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Sofie

Berlin,Germany

1936

Laura started school in the summer of 1936. On her first day, I walked her to the gate, then went back alone to Adele’s house for morning tea.

I still visited Adele every day, but I no longer told myself that I made those visits for her sake. Now that I felt so alone, I finally realized that Adele was not. She had a network of friends all over the city—strong, independent women like her best friend, Martha, who had also outlived her husband, and her children. Adele was busy with those friends and her garden and her tenants. I’d always somewhat resented having to care for her. Only once Mayim left did I finally realize Adele never needed me at all.

“How did Laura do?” she asked as I let myself in through the back door.

“Not a tear. Not from her, anyway,” I said, setting my hat down on the kitchen table. I’d shed a few myself on the walk home. I couldn’t believe my baby was at school. “She had a terrible night’s sleep, but that was from excitement, not anxiety.”

“That’s our girl,” Adele chuckled, as she poured steaming hot water into a teapot. She turned back to the counter and retrieved a tray. “I made you some bee-sting cake. I thought you might need the treat.”

“Thank you,” I said, surprised. She smiled and cut a piece, flipping it onto a plate for me with the side of the knife. I cut into the cake with a fork and sighed happily as it all but melted onto my tongue. Cake, honey-glazed almond slivers, and pastry cream tasted like pure joy.

“Listen, I’m having a little problem and I was hoping you could help me,” Adele said. I frowned at her unexpectedly somber tone.

“What is it?”

“One of my tenants is struggling financially,” she told me. “And that means Iam having a little trouble making ends meet.”

“Oh?” I said, startled. “Which tenant? Do you want me to speak to them—”

“No, no.” She shook her head slowly. “I’ve spoken to them about it, and they are going to try to make amends. It’s just that while they catch up, I wondered if you could maybe lend me a little money?”

“Of course,” I said, without hesitation. “Just tell me what you need and when.”

I’d mention it to Jürgen when he next called, but I knew he wouldn’t mind.

Knowing that the house was wired with some kind of audio surveillance, Jürgen and I were performing all the time. Even when we were alone, we said and did all the things good Nazi parents were expected to do.

But Jürgen and I had systems to try to claw back at least a little privacy. We had to connect on a genuine level sometimes or we’d lose our minds.

Sometimes when he was home we drove out of Berlin and took long hikes, the children running up ahead in front of us through the forest or climbing to the tops of trees as Jürgen and I whispered to one another. Other times we’d hide in the bathroom, running all of the taps to cover the sounds of our voices. And I moved the wireless into our bedroom, and I’d turn it on every night whether Jürgen was home or not. We had scripted conversations about how I was becoming an insomniac and needed the background noise to sleep.

In reality, though, this was a cover—a way to protect us from prying ears when we pulled the blankets over our faces to whisper.

“Hi,” he’d whisper, even though we might have been together for hours by then. I always felt I was removing a suffocating mask as we pulled those blankets over our heads, even though there was so little air, and every now and again, we’d have to pull the covers down, gulp in a breath, then dive back in.

We talked about Lydia. She’d transformed herself into the perfect Nazi wife, no longer dyeing her hair or wearing makeup, and pregnant—again. I felt such complicated emotions about her—a mix of nostalgia for our once-genuine friendship and swirling shades of distrust, resentment, and hurt. I had never confronted her about the way she let me down the night Jürgen was taken. There was no way to hold her responsible without drawing attention to our disloyalty to the Reich. I saw Lydia now only when I had to, and even then, I was polite but distant.

Jürgen told me about his work. He had just overseen a test launch of a new prototype, the first-ever test launch at Kummersdorf before an audience.

“There’s been so much skepticism about the technology. Karl and Otto want to expand the program, but they first need to prove to officials that the concept is viable.”

“So will you get the funding?”

“Yes. The general approved the request after he saw the launch.”

“And what does that mean?”

“A huge bonus, for a start,” Jürgen said. I didn’t even feel the slightest flutter of excitement, only regret. Once upon a time, I’d have given that money to Mayim, but now I had no idea where she was or how they were. Every time the Nussbaums came to mind, I felt a deep, uncompromising grief. “We can give it to Aunt Adele,” Jürgen said, and that did ease the ache in my chest a little. As I’d expected, he wasn’t at all troubled by her request for financial assistance. Adele was independent enough that we knew she’d only ask for the help if she really needed it. “That’s the good news. The bad news is they are talking about moving the entire program to a new development site.”

“Where?”