When Stars Light the Sky (The Women of Midtown #2)

Chapter 9

9

S EPTEMBER 1914

Whenever Benedict needed to read the ambassador the riot act, they took a walk along the Bellevuestrasse. The tree-lined street took them to the Tiergarten, the largest park in Berlin, with six hundred acres of trees, ponds, and meandering walkways. Once it had been a hunting preserve for royalty. Now it was the only place Benedict could be certain there weren’t spies listening in on his conversation with the ambassador, and today’s topic was a doozy. Ambassador Gerard had been personally affronted when his request to meet with Kaiser Wilhelm was rejected, and he wanted to retaliate.

“I have an important message from the president of the United States,” Ambassador Gerard groused. “I want to personally deliver it into the kaiser’s hands, along with a piece of my mind.”

That was exactly what Benedict feared. It had been a month since the outbreak of the war, and this sort of diplomacy required the skill of a surgeon, not a bludgeon from James Gerard. The kaiser was as hot-tempered and unpredictable as Ambassador Gerard, and cooler heads were needed to handle the first crisis between the U.S. and Germany.

The kaiser put a naval blockade around the United Kingdom and threatened to blow up any American ship attempting to trade with the British. President Wilson wanted them to reverse their decision, but Gerard lacked the diplomatic skills to accomplish the delicate negotiation.

“The president’s message will be delivered to the kaiser, but it must go through the German Undersecretary of State,” Benedict said. Undersecretary Arthur Zimmermann was a coolheaded and crafty diplomat who understood the gravity of the situation and would work with Benedict to come up with a solution to appease both the kaiser and President Wilson.

“An undersecretary is beneath my status,” Mr. Gerard complained as they continued striding along the path leading into the park.

“I thought you were friendly with him,” Benedict said. The two men certainly seemed friendly when they spent a weekend grouse hunting last month.

“I thought we were too! Then I read in the gossip columns that Zimmermann was offended when I said German cuisine would be better if they didn’t use so much disgusting organ meat—which is completely true, by the way. Zimmermann also said he is compelled to maintain friendly terms with me on account of my position. The nerve!”

That was bound to smart, but the job of a diplomat was to rise above personal affronts in the interest of their nation.

“I understand your concern,” Benedict said. “I would be perfectly happy to represent you in a private discussion with Undersecretary Zimmermann.” Let the kaiser and Ambassador Gerard bluster in public, but the fate of millions of Americans depended on diplomats to quietly work their magic behind the scenes.

They continued walking along the sun-dappled path while chattering sparrows flitted in the trees above. The park could not be more idyllic. Mothers pushed baby carriages, and children rode bicycles. Only the occasional man in uniform gave any hint that the nation was at war. Ambassador Gerard paused his tirade to watch a pair of young boys lean over the rim of a splashing fountain to launch a toy sailboat.

“Why can’t we all just get along?” the ambassador asked, his voice suddenly sad and tired. “I didn’t come to Berlin to fight a war. We’ve always been friends with Germany. And the Germans are friends with England and France. None of us should have gotten into this mess.”

Benedict propped a foot on the rim of the fountain, watching the toy sailboat bob in the water as it drifted closer to the cascade spilling from the tiered fountain. It was the picture of innocence, but all over the Atlantic Ocean, real warships and submarines were setting off, armed with munitions and torpedoes. Britain was surrounded by a naval blockade, and thousands of their sailors had already been killed by German U-boats. It was going to get worse in the months to come.

The toy sailboat drifted beneath a splashing cascade of water and flipped over. The two boys howled in delight as the boat floundered for a moment, then righted itself to continue bobbing in the choppy water. Would that real ships could survive so easily.

“Yesterday I saw a British man dragged off his horse by a mob and beaten within an inch of his life,” the ambassador said. “The police intervened and wanted to take him to a prisoner camp. I persuaded them to take the poor chap to the hospital first, but almost got a beating myself when the crowd mistook me for an Englishman.”

All across Germany the authorities were rounding up men from hostile nations and confining them in detention centers. The British and the French were doing the same thing to German civilians trapped in Allied nations. His friend Baron von Eschenbach had been arrested in London on the first day of the war. Despite the baron’s wealth and connections, his family had yet to learn where he’d been imprisoned.

The baron was among the thousands of prisoners Benedict needed to help. The initial rush of Americans seeking passports had eased, and now he could address the complicated task of negotiating for prisoner release on behalf of the warring nations.

Provided the United States could maintain its neutrality, Benedict intended to ease the suffering on both sides of this senseless war.

Inga nearly levitated with excitement after finally tracking down the missing German aristocrat Benedict had been trying to find since the first day of the war. It had taken a dozen telegram exchanges, cutting through mountains of red tape and chasing countless leads, before she found Baron von Eschenbach at a civilian detention center on the outskirts of London. It felt like she’d just discovered the holy grail, and she couldn’t wait to boast about her triumph to Benedict. Perhaps it would make him finally admit she was a good secretary and an asset to the embassy.

“I found your baron,” she announced the moment Benedict walked through her office after a meeting at the chancellery. She savored his fleeting look of relief as he took the telegram from her.

“Good,” Benedict said after reading the telegram, his expression once again reverted back to its normal moodiness. “Please set up a time when I can have a wireless exchange with the administrator of the detention center. Do so quickly.”

