Shining Through (56 page)

“My picture is probably all over the city by now.”

“It is,” she said gently. “Everyone in…the movement who knows about you has been so frightened. What’s happened?

Tell me everything.” She gave me a glass for the milk. A goblet.

“Please, I need a few minutes. I haven’t slept or eaten since—”

“Then you must take a rest! I’ll put you into a nice, soft bed with an eiderdown—”

“No, thank you.” I put a small piece of cheese on the bread.

Like the apple, this didn’t have any taste. Still, it was food. So I just sat there, ate a few bites and sipped the milk in silence.

Margarete was comforting and discomforting at the same time.

She’d smile or pat my hand, but then there were moments when her entire body tensed, as she tried to keep her jumpiness under control. I felt she would like nothing more than to run out of the room, away from me and the danger I’d brought.

“I won’t come here ever again. You have my promise.”

“Lina, you are always welcome.”

“I’m here to ask for your help: yours and the movement’s. If you can find someone who’s willing to hide me, that would be more than I could rightfully expect.”

416 / SUSAN ISAACS

“But you would like something more.” She knew me so well.

“Yes,” I said. “I wouldn’t even have thought of it if Herr Friedrichs hadn’t mentioned it.”

“Oh, how is he?”

“Out of Germany, I hope.”

“I see! You saw him?”

“Yes, early this morning. When he was thinking about how he could get me out of the country, he mentioned the possibility of calling you. Maybe, with all your connections…in the Abwehr, all the people your family must know, even the pig…Margarete, is there some way you can get me out of Germany?”

She shook her head. It wasn’t as much a denial as saying, I don’t know. “Lina, it would be so much easier for you to stay here. With all the bombings, we’re becoming a nation of refugees. Give me a day. I can get new papers for you, decent ones.” Her face brightened. “I know! We can cut your hair short and dress you up in my clothes. No one would know that the girl in the photograph with braids is the same person as the stylish young woman with the smart haircut!”

It was clear she was trying to sell me something, and although I knew I would probably have to buy it, I wasn’t ready yet. “Let me tell you why I have to leave Germany,” I said. “I don’t belong here.” Margarete waited. “I’m sure you understand, being a translator, that there are some people who belong in a country—and some people who don’t.”

“I’m sorry. I do not understand.”

And for the first time in the year and a half that felt like a lifetime, I spoke English. “I don’t belong in Germany because I’m an American, Margarete.” For a minute she didn’t react at all. Then she began to laugh uncontrollably. But she wasn’t having a good time. She was hysterical. “Margarete. Stop it.

Please
calm down.” I banged my fist on the table. She jumped, and she stopped. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“You speak English so well!” I began to laugh this time, and it was only a little bit of nerves. It was genuinely funny.

SHINING THROUGH / 417

And now that I was speaking English, I didn’t know if I could ever speak German again.

“Of course I speak English well. It’s my native language.”

“And your German?”

“My grandmother lived with us. She came from Berlin.”

“So you are German.”

“My father’s parents were born in Germany.”

“Your mother’s family?”

“Originally from England or Scotland.”

“OSS sent an
American
in here?
Why?
”

“Because there was nobody here who could do it. Margarete, come on. You know how efficient the Nazis are. Really, how many people are there in the resistance?”

“Very few,” she acknowledged. Suddenly, she asked, “How is my English?”

“Excellent.”

The beginning of a smile lit up her face: the old Margarete.

“Could
I
get away with what you did?” She was playing her old game; she saw the danger, but she also saw the fun. “Could I slip into Chicago or some other large city and pass myself off as an American?”

“No. You’re a little too precise, too clipped. And your
w
’s…they’re still…slightly German.” I grinned at her. “We could work on them.”

“So my consummate Berlin friend is an American!”

“From New York. Hey, can you tell I have a New York accent?”

“No.” She was starting to get nervous again. She stood and paced the kitchen.

“Take it easy, Margarete.”

“That is rather difficult, Lina.”

“I know.”

She moved away from me and sat on a long carved wooden bench. “You’re not a recruit? You’re OSS?” she inquired.

“I’ve been working for them on and off since 1940.”

“Did you do this sort of work for them before?”

