wondering what in the hell sort of foolishness he had just gotten into. Dahlem on a Tuesday, right next door to Niemoller’s house? Possibly with snoops just like the man across the street posted on every corner? Madness.

Then he thought of Liesl, her face turned toward his for a tender kiss, in contrast to the lonely agony of the past eleven months. And that was enough. Whatever the risk, Kurt was ready for it.

On Tuesday he would see her again.