October 1939
Hitler finally got the war he’d been hungering for, but for those assembled in the lecture hall, there was nothing more pressing than the results of our latest papers. Professor Bauer was lecturing us on the faults of our latest compositions, and I was allowing myself to hope that none of his critiques applied to my work. I’d provided a clear argument and not tried to embellish my thoughts with overly flowered prose or tirades that could not be supported by the text. I sat fidgeting in my seat, waiting for our papers to be passed back.
It wasn’t biology or chemistry, or any of the courses I’d wanted to study, but I found that delving into the depths of German literature proved fascinating. I’d been assigned to write for the university newspaper and found it more fulfilling than I’d imagined it could be. There were fewer women enrolled in the university than I’d hoped, but it wasn’t surprising given the government’s encouragement of women to stay in the domestic sphere. The men, especially the professors, were generally aloof toward the women, though not overtly hostile. I found I had to be more persistent in class to be heard, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t expected. Once my name began to circulate with the newspaper and my articles garnered a favorable response, the men’s attitudes warmed slightly and even the professors were more interested in my contributions to class.
Finally, at the end of class Professor Bauer returned our papers, and my marks were better than respectable. I exhaled with relief and gathered my things for the next class.
“Your analysis of Schiller was spot on, Fräulein Rombauer,” Professor Bauer said as I walked by his lectern. “I wish the rest of your class had taken the trouble to make such a thoughtful approach to the paper.”
Professor Bauer actually looked like a professor should in my imagination. He wore sensible clothes, completely oblivious to and ambivalent about what might be deemed fashionable. He was the antithesis of Klara and Aunt Charlotte. He wore glasses, and his black curly hair was in need of a good cut, but the overall effect was charming. Though he was young, he walked with a pronounced limp, and availed himself of a cane when he had to walk beyond the confines of a classroom. I wondered if he’d suffered an injury at some point or was afflicted with a birth defect. I wasn’t bold enough to ask, but I knew his ruined leg was the only thing keeping him from the front.
“The subject matter was fascinating,” I said. “Surprisingly so.”
“You’re surprised to find interesting the greatest work of one of the great German masters? Curious.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’ve just never been of a literary bent,” I explained.
“Yet you’re pursuing advanced studies in literature. Even more curious.”
“It had been my intention to study medicine,” I said. “But given the circumstances . . .”
“It didn’t seem wise to prepare for a career you would not be able to pursue.”
“Exactly.”
“It’s preposterous to me how men can spend their lives surrounded by the love of their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters but not think them capable of the same tasks as men are. Or worse, know that they are capable of these things, but keep them repressed to satisfy the needs of their own insecurities. What a sad way to live.”
“You speak a very unpopular truth, Professor.”
“An unfortunate hobby of mine,” he said.
“Rather a dangerous one in times like these,” I said.
“Wise for one still so young. How sad. You should be exploring your newfound freedoms. A girl your age should be laughing with friends, finding out how many beers are too many, and dating the wrong boy. You shouldn’t have to be worried about this crazy government of ours. Needless wars. Mark my words, this generation will lose their youth just like the one before it.”
“Professor, I hope you will understand when I say I hope you’ll be proved wrong, though in my heart of hearts I know you won’t be.”
“I understand you perfectly, Fräulein Rombauer. And I look forward to reading more of your work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I nodded and trekked out into the bright light of the corridor, surprised to see Friedrich right outside the door in full uniform. His face looked dour, and the students gave him a wide berth as they scuttled on to their next classes. He’d never mentioned his plans to come to campus that day, but he rarely felt the need to convey his plans to me.
“What a pleasant surprise,” I said, hoping my face hadn’t fallen at the first sight of him. I plastered on a smile that I hoped looked genuine enough and crossed over to him. As he was in uniform and possibly on duty, I didn’t offer him a kiss on the cheek or any other such familiar gesture.
“You seemed to be in the midst of a very serious conversation with your professor,” he said, glancing over my shoulder into the room where Professor Bauer was still collecting his papers.
“He was complimenting my last assignment,” I said.
“That seems quite a long conversation for such a brief matter,” he said, his eyes narrowing. He was suspicious of the good professor, and this would not bode well for him if Friedrich could not be pacified.
“Oh, well,” I said. “I had a question or two about the work. That sort of thing.”
“If you’re doing so well, why would you need his help?”
“I’m doing well precisely because I ask for clarification when it’s needed,” I said. His features grew sharper. I had to deflect. “I won’t have your colleagues thinking I’m wasting my time here. If I’m going to attend university, I’m going to be top of my class to make you proud.”
This mollified him a bit, but he was still on edge.
“Walk with me, Hanna.” It was not a request. He was here in an official capacity.
