When their grief allowed them to feel able, Annie and Fred cleaned every surface and corner and cubbyhole of the house. And the things they found were in turn heart-wrenching, baffling and amusing. An encyclopaedia with a single white rose squashed between two stained pages. An old no-longer-necessary dog food bowl right at the back of a kitchen cupboard. A painting of Neuschwanstein Castle that used to hang, lopsided, at the top of the landing. But still Oma’s presence remained – a whiff of her talcum powder, a scrap of her handwriting, a sweater at the back of a cupboard, an echo of her giggle or her last jarring breaths. When they came across a box of letters they had written over the years from England, they read all of them aloud to each other, sitting on the floor, doubling over with laughter which turned, on a childish phrase or misspelling or pencil drawing to tears. Not being able to bring themselves to throw them away, they replaced the envelopes in the order they found them and lifted them into the attic. ‘We’ll forget about them there,’ Annie said. ‘And when we next come across them we’ll probably feel able to put them on the fire.’
‘Yes, good idea,’ Fred said.
But Annie doubted that would ever be the case.
Then Fred resumed his daily trips into Munich and Annie waited with impatience to join the group he’d promised to involve her in. She was desperate to know what he did and that urgency made her daily tasks seem more banal. Pushing herself up from kneeling, she mentally ticked off dusting from the list of chores she had to get through every day. She tidied, hung washing on the line, scoured the sink and tackled the shopping that she detested so much, brought it back and tried to turn it into something edible. All of it was undertaken within the dark enveloping cloud of grief.
So Annie pleaded with Fred to allow her to accompany him, but all he said was, ‘Yes, yes, yes, Annie,’ in a sing-song voice. ‘You will be summonsed, but in good time. When I deem it safe.’
‘Oh,’ she said aloud, washing the frame of the back door. ‘The wait is driving me mad.’
She was beginning to feel so irked, that in a moment of bravado she thought she would disclose her writing to Fred, thinking that he might consider her brave and oblivious to danger and would, therefore, beg her to join whatever it was he was doing in Munich.
But thank goodness she gave herself time to think before she acted, as she came to the conclusion that he would take one look at her beloved journal, tear it from her grip and rip it apart with his hands or dash it to the fire. So she would continue to let him think she kept a simple diary and that the entries contained nothing more explosive than the weather, flowers and kittens she might see on her walks into Ulm, recipes and her burgeoning love for Walther.
8 July 1942
We have not seen hide nor hair of the gloating Horst and I hope that means he has had all leave cancelled for the foreseeable future.
But it also means that Walther is away for interminable periods of time. Before he was sent with numerous other medics to the Eastern Front, he called on me a number of times, either to take me to a café or for a walk. We chatted for hours and I felt so proud and important when he took my arm and threaded it through his. Twice he asked me to have a meal with his Mutter and Vater and once he stayed to eat with me and Fred. I can feel him drawing nearer and nearer to me and I can sense he hopes his feelings are reciprocated. Well, they most certainly are. When he turns up on my doorstep, my stomach flips of its own accord and when his gaze meets mine during a conversation round the dinner table, we smile at each other as if there is no one else present.
When Walther received his posting papers, he brought them for me to read. I have never seen him so forlorn, the dimple in his cheek all but flattened against his drooping face, and I thought it might be an opportunity for me to pry around the idea of where his heart lies in terms of the Nazi regime. I feigned surprise at his reaction to the notification he held in his hand and asked him if he were not proud to be doing his duty for the Fuhrer.
He answered my question by asking if it were not for Oma, would I be here in Germany? I felt the blood rush to my face and tried to give him a sensible reply, but was unable to get past my stuttering and muttering.
He bobbed down so he could look into my face, a gesture I love, and held my hand. He told not to be afraid as mine and Fred’s behaviour and demeanour have made it common knowledge that as we happen to find ourselves here, we have become loyal to the Axis. Then he smiled at me and said we may have fooled everyone else, but he didn’t believe that to be the case.
I tried to remain composed, my eyes on my lap, but I felt sure he could see my heart thumping against my thin, summer blouse. Other than this journal, which I have faith will stay well hidden, there was not one bit of evidence to condemn me or Fred.
We sat inert for what felt like minutes. I didn’t know what to say, so said nothing. Walther watched me, then leaned towards me and pulled me into the deep recesses of his chest, where I am compelled to say I fit perfectly.
