White Rose Black Forest(41)

“And not everyone in a Nazi uniform is a German.”

“There is no room for questioning the government in time of war,” he said, feeling the hollowness of his words.

“The White Rose felt quite the opposite.”

“And you consider yourself a true patriot, for speaking out against the government?”

“I did once. I’m not worthy of the name now. Not after what I did. Hans, and Sophie, Willi and Alex. They were the true patriots.”

Silence hung heavy in the room. This was the time. The opportunity was dangling in front of him.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know people. It’s part of my job. I was trained to recognize when someone is hiding something, and I see you are.”

“What about you, Herr Graf?” She spat the name out as if it were sour. “What are you hiding from me?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Oh, isn’t it?”

He was aware of the gun under his pillow and knew what effect reaching for it would have on this conversation, on all of this.

“There’s something in you that you haven’t told me about.”

“You’ve told me nothing!” she shouted.

“I can’t divulge the details of the mission that I’m undertaking—”

“I know, for the good of the Reich. You reach inside me, and when I give, you only ask for more.” She stood up. “You say you’re not a Nazi, but you’re just like them. Maybe you’re the one who’s hiding something.”

She made for the door and slammed it behind her, but the lock didn’t catch, and it came ajar. The entire cabin quaked as she stomped to the kitchen. He heard her pull a chair up to the table and then the sound of her weeping.

He fought the weakness he felt within himself.

She wept alone.

What could he do stuck in this bed, in this cabin, in these mountains? Could he trust her? It was the same question, over and over in his mind, unchanging. Could she do what he couldn’t now? It was true that she’d revealed much of herself, but he could tell there was something else lurking. He could feel it. What had happened to Fredi, her brother? She’d glossed over him in the story as if he’d faded into nothing. Why wasn’t she visiting him if he was in an institution nearby? It was the last part of the riddle, the final puzzle piece. Once revealed, secrets could not be unsaid, and the pistol he’d stowed under his pillow might be his only recourse. He had to be sure. Her life depended on it.

Hours passed. Dinner never came. His water glass ran dry, and his chamber pot remained. He could hear her outside, could hear every footstep, but he didn’t make a sound. He knew they were at a tipping point, and she had to be the one to make the next move. He waited. The cuckoo clock in the hallway chimed eleven. The impenetrable black of night had turned the window into a mirror, reflecting the yellow glow of the oil lamp.

The sound of her footsteps came. She stood at the door a few seconds, the light of the oil lamp dancing through her blue eyes. He didn’t speak.

“I’m going to tell you what you want to know, but not for you, for me,” she said, her voice faded and dull. “I’ve been carrying this around with me for too long. Hans was the only person I told, but there were some details I couldn’t share even with him.”

She stared off into nothing, the words tumbling out of her mouth.



Fredi was almost fourteen when they took him to the institution in 1939. His size was beginning to work against him. He was already almost six feet tall, and as his body grew, his limbs seemed to wither. The sight of him walking was a memory now, and Thomas was struggling to lift him in and out of his wheelchair each day. Franka was going to Munich to begin her new life. Her father had encouraged her to the point of almost forcing her to take the job. He insisted that she had her own life to live and that Fredi was going to prove too much for either of them. It was best that the professionals look after him. Franka accepted her father’s wishes without protesting, but deep down she knew that it was her selfishness that was driving her away, her own wish to live a separate, independent life. She was twenty-two. Daniel was the only love she’d ever known. She wanted more. Freiburg seemed poisoned to her now. Munich, the big city, would offer a new hope.

Fredi was better than any single person she had ever known. Hatred, malice, vindictiveness, and spite—the emotions that formed the bedrock of Nazism—were beyond him. Love was all he knew. Those who knew him felt the radiance of this love. It was impossible to resist. He took with typical optimism and good grace the news that he was moving into the home, declaring that he’d have a chance to make hundreds of new friends. And so it was. When Franka came back to visit in November 1939, a few weeks after he’d moved in, it seemed as if he’d been there his whole life. Everybody knew him. Everybody loved him, and he spent almost an hour introducing her to his new friends there, from the nurses who greeted him with beaming grins, to the patients who couldn’t move, or talk, who greeted him with a nod or a raised hand. No one was immune to his spirit.

Franka came back to visit as often as she could. She returned to Freiburg every three weeks or so, visiting Fredi each time with her father, whom the staff all greeted by name. Fredi seemed happy and in the best place. Her father reiterated that so often that she began to believe it, and the guilt of her moving to Munich eased. His condition stabilized. The doctors offered no hope of a cure, but the degeneration in his limbs slowed. Fredi could get around the institution with ease in his wheelchair, and he always had somewhere to be, someone to see and cheer up.