“What do you know of Professor Gerhardt?”
“He teaches composition. A stern man with a reputation for being harsh with his marks, so anyone who can avoid taking his classes usually does. I think he’s reasonable once you get to know him, though.”
“Nothing surprising in his lectures? Nothing unseemly?”
“Goodness, no. Though I can’t imagine how conversations about the proper uses of a semicolon or the benefits of adverbs in prose could turn to anything scandalous,” I said.
“You would be surprised,” he said. “You never heard any rumblings of him getting students involved in different off-campus organizations?”
“No, not at all.” And it was true. I’d been seen on campus with Friedrich often enough that if there were any illicit activities going on, no one would have dared confide in me. Trust was a rare commodity these days, and my stock would have been especially low with anyone who had a word to say against the government. I didn’t blame them. Whether I liked it or not, I was dangerous.
“Just be on the lookout,” he said. “We fear there are more than a few attempts to subvert our leader and the party from these very halls, and others just like them across the country. They question his actions at every turn and show him no loyalty.”
“Well, it is the nature of academics to question things, I suppose.”
“Useless eggheads, if you ask me,” he replied with such venom I expected him to spit his words on the sidewalk. “We need fewer poets like your professor back there and more men of action. Farmers and fighters. I wonder that he hasn’t been called up to service yet. A young man like him should have signed up himself rather than wait for conscription.”
“You didn’t notice his leg, then?”
“A cripple?”
“Well, not fully. But yes, he can’t walk far without a cane.”
“A useless eater then,” he said. “A drain on resources.”
“He’s educating future teachers,” I said. “It seems to me he’s doing the most for the country that he possibly can under the circumstances.”
He didn’t look satisfied by my answer but could produce no rebuttal. “Just be observant. There are corrupting influences everywhere and we need to stamp them out.”
He wanted me to be his informant on campus. Perhaps his decision to let me attend university hadn’t been so selfless after all. If I were to discover that a prominent professor was inciting students to stand up to the party and passed the information along to Friedrich, it would be a big boost to his career. A future spent spying for him loomed ominously in my thoughts and I was repulsed at the prospect. I didn’t want to be his private investigator, whether he felt his cause was righteous or not.
He left with a perfunctory kiss, and I gave him a smile that didn’t go deeper than my lips. My only solace was that he could not hear the workings of my mind or the beating of my heart. If he’d been able to see all that, he would have had me on a train to oblivion that very night.
“A WORD, FRÄULEIN Rombauer?” Professor Bauer called at the end of the next class. I’d been so distracted on campus since Friedrich’s visit to school that I was hardly able to concentrate on the lecture. My notes were sparse and illogical. The next exam would be challenging if I wasn’t able to get someone else to help fill in the gaps of what I’d missed.
“Yes, Professor,” I said, approaching the table at the front of the large lecture hall.
“You weren’t very attentive today,” he said. “That’s unusual for you.”
“That’s a remarkable observation in a room with more than a hundred other students,” I said.
He cleared his throat and shuffled some papers for a moment. “It’s easy to notice when the most attentive student in the room has lost her focus. It’s a gift after years in the classroom.”
“I suppose you would gain that sixth sense after a while. Yes, I was a bit distracted. My apologies. It won’t happen again.”
“I was more concerned about you than about the class. Are you well?”
“Quite, thank you.”
“I don’t suppose this has to do with the uniformed man who paid you a visit after our last class?” he asked.
He was too perceptive for my own good. I wished I could tell him to mind his own business, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak that way to a professor. Especially a kind one.
“No,” I said. Let this be the end of the conversation for your own good.
“I’ll just say this. If you’re in danger, tell someone. There are those who will help you. I can help.”
“Thank you,” I said, hoping he would take it as a dismissal.
“I don’t suppose the visit had anything to do with the disappearance of Professor Gerhardt? We’ve reason to be alarmed.”
Enough. I couldn’t know this. I was a liability to him. To everyone.
“That man was my fiancé, Professor,” I said, hoping my tone was imperious. If he thought I was one of them, then he wouldn’t say anything else that might endanger him.
“I see,” he said. “I didn’t realize . . .”
“No,” I said. “Clearly. Captain Schroeder does enjoy coming to campus to pay me a visit from time to time. As any good fiancé is wont to do.”
“Of course,” he said. There was the unmistakable shadow of disappointment on his face as he resigned himself to the information I relayed. Whether he was disappointed that I was spoken for or in my apparent political leanings, I couldn’t know. “I admit I’m surprised.”
“At what? That I’m engaged to be married? I’m not sure that’s a compliment, Professor.”
“No, well, perhaps it’s best if I say nothing.”
