19.
GERHARD BURST THROUGH THE front door and into the dining room like wildfire through deadwood. He threw his hat on the sideboard and a newspaper onto the table, his eyes wide with rage. “Where’s Müller?”
“I sent him to bed today. He has a fever. I thought it best he stayed away from us.” Johanna refrained from saying how much more pleasant it was without him.
He took his seat at the head of the table and drank wine while reading the paper. She put a plate of food in front of him and set hers at the other end of the table. He ate hungrily, giving her no attention. She picked at her dinner, having no appetite. She would rather the Frenchwomen had something to take home than she would eat anything in his company.
Her stomach burned from the constant battle between her own anger and suppressed fear. In Müller’s absence, she had been able to breathe a little, but she hadn’t been able to talk to Frau Tussaud about Fabienne’s condition in case she didn’t know of Johanna’s involvement. Not knowing how Fabienne was recovering was like having an itch she desperately needed to scratch but couldn’t. It was driving her insane and she blamed him. She couldn’t look at him without loathing the sight of his uniform or the unresponsiveness in his eyes, and yet she couldn’t just get up from the table and walk out of the room.
Next to Fabienne, she’d felt inadequate and yet optimistic. Next to her husband, she felt a fraud and a criminal. She had heard the rumours about atrocities being carried out by some German soldiers at the work camps when she was in Berlin, and Fabienne had hinted at the same. She was sure some of her old friends were aware of the gossip too, but they would never discuss anything that wasn’t fed to them by the newspapers. She was guilty by association.
“How was your day?” she asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer, and took a sip of her wine.
He kept his eyes fixed on the newspaper. “I would prefer to spare you the details.”
She leaned back in the seat and turned the stem of the glass between her fingers, staring in his direction. “Because you don’t trust me, Gerhard?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“The wives in Berlin knew what was going on with their husband’s work. Frau Bauer talks to her husband. It’s just you, Gerhard. You need to keep secrets from me. Why?”
There was a knock on the front door, and Gerhard slammed the paper on the table as if the interruption had massively inconvenienced him, when it was her provoking him that he didn’t like.
“I’ll get it,” she said.
She returned with a telegram and handed it to him.
He pulled open the note, read it quickly, and slipped it into the pocket inside his jacket. His expression didn’t register whether the news was good or bad, and his dismissal of it meant he had no intention of sharing anything with her.
“I’ll send someone to guard the house until Müller is better.” He continued reading old news.
“There’s no need, Gerhard. Honestly.”
He glared at her over the top of the paper. “Since you asked, let me tell you what’s going on around you. Five German soldiers were killed three nights ago, Johanna. They were guards on a train. They were not shooting at anyone; they were simply doing their duty as soldiers escorting prisoners to Germany. And they were killed because of it.”
She pushed her plate to one side, her meal barely touched. “And the prisoners they were guarding, what did they do wrong?” She knew the question would enflame his anger. She was pushing to the point that her loyalty to the Reich, and to him, would be questioned.
A shiver snaked down her spine at the wild look in his eyes.
“Your words will have you labelled a sympathiser. You will be hanged or shot. Is that what you want?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want this life with him either. “Why, Gerhard?” she whispered. “Do you ever really ask yourself why we are doing this?” She glanced up at the wall, at the picture of his father behind him and then at the new picture of the Führer overlooking the centre of the table that Gerhard had insisted be placed there for when they hosted dinners in the future. Fischer had commented that the absence of their leader in the room was an omission. Of course it had been Johanna’s fault.
He came to her and put his hand on her shoulder. There was no affection in his touch, more that he was putting her in her place or holding her before striking. “You are my wife, Johanna. If you were not, I would already have had you arrested.”
She mirrored his stare, refusing to show her fear. “For speaking my mind, Gerhard. Is that it?” she said softly.
“For challenging what it means to be German, Johanna. You have always been…”
He couldn’t seem to find the words, so she added them. “Intelligent, curious, liberal, accepting.” She shrugged him off.
He turned away. “Enough.” He paced the floor, going nowhere, running his fingers through his thinning hair. “My work here is critical to our success.”
She stood up to feel less intimidated. “You share nothing, Gerhard. How can I help when you treat me as if I’m the enemy?”
Suddenly, she saw vulnerability in his eyes, the kind that she’d seen when he’d asked her to marry him. He was scared. But this time there was no yes, I’ll marry you coming to brighten his bleak world. “Are you frightened of what I’ll say, Gerhard, or of what they will do to you?” She pointed towards the image of Hitler. He looked away, his jawline sharpened by anger.
He undid his top button and breathed deeply. “You wouldn’t understand,” he said softly.
She went to him and touched his cheek. “Try me,” she said. “I’m not very good at being left out, Gerhard, but I can be a good listener.”
He gave a thin-lipped half-smile. “The expectations on me are very high,” he said. “I cannot afford to fail.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
He frowned. “What for?”
“For letting me in.”
He leaned towards her as if to kiss her. She turned away from his mouth, met him cheek to cheek, and took him into her arms. This stranger that she felt nothing for, pressed into her body, remained tense and distant, though she sensed in him a desire to rekindle the connection they’d once enjoyed.
