Prologue
November 1942
Mildred
The heavy iron doors open and for a moment Mildred stands motionless and blinking in the sunlight, breathless from the sudden rush of cool, fresh air caressing her face and lifting her hair. The guard propels her forward into the prison yard, his grip painful and unyielding around her upper arm. Other women clad in identical drab, shapeless garments walk slowly in pairs around the perimeter of the gravel square. Their cells within theHausgefängnisof the Gestapo’s Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse headquarters are so cramped that they can scarcely move, and now the prisoners spread their arms and lift their faces to the sky, like dancers, like dry autumn leaves scattered in a gust of wind.
How many of them would never again know more freedom than this?
“No talking,” the guard reminds her, shoving her into the open yard. Stumbling, she regains her footing and begins treading a diagonal path between two corners of the high encircling walls, forbidden to walk with the others. She has done this ten precious minutes each day since her arrest two months before, and her stiff, aching limbs fall into the routine before she is conscious of it.
Deliberately, she holds her head up and takes long, steady strides in a false show of strength that costs her dearly. She has lost weight, and from the strands she finds on her bunk each morning, she knows that her once luxuriant blond hair has gone brittle and white. Coughs rack her almost constantly. Earlier that day she brought her hand away from her mouth and nose to find her palm spotted with blood. There is no medicine to spare for people like her, traitors to the Third Reich—although is it correct to call her a traitor, since she is American?
It does not matter, not to her jailers and not to the law, to whom she is American by birth, a dual citizen by marriage. To Adolf Hitler it matters very much that she is an American, or so she has been warned. And yet Germany is her adopted home, the birthplace of her beloved husband. It was because she could not bear to be parted from him that she had remained in Berlin even after the United States government warned its citizens to leave the country.
Arvid. Her heart aches as she imagines him languishing in a cramped, cold, dimly lit cell like her own, somewhere not far away, but impossibly beyond her reach. Their trial is pending. Perhaps they will be reunited in the courtroom, they and all of their brave, unfortunate friends in the resistance cell the Nazis call Rote Kapelle, Red Orchestra, for the illicit “music” they had broadcast to enemies of the Reich. How strange it is that the Gestapo considered them so formidable an enemy that they merited a sinister name, like something plucked from a spy novel—and yet among their diffuse network of writers, teachers, economists, bureaucrats, office workers, and laborers, they count not one professional spy.
They are ordinary people from every walk of life. Her dear friend Greta Kuckhoff grew up poor, earned her education, and is determined to provide her young son with a better life. Sara Weitz enjoyed wealth and privilege until the Nazis declared the Jews undesirable and robbed them of every civil and human right. Mildred’s heart aches as she thinks of Sara and the other students in their circle—brave, determined, idealistic, with their whole lives ahead of them, risking more than they can fully understand. Where are they now? Scattered, some imprisoned elsewhere, some in hiding, others fled to distant lands. If only Mildred could seek help from Martha Dodd one last time, but Martha returned to the United States after her father was relieved of his duties as ambassador. Even if Mildred could somehow get word to her impulsive, outspoken friend, what could Martha do?
A fit of coughing seizes her. She doubles over, clutching her shoulders to brace herself until the hoarse racking stops. When she can, she straightens, inhales deeply, ignores the foreboding rattle in her lungs, and resumes her diagonal path across the yard—
And almost stops short from astonishment. Another prisoner holds her gaze as she treads along the edge of the prison yard, her stricken sympathy plain for Mildred to see. The woman is too pale and thin to be new to the prison; surely she is aware of the grim consequences she will face if the guards see her regarding Mildred with such concern, after she has been set apart as a warning to others. The woman must know, for she quickly looks away. Mildred’s heart sinks, only to rise again when the woman glances back and offers her the barest trace of an encouraging smile.
