She smelled coffee brewing as she and Arvid returned to the living room, followed closely by the officers. They were Gestapo; they had to be.
“This is all a misunderstanding,” Egmont said, looking from Arvid to Mildred and back, forcing a reassuring smile. “I’ll meet with the director of the Foreign Studies Department at the university and he’ll get this matter sorted out.”
Arvid thanked him with a nod.
“Oberregierungsrat Harnack,” the officer in charge said sharply, “you are expected at the ministry at once.”
Suitcase in hand, Mildred followed Arvid to the door. She threw a glance over her shoulder to Anneliese, who stood in the kitchen doorway watching her helplessly, tears in her eyes.
“Wait,” said Egmont, bolting forward. “My wife and I cannot possibly enjoy our holiday knowing our friends’ has been spoiled. We’ll come with you.”
“Professor Zechlin,” the officer in charge retorted, “you are too intelligent not to know what is going on here. I am under orders to handle this matter as quietly as possible. You have already interfered too much. I hereby inform you that you are to remain silent about everything you have seen and heard. Otherwise we will arrest you as well.’’ He turned to Anneliese. “Frau Zechlin, the same applies to you.”
“The Harnacks are distinguished scholars,” Egmont protested. “You cannot prevent me from notifying the university of this outrage.’’
“This is my final warning, Professor. You are strictly forbidden to tell anyone what has happened here. Any calls you attempt to make will be intercepted.”
Egmont looked as if he would say more, but Arvid made a subtle gesture, and he fell silent. As the officers led Mildred and Arvid from the cottage, Egmont took Mildred’s hand and kissed it. He gave Arvid a long, wordless look conveying his intention to do everything in his power to help them despite the officer’s threats.
“Dear Egmont,” said Arvid quietly. “I thank you for everything, for ten years of friendship, and for today.” He scarcely had the words out before one of the officers shoved him in the back and forced him stumbling through the doorway, his suitcase banging on the frame. Another officer barked a command close to Mildred’s ear, and she hurried after her husband.
They were closely watched all the way back to Berlin, never given a moment alone together, forbidden to speak or to touch. Heart aching, lightheaded with fear, Mildred tried to convey her love through long, wordless looks. Arvid replied with faint smiles and reassuring nods, as if to tell her that all would be well. She longed to believe him, but with every passing hour, her apprehensions rose.
They were taken to Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8, where they were promptly separated. Mildred followed a guard’s commands to turn over her valuables, her shoelaces, her belt. Her final destination was theHausgefängnis, one of about three dozen narrow, dank solitary cells in the basement. As the cell door slammed shut with an ominous clang, cutting her off from the world of light and warmth, terror compelled her to disobey orders for silence. “Where is my husband?” she called out, frantic. “Where have you taken him?”
No one answered.
Greta walked home from the Romanisches Café, bemused. It was not like Libertas to miss a date, especially one that had been on their calendar for a fortnight. Greta had waited alone at their favorite table for thirty minutes before hunger compelled her to order lunch. When herSchweineschnitzelandSpätzlewere served, she ate slowly, glancing often to the door, expecting Libertas to appear at any moment, breathless and full of apologies and a good story about whatever Kulturfilm crisis had delayed her. But Greta finished her meal and lingered over her drink for another hour and still Libertas did not appear. Eventually she gave up, paid the bill, and left.
Perhaps Libertas had phoned to cancel at the last minute. Greta had left early to drop off Ule at the kindergarten on the first floor of her apartment building; she might have missed her call. And yet—something was not quite right. Surely if Libertas had tried and failed to reach her at home, she would have left a message at the restaurant.
Uneasy, Greta quickened her pace. As soon as she collected Ule from the kindergarten, she hurried him upstairs, set him down with some toys, and called Libertas’s home and office. Libertas’s housekeeper and the Kulturfilm receptionist both said that Libertas was traveling, but the receptionist did not know where and the housekeeper refused to say. Perplexed, Greta hung up the phone. Some time earlier Libertas had mentioned that she hoped to travel to Stockholm to visit her sister and brother-in-law, Ottora Maria Countess Douglas and Count Carl Ludvig Douglas. Hermann Göring himself had promised to get her permission to travel as a favor to her grandfather, Philipp, Prince von Eulenburg, but the last Greta had heard, the permit had been canceled at the last minute, with no explanation.
First Harro had disappeared from his office, or had been sent off on some secret mission for the Luftwaffe, and now Libertas had apparently set off on a mysterious trip without clearing her calendar—
A fist pounded on the door.
Glancing back to make sure Ule was distracted with his toys, Greta answered the knock. When she found two SS men standing in the hall, for a moment she could not breathe. “Yes?” she said, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice. “May I help you?”
“Frau Kuckhoff?”
“Yes?”
“You are wanted for questioning. Come quietly and it will go better for you.”
“But—” Greta stumbled out of the way as one of the SS men pushed past her into the room. Her blood ran cold as his gaze traveled around the room and settled on the bookcases filled with classic novels, old scripts, and the great manyverbotenbooks entrusted to them by nervous friends. “I’m sorry but I can’t go with you. I have a child—”
“You should have thought of that before you decided to commit treason.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “I’ve done nothing of the sort. If someone has denounced me, let me confront her face-to-face. Liars inform on neighbors every day out of jealousy and spite. You know that.”
The second officer grunted agreement, his head tilted slightly as he read the spines of the books.
“You’re coming with us,” the first officer said coldly. “You may bring the boy if you like, but I assure you he would be better off here alone.”
The second officer lunged and grabbed Greta’s arm from behind. “Time to go,Fraulein.”
“Wait. Let me call my son’s grandmother. There’s a kindergarten in our building. He could wait there until she can come for him.”
