War Bonds: A Novel of World War Two, page 17
While he had not seen them in over a year now, he knew Albert, Ginette, and their children continued offering the aid that started with Wills’ accidental escape. He’d heard snippets of conversation of more recent escapees, which assured him the family had not been compromised. Sylvi had moved off the farm and ran lines below Orleans. Wills had encountered her a handful of times and found her nearly unrecognizable from her teenaged self: black beret, styled hair, her body fit and strong, her ability to transform herself proving indispensable to the Maquis. A hat, a scarf, glasses, a man’s jacket and shoes or a woman’s—she could come across variously as a teenage boy, a thirty-something farmhand, or a pubescent girl. When her work took her into cities, she took on the style of an office worker, too busy with her own concerns to trouble herself with whatever the Germans were doing. Head high, tote basket in her hand, false papers sewed into the lining, she marched escapees into safe houses in plain sight of the occupiers. She had dreamt of a life more varied, more interesting than the one she led on the farm. She could not have imagined she would inhabit a world so fraught with risk, or that she would grow so brave and resilient.
Wills had spotted her some months earlier in Toulouse. He was there to ferry explosives his compatriots would use to sabotage German supply lines to the coast. He had stopped in a café and there she sat, this time, a demure French schoolgirl, her algèbre textbook posed before her. Taking a table next to her, Wills dropped his handkerchief and watched it settle at her feet. She picked it up and extended her hand to return it. Wills gripped her hand tightly and looked her in the eye.
“Merci. Merci beaucoup pour tout. Je ne suis rien sans ton aide.” Thank you. Thank you for all you have done. I could not have done it without you.
She allowed herself a flicker of a smile. “Bien sûr, monsieur. Tu parles bien français.”
“Merci,” he responded. “Dear friends devoted many hours to helping me learn.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
–Adolph Hitler
Sagan, 1944
The night of her much-anticipated party in late spring, Reinhard found Annalise especially happy, her contented movements almost feline as she glided into her glimmering gold gown, strapless and tight through her chest and hips. Her toenails painted a festive red, she pointed them, flexing her calves, as she stepped into peep-toe pumps. With Helene’s help, Annalise had pulled her hair into a low and rather complicated bun, with thin braids weaving through it, a gardenia tucked at the center, and the sides rolled toward her face in the way of American film stars whose pictures she’d seen. She had neglected, apparently, to read the English captions of those photos that identified that particular hairdo a Victory Roll, as in victory over Germany.
“You are enchanting,” Reinhard said, coming up behind her, wrapping a strong hand around the back of her neck and massaging languidly, inhaling the scent of the gardenia. “Perhaps we can delay our appearance by just a few minutes, provided we can slide that dress up enough for…”
She waved a hand—a dismissive gesture she relied on more and more that he was growing to despise.
“That would be nice, Reinhard, but you know I have much to do to ensure we are ready to receive our guests. So,” and here she swept by him and moved toward the stairs, “permit me.”
Nice? He repeated to himself. Nice? Her words sounded reasonable and polite, but the rebuff was pointed. Rude, in a tone he found unacceptable. He stared at her back, her narrow waist, the bare shoulders as she hurried down the staircase, her mind on other things. Where had her ardor gone? Was she impatient with him particularly, or was it just this ridiculous party preoccupying her? Either way, he would have her to himself later. He would insist on it, reminding her such things were his decision, not hers.
. . .
The garden and Terrasse were as visually stunning as Annalise had hoped, the lights strung over the arbor giving it a magical, ethereal look, worlds away from the prison camp just a few miles away, the death camps across the Reich, and the theatres of war soon to encroach. The flowers and shrubs had cooperated, many at the peak of bloom thanks to Gordon’s careful cultivation over the past number of weeks. As the guests arrived, Clara and Helene poured drinks and offered hors d’oeuvres (that were to have included Russian caviar until circumstances prevented its acquisition), circulating through the party picking up snatches of conversation they were not meant to hear. Despite the live music, the abundant liquor, and the expertly prepared food, many of the Heer and Waffen-SS officers seemed distracted, even grim-faced. The word the women heard most often: invasion. As much as they wished they could ask a few clarifying questions, they kept moving, affecting disinterest. As Helene pretended to tidy up the bar, she strained to hear two Heer officers, both colonels, whisper concern over some of Hitler’s recent decisions, one tossing out his comments between long drafts of whiskey and the other speaking quietly but emphatically out of the side of his mouth, a task especially difficult given the amount of liquor he had consumed. They spoke out of the presence of the two guests of honor, Reichsführer Himmler and Minister of Propaganda Goebbels, who both seemed enthusiastic in their enjoyment of the evening, Himmler, squinting through his thick glasses as he offered a few too many toasts to the Führer.
The Reichsführer had brought the Schröders several cases of French wine—bottles of Bordeaux, Burgundy, even some Champagne—a curated assortment from the well-appointed wine cellar of the Berchtesgaden. He selected one for Clara to uncork and pour for him immediately, Annalise silently communicating to her cook to hide the rest away. No point in wasting wine of this caliber on guests whose speech was already beginning to slur.