“No. I was a secretary in New York and then in Washing-418 / SUSAN ISAACS

ton. We moved down there before the war. Well, I mean before the U.S. got into the war. Before Pearl Harbor.”

“‘We’?”

“My husband’s in the OSS also. He was a lawyer in one of those big firms on Wall Street.”

“What is his name?” She crossed her legs. Then she folded her arms and hugged them tight to her body.

“John.”

“Is your name really Lina?”

“Linda.”

“Linda,” she repeated. “Linda.” Then suddenly she said, “Oh, God, I need a drink. A brandy. Do you want one?” I shook my head. “Excuse me, then, I’ll be right back.” I smiled as she left the kitchen. Margarete sounded almost exactly like Marlene Dietrich. While she was gone, I let myself relax for a minute. It must have been because I was speaking English, but I remembered
Destry Rides Again
, and then I began to think how terrific it would be just to sit with a big bag of popcorn and stare up at a screen. I decided I wanted to watch something with Bette Davis. I thought: I bet she’s come out with at least two movies since I’ve been away. I was really getting punchy, trying to remember if I’d read any story in the magazines where the reporter says, What are your future plans, Miss Davis? Then Margarete came back to the kitchen. She didn’t have a brandy.

She had a gun.

“You will never know how sorry I am,” she said, in German.

“
What the hell are you doing?
” English.

“I think it should be obvious.”

And it was. “You! You’re the traitor in the resistance.”

“Is that what they call me?”

“You’re the one who killed Alfred Eckert.”

“No! Alfred was my friend.”

“But you killed him, anyway.”

“No! Of course not.” I stared at her. “Well, finally I had no choice but to report him. He was too talkative. Too trusting. I tried to protect him, Lina…Linda. I
try
to protect my SHINING THROUGH / 419

friends. Truly I do. Most of them…It is easy. You yourself said it. We are quite efficient, and the so-called resistance is painfully ineffectual. I merely report what the amateurs are doing. Hardly anyone…gets hurt. We recognize they can do little harm, but we keep track of them. You, however, were a danger, Lina. You were good. But still, I was going to save you. I swear I was. I loved you. I did. You were dear to me, special. You were everything I admired in the ordinary German. Hardworking.

Smart. With a spare, simple beauty.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You
look
so German.”

“So Aryan.”

“Yes.”

“You’re really one of them, aren’t you?”

“No more English.” She shook the gun at me, like a school-teacher shaking her finger at a naughty student. “German, please.”

“You believe all their crap,” I said, in English.

“I understand the American idiom. Do not disgrace yourself by using filthy language. Now, to answer your question, I happen to love the Fatherland. And I believe, as my family believes, that the Führer has saved Germany from—”

“I don’t want to hear it, you Nazi bitch! Shut up!”

“I realize you are agitated, but you cannot speak to me like that! Now please get control of yourself. It is time to talk. What is your full name?”

“Lina Albrecht.”

“
Linda
, it should be obvious by now that I am in an unbearably difficult position. I will not hesitate to shoot. What is your full name, Linda?” She put the gun to my head.

“Lina Albrecht.”

“How can you possibly have any doubts about the seriousness of my purpose?”

“No,” I said. “No doubts. But first tell me something. For old times’ sake. Did you kill Rolf?”

The gun against my head made turning to see her impossible, but I could sense her pride. “We picked him up within a half hour after you left last night. A mere half hour. He is probably dead by now.”

420 / SUSAN ISAACS

“Who is ‘we’? Your fat pig boyfriend?” She rubbed the muzzle of the gun against my scalp. Not a gun, I thought. A pistol. A Walther.

“He is not a pig! That was my cover story. His name is Franz Sommerfeld, and he is quite, quite handsome, actually.”

“Is that how you operate? Every time you feel forced to get rid of one of your dear friends, you just call up Franz and ask him to take care of things? He took care of Alfred, right?”

“Unfortunately, Alfred discovered I wasn’t quite what I pretended to be. He was too much the man about town, saw me once too often with my…real friends. His suspicions grew. Apparently, he took to watching me from the little café across the street. He saw Franz. Leave it to dear old Alfred to notice a handsome man! And then he saw the two of us going out together. And after a few times, he realized that this”—her voice softened—“beautiful man was the person I had been calling the pig. But Alfred’s downfall was his romanticism, his belief in me.

