Page 66 of The Last Safe Place

“I can’t promise anything, so best not to tell your wife.” Lieutenant Hesse took the necklace and slipped it into his pocket. “If all goes well, I’ll return it to you in Basel.”

“Thank you so much! That means a lot to me.” Eberhard’s eyes filled with tears, and he struggled to speak.

“Don’t thank me too soon.” The lieutenant turned away and called one of the furniture packers to load the jewelry box intothe van. Once everything was loaded, he said, “Come to my office as soon as you’ve been to the Swiss embassy.”

“Certainly, Lieutenant, I’ll go first thing tomorrow morning.” Eberhard prayed silently that all would go well, with no more nasty surprises lying in wait for them.

32

Leonore was sitting on a packed suitcase. All the items apart from the bed, which she had sold to her neighbor along with the mattress and bedding, had been collected.

The Swiss embassy had stamped the visa into her passport, and the travel date had been set for September the twenty-ninth. Two days away.

She picked up her passport again and opened it. Not even the big red J disfiguring the upper left corner dimmed her joy. She turned the pages to the one marked “Visa” and stroked her fingers reverently over the Swiss embassy stamp before closing the booklet and pressing it to her heart.

So this was what a ticket to freedom looked like: a curt black stamp on yellow paper. She carefully stowed the passport, along with her identification card, in the small bag she always wore around her neck. She’d guard this treasure with her life.

Right at that moment, the doorbell rang. Leonore flinched. The Gestapo’s suitcase inspector had arrived. She resisted the urge to crawl under the bed and pretend nobody was home. Instead, she got up, smoothed her skirt, and headed for the front door with a pounding heart. Nothing could happen to her, butshe still felt uncomfortable in the presence of a Gestapo officer. You never knew.

What if he arrested her on a whim? Her mouth was as dry as dust, and she had to force herself to reach out for the latch. As her palm touched the cool metal, she swallowed down her panic. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, and then pressed the latch firmly.

The door sprang open, to reveal a man in a gray-green uniform coat.

“Are you Leonore Vogel?” His tone was relatively friendly.

“Yes.”

“Senior Customs Officer Weitze. I’ve come to check your luggage.”

A weight fell from Leonore’s shoulders. A customs officer had no authority to arrest her on a whim. “Please come in.”

The man followed her through the shabby hallway into the small room where her suitcase lay on the bed.

“Is that everything?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded, opened his briefcase and fished out a list entitledApproved Luggage for Leonore Vogel – Jewess. “Open it up, please.”

Leonore hesitated for a second. She and Birgit had had to sit on the suitcase together to squash it hard before it finally closed. However, there was no way around it. She released the catches, and the lid burst open. She wondered anxiously how she’d ever close the thing again without Birgit’s help.

The customs officer pursed his lips in disapproval before setting the list aside. Leonore breathed a sigh of relief, and was about to close the suitcase lid again, when she noticed him taking a pair of white fabric gloves from his briefcase and putting them on.

“Would you step aside, please?” he asked amiably before pulling the suitcase to the edge of the bed. At the top lay her best dress. He unfolded it and laid it out on the bed before checking off the garment on his list. Then came the alarm clock, pictures and postcards – which he studied in detail.

A shiver ran down Leonore’s spine as she wondered what he found so interesting in them. Silently, she thanked Heaven for not packing her diary. Just the thought of this man leafing through it made her cheeks flush.

“There are five postcards on the list – this is six. Which one do you want to leave behind?”

She pointed randomly at one of the cards, unable to look the man in the face. “This one.”

“Alright.” He gazed around the empty room, before he placed the surplus postcard on the windowsill.

The next minute, Leonore felt her face flushing hotter than ever as she watched the customs officer’s white-gloved fingers take first her brassiere, then her underpants, out of the suitcase, unfold them and place them side by side on the bed.

Head bowed, and almost dying of shame, she waited for him to finish inspecting her unmentionables.

Then he spoke again. “You can’t take this with you.”