Page 60

Twenty-Three

Corinne had no idea where they were, or how her uncle had known the circuitous maze of rooms and passages to take them there.

But she trusted him enough that she wasn’t exactly surprised either when he led her up a seemingly forgotten stairwell to a darkened balcony, or when she peeked out into a hotel ballroom that had clearly been converted into some sort of military headquarters.

The way it was set up reminded her a bit of. ..

She sucked in a breath and turned wide eyes on her uncle. “This is where they hold their tribunals?”

Oncle Georges motioned to one of the seats cloaked in the shadows. “I didn’t imagine you’d just want to guess at what happened to him.”

She sat on one of the plush brocade chairs, squinting at the figures hovering behind the chairs at the table at the head of the massive room below. “I should have brought my opera glasses.”

Chuckling, he handed her a pair, and then pulled out a second for himself.

She shouldn’t have been surprised, she supposed.

He had known where they were going. And she was far too interested in the gathering below to question his foresight.

Most of the movement seemed to be focused around two men who occupied the center two seats.

Both had uniforms bedecked with medals and ribbons and had, if she was discerning details well enough from here, general insignias on their epaulettes.

What arrested her attention, however, was how alike they looked. Same face shape, same build, same mannerisms as they spoke—though one had that horrid little mustache over his lip that Hitler favored and the other was clean-shaven. Brothers? Cousins? “Who are they?”

Her uncle pointed to the one on the left, the one with the mustache. “General Otto von Stülpnagel, military governor of France.” The one on the right. “General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, commander of the Seventeenth Army.”

Otto...and Carl-Heinrich. Corinne lowered her opera glasses. “Gustaf’s family?”

“And what we were waiting for—Carl-Heinrich’s arrival in Paris, to celebrate the New Year with his cousin. The Stülpnagels are one of Germany’s leading military families, old aristocrats—and if my sources are right, Carl-Heinrich at least is no fan of Hitler’s.”

The history rang a distant bell. Though she’d had no idea Gustaf belonged to this family—his mother must have been his link to them, given the different surnames. “But...didn’t the other one, Otto, write a book defending German war crimes after the World War?”

Her uncle’s lips twitched. “Leave it to you to know only the books. He was also forced into retirement two years ago when he fell out of favor with the Reich—only to be called up again when they needed more senior staff to hold Austria.”

So two of the generals who made up the tribunal might be inclined to side with Christian.

Gustaf strode in, the ballroom doors swinging behind him. He moved straight toward the two generals, who both hurried around the table to greet him with claps on the back and loud laughter.

Her nerves were jangling by the time Otto clapped his hands and told everyone to get settled. If Christian had arrived with Kraus, they weren’t within her view. They hadn’t talked about what kind of entrance he planned to make. Subtle? Grand?

The panel of officers dispensed with a few other cases first—she barely even heard what they were about. But then Ackermann was called forward, and he strutted into view to stand before the table, not so much as a hint of uncertainty in his posture.

Her fingers dug into the arms of the chair, and she had to drag in a deep breath to steady the opera glasses.

“Oberstleutnant Peter Ackermann, you are charged with the interference of the business of the Ministry of Education, the interference of the business of the Ministry of Propaganda, and the accidental shooting and death of Sonderführer Christian Bauer. You have been recommended for disciplinary action. How do you plead?”

“One moment, General.” Gustaf stepped up beside Ackermann, shoulders back.

“I contend that he is guilty of the purposeful shooting and murder of Sonderführer Christian Bauer, attacking a French woman with intent to rape, and destruction of her property weeks later when he discovered where she lived and ransacked her flat despite having no cause to suspect her of any questionable behavior.”

Corinne had no idea how these proceedings usually went. Was Gustaf out of order to interrupt? Did he get away with it because he was a von Stülpnagel, or was it perfectly acceptable for officers to argue even about the charges?

Otto frowned. “This is the first we’ve heard of attacking a woman. Have you witnesses of this behavior?”

“Well...I myself saw the initial—”

“He did not , sirs,” Ackermann spat. “He came in afterward and assumed he knew what had happened, taking the word of a dissident Parisienne above my own.”

The general sighed. “And the second part? About a visit to her home?”

“I had just cause to search her flat.”