He couldn’t believe that the disappearance of some of our…mutual friends had anything to do with his lovely, elegant Margarete—who wore his clothes with such chic. ‘You are having a silly infatuation,’ he told me. ‘Drop this man, and I won’t tell anyone in the movement about him. Swear it,
ma chère Marguer-ite
.’ But of course I couldn’t trust him. He would have tattled on me. Alfred couldn’t resist a juicy scandal.”

You know how people say, “I almost threw up”? I almost did.

I couldn’t shake the sickness, the horror; when she talked about Alfred, her voice was filled with delight. He was still her darling, amusing friend.

But suddenly, all the charm went out of her voice. “There is no more time. Move along.” She pressed the gun harder against my head, grabbed my shoulder and pushed me toward the door.

“You’re not going to kill me here, are you?”

“Lina, you are so clever. So
terribly
clever.” The pressure of the gun made the whole right side of my face throb. “I’m SHINING THROUGH / 421

afraid that in the time it would take me to call Franz, and for him to send his men over, you might find a way to extricate yourself.” I stopped right where I was, about a foot from the kitchen door. “Please,” she said, “I don’t want to do it in my kitchen.” Then she tilted her head—charming. “You must think I’m terrible, saying that.”

“No. I think you’re a wonderful person.”

“Listen to me. I am doing you a favor. Don’t you dare smile!

I
am
being kind.” She brought herself under control; her voice became subdued, soothing. “You don’t want them to get at you.

We both know it would be more than you could bear. With me it will be fast, merciful.” I turned my head a fraction of an inch; her eyes were actually moist.

“Please,” I said, “I’m begging you.”

“Move, please.” With the gun at my head as a prod, she led me out of the kitchen and down the long, picture-covered hall.

“Are any of these portraits old von Ebersteins?” I asked.

“Do not attempt to ingratiate yourself. Be brave. Die like a German.”

But I didn’t goose-step. I picked up my foot just a little higher than I had before. And then I smashed it down on her instep.

She screamed in pain, and in that second I grabbed her hand and bit it as hard as I could. It was a good bite, except her fingers didn’t stiffen the way they said they would in Training School; they contracted.

Oh, God, my arm! Then the two of us became a mess of grappling arms, fingers, faces, all covered with my blood. Margarete jerked her hand away, to put the gun back against my head, but for an instant she stared at my teeth marks, and that’s when I yanked at the barrel of the gun; it was burning hot from being fired, and slippery with my blood, and maybe that’s why, the next thing I knew, it was mine.

I don’t know how, but I managed to get a grip on it. And I put it against her head. “Margarete, this is a Walther.”

“I know.” Her voice was a little higher than usual, but strong.

She was being brave.

422 / SUSAN ISAACS

“The saftey is already cocked. It will fire automatically now.”

“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Will you at least give me the final courtesy of a few quiet moments to compose myself and—”

“No.”

“Lina, let me just write a note to—”

“No.” I pressed my left arm against my waist; the pain was getting worse. Blood bubbled out of a small, black-rimmed hole and dripped onto her rug. I was getting dizzy. I jammed the gun harder against her head. Carefully, I inched around her until we were face to face. “Who am I, Margarete?”

“Lina,” she whispered.

“No.”

“Linda.” This time she whimpered.

“I am Linda Voss. I am a Jew. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” And then I shot her brains out.

2 6

T
he linen napkin I put over the wound was like a sponge; soon it was soaked with blood. Slowly—I was so light-headed—I stepped back to the drawer in the breakfront in the hallway, tucked the gun under my chin, and with my good hand took out another napkin. A tourniquet: They’d shown us how in training school. We’d practiced on each other. Put it on that guy’s thigh, they’d said, and so I put it on a Czech, and he’d looked away from me, embarrassed.

I glanced down. Blood had spilled out over my skirt. I was feeling faint now, and my knees started to wobble, my legs to flutter, as if I was doing some ridiculous 1920s dance. If a tourniquet can’t be applied, they’d said…I lowered myself to one knee, then sat down. I tucked the gun into the waistband of my skirt, where I could reach it with my right hand; it had to be near.