He repeated that I should not be afraid and then said he could see into my heart. His heart, he assured me, bears the same witness as mine. He kissed me goodbye, curled his lip in disdain when he looked down at his uniform and left for his posting.
Walther had asked Annie to call on his Mutter and Vater from time to time so she decided, after he’d been gone for a week, to knock on their door and have coffee and a chat with Frau Wilhelm. The older woman looked taken aback to see Annie on her doorstep, but when they got over the preliminaries of whether or not Annie was unwell and needed her husband, she invited Annie into the immaculate house.
‘Herr Doctor is in his examining room.’ Frau Wilhelm nodded towards the part of the house that served as a surgery, which Annie knew well from childhood sore throats and tummy upsets.
Leading the way, Frau Wilhelm took them past the cuckoo clock and the stairs and into the sitting room – all familiar to Annie, but she felt shy without Walther by her side. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘But Walther asked me to pay you a visit or two whilst he’s away.’
‘Oh, he didn’t say,’ Frau Wilhelm said. ‘But isn’t he a wonderful son? And of course, you are always welcome. Shall we take coffee in the garden?’ she asked.
‘That would be lovely,’ Annie said.
The garden was as neat and tidy as the house, clearly organised and tended by this woman who was as dedicated to being the local doctor’s wife as her husband was to being the doctor. Whilst she waited for Frau Wilhelm to bring out the tray, Annie became engrossed in what she would change inside and out if she were to inherit her title. It made her feel naughty, but the daydream was very enticing and entertaining.
The curtains would have to go, beautiful and plush as they were. They must have been expensive when first made, but now they looked much too heavily brocaded and rather dated. She wondered if Frau Wilhelm had thought of changing them for something lighter, but perhaps that wouldn’t be wise when they had to black out every night anyway. The carpet was of the same ilk. Swirls of muddy greens and browns and burgundy in a pattern that was difficult to discern. In the kitchen she would have the tinted glass in the cupboard doors replaced with solid wood so that no one could see into the shelving that would no doubt become untidy under her command.
She shielded her face from the strong mid-morning sun with her hand. Frau Wilhelm had given over most of her flowers for vegetables, as had all of them. Hers were weedless and marked with handwritten sticks to delineate one germinating edible from another. If the garden were hers to landscape, she would find room for a willow like the one in Viola’s family home; it was the epitome of grace and calm. Other than that, she thought she would be happy to live here and organise the house and Walther’s life. The door behind her rattled open and she gave herself an inward slap on the hand. There was so much more to be thinking about than her and Walther – the war, rationing, Fred. But, she reasoned, there was no harm in sometimes giving in to daydreams, too.
‘Your hair suits you,’ Frau Wilhelm said. ‘Walther told me you had it cut.’
She was pleased that Walther was mentioning her to his mother. Her hand wandered to the ends of her hair. A couple of weeks ago she’d taken a pair of scissors to it and watched as each buttery-coloured strand fell to the floor. She was still getting used to nothing hanging below her ears, but she did feel lighter and liked the natural wave that had appeared. Fred said the change made her look more mature and modern and she could see that for herself, too.
They talked about things that women occupy themselves with. Important things that amount to the very essence of life. But how many times could they discuss what to do with rations, how to ensure water is used wisely so that it lasts, ways to tie a scarf to make a jacket look different, the best technique for darning stockings, how to stop germs from spreading after being in public places. She was not getting any sense of Frau Wilhelm’s political views, until a Focke-Wulf buzzed through the stark, cobalt sky. They stopped their chitchat and craned their necks to take in the sight. Following the course of the silver fuselage until it became a pinprick, their attention was drawn to another two, flying in tandem behind the first.
When Annie looked down, spots of dark appeared before her eyes each time she blinked and a mechanical rattle lingered in her ears.
Frau Wilhelm tutted. ‘The brazenness of them,’ she said.
‘Do you mean…’ Annie pretended not to understand the word that had been used. ‘Their bravery?’
Frau Wilhelm turned on her, her usual poised mien replaced by a look of effrontery. ‘No, Fraulein. I mean brazenness.’ Then immediately her polished veil of tact and diplomacy slipped into place again. ‘Pay no attention to me, please, I beg you,’ she said. ‘Herr Doctor and I are still jaded from the last war. And of course, we are getting old and set in our ways. We had come to enjoy sitting in our garden without crude interruptions.’
