Ice Reich (29 page)

"I think you're mistaken."

"Not according to Ingrid." He smiled thinly. "Ingrid, who knows better than to keep secrets from me."

"Ingrid is a silly gossip who exaggerates."

He laughed. "I think it's called telling the truth, my dear."

"If she is talking behind my back I want her fired!"

"When you have no power, Greta, everyone betrays you. Everyone." He dangled the penguin in front of her face. "A mysterious visitor, a new bauble, the disorder of packing. My darling wife, what
is
going on?"

Another bomb, closer this time. The window rattled.

"How dare you pry into my private business!"

"How dare you keep things from me." He swung the penguin again from his fingers, studying her carefully. She watched as if hypnotized, thinking desperately. She dared not betray Owen.

"It... it's from my father," she finally stammered. "He came today. A quick visit as he passes through." Ingrid, she knew, might have passed on a description that Jürgen would recognize as fitting Kohl.

"Ah." He flipped the piece up and bunched it in his fist, then looked hard at her. "Otto in Berlin? How surprising. I thought he'd disappeared in France."

"He just showed up. I was startled. He gave the locket to me. He said he got it in... Paris. That it reminded him of me, of the expedition. He's worried about the bombing and invited me to... to accompany him on a trip. A business trip. I was going to ask you about it at breakfast."

Drexler's face was impassive. "I see."

"There's no secret, Jürgen..."

"Ingrid thought there was."

"You know how she jumps to conclusions— "

"Silence!" He probed. "And were you going to come back from this trip?"

She looked at him then a long time, summoning her courage. This was the point of no return, wasn't it? This was the time to finally tell the truth, to him and to herself. "No. I'm leaving you, Jürgen." She tried to keep her voice steady, but it caught. He still thinks Owen is dead, she reminded herself.

"So." His face betrayed the hollowness that Antarctica had left in their relationship. "You're leaving me. Here, now, at a time when Germany is in such crisis."

"I don't love you anymore." Her voice was a whisper but she realized suddenly that the statement was true. "I never learned to love you as a wife should and I want to get out from under the threat of the bombs. There's nothing in our marriage to hold me here. Papa knows that. He's known for a long time."

Drexler looked as if he was in physical pain. "When? When will you leave?"

"Tomorrow, I think."

"My God. How long have you been planning this?"

"I haven't planned it. It... just... happened. I'm sorry, Jürgen. You should leave Berlin too. But not with me."

"I can't abandon the Reich." His tone was still stunned. "I'll never abandon the Reich. You know that."

She nodded. "I know. And I won't sacrifice my life for it. Not anymore. I want my life
back
, Jürgen. I want
me
back. We each thought we could change the other and we failed."

His eyes roamed the room as if looking for a clue. "But I still love you." It was plaintive. There was another boom and the window rattled nervously. The bombs were getting closer.

"I'm sorry, Jürgen. Please, let's go to the cellar. If that window shatters we could be hurt."

He nodded but didn't move. "Is this why Otto sneaked back? To get you?"

She shrugged.

He was thinking aloud. "Yet why would a coward like Otto Kohl risk coming back to Berlin? To fetch a daughter he's ignored his whole life? Somehow I doubt it. To fetch some ill-gotten money? His war profiteering? That, I could understand."

"Jürgen, the bombs..." There was another explosion, nearer, and the window rattled again.

"And how did he get here?"

"Jürgen, I don't know. Please..."

"And he buys you jewelry... ?" He looked at the penguin, puzzled. Then he slipped it in his pocket. "Well. Would you have informed me at all if we hadn't had this little confrontation? I doubt it. Left even a note? Probably not."

She cast her eyes downward.

"I might have followed, you know."

"Jürgen, please. This is hard. I don't want to hurt you. Just let me go."

"Ah, of course. Just say goodbye to six years of marriage. Poof! Well. It's charming, this little reunion of yours with Papa, but I feel left out— as I'm sure you can see. Otto Kohl magically materializes? Very odd. I think I want Otto to come for dinner tomorrow night. My curiosity has been aroused. We'll discuss the future then, yes?"

Greta swallowed and nodded. She'd be gone by then.

"And you'll let me go?"

