The Pieces We Keep(70)

“It wasn’t my choice.”

Truth gathered like a cloud, threatening to empty in a downpour of stones. She revisited the option of screaming for the police.

But Isaak’s eyes locked her in place. “I went to see my mother, as I told you I would. I wasn’t there more than an hour before the Gestapo pounded on the door. They took me in for questioning.”

From the angle of his face, the moon highlighted a line on his cheekbone, a scar Vivian hadn’t noticed until then. The inch-long mark bespoke an interrogation that had entailed more than words.

“What did they want from you?”

He was about to reply yet stopped. Without more, her imagination would supply the worst.

“Isaak. I deserve to hear it.”

He took a breath. “They wanted details . . . about us.”

“Us?”

“Our relationship. More than that, any political information you’d given me.”

Vivian recalled the old basement, the tidbits that had floated through the vent and onto a platter she so eagerly delivered.

“What did you say?”

“I told them I knew nothing. I said that you had no interest in politics. That we never discussed your father’s dealings. But they didn’t believe me.” He shook his head, his jaw muscle flexing. “I thought they were going to kill me, Vivian. I was lying there on the floor, murmuring prayers in my head. Then another man came in, a senior lieutenant-though at the time I could barely make out his boots. My eyes were swollen shut. But I knew his voice.”

The memory of the scene played across Isaak’s face. For a fraction of a moment, he was back in that room.

“And you knew him–how?” Vivian said, and he again met her eyes.

“It was Professor Klein.”

Despite the reeling in her head, she visualized the man’s features. The chiseled lines and beardless face, the thick eyebrows and jet-black hair. At last, the incongruence became clear; he was more suited to a Nazi uniform than a teacher’s garb.

“You’d told him about me,” she realized. “That’s how they knew.”

“When I first mentioned our dating, he discouraged it. I didn’t know he was trying to protect me. Maybe both of us. He just said that any distraction from my studies could jeopardize my funding. That Mr. Mueller wouldn’t approve of wasting his money. But I couldn’t stay away from you. As much as I tried, I couldn’t.”

“So you kept us a secret.”

He affirmed this with a solid nod. “Then you came to the campus looking for me, and it became obvious to him that I hadn’t heeded the advice. In some ways, putting the truth out there was a relief. I knew he had family in Germany, so I told him of the news you’d shared. He and my father had been friends since childhood. For years, with my father gone, he looked out for me like a son. But I had no idea he was a retired officer.”

The full picture was taking shape, including the real reason she couldn’t reach the professor by phone. He hadn’t evacuated for the purpose of safety; he had been called back into service by Hitler.

“At first, he was compelled by his duty,” Isaak went on. “But he assured me, he never meant for me to be harmed. I truly believe, darling, if he hadn’t come in and stopped them, I wouldn’t have lived through that day.”

The gratitude in his voice encircled her like a net. She felt herself drawn in until skepticism pushed back.

Something didn’t fit. The equation was off-balance.

“You’re saying they arrested you. Used brutal force for a confession that you wouldn’t make. And yet, they trusted you enough to let you join their military?”

“I know how it sounds. I swear, it was all the professor’s doing. He convinced an old comrade, an officer in the SS, that the report about me was mistaken. He told him my loyalty remained with the Fatherland. The home of my parents. In the end, they decided that my English skills, and my ability to blend in here, could make me a strong asset for a special assignment.”

“But if you wanted to blend,” she pointed out, “you wouldn’t be wearing a German uniform.”

He regarded his collar and agreed. “I was instructed to wear this only until I made it ashore, so if I were caught I’d be treated as a POW I was then to bury it and change into civilian clothes. But in doing so, I’d be labeled a spy.”

“And that isn’t what you are?”

“I was sent here as a scout.” He said this firmly, desperately, as if trying to convince himself there was a difference. “I’m only to confirm data and contacts before meeting at a rendezvous point.”

Part of her insisted that the less she knew the better. But after years of unanswered questions, she could not rest without the full story.