‘Of course,’ Annie said, realising that Fred had been correct in his assertion that everyone was wary of everyone else. No, not merely frightened or scared but terrified, as the Catholic bishop sermonised, that by passing the mildest of comments any one of them could end up betrayed and rotting in a prison cell or concentration camp. So much for justice.
‘However,’ Frau Wilhelm was saying, ‘the garden isn’t as pleasant to sit in as it used to be.’ She pointed towards the left, where tomatoes were ripening. ‘White, pink, red and yellow roses used to grow against that whole wall. The white ones had the most exquisite perfume. They were beautiful and filled the air with the most marvellous scent. Perhaps you remember?’
Annie thought back to one summer when she sat feeling sorry for herself in the surgery whilst Herr Doctor treated her for a blister that had gone septic. The windows of the surgery were open and the smells of summer had wafted in; dry earth, heat on paving slabs, ripening strawberries, wheat and the roses. Oma had been sitting in the chair next to her as Herr Doctor covered her heel with thick ointment and a dressing, Walther was bouncing a ball against a wall, waiting for her to be sent out. Somewhere in the distance a tractor purred and children laughed. She’d felt safe and sleepy. ‘Yes, now you mention it, I do.’
‘But one must count one’s blessings,’ Frau Wilhelm said. ‘Always. We seem to have gotten off lightly in comparison to Hamburg or Kassel. Have you read about what is happening in our beloved Berlin?’
‘Munich, too,’ Annie offered, ‘is in a terrible state. So Fred tells me.’
‘Well, I suppose it’s all a matter of comparison,’ Walther’s mother said. ‘I have been to both cities to meet family members and Munich is nothing like the wreck that remains of Berlin.’ She drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair and looked into the distance. ‘Yes, we are lucky here, so far. Believe me.’
She went on to tell Annie that when Herr Doctor had been studying in Berlin, she often went to visit him for the weekend. ‘What a city,’ she said. ‘I am sorry for you and Walther and other young people who have never had the chance to see it in its prime. The clubs and music and dancing. Lights everywhere. Beautiful clothes worn by beautiful people. More than plenty of everything. Alcohol, cigarettes, food, passion.’ She patted Annie’s hand. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am sorry for your generation on that account. And many others.’
They exchanged a smile. It seemed a good point at which to end their tête-à-tête, so Annie rose from her chair. On the way home, she traced three other pairs of aircraft as they left a trail of vapour across the sky and felt bolstered to know she and Frau Wilhelm were in accord about the planes. And leading on from that, she surmised they must be in agreement about every other aspect of the regime.
*
When Fred announced that Annie must be ready to leave with him at 7.45 the following morning, she was brimming with questions that bubbled over one after the other: Would she be working legitimately or pretending? What should she say if stopped and questioned by authorities? What should she wear? How did the group plan and plot without being overheard? How would she know who to trust? Would Fred leave her on her own or would he be by her side at least initially? How many were in the group? Any women or all men? What would her role be? Would she still be Annaliese Margaret Scholz or would she have another persona?
Eventually, Fred began to laugh until he held his stomach and buckled over. That was good to see although the laughter was at her expense. When he managed to contain himself, he said, ‘Oh, Annie, for all your Walther and logical thinking and grown-up hairdo, you are still a little girl.’
She shammed taking offence but was glad to have been the cause of his temporary joviality.
‘Come now, Annie. Perhaps it is not girlishness but youthful enthusiasm and long may it last. It will be an asset to the group. But you must also learn to cultivate level-headedness. Do you understand me?’
She nodded vigorously, then toned down the gesture to a sedate dip of her head. That made her dear brother laugh again.
‘Now,’ he said in a much more serious tone. ‘I will tell you everything that is going to happen and you will listen. Then if you have any questions I will try to answer them, although some situations we have to play by ear. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Please, begin.
He told her that he had an actual job at the university as an academic assistant, which also meant he had time for research. As for Annie she was going to be an administration assistant in the office that recorded degrees, PhDs, theses and the like. Her main duties would be filing, checking for correct spelling on certificates, answering queries and relaying messages from one office to another. That particular office was always very busy, he said, because there were so many new, short courses for those in the Wehrmacht. He told her he had overheard a conversation in the dining hall that another girl was needed there and he enquired on her behalf, saying that she was ready for employment now that their Oma was gone and the obligations that tied her to the house had ceased.
