More than ever, I was sure I had stumbled onto something.
“Unjustifiable importance” or not, I now knew that everything about the Bauers was utterly false, completely at odds with the public persona they maintained: that of kindly Swiss grandparents, dimpled cheeks and white hair, with all that pretended disgust they showed for the madman who had taken over their homeland. Who had put Europe in turmoil.
Not any future we would want any part of, he had said.
It made the bile rise up in my gut.
For days, I kept reliving the sight of Willi Bauer shutting the door on a room full of Sieg Heil-ing compatriots under a Nazi banner. And what to do about it? Who to tell?
It was still no crime.
Whether he had seen me or not—and as I went back over the events, I could only come to the conclusion that he had not—there was something about them I now knew was a complete lie, and went far deeper than just their politics and the beliefs that they put in so much effort to hide.
I had to believe that they were engaged in something that I could not quite determine, but feared was set in motion already. The steady flow of strangers who came to their door; the shreds of some kind of code I felt for certain I had found half-destroyed in their trash; and whatever it was that was being discussed in that back room at the Marienplatz restaurant behind closed doors. That it was both secretive and conspiratorial and most likely a threat. Something the police or the FBI would want to know.
Something dangerous.
I’d already taken my original suspicions to my lawyer, Sam Goldrich. A prominent Jew with connections. I imagined myself calling him up again now, describing what I’d seen at the beer hall last night—You wanted more tangible evidence, well, here it is! The Nazi greeting. The brazen swastika on the wall behind them.
I told you, sympathizing with the Germans is not a crime, Charlie, I was sure he’d reply. Look at Lindbergh. He got a fucking medal from them.
But then he would lean forward and say with all lawyerly seriousness: But secretly following them is.
And so is plotting with them, Sam, I would counter. Come on, you have to know in your heart, something’s going on.
Still, I was a nobody. Someone recently released from prison, with a felony conviction around my neck. And a boy’s life on my conscience. And as Sam said, not exactly the best person to be pointing a finger at the Bauers, who were respected businesspeople, and by all accounts, established and well-liked members of the community. Immigrants, yes, but who had been here since the late ’20s. Who everyone seemed to have a good word for. And as my lawyer had reminded me, congregating with Nazis, even if they had gone to such lengths to cover it up, wasn’t illegal. There were still pro-German rallies and speeches going on publicly. Lindbergh had given a talk that every radio station in the country covered only last month, and even though there was great public outcry against it, no one had arrested him! Indeed, half of Congress was still pushing back against FDR’s call to support the Brits and get us into the war.
But if there was truly something going on with the Bauers, something more than met the eye, it was stuff the government should know about. And I realized that the person closest to this, who it was my duty to protect, was Emma. If they were subversives, it was illegal and dangerous work. What if she was over there and something happened? What if they were even using her in some way, or Liz? As a cover. What then?
So that Saturday, I went back up to Liz’s apartment, even though it wasn’t my day to visit. I knocked and found her alone in the apartment in a pair of slacks and a plaid flannel shirt knotted at the waist. A scarf tied in her hair.
“Charlie, I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “Emma’s with her friend Charlotte.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Got a minute? I’m actually here to talk to you.”
“Me? All right.” She seemed surprised at that. “Come on in.” She ran her forearm across her brow. “I was just tidying up a bit. The place is such a mess.” She had the sheets rolled into a ball and a load of wash in a basket. I used to help her with all that when we were a couple. Indeed, I was a champion folder. She used to say that no one could fold a set of sheets like me.
“Don’t worry.” I stepped in. “I won’t stay long.”
“That’s okay. In truth,” she smiled contritely, “I was looking for any excuse I could find to push all this off. Sit down.”
I did, and for a while, the conversation stayed on Emma. How much my life had changed with her in it again. How much I admired the way Liz was raising her. And I told her how I was slowly getting myself back on my feet. “That’s great, Charlie, great.” Her eyes appeared soft and nonjudgmental. She seemed genuinely happy for me.
Then I got to the real reason I was there.
“I know this won’t go over big, Liz.” I cleared my throat. “But I’d really like it if Emma no longer had anything to do with the Bauers.”
“Trudi and Willi?” She looked at me, kind of shocked. “Why?”
“Look, I know how you feel about them, Liz—you’ve made that clear. But they’re simply not who they say they are. Or who they want you to believe they are.” I told her about the strips of charred numbers I had found in their kitchen trash, and then following them to the beer hall and what I saw take place in the back room there. The Nazi salute and the banner with the swastika on it.
“You actually tailed them?” She looked at me, aghast. “Willi and Trudi?”
“I did,” I sighed with a guilty shrug. “What can I say? But that’s not the point. Look, I know Emma’s fond of them and maybe they’re legitimately fond of her too. Maybe that’s the only part of them that is real. But as for the rest, they’re not being honest with you, Liz. All this stuff about Heidi and Swiss chocolate and the desserts she prepares. They’re Nazi sympathizers. Maybe even more. I’m starting to doubt if they’re even Swiss at all. Doesn’t that concern you?”
“What do you mean by ‘maybe even more,’ Charlie?”
