The Swiss Courier: A Novel (23 page)

Gabi felt heat rising her to cheeks as her father spoke of crossing the border. He must have sensed her apprehension because he cocked his head, looking at her with a concerned expression.

“Gabi, are you okay? I—”

The sound of a brass door knocker interrupted her father’s words.

“That must be Eric!” Gabi yanked off her apron and ran her right hand through her blonde-streaked hair, thankful for the interruption. “How do I look?”

Her mother tamped several strands of Gabi’s loose hair behind her right ear, then patted her cheek. “Just fine, darling. You go answer the front door for your . . . friend.”

Gabi’s parents followed her into their living room. She opened the door and smiled at Eric, who was holding a wildflower bouquet of daisies and foxgloves in his right hand. Gabi accepted them, pulling them to her face and breathing in their scent. Then she and Eric exchanged cheek-to-cheek busses.

“Look, Mami, a bouquet. How sweet of you, Eric.”

“I’ll fetch a vase,” Thea said, retreating to the kitchen.

Ernst walked over and shook Eric’s hand. “Almost harvest time.”

“Our corn is just over two meters, so it could be ready any day now.” Eric nodded and grinned, as if the height of corn was the most interesting topic in all of Switzerland.

“What’s in the satchel?” Gabi playfully reached for the leather valise, which Eric swung behind him.

“Careful now,” he said, as he sidestepped away from her second lurch.

“Don’t tell me that you brought over some butter.” Feigned excitement rose in her voice.

“Actually, I did—plus a dozen eggs.”

Eric opened the satchel, taking out a small basket with a bundle of eggs and a porcelain jar filled to the brim with fresh-from-the-farm butter. “I churned it myself this afternoon. I got two kilos from today’s batch, so I figured we could spare 100 grams for the pastor and his family.” He winked at Gabi.

“How sweet of you. Butter the second time today.”

A pair of heads swiveled toward Gabi, who wished she could retrieve her careless statement. Her father cocked an eyebrow at her.

“What I mean is that we . . . paid extra to have our Rösti potatoes fried in butter.”

Her father shook his head. “Now Gabi, you know how hard it is for your mother and I not to ask too much about your work, but isn’t a hot lunch in a restaurant a bit dear for your salary?”

“The lunch was work related. Dieter Baumann said he had something important to discuss with me, but he didn’t want anyone in the office to know about it. He paid for the meal.” She pressed her lips together, knowing she’d already said too much.

“Interesting.” Ernst waved for Eric to take a seat at the dining table. From the kitchen, Thea could be heard moving pots and pans around in preparation for the dinner meal.

“Is it anything you’re at liberty to discuss?” Her father took a drink from his water glass.

Gabi hesitated. Her father had always said he would understand that she couldn’t talk much about what happened at work, and Eric had echoed the same thoughts in their private moments together. They certainly didn’t need to know about the botched break-in a few days ago, which was no harm, no foul. But that incident happened on Swiss soil. If tomorrow’s operation inside Germany didn’t go well, she could be in danger. The worst-case scenario—

Gabi didn’t want to go there.

“Does it have anything to do with breaking open safes?” Ernst reached over and patted his daughter’s hands. “I’m pleased that you’re carrying on the family tradition well. Your grandfather was one of the best locksmiths in Wisconsin, and I loved going out with him when some wealthy lady forgot her safe combination. But you and I both know that you don’t have a lot of experience.”

Gabi remained mute as she considered what to tell her father. She realized she had the freedom to tell him nothing, but at the same time, a new—and dangerous—twist had been added to the job: sneaking into and out of Germany, on forged papers no less. Like most Swiss, she hadn’t visited the country since the Wehrmacht stormed into Poland and ignited a global conflict.

Then there were Eric’s feelings to consider. She was definitely being pursued in a way that inspired confidence in him. He was attentive, caring, and she had the impression that he would volunteer to go in her place if he could pick a lock. Certainly,
he
needed to know about tomorrow’s break-in. The push-pull came from the uncertainty she felt. At that moment, though, she sensed she should bring these two men into her confidence. Either of them might see something that she hadn’t.

