TWO DAYS LATER, Sophie Weber stepped off a train in Berlin. No one gave her a second glance and Stella knew they wouldn’t. The transformation from Stella to Charlotte to Sophie had been seamless. After a night with Nicky that was somehow filled with passion and fear at the same time, they’d gotten up, packed, and left early.
At the train station, Stella took her kit out of the Louis Vuitton, put her rings and Stella clothes inside and emerged as Charlotte. Nicky took the Louis Vuitton from where she left it near a porter and walked away without a backward glance. They didn’t say goodbye. It hadn’t been planned that way. Goodbye just didn’t happen and it made Stella feel a little relieved but also curiously empty. Nicky was gone and so was she in a strange way.
From there she crossed the channel and trained to Paris and then Amsterdam, where she took a room for the night. In the room, she took the Charlotte labels out of her clothes and neatly stitched in the Sophie ones, reorganized her kit so that all the Charlotte evidence was concealed in the false side with the money, new identification, and Kindertransport papers for Anna, and left the hotel as Sophie the next morning. She trained to Berlin using her Bavarian accent and twisted the cheap little engagement band that Sophie wore in remembrance of her lost fiancé. It was a brilliant idea. That thin little band of gold with the diamond chip on it would be useful as a man repellant if she chose it to be or it could reel them in. Big, sad eyes could soften a heart and loyalty to a lost love was catnip to some.
Werner would be useful in so many ways. Stella traced a finger across the cigarette case in her pocket with Werner’s name etched on it along with 1937 and a swastika. Since she left Nicky, Mr. Bast’s gift had become a talisman for her. He believed in her and wanted her to do the work she’d been trained to do. More importantly, he had given her a tool to do it.
Stella hadn’t been alone since Mr. Bast dropped the cigarette case in her pocket on the bridge. She hadn’t had a moment to examine it until she was in France and found herself sitting in a compartment on her own. She closed the curtains and pulled out the case. It was cheap metal made to look like silver and in a particular style, opening with a hinge at the top to reveal only the end of the cigarettes, ten in all. The case had seven real cigarettes in it and it looked completely normal. It was heavier than you’d expect but not shockingly so, which Stella thought was a minor miracle, considering that the case had a concealed camera in it. Nobody would suspect. You couldn’t even tell when you looked into the case. It just looked empty. Amazing.
Mr. Bast believed she could get somewhere where a camera would be essential so he gave her one. She loved him for it. He didn’t give her a weapon, but that was no bother. Stella knew that she could improvise when necessary. Her grandmother’s hatpin might be stowed at Boodle’s in London where Nicky had been given membership, but there were other things she could use.
Stella walked off the platform into the Anhalter Bahnhof under an enormous Nazi flag. Like Munich, those ugly flags were everywhere. No other country was like that. You didn’t see the stars and stripes plastered all over Union Station in St. Louis. She could only remember one, outside. More recently she’d been all over Britain and had seen plenty of Union Jacks around, but it wasn’t the same.
Inside the station, she was awed by the size and number of surfaces Nazis found to put their flag on. It was like they wanted to pound into your head where you were, as if she could forget. The Berlin Bahnhof was unique, but even without the flags you’d know where you were from the harsh voices coming at you from every direction. This was the high German she’d been taught as a basis for the other dialects and it was different from the softer German spoken in other parts of the country and felt like an entirely different language from what Abel spoke. Every word was punctuated, rammed at you, hard and demanding. There were no lilting tones, high and sweet, like in Munich or Vienna. Tschüss sounded totally different. When her native speaker Magda Popper said it, it was a lovely generous goodbye. A sweet see you later. In the Berlin train station it came across as an accusation. But they didn’t mean it that way and Stella could see that in the faces saying the words. It was simply the dialect, but she felt the people were different there. It was a bustling station like Munich, not silent with dread like Vienna had been on the eve of the Kristallnacht, but still something was changed. There was a tightness to the shoulders along with a kind of sharp-eyed pride. Was it just the way Berliners were or was it that Germany was at war and they knew they were winning?
Stella noted the attitude and filed it away for later reflection as she found her way to the S Bahn and bought a ticket. The man at the ticket counter recognized her accent and asked how things were in Munich. He was a native Bavarian and missed his home. She took her cue from him and reported things were tense with waiting to see what would happen next.
