The Incidental Spy

This is a work of fiction. Descriptions and portrayals of real people, events, organizations, or establishments are intended to provide background for the story and are used fictitiously. Other characters and situations are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not intended to be real.

Copyright © 2015 Libby Fischer Hellmann.
All rights reserved.

Interior design by Sue Trowbridge
Ebook produced by Stark Raving Press

ISBN: 978-1-938733-84-0
Library of Congress Control Number pending

For Mary Ellen Kazimer who knows the WWII era better than anyone … including some who lived through it.

L
ena was sure they were going to kill her when she climbed into the car. There were two of them this afternoon; usually it was only Hans. The second man sat in the back. He wasn’t holding a knife or gun or even a piano wire, but there was something chilling about him. He was a beefy, muscled bull of a man, and his presence made her colder than the December day. He refused to smile, and he wouldn’t acknowledge her, as if there was a limited allocation of words and gestures, and any extra would tip the scales into chaos. And Hans, who usually liked to chat, stared straight ahead, pretending to ignore her. She felt like a ghost who’d somehow slipped into the passenger seat.

Her thoughts turned to escape. She could pull the car door handle and throw herself out onto the road. She checked the speedometer. They were cruising south on Lake Shore Drive at about thirty miles per hour. She would surely perish if she did. She might be able to slide over to Hans and stomp her foot on the brake before he could stop her. But the road was icy, and the car would skid. What if it plowed into another car? She squeezed her eyes shut. She thought about smashing the window and screaming for help, but the glass of the Ford was thick, and even if she could shatter it, what would she say? Who would believe her?

She bit her lip and tried to think. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe it was just the stress of the past six months. Or perhaps it was her time of month. Hadn’t Karl always teased her about that? Karl. She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the tears that still threatened at the thought of him.

It had been a routine day of typing and filing, much like all the others. She’d had lunch with Sonia, who poured her heart out about her husband who’d been drafted and had fought the Battle of Midway last summer. Walking back from the cafeteria, Lena spotted the signal, a small American flag stuck in the snow-covered urn beside the 57th Street florist’s shop. That meant she was to meet Hans as soon as possible.

She considered ignoring it. Just not showing up. But Max was at home with Mrs. McNulty, their upstairs neighbor and baby-sitter. She would give him supper and make sure he went to sleep if Lena had to “work late” as she explained whenever there was a meet. And a few days ago she’d let Hans know she knew. She couldn’t risk not meeting him. What if they retaliated against Max?

She leaned back against the seat of the Ford and swallowed. She should have run the moment she spotted the flag, scooped up Max, and boarded the first train out of Chicago. Now it was too late. She was a fool.

The Ford slowed and turned into one of the beaches off South Lake Shore Drive. Then it slowed even more. The man in the seat behind her leaned forward. She knew what was coming. She braced herself and whispered the
Sh’ma
.

L
ena headed west on
Ebertstrasse
towards the
Tiergarten
and ducked into the park. It was the middle of May, but the hot sun felt more like July. Once inside the greenery, though, the temperature cooled. A breeze swished through the trees, and birds chirped, a bit frantically, Lena thought, as though they were as disturbed as she. She rounded the corner, narrowly missing a couple of girls on bicycles, braids swinging in their wake, and caught sight of several children splashing water at each other behind the rhododendrons. Josef should be waiting for her at the statue of the woman with her hand on her breast whose name she could never remember.

There he was! With his wavy blond hair, sharp edge to his chin, and gorgeous green eyes, he looked Aryan, not Jewish. She, on the other hand, with her thick chestnut hair, brown eyes, and nose she thought was too big, but which Josef said he loved anyway, couldn’t even try to pass. Josef claimed his looks had saved him from more than a few schoolyard brawls. His family had moved from Alsace years earlier, so he’d been French, German, and everything in between, he joked. But always in love with her, he would quickly add.

When he spotted her, he smiled broadly and opened his arms. She ran into them. He was the one for her; she’d known since they were five and she lent him a few coins at synagogue every week for
tzedukah
. But he hadn’t realized it until a year ago when they both turned sixteen. Now they were inseparable.

Lena pulled back and studied his face. She knew she wasn’t smiling, and his smile, so bright a moment ago, faded. She felt her face crumple; she couldn’t keep it in anymore. Tears brimmed and trickled down her cheek.

Josef clasped her to him. “My Lena, what is wrong? Stop. All is good. We are together.”

That made her cry harder.

His expression turned grim. “What? What is it?”

“Oh Josef…” A strangled sob escaped.

He led her to a wrought iron bench and made her sit. He sat beside her and grabbed her hand. Usually, the aroma of damp earth and blooming lilacs in the park made her smile, but the tears continued to stream. She tried to wipe them away with the back of her hand.

Josef brushed his fingers across her cheek. “What is wrong? You look like you’ve lost your best friend.”

“I have,” she cried.

“What are you talking about?”

She took a breath and tried to compose herself. “My parents are sending me to America. In three weeks.”

Disbelief flickered across his face. “But—but your parents are planning to go to Budapest. With mine.”

Lena felt her lips quiver. “
They
are. But they claim Hungary is not safe enough for me. They want me far away.”

Josef fell silent.

“I tried to convince them to change their minds, but we have a second cousin, sort of an aunt, in Chicago who has agreed to sponsor me. It has been arranged.”

“No.” Josef squeezed her hand. It was just one word, but it said everything.

“I—I don’t know what to do, Josef. I can’t leave you.”

He nodded. “Nor I you.”

She brightened for a moment. “Perhaps you could come with me.”

He turned to her. “How? You know it’s not possible. I would need a sponsor, and it’s not so easy for us to—”

“I can ask my aunt.”