“By all means, speak your piece,” I said.
Anger flashed for a moment, but his features settled into a stern resolve. “You’re bright, Hanna. More than that, rarer than that, you know your worth. Why would you make an alliance with a man who represents a party that wants to take women’s place in society back a hundred years? I can’t imagine you being happy in a voiceless marriage.”
“Well, sometimes the decision to marry is a complicated one,” I said.
“It should never be,” he said. “When I married my Sophie, it wasn’t a difficult decision. It was as natural as the next beat of my heart. When she died, it was as though she took half of me with her. I hope you won’t settle for less than that. It’s what you deserve.”
He spoke with a tenderness I hadn’t heard before when he mentioned his wife. I had not known he had been married and I wanted too much to ask him about her. But I couldn’t engage him any further without betraying myself.
“Choice is an amazing thing, Professor. And a luxury that isn’t always afforded even to the most deserving. My apologies again for my behavior in class. It won’t happen again.”
Tears stung my eyes as I left the classroom. If only I could truly confide in him or anyone else. If only these were like the hurts of my youth that could be soothed by a mother’s embrace. But my mother, and anyone who was willing or able to protect me, was gone. This kind professor thought he could help, but if I reached out to him, it would probably lead to my ruin, and certainly his own.
In another life, I might have been able to look up to this man and admire his intellect. To respect how he’d made a glowing career for himself despite the hardship that nature or misfortune had dealt him. But all I could see was a good man whose kind nature was nothing but a liability in this world that had become so terribly cruel. He could probably remember a time when good deeds were rewarded and selflessness was a virtue, but that had all been before my time. And sadly, not all that long ago.
I rushed off to my next class, one with the infamous Professor Gerhardt that Friedrich had been so concerned about. I arrived at the classroom, and instead of everyone sitting in their places attentively waiting for the professor and chatting quietly with their neighbors, there was a panicked buzz with students standing in clusters throughout the room.
“What’s going on?” I asked a nearby student—a young man by the name of Klaus from the university paper who had always been friendly.
“Rumor is, Gerhardt’s gone missing,” he said. His voice was flat. No one who went missing ever came back. “The last time anyone remembers seeing him was Tuesday.”
The day Friedrich had come to visit. It wasn’t a coincidence.
No one seemed to know how to proceed. It wasn’t the first time a professor had gone missing, but it was the first time it had been one of mine. This kindly, silver-haired old man who spent his life teaching grammar and composition hardly seemed like a threat to a regime that boasted such strength.
The girls stood with their arms crossed over their chests as they spoke. Bracing themselves. The boys with their hands on their hips, looking ready to act. But there was nothing they could do.
I had visions of the Nazis hauling the sweet old man off into a truck and wanted to weep on the spot. Instead, I turned on the ball of my foot and went home to Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Otto’s. I couldn’t ask for their help, for they wouldn’t grant it even if they wanted to, but it was a place to think in quiet.
When I arrived, Uncle Otto and Aunt Charlotte were already home, along with Friedrich. I was asked by the butler to join them in the parlor. None of them was surprised to see me home from class so early.
“A new opening in your schedule,” Friedrich said by way of greeting as he bent to kiss my cheek. “It must be a little relief to lighten your course load.”
“Not especially,” I said. “I enjoyed composition rather well.”
“I’m sure they’ll be able to dig up a new professor before too long,” Friedrich said. “But if you wish to keep up your skills in the meantime, you can feel free to write me love letters. I promise to give you a thorough critique.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” I said, trying to feign some levity.
“We’re hoping that now that Gerhardt is no longer an influence on campus, we’ll see less trouble,” Friedrich said to Uncle Otto, continuing the conversation my arrival had interrupted.
“Cut off the head and the snake dies,” Uncle Otto said, nodding his head in approbation.
“In this case I fear we’re dealing with a Medusa. More snakes than you would care to count.”
“We need more farmers and fewer poets,” Uncle Otto said, raising a glass to punctuate his words. “Shut the damn place down and put them all to work in honest jobs.”
“If only there were more of those to go around,” I interjected. Friedrich arched a brow.
“True enough, darling. That will come. We must trust in our leadership to provide, but without unity, they cannot focus on these important issues. That’s why we must get these insurgents in line.”
“Has there been a government in the history of all mankind that had universal approval?”
“But this isn’t a simple government, darling. It’s a new order. A new experiment in the way things are done. When we win the war, and if this new order is allowed to flourish without the menace of impure and foreign influences, it will be glorious.”
And it was all too clear what had happened to Professor Gerhardt. He was in a prison or a camp somewhere, unlikely ever to know the taste of freedom again in his lifetime. And I was engaged to his captor.