Dieter laughed and her parents smiled, and Sara quickly changed the subject.
After supper, declining her parents’ invitation to join them in the living room, Sara took Dieter’s hand and led him outside to the garden, behind a stand of linden trees where she knew they could not be seen from the house. “Welcome home, Dieter,” she said, interlacing her fingers behind his neck and rising up on her toes to kiss him.
“My pretty Sara,” he murmured, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her back. “I missed you.”
She pulled him down to sit beside her on a hidden bench. “We can’t stay out here alone too long or my father will invent some excuse to examine the flower beds.”
He gave a wry snort. “So, did I pass?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Did I pass your parents’ inspection?”
“Of course you passed. There was no inspection.”
He laughed. “Well, which is it?”
She feigned indignation and gave him a little shove. He grinned, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her again, sending her heart pounding with joy and desire. Soon he seemed to forget that she had not really answered his question, which was just as well because she didn’t know what to say.
Two weeks later, Natan’s byline led with a harrowing report of rumors that roughly seven thousand Nazi SA and SS in Prussia had taunted their political enemies by marching through Altona, a strongly Communist suburb of Hamburg, only to be fired upon by rooftop snipers. In the next day’s edition, the city’s correspondents confirmed that seventeen people had died of gunshot wounds and several hundred more had been wounded. Three days after that, Chancellor Papen declared that the events ofAltonær Blutsonntag—Altona Bloody Sunday—required him to dissolve the center-left coalition government of Prussia, as well as its formidable police force, and place both under federal control.
“This is a coup,” Sara’s father declared, shaking his head in disbelief as he set one newspaper aside and picked up another, searching in vain for some good news. “This is nothing short of an overthrow of the Free State of Prussia.”
The national elections of July 31 leveled another blow. The National Socialists won more than fourteen million votes, or 37 percent of the electorate. Even more dismaying to Sara, university students voted for Adolf Hitler in overwhelmingly disproportionate numbers. How could her peers be so enthralled by Hitler’s rhetoric, his obvious pandering to people’s worst fears and prejudices?
“What does the younger generation see in the Nazis?” Sara’s mother asked her.
“I have no idea,” said Sara, sick at heart. “None of my friends are getting swept up in all of this.”
“I’ll tell you what the young people see,” said her father. “Something different. Something disruptive. For as long as they can remember, their government has failed them. They have no jobs, no hope, only anger, and they have no reason to believe the political parties they’ve trusted in the past will stave off further decline. To them, change must equal improvement.”
“And what about the rest of the electorate?” said Sara. “Your generation should know better, shouldn’t they?”
“Older generations still resent how the rest of the world punished them after the Great War. I’m sure Hitler’s promise to restore the country to some mythical golden age appeals to them.”
“This is dreadful, dreadful,” said her mother, voice shaking. “Perhaps we should get out of the city. We could stay at Wilhelm and Amalie’s estate for the rest of the summer, until the violence subsides.”
Sara’s father shook his head. “I know things look bleak, but Hitler isn’t president, nor chancellor, and he never will be. The German people would never accept someone like him as their leader. He’s utterly unqualified for the role.”
“How can you be so sure?” Sara’s mother countered. “Those thousands of German people who rallied for the Nazis at the Lustgarten seemed quite prepared to crown him king.”
“Their enthusiasm will burn itself out,” her father said firmly. “Within a year, Hitler’s star will fade, and with it the influence of the National Socialists. They can sow hatred and violence, but they cannot rule.”
Sara’s mother nodded, mollified, but Sara’s own doubts lingered. She wanted to believe her father, but she could not forget Natan’s description of the wild fervor in the eyes of the masses at the rally. Some fires burned themselves out only after consuming everything within reach of the flames.
Chapter Eight
April–November 1932
Greta
Zurich was everything Felix had promised and more. The gracious Henrich residence was an oasis of serene prosperity, and since Felix and Julia treated her as a member of the family, Greta enjoyed luxuries that she had never before known—Périgord truffles, Russian caviar, the finest champagne. Her suite, comprised of a large bedroom, a sitting room, and an en suite bath, was larger than any apartment she had ever called home, and her windows boasted lovely views of snowcapped mountains and meadow valleys awash in violet asters and yellow chamois ragwort. Felix and Julia included her on their outings to the theaters, operas, and concert halls, and she had as much time as she wished to explore Zurich and the environs on her own.
Her work was interesting and enjoyable, and never so arduous as to invite complaint. Felix’s library was a bibliophile’s dream, vast in quantity and scope, but packed so arbitrarily that when she first opened the cartons, Greta laughed aloud in astonishment at the disorder. The Henrich daughters were clever and delightful, generous with hugs and kisses and sweet compliments, so quick to master their simple English lessons that Julia declared herself amazed and envious of their gifts. For all this, Felix paid Greta a generous salary in addition to her room and board. She was able to provide for her necessities, save for less bountiful times, and send a considerable amount home to her parents, thankful to be able to repay at long last a small portion of all that they had sacrificed for her.
As if all this did not suffice, her job in Zurich also put more than eight hundred kilometers between her and Adam, whose letters, when she neglected to reply, became infrequent, and then rare, and then ceased coming altogether.
Greta had always known that the work would not last forever, but she felt a pang of regret when she placed the last of Felix’s books in its proper place on the shelves and realized her Swiss idyll was nearing its end. Felix and Julia assured her that she was welcome to stay on as the girls’ English tutor as long as she liked, but their lessons occupied only a few hours each week, and she found herself restless, impatient for a new challenge.