“The rationing is better there, I think,” he said as he slid over her ticket.
She feigned surprise. “I believe we get the same cards. It must be fair.”
“So many farms at home. My family gets extra from friends outside the city.”
“Ah, yes. This is true. Very good milk and eggs.”
“You won’t find that here. There isn’t enough to share.”
She batted her eyes and became younger. “It will get better soon. Now that it’s over with Poland.”
“Over,” he scoffed. “It is not over. Hurry now. A train will come in for you any second.”
Stella thanked him and rushed away to find the right platform into the city. As the ticket man predicted, the train came a second later and she stepped on, trying not to bang her suitcase on anyone’s legs. The car was tight like the ones in the tube in London. Plenty of suitcases and she was pleased to see hers fit right in with the right amount of wear and those very important stickers applied to the sides.
She tried to listen to the conversations around her, but it was too noisy and the snippets she managed to catch were of everyday things. People were tired, hungry, and ready to be home. There were no uniforms in her car, although she’d seen plenty in the station, mostly the green of the Wehrmacht. A few SS, clothed in their distinctive black, walked through with glints in their eyes. A path cleared in front of them. The regular army didn’t get the same reaction.
Several men did have the Nazi Party membership pin proudly displayed on their lapels, but these men said nothing during the trip into the city center. They were a closed-mouthed group with their faces impassive and aloof.
When the train stopped at Stella’s station, she stepped off with several of them. One, a younger man with close-cropped hair under his fedora, offered to carry her suitcase up the stairs. It went against every instinct she had. It was her kit, filled with a huge amount of Reichsmarks and her Charlotte cover, but she nodded gratefully as she expected any young German girl would. He was a party member and therefore due a high level of trust and respect, so she handed over her suitcase with a smile on her face and a lump in her throat.
“Are you new to Berlin?” he asked.
Her smile got bigger. “How can you tell?”
He laughed. “What a lovely voice you have. Munich?”
“Yes and you are from Berlin?”
“Ah, yes. This is obvious as well,” he said with a laugh.
They came up onto a noisy street. People rushed by with their afternoon shopping, briefcases, and a general air of urgency. It might’ve been Stella’s imagination, but people kept their heads down. The flags on the hotel across the street weren’t getting the attention they deserved. Nor were the odd posters of disfigured people with price tags hung right next to pictures of sturdy mothers with passels of blond children and advertisements touting Germany’s industry and strong workers. It was incongruous and off-putting grouping those things together.
“Where are you going?” the man asked.
“To the Müller boarding house.”
“Irena Müller?”
“Do you know it?” Stella asked, trying to keep her eyes off the swastikas and not always succeeding.
“Of course. Some of the Valkyrie girls live there. Will you be a Valkyrie girl?”
Stella had no idea what a Valkyrie girl was. Park-Welles hadn’t briefed it.
“I don’t know. It is hard to get in, isn’t it?”
He smiled so genially Stella could almost forget what he was and represented. He was so kind and thoughtful, nothing like Peiper or the men that left Rosa von Bodmann to die on a cold train station floor, except that he was. He was exactly and she must never forget it.
“I must admit I don’t know. I’ve never been.” He turned to the street and hailed a cab. One zipped up and jolted to a halt next to them and he said to her, “Maximillian Hoff, Berlin.”
“Sophie Weber, Munich.” She gave him her most charming smile. “But maybe Berlin.”
“One can hope,” he said. “I’m going in the direction of Frau Müller’s. I will give you a lift.”
“I don’t want to inconvenience you,” said Stella, fervently praying he’d go away and leave her to her plan.
But he was a curious man and she a pretty girl. Men like him didn’t leave girls like her on the sidewalk in a strange city. He opened the cab door. “It is no trouble. I will get to ride with a future Valkyrie girl.”
She couldn’t refuse. It simply wasn’t possible, so she got in, and he put her suitcase on the floor at her feet. That was a relief anyway. The driver gave her the once over and she found the boarding house address had dropped out of her head.
To cover it, she fumbled with her handbag, mumbling, “The address. I have it here somewhere.”
“Never mind,” the party member said. “I know the corner.”
He gave the cross streets and then a name. “Volkischer-Beobachter.”
Stella knew the name. It was a newspaper, if one considered state propaganda the news. “Is that where you work?” she asked.
He told her that he was an editor for the domestic division and worked on internal stories like rationing.
“A man at the station told me that the rationing isn’t fair in Berlin,” said Stella conversationally.
The party man got sharp-eyed. “Our rationing is completely fair. To be unfair would be a crime against the people.”
“That’s what I said.”
He got out a little notebook and flipped it open with his pen poised. The driver glanced in the rearview mirror and seemed to sink down a touch. “What was this man’s name?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know. We only met in the line for tickets for a moment,” lied Stella easily. She wasn’t about to turn in the poor man in the ticket booth.
“What did he look like?”
The driver slunk down a little more and Stella gave a vague description that could’ve been anyone. She didn’t know where he was going or came from. He wasn’t distinct, just a man who didn’t like rationing.
“Probably a Jew,” said the party man snapping his notebook closed. “You have to be careful.”
Stella wanted to ask, “Careful with what?”, but knew better. “My mother warned me.”
“You have a wise mother,” he said.
“I do, but she does worry so much.”
“That is what good mothers do. I’m sure you will be a mother soon and will worry, too.”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
He looked at her ring. “Very soon I would think.”
Stella coated her face with loss and looked down. “No, not soon.”
The party man practically melted and apologized for insensitivity. She forgave him and they discussed that loss for the Fatherland wasn’t really loss at all. It was a gift of blood. Stella nearly corrected his assumption that Werner was lost in Poland, but the moment passed too quickly and she had to continue in that vein. This could change her cover. She might have to adapt for this little loss in concentration, but changing course didn’t bother her at all. A loss in Poland was more sympathetic than pneumonia any day.
The driver announced that they were at the corner the party man had told him and the address popped back in Stella’s mind. She gave it to him and they drove down a side street to park in front of an impressive brick house with three tall stories and large windows.
“Thank you, Herr Hoff,” said Stella as she reached for the door, but she wasn’t fast enough. Maximillian Hoff was out of the cab and around to her door in a flash.
He helped her out and said, “I will walk you in, Sophie. May I call you Sophie?”
“Please do.”
“And you may call me Max as a new friend should.” He took her suitcase and told the driver to wait.
“You don’t have to walk me in,” she said. “I’ve taken up too much of your time already.” Stella wasn’t interested in a friendship with Maximillian Hoff. If it went too far he’d lock her into his version of the fictional Werner’s death. She didn’t want that coming into the Müller house.
“I insist.”
She internally sighed. She’d never shake him now. Stella had had enough suitors before Nicky to know that. Max was going to stick and she’d have to make what she could of it. He was with a state newspaper. He might know something useful. One never knew.
She smiled shyly at him. “That is very kind of you. I hope they have space for me. It sounds like a popular place.”
“It is, but you’re the right kind of girl.” Max walked her across the sidewalk and up a short flight of stairs to a porch with four large pillars on the small space in front of an arched, dark wooden door. He dropped the knocker once and looked down at her. “You won’t have any trouble.”
There was a click and the door opened. A tall woman with stern, somewhat mannish features peered out at them. She had greying brown hair that was done in an old-fashioned style with a braid wrapped around her head and she wore a plain brown woolen dress with a heavy sweater over it. The woman quickly assessed the situation with Max’s black suit and pin and a smile came over her face. She warmly said hello in a Berlin accent similar to his.
Max introduced himself and Stella as Sophie in a way that said she was important and known, which of course she wasn’t. Stella didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. The woman who said her name was Irena Müller certainly looked impressed, but there was a kind of wariness beneath the deference.
“Come in. Come in,” she said, gesturing for them to come in a cold entry hall with a coat rack and a staircase with a heavy wooden banister. Frau Müller stood next to the newel post and eyed Stella’s face in a way that gave the impression of assessment and made Stella bristle, although it shouldn’t have. She wanted everything to be about the surface, a pretty face, ration cards, and the right identification saying she was an Aryan, but Stella hadn’t been raised that way. How many lectures had she been given stressing beauty is as beauty does? A façade was just a façade to the Bleds, which didn’t help Nicky at all when he met her parents. His façade was second to none and he kept his true worth close to the belt, making her father question if Nicky was just a pretty face. That notion had long been dispelled about her husband, but it wouldn’t ever be about her. Outside the family, she was a pretty face and in that moment of judgement, she hated it, despite its obvious value in her current mission.
“I don’t believe we have met, Herr Hoff,” said Frau Müller.
“We have not, but I know you by reputation. You have the highest standards.”
Frau Müller welcomed them to come to her sitting room, but Max said he had a cab waiting. “Do you have a room for little Sophie?” he asked. “She has just arrived from Munich and needs a safe, comfortable place to stay. Her dear mother would like her to be here.” He sounded as though he knew her mother and they were close family friends.
Frau Müller and Max looked her over and Stella felt like she should take off her coat and do a spin or trot around the room like a horse at an auction.
“Why do you come to Berlin, Sophie?” she asked.
Stella went through her prepared explanation. Her mother was a widow and money was tight. She heard there were good jobs in the capital and thought she could perhaps help her mother make ends meet.
“There are no jobs in Munich?”
Max frowned. “Sophie’s fiancé died for the Führer in Poland. She would like to make a fresh start. I’m sure you understand.”
Frau Müller took her hand. “Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
A quick thought of Rosa brought tears to Stella’s eyes and they were noted by both Frau Müller and Max.
“I do have a small room on the third floor. One of my girls is recently married,” said Frau Müller. “I was saving it for a Valkyrie girl…”
“Perhaps Sophie could be that girl,” said Max, straightening his lapel and emphasizing his affiliation.
“My mother has a friend, a dear friend, Emma Klink, who knows of a position for me,” Stella said hastily. “I must go to her. She is expecting me.”
They nodded sagely, understanding family and connections must be respected. Stella prayed they wouldn’t enquire further or God forbid want to accompany her to a non-existent woman’s house.
“It must be in a factory,” said Frau Müller. “The work must be done well and fast for the Führer.”
“Others can do it,” said Max smiling.
“I will see what Frau Klink says,” said Stella. “My mother speaks very highly of her.”
“I’m sure you will find the right place,” said Max, pointedly, and he took Stella’s hand. “Welcome to Berlin. I will see you again, Sophie.”
I hope not.
“You’ve been very kind, Herr Hoff,” she said.
“Remember,” he said, tweaking her chin, “it’s Max to you.”
She tilted down her chin and smiled up at him. “Yes, Max. Thank you.”
The annoyingly helpful Nazi shook Frau Müller’s hand and quickly left. They watched him through the window next to the door as the cab pulled away and Stella took a deep breath, waiting for Frau Müller to look back at her. When she finally did, it was a relief.
“So up from the country,” she said. “First time in Berlin?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked over Stella once more and told her to take off her coat. Stella did as instructed, bristling once more at how her body was judged and rated so blatantly.
“I think you will do for Valkyrie, but I know you must see Frau Klink and do as your mother instructs,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Will the small room do for you?”
Stella nodded and was told the weekly rate that included breakfast daily and dinner if she wasn’t working during the dinner hour. “You have your ration cards?”
Stella handed over her cards and Frau Müller nodded. “Very good. We can use the extra coal. It’s hot water only twice a week now. I’ve marked a line on the tub to where you can fill it. We wash on Sundays and Thursdays. The girls are very careful about the water. We want everyone to have a chance to wash.”
Stella’s surprise must’ve shown on her face, because Frau Müller said, “Yes, I know. It must be a shock. You have so much more wood in the south. Do you use wood instead of coal?”
She had no idea and she made up a story in the moment. “Both. My mother’s brother gives us wood sometimes.”
“Ah, very lucky in the south.” Frau Müller looked chagrined that she’d said that out loud and quickly said, “The rationing is the same everywhere. We must sacrifice for the Führer.”
“Yes. We all must sacrifice,” said Stella, picking up her suitcase.
Frau Müller led her up the staircase and the creaking treads were the only sound in the large house. It was four in the afternoon. The other girls must be at work.
Stella glanced around at the house as they went from floor to floor, noting everything and finding absolutely nothing remarkable, except for the incredible cold. If the house was heated at all she couldn’t tell. Park-Welles had said the winter was particularly bad that year and the coal rationed. She’d been given reasonably warm clothes, a coat, and gloves, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Her legs felt like they were turning blue under her stockings. She couldn’t see her breath in the house but that wasn’t far off.
When they got to the third floor, there was a little hall with two doors. Stella’s was on the right. Frau Müller said Fräulein Hanni was on the left. She opened the door to a truly tiny room with just enough space for a single bed, a simple chair, dressing table, and a narrow wardrobe. The good news was that it was warmer than the rest of the house by virtue of being at the top, but it was only by a few degrees.
“Thank you, Frau Müller,” said Stella. “It’s a lovely room with a nice view, too.”
“It is a nice view. If we had one more floor, you could see the Reichstag from here.” She went on to say the bathrooms were on the first and second floors. The bathrooms were busy and she should use the small mirror between her windows as much as possible.
“I will be serving in an hour. I will introduce you to the girls then.” Frau Müller left, closing the door behind her. Stella checked the tiny watch Park-Welles had given her. What was she serving at five o’clock?
She heaved her suitcase on the bed and clicked open the latches. Should she remove the money and hide it or leave it be? She glanced around. The options weren’t endless. The top of the wardrobe? It had a small crown for concealment. She slid her hand under the clothes to find the secret compartment when the door flew open again.
“Sophie,” said Frau Müller.
Stella jumped back, her hand tucked behind her back. “Oh!”
The matron laughed. “I’m sorry to startle you.”
“No, no. It’s fine. I was just thinking about when to go to Frau Klink’s apartment.”
“You should go this afternoon. A good job is not easy to find.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I wanted to tell you that if it is a factory job you will get new ration cards for more food. I will need those.”
Stella nodded and did her best to control her hands that wanted to shake. “Yes, of course. I will give them to you immediately.”
“Good girl.” Frau Müller tapped her cleft chin. “See what she offers you and ask what her opinion is.”
“Her opinion on what?”
“Whether you should take it or try for the Valkyrie.” She waved her hands. “No matter. We’ll see what the girls say. They are the best judges after all. Remember to come down in an hour.” She left again and Stella went to the door, pressing her ear to the wood. Frau Müller was thin but the stairs still did a good deal of creaking as she went down.
Stella waited until the creaking faded and laid her forehead against the wood.
Stupid. So very stupid.
She carefully turned the key in the lock and turned back to her suitcase, her heart still pounding. Instead of opening the compartment, she climbed on the bed and stood on her tiptoes to see the top of the wardrobe. The space on top was empty and extremely dusty so nobody cleaned up there, which was good. Also, the crown was about four inches high. Plenty of space to conceal the money and the rest of her kit, but removing it didn’t give her a chance for a quick getaway if needed.
Stella got off the bed, maneuvered herself between the bed and wardrobe door. It only opened three-fourths of the way since the room was so small and there wasn’t space for her suitcase inside. She wasn’t sure what to do. Park-Welles taught her concealment in her room, if at all possible, but her instinct said no. That made her wrinkle her nose. The earl said her evaluation said she’d go with her own instinct rather than her orders. Why did they have to be right? But her instinct had served her well. She was alive. Nicky was alive. Her instinct was why the SIS had been interested in her in the first place.
“Sorry, Park-Welles. Stella knows best.” She unloaded her meagre belongings into the wardrobe and put her personal stuff—or rather Sophie’s personal stuff—on the little table. A picture of a young man, wearing a Wehrmacht uniform, a brush and comb, stationery, stamps, and her small horde of cosmetics. Stella couldn’t help but think Sophie’s life was sad and she looked forward to escaping it as soon as possible.
But escape from that cold house in that cold country wouldn’t happen anytime soon, so she tried to stuff her suitcase under the bed, but predictably it didn’t fit so she wedged it in beside the wardrobe. It wasn’t great, but she could get out fast that way. Having a party member practically adopt her out of the blue had already taught her that the unexpected could happen in Berlin, despite how well it was rumored to be controlled.
After combing her hair and exploring every inch of her tiny abode, including opening the window to look for a drainpipe to climb down if the need arose—there wasn’t one—Stella headed down for whatever Frau Müller was serving at five. She got her second surprise of the day. It would not be her last.