“Dieter Baumann had an interesting proposal for me,” she began, making eye contact with her father and then with Eric. “He wanted to discuss it at the Globus penthouse restaurant.” “You’ve mentioned this Dieter Baumann before to me,” her father said. “He’s a Swiss who runs the Basel office for the American interests here.”

“Yes, that’s him. He’s known for having lots of contacts. Bit of a wheeler-dealer, from what I see, but he gets results. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be where he is.”

“What was it that he asked you to do?”

Gabi drew in a breath after hearing the direct question from her father. “I’m not so sure I can—”

“Gabi, if you can’t say anything, I understand, but I’m concerned about this Dieter Baumann,” her father said. “You hear things, and I’m not so sure I like the scuttlebutt about this young man.”

“Is this from someone in the church?”

Her father nodded.

“I heard the same talk,” Eric said. “There’s something about his eyes. They say you can tell he’s hiding something. I guess what your father and I are saying is, be careful. Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

“But Dieter said what’s in the safe could change the direction of the war.”

Ernst and Eric exchanged knowing glances.

“You hear that a lot these days.” Her father sighed. “Listen, all we are saying is, think with your head before you follow the leading of your heart.”

Ernst reached across the table for her hand. “Do you mind if we pray for you?”

“Of course not, Papi. Pray for the Lord’s hedge of protection. I’m going to need it tomorrow.”

Pastor Leo wasn’t used to honest, backbreaking work.

Rivulets of sweat coursed down his temples, wetting an armless T-shirt caked with rust-colored dirt. He mopped his sweaty brow with a beige handkerchief and leaned against a wood-toothed rake. He and three bare-chested, sunburned men from his church—who’d taken time off from their factory jobs in Heidelberg—worked the latest alfalfa cutting under a relentless afternoon sun.

Pastor Leo scanned the nearly mown field, where red-winged blackbirds foraged for grasshoppers by inserting their bills into the soft substrate. He found it hard to believe that he was caught up in a cat-and-mouse game with the Gestapo, but for several hours that afternoon, he’d sought to forget about that. He pretended that the Ulrich farm, and the sweat of their labor, was all there was in life. He actually enjoyed losing himself in the ache of his muscles and the beauty of the countryside.

Even though prime farmland was now of much worth to the Reich, it hadn’t always been so valuable. The pastor’s brother-in-law, Adalbert Ulrich, had picked up the farm for a chest of sterling silver back in the early 1920s when the Weimar Republic’s currency collapsed. Back then, paper money became so worthless that freezing Germans fed their stoves bundles of Reichsmarks to warm their homes.

Pastor Leo glanced at his brother’s farmhouse two hundred meters away and worried if they had hidden Joseph in the right place. Their talk earlier had gone as well as expected, but Leo had a hard time reading the mixed emotions in the young man’s gaze—confusion, fear, and misgiving—all mixed with hope in God’s protection.

After their arrival this morning, Adalbert Ulrich had pressed this unexpected source of labor into service. They’d arrived for the purpose of finding a safe place to hide their charge, but that didn’t mean they’d sit around whittling sticks of wood. The seasoned farmer showed the makeshift crew how to rake the cutting into straight lines, which were then “rowed up” into tall, semi-round bales for drying. Since it looked like they would be around for a couple of days—until Joseph was safely moved—tomorrow they’d fork the hay into a horse-drawn trailer and haul the load to the barn. There the hay would be tossed into a stationary baler for compression into small, rectangular blocks. The hay bales would then be hand-tied with twine for storage in the second-story haymow.

“Pastor—look,” Wilhelm called out, turning everyone’s attention to the long, curved driveway leading onto the property.

Pastor Leo turned to see a black Opel Kapitän billowing a plume of dust as the sedan braked to a stop next to the Ulrich farmhouse. The pastor felt the rake slip from his hand, and he walked with quick steps in their direction even before he knew what he’d say or do.

Near the farmhouse, three men dressed in dark suits and felt fedoras stepped out of the dust-covered Opel. Even from this distance, Pastor Leo noted the confidence that exuded from their absolute authority. Leo’s heart pounded, and his nervousness increased as he noticed them surveying the two-story
Bauernhaus
, whose siding desperately needed whitewashing. Instead of approaching the farmhouse, though, the three men ventured toward the barn and stable. They walked cautiously, peering around the battered farm equipment in various states of repair and disrepair that littered the front of the barn. Meanwhile, Leo’s footsteps quickened, and the other men kept pace with him.

