His Majesty's Hope(44)

It was then that she saw the envelope.

“Mein Gott,” she murmured, her fingers trembling as she picked it up. The typed Doktor Ernst Klein and their address burned her eyes.

Still, Ernst delivered mail for the Jewish Reich Organization. This letter could be anything. It could be nothing. Frieda hesitated, then, with hands shaking, opened the envelope and took out the sheet of paper inside. What she saw made her feel faint, so faint she had to sink down on the threadbare sofa.

Only two days away.

Was Ernst even going to tell her? Or tell her only at the last minute?

A work camp. She held out no hope for decent treatment at any Nazi-run so-called work camp.

Not knowing what else to do, she waited, cold and stone-still on the sofa, as the light changed, the sun went down. And then she sat in the darkness.


When Ernst returned to the apartment, he didn’t realize anyone was home. He flipped on the light switch for the bulb overhead, then gasped.

“What are you doing, sitting here in the dark?” he demanded. Then he saw the letter in her hand. He realized what she had done, what she had seen, what she now knew.

He sat beside her and took her hand.

“I want you”—his voice broke, but he pressed on—“to help me die.”

“What?” It was not what Frieda was expecting him to say. Help him to escape, to go into hiding, to rob a bank and bribe someone—yes. But help her husband commit suicide? No. “I’m a nurse—I’m supposed to help heal people. I can’t help you—or anyone—die. That’s insane. Insane.”

Ernst rose and ran both hands through his hair until it stood up on end. “This whole situation is insane, Frieda! Either way I’m going to die. I’d rather do it myself than let those Nazi bastards get the satisfaction. Do you think what I will face is going to be any better?”

“They’re using that argument to euthanize people. Children from the hospital who are mentally, developmentally ill …” Frieda was trembling. “Elise still doesn’t know, but it’s becoming less of a secret every day.”

“It’s not the same argument! I’m not a child!” Ernst began to pace in the small room. “I’m a grown man, in control of all my faculties. This is my decision. I want to die now, at home, with you. I want to die with my dignity intact. I saw the film Ich klage an. We both did.”

“Suicide is a sin. A mortal sin.”

“I’m a Jew,” he said. “I don’t believe in sin, at least not the way you do. And I don’t believe in hell—unless it’s where we’re living now.”

Frieda put her head in her hands and sobbed. “I can’t do it!”

“Then I will.”

“You?” Frieda looked up. “You don’t have the medicine.”

“It doesn’t take medicine to jump from a roof. It doesn’t take medicine to hang yourself with a cord and kick out the chair. It doesn’t take medicine to—”

“Stop!” Frieda screamed. Then, in a quieter voice, “Stop.” She covered her eyes with her hands. “I need to think about it. I need time to think.”

“Think as much as you want,” Ernst told his wife. “We—or rather, I—have two days.”


It was five P.M. and the corridors of Charité were crowded with staff changing shifts.

Elise needed to leave soon to get back home and dress for her mother’s party. She made her rounds swiftly and efficiently, taking temperatures, blood pressures, listening to pulses. All was well.

Until she reached Herr Mystery. The patient was thrashing in his sleep, moaning. Elise put a hand to his forehead. Fever—he was burning up. No wonder he was having nightmares. “Verdammt,” she muttered. She’d hoped that he was over the worst of the postsurgery infections. Apparently not. She turned him on his back, then began to insert a hollow IV needle into the vein of his inner elbow.

“No!” he moaned suddenly, in English. “No! Don’t! Stop it!” He struggled, then suddenly went limp, back to deep sleep, lashes dark against his pale skin.

Elise recoiled in shock. English? she thought, bewildered. Finally he speaks—and he speaks in English? She looked around—no one else had heard him.

She knew that if he’d been overheard, he’d be reported. Taken in for questioning. Most likely hanged.

Another death. And for what? Then she remembered the attic. It was already fixed up to hide someone. And an adult might be easier to conceal than a child … Elise gave a crooked half smile. Plus there was the distinct satisfaction of hiding a British refugee right under her mother’s nose—on the very night of her party, no less. Not that it’s about me, God, she prayed. But if I do get a little bit of enjoyment, that’s not horrible, yes? Will you forgive me?