“But failing that,” her father said, “if the worst should befall us, we want to be prepared to go into hiding.”
Sara stared at them, heart thudding. “If the worst should befall us,” she echoed. “How much worse could it possibly get?”
As all three men regarded her bleakly, her throat constricted, choking off the desperate questions she was suddenly too afraid to ask.
Chapter Thirty-eight
March–August 1937
Greta
In early spring, Greta and Adam celebrated the publication of his novel,Der Deutsche von Bayencourt, adapted from an antiwar play he had written in the early 1920s. The story, set from late July to early October 1914, featured a German-born farmer living in France whose loyalties were tested in the midst of the Great War. When a German patrol became stranded near his village, the farmer, torn between his German patriotism and loyalty to his French neighbors, offered the soldiers refuge. After the French authorities discovered what he had done, he was arrested, tried, and executed. The farmer’s son, a pacifist, denounced his father’s sentence, declaring that the nation’s real enemies were the warmongers and profiteers on both sides of the conflict who fomented “the boundless horror of this war.”
Greta thought it was a brilliant work, deftly and subtly crafted, a compelling entreaty for social justice in the guise of a suspenseful war drama. Even so, she was surprised when Rowohlt offered to publish it, because the novel’s prevailing theme—that one’s ethical obligations could conflict with one’s loyalties to the state—would surely provoke outrage from Nazi censors. Greta understood that Adam saw the publication of his novel as an act of resistance, a way to sharpen his readers’ political awareness and focus their gaze. She wondered whether Rowohlt had published the book because of its subversive themes or in spite of them.
Adam and Greta had prepared themselves for a backlash when the novel appeared on bookstore shelves, so they were guardedly pleased by glowing early reviews and steadily rising sales. To their astonishment, positive reviews also appeared in intensely partisan Nazi newspapers and cultural journals, but Adam’s delight soon gave way to ire. “These fascists see Bernard’s choice as a patriotic sacrifice for the Fatherland and completely ignore his son’s calls for peace,” he complained, crumpling up a newspaper and shoving it aside. “They call it my masterwork, but they’ve completely missed the point.”
“Isn’t it better that way?” asked Greta. “Otherwise they might have thrown you into a concentration camp to punish you for seditious writings.”
He ran a hand through his hair, distracted and upset. “But will everyone miss the point?”
“No, darling.” She placed her hands on his face and turned his gaze to meet hers. “They’ll understand that your novel is a plea for decency and humanity in times of horror. The Nazis see only a story about the Great War. The vast majority of readers will know you’re also writing about our times.”
Her words seemed to comfort him, but when producers began inquiring about the film rights, he proceeded with a wariness that swerved toward the bellicose. Adam had seen how Joseph Goebbels, Leni Riefenstahl, and others had transformed innocuous and even antifascist source material into propaganda for the Third Reich. “I refuse to allow anyone to twist my novel into a cheap piece of melodrama whose sole purpose is to justify declaring war on France,” he grumbled.
“Then don’t sell the rights,” she told him. “You don’t need the money. The novel is selling well, you have other work, and more opportunities will come. It’s your book and they can’t take it from you by force.”
If only Greta could have said the same for the book that had consumed so much of her own time and effort, a book she considered even more important to the resistance.
With her help, Dr. Murphy had completed the translation ofMein Kampfon schedule and with growing confidence that it would transform the way Great Britain and the United States regarded the Nazi threat. Together he and Greta meticulously polished the final version, and then waited eagerly while Daphne typed it up and made a carbon copy. Then, in early April, just as they were preparing to submit the manuscript for publication, the Ministry of Propaganda informed Dr. Murphy that the book had been canceled. They ordered him to gather all his manuscripts, drafts, and notes and surrender them to the ministry immediately.
“They offered no explanation,” Dr. Murphy said hoarsely after he broke the devastating news. His hands trembled and he repeatedly glanced down the hall to his bedroom, where Greta and Daphne suspected he kept a bottle hidden beneath a floorboard. “Perhaps they finally realized what we’ve known all along, that Hitler’s vile, racist pronouncements will turn the world against him.”
Heartsick, Greta sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands, struggling to compose herself. “We don’t have to obey,” she finally said. “No German publisher would defy Goebbels’s orders, but you could smuggle the manuscript to London or Edinburgh and publish it there.”
“No other publisher would touch it as long as Eher Verlag owns the copyright. The legal challenges would keep the book tied up in the courts for years. And if we don’t give the ministry what they’ve asked for, they may demand that I repay the advance, and it’s already spent.” He heaved a sigh and ran a hand over his face, his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Greta, but it’s over.”
In silence they gathered up the pristine version of the final manuscript, their handwritten notes, the marked-up drafts, every scrap. Greta did not notice until the loathsome task was nearly complete that at some point Dr. Murphy had quietly slipped off to his bedroom and had shut the door, leaving the work to her and Daphne.
“Should we draw straws to decide which of us gets to deliver this?” Greta asked bitterly when all the evidence of their months of toil was neatly packaged and ready to go.
“I’ll take it on my way home,” said Daphne. “It’s not far out of my way. Besides, I’m afraid that if you run into Goebbels, you might slap him.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Greta retorted. “What do you think they’re going to do with all this? File it? Burn it?”
“File it,” said Daphne, hefting the box and balancing it on her hip. “Burn the sacred utterings of their Führer? Never.”
They fell silent for a moment, listening for any sound from Dr. Murphy’s bedroom that might suggest he was on the phone with the publisher or the ministry or his lawyers fighting to proceed with the book. When only silence followed, Greta held open the door for Daphne and followed her out of the apartment, doubting she would ever return. It was not until later that evening that she realized she should have shared a more meaningful farewell with Daphne, for it was unlikely they would see each other again.
But a few days later, as she was heating up some soup for her supper, Greta answered a knock on her door to find Daphne standing in the hall. “Do you have a moment?” she asked, glancing furtively over her shoulder, clutching her bag tightly to her side.
Greta nodded and beckoned her inside, guessing that she had come directly from Dr. Murphy’s. As soon as Greta closed and locked the door behind her, Daphne took a deep breath and blurted, “The orders were to give them all manuscripts, drafts, and notes. They said nothing about carbon copies.”
“You don’t mean—”
Daphne nodded and patted her bag, her eyes wide and frightened. “I forgot that it was in my typewriter case. What should I do with it?”
“Does Dr. Murphy know you have it?”
