Chapter 23 Audrey 
BERLIN, GERMANY | MARCH 1939
Audrey stomped her boots on the porch, trying to knock some warmth into her toes. She cupped her coffee in her hands, breathed in the aromatic steam that was always a comfort to her. Her thighs were cold from sitting on the stone stoop, but she didn’t care. She needed to be outside the confines of the house, revive herself in the fresh air.
It was still dark, the streetlights on. She’d woken well before dawn, her mind restlessly trying to work out what to do next. They’d arrived back in Berlin the previous afternoon in a state of disbelief, stiff from the lengthy round-trip journey. None of them said much to one another. Friedrich had told them to eat, sleep, and they would regroup in the morning.
Audrey stared across the street at the Richters’ house without really seeing it. What she wouldn’t give to go back, just for a while, to how things used to be. To live there again with her father and Sophie. To go back to that beautiful time when she had no idea that any of this lurked in their future.
She shook back her coat sleeve to glance at her watch.
5:49 a.m.
She thought of Ludwig’s threat, his ultimatum for Ilse and Daniel to be gone in forty-eight hours. Not even a day remained. And what would happen once the cell discovered Friedrich and Audrey hadn’t abided by their demands? Her sleepless night had presented an idea, though she was doubtful of Ilse’s reaction to it.
She exhaled a cloud of fog and went inside. Ilse was awake now, seated in the lounge off her father’s study, a fire flickering in the grate.
“Hi,” she said as Audrey entered. “Daniel’s still asleep. Yesterday exhausted him, poor thing.” She was curled up on the sofa in her robe and slippers, feet tucked under her, as usual. “What were you doing outside? It’s freezing.”
“I know,” Audrey said. “I needed some air.”
“I know how that is,” Ilse said with a mild bite. “I was looking forward to more fresh air.”
Audrey sighed and took a seat next to her. “You were willing to go to the Netherlands for Daniel.”
Ilse watched her, nodded.
“I know it’s farther away, but would you be willing to go to my aunt’s, in Alnwick? In England? And maybe I would go with you this time?”
“But it’s so much farther away, Audrey, so much more risk to get there, especially with Daniel. I told you I wouldn’t go to England with you those first days after”—her voice shook on the rough terrain of the memory—“after all this started, because I need to be here. I never wanted to leave this house in the first place, and that remains true. If there is a war coming, like Friedrich says, how could I possibly get back to Berlin from England when Ephraim and Mama return? Even with an English passport? I—”
“But it’s dire now, Ilse, with Ludwig’s threats, you can’t…” Understanding hit her in the face.
“What?” Ilse asked.
“You don’t want to leave him, do you?”
Ilse swallowed, fixed her eyes on her own knees. “Daniel? Of course I won’t.”
“Friedrich,” Audrey said. “I mean Friedrich, Ilse.”
Ilse was silent, and Audrey felt something release inside herself, a pressure that had been building for months. Despite her feelings for Ilse, the future she yearned for with her and could not have, their shared past still remained. That friendship, that sisterhood, still existed beneath the layers of complication.
“You’ve been my best friend my whole life,” Audrey said. “And you still are. I know we’ve grown apart a little under these circumstances. But if you won’t be honest with me, I don’t know what’s become of us.”
Tears came to Ilse’s eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re right about everything you just said. The truth is, I feel safe with him. I feel protected. And he’s kind, we have a connection.”
Audrey wrestled down the knot in her throat, the realization that she alone wasn’t enough to make Ilse feel safe.
“Hello.” Friedrich appeared in the doorway, dressed in civilian wear, and Audrey and Ilse leaned back, wiping their eyes. He took a seat in the large red armchair across from them, looking about as exhausted as Audrey felt. “I will get straight to the point,” he said, his eyes on Ilse. “I have given the matter a great deal of thought since we left Enschede, and I think we need to get married.”
Audrey’s stomach swooped. Ilse’s mouth hung open.
“What?” Ilse said.
Friedrich opened his hands, imploring. “At this juncture, with no other safe house available—at least in the short term—it is the only course of action I see remaining.”
“Why?” Audrey demanded.
Friedrich kept his gaze on Ilse. “Seeing what happened to the Von Albrecht cell has been sobering. It is entirely likely that, at some point, I will get killed during our resistance efforts. If I do, us being married will ensure that my wealth is transferred to you. It will be more than enough to support you and Daniel for some time to come. As it stands, your familial wealth has been absorbed by the Reich, and I do not have the power to recover it.”
