The Roses Underneath (30 page)

“Anna? You okay?”

Anna poked her head around the side of the desk to see Cooper in his field uniform, sleeves rolled up and sweat stains under his arms.

“Did you lose something?”

“Um, no. Just dropped a hairpin somewhere. It’s not important.” She crawled out from under the desk and stood to face him.

“What’s wrong?” Cooper smiled.

“I thought you were out this morning?”

“I was, but now I’m back. Didn’t take as long as I expected. It’s getting hot.” His eyes fell on the desk. “Hey, look at that. I knew you’d whip me back into shape. That’s looking much better.” He looked at her again. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re supposed to be in Frankfurt,” she said.

“What? No, I’ve been out in Erbenheim this morning. Small find. Had to go check it out first thing. It wasn’t anything important at all. I already brought it all back. More reports for you, though.”

Anna flared. “Stop it, Captain. You are supposed to be at a hearing right this very minute. In Frankfurt, with Major Phillips.” She pulled open the drawer and pulled the letter out to wave it in his face.

Cooper’s face fell and his eyes went cold. “Are you snooping in my desk?”

“No, not at all. The letter was sticking out and I thought it might need filing. Why aren’t you there? And what do they want with you?”

Cooper pushed her aside and sat down in his chair. She stepped back and pulled her own chair closer to the desk so they were sitting face to face.

He sighed. “Look, here’s the thing. They’re mad at me for not following their procedures. It’s all Army bullshit, a technicality. I’ll sort it out with them.”

“Don’t you think it would be better to sort it out by showing up at your own hearing?” Anna hissed. He was like a child that was unable to follow the classroom rules.

“Probably, but then we got this call this morning about a repository in an old mill. Someone had to go check it out and I was the only one around. So I went. I’ll explain it to Frankfurt.” He picked up a stack of papers and fanned himself. “It’s fine. By the way, have you seen the camera? I was supposed to take some pictures, but I–”

Anna’s temper surged. “Listen to me. It is not fine. Do you know I was pulled in last night and questioned about your activities? Four hours I was there. Amalia was scared to death. I was scared to death. They told me I am culpable if I go along with your ‘rogue behavior.’ And now you don’t even show up for your hearing? Should I just go and turn myself in and save everyone the time and trouble?”

“Wait, wait, whoa. Back up.” Cooper sat forward and leaned on his forearms. “They dragged you in? Who did?”

“How the hell should I know? Some very bad-tempered people from the great United States Military.”

“They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

Anna shook her head. “Hurt me? No. Just scared the devil out of me. Look, I don’t want anything to do with this anymore. I just want to have a job, take care of my daughter and live my life. You can just leave me out of your adventures.”

“What did they ask you?”

Anna recounted the questions and her answers as Cooper listened, wringing his hands and shaking his head.

“So you told them the truth, so what? You’ve got nothing to hide, right?” He sat forward. “I wonder who’s behind this. Did they give you any clue? Was it Frankfurt? Or maybe Schneider is making trouble?”

“Are you listening to me? I don’t care! Leave me out of it. I want to go back to the typing pool.” She tried in vain to keep her voice down.

“No, I’m listening.” Cooper grabbed her arm. “But you need to get it in your head. Your days of see nothing, hear nothing,
do nothing? Those are over. You’re in it now. We’re in this together, you and me.”

Anna pulled her arm away and stood up. “Find somebody else. I am not doing this. If you want to fight your own army and play by your own rules, go right ahead. Maybe it was that Major Phillips who is trying to get you, but who can blame him? You don’t follow orders or protocol and you are dragging me down with you. I can’t afford to get involved. I need this job.” She bent to pick up her purse but Cooper jumped up and pulled her toward him. His breath was hot in her face.

“You can’t afford to
not
get involved. Not anymore. Don’t you want a future for that wonderful kid of yours? Do you want her to look at you every day of her life and ask, ‘what did you do, Mommy? Why didn’t you do anything?’ ”

Anna tried to push him away but he held on. “You idiot, I did what I had to so she will have a future,” she said.