“Who are they?” Wilhelm kept pace at Leo’s side.

“From here, I would say some sort of Polizei, but I could be wrong.” Pastor Leo slowed his steps. “Everyone maintain composure. We need the Lord’s safekeeping, so I’ll pray.”

With his eyes open and feet moving slowly forward, Pastor Leo’s voice turned somber. “Lord, we ask that our brother Joseph will be invisible in their sight. Keep these men from discovering his whereabouts. We know that thy Word says that thy hand will lead us, and thy right hand shall hold us. Keep thy hand upon Joseph and upon the rest of us. We pray also that if we are questioned, you will give us the right words.”

Leo tilted his head skyward, and then he resumed his steps, leading the procession past head-high stalks of ripening corn on their left and Holstein apple trees heavy with russeted, deep-yellow fruit to their right.

Up ahead, Adalbert and Leo’s sister, Trudi, engaged the three dark-suited visitors who had circled back and mounted the wooden stairs leading to their weather-beaten porch. Leo couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he knew the unexpected callers weren’t making a house call to sell Deutsches Reich war bonds.

Adalbert waved a beckoning hand, and Leo picked up the pace. A minute later, the pastor relaxed his balled fists and ascended the porch stairs. His brother-in-law appeared calm as he placed an arm around Leo’s bronzed shoulders.

“Leo, this is Captain Stampfli with the Leimen Polizei. An important prisoner has escaped the authorities, and these men are searching for him.”

The police captain held a black-and-white photo of Joseph Engel, cupped in his right hand. “Have you seen this man?”

Leo tried to appear disinterested. “No, I would have remembered a face that distinctive.” The pastor crossed his arms over his chest. “When did you say this criminal was reported missing?”

“Yesterday.” The Polizei captain passed the photo around. The other farmhands feigned disinterest.

“I’m afraid we won’t be much help. My friends and I have been in the fields all day, giving my brother-in-law a hand with the summer alfalfa cutting.”

The captain regarded the green-golden swath of mown hay in the distance, with its undulating rows of raked alfalfa and two dozen “rowed-up” bales.

“Aren’t you early? Most farmers wait until September—”

“You’re right, Captain,” Adalbert interrupted. “But my brother-in-law and friends weren’t available then, so I took what I could get. I can’t rake the entire field by myself, and reliable farm labor is impossible to find these days with so many of our men fighting for the Fatherland. If I had to rely on the strength of my back alone, the alfalfa would rot by the time I got it into the barn.”

“Very well.” The police captain motioned to his two lieutenants. “We have orders to search the house.” The officer’s tone was almost apologetic.

Leo knew better than to ask who issued the orders.

Adalbert stepped aside. “We understand. We’ll just wait out here.”

The captain rocked on his heels. “Actually, I’d prefer that you and your brother-in-law join us. The lady of the house as well.”

Pastor Leo locked eyes with his brother-in-law for an instant, then looked away. Becker had told them that in situations like this, the authorities preferred to have house members accompany them when attempting to ferret out someone in hiding. People often unwittingly disclosed nonverbal clues that they were getting “warmer.” Yet Leo also knew any attempt to deflect their request would be greeted by suspicion.

The pastor beckoned with an outstretched arm. “By all means.”

The Polizei captain turned and ordered the third member of their search party to sweep the outside of the farmhouse. Adalbert stepped around a rocking chair and opened the screen door separating the porch from the parlor. The captain and his lieutenant stepped inside, then Adalbert took Trudi’s hand and followed. Leo tailed the others.

Pastor Leo scanned the room as if it were the first time he’d walked through it. A stuffed sofa covered with brown chenille velvet and two accent pillows was on their left, flanked by a loveseat with a floral gardenia print and a Kaiser-era rectangular coffee table constructed from an Engelmann spruce tree. Behind the parlor furniture, a black-and-white headshot of Adolf Hitler hung on the wall.