Another bomb went off, and he stood. "I've never wanted a woman who doesn't want me." His voice was strained as he said it. "Hurry then! Let's go to the cellar."

* * *

The next morning there was a stranger in Greta's kitchen. He wore a black SS uniform and was reading the newspaper as if he owned the place. His chair was positioned near the rear door.

"Who's this?" Greta demanded.

The security policeman gave no answer. Ingrid, making an elaborate show of polishing the teapot, glanced at the man as if noticing him for the first time. "Your husband invited him here for your security," she said. She avoided Greta's eye.

"I need no special security."

"Herr Drexler said you do." Now the maid looked at her smugly, as if this had been just what she expected. Greta could have strangled her.

"Oh really? And where is Herr Drexler?"

"He's gone out."

"Then I'm going out too." She marched to the front foyer to fetch her coat. There was a second SS man there, his chair by the door. He watched her impassively as she put the coat on, saying nothing. When she moved toward the door he stood politely, braced.

"I'm sorry, Frau Drexler. Your husband has deemed it unsafe to go outside today. We've been asked to ensure your protection in this house."

"Nonsense. I have an appointment. Get out of the way."

"I'm sorry, Frau Drexler."

She hesitated. "Am I a prisoner in my own home?"

"I'm sorry, Frau Drexler. May I take your coat?"

She stood in the foyer, frightened and furious. The night had been dreadful and she was tired. Jürgen had said nothing more during the air raid but appeared to be brooding. Instead of going to his bed after the bombing he'd gone to his study and began working the telephone, searching for intact lines. She'd been furious with him for keeping her locket but feared that an argument over the jewelry might betray Owen. So she'd gone to her own room but couldn't sleep, worrying how much he'd guessed. Their own telephone had rung early in the morning and Jürgen answered immediately. Now he was gone.

If she missed the noon rendezvous, Papa and Owen might dare come here...

Did Jürgen really think her so hapless?

She surrendered her coat to the sentry. "Well. In that case." Greta retreated to the dining room and ate breakfast alone. What did Jürgen know? What would Jürgen do? She went to the study to check the cache of Reichsmarks and gold coin they'd stored for an emergency. It was gone, of course.

She had to act before he did.

"If I am to be a
prisoner
in my own house," she announced loudly in the kitchen, "then I'm going to take a nap. I barely slept last night." Ingrid and Arnold avoided her defiant gaze. They knew something was seriously wrong. "You two," she said, pointing at them, "had better dust and polish thoroughly for once. My father is coming tonight." Arnold shot Ingrid a sour look. "I'll check on your progress at noon."

She packed hurriedly, her mind set and her indecision gone. Underwear, a pair of trousers, a sweater. She wore a wool dress and the boots from yesterday, plus her strand of pearls. Maybe they could be hocked if the couple needed money. She found the pebble on her bedroom carpet, wrapped it in a fragment of ribbon, and slipped it inside her bra. "Hope," she whispered to herself, touching the bump.

She glanced about her room but felt no nostalgia. It had been a cell long before this morning. Shouldering her bag, she slipped out of the bedroom and locked the door behind her. Then she climbed to the fourth-floor servants' quarters and went to the attic hatchway, reaching up to pull. A ladder descended. "Goodbye, Jürgen," she whispered. She climbed and closed the hatchway behind her.

The attic was dark, illuminated only by the small portholes of round dormer windows on the slanting slate roof. Unlike the rest of the house they weren't covered with blackout coverings because there were no electric lights. The floorboards were thick with dust and littered by mouse droppings. She'd seen workmen use the attic to reach the roof for repairs.

She went to the small dormer windows. The front one appeared to be painted shut but the rear had a latch, she saw. She moved the lock open and pushed. The window didn't budge. She shoved harder. Did she need some kind of a tool? She felt foolish in her ignorance; what if she'd had to escape this way someday because of a fire? She considered, then put her shoulder bag to her shoulder and ran against the window. It popped open with a bang.

She waited a moment. No sound from below.

She looked out. The overcast was breaking up, the air cold. The slate roofing tiles looked steep and slick. She was on the rear side of the town house and beyond the lead gutter was a dizzying drop of three and a half stories to the small garden below. Pulling herself out a bit, she looked up. The peak of the roof was about a body's length away and led to the flatter roof of the Haupsteds' next door.

