SIXTEEN

MUNICH
SUNDAY, JULY 10, 1938

On the street before Evelyn, six horses draped in colorful blankets towed a float bearing a statue of a giant eagle perched on a swastika.

Seated in the grandstand beside Libby, Evelyn took notes for her article on the Day of German Art.

What a relief to sit among snide-talking foreign correspondents, with no expectations to cheer or salute.

A band marched past playing martial music, followed by men of the Nazi Motor Corps on their motorcycles.

Libby flipped through the parade program. On the cover, a bare-chested man held up a torch and a swastika flag. “The parade’s almost over.”

“Good.” The rain had cleared and the weather was cool, but Evelyn had had enough.

Today wrapped up the three-day Festival of German Art, with concerts, lectures, and a spectacle of fireworks to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Part of it was impressive, even beautiful, but the militarism and propaganda nauseated her.

Hundreds of shirtless young men marched past in dark green trousers, shovels propped on their shoulders like rifles, the members of the Labor Service, who dug ditches and built roads and worked the farms in their mandatory six months of service.

This was probably all up Peter’s alley.

Or was it?

Evelyn made notes. The old Peter might have liked this, but not the new Peter. He brought her good information from the Nazi meetings, most of it too good to use. An article about the Party recruiting men to go to Czechoslovakia and incite the German speakers to riot would be sensational, but Evelyn would get pitched out of Germany and Peter would land in jail.

The cynic in her wondered if Peter’s spying was only a ploy to win her heart. Except he hadn’t asked her out for ages. Since the hike at the Partnach Gorge a month and a half earlier.

Evelyn tapped her pen on her notepad as SS troops marched by in sharp black uniforms.

She shouldn’t miss his invitations, but she did. His attention had been flattering, the mutual attraction stirring. But she’d directed her sharp points at him too many times, and he’d given up. Strangely enough, that hadn’t ended their friendship. He still came to the café, and they still had spirited conversations.

Dozens of women glided down the street in long white robes and flowing capes—the Edelfrauen, the noble or ideal women. Curvaceous, gentle, domestic. Evelyn’s opposite in every way.

Libby leaned her shoulder against Evelyn’s. “What’s going on with the other correspondents?”

Evelyn glanced around at the men and a handful of women. None met her eye, even those she knew from Paris or Berlin. But then she’d been exiled to Munich for almost a year.

“They keep pointing at you. Some are snickering.” Under the brim of her spring hat, Libby’s brown eyes narrowed.

Evelyn grumbled. “I’ll never live down dressing like a man at that Paris press conference.”

Libby chuckled.

But stories of the Paris incident usually led to ribbing, not snubbing, and Evelyn frowned.

One last horse-drawn float passed, a giant statue of a naked man with the ubiquitous torch and flag, and the correspondents exited the press area.

Evelyn and Libby strolled down the street toward the Haus der Kunst—the House of Art, which had opened a year ago. Built in the massive, chunky style the