“My parents would never permit it.”

She cast her eyes down and whispered. “I know. But we can’t stay here. We can no longer go to school. My father lost his job at the newspaper. Your father lost his government post. It will only get worse.”

Josef didn’t say anything for a moment. “Let me think. I will come up with something.” He pulled her close and tipped up her chin with his hand. “I love you Lena Bentheim. I always will.”

“And I love you, Josef Meyer. Forever.”

“Until death do us part.” He leaned in and kissed her.

B
ut Josef didn’t come up with a plan, and three weeks later, Lena boarded a ship for New York. It was a rough voyage, and she spent most of it below deck, green and seasick. She vowed never to travel by sea again. Once in New York she passed through immigration, then followed the instructions in her aunt’s letter and took a train bound for Chicago.

Her “aunt” Ursula met her at the station. A thin, wiry brunette with pale blue eyes, Ursula had married Reinhard Steiner, a math professor originally from Regensburg. They’d come to the Midwest five years earlier, when Reinhard was offered a position at the University of Chicago. Now, as they drove by taxi to a spacious, leafy neighborhood called Hyde Park, Lena found Ursula brisk and all business, but not unkind. Clearly, she had been making plans.

“… English lessons… “ She was saying. “Typing, too, so you can get a job. We will lend you the money, of course, and you can pay us back bit by bit when you are employed. And Reinhard has connections at the University, so we might be able to place you there after you’re qualified. The weakness in the economy still lingers, so you will be lucky to get any job at all.”

Lena thanked her and gazed out the window. True, she was sixteen, an age at which many German girls left school to work or marry, but she had somehow expected—no, hoped—she would have a year or so left to study for her baccalaureate. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to join the adult world. It was just too soon. Three weeks ago she and Josef were in the Tiergarten stealing kisses. Now, her childhood was over. She blinked back tears.

* * *

The next six months were filled with English tutors, secretarial school, and letters from home. Josef wrote regularly, telling her about his days—he was studying at home, learning how to cook, taking long walks. He missed her terribly, he declared, and would never stop loving her. Her parents wrote cheerful letters too, never mentioning how they were coping with Hitler’s restrictions. Lena knew her mother was trying to make life sound normal so Lena wouldn’t worry. But the more cheerful the letter, the worse Lena knew things were. She read the newspapers. She wrote back, begging them to leave Berlin for Budapest, Paris, or New York. But leaving Germany was never mentioned, at least in the letters that came back.

Starting around the High Holidays, letters from Germany became less frequent. Then, in December a letter came from Josef.

The next day a letter came from her mother. Unlike Josef’s, it was strangely devoid of news. Just the same trivia her mother always wrote. Lena immediately replied asking why they hadn’t left. Had they talked to Josef? Again she begged them to leave Berlin. And then she cried.

She never got a response.

I
t was exactly a year later when Ursula declared her fit to be hired. “I was a secretary myself before we came to America, you know. That’s how I met Reinhard. So I know all the tricks a lazy girl does to pass herself off as competent.”

Lena didn’t know whether that was directed at her, but when her aunt smiled, relief washed over her. She had learned English easily; within four months she was practically speaking like a native.

“Reinhard has already talked to people at the University. The physics department is looking for a secretary. And…” Ursula’s smile broadened, “…there are two German students in the department whose English is not so good. They are thrilled at having a secretary who is bilingual. Especially in today’s world, “ she added.

Lena swallowed. “But I know nothing about physics, Aunt Ursula. In Gymnasium I got most of the fundamental concepts wrong. Acceleration, rate, gravity… I’m hopeless.”

Ursula waved a dismissive hand. “You don’t need to know physics. I could barely add two and two and look where I ended up.”

But Lena didn’t want to meet and marry a German academician, like her aunt. Josef was waiting for her in Budapest, and as soon as she could, she would bring him to the States. In the meantime, though, she took the position.

* * *

Ryerson Physical Laboratory, a pleasant, ivy-covered building on 58th Street edged one side of the university quad. Lena liked to walk through it on her way to work, imagining she was a student at the university. She wondered if she would ever reclaim those carefree days.

Although the department was small, it prided itself on two Nobel Prizes won by its scientists, one of whom, Arthur Compton, was the department chair. She quickly learned that Ursula was right about one thing. She didn’t need to know anything about physics.

The one imperative was to make sure her typing was accurate. Most of the documents contained columns of symbols and fractions and percentages that, while a mystery to her, were known to the scientists, so it was critical to get them right. When she asked why, Professor Compton explained that the department’s mission was to instill the habit of careful, intelligent observation of the external world.

“In order to do that,” he said, fingering the small mustache that looked a little too much like Hitler’s, Lena thought, “we expect our graduate students to replicate classical experiments by eminent investigators. And that includes the data they observe and analyze.”

Lena nodded. She was intimidated by Compton but more relaxed around the students. They chatted and laughed and traded jokes that were surprisingly funny for scientists. There were the two German graduate students who had come to America a year earlier and soon depended on her to help write their papers. A young Brit and three Americans also hung around.

“There are actually three of us Germans,” Franz told her one day. “But Karl is at Columbia University in New York for the semester.”

“Why?” Lena asked.

The second German, Heinrich, smiled. “That’s where the action is. They’re doing lots of exciting experiments on the atom. I can’t wait for him to come back and tell us everything.”

Thankfully, Lena knew what an atom was. “But why are they experimenting with the atom?”

“Splitting it,” Franz said. “Even Einstein thinks it might be possible.”

“To what end?”

“Who knows? But they say Hitler is doing the same thing. So, of course, the Americans must too…” his voice trailed off. “At any rate, Karl will be back in September.”