A few weeks later, Sabine was sitting in the kitchen preparing tea, when the bell rang.
“I’ll open it,” Frau Klausen said and disappeared.
Sabine didn’t give it much thought since she never received visitors anyway. Several minutes later, Frau Klausen returned with a beautiful blonde woman and a dark-blond bearded man in tow.
“This is Sabine,” Frau Klausen said, introducing them, “our bombed-out refugee. And this is my second daughter, Anna, and her boyfriend, Peter Wolf.”
“Nice to meet you,” Anna said, giving Sabine a friendly smile.
“The same to you,” Sabine answered and extended her hand. The moment she shook Anna’s hand, she knew the smile had been fake. Anna’s palpable dislike for her crackled in the air.
The man called Peter Wolf was huge, with the build of a wrestler and he had the most amazing glacial blue eyes. But despite his pleasant exterior she felt the same carefully hidden vigilance in his demeanor. Both of them were more than the eye could see.
Under his piercing gaze, Sabine felt like an insect under a microscope. No, he was definitely hiding something. It wasn’t anything he said or did, but rather, just a feeling she got.
Maybe he was also part of the underground network? Could he be the person in charge and she’d been spying on the wrong sister? Sabine tabled that thought for later and tried to become invisible to the others, hoping to gather some valuable information.
“Where’s Ursula?” Anna asked her mother.
“Queuing for rations,” Frau Klausen said, shrugging. “Poor girl. So far along, and now the entire household rests on her shoulders. I would rather see her safe in the country with Lydia, but she insists that she’s needed here.”
Sabine pricked up her ears, hoping Frau Klausen would spill a few facts about why exactly Ursula was needed here. Anna and her boyfriend were surely in the know. But Peter Wolf slashed Sabine’s hopes when he asked Frau Klausen for the hand of her daughter in marriage.
So romantic! For a moment, Sabine forgot that she was here to spy on them.
Frau Klausen, though, didn’t seem to be pleased at all because she plopped down on the kitchen chair and stared at her daughter and future son-in-law, laughing uncontrollably.
A prickle of fear settled in Sabine’s chest, as she’d never seen Frau Klausen showing her emotions in such an exuberant way.
“We’ll take my mother to her room,” Anna said with a hard glance at Sabine, and Sabine dutifully stepped out of the way.
Damn it! Just when she might be letting down her guard. Sabine wouldn’t give up so easily, and tiptoed to Frau Klausen’s bedroom, sharpening her ears. The hysterical giggling stopped, but just when Sabine inched closer, the radio in the bedroom blared a program with folk songs. Double damn it!
The Klausens were incredibly careful. The entire apartment and the phone line were bugged, and yet the Gestapo had never picked up anything remotely helpful in their quest to capture the head of the underground organization.
In fact, the only time Ursula or her mother had ever given Sabine any indication that things were not as they seemed was during that first night in the shelter. Since that time, no mention of hiding people or helping individuals avoid detection and capture by the authorities had escaped Ursula’s lips.
Sabine leaned up against the door, straining to hear what was going on behind the wood partition, when suddenly, the door swung open and she stumbled. Righting herself, she turned and looked up into the blazing eyes of Peter Wolf.
Wolf, what a fitting name. She instinctively took a step back, afraid he’d pounce at her and bite down on her throat. Her heart hammering frantically against her ribs, she struggled to come up with a believable excuse. Something. Anything.
“What the hell!” He pulled the door shut and took a threatening step toward her. “What are you doing? Eavesdropping?”
Sabine feebly shook her head. “No, I just…I’ve never seen Frau Klausen so upset and I thought…well, I only want to help.”
As excuses went, it was weak, and she could tell by the look on Peter’s face that he didn’t believe a single word she’d just said. He advanced on her, forcing her backwards until her back hit the wall. His irate stare bore through her with intense heat. She seemed to shrivel into a dwarf and held her breath, waiting for him to kill her right there and then. Everything about him screamed danger.
“Tell me why you were listening at the door,” he demanded, his breath moving over her face.
Sabine swallowed and struggled to inhale. “I only wanted to help…Frau Klausen and Ursula have been so kind…having me in their home…”
“I don’t believe you.” He searched her eyes and said with a calm, yet ominous voice, “If you hurt my family, I will kill you. That is a promise.”
Sabine didn’t have a chance to reply because a knock came on the apartment door. For a moment she thought Peter Wolf would ignore it and continue to threaten her, but he cursed beneath his breath and removed his hands from beside her shoulders.
“Remember what I said,” he cautioned her as he headed for the front door.
Sabine stood there crestfallen, while Peter opened the door and greeted a young girl around the age of twelve who had a small cloth-wrapped loaf of bread in her hands. “Could you see that Frau Klausen gets this? It’s from my mother.”
“Thank you. I’ll make sure she gets it. Take care going home,” Peter said in such a friendly voice, as if he hadn’t just threatened to kill someone.
“I will.”
To avoid another confrontation with this disquieting man, Sabine darted into her room, shutting and locking the door. It seemed she’d now placed herself between the Gestapo and whoever this Peter was working for.
For a fleeting moment she considered disappearing. Pack her meager belongings and leave the country. But, as soon as the thought arose, she tamped it down. She couldn’t leave. Not without Werner.
She could never live with the guilt of having abandoned the one person who loved her unconditionally.
No. Regardless of how difficult it was, she had to stay the course.