The guests of honor did not profess any concern about the status of the war and Goebbels, whose wife, Marta, was not present, managed more than once to sidle up to Annalise and place a hand low on her back—too low—as he inquired about her children, life in Sagan, the provenance of the beautifully lit arbor, how her parents were faring in Berlin. He was known for his sybaritic appetites and his many affairs, and while Annalise had no interest in being counted among them, she would do nothing that could harm her husband’s prospects. Ensuring his superiors thought well of Reinhard was the reason she staged this party. At least, that was what she told herself. As they stood side by side listening to the string quartet, the Minister of Propaganda slid his hand slowly down the small of her back to her backside, resting his hand there before massaging her, the pressure growing progressively more intense. She neither responded nor resisted, which had the effect of encouraging him to step a hair closer, wrap his arm low on her hip, and press himself into her.
“Why, Minister,” she said, turning demurely toward him, whispering over her shoulder to draw his face to hers. “It has been a very long time then, since you’ve been home to see your wife? I thrill over the notion that I remind you of her.” She leaned in, her eyes lingering on his lips. “Thank you for this kindness. Now, please excuse me as I must see to my other guests. Heil Hitler.” And giving an enigmatic smile that an overconfident man might interpret as genuine delight at his touch, she disappeared into the house. He would think the door was still open; she would keep herself out of his reach for the remainder of the night.
Traveling from one conversation circle to another, Annalise listened as if every shopworn story and oft-told joke dazzled and delighted her. She described for her guests the building of the arbor, attributing the construction to a work detail, rather than revealing a single POW had completed it. She deflected compliments about the design, the intricate woodwork, the fragrant vines that intertwined it, while still managing to take a bit of credit for it. As she sipped her Riesling, flirting with high-ranking officers, disarming their wives by complimenting their gowns and hairstyles, she thought suddenly of Gordon—his tall, taut physique, his beautifully lean face—and wished the world were different somehow and that he could be the handsome man at her side, the one with whom she slept at the end of this evening. She felt pressed between two visions of her future. One, she was inhabiting in this moment as the beautiful, educated wife of a Nazi officer, a man poised for widening power and influence once the war was won. The other—a life with an artistic, far more intriguing man who treated her as his equal and whose mere presence caused her heartbeat to quicken. She had spent many hours contemplating which future would serve her best, which would offer the greater advantage—social, personal, sexual—that she believed essential to a fully satisfying life. She had not worked out where her children fit into an alternative picture.
“How long now, Frau Schröder?”
She missed her guest’s question while lost in her reverie.
“My apologies, Oberst, I was watching to ensure my staff is attending properly to the needs of the Reichsführer. And yes, now he seems satisfied—there’s a drink in his hand. Again, your question?”
“How long have you lived in this splendid home?” the colonel repeated.
“We arrived in 1940, but there was truly so much to do to get the property in hand. Jews inhabited it before, you know, so there were things we needed to dispose of. Of course, we had to clean absolutely everything. I’ve had a constant stream of workers here to address this and that, make repairs. This is our very first outdoor party and do you know, I had wanted to host a gathering from the very first moment I arrived? But it took me four years!”
Her admirers laughed indulgently, assuring her the evening was well worth her years of preparation. Annalise gazed out over the grounds, inhaling the intoxicating scent of gardenias that mixed with cigarette smoke, ladies’ perfumes, and warm male bodies perspiring in their dress uniforms. She had grown to love this house and the cloaked life it had made possible for her. The tears she had shed four years ago upon leaving Berlin seemed to belong to another woman entirely. She lamented that circumstances would permit her to host but one magnificent party on these grounds. Just one.
Throughout the night, Reinhard played the magnanimous, expansive host, joining in several rousing verses of Horst-Wessel-Lied in the music room as the party reached its festive climax. Annalise took a turn at the piano, impressing her guests with the Schumann etudes that so enchanted Gordon, smiling at her oblivious, beaming husband. Afterwards, she nestled next to him, the adoring wife, hand on his forearm, sunny, compliant.
“Here is my Annalise,” he whispered to her, reaching to wrap his arms around her, the pearl-white skin of her neck and décolletage arousing him even with others in the room. Drinks in hand, the guests watched the commandant embrace her, the two of them the very embodiment of the Aryan ideal with his self-assured strength and her pale beauty. Sensing she had taken center stage, Annalise prepared to deliver her lines. She looked into her husband’s eyes and placed her manicured hands on either side of his face.
“My esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, her eyes never leaving his. “Please join me in thanking my marvelously talented husband—and he is talented in many, many ways, I might add,” prompting several whistles and knowing laughs from the crowd, “for planning this unforgettable evening for us.” The group began to applaud and raise their glasses, some calling out a “Heil Hitler” for good measure, as Reinhard pulled Annalise in closer, reaching for the clip at the back of her head to release her hair, Annalise moving her head to allow it to fall, sensuously combing her fingers through her strands to pull out the braids. Amidst oohs and ahs and a few nervous giggles, several men pulled their own wives closer while others reached for whomever was handy. Annalise gave Reinhard a playful look, tongue at the corner of her partly opened mouth, a gesture that reassured him that with the party nearly over, she would now be available to him.
