Page 116 of Hell to Pay
Frau Braun opened her mouth, closed it. Opened it again and said, “I— I?—”
“You’ll serve me,” Frau Adelberg said, “and Fräulein Glücksburg, too, if you know what’s good for you. As I’veserved you all this time. Here’s this officer, a high-ranking man, ready to declare your hotel off-limits to every American around Nuremberg at a word from Fräulein Glücksburg. Where will the money come from then? Take care before you say anything. Take good care.”
Frau Braun didn’t answer. She clamped her mouth shut, marched to the door, and walked out.
As for Frau Lindemann? She looked in her string bag, seemed startled to see that she’d received her bread, said a stiff “Auf Wiedersehen” to the room, and left.
I said, an odd impulse to laugh trying to bubble up in me, “You realize, Frau Adelberg, that I have no such power.”
“Yes,” she said, “but that cow doesn’t.” She sniffed and told Joe, “You’d better take this last good loaf before she decides to come back for it.”
“Thank you,” Joe said, taking it from her. “Oh—I brought you some margarine. We’ll call it a trade.”
Frau Adelberg looked at me, then. “Well?” she asked. “What are you standing around here for? Your young man came to see you. Hadn’t you better get your coat?”
49
A VISIT WITH JOHANN AND FRANZ
Outside the shop, Joe said with a wry smile, “I guess we could’ve chosen a better time to stop by.” In English.
“No,” I said, “I think it was a very good time. Whether people want to hear these things or not, they’re going to have to learn, or where will we be?” I held out my hand to the other man. “How do you do. I’m Daisy Glücksburg.”
He shook my hand. “Fräulein Glücksburg. I’m Captain Harper. Was that speech of Sergeant Stark’s as impassioned and convincing as I’m imagining?”
“Most definitely,” I said. “He’s a very eloquent man. My friend Dr. Müller has commented on it often, when we discuss books together. I do wish he hadn’t had to be so eloquent today, though. What a terrible time you two must have had! I’m sorry. And I apologize on behalf of my country.” That last came out a bit stiff, but what did one say? It was humiliating to have such things brought to light, and much as I didn’t want to, I understood Frau Lindemann’s desire not to know. I shivered and wrapped my coat—still Franz’s coat, for a warm coat was a treasure not to be discarded, even if it was too large—more firmly around myself against the snow.
Captain Harper said, “Well, I don’t imagine you had much to do with it, did you?” And waited for an answer. It clearly wasn’t a rhetorical question.
“No,” I said, “but everyone in Germany will tell you that.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Well—I was going to suggest we go to the hotel and have coffee, but Joe says that might not be the best idea.”
“Not today, at least,” I said. “Frau Braun could very well spit in it. You may wish to try the Grüner Brauhaus instead. The beer won’t be very strong, but it’s warm inside. Shall I show you where it is? It’s only around the corner.”
“I figured you’d be coming with us,” Captain Harper said. “Give me a chance to get to know you.” His tone was genial enough, but his eyes were sharp.
I said, aiming to keep my tone cool and composed, “Certainly, if you like.”
The conversation, once we were inside the brewery with glasses of beer before us—itwasn’tvery strong, and it wasn’t very good, either—remained genial. I was a baker? How interesting. Was that a usual occupation for a woman in Germany? No? Had I learned from my father? No, from a friend? Hmm. And I was from Dresden? Had I been back there since the end of the war? Oh, the Russians, yes, he understood. Was I planning to stay in Bavaria, then? Frau Adelberg wasn’t a relation, he understood. Oh, yes, the husband was in a POW camp in England. Well, that made sense.
This was the point at which I said, “You’re a very good interviewer, Captain. Very conversational. Do I assume you are assigned to Military Intelligence?”
The captain glanced at Joe, then at me. I said, “No, he hasn’t told me. Joe is a very upright sort of person, but you’ll know that already. My father was aHauptmann—an Army captain, I believe you’d call it—in the Great War, and the men of my family on both sides served in the military as a matterof course, so I’ve been exposed to military matters at second hand, as you might say, all my life. Although really, you know, my guess was nothing but common sense.”
“That sounds more Prussian than Saxon,” Captain Harper said, sounding as good-natured as ever. “And yet they weren’t Nazis? Seems unusual.”
“Many in my father’s family joined the Party,” I said. “The military as well. None in theWehrmacht,but in the SS, yes. My mother’s family was the same. My father was disgusted by Hitler, though, and refused to fly the swastika from the—at our house. It was noticed, and among other things, caused him to be suspected as … as politically unsound.” More like “as a traitor,” but I wasn’t going to say that word.
“So your father,” Captain Harper said, “who would have been, hmm, in his—forties? You’re very young.”
“I’m eighteen,” I said—lying, of course, because although it felt like I’d lived five years since the bombing, I was in fact still sixteen. “My father was fifty-two when he died in the bombing. He married late. That was typical for one in his position, especially as he was injured in the war.”
“Fifty-two in 1945, and he was never called up?” Captain Harper said, taking a sip of beer. “And didn’t work with the Party, either? That seems unusual. You’d think they’d have tapped a man like that—a military man, and an educated one, obviously—for Intelligence. War plans. Something along those lines. How did he get out of it?”
His mouth was smiling, but that was the only part of him that was. Joe said, “Now, wait a minute, sir.”
“No,” I said, “of course he must ask.” I made my decision in an instant. “Will you wait here for five minutes, please?”