Audrey knew this, but the reality still bowled her over. “But how does that protect her, all of us, from Ludwig’s threats?” she asked. “He wants her gone, as does Claus. You heard what he—”
“That is the second point I would like to make,” Friedrich said. “None of them are aware that the safe house was destroyed, though I must tell Aldous, as he was the connection and he will find out through some other channel. But in the immediate term, I suggest we tell them all that Ilse and Daniel are in the Netherlands, and if we have another incident like the other night, where your presence is revealed,” he continued, eyes on Ilse again, “we would then have ammunition against Thurman’s accusations in the form of your and Daniel’s false identification and our registered marriage. I cannot imagine it would be worth the risk for him to pursue the matter, knowing he could be embarrassed if he cannot prove Ilse’s true identity. He isn’t about to personally search the house for you. We may yet be able to buy ourselves some time, and this scheme safeguards us. Aldous is sympathetic, as you know, and I believe I can convince Claus to drop the issue. He’s reasonable. I think he was simply caught off guard.”
Audrey and Ilse sat side by side in the prickly silence, contemplating the proposal.
Friedrich clasped his hands together in front of him. “I know it would not be a love match for you,” he told Ilse. “But it would allow you to remain here, in your home. Still hiding on Friday evenings, but… here, nevertheless.”
Audrey watched for Ilse’s reaction, but her face was inscrutable. After a long moment, she spoke.
“Could we have a Jewish ceremony?” she asked. She did not deny it being a love match.
Friedrich shook his head. “I don’t think there would be a ceremony at all. Too much risk. It would be on paper. It wouldn’t need to mean anything, though, if you do not want it to.” He cleared his throat. “It would be playacting. A show. Audrey can attest,” he added. He turned to her for validation, but Audrey couldn’t answer.
Ilse rose, and the atmosphere in the room shifted. “The two of you may have muddied your identities to the point where you do not even know yourselves anymore—”
“Ilse!” Audrey protested, stung.
“But my faith is not just a part of who I am. It is who I am. You told me I needed to give up my name, my home, my way of life, and I did that. But I cannot surrender my faith to this cause. I cannot betray it, or dilute it, because if I do, what is any of this for? Am I staying alive to become someone else entirely? Someone I no longer understand, or trust? Am I to look in the mirror and see a Nazi’s Christian wife?”
Audrey understood her objection. They were living now in some alternative world, a nightmarish shadow of everything they had known. Ilse was just trying to hold tight to the things that mattered in the hope that there would still be something to recognize when the world finally righted itself.
Friedrich’s face was pinched with emotion.
Ilse stood in front of him, expectant. “How can you ask that of me, Friedrich?”
He exhaled sharply. “Do you think it easy for me, Ilse? It is my faith, too, in case you have forgotten. Do you think I don’t struggle every single day as I don my uniform? That I don’t look in the mirror and think of my mother and loathe myself for all of it?”
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because this is bigger than me,” Friedrich said simply. “I am inconsequential. All that matters is the good I am able to do from this position of power. I believe God can see past the insignia on my uniform, and know my soul. Know that the clothes I wear and the character I play are not who I truly am inside. I thought you knew that too.”
She clenched her jaw.
“And you would not be surrendering your faith to our cause. You would exchange it, temporarily, for your and Daniel’s survival, Ilse. All I—all Audrey and I want is to ensure your safety. We care for you. Very deeply.”
Audrey looked away from them. She didn’t want to see his feelings reflected in Ilse’s eyes, golden in the firelight.
The silence stretched out until Ilse took a steadying breath. “Can you give us a moment, please?” Her voice was hoarse with fatigue.
Friedrich rose from his chair and stomped toward the kitchen. Ilse threw herself back down beside Audrey.
“It’s the only answer, isn’t it?”
Audrey couldn’t decide whether her world would fall apart or be held together if Ilse married Friedrich. It still made more sense to Audrey that they try to get her to England, where she would have the physical freedoms the Von Albrecht home had offered her. But Audrey steeled herself to reply with what she knew Ilse wanted to hear.
“Yes. I think it is.”
On a Thursday night in late March, Audrey was squeezed next to Rolf Weber at The Adlon. The upholstered half-moon booth was spacious enough for them, Gerta Roth and her friend Marianne, and Otto Basner and his secretary, but Weber purposefully pressed up against Audrey, his breath steamy against her neck. The air was thick with jazz, noisy conversation, and a bluish haze of cigarette smoke. Audrey preferred the more spirited, edgier swing jazz she’d listened to when she was back in England—the sort the Americans and the rest of Europe enjoyed now—if it was ever played. But the instrumentals at German clubs, including the premier Adlon lounge, were limited to the jazz prescribed by Goebbels and the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment: written and performed by Third Reich–approved artists and considered acceptable for the ears of good Germans.
“I love this song,” Gerta Roth said, standing and pulling Marianne to her feet. “Let’s dance.”