Mildred feels new strength flow through her. It is just a glance, but it nourishes her starved soul. Her heart pounds as she works out the timing of her diagonal strides and the woman’s slow circuit of the yard. She quickens her pace, not enough to draw the guards’ attention, but sufficiently that eventually her path and the woman’s will intersect in the far corner of the yard. All the while they steal glances at each other, silent messages that they are not alone, that there is always hope, that when one least expects it a shaft of light might pierce the darkest sky.
And then they intersect, though they cannot pause long enough even to touch fingertips.
“Take care of yourself,” Mildred murmurs as they shuffle toward each other and away. “I am in cell 25. Don’t forget me when you get out. My name is Mildred Harnack.”
I am Mildred Harnack, she repeats silently to herself as she turns to cross the yard again. Mildred Fish Harnack. Wife, sister, aunt. Author, scholar, teacher. Resistance fighter. Spy.
Don’t forget me.
Part One
Chapter One
June–October 1929
Mildred
The sharp wind off the water where the North Sea met the Weser River whipped locks of hair from Mildred’s braid and brought tears to her eyes, but nothing could compel her away from the railing of the upper deck of the SSBerlinas it approached Bremerhaven. Ten days earlier the ship had set out from Manhattan for Germany—ten long days after nine lonely months apart from her beloved husband—but the last few hours had passed with excruciating slowness. As the ship came into harbor, she scanned the crowd gathered on the pier for the man she loved, knowing that he stood somewhere among them, waiting to welcome her to his homeland.
The ship’s horn bellowed overhead, two long blasts; sailors and dockworkers tossed ropes and deftly secured knots. The passengers shifted in anticipation as the ramps were made ready for their descent. Where the pier met the shore, a brass band played a merry tune in welcome; men clad in traditional lederhosen, embroidered vests, and feathered caps; women in pink-and-green dirndls and white blouses with wreaths of ribbons and flowers in their hair.
Hearing her name aloft on the wind above the music, Mildred searched the crowd, her grip tightening on the rail—and then she saw him, her beloved Arvid, his fair hair neatly combed back from his wide brow, his blue eyes kind and intelligent behind wire-rimmed glasses. He waved his hat in slow arcs above his head, calling her name, radiant with joy.
“Arvid,” she cried, and he waved back, and soon she was ashore and darting through the crowd into his embrace. Tears of joy spilled over as she kissed him, heedless of the sidelong glances of the more reserved passengers and families all around them.
“My darling wife,” Arvid murmured, his lips nuzzling her ear. “It’s wonderful to hold you again. You’re even lovelier than I remember.”
She smiled and held him close, her happiness too great for words. If absence had made her lovelier in his eyes, he was even more handsome in hers.
How immeasurably beloved he had become to her since the day they met three years before. In March 1926, soon after Arvid came to the University of Wisconsin on a prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship, he had wandered into her Bascom Hall classroom expecting a lecture by the renowned economist John R. Commons, only to discover Mildred leading a discussion on Walt Whitman. Enchanted, he took a seat in the back row, and afterward he stayed behind to apologize for the interruption, explaining in endearingly imperfect English that he had meant to go to Sterling Hall but had apparently lost his way. Charmed, Mildred had offered to escort him to the correct building. They enjoyed a chat along the way, and in parting agreed to meet again to study together. She would help Arvid master English, and he would help her improve her German, which she had allowed to lapse after learning the rudiments as a child in Milwaukee, that most German of American cities.
Arvid arrived for their study session bearing a lovely bouquet of fragrant white gardenias. Their language lesson over coffee at a diner on the corner of State and Lake streets turned into a long walk along the forested path on the shore of Lake Mendota. As they conversed in a mix of English and German, Mildred discovered that Arvid had earned his doctorate of law degree in 1924 and was pursuing a second doctorate in economics. He had come to the United States to study the American labor movement, and like herself he was deeply concerned about the rights of workers, women, children, and the poor. They shared a passion for education and aspired to become university professors, although Mildred also yearned to write, not only academic essays and reviews, but also novels and poetry.
One date led to another, and soon Mildred realized she had fallen in love with him—inevitably, utterly. And in return, she found herself beloved, admired, and respected by the finest man she had ever known.
