His Majesty's Hope(34)
The sunny bedroom had a balcony overlooking a courtyard with a small burbling fountain. The only furniture was a twin bed and a small bedside table with a reading lamp. Over the bed hung a wooden crucifix. The books on the table were the Bible, Goethe’s Faust, Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship with a white-beaded rosary draped over them. A postcard of the German boxer Max Schmeling was tacked to the wall. Maggie opened the table drawer to search for listening devices. It was empty, except for a Walther pistol. She closed the drawer.
“You’re a minimalist,” she remarked.
“Before I joined the Abwehr, I was studying to be a priest.”
“Ah.” Maggie picked up the Loyola and paged through it. “Jesuit?”
“Of course.”
“And you’re a boxer?” she said, noting both the postcard and a pair of boxing gloves on the windowsill. “A Jesuit boxer? That seems like a contradiction.”
“Not really. Boxing may be brutal, but at least it’s fair. There are rules to follow, honor in fighting the good fight.” He gave a tight smile. “And, despite what Goebbels would have us believe, everyone bleeds the same.”
They stood together in the bedroom, awkward with each other. “You will sleep in here,” Gottlieb ordered. “I will sleep on the couch.” He turned back toward the living area.
“Oh no,” Maggie said, “I couldn’t possibly—”
“I will sleep on the couch,” he called, in a voice that discouraged argument.
Slowly and methodically, Maggie continued to search the apartment for any hidden listening devices.
“It’s clean,” Gottlieb said.
“I just want to make sure.”
“Suit yourself.”
One good thing about Gottlieb’s Spartan existence—it cut down on the places any listening devices could be hiding. She peered into his icebox. There was only yoghurt.
“Yoghurt is still unrationed,” Gottlieb said. “I hope you like it.”
“It’s not as if I’m here for the fine German cuisine, Schatzi.” When Maggie was satisfied that the apartment was clean, she moved to the blinds and lowered them. Then she turned on the light, went to her suitcase, and opened it. She took out the crystals, still intact. She returned to the living room and handed them to Gottlieb. “I hear you need these?”
“Wunderbar,” he said. “I hope they still work after their trip.”
“I do, as well.”
“I’ll get them to our contact,” Gottlieb said. “The SS can track radio transmissions, so we only use the radio in emergencies.” He looked at her. “Stand up straight!”
Maggie, who already had good posture, was startled. “What?”
“You’re supposed to be a German woman of rank—stand up straight.” Maggie noticed in private he’d lost the intimate du and was addressing her with the more formal Sie.
“I am standing up straight,” she retorted.
“Straighter!”
Maggie remembered what the man in the ticket window had said: “Wenn schon, denn schon.” Well, she thought, when in Berlin … She raised her chin, sucked in her stomach, and threw her shoulders back.
“Better,” Gottlieb conceded. “You must be hungry—”
“Starving!”
Gottlieb shook his head. “Not so enthusiastic. Germans are not as … animated. Some restraint, please.”
Maggie tried hard not to roll her eyes. “I would very much enjoy lunch now,” she said with as much decorum as she could muster.
“Good. Let us go.”
Chapter Seven
Gottlieb wanted to take the S-Bahn to the Tiergarten, but Maggie persuaded him to take the bus. “I’m in Berlin for the first time—I want to see everything,” she said, in character as Margareta, but also as Maggie, ever curious.
“If you wish,” Gottlieb said.
They waited at the stop at the end of his block. When the yellow double-decker bus arrived, they stepped on, and Maggie slipped into a window seat. The bus pulled away from the curb and merged into traffic, making its way through Kreuzberg. It was a glorious day with a bright blue sky, hot breeze, chestnut trees in bloom lining the streets. The air was filled with noise—the clanging bells of streetcars, the steady clip-clop of hooves, sirens wailing in the distance. They passed city streets lined with shops. A horse-drawn ice cart was stopped in front of a greengrocer’s, huge slabs of ice melting in the sun as wiry men with iron tongs unloaded them.
Like the shops of London, the store windows of Berlin showed little food and few goods to buy. Outside were long lines of Hausfrauen wearing head scarves and carrying baskets. There was some bomb damage, charred bricks and stones here and there. Sandbagged doorframes. And, of course, the omnipresent inferno-red Nazi flags and banners.