The German Wife(29)

“Ah, you see—that’s the trick, isn’t it? The Treaty doesn’t mention rockets,” Jürgen sighed. “Only a handful of people in the world had even heard of the concept in 1919, when the Treaty was written.”

“Oh.”

“If representatives of any other chancellor of our lifetime made me this job offer, I’d have accepted that a space mission was the goal, probably without thinking twice.”

“For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve always imagined that one day someone would pay you to work on these prototypes.”

“My income from the university is unpredictable at best now. I’m not a great teacher, but I could be great at this. And we’re at real risk of losing this house. But despite all of that...”

“It’s too risky,” I finished quietly. “If you took the job and the Nazis told you to turn them into bombs, it would be too late to protest.” Jürgen nodded. He seemed relieved that I quickly realized this too. The door closed the minute it opened, but I was apparently keen to torture myself, because I asked, “Did Karl mention the salary?”

“The budget is virtually limitless. The salary is commensurate with the importance of my unique set of interests and skills. They are setting up at Kummersdorf, but they’d give me a car for the commute. They’d even pay for me to complete my doctoral dissertation while I worked. But if this technology works the way I imagine, it could be co-opted into the most destructive weapon man has ever seen. I’d be placing that power into the hands of a regime that already terrifies me.”

We fell into silence. After a while, Jürgen asked me to turn the light out. We shuffled into a new position, side by side, hands entwined. I lay staring at the ceiling for a long time. As the alarm clock beside our bed clicked over to 1:00 a.m., Jürgen cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry. I want to give you everything—to provide the kind of life you and Georg and Laura deserve,” he whispered. “But the risks are just too great.” After a moment, his hand tightened on mine. “You understand that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” I whispered sadly.

“The Nazis are dangerous, my love.”

“I told you right away. I know you can’t take the job...” He shook his head and I trailed off, frowning. “Well, what do you mean?”

“I just want to make sure we’re on the same page about this in case they try to assert some pressure to force our hand,” Jürgen said gently.

“What makes you think they would do that?” I said, alarmed.

“There are few people in Germany who could do this job. It’s even more reason for me to say no, but we need to understand that they may not like it if I do.”

“Whatever happens,” I promised, “I support your decision.”

It was an easy promise to make in the dark of night, when we had no idea that the decision had already been made for us.



14


Lizzie

Huntsville, Alabama
1950

Cal was a civilian aeronautical engineer with the Fort Bliss experimental aviation division through the war. After it ended, he was quietly promoted to a classified project so secretive that, at first, he wouldn’t tell me a single thing about it.

I was too easily deterred from pushing him for the details, distracted as I was by Henry’s behavior after the war. The rest of the world was celebrating, but my brother was sleeping at all hours of the day and night, and irritable whenever I tried to encourage him to get out of the house. Then came the drinking, and after that, he started disappearing for days, returning broke or beaten up, or sometimes just beaten down.

After a year, Henry told me he needed to stand on his own two feet, and announced that he was leaving El Paso. I tried to convince him to stay, and Cal tried too, but Henry was determined that he knew what was best for him. We were worried, but he was an adult. We had to let him go.

Only after Henry left did Calvin finally tell me the truth about his new job. He was supervising a handful of highly trained, specialized scientists captured in Germany after the war ended, brought to America under the Operation Paperclip program.

I knew right away that something was rotten about that arrangement. Even if my common sense didn’t tell me that inviting a bunch of German scientists to America was a bad idea, Calvin’s tense, uneasy tone did.

“There’s a dossier on each of them,” he said heavily. “I’ve read them all, and they suggest that these men were geniuses and spent the entire war making scientific discoveries. Apparently their hands are clean.”

“But you don’t believe that’s true.”

Cal pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes.

“No one can know what I’m about to tell you, Lizzie. It has to stay between you and me.”

“Of course.”

“It’s just too convenient. I asked Newsome when he was in town last week. At first he insisted the dossiers were completely accurate. Only when I really pushed him did he admit the truth. It seems some...maybe most...of the German scientists we’re working with were active in the Nazi party. He’s even seen evidence that some of the senior scientists were officers in the SS.”

My mouth went dry. I followed the news about the Nuremberg trials so closely it was borderline unhealthy. I knew all too well what kinds of evil the SS had been responsible for.