“That’s no future, don’t you see? She needs to look up to you. She needs to be proud of you. Otherwise she’s a casualty just as sure as if she’d been shot up on a battlefield. This is the last chance you’ve got to save her. She needs to know you fought for something.
That’s
her future. That’s her start. I hate to tell you this but you’ve got no choice.” Cooper let go of Anna’s arm and took a step back. Anna shook with rage.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…Are you okay?” He held up his palms.

Anna’s head vibrated with a sudden clarity. It was as if a switch had turned on in her brain. She saw Cooper standing there in his sweaty, dirty uniform, his brown hair matted to his head, eyes aflame. But now she noticed something different: He was angry. All his bravado, the carefree, can-do spirit, it was a cover for a profound and deep anger. The same anger she felt. The difference was he had found the way out.

She sat back down and dropped her head in her hands. She saw Thomas’s earnest face, smiling at her. He had believed in something enough to die for it. And she had hated him for it. She had believed only in surviving.

“Why do you care so much about what happens to me?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the floor.

Cooper pulled his chair around and sat down next to her, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at the same piece of floor. She watched his hands with their long fingers and broad knuckles as he rubbed his flattened palms together.

He cleared his throat and paused for a long time. When he spoke his voice was very soft and even. “Because I don’t for one second pretend that what happened to you, what happened here, to Germany, can’t happen to us Americans too. We all act like there’s something that separates us from you, that we are not like you, but deep down we all know we are very much alike. It scares the hell out of us. Most guys can’t admit it, but I do. And the only way I know how to deal with that is to look it straight in the face. What happened here can happen anywhere. It may not look the same and it may not sound the same, but that evil, that fear, it’s in all of us. And if I see something I can make better then I’ll do my best to help. And that’s what I see in you and the duchess.”

Anna couldn’t bring herself to look at him. They both kept their eyes down, looking at their feet lined up in a neat row. He was right. She had done nothing. And now it looked like she might actually make it out of the nightmare alive. She had not ever really considered what would happen next. It had been too easy to let others decide what happened, or better, what didn’t happen to her. She tried to picture her life in one year, in five years, but could see nothing. Her future was a void, like the night sky: seemingly empty but full of things she could only see in sparks. She wanted nothing better than to be worthy of her daughter’s love and to make life better for her. For years that had meant surviving, living though another day. But now it meant something else.

She inhaled. “I saw Schneider yesterday. I got him to agree to a meeting. I think you are right. I think having him work here would be a terrible idea,” she said, her voice low and steady. “The
Amis
last night asked me if I had seen Schneider since the meeting with you. I lied and said no. I lied on my sworn testimony.”

Cooper rubbed the palm of his hand with his thumb and said nothing for several moments. He looked out the window and then toward the hallway. He sat up and let out a long breath. “When is your meeting?”

“Tonight. Seven o’clock at the Nassauer Hof.” Anna ran her fingers under her eyes and rubbed her face as she sat up. “I am going to need a painting.”

“Anything in particular?”

“A German landscape, if you have one.”

Cooper looked at her sideways. “I think that can be arranged.”

The lunch of watery lentils and bread was not sitting well with Anna. Her stomach churned and threatened to mutiny at any moment. She smoked two cigarettes in a row to try to at least calm her mind if not her stomach as she waited for Cooper on the delivery dock at the back of the Collecting Point. The last truck of the day had just pulled away and most of the activity had shifted inside. The afternoon was stifling hot and the breeze was so intermittent it provided no respite. Anna felt even worse than she smelled, which was saying a lot. Cooper thought this would be an inconspicuous place to go over the final plans for the meeting at the Nassauer Hof, but she thought it couldn’t be more obvious. People would think they were sneaking away for a few private moments. Anna sighed. She had resigned herself to the gossip and rumors.

She considered how much her life had transformed in the last two weeks. From the typing pool to translator, to amateur undercover agent. The events that had led her to this point seemed unreal. And yet, here she sat, in her old gabardine trousers and the blue checked shirt she had worn a thousand times. Her tooth still wiggled and her stomach rumbled, but she felt somehow changed. She could almost make out a path ahead where previously there had only been darkness.

