She’d be arrested, tortured, deported to a concentration camp, and she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe at all. Gebhardt, the Germans, they’d backed her into a corner and were kicking her.
Unless she yelped. Unless she confronted.
A path of logic opened in her mind, filling her lungs with air and life.
“My wrongdoing?” She gave him a confused frown. “What’s wrong about warning innocent civilians who are about to be arrested?”
“They aren’t innocent.” Gebhardt’s thick lips twisted. “The Jews coordinate the sabotage and unrest in your country.”
“The Jews?” Indignation lifted her voice. “Like Bohr and Wolff? Are you accusing them of sabotage?”
Gebhardt’s gaze cut to the side. “We have our suspicions about Bohr.”
“We? Are you spying on the institute?”
His gaze whipped back to her, and he sucked in a breath.
That logical path led to victory. “Remember how very many Jews there are in theoretical physics. Remember how many of them are safe in Sweden and America and Britain. When the Allies win, they’ll remember who hurt the Jews and who helped. And if you turned me in to the Gestapo for helping the Jews and printing the truth, it would be morally wrong—and it would destroy your career.”
Gebhardt’s face grew pale. The newspaper fluttered from his hands to the floor, and he dashed out of the room.
Else sagged against the table, and her breath rushed out, ratcheting on her tightened throat. Had she convinced him? Or had he left to call the Gestapo?
He couldn’t possibly be that reckless, but she couldn’t take chances. Faster than ever, she cranked out the remaining copies, cleaned up, and departed.
No black Gestapo cars fouled the street, and she hurried to the Trianglen and boarded a tram on Line 1.
Slowly her breath returned to normal and the shaking in her hands subsided. Gebhardt wouldn’t turn her in. He was too intelligent not to follow her logic.
Meanwhile, she needed her wits to deliver the papers. A few weeks ago, her drop site had changed to the Nordisk Boghandel. In September, the Gestapo had occupied all of Dagmarhus, and the bookstore moved to a new location.
Nordisk Boghandel was a site of much resistance work. She hadn’t asked Hemming, but that could explain his presence at the bookstore that rainy day.
The memory helped her apply a pleasant expression as she watched her fellow passengers and the streets below.
When she stepped off the tram at Kongens Nytorv, she checked her environment, painfully aware of her failure to do so at the institute.
Too many German uniforms filled the large cobblestoned square, dominated by the grand white Hotel d’Angleterre, occupied by the Nazis.
“I’m here to buy a book,” she whispered to herself so she’d remember to look like an eager bookworm, not a nervous freedom fighter.
Inside, the stillness and the smell of books relaxed her somewhat. She strolled around as if browsing for books, but really browsing the customers. An elderly woman in a green hat, three giggling young ladies, and a mother with two little girls.
In the fiction section, Else ran her finger along the spines and frowned as if unable to find what she wanted. At the desk in the back, she addressed the owner, Mogens Staffeldt. “Excuse me? Do you have anything by Dostoevsky?”
“I have a shipment waiting to be shelved. Would you like to come look?”
“Yes, thank you.” Else followed the young man downstairs and into the back room, where half a dozen people collated pages around a silent printing press.
“Set the papers here.” Staffeldt pushed aside a stack of books—John Steinbeck’sThe Moon Is Down, banned by the Germans but printed by Staffeldt.
Else opened her briefcase and hauled out the newspaper pages. “I appreciate this since you’re busy with your own printing.”
“It’s for the same cause.”
A baby’s cry pierced the wall to Else’s left.
A young man jabbed his finger toward the wall. “Get that family out of here before they get us arrested.”
