81
Helldorff home
Bogenhausen District
THAT EVENING, THE TEMPERATURES dipping, a spring frost forming on the grass, Thomas Bauer paced at the door of a home only a mile from his in the Bogenhausen neighborhood, a simple A-frame cedar house on a tree-lined street.
An attractive young woman with bobbed red hair answered the door with an infant boy in her arms.
“Good evening, ma’am. My name is Thomas Bauer. I’m a—”
“Of course, I know who you are! Peter speaks so highly of you.”
Bauer nodded. “If I might have a word with your husband.”
“Would you like to come in?”
“I’m fine outside, ma’am. Thank you.”
A moment later, Peter Helldorff appeared at the front door, wearing a sweater and trousers, looking older than his twenty years. “Bauer?” he said.
“They took my wife,” said Bauer. “The SA kicked her out of her job as a schoolteacher and put her in protective custody.”
“Oh, no.” Helldorff brought a hand to his forehead. “I’m—I’m so sorry—”
“I didn’t come here for your condolences,” said Bauer. “I came for your help.”
“My help?”
“I doubt they would have moved her yet. She’s probably being held somewhere in Munich. Probably one of the directorates. I don’t know which.”
“And you want me to find out?”
“You owe me,” said Bauer. “This is how you’ll repay me. I know you can find her.”
“But…”
“Just tell me where she is,” said Bauer. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
Helldorff’s face went through several iterations of uncertainty. Bauer would never forgive him, but he knew that Helldorff had a conscience, that he was full of remorse. “Wait here,” he said. “They keep an updated list of detainees. I have a copy.”
Bauer stood silently outside the house. Five minutes passed. Helldorff’s wife reappeared, this time without the baby in her arms. “You’re sure you won’t come in?”
For reasons he couldn’t identify, Bauer could not bring himself to enter Helldorff’s home. “I’m fine out here.”
She nodded. “He used to speak about you constantly,” she said. “I was sorry you couldn’t attend our wedding.”
Bauer wasn’t invited, of course, nor would he have gone. But it appeared that Helldorff’s bride did not know the details.
She looked over her shoulder, then turned to him again. “May I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“It will sound odd. Did…” She stepped outside, half closed the door. “Did something happen to my husband at work? Something he regrets?”
Bauer let out a breath. “That’s a question for him, ma’am.”
“Please call me Rebecca.”
“Why do you ask, Rebecca?”
She looked forlornly back at the door. “Peter hasn’t been himself for quite a long time.
Over a year now. Not long before we married.
At first, I thought it was second thoughts about our wedding.
But that’s not it. It’s something to do with work.
He got this wonderful promotion—he was made a kommissar—but he’s been, well…
” She lowered her voice. “He’s been miserable ever since. ”
Before Bauer could answer, the door swung open again. Helldorff nodded.
“I have your answer,” he said.