The German Wife(57)

“Mayim said they’ve taken Jürgen?” Adele cried, bursting into the study without warning. I startled, and she crouched in front of me, cupping my face in her rough palms. “Oh my Lord, Sofie. I’m so sorry, treasure. I’m so sorry. Do you have any idea what this is about?”

“We...” I looked around the room, suddenly too scared to give voice to my suspicions, no longer even trusting the sanctuary of my home. “I don’t know,” I croaked.

Adele pulled me into an embrace, holding me hard up against her thin body with surprising strength. She released me, then rose.

“Is there anyone you can call? Those zu Schiller friends, perhaps?”

“I...I tried to call last night,” I said. “They didn’t answer. I asked Lydia’s nanny to have them call me.”

“Call her now,” Adele said abruptly. It didn’t occur to me to disobey her. I reached for the handset and dialed. This time, an answer came within a few rings.

“This is the zu Schiller residence,” the housekeeper said.

“Hello, it’s Sofie von Meyer Rhodes,” I said. Then I cleared my throat and asked, “Is Lydia at home?”

There was an awkward pause before the housekeeper said stiffly, “Mrs. zu Schiller is unavailable.”

“She’s expecting me for tea this morning...” I said weakly.

“Mrs. zu Schiller is unavailable, Mrs. von Meyer Rhodes,” she repeated firmly. “That includes for your morning tea, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll speak to Karl, then?”

“He is at Kummersdorf, of course.”

“Did you have some phone trouble recently?” I whispered, closing my eyes.

At this, she paused. Then she said thoughtfully, “It’s the strangest thing. Both of the phones had been unplugged. I only realized this morning when I was dusting. It must have been one of the children.”

The children hadn’t touched those phones. It had been Lydia or Karl, because they knew I’d be calling at an indecent hour.

There was a quiet knock at the front door just before noon.

Adele rushed to answer it, but Mayim and I followed at a safe distance. Jürgen was there, alone. One of his eyes was purple and swollen almost shut and he was visibly disheveled, but it seemed he’d suffered no other serious injuries. Adele embraced him, murmuring prayers of gratitude to God. Then she stepped aside, making room for me. I threw my arms around his neck and wept. He stood still and silent, his hands against my back, his breathing steady and calm.

But when I pulled away, I saw the miserable way he glanced between Mayim and me, and I knew this wasn’t over yet. Aunt Adele turned away and was facing the hallway toward the kitchen as if she couldn’t bear for us to see her cry, but her voice was thick with tears.

“I expect you’ll need coffee.”

“That would be wonderful. And we’ll take it in the courtyard, thank you, Aunt Adele,” Jürgen said quietly. Adele and Mayim whispered as they walked down the hallway, leaving me alone with my husband.

“The courtyard?” I said, protesting. “You need to rest.”

“I am tired,” he admitted, which seemed the understatement of the century. Even so, he forced a smile. “The sunlight on my face will help to wake me up.”

We sat on the wrought iron chairs in the courtyard. Mayim brought a tray out and set it up in front of us, with rye bread and Adele’s black currant jam, and coffee so strong I could smell it as she stepped out of the back door.

Once she was gone, Jürgen slipped his arm around my shoulders and drew in a deep breath, as if he were breathing me in.

“They knew we were talking about leaving. That’s why they took me. My options are limited but simple. I’m alive and I work for the rocket program...or...” He broke off and I swallowed hard. “It’s like I said last night. They need me too much to let me walk away.”

Jürgen released me gently and poured himself a cup of coffee. He sipped it gingerly, then touched his swollen eye socket, wincing.

“They said it sends the wrong message to the public if a senior employee like me associates with Jews.”

“Well,” I said, trying to stay calm. “We can just—”

“Sofie, she has to go. We have to erase her from our lives. That’s what they said.” His voice sharpened with disgust. “Erase her. She’s like your sister, and that means she’s like my sister. She’s a part of our family.”

“We can’t,” I choked out, stricken.

“We’ll be an example to the public one way or another. Do you understand what that means? It means if we aren’t an example of how to shun a Jewish friend, we’ll be an example of what happens to people who don’t. I don’t know how we survive if I lose this job, let alone if...”

“I wondered about the timing of this,” I whispered. “Mayim thought maybe Dietger was outside the window.”

“They repeated back to me what you and I said last night,” Jürgen said. “There’s no way Dietger would have heard us so clearly if he was outside. It was as though the Gestapo were in the room with us.”

“I checked the study this morning,” I said, shaking my head. “Surely if there was a microphone in there, we’d be able to see it?”