‘Naturally,’ he continued, ‘as you’re my sister I will introduce you to the colleagues at the university who I am friendly with and invite you to join us for drinks after work at the pub and to read and discuss poetry in each other’s rooms.’
‘Poetry?’ She was surprised.
‘Yes, that is what the founder members gathered to pursue initially. One thing led to another from there. So, I continue. You will soon be one of the group of friends in your own right. We never, and I mean never, talk about our resistance activities at work; we make arrangements to meet for what, to all intents and purposes, are social occasions and that is all. Also, we never talk in public about our ideas, enterprises or planned actions. We only ever discuss those things in the privacy of other members’ rooms when there is absolutely no one else around. We never write anything down, although that is about to change.’
Her mouth hung open and her breathing became shallow when she thought of the dangers they were walking into. ‘And that,’ he said, ‘is where you come in.’
‘Where?’ she echoed.
‘You will be involved, with the rest of us, in writing and distributing leaflets to motivate and convince intelligent, intellectual people that together, we can challenge the Nazis.’
He sat back and studied her, one hand on her heart, the other covering her mouth. ‘I had no idea…’ she said.
‘If you feel uncomfortable you must say now, before you become more embroiled.’
‘Of course I feel uncomfortable,’ she scoffed. ‘But I can’t wait to meet the others and start helping at last.’
‘Any questions?’
She didn’t have any, so Fred took some crockery to the sink and swilled the plates and cups around in the soapy water that had to last for two days.
‘Oh,’ he said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Wear whatever you would usually wear to work.’
She felt her cheeks redden with the knowledge that she could have been so superficial a mere thirty minutes ago.
*
Fred did not look up from his newspaper as the train pulled into Munich until Annie nudged him in the ribs and pointed with her chin towards a cattle train in a siding. Yellow stars were displayed on each of the trucks. A lone sentry guarded the empty platform. She wondered if the train was waiting to be loaded with its oppressed cargo or if it had recently offloaded a pitiful consignment. Frau Wilhelm had told her she once saw a young mother, three toddlers in tow, trying to flee from being prodded into a similar train, only to be smacked across her head with the butt of a rifle. She dreaded to think she might witness such a scene as she would find it almost impossible not to rise shouting from her seat and have to be held back by Fred. Then he would probably put her on the first train back to Ulm and make her stay there.
As it was, he had to keep whispering to her to walk apace with him and act as if she’d seen the havoc in Munich many times before. But it was more than difficult to ignore the devastation, let alone the SS and Wehrmacht on every corner, going into and coming out of cafés, elbowing their way through the crowds, suddenly eyeing a passer-by for no apparent reason, stopping random people, interrogating others, searching housewives’ shopping bags. How bad had things become that a cabbage, three carrots and a minute paper bag of coffee were suddenly cause for suspicion? Bullies, that’s all they are, she thought as she saw two soldiers halt a middle-aged man carrying a couple of books and mumbling to himself. They patted down his pockets and flipped through the books, reading the titles on the spines and consulting between themselves. It dawned on her that they cared nothing for the man, his books or his conversation with himself. All they wanted to do was prove to everyone that they had power. She wondered how they could live with themselves.
‘Don’t stare, Annie,’ Fred hissed. ‘Or you’re next.’
At once her shoes became very interesting. But she knew that if not today or the next, then someday soon it would be her turn and the first would not be the last.
The university stood like a beautiful, welcoming beacon and its slightly damaged exterior promised calm. But inside, the halls and corridors were streaming with those uniforms; men taking short courses in anything that would aid the war effort. Fred walked her straight to her office, introduced her and said he would come back to take her to the dining hall at twelve. Meeting the manager and other administration assistants was easy, the filing work was easy, learning the layout and routine was easy; she felt as if she had come upon her own private haven.