There was too much history between them for those days to be resurrected. The war hadn’t done that to them. It was Johanna who had changed, long before the war started. They’d been living a lie, for the sake of the children initially, and then they were paraded as the perfect German military family. They both knew the truth and she wasn’t going to compromise herself, give herself to him, just to comfort him.
She whispered, “I know you’re worried about us, Gerhard, but please, we also need to breathe. If you trust me, then send Müller away.”
He pulled back, shaking his head. “Even if I agreed with you, which I don’t, it would not look right.”
Müller beating the staff and killing a kitten doesn’t look right either, she wanted to say. She bit her tongue. He wasn’t going to relent, and she had to pick her battles. She touched his arm. “Okay, I won’t ask again. Tell me more about your work.”
He went to the table and drank his wine, refilled his glass. She plucked her glass from the table and moved to the seat closest to him facing the window and Hitler on the wall.
He topped up her drink. It felt familiar, like old times, except for the wedge that would forever keep them apart. “There’s nothing to talk about, Johanna. One of my duties is to keep the transport routes open, and three days ago I failed in that duty, and now we must hunt down the escaped Jews.”
His admission shocked her. “So, it’s your fault they escaped?”
He sipped his wine. “Of course. I failed to prevent the attack.”
“But you can’t know everything, Gerhard.”
If they hadn’t been transporting prisoners to a certain death, she would have felt sorry for him and the predicament he’d been put in. Instead, it was the ludicrousness of the situation that had her shaking her head in despair.
His lips curled upwards but there was no smile in his eyes. “It’s my job to know everything and ensure the safe transportation of supplies. It will take weeks to repair the bridge. Our men at the front will suffer because of my failing.”
Johanna thought about the infant that Fabienne had tried to bury, the heartbreak of the mother who had had to leave him behind, the number of women and children that had been executed. “But you’re not like them.” She indicated to Hitler again. “It’s one thing to do a job because you have to, but it’s something else to enjoy inflicting pain on others.” She had moved off the topic and he remained unresponsive. “You didn’t blow up the damned bridge, Gerhard, and you couldn’t have known it was going to happen.”
“I knew something was going to happen. I was a fool not to consider all possibilities.”
Johanna’s heart strummed a heavy thudding beat. If he had responded differently, Fabienne might have been the one to die. “You put additional patrols on the streets. You did what was expected.”
He finished his glass of wine. “We have to eradicate them all.”
“You talk as if they’re rats.” She shivered at the distant look in his eyes. He was never going to be the man she’d once loved. He was quicker to anger, more violent, and blinded by his sense of duty. She’d seen the same changes in her father. Gerhard was in fear for his life, and he was forced to do what he had to survive. They were both stuck.
“Make no mistake, Johanna. These people would kill you in the blink of an eye.”
“And the Gestapo and the SS? They kill without a second thought.”
“That’s different.” He poured himself another glass of wine and drank it in one slug. When he looked at her, she felt his disapproval. “They’re doing a job, as you called it.”
“And for some men that’s just a licence to kill. Have you murdered people in the name of war, Gerhard?”
The war had brought out the worst in so many, but as she looked at her broken husband, she was going to make sure it brought out the best in her. “I’m going to bed,” she said.
He stood up and grabbed her arm. “You need to keep your opinions to yourself.”
His grip was firm enough to leave a bruise. “No, Gerhard. I need to set an example.” She shrugged him off.
He picked up his glass and threw it across the room. It smashed against the wall and splintered across the parquet. “It has been brought to my attention that you have not supported the Nationalist Socialist Women’s League meetings since you arrived. You will attend them from now on. Do I make myself clear?”
Johanna stared at him, biting down the anger that would have her launching herself at him, clawing him, making him hurt as she was because of him.
He stormed out the door and up the stairs, the heavy thud of his shoes fading as he made his way along the corridor.
Johanna’s hands shook as she cleared away the glass. Angry tears slid onto her cheeks, and she suppressed the urge to scream. She would not go to the women’s meetings, to sit and listen to the propaganda that had destroyed everything she had held dear to her. Never, no matter what he said.
She went outside and threw the shards of glass into the bin.
A silhouette cut haltingly across the grass.
Her heart raced. What if Gerhard was right? Even if she wasn’t a direct target, her husband certainly was. Her tongue suddenly felt thick and her mouth dry, and her breath stopped as she watched the strange shape move along the treeline. It stopped and started again, stopped, and started again.
She tried to make herself smaller, pressed against the wall, and closed her eyes. Her heart tried to escape through her ribs. She thought about how brave Fabienne had been, and what she’d done to save people she didn’t even know. Johanna had to be stronger though she didn’t know how, nor what to do if the person approached her. She opened her eyes just a few seconds later and glanced around. The figure had gone.
Was she losing her mind, like Gerhard?
She looked again, searching the treeline, just to be sure. She couldn’t make out the odd shape on the ground at the edge of the garden close to her. If it was the person she’d seen, they could be dead by morning if they weren’t already. She edged closer. She bent over the body of a young woman curled in the foetal position, dressed in little more than Johanna, her legs bare, a yellow star sewn to her dress. The woman opened her eyes, looked up at Johanna, and tried to move away. It was then that Johanna noticed she was pregnant.