As the last sleepy, sodden guests took their leave, Annalise slipped up the stairs while Clara and Helene helped reunite officers with the uniform jackets they had shed over the course of the warm night. Reinhard escorted several couples who could not seem to find the way themselves, to the staff cars that lined the drive, offering his arm to women unsteady on their feet and sharing a few closing words with their husbands, end-of-the-evening blather spoken by drunken men at the height of their powers, full of promises and proclamations. It had been a fine night, they declared, an exemplary one, and they had nothing—not a single thing—to worry about because the officers here represented the vast and capable strength of the Reich that could overcome any assault on its primacy. Any at all. Enemies be damned. Heil Hitler! Reinhard affirmed their pronouncements as he tucked couples into their vehicles, snapping a salute and remarking again and again that Germany most certainly will prevail, given its resources, talent, and superior preparation. When at last he mounted the stairs—leaving the cleanup to Clara and Helene—he anticipated Annalise waiting for him, seated at her dressing table, as eager as he for an appropriate culmination to their successful evening. He hoped she still wore her gold dress so he could remove it himself, slip the black shoes from her lovely feet. Instead, he found her burrowed under the quilts on their bed, wearing her plain Batiste nightgown, feigning a sleep so deep that her husband, while frustrated, was reluctant to disturb her.
As the party guests traveled the silent streets to their homes and headquarters, the rhythmic rocking of the ride prompting their eyes to close, their heads to droop, they failed to note a surprising coincidence: many had lost a button from their jackets. Battle ribbons, too, had become detached from more than one jacket front. Insignia pins, including the double slash of lightning of the SS, had dropped from their collars.
. . .
Thanks to the successful assembly of bits and pieces culled from a variety of sources, the Kriegie radio was now fully operational, hidden in a carved-out portion of the wall of Gordon’s barracks, camouflaged by a calendar hand-drawn on scraps of cardboard, affixed to the wall with chewing gum. A single nail over the radio powered it using electricity from the single light bulb that hung from the ceiling. A second nail powered the makeshift headphones. Both the nails and the wire transmitting the signal were among the lesser-known ingredients in Clara’s bread recipe.
One Tuesday in June, several weeks after the Schröder’s grand soiree, the POWs of Stalag-Luft III gathered to hear BBC announcer John Snagge proclaim “D-Day is here.” The Allies had landed on the beaches of Normandy, Operation Overlord underway to wrest Europe from Hitler’s brutal grasp. While hope swelled among the prisoners, Lieutenant Colonel Leonard cautioned that the most dangerous time could be ahead of them—when the vice tightened and the Nazis believed they had nothing to lose.
The POWs drove the guards crazy over the next few days, making off-hand remarks about all the tourists suddenly visiting France and suggesting that if perhaps the Nazis ran a missing persons ad in the newspaper, they might find out where the Luftwaffe had gotten to.
“They cannot know anything,” the guards told one another. “How could they? They are bluffing.” When the commandant finally briefed the staff and confirmed the Allied invasion was in fact underway, he assured them that elite SS units were blanketed across Normandy to repulse it. Perhaps so, whispered the guards. But how did the Kriegies know about this before we did?
When Gordon arrived for his next workday on the Schröder estate, he did not proceed directly to the guesthouse, but lingered in the yard hoping to assess how the news from France might be affecting the household. As he dead-headed the geraniums and pulled a few weeds, he overheard a violent fight between Annalise and the commandant. She was yelling, demanding to know if an evacuation was planned. Was he to remain in charge of the camp? What did he plan to do with the prisoners with the Soviets pushing from one direction and the Allies from another? Where did this leave her?
“Where are you getting this information, Annalise? What makes you think it is accurate?” His voice boomed and carried out the French doors and into the garden. “What impertinence to ask these questions, as if the high command has not prepared a strategy long ago.”
“Long ago?” she screamed. “Long ago? Why? Because they know the cause is lost? Did they leave us out in Poland—yes, Poland—as fodder for the Red Army? And you cooperated with them on this?”
“I am not listening to your facile, uninformed accusations. The Führer, the Reichsführer, have the prosecution of the war well in hand and I have no use for your hysterical…”
“Hysterical?” Annalise’s voice grew in rage and Gordon heard a crash—a plate? A vase? “It is not a question of how I’m taking this news, Reinhard, it’s the news itself. The threat it poses. Pay attention, my dear, darling, overconfident husband. You may be content to end up in the custody of the Allies, but I am not.”
Gordon heard a door slam, then saw Reinhard charge from the music room, crossing the Terrasse. Face red and angry, he strode past Gordon, who by this point was on his hands and knees collecting invisible weeds under the Rose of Sharon hedge, and left through the garden gate. After the staff car was safely away, Gordon headed to the kitchen to find Clara. She stood before the stove, one index finger at her lips, the other pointing to the washroom where Friedrich was occupied.
