“I think you will be better off without the temptation of a typewriter, Fräulein Lorke.” The older officer closed his file and stood. “We will put it to good use in service of the Reich.”
She pressed her lips together to hold back a furious retort. She could not afford to buy a new typewriter every time a Nazi became confused.
Silently fuming, she allowed the younger officer to escort her to the door, where she nodded curtly instead of returning his sharp, one-armed salute. She went directly to the university, where she confirmed that the Sociology Department was essentially defunct. Professor Mannheim had left just in time.
Nothing remained to hold her in Frankfurt. She gave notice to her landlady, closed accounts and settled bills, and packed up her belongings. Two days later, she boarded the morning train for Berlin.
Greta’s first task was to find a place to stay. With only a small amount of savings and no certainty of finding work soon, she eschewed convenience and luxury and instead sublet a room in a boathouse on the Havel in Pichelswerder, a far western suburb just north of Grunewald.
Next, she left a message for Adam at the Staatstheater: If he wished to see her, she would be at the Romanisches Café at three o’clock the following afternoon.
He came, as she had known he would; unexpectedly, he arrived first. When she entered, he left his table and crossed the room to meet her. He grasped her hands, pulled her close, kissed her cheek, and murmured words of welcome and endearment, all with an intense, almost feverish energy.
They sat down and orderedKaffee und Kuchen. “Are you merely visiting or have you come to stay?” he asked.
“I plan to stay.” Honesty compelled her to add, “For now.” If her savings ran out before she found work, she might have to return home to her parents after all.
“You’ve returned to a very different city than the one you left.”
“I saw that as soon as I got off the train.” Suppressing a shudder, Greta sipped her coffee and glanced out the window, where swastika banners hung from the windows and balconies of the building across the street. “Anna Klug insists that German theater is dead. Please tell me she’s wrong.”
He grimaced. “I wish I could.”
The Staatstheater had become almost intolerable under its new management, he explained, as she savored the sound of his voice, his familiar expressions and gestures. The director had not renewed the contract of Adam’s brother-in-law, Hans Otto, despite the acclaim he had received for his magnificent performance inFaust, Part II. Otto’s occasional costar, the beautiful and popular Elisabeth Bergner, a Jew, had fled Germany. Adam’s frequent collaborator, the author Armin Wegner, had disappeared into the Gestapo’s prison camp system after writing an impassioned letter denouncing antisemitism and mailing it to Hitler in care of Nazi headquarters in Munich. Other friends and colleagues had been arrested, or had fled the country, or had chosen cautious silence, which provoked Adam’s disgust.
“I can’t shirk my responsibility to remain politically active,” he said emphatically, arousing both Greta’s admiration and her unease. “You must become politically engaged too. Abandon your social scientist’s professional detachment and get involved. Don’t just stand at a distance and observe, analyze, and report. Write. Speak out. Protest.”
“I intend to,” she replied, a trifle defensively. “Why else do you think I came back? But I’m going to be smart about it. I’m not going to send Adolf Hitler heartfelt letters imploring him to stop hating the Jews.”
“Yes, you’re right, discretion can be the better part of valor when one is overmatched. But in this fight, everyone must take a side. Whoever does not actively oppose the Nazis abets them.”
“I will never abet them,” she shot back, her voice low and fierce. Their eyes met over the table. His gaze was warm and admiring, and a searing rush of love and desire flooded her, wonderful and terrifying, until she had to tear her gaze away before she was swept up in it and lost.
A long moment passed in silence. She sipped her coffee, which was cooling in the cup, and took a small bite of cake.
“Are you working?” he eventually asked. “Are you going to finish your doctorate at the University of Berlin?”
“When they’re forcing students out? I can’t imagine they’d let me in.” Greta shook her head. “I thought I’d look for freelance editing and tutoring. I got by on such piecework before. I’m sure I could again.”
“I’ll ask around for you, if you like. Some of my theater friends might need an assistant.”
“Thank you.” She took a pencil and notepad from her purse, jotted down her new address and telephone number, tore the paper free, and slid it across the table to him. “I appreciate your help.”
He reached across the table for the paper, but took her hand instead. “Greta, you told me to call you when I was single. I’m not.”
Her heart sank. “When you wrote to me, I hoped that meant your situation had changed.”
“If I divorce Gertrud, Marie will never let me see my son again.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Gertrud and I have an understanding.”
“I’m not like you and Gertrud and Marie and Otto. You may call me bourgeoise or old-fashioned, but I could never be happy in such an arrangement. I don’t have to be married, but I need to know that my man is mine and mine alone.”
His hand tightened around hers. “I would be. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I swear to you, I would be yours, no one else’s.”
Reluctantly, she slipped her hand from his grasp. “Think it over—deeply, honestly. When you’re certain, only then make me a promise I can believe.”
