Chapter 49 A Visit With Johann and Franz
A VISIT WITH JOHANN AND FRANZ
Outside the shop, Joe said with a wry smile, “I guess we could’ve chosen a better time to stop by.” In English.
“No,” I said, “I think it was a very good time. Whether people want to hear these things or not, they’re going to have to learn, or where will we be?” I held out my hand to the other man. “How do you do. I’m Daisy Glücksburg.”
He shook my hand. “Fr?ulein Glücksburg. I’m Captain Harper. Was that speech of Sergeant Stark’s as impassioned and convincing as I’m imagining?”
“Most definitely,” I said. “He’s a very eloquent man.
My friend Dr. Müller has commented on it often, when we discuss books together.
I do wish he hadn’t had to be so eloquent today, though.
What a terrible time you two must have had!
I’m sorry. And I apologize on behalf of my country.
” That last came out a bit stiff, but what did one say?
It was humiliating to have such things brought to light, and much as I didn’t want to, I understood Frau Lindemann’s desire not to know.
I shivered and wrapped my coat—still Franz’s coat, for a warm coat was a treasure not to be discarded, even if it was too large—more firmly around myself against the snow.
Captain Harper said, “Well, I don’t imagine you had much to do with it, did you?” And waited for an answer. It clearly wasn’t a rhetorical question.
“No,” I said, “but everyone in Germany will tell you that.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Well—I was going to suggest we go to the hotel and have coffee, but Joe says that might not be the best idea.”
“Not today, at least,” I said. “Frau Braun could very well spit in it. You may wish to try the Grüner Brauhaus instead. The beer won’t be very strong, but it’s warm inside. Shall I show you where it is? It’s only around the corner.”
“I figured you’d be coming with us,” Captain Harper said. “Give me a chance to get to know you.” His tone was genial enough, but his eyes were sharp.
I said, aiming to keep my tone cool and composed, “Certainly, if you like.”
The conversation, once we were inside the brewery with glasses of beer before us—it wasn’t very strong, and it wasn’t very good, either—remained genial.
I was a baker? How interesting. Was that a usual occupation for a woman in Germany?
No? Had I learned from my father? No, from a friend?
Hmm. And I was from Dresden? Had I been back there since the end of the war?
Oh, the Russians, yes, he understood. Was I planning to stay in Bavaria, then?
Frau Adelberg wasn’t a relation, he understood.
Oh, yes, the husband was in a POW camp in England. Well, that made sense.
This was the point at which I said, “You’re a very good interviewer, Captain. Very conversational. Do I assume you are assigned to Military Intelligence?”
The captain glanced at Joe, then at me. I said, “No, he hasn’t told me.
Joe is a very upright sort of person, but you’ll know that already.
My father was a Hauptmann—an Army captain, I believe you’d call it—in the Great War, and the men of my family on both sides served in the military as a matter of course, so I’ve been exposed to military matters at second hand, as you might say, all my life.
Although really, you know, my guess was nothing but common sense. ”
“That sounds more Prussian than Saxon,” Captain Harper said, sounding as good-natured as ever. “And yet they weren’t Nazis? Seems unusual.”
“Many in my father’s family joined the Party,” I said.
“The military as well. None in the Wehrmacht, but in the SS, yes. My mother’s family was the same.
My father was disgusted by Hitler, though, and refused to fly the swastika from the—at our house.
It was noticed, and among other things, caused him to be suspected as …
as politically unsound.” More like “as a traitor,” but I wasn’t going to say that word.
“So your father,” Captain Harper said, “who would have been, hmm, in his—forties? You’re very young.”
“I’m eighteen,” I said—lying, of course, because although it felt like I’d lived five years since the bombing, I was in fact still sixteen. “My father was fifty-two when he died in the bombing. He married late. That was typical for one in his position, especially as he was injured in the war.”
“Fifty-two in 1945, and he was never called up?” Captain Harper said, taking a sip of beer.
“And didn’t work with the Party, either?
That seems unusual. You’d think they’d have tapped a man like that—a military man, and an educated one, obviously—for Intelligence.
War plans. Something along those lines. How did he get out of it? ”
His mouth was smiling, but that was the only part of him that was. Joe said, “Now, wait a minute, sir.”
“No,” I said, “of course he must ask.” I made my decision in an instant. “Will you wait here for five minutes, please?”
