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Gustaf settled back in, looking perfectly at ease. “I confess it has its moments of overwhelm, though I am hardly the only one assigned the task. My French is rustier than I thought, and that is, of course, what most of the classes are held in. Makes it difficult to know what they’re saying.”

“Mm, understandable. And the French we learn for ordering in restaurants or even translating Racine and Molière does not give us the vocabulary we need to observe a lecture on physics or economics, does it?”

“Exactly so.” Gustaf paused for a drink and then set his utilitarian white cup back on its saucer.

“Some things are easy, of course—making certain all the foreigners have been dismissed as ordered, checking the professors against the list of those registered to the communist party or registry of Jews. Other decisions are trickier.”

Christian nodded, hoping his eyes projected understanding. “I’ve been curious about that. There are female professors at some of Paris’s universities, aren’t there? If I recall correctly, Marie Curie was the first, at the Sorbonne around the turn of the century.”

“There are four on the record at the Sorbonne now, only two still in Paris.” Gustaf’s eyes lit in a way that Christian didn’t much like.

“One a stodgy woman who has been teaching English since 1923, but the other—she is an interesting case. I cannot recall mention of another unmarried female professor, at least not currently. It doesn’t seem quite fitting—but she is a remarkable teacher, I grant you that.

Even I learned something about Goethe in her class, and I’ve taught it myself four different times. ”

Though it took effort, Christian kept his smile small, only mildly interested, rather than demanding to hear those insights.

Perhaps if he shared his lunch again, he could convince her to give him her lecture.

“Well, at least the French weren’t overly welcoming of women in academic circles—not like the Americans or British. So you shouldn’t run into too many of those dilemmas here.”

Gustaf sighed. “There are female entrance exams to higher education, but not many who pass them, from what I’ve seen.

I certainly didn’t expect to run into the question on my first day here.

I am torn. On the one hand, it sets a bad example to have a beautiful young woman thumbing her nose at our way of life.

On the other hand, I interviewed the other professors on staff who have taught the German-language classes, and I am not convinced they would do the job half as well.

And if a pretty, talented professor can bring more students to learn German.

..does that offset her bad example?” He shrugged.

“I would welcome your opinion, Professor.”

“I do understand the need to set the right example.” He set his cup on the desk, fingers lingering on it as if he was only now giving it thought. “But I would say that winning the hearts and minds of the students is our top priority, and if she can aid us in that cause...”

Were she here, she’d likely have stomped on his foot for accusing her of such a thing.

He’d seen the magazine she was so quick to put away last week, and the peek he’d snuck showed him that the page she’d had turned down was a rather rousing essay by Jean Guéhenno about “the France that cannot be invaded.”

He’d read it already. Had committed a few passages to memory.

Because they weren’t just true of France, those sentiments about how one’s true home, one’s true country wasn’t just the land that could be occupied by an enemy—it was the heart and soul of a people, the part that couldn’t die, couldn’t surrender, couldn’t just be taken over by another.

They were true of Germany too. He had to believe that.

Had to believe that Hitler’s regime hadn’t stripped his people of everything—that though Germany too was occupied by Nazis, it didn’t make them Nazis, not all of them.

No more than the French were, just because the swastika flew from every government building.

The true France, Guéhenno had said, was worth fighting for.

The true Germany was too.

Would Corinne understand that, if he tried to explain it?

Or would her eyes fall to his uniform as they so often did, and her expression close off?

Would she grant that not all Frenchmen agreed with Pétain and his puppet regime, despite the fact that most obeyed the dictates publicly, but deny that anyone in a Nazi uniform could be someone else beneath it?

Across from him, Gustaf considered the point with a long inhalation. “She held the students in thrall, it’s true. And her teaching—I thought for sure she must have a German mother, but she said not, only tutors. She has the spirit though. The understanding of the Aryan soul.”

The German soul. But he pressed his lips against the correction.

He had no desire to get into a debate with this young devotee about Aryan mythos.

Nor to point out that the tutors who had instilled it in her were the ones deemed not German enough for Germany.

“I would say then that you oughtn’t to rush into any decisions.

Perhaps keep an eye on her, and a pulse on what her students are saying.

But if she isn’t corrupting the youth—” He paused to see if Gustaf would smile at the reference to Socrates, but his expression didn’t so much as flicker.

He cleared his throat to make up for the pause.

“Then I see little harm in maintaining the status quo. For now, at least.”

The younger man nodded, all enthusiasm and relief. “That makes sense. And I can attempt to persuade her, in the meantime, to mitigate the marks against her. If she were married, especially to someone else in academia whose work hers supported...”

Christian chuckled and lifted his coffee again. “Perhaps she has a great story of a lost love that you could present as her excuse. A fiancé who died tragically and whose work she is carrying on out of eternal devotion.”

A father’s love, a father’s dream, in reality. But they were writing fiction here, not fact.

“Not a bad idea,” Gustaf said with a chuckle of his own. “I’ll talk to her again soon. Get her story. See if she would perhaps be inclined toward working with us.”

If this man’s French weren’t so rusty, he probably would have heard the way Parisians spat the word “collaborator” at any politician, lackey, restauranteur, or functionary who had embraced their occupiers.

The special sneers they reserved for the young women who went out on the town with Nazi officers and soldaten .

He had only to see the horror in her eyes when her young friend had flirted with Kraus last week to know Corinne’s opinion of such things.

And the fact that young Liana had most decidedly not been seen by them again on Boulevard Arago.

“Perhaps.” He checked his watch, sighed.

“I’m afraid I have another appointment—I only wanted to introduce myself, offer a listening ear whenever you need it.

We academics must stick together, after all, among this sea of military men. ”

Gustaf leapt to his feet as Christian stood, hand held out to shake again. “I’m glad you did, Professor. And how right you are. Perhaps we could arrange a standing time to meet each week. Lunch? Dinner?”

Would Ackermann forgive it if he gave Gustaf the Saturday dinner time? Probably not. His superior seemed to like bringing Christian to heel at least once a week, filling his ears with things he’d rather not hear. “Perhaps Friday dinners?”

“Perfect.”

“I’ll send round a list of restaurants you might enjoy.

” He fished a card from his pocket with his official hotel-office direction, though he only ever collected his mail once a day and otherwise ignored the desk in favor of the library.

“And if ever you need to get in touch, just send a note round here. I’m out most of the day at the various libraries and doing interviews and the like, but I do collect my messages. ”

Gustaf stared at the card a moment as if committing it to memory then and there. “I will, thank you. You can’t know how glad I am to have a like-minded man of letters to keep company with here.”

Christian put his cap back on and smiled. “I believe you mean that only I can know. I look forward to a longer visit soon, Gustaf.”

“I’ll mark it on my calendar now.”

He held his smile in place as he let himself back into the corridor.

Let his expression drop into neutral as he traveled back down to the lobby and then onto the street.

Wished he could let it fall then, wished that he dared to feel his real feelings anytime other than when he was locked away inside the stark, unwelcoming hotel room he slept in each night.

He moved to the car Kraus waited beside, knowing that wish would remain ungranted.

Perhaps he could at least make the home visitations to the exiles on his own.

Make it sound like he was doing his young aide a favor, not forcing him to come along on what were always fruitless calls anyway.

Claim he wanted to walk, stretch his legs, that all this being-chauffeured-about was making him too soft.

He was used to walking everywhere in Berlin, after all.

It was what had always kept him in shape.

Then maybe, just maybe, if he ever caught one of them at home...maybe he could actually be himself for an hour or two.