She and Cooper had worked out the details of the plan over lunch in the commissary, huddled at a table in the corner, taking care to speak in a poorly masked code that made her feel silly. They arranged a meeting point at the Marktkirche from which Cooper would tail her. He would bring MPs with him. Once she was inside the Nassauer Hof, they would pretend to inspect the rubble across the street at the Four Seasons or to be tinkering with old Kaiser Friedrich out front. When Schneider came out, the Americans would pounce. Cooper was confident that all would go according to plan and that Anna would discover her hidden talent for undercover operations. His confidence rubbed off on her a little, but her stomach was unconvinced.

Cooper came around the side of the building and pulled himself onto the loading dock. They sat side by side, their legs dangling over the edge like two children waiting for a bus.

“The whole place thinks we’re having an affair you know,” he laughed.

“I know.”

“I hope that doesn’t make you uncomfortable. I mean
, I hope I haven’t done anything to compromise your reputation.”

Anna shrugged. “People will talk. They have nothing better to do.” The thought of intimacy with anyone, much less this crazy
Ami
was laughable. She ached for a bath.

“Okay. So listen. I got you a good painting. It’s a nice scene of the Rhine so there’s some regional significance. The label says it’s from a gallery in Mainz. There are no claims on it so no one will miss it for a day. It’s pretty small, too, so you can fit it in a shopping bag, but it’s too big for Schneider to hide easily once you hand it over. I borrowed a bag from one of the girls downstairs.

“Will that really work?”

“Sure. He only has to agree to buy it, or even just take it. That’s breaking the law.”

Anna was doubtful. “Why would anyone want to buy a painting by some local artist? Who cares about things like that now?”

“Nostalgia for better days? I don’t know. Look, it makes more sense that you’ve got a landscape by a local artist that’s been in your family. You can say it belongs to Madeleine and just play dumb as to its value. The idea is to make it easy for him to bite. If you show up with a more important piece and show any sign of knowing anything, he’ll get twitchy. Just get him to want to help you out and buy the thing.”

Anna nodded. “All right. Who is the artist?”

“Hard to tell from the signature. Just say you don’t know. It’s in the bag under your desk. When you leave, just pick it up and go. We’ll return it tomorrow after we nab him.” He exhaled and waited a beat. “Is the duchess going to be okay tonight?”

“Oh yes, Madeleine is feeling much better these days. She’s got enough energy to watch her for a few hours.”

“You didn’t tell them anything?”

Anna shook her head. “No, not a word to anyone.”

“Not even your friend, the sapper with the sad eyes?”

Anna turned to face him. “Emil? He’s not my friend.”

“If you say so. I don’t think he’d agree.”

“I just feel sorry for him, you know? I think he’s got a long road ahead of him. He is suffering all the after effects of the war. He needs help.”

“Don’t we all,” Cooper said. “But first things, first. I will see you at 18:45?”

“18:45. I’ll be there.” Her confidence was ebbing. She rubbed her protesting stomach.

Cooper chuckled. “Keep your head in the game, Frau Klein. I am depending on you.” He patted her back and jumped off the dock. “See you later.”

At home, Anna had just enough time for a quick sponge bath to make her feel human again. Playing dumb was one thing, but going into the Nassauer Hof smelling like an overripe fruit basket was another. She had not fallen that far. Once cleaned up, she pulled the black dress with the pleat down the front from the wardrobe. She held it up in the light. Too prim. Too desperate. She put it back and took out the green wool skirt. Too warm and it didn’t fit anyway. Her remaining two items, the faded red dress and the yellow blouse with the puffy sleeves, were too flouncy. She sighed and sat down on the sofa to collect herself. Looking at her filthy pants gave her a thought. She went back to the wardrobe and dug around until she found a pair of Otto’s old pants, light wool with a pale pinstripe. She pulled them on and smiled when the length was just right. Another dive into the wardrobe yielded ankle boots, a white button down shirt, and a belt, all clean and in immaculate condition. The boots fit pretty well, a little big, but the wide leg of the pants hid it well. The shirt was tight around her breasts and loose in the stomach but she folded it around her and tucked it into the pants. She rolled the sleeves up and took the belt into the kitchen to add another notch with the knife.