“No, thank you.” Then a thought struck. “Konrad Dressler. May I speak with Konrad Dressler?”
“Miss Weitz?”
Turning, Sara discovered a trim man in a fine suit studying her with concern. “Yes?”
He shook her hand. “Karl Meinholz, senior editor.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Natan had always spoken well of him. “I’m looking for my brother. Have you seen him recently?”
In reply, Meinholz invited Sara to accompany him to his office. She accepted the chair he offered, but before she could say anything, he held up a finger, shut the door, and sat down behind his desk. Only then did he speak. “I regret that Natan Weitz is no longer on the staff of theBerliner Tageblatt.That would be against the law.”
“Yes, I know, but Natan has so many friends here, and I haven’t been able to reach him.”
His brow furrowed. “When he stopped coming around, I assumed he had left Germany.”
“Natan has no intention of leaving. I last saw him almost two weeks ago. He isn’t at his apartment, and he isn’t answering his phone. That’s why I came here, to see if any of his friends know where he is.”
“You asked to see Konrad Dressler.”
She nodded. “Natan mentioned him, and I know he still works here.”
“Miss Weitz—” Meinholz paused. “There is no Konrad Dressler.”
“But I’ve seen his byline.”
“Yes, his byline, but your brother’s words.”
“You mean...” Sara studied him. “My brother is Konrad Dressler?”
Meinholz nodded.
“Then Natan violated the Editors Law. If the Gestapo figured it out—”
“No one here would have breathed a word,” Meinholz assured her. “Betraying him would put us all in danger.”
But a jealous rival could have informed on Natan nonetheless, or the Gestapo could have found out another way. They could have followed him from his flat to work, or recognized his writing style. Regardless, he had broken the law and had put himself in terrible danger.
Sara murmured her thanks and quickly left Meinholz’s office. She ran back to Natan’s flat, tried the door again, roused his landlord, and convinced him to unlock the door for her. She was afraid to ask if anyone else had come by looking for Natan—Gestapo or Brownshirts or police.
The landlord fumbled with the key in the lock, but eventually he opened the door and waved her inside. The spare key sat on the table in the entryway.
“Thank you,” she said, managing a shaky smile as she stooped to pick up Natan’s scattered mail. “I’ll lock up when I go.”
Grumbling, he left her. Immediately she closed and locked the door.
She left the mail beside the key on the table and searched the flat. The bed was made. Breakfast dishes were piled in the sink. A hand towel near the washbasin was perfectly dry. The air was still and stale, the plants on the windowsill unwatered. Natan’s suitcase sat on the floor of his closet beneath a half-full laundry basket.
Natan was gone, but if he had fled Germany, he had told no one and had taken nothing with him.
Chapter Twenty-three
June–July 1934
Martha
Early on the morning of Saturday, June 30, Martha gave her father a jaunty wave and her mother a quick peck on the cheek before snatching up her bag and her wide-brimmed hat and darting out the door to meet Boris, who was waiting in the driveway at the wheel of his Ford convertible with the top down. “Shall we go?” she asked as she climbed in and slung her bag into the back next to a folded blanket and a picnic hamper. She slipped on her sunglasses and considered putting on the hat too, but she tossed it on top of her bag instead, the better to enjoy the wind in her hair.
Boris started the car, a corner of his mouth turning inquisitively. “You hope to make a quick getaway before your parents discover who is driving away with their daughter?”