The generals looked toward Gustaf, and though she couldn’t see his face, she saw the way his shoulders stooped. “Without witnesses to these accusations, we have no choice but to dismiss them and focus on the original charges,” Carl-Heinrich said.

“Wait!”

Her heart stopped when the new voice rang out, even though she’d heard it just that morning, whispering in her ear. One last round of I-love-yous. Je t’aime. Ich liebe dich. Te amo.

Christian didn’t exactly stride up the aisle, given the weakness he still battled from his wound. But he walked steadily, Kraus at his side.

Gustaf spun. Gasped. Ran forward and pulled Christian into one of those hearty, masculine one-arm embraces that men always seemed to favor. Even from here, she could hear him say, “Bauer! We thought you were dead ! Where have you been?”

“I nearly was.” He cleared his throat and nodded to let Gustaf proceed.

They traveled as a trio to the front, where Ackermann glared, slack-jawed.

“Would have been, generals, had a Good Samaritan not taken pity on me and doctored me when my commanding officer shot me and left me for dead. I’m afraid I’ve only just regained my health enough to present myself for your justice. ”

Carl-Heinrich leaned forward. “To our justice ? So you grant, then, that the accusations Ackermann has submitted in his report have merit, despite the lack of evidence in your record to corroborate it?”

She could only see the back of his head—but she knew the quirk of his lips that he’d be giving the generals, his judges.

The twinkle in his eye. “Good sirs, I won’t admit to the merit of anything I haven’t read for myself.

But I know what he accused me of during the altercation with me, and if those are the same ones he reported to you, then yes. ”

Gustaf sucked in a breath. Kraus’s head lifted.

Christian held out his arms. “My father was friends with any number of professors in the twenties and thirties, some of whom have since exiled themselves to Paris when their politics or ethnicity banned them from Nazi Germany. When that same government tried to force me to euthanize my child, I was disgruntled, to say the least, and gave public lectures in which I stated for all to hear that all life is sacred. The young. The old. The disabled. The homeless. The sexually divergent. The dark. The light. I said it because I believed it then, and I still believe it now. I believe God loves my enemy every bit as much as he loves me. I believe he weeps when we harm each other, kill each other. And I believe that love runs so deep that he sent his own son to die to redeem us. All of us.”

He turned to Ackermann, whose lips were set in a permanent snarl.

“And I did indeed step between Oberstleutnant Ackermann’s gun and the sick old man he was arresting, even though it was supposed to be my job to bring him in for questioning, the man he threatened to kill even though he was not resisting that arrest. If believing in the inherent human dignity of a person is as much a crime as having a different political opinion or daring to call a Jew a friend, then yes.

I am guilty, and I submit myself to your judgment. ”

For a moment, she could have heard a butterfly’s wing.

And then pandemonium, chaos, shouting, the pounding of a gavel she hadn’t even seen on the table, in the hand of Otto.

Ackermann was the last to stop shouting, shoving a finger toward Christian over and again that would have landed straight in the place he’d shot him if Kraus hadn’t stepped between them to take the blow.

“What more do you need to hear?” echoed into the newly forced silence.

Corinne had to blink at the words. She’d read similar ones that morning as she waited for Georges to get her, after Babette had picked up Felix for the day.

She’d read them in Matthew26, when Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin.

When he let his own words condemn him, because they were the truth that would set mankind free.

“Thank you, Sonderführer.” Otto turned a fierce scowl on Ackermann. “We are all glad to see you well, despite the efforts of your superior officer to let you die alone, heedless of every tenet of the German army. Ackermann, what is your defense?”

Ackermann growled. “I don’t need a defense. You heard him—he admitted to being a traitor.”

“I heard him admit to being an academic who follows his conscience. Whether or not that conscience is right is not what is on trial today. Did you or did you not purposefully shoot the duly appointed bibliotheksschutz , who was sent to Paris by Goebbels?”

Ackermann squared his shoulders. “I did.”

“Did you or did you not purposefully keep him or his office from conducting an interview with one...” He checked his notes. “Josef Horowitz, living under the name of Joseph Henriot, and instead sentence this same Josef Horowitz to a prison camp without any interrogation or interview whatsoever?”

“I did.”