I looked at her directly. “There’s a war going on, Liz. You know exactly what I mean.”
It took a second for her to fully see where I was heading. Though in truth, I didn’t even know what I was suggesting. Collaborators? Conspirators? Provocateurs? Everything was just a puzzle piece right now.
“You’re suggesting they’re spies…?” she said, her eyes locked on me. Then she laughed. “Well, that’s absurd. And even if there was even a kernel of truth to it,” she shook her head, “is it suddenly a crime to be a Nazi sympathizer? This neighborhood is full of them. Look at Lindbergh, our biggest hero, for God’s sake. He just made a speech in Des Moines supporting them. And he’s the second-most-popular person in the country, after the president. There are even U.S. senators who openly defend them on the Senate floor.”
“I know. I know all that. I do. But I also I know you’re aware exactly what’s happening over there, Liz. And it’s not all just the war. Jews are being relocated throughout Europe. Their businesses are being taken away. God knows what’s happening to them wherever they go.”
“For someone who barely took Emma to temple, I never knew you were so concerned,” she said, trying to wound me with an old complaint of hers, my lack of Jewish commitment, and it carried a sharp edge to it. “If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t even know she was a Jew.”
“You’re right, Liz. I don’t want to fight about that. All I’m saying is, you really don’t know anything about these people. They don’t add up.”
“Other than they’ve been like family to us. At a time when I really needed it, Charlie. A time, must I remind you, when you couldn’t be. That adds up. So is that part of their cover? Do I have to know any more?”
“Maybe you’d want to know why they’ve pretended to hate the Nazis so fervently when they’re in a back room of a Nazi beer hall Sieg Heil-ing with a roomful of them? Would that concern you?”
“Charlie, they’ve been here for years. They were in the beer business, for God’s sake. They may even be American citizens for all I know. They didn’t just parachute in here and set up operations.”
“Those agents who were arrested last month, some of them were purchasing agents and engineers. They didn’t just parachute in here either. I’m just asking you, Liz, keep Emma away. For now. At least until we learn more. If they are what I think, it could be dangerous for her.”
“Now you’re telling me how to watch out for my own child?” With that, she got up and went over to the window, letting off steam, and lit a Parliament. “And just how are we going to learn more, Charlie? With more of your ridiculous subterfuge? Are you going to set up a permanent stakeout on them? I’m sorry, but I won’t tell Emma not to see them. It would break her heart. And how would I even go about explaining it?” She blew out a stream of smoke. “That my soon-to-be ex-husband has been playing J. Edgar Hoover and thinks they might be foreign agents? That he followed them to a Nazi hangout and doesn’t like who they keep as friends?”
“We may not be at war yet, but we may be soon, Liz. Then what about their friends?”
She took an angry drag. “So if you’re such a fucking patriot, Charlie, sign up with the RAF, and go fight over there, like—”
She caught herself. We both knew what she was about to say. Like your brother, Ben. That was clear. And we both knew that it stung. She pressed her lips together with guilt on her face and blew out a stream of smoke from her nose, and came back over and sat down next to me again. She put her hand on my arm. “I didn’t mean that, Charlie. Of course I know there’s a war going on. And of course I don’t like what these people stand for, and what they’re doing over there. To Jews and to Britain. Contrary to what you think, I don’t put my head in the sand. But I’m sorry, I trust the Bauers and I won’t tell Emma she can’t see them. Whatever their political views, and why ever they feel they have to hide them, to us, Willi and Trudi are the nicest couple in the world.”
I nodded—more just from weariness of the argument than from any agreement. “You know, the nicest people in the world put that madman in power over there. And half of them probably read Schiller and Heine. And make delicious strudel. The nicest people in the world all probably look the other way while their Jewish neighbors and friends are being shipped out to work camps somewhere. Could you really be their friends, Liz,” I looked at her in earnestness, “if you knew for sure they felt that way?”
“Really, Charlie…” She tapped her cigarette in an ashtray on the kitchen table. “I think you’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion. I just can’t do it. Honestly, I wouldn’t even know what to say to them without any proof. In a million years, I don’t think they would ever put Emma in any danger.”
I shrugged, feeling I had to give up. “All right. On that, maybe you’re right.”
“And I want you to stop this, Charlie. All these innuendos. And if you can’t, then please stop coming up here for a while. You’re starting to act like the Old Charlie again. With all these things … And I don’t like it. You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
“Not even a beer, Liz.” I looked at her. “You know that’s a condition of seeing Emma.”
“Well, that’s good. It really is. But I’m sorry, I trust them. I do.”
“What you’re saying is,” I said with a resigned smile, “you trust them more than you trust me.”
“I guess what I am saying is, they’ve given me a whole lot more reason to, Charlie, if you know what I mean. Now, look, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get on to tidying up this place.”
“Okay.” I got up. “If you like I could stay and help?”
“Really…?” She looked at me dubiously. “Thanks though.” She picked up the laundry bin again and shook her head. “Willi and Trudi as spies…” She gave me an amused chortle. “Please … You know that British film director Hitchcock would surely have some fun with that.”