“You know you’re thinking it.”
“I’m not. I’m really not.” Mildred bit the inside of her lower lip, her eyes glistening. “I’m not perfect. Far from it.”
“You’d have every right—”
“No. Listen.” Mildred tucked her hands into her pockets and shook her head, sad and apprehensive. “I have a confession to make too, and when you hear it,youmay be the one who can’t bear to stay friends withme.”
“What’s the worst you’ve ever done? Forgot to make your bed one morning?”
“I joined the National Socialist Teachers League.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Mildred nodded bleakly.
“But why? Why would you do such a thing?”
“In June, a few days before graduation, the principal informed me and the other holdouts among the faculty that if we wanted to continue working at the Berlin Abendgymnasium after the summer recess, we had to join.” Mildred pressed a hand to her waist. “I walked home in a daze, sick to my stomach, thoughts churning. I couldn’t afford to lose my job. Arvid and I are barely getting by as it is. But I couldn’t bear to have any affiliation with racist, authoritarian brutes who burn books and persecute Jews. Signing my name to their roster would give tacit approval to beliefs and practices I find morally abhorrent.”
“Then why didn’t you resign in protest?”
“And what then? I would have faced the same requirement at every other school I might apply to. My choices were to join the league or give up teaching.” Mildred’s gaze fell upon a nearby bench, and with a heavy sigh, she sank down upon it. “Of course I joined in name only. I’ll never attend a meeting or participate in their activities. Arvid says the Nazis are wrong to make this a condition of my employment and they deserve to be deceived.”
“He’s right. You had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” Mildred clasped her hands together in her lap, pensive. “I’m not certain I made the right one.”
Greta sat down beside her. “I’ve no doubt that every other teacher on the faculty made the same decision.”
“They did,” Mildred acknowledged, “but you wouldn’t have. You would have told them what they could do with their job and their unreasonable requirements.”
“And I would have found myself out of work and under increased scrutiny from the Gestapo, or placed into their so-called protective custody.”
“But you would have known that you had done the right thing.”
“What a great comfort my moral superiority would have been to me as I toiled in a work camp.”
“Yes, exactly.” Mildred seemed to have missed Greta’s sarcasm. “So as you see, I’m far from perfect myself.”
“If you say so.” Greta sighed and sat back against the bench. “Mildred, I didn’t tell you about Adam to unburden my soul or to prompt a confession from you.”
“No?”
Greta shook her head. “I’ve thought carefully about what Arvid said regarding expanding our circles of acquaintances, of joining smaller, isolated opposition groups into a larger network.”
She fell silent as a heavyset man strolled past, a small white dog on a leash preceding him.
Mildred regarded her intently, waiting for her to continue.
“Adam and Arvid have a lot in common,” Greta said when they were alone once more. “I think they should meet.”
Chapter Nineteen
August 1933
Martha
On the first day of August, Martha’s father informed his family that he had taken a fully furnished house on Tiergartenstrasse, a short, pleasant walk away from the American chancery on Bendlerstrasse. The owner, Alfred Panofsky, a partner with Jacquier and Securius Bank, had offered it at the astonishingly low rent of about 150 U.S. dollars a month.
