White Rose Black Forest(23)

Franka went to the window, stepping over the hole in the floorboards to get there. She threw back the curtain. The snow drifting down was just visible outside. “The snow is coming down again. The roads are going to be closed for days. Weeks maybe. You’re not going anywhere for a long time. You need to start trusting me. I could be the only friend you’ve got.”

She picked up the basin, threw in the medical supplies, and stormed out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.



A day passed, and then the next. The man lolled in morphine-induced delirium most of the time, and they spoke little. He emerged from his stupor on the third day. His pain was decreasing, and she had given him the last of his morphine shots that morning. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. His door was closed, but she imagined he could hear the radio programs she was listening to—none of them sanctioned by the National Socialists. If he was such a loyal subject, why didn’t he object? What she was doing was illegal, and enough to land her back in jail. She sat in the rocking chair, staring past her book. She tried to reason that he was who he said he was, but there was no getting past what he’d said in his sleep, what she’d heard. If he were Luftwaffe, even a spy, he would have asked her to get in contact with someone when she was in town. Even if what he said were true, and he was nervous about the Gestapo finding out about his mission, there should have been someone to call. Surely someone would have wanted to know if he was alive or dead. She put the book in her lap and rubbed her eyes in frustration. She placed several pieces of wood on the fire and watched for a few seconds as the flames engulfed them. It seemed like there was only one thing to do.

He was awake and staring at the ceiling as she shoved the door open.

“I need to tell you who I am. If you are who you say you are, then you’ll likely be disgusted with me, and the next week or two that we’re forced to spend together is going to be difficult. But I need to tell you. Perhaps then you’ll open up to me.”

“Fr?ulein, there’s no need for any loose talk. The less we know about each other, the better. I’m most grateful for all that you’ve done for me, but I can’t let you compromise my mission.”

“What mission? What mission could a Luftwaffe airman possibly be on in the Black Forest Mountains in wintertime? I think you’re here by mistake. I also believe that you’re planning on trying to escape as soon as you’re well again. That’s your business as long as it doesn’t compromise my safety.”

The man seemed shocked. “I would never do anything to hurt you. Not now that I know—”

“Do you have any idea why I was prying up the floorboards when you woke?” The man didn’t answer, just looked on. “I was prying up the floorboards so I could hide you. So when the Gestapo come, which they inevitably will, you won’t be lying in this bed.”

“Fr?ulein—”

“The Gestapo will come,” she repeated. “I ran into an old boyfriend of mine, who’s a captain in the Gestapo. I didn’t tell him that you were here, but he will come, particularly if they’re already looking for you.” She leaned over the bed, both hands on the blanket. “I’ll tell you who I am, and at the end of my story, if you still insist that you’re a Luftwaffe airman, I’ll look after you here for the next few days, and you can limp away when the weather clears. Or else you can trust me, and I can help you.”

The man didn’t answer. His face was pale. He reached for the glass of water she’d left for him by the bed and then looked at the hole in the floorboards. Silence filled the air.

“I’m listening,” he said.





Chapter 6

The arrival of another new chancellor in 1933 didn’t seem momentous or noteworthy. There had been many, and little seemed to improve. Life was still hard. The worldwide depression was getting worse, and Germany appeared to have been stricken the hardest. The newspapers said that more than fifteen million people, 20 percent of the population at the time, were living at subsistence level. This new man, this Hitler, was regarded as an upstart, a bad joke. His National Socialist party had never achieved more than 37 percent of the vote, but the president had named him chancellor. Either way, the “little Austrian corporal,” as his political opponents had referred to him, could never last long. He and his brown-shirted rabble would be run out of power once the republic had solved the infighting that had split the political powers apart. And besides, Hitler could not have really meant what he said in his speeches about his intention to tear the republic apart and start again, or about his determination to avenge Germany’s defeat in the world war, or about the Jews. A statement released to the papers by one of his spokesmen was largely ignored: “You must realize that what has happened in Germany is no ordinary change. Parliamentary and democratic times are passed. A new era has begun.”

That same week Franka learned new words like “lymphoma” and “metastasized” and saw her father cry for the first time. Fredi didn’t understand, and his mother hugged him tight to her breast as he smiled that beautiful smile at her. She urged them to be brave. They had been through so much already. The future held only wonderful things. She would beat this cancer, and they would go on together. This was only the beginning of their lives. She wasn’t even forty. It didn’t matter what the doctors said. Faith would bring her through this, just as it had before, just as it had when Fredi was born, and all of the times with him after.