The German Wife(32)

“Even if I do find another job, who’s to say this won’t happen again?” Jürgen said, frustrated. “Whoever insisted I be fired today must have immense power, and they must desperately want me in that program.”

“We are still discussing this as if you have some choice here,” Adele sighed. “The men who had you fired are likely the same men who are running the country. Today they are playing with your career—what will they try next if that fails?”

After a sleepless night, we woke to find a letter from the bank waiting for us on the floor of the front hall, having been pushed through the mail chute while we slept. I watched anxiously as Jürgen tore it open.

“What does it say?” I asked, although I already had an inkling.

He raised his gaze from the paper to mine, frustration and shame in his eyes.

“They’ve been alerted to a change in my employment circumstances, and if I can’t prove we have a source of income to cover the mortgage, they’ll have to call in the loan.”

“We’ll figure something out, my love,” I whispered through numb lips. He gave me a frustrated look and went into his study, closing the door firmly behind him.

Mayim and I took the children next door to visit Adele after that. I was trying very hard to remain calm, but as I sat down over my steaming cup of tea, all I could think about was Jürgen alone in his study.

“They say this program is all about space,” I blurted. Mayim and Adele just looked at me. “It was always Jürgen’s dream to work with rockets like this. If he must take this job, it might not be so awful for him.”

Adele sighed and shook her head, shooting me a frustrated look.

“Mark my words, child. If Hitler wants to develop a rocket program, you can bet your last Reichsmark that at some point in the future, it will be used to hurt someone.”

But in just two days, the Nazis had taken away our only source of income and threatened our home. We knew the pressure would only increase if we continued to resist, but we had so little left...only the most important things in our world. Our family and our lives. Once we realized that, saying no was no longer an option. By the end of the following week, Jürgen had started his new, highly paid civilian position at the Army facility at Kummersdorf.



16


Sofie

Huntsville, Alabama
1950

Jürgen and I agreed that we should try to get into a routine as quickly as possible. A whole group of German children were starting school the Monday after the party, and Gisela was starting with them.

I helped her don her favorite dress and styled her hair into two long braids, then showed her the lunch I’d prepared for her—dark rye bread with liverwurst, and nutty Elisenlebkuchen cookies for snacks. She barely managed a smile.

“Are you ready to go?” Jürgen asked as he joined us in the kitchen, dressed for work. He had purchased a second car for me but it wouldn’t arrive until later in the week, and I needed time to learn the road rules anyway. So for the time being he would drop Gisela at school, and Felix and I would walk to pick her up afterward.

“Mama,” Gisela whispered. “I’m so nervous.”

“Just stay with the other German students. You’ll all be in the same boat, but the very best way to learn a new language is immersion. Isn’t that right, Papa?”

“It absolutely is,” Jürgen said in English, and Gisela gave me one last terrified look, then followed him out the door. As soon as they were gone, I crouched to meet Felix’s gaze. He had been hiding beneath the dining room table.

“Are you ready to come out yet, little man?”

“Is he gone?” Felix asked, glancing anxiously about the room.

“He’s your papa,” I scolded him gently. “You’re going to have to get used to him sooner or later.”

“Later,” Felix decided, and he climbed out and hooked his arm around my thigh, resting his head against me. I reached down to touch his soft curls. “Breakfast, Mama?”

Once Felix ate and was dressed for the day, I packaged one of the extra batches of Elisenlebkuchen into a brown paper bag, and we walked hand in hand toward Claudia’s house. I knocked on her door, and when she opened it, I offered her the bag.

“I brought you a little gift.” I smiled. “I thought maybe we could have a cup of coffee? Get to know one another?”

She reached tentatively for the bag but didn’t move out of the doorway. Instead, she tilted her head at me.

“I haven’t forgotten how awful it was back then,” she said, dropping her voice as she glanced at Felix. “Sometimes you had to pay a price just to keep your family alive. I do understand that. But is it true?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I replied. Her eyes narrowed.

“I think you do. Can you honestly tell me that Jürgen wasn’t involved in what happened at Mittelwerk?”

How could one word have so much power? As Claudia said Mittelwerk, my stomach dropped, and a wave of shame and guilt rushed over me, so powerful I swayed with the force of it. Felix was oblivious to all of that. He tugged at my hand, impatient to go inside to play with Claudia’s son Luis. Eventually, I wanted to tell my children everything, but he wasn’t even five years old. It wasn’t time yet for him to overhear a conversation like the one Claudia was trying to prompt.