Inga tried not to roll her eyes as he walked away. Would it have killed him to offer a word of thanks or maybe even congratulate her on a task well done? No matter what secretarial miracle she accomplished, Benedict never praised her for anything. Did he acknowledge that her mimeograph machine was infinitely better than being at the mercy of a printer? No. Did he praise her ability to keep Larry cheerful and productive during his latest bout of hay fever? No. Could he bring himself to thank her for finding Baron von Eschenbach? Of course not.

She was a good secretary. Scratch that, she was a great secretary, even though Benedict would never admit it. And if she sometimes made a mistake, like when the embassy’s grand piano got soaked in a summer rainstorm, well, Benedict never let her forget it.

“It cost a small fortune to replace the soundboard, the hammers, and the dampers on that piano,” he’d mention whenever he wanted to score a point against her.

“The piano is now in perfect working order, isn’t it?” she’d reply.

“It never would have been damaged if you hadn’t foolishly pushed it outdoors.”

Honestly, their bickering could go in circles for ages if Inga didn’t leave to escape his critical scrutiny. Everything Benedict did annoyed her. When mail arrived at his office, he took persnickety care opening each envelope. Why couldn’t he just tear them open like normal people? No. Benedict used a letter opener to surgically slice along the top edge, extract the folded piece of paper, and then actually returned the letter opener to its drawer before unfolding the letter to read. It drove her batty.

Whenever Benedict was critical of something, which was often, he had the strange ability to narrow an eye while simultaneously lifting the same eyebrow. How was that even possible?

That skeptical eyebrow was never more on display than when Inga’s friends from New York sent her a bulky care package. It arrived at Alton House as everyone was lingering over after-dinner coffee. She opened the big box at the table so she could share it with everyone. She lifted out bars of Hershey chocolate, a goofy snow globe from Coney Island, and two bags of butterscotch candy. There were postcards of New York landmarks, sticks of licorice, and a tin of expensive loose-leaf tea from Bloomingdale’s.

Then came five issues of The Perils of Pauline , a long-running cheap serial with lurid covers and scandalously fun story lines.

Nellie squealed when she recognized the garish covers. “Can I read them after you?”

“Of course!” Inga said. “I adore The Perils of Pauline . I buy each issue on the day of release.”

“Somehow this does not surprise me,” Benedict said, his voice as dry as the Sahara.

Inga lifted her chin. “Have you actually read any of them?”

“I wouldn’t pollute my eyes,” he replied.

She ignored the comment and went back to unpacking the box. Next came five cakes of her favorite bath soap infused with the aromatic fragrance of apples. She gave both Nellie and Mrs. Barnes a bar of the divine soap.

“Oh, this does smell heavenly,” Mrs. Barnes agreed.

Inga savored a deep breath of the paper-wrapped bar of soap. Nothing triggered memories of New York so much as this apple blossom soap. She beat back the homesickness to lift her chin in pride. “New York grows the finest apples anywhere in America. It has something to do with the climate that gives the apples that crisp, heady scent.”

She sent a look of superiority at Benedict, who was typically curt. “Miss Klein, the only good thing to come out of New York is candy corn.” He stood and peeked into the bottom of her empty box. “And since there isn’t any, I shall take my leave.”

He left without touching a single item from the box of goodies.

Miss Klein . That was another reason she didn’t like Benedict. He called everyone else at Alton House by their first names, but he never called her anything but Miss Klein. Whenever she entered a room, he stopped talking and folded his arms across his chest. He never made eye contact with her. Sometimes she wished for a crowbar to pry away the iron mask he wore whenever she was near to see if there was an actual human being behind it.

As autumn deepened, a troubling new type of problem arose. An American salesman in Munich had been mistaken for a Brit and been brutally beaten by the crowd. Larry was confronted at the drugstore by a pharmacist who wouldn’t sell him anything unless he could prove he wasn’t British. So many Americans were being mistaken for Brits that Benedict wanted to order embassy staff to carry their paperwork identifying them as Americans, but Inga had a better suggestion.

A little American flag lapel pin was all it took to quickly announce their nationality, and Mr. Gerard gladly commissioned the pins. Benedict never once acknowledged her solution was superior to his or even thanked her for the suggestion. He clearly didn’t like her, and yet the only time he lost his temper was when she spilled ink at the mimeograph machine, and he called her “Claudia.”

She suspected Claudia was his missing wife, the woman Mr. Gerard said had left Benedict because he was so stuffy.

Curiosity about the mysterious Claudia nagged at Inga. One rainy afternoon while Benedict had gone to Leipzig on business, she asked Larry about the woman during a lull in their duties.

“Claudia was his wife,” he whispered. “She was the smartest woman I’ve ever met. Her father is an Oxford professor, and she grew up on a college campus. She spoke six languages. She used to charm the Greek ambassador with arguments about the Peloponnesian War.”

Everything Larry just said was in the past tense. “What happened to her?”

“Oh, she died,” Larry said. “It was a dreadful scandal and nearly destroyed Benedict.”

She wanted to know more, but Larry seemed so ill at ease with the topic that she felt sorry for him and backed off.

And yet her curiosity about the enigmatic Claudia escalated by the day. Benedict was so reserved, so staid. What sort of woman had managed to crack through his iron reserve to stir his passion?

Stop! The last thing she needed to worry about was Benedict’s manly passion. She shouldn’t care what Benedict thought of her since she disliked him intensely. He didn’t like her either, and Inga wasn’t used to people not liking her.

It made her wonder about the brilliant Claudia all the more.