The German Wife(102)

“We need to stop here for the night,” Jürgen said abruptly. At breakfast, he asked Lydia if our children could stay at her home for a few extra nights so he and I could share some extra time together. Now we were midway through the five-hour drive from Castle Varlar to his villa in Nordhausen and I was startled at the sudden change in plans.

“Why? Are you unwell?”

He ignored me, turning the car into the parking lot of an historic, stone-walled hotel in Kassel. Something about his steely silence warned me to leave the question hanging, so I didn’t ask again.

Soon, we were alone, with black-washed wooden floorboards beneath our feet and exposed beams across the sloped ceiling above us. A large bed sat in the center of the room, with soft white pillows and layers of thick blankets. Huge, wood-framed windows washed the room in silver-blue light, reflected off the snow on a nearby rooftop. On any other day, at any other stage of my life, I’d have been delighted by the scene.

“They will bring dinner for us later,” Jürgen said, as he sat on the bed and stretched his legs out. He patted the mattress beside him and added gently, “Come here, my love.”

“Why did you do this?” I asked, as I crawled up onto the bed next to him. He immediately pulled me close, and I reclined, my ear to his chest.

“A random room in a random hotel that even I didn’t know I was going to book seemed our best chance at privacy.”

“What if the room has a listening device?”

“They can’t have one in every room in the country, and even if they do, I checked in under a false name.”

We sat for a while as I pondered the risk calculation, too accustomed by then to assuming no space was safe for me to speak freely. I listened to the slow breaths of my husband and the beating of his heart beneath my ear. After a while, he whispered, “There is a sign above the gate at the Buchenwald camp. Jedem das Seine.” Roughly, To Each What He Deserves.

“I think about that every day. The people inside those gates have done nothing to deserve their fate. I always thought that hell was a myth. It made good sense that the church would come up with a lie like that—eternal damnation is a strong motivation to convince people to comply. But now I understand that hell is not an abstract concept. It’s real, but it’s not about pitchforks or rivers of lava. Hell is simply the place where hope is lost.” He sighed heavily. “Sofie, even my villa is haunted.”

“Haunted?”

“Otto said the villa was a reward. Somewhere big enough for you and the children to come and stay. I was pleased at first—it’s a lovely home.” His villa was outfitted with expensive furnishings, new appliances, and ample space. “I learned from the neighbors that the villa belonged to a Jewish businessman. They took it from him, and they took his business too. I bought a new mattress, but it is his bed I sleep in. When I come home after work, I feel him there. We have taken everything from the victims of the Reich. Their homes. Families. Communities. Clothes. Assets. And now we work the prisoners day and night for us at Mittelwerk, and all we give them in return is the chance to take one more breath—there is never any guarantee of more than that. There is no hope of rescue or reprieve. This is what I have done to them.”

“Well, you haven’t—” I started to argue, but behind me, I felt him shake his head fiercely.

“I have been to the camps. I’ve seen the conditions these people are trapped in. I’ve stood idly by while Otto and Karl worked them to death at Mittelwerk. Those men build rockets according to my instructions. When the story of the war is written, the pages will be full of men saying I was only following orders and the world will know that is fiction. Every single time I opted not to take a stand, I was taking a stand—for the wrong side.”

I sat up, turning to face him. He was shaking with rage and guilt, and when I touched his shoulder, he shook me away.

“None of this is your fault, Jürgen.”

He turned to stare out the window. It was freezing outside and fat flakes of snow began to fall. Without turning back to me, he murmured, “The only thing that’s kept me going the last few years is that you get to live a reasonably ordinary life in Berlin with the children. But from time to time, I realize that it’s my fault that you have no idea what it has cost for you to have that nice life.”

“Jürgen...” I whispered, stunned.

“I wanted to shelter you from the horrors of what I was seeing. What I was a part of. But I can’t keep doing that, Sofie. Sooner or later, you have to know the truth.”

“The truth?” I repeated hesitantly.

“A while back, I mentioned to Otto that it made no sense to make the prisoners at Mittelwerk live and work as they are. I know he hates the Jews. Even at a practical level it seemed to make sense to be smarter about our work practices. And do you know what he said?” He didn’t wait for my response before he carried on. “He said that whether the workers fall off a scaffold or die from starvation or disease or go back to the camps, the outcome is the same. Some of the camps have transitioned. They are now extermination camps.” Jürgen’s voice broke. He cleared his throat, then whispered, “Otto knows the war is lost—we all do. The Reich will aim to wipe the Jews from the face of the earth right up until Germany falls.”

“But—there must be hundreds of thousands of people in those camps...”