I stood, and both men stood with me. Joe said, “I’ll walk you.”
“It’s only back to the bakery,” I said.
“Still,” Joe said. “I’ll walk you.”
We headed back. The snow was coming down harder now, and I hurried. I didn’t have boots, but the BDM shoes were really very stout. Joe said, “I didn’t realize he’d be giving you the third degree.”
“Well, he can’t have a compromised interpreter, can he?
” I said. “That would do nobody any good. Wait in the shop, please.” I brushed past Frau Adelberg and ran upstairs to my room, where I took something from between the pages of my diary.
I should have hidden it with the rest of my treasures, but I hadn’t been able to bear leaving it under the floorboards, and had told myself—possibly falsely—that it couldn’t endanger me.
I put it carefully into the inner pocket of my coat, ran downstairs, and rejoined Joe. “Ready,” I told him. “Let’s go.”
By the time we got back to the brewery, I was breathless.
Captain Harper stood politely as I approached the table, and I kept my head high as I removed my coat—not rushing, for a princess doesn’t rush—and laid it over the back of my chair.
Then I sat down, reached into my coat pocket, and handed him what was inside.
“This,” I said, “is why my father wasn’t called up.”
The captain didn’t blink, and he didn’t look away as most did at sight of my father. He studied the photo of my parents at their wedding with care, looked at me, then looked back at the photo. “He won the Blue Max,” he said. “As well as the Iron Cross First Class and quite a few other decorations.”
“Yes,” I said. “He was an aviator, and a brave man. The bravest man I ever knew.” The tears were right there again, but I refused to let them fall.
“Your mother was very beautiful,” he said. “You’re like her.” He didn’t say anything about my father’s burns. What was there to say?
“I believe I’m more like my father,” I said. “In character. My mother was gentle, and very kind.”
“And you’re not?”
“No,” I said. “Not particularly gentle, no. Though I hope I’m not unkind.”
“Well, you’re certainly direct.” He handed the photo back to me, and I restored it to its pocket. It was a little creased now, after so long out of its frame. “And your family was also very wealthy, I take it. Aristocratic, maybe?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But as you know, there is no aristocracy in Germany anymore, and in any case, I’ve left my home and can’t return.”
“I imagine so,” he said. “The Russians seem to bear their grudges for generations.”
“Not every country is as young as the United States,” I said. “You must forgive us our history.”
He raised his glass with a smile. “Touché. So the English comes from … what?”
“From Nanny Carlisle and Miss Franklin. My English governess. I know a great many English nursery rhymes, too. I feared I would have to use them all when I was trying to convince Staff Sergeant Stark’s compatriots to rescue him from my house. Or does one teach such things to spies?”
“Not to eighteen-year-old spies,” he said with a little smile. “I doubt there’d be time.”
“Anyway,” I said, “the war is over.”
“One war is, anyway,” he said.
I looked up fast. “The Russians.”
He made a noncommittal gesture. “I’m in the business of suspicion, Fr?ulein Glücksburg, and young men can be a little … blinded at times.”
“Alas,” I said, “I’m no Mata Hari.”
He smiled. “Oh, I think you have potential. And there’s one thing that still confuses me.”
“Yes?” I tried to say it coolly—or maybe I shouldn’t be cool; would an innocent woman be cool? Would she cry, perhaps? I’d have to take my chances, because I couldn’t be other than what I was, and I refused to be cowed.
“It’s the baking,” he said. “I can’t square the baking with that picture, with the English, with the books. I just can’t do it.”
“Bread was very hard to get,” I said, “toward the end of the war.” Who was this man to question me? I hated having to answer him, but for Joe’s sake, I must. “We had supplies—my family had supplies—because we had sources in the countryside.”
“Aha,” he said, and pointed a jovial finger at me. “The sources in the countryside. For wheat and fuel oil, maybe?”
“One does what one must,” I said. “Yes, we were fortunate, but still, we didn’t have bread.
Frau Heffinger, our cook, didn’t care for making it and had enough to do anyway, with so many fewer hands to help, and I wanted to learn, so you see—” I spread my hands.
“A baker was born. Or made. I don’t know how it is in America, but in Europe, nothing is the same as before.
The Princess Elizabeth, I understand, spent the war as a mechanic. ”
“The Princess Elizabeth,” the captain said. “Hmm.”