The pharmacist smiled and handed her the brown paper bag. Franka bade him goodbye and edged out of the store, trying to look as casual as possible. Inside, she felt like she was about to vomit.
The air was fresh against her clammy skin, and a light snow was beginning. She only had to get the food before leaving. She missed the solitude of the cabin. These streets in this beautiful town had been perverted, twisted by the all-encompassing Nazi ideology that made it impossible to live a rewarding life, particularly for a woman. No woman was allowed to be a doctor, lawyer, civil servant, or judge. Juries were to be made up only of men. Women could not be trusted to make decisions—they were thought too susceptible to being controlled by their emotions. Women weren’t allowed to vote either, but what good was a vote anyway? All parties other than the National Socialists had been made illegal. German women were forbidden to wear makeup or to color or perm their hair. Instead, the three Ks were drummed into girls from an early age: Kinder (children), Kirche (church), and Küche (kitchen). She could still remember her League of German Girls troop leaders urging them to forget about the ridiculous notion of a self-satisfying career. It was more important to stay home and bear strong sons that could one day serve the Reich. That was the role a woman had to play in modern Germany, and many of the girls she had known in her youth had adapted to it. Some had received the Mother’s Cross—a medal the Nazis gave out to mothers who had more than five healthy Aryan children. Hilda Speigel, a girl she had been in the League of German Girls with, had already received the ultimate honor: the gold Mother’s Cross, for the eight children she had by the age of twenty-seven.
Remembrances of Franka’s old life swarmed like locusts around her head. Every building she walked by conjured a new memory. The site of the apartment her father had lived in for the last five years of his life was only blocks away, and she felt her footsteps slowing as she neared it. She thought of the man in the cabin. He was one of them—one of the Allies who’d perpetrated that crime. She longed for the luxury of oblivion.
She arrived at the general store. The German people were feeling the ravages of the war. The early days of the war had seen almost as much plenty in the stores as before the battles had started, but rationing began in earnest in the spring of 1942, and many commonly used items were now considered a luxury. The smell of fresh bread made her empty stomach rumble. She found a loaf, as well as some cheese, and dried meats. It was uphill most of the way home, so she tried to avoid heavier goods like the canned soups that had kept for so long in the cabin. When she had gotten as much food as her rationing card allowed, she made for the counter to use some of her father’s inheritance money to pay. She remembered the lawyer as he’d read her the will. He knew that she’d spent time in jail, and although he didn’t say it out loud, she suspected he knew why. The judgment was in his eyes.
Franka made her way out onto the street. It was almost two o’clock now. There was no use trying to make it back to the cabin on an empty stomach. She had kept aside enough of her ration tickets to afford lunch, and she knew a place down the street. The café was bustling with loud chatter as she arrived. Smoke hung in the air. Several soldiers sat in the corner, laughing and drinking beer. Sitting as far away from them as she could, she ordered schnitzel and potatoes and a cup of café au lait. Five minutes later her food arrived. It was heavenly, and she barely stopped to breathe as she wolfed it down. The man at the table next to her got up from his seat, leaving his newspaper—something she could hide behind. She picked it up and held it to her face. It was full of stories glorifying the führer and the brave soldiers fighting for Germany’s future in Russia. She stopped reading after a few seconds and just let her eyes rest there. She was thinking about the trip back to the cabin, thinking about the man, when she heard a voice in front of her.
“Franka Gerber?”
She felt her chest contract as she lowered the newspaper. She saw the black uniform of the Gestapo before her eyes made their way up to the face of a man she had hoped she would never have to see again—Daniel Berkel.
The man placed the maps, compass, spare clothes, and his identity papers back into the backpack, just as he’d found them. He was sitting up, by the bookcase. The front door was about thirty feet away, but the back door was even closer. He could make out the white glow of sun on snow seeping underneath the door. He wasn’t dressed to go outside, and escape would be impossible with his broken legs. The truth that his stubbornness had tried to fight became all too clear: without his weapons, he was at Franka Gerber’s mercy, whoever she happened to be. He was still wearing the pajamas she’d put him in, but what harm would looking out do? Perhaps she was telling the truth and they were in the middle of the mountains. Perhaps not. He dragged himself along the floor. The hallway was gritty, and he could feel the particles of dirt under his palms as he crawled along. With his right hand he reached up for the door handle, pushing up on his left elbow. He moved his body out of the way as he wrenched the door open. An ocean of white burned his eyes. The cold draft cut at his exposed chest, and he felt the pain in his legs like knives into his flesh. The door opened out onto an area for firewood. Snow-covered trees began just a few feet beyond. Nothing to see. Damn. He closed the door.
He took a few seconds to regain his breath before crawling back into the living room. The fire was warm, and he lost a minute or two lying in front of it. What the hell was he going to do, even if they were close to the city? How was he going to get there with two broken legs? If he did make it there alive, which seemed so ridiculous as to be almost impossible, anyone who picked him up would bring him to the local hospital immediately. That would be the end, for him and the mission. More likely he would die in the snow, as he undoubtedly would have if the woman hadn’t brought him back here. Perhaps she was who she said she was. Perhaps she was a friend. What were the chances of being found by someone friendly in this country of fanatics? He had seen the newsreels of enormous crowds cheering Hitler’s every word, waving flags, beating on drums. The entire nation had seemingly been brainwashed into following the Nazi cause like a new religion. Why else would they do the things they did in the occupied territories? How else could they justify an organization as savage as the Gestapo? He remembered his instructor’s words: “Trust no one.” He’d said that the only good German was a dead one. The recruits had laughed, but there was no doubting the veracity of his words. They all believed it, just as he himself did.
The view behind the back door had told him nothing. He had to be sure. He began crawling toward the front. The cuckoo clock in the hallway by the front door struck ten o’clock. He kept on, one arm and then another, ignoring the pain in his legs. He reached the door and turned the handle, opening it an inch before moving his body out of the way to open it fully. The glare of white came again, and he saw a Volkswagen covered in snow. He pitched himself up on his palms, as high as he could. There was nothing but snow and trees as far as the eye could see. Not even a road. There was no sound. No other sign of life. It was true: they were alone up here.
He closed the front door and started making his way back to the living area. He wanted to be in bed when she got back, didn’t want her to suspect that he’d been up and snooping around the house. He stopped at a hall table beneath the cuckoo clock. More out of a whim than anything else, he reached up to open the small table drawer. It opened, and he recognized the sound of sliding metal immediately. He reached in and pulled out a pistol. He would be ready, and if they did come, he was taking some of them with him.