During the midday meal, she met the six others who made up the band of collaborators and she followed their lead by giving the illusion they were meeting as friends rather than co-conspirators. Annie sat next to the only other girl in the group, a young woman named Ilse. Then there were Carl, Helmuth, Ernst, Otto and Gustav. She had imagined they would be intense and perhaps full of angst, but nothing could have been further from the truth, at least not in that public environment. They greeted her in an effortless, companionable manner, as if she were just another girl to talk and drink and laugh and eat with. There was no mention of anything underhand; no arrangements for clandestine meetings. When the dinner break was finished and they rose to return to their duties, Ilse said she would see her tomorrow and Otto said, ‘Good to meet you, Annie. And we will see you Friday evening at the pub. Okay?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ Then it was back to the painless job in the admin office.
That evening Annie questioned Fred about why hordes of people didn’t rush to the aid of the Jews being shoved around like animals on the train platform, if they saw such a scene.
‘That is exactly what the Catholic bishop was referring to – we have all been cowed beyond recognition,’ Fred answered. ‘But we can’t act individually or on impulse. That is why our group is advocating mass denouncement and we must voluntarily conscript other like-minded people in order to make an active stand.’
‘My goodness,’ Annie said. ‘That’s quite a reply. So Friday night. Is that when we make plans?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It must start in earnest.’
She knew she would find the wait excruciating.
*
It was very late. They caught the last train home to Ulm, laughing and pretending to be inebriated after what they let be known was a sociable, alcohol-infused Friday night with their colleagues. As they presumed, they were stopped on two occasions, but allowed to move on when the soldiers saw the state of them, proving that they had become skilful in the art of cunning.
Annie could not sleep and neither could Fred on their return. They sat up in the dark and drank a glass of schnapps – their second alcoholic drink of the night. They talked about all that had been discussed and decided upon during the evening, then Fred’s eyes drooped and he dragged himself to bed. Annie fished out her journal and wavered, stricken with agitated doubts, about the damning evidence she was about to put in writing. She knew what she was condemning them to if found out. Then she told herself that if the activities they were going to be involved in were exposed, then a sure sentence would follow. She was taking a huge chance anyway, so she might as well take two.
She wrote about how they had left the pub after one beer each, laden with bottles to take back to Gustav’s quarters in order to make it look as if the party would continue there. In fact, the bottles were crammed unceremoniously in the corner behind a curtain for consumption, Ilse said, at a later date when it wasn’t so important to have their wits about them; tonight they needed to be sober.
It had already been decided that the best and most efficient plan of action was to write a leaflet, then copy and distribute it as widely as possible.
‘How wide is wide?’ asked Ernst.
‘Well, eventually throughout Germany and beyond. But initially, perhaps we should concentrate on Munich.’
A consensus was reached on that point. But Annie wondered if even that was too vast an area. ‘Would it be safer to confine distribution to the university areas?’ she said.
‘Yes, safer for sure,’ answered Gustav. ‘But not as effective.’
It was agreed that they target the university buildings, student neighbourhoods and haunts first, see how that was received and what it produced and decide from there.
Next, they deliberated about the points they wanted to make in the leaflets. Fred suggested Annie keep a list as they concurred each edict so that they were sure they had covered everything they wanted to address. ‘Annie.’ He turned to his sister. ‘Please listen. You must not write anything for the leaflets outside of this room. Do you understand me?’
She promised. The others didn’t look surprised at his command so he must have told them about her tendency towards defiance.
‘Nor must you take the papers away with you to work on at home or anywhere else.’
‘None of us must do that,’ Ilse said. ‘They must remain here in hiding.’
Again she nodded and felt like a chastised child until she picked up her pencil and they began to draft their leaflet. Hours later the list was ready. In the leaflet they would:
‘I think at the end we should add a note asking others to copy the leaflet and pass it on,’ said Ernst. ‘What do you think?’
‘Excellent idea,’ said Carl.
‘And we need a name for this movement,’ added Helmuth. ‘Something that represents our values.’
‘And a symbol,’ said Ilse.
‘How about a feather?’ said Otto. ‘A dove’s feather. You know, for peace.’
‘No,’ said Fred. ‘That can also represent cowardice.’
An image of Frau Wilhelm and Herr Doctor in their garden, wishing nothing more for themselves and every other German citizen than to enjoy peace, flashed through Annie’s mind. ‘How about a flower,’ she said. ‘A white flower. Any other than Edelweiss.’
Everyone was happy with that. ‘Next Friday night,’ Gustav said. ‘We write and copy the text.’