His Majesty's Hope(35)

To Maggie’s eye the people she saw seemed resolutely normal, with blunt features and sturdy frames, like caricatures by Heinrich Zille. There were also men in uniform, storm troopers in brown with swastika armbands, the SS in black, the regular police in dark blue. Everywhere Maggie saw people raising their hands in the Hitlergruss salute—comical, almost, in its frequency. Everyone walked with—not a swagger, no, but a strut of the comfortable, the convinced, the confident. And, yes, she had to admit their posture was impeccable.

“Eyes down,” Gottlieb ordered under his breath.

But it was too late. Maggie had already caught a glimpse of the naked man, hanging from a rope around his neck, swinging from a branch of an ancient oak tree. His face was nearly black from blood, his eyes were glassy, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. He was dead, or nearly so. He was surrounded by SS officers. The painted sign beneath him read: I am a Jew who fornicated with an Aryan woman. I deserve to die. In front of the soldiers, a woman was on her knees, weeping, wearing only her underwear. One of the men was cutting off her long golden braids with a straight razor, leaving her almost bald.

“Don’t. Say. A. Word,” Gottlieb whispered between clenched teeth.

Maggie, shocked, did as she was told. She looked around the bus. The few passengers on it were looking at their newspapers, or had their heads turned the other way.

Maggie fought the urge to vomit. She began the deep breathing she’d been taught at SOE training camp.

Finally, they reached the Tiergarten, a huge wooded park in the heart of Berlin. Gottlieb and Maggie stepped off the bus, then entered the park. On shady, graveled paths through oaks, maples, and birch trees, they strolled hand in hand, like the young lovers they were pretending to be. Sunlight could barely pierce through the thick foliage. “Are you ready for lunch?” Gottlieb asked.

“No,” Maggie said curtly. “I’m not hungry—certainly not after witnessing that.”

Gottlieb shook his head. “You must eat something. There’s Café am Neuen See—let’s get something there.” Outside, a hand-painted sign read: NO DOGS, NO JEWS, NO GYPSIES.

Overwhelmed, Maggie sat on a bench at a picnic table, while Gottlieb went inside, to the counter. Overhead the sky was a deep blue, the lake sparkled in the sun, and the park air was perfumed. The air rang with the sound of children laughing and playing among the chestnut trees, while their nannies, sitting in deck chairs, chatted and gossiped. A few black-hooded crows pecked at fallen crumbs. How can it be? she wondered. How can these two realities be going on simultaneously? Does no one see? Does no one want to see?

Gottlieb returned with a tray. “It looks like Munich, doesn’t it?”

Maggie had never been to Munich, but Margareta would have, so she smiled and nodded.

Gottlieb set down a glass of white wine, a glass of water, a plate of mussels, and a slice of brown bread. There were people nearby, but none close enough to hear their conversation. Still, they knew to be careful.

“Wine and mussels,” Maggie said, surprised. No pretzels and beer?

“Wine’s plentiful after the invasion of France. And shellfish still isn’t rationed.”

“Aren’t you going to have any?”

“I’m in training,” he replied. “No cigarettes, no alcohol, no bread.”

“Boxing. Right.” St. Gottlieb the Ascetic. Maggie pushed the food away. She was still nauseated.

“Hitler and this war have been terrible for our country,” he said in a low voice, “and there are many of us who believe this. We’re trying to reconcile loyalty to Germany with our opposition to the Nazis.”

“But how did it get so far? Why did no one speak up?”

“It wasn’t that easy.”

“Well, I don’t see why not!” Maggie suddenly sounded very young.

“You,” Gottlieb said, leaning in and whispering in her ear, “are stupid. Stupid. At best, you are naïve. You know, I was at university, studying to be a priest, when this all happened. My mother and father were proud of me. All I wanted was to serve God. And then—I had to serve Hitler, instead.”

“You didn’t have to, though,” Maggie shot back.

“You think I had a choice? There was no choice. I was lucky I was able to work for the Abwehr, not be a soldier, not kill. At the Abwehr, there are a few other like-minded people. We are doing what we can to help as many Jews escape as possible. To lay the framework for a new Germany, a non-Communist Germany, after Hitler.”

Maggie took a small sip of wine. She couldn’t hold Gottlieb personally responsible for everything, she realized. “So, you were studying to be a priest?” she asked, changing the subject. “Why didn’t you take your vows?”