She could hear the faint sound of the telephone shrilling. What if it was for her?

There really was no alternative.

Using her arms she boosted herself out through the window and balanced awkwardly on the sill, facing the roof. Leaning against the slate without looking down, she stepped precariously up onto the top of the small dormer roof. Slowly she stretched upright, her hands sliding up the tiles of the main roof, the pebble between her breast and the slippery slate. Not quite far enough. She pushed up on the balls of her feet, feeling her toes begin to slip as she stretched frantically. Finally her fingers closed over the ridge. Yes! She pulled, scrabbling with her knees, and got her torso and then a leg over the ridge. Then she was straddling the roof, breathing hard.

She looked down at the street. The tree branches were a lacy net. A municipal worker was sawing one off, his obscuring hat like a saucer. He would black market the wood as fuel, she suspected.

She hiked herself along the roof peak until she reached the Haupsteds', where she could shakily walk on the flat crown of their mansard roof. There were four roofs to the corner, two ridged like her own. One by one she mastered them, moving as quickly as she could, remembering her climbing in the cave. At the end of her block was an iron ladder leading to a balcony below. She waited until the residential street was empty of traffic, climbed down, and then dropped from the balcony, hitting the street cobbles and slightly twisting an ankle. She glanced about. No one seemed to be peering through the curtains of the surrounding houses. At the corner she looked again. There was only the wood thief on her own street. She would have confronted him if she had time. Instead, she took a deep breath. Freedom! Limping slightly, she headed for the Frederick statue. Just once did she look back at her home.

She smiled at the thought of the SS sentries sitting arrogantly in her entry.

As she walked away the tree trimmer straightened to watch her disappearing form, then dropped his saw, climbed down, and ran lightly up to her front door, giving a quick knock. It swung open and an SS sentry looked out.

"You can tell Colonel Drexler she's on her way," he said. "Gunther will pick up the tail on the avenue."

The man nodded. "He's already arrested his father-in-law and found an airplane with American markings. Amazing what one learns about one's relatives, no? Kohl is beginning to talk."

The SS agent threw off his hat and began peeling the coat and baggy pants that concealed his uniform. "Foolish woman."

"She doesn't appreciate how lucky she is, married to a powerful
Standartenführer
."

"Yes. And if she's married to Colonel Drexler, she should know there's no escape from the Reich."

Greta arrived at the statue first and hunched on a bench in the Bebelplatz. She was wary of the people passing by but no one seemed to take notice of her. She glanced over the damaged buildings at a sky that seemed to promise escape. Smoke was hanging on the horizon from the previous night's raid but pale sunlight shone above it. An autumn sun, low, like Antarctica's. It was quiet in late morning. Birds had disappeared from Berlin's plazas as completely as cars and trolleys had left its streets. They'd flown away as she planned to do. For a moment she smiled, remembering the world as it had been. Still, it was difficult to relax. A policeman strutted aimlessly near some chipped steps. "Hurry, hurry," she whispered.

And then Owen came as promised, striding across the plaza with an open, swinging gate that advertised him as an American to anyone with reason to suspect. The walk was reckless; she would have to teach him circumspection. Yet it made her chest ache with fondness to see that easy freedom. It was the manner of the place they were going to, she hoped. He looked grimy and unshaven but triumphant at seeing her again, knowing that her bag announced her decision. So she jumped up and hurried to him, her cheeks flush from the cold. They kissed quickly, Greta instinctively glancing around.

Hart laughed at her. "The German glance, Fritz called that."

"If you lived here, Owen, you too would learn to look over your shoulder. It's a good habit to get into." She hesitated, embarrassed. "Besides, there's danger. I told Jürgen I was leaving with my father. He sent soldiers to keep me at home and I had to escape across the rooftops."

"Jesus Christ. Were you followed?"

"I don't think so. But one can never be sure."

Hart looked worriedly around the plaza. "You're right. I'm learning the German glance." Then a thought grabbed him. "Where's Otto? He met me last night and promised to be here. Do you think Jürgen has had him picked up?"