Her husband, Ernst, hadn’t come with her tonight. Hitler was on a speaking tour, which had taken Ernst out of town for nearly two weeks, but Gerta didn’t let that stop her from having fun, and plenty of it. She was a plain-looking woman with a fiery disposition at odds with her mouse-brown hair and short stature.
Gerta flashed Audrey a broad grin. “Ada? You never dance! Come on!”
Audrey had come to suspect that valuable information was not going to come directly from Weber, who never danced, but preferred to sit close to Audrey and play with her hair. Despite her attempts to flirt information out of him, he always rebuffed any talk of work. With each overpriced glass of spirits, his comments became more risqué, his hands more curious. She hadn’t yet learned a damn thing of value, but Weber still served a purpose: he was the vehicle for Audrey to access the Roths and any details they might possess about Hitler’s schedule.
Audrey smiled and made to stand up, but Weber seized her arm and shook his head.
“Uh, Rolf, you’re such a fossil!” Gerta rolled her eyes at Weber, but he waved her away.
Another half hour passed whilst Audrey sat in quiet, suggestive conversation with Weber, her insides burning with frustration and disgust. When Otto and his secretary left, he leaned in to kiss her neck and she willed herself not to bristle, casting her eyes over to the dance floor. Gerta was now hanging off Marianne, who appeared to be supporting her. She gestured away from the floor and Gerta nodded, putting a hand to her mouth. They were heading for the ladies’ toilets, and Audrey spied an opportunity. The brass continued to blare as Weber turned Audrey’s face to him, pressed his lips onto hers, leaving behind the taste of gin and dominance. A sort of growl slipped through his mouth, a sound of impatient longing, and she pulled away, smiled demurely.
“I’m just going to freshen up,” she shouted over the din. He nodded, and released his grip on her.
“Five minutes,” he said.
She slid from the booth with a feeling of having slipped a trap, and hurried toward the toilets.
“Ada!” Gerta exclaimed. She was standing at the sinks. Marianne was clearly in a stall. Gerta slid a little on the tile floor as she reached for Audrey, who was glad, for her sake, that Ernst wasn’t here tonight. Women in the Reich weren’t meant to drink to excess, and he wouldn’t have liked her behaviour. Audrey hoped Weber wouldn’t mention it to him.
“Are you okay?” Audrey asked.
“Ugh, yes. It’s those gin and tonics.”
In the stall, Marianne urinated with a little sigh.
“I think when you’re done here, we should get you a taxi,” Audrey suggested. She thought for a beat. “I’ll ride with you.” She would figure out some way to dodge Weber. She hadn’t yet had a chance like this, alone with Gerta, and wasn’t about to squander it.
Gerta gave a childlike frown. “There’s no one waiting for me, what does it matter? Ernst won’t even be home until Saturday. They’re in Frankfurt until tomorrow.”
Excitement flared. This was what Audrey had hoped for. “You said they’ve been all over for this speaking tour?” she asked.
“Yes, he hasn’t even telegrammed from the hotels,” Gerta complained. “In eight days!”
“But then he’ll be back for a while, right?”
Gerta turned to the mirror and patted her hair, tried to fix a rogue strand. She grasped it between her fingers on the second attempt. “Yes. A week. No.” She shook her head. “What day is it? Two weeks. Two weeks. Then we’re going to Hanover.”
The stall door slammed and Marianne came out, washed her hands with the hotel’s expensive soap. The pungent scent of lily-of-the-valley filled the room as Gerta continued to struggle with her hair.
“Let me,” Audrey said, moving behind her. Repinning Gerta’s errant curls, she casually asked, “What are you doing in Hanover? A little getaway?”
“Sort of,” Gerta said. “Ernst is driving the Führer, but we’re going to stay over, visit a couple of friends. Get a smart hotel.”
A little shiver danced across Audrey’s shoulders.
“Come on,” Marianne said, ignoring Audrey. “I’m hungry. Let’s go for dinner.” She seized Gerta’s arm, but Audrey caught the other and held fast. Marianne shrugged and exited the bathroom, muttering about her hunger. A cacophony of loud brass swelled for a moment before the polished wooden door swung shut.
“What’s the Führer doing there?” Audrey pressed, blood pulsing through her temples.
Gerta stepped back, thoughtful, and swayed. “I think it’s some Hitler Youth thing,” she said. “At the Opera House.”
Audrey’s heart raced. She needed to know when, but she didn’t want to risk Gerta’s suspicions by asking more. Or was Gerta too drunk to remember that she’d revealed anything at all? It was a gamble. Not one she was willing to take. Hopefully knowing the day would be enough.
“Well, I’m so glad the two of you will get a chance to spend some time together,” she said brightly.
Gerta smiled, though her expression was pained. “I know I should feel fortunate that we’re so close to the Führer,” she said, leaning into Audrey, her eyes unfocused. “But sometimes it feels like he might ruin us.”