MUNICH
TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1938
In Hugendubel’s bookstore on Salvatorplatz, Peter browsed the selection. Since he’d arrived in Germany, he’d been building his collection of German-language books. At first, he’d been pleased to find so many. Today all he could see were the missing authors. The banned authors.
Thomas Mann. Lion Feuchtwanger. Alfred Döblin. Erich Maria Remarque. Hermann Broch.
Some were Jewish. Some spoke out against the Nazis. Some were deemed unpatriotic. All had been banned in their home country.
Peter’s stomach tightened, and he left the store without making a purchase.
He strode down the street. Ahead of him, the Frauenkirche lifted twin domed towers in the muggy air.
How could a nation that produced wonders like cathedrals and glockenspiels and bratwurst also ban her best authors and put dissenters in concentration camps?
Peter heaved a sigh and marched ahead. In a few minutes, he rounded the Frauenkirche’s red-brick façade, made his way down a narrow lane, and crossed the Marienplatz. He was too early for the glockenspiel, but he didn’t care.
“Peter Lang!”
Otto von Albrecht approached with an older man wearing the tailored black uniform of the Schutzstaffel, the SS. “Vater, this is Peter Lang, the American graduate student I told you about. Herr Lang, this is my father, Standartenführer Ludwig Graf von Albrecht.”
A colonel and a count. Peter shook his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Herr Standartenführer.”
Otto adjusted his brown kepi cap on his square head. “Where are you going?”
He couldn’t very well say he was going to a café owned by a Jewish man to report on the Students’ League meeting to an American correspondent. “Gärtnerplatz. I’m preparing next week’s final examinations for my students, and there’s a little park where I like to work.”
“We will walk with you.” Count von Albrecht had the same stocky build and quick gait as his son. “You should go to the Englischer Garten. It is bigger and more beautiful.”
“It is, but I like this one too.” Peter turned left beside St. Peterskirche, the high stone walls cooling him on the street below.
Otto nodded to his father. “Herr Lang comes to all the Students’ League meetings, and he has come to several Party meetings this month.”
“Good.” Gray eyes assessed Peter. “Otto tells me you are impressed with the Reich.”
“Very much. You have achieved great order. I can only hope my nation follows suit.” He hated lying, but the more he talked like Otto and his friends, the more they welcomed him and the more information he obtained for Evelyn’s articles.
Otto grinned at Peter. “Your students will return to America with good reports.”
“Naturally.” Peter strode down the cobbled pavement in step with the black boots of Otto and his father. But in the two weeks since the destruction of the synagogue, he’d engaged the students in discussions of the issues he was mulling over. He hoped to raise questions, to encourage speaking up, and to remind them not to brush away concerns, but to address them.
The three men crossed the street into the busy Viktualienmarkt with its stalls of fresh produce. However, the spring cold snap had depleted the stock of fruit.
Otto frowned at the meager offerings in one stall. “It is important that Americans hear the truth about Germany, to overcome the lies of your Jews.”
Bile rose in Peter’s throat, but he swallowed it and prayed for forgiveness for the words he had to speak. “Yes, it is.”
The count stopped at a produce stall under a blue-and-white striped awning. He hefted a potato. “Most Germans dismiss America as of no importance to us. Your nation is young, weak, far away. But they have misjudged you.”
“Thank you.” Peter shifted his attaché case from one hand to the other. By skipping the glockenspiel, he was ahead of schedule, but not if his companions insisted on grocery shopping.
Count von Albrecht set the potato in a scale, then added two smaller potatoes on the other side. The balance wobbled. “France and England oppose everything we do, but they are weak willed.”
“Yes, Herr Standartenführer.” Peter couldn’t deny that. Both nations had been bloodied in the trenches in the last war and had no taste for another war.
“But America . . .” He held up a potato to Peter. “You like to stay on your side of the ocean, nicht wahr?”
“That is true.”
“Good.” The count swung the potato back and forth above the two pans of the scale. “If you stay on your side of the ocean, you let things settle the way they should. But if you choose, you can tip the balance one way or the other. That is why we need friends in America.”
“Herr Lang is a friend,” Otto said. “He will be an excellent voice for us.”
That old longing for influence tugged at him, but now he tugged back and in new directions. Like exercising a weak muscle, he did so carefully but diligently, knowing the discomfort would make him stronger.
“That is my goal,” Peter said. “I want people to know the truth about Germany. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with my favorite park bench.” Actually, it was his favorite reporter, but they didn’t need to know that.
After pleasantries were exchanged, Peter continued south.
For the past few weeks, everything had felt off-kilter. He’d always been a straightforward man, but now he talked in different ways depending on the company. It was for a good cause though, to obtain information for Evelyn.
He left the marketplace and headed down Reichenbachstrasse, lined by stately five-story buildings. Such a clean street, free of mobs and chaos.
Guilt squirmed in his stomach. Some days, he felt as if he was betraying his father’s memory.
For years, he’d believed any enemy of his enemy was his friend. But just because the Nazis opposed communism didn’t make them right. They were simply wrong in a different way. Peter didn’t have to choose one side or the other—he had to choose what was good.
And what was good?
“‘To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.’” He repeated Micah 6:8, which he’d memorized since the rabbi quoted it.
Peter was trying to walk that new way, that humble way, that both-sides way. Lately, he’d spent a lot of time in the Old Testament, which the Nazis rejected.
Exodus and Numbers and Leviticus and Deuteronomy were full of laws from the Lord. Many were laws of order, to restrain and punish evildoers. But many were laws of mercy, to protect the vulnerable, the poor, the widows, the orphans, and the aliens in the land.
Peter pushed his glasses higher on his nose. Both order and mercy were required for a harmonious society. When one was chosen over the other, only suffering resulted.
Peter had seen that suffering firsthand. His father’s death. The synagogue’s destruction.
Herr Gold had told him the rabbi was recovering. Most of the synagogue’s treasures had been saved, thanks to the congregation’s hard work. That night after taking Evelyn home, Peter had returned to help. He only had two arms and a car, but every bit made a difference.
He turned onto the roundabout, and the garden of the Gärtnerplatz filled his nose with freshness. Soon the smell of coffee and pastries added to the pleasure. The only good thing missing was Evelyn.
“Ach! Herr Lang.” Herr Gold rushed to greet him, with another man by his side. “I would like you to meet my dear brother, my sister’s husband, Gottfried Werner.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Herr Werner.” Peter shook the man’s hand. Herr Werner was as tall and plump and blond as Herr Gold was small and trim and dark.
“I am pleased to meet you too.” Herr Werner gave a polite little bow. “Please—which table would you like?”
“It is such a warm day. I will sit outside.”
Herr Gold opened the door for him. “Coffee and a Krapfen?”
“You know me well.” Out on the sidewalk, Peter found a table shaded by the awning. He took off his hat to let the breeze cool him, and he pulled his folder from his attaché case.
After the summer semester ended in early July, Peter would make the final set of recordings from this class.
This summer, before the winter semester started in October, he would write his lesson plans for the incoming students and work on his dissertation. The background material could be written before he had his final data.
“Your coffee and Krapfen.” Herr Gold set out Peter’s refreshments, then he gazed over the plaza.
Peter added two splashes of milk to his coffee. “Your brother-in-law seems kind. How goes the sale of the café?”
Herr Gold sighed and sat at the adjacent table, where Evelyn would have sat. “The government wants me to sell but makes it difficult and expensive to do so.”
“I am sorry. But then you will still work here, ja?”
“As long as I am able.”
“Able? Are you sick?” He looked hale and hearty.
“I am not sick. I am Jewish.” Herr Gold sent him a wry smile. “First they banned us from civil and military service. Now they’ve banned us from working in industry. Soon there will be no work for us.”
This in a country that locked people up for being “work shy.” Peter turned the plate around and around. “Why do they want you all unemployed?”
“They want us out. They want us to leave Germany.”
How horrible to be unwelcome in your home country. “Have you considered leaving?”
“We are trying. But where to go?” Herr Gold shrugged. “My people do not have a homeland. England rules Palestine, and they have strict quotas so as not to anger the Arabs.”
Peter murmured his sympathy.
“Shall I go east?” Herr Gold gestured in that direction. “Poland and Hungary and Romania have antisemitic laws too. Shall I go south? Italy only allows baptized Jews, and Spain is in the middle of a civil war. Shall I go west? To France? England? America? Everyone has quotas. My wife and I are on many waiting lists, but they are long. No one wants us.”
Peter did. He would gladly welcome the Golds, the entire synagogue congregation, into his community. “If I can help in any way . . . my family has connections.” But those connections felt flimsy in the face of such obstacles.
Herr Gold slapped his hands on his thighs and smiled at Peter. “It is too beautiful a day to talk of ugly things. Now, where is your Fräulein Brand?”
“I don’t know, but she is not my Fräulein Brand.”
“I thought—after that night you helped us—”
“She is a friend.” Peter took a sip of coffee. “It is good to have friends.”
Herr Gold grinned and whacked Peter on the arm. “It is better to have a wife. Keep pursuing her. You will wear her down.”
That would be the worst possible thing to do to her, the least compassionate.
Peter bit into his donut. He would help her with his reports on the Students’ League and Party meetings. He would enjoy the friendship, even savor the attraction. Maybe someday she’d fall for him.
Probably not.
Regardless, he refused to be another hunter on her trail.
Perhaps he should leave the café before she arrived. A strange and sad idea, but right and good.
Peter finished the pastry and pulled an envelope from his attaché case—his report from the meeting. He handed it to Herr Gold. “This is for Fräulein Brand. Please give it to her.”
“You will not wait?”
Peter returned his papers to his attaché case. “I shall return to my dark little office where warm breezes and colorful flowers do not distract me from my work.”
Herr Gold waved the envelope with a teasing look. “A love letter?”
Let him think what he wanted. Peter set down his payment, stood, and shook the café owner’s hand. “For her eyes only.”
Attaché case in hand, he strolled down the sidewalk around the park.
“Peter?” Evelyn stood by the fountain in the center of the park, wearing a summer dress.
“Good day, Evelyn.” He smiled and waved. “Don’t worry. I saved a Krapfen for you.”
“Are you leaving already?” She almost sounded disappointed.
“I am. Herr Gold has something for you.” Another wave, and he continued on his way.
Everything in him wanted to turn around and resume the chase, but he urged his feet homeward.
“Compassion,” he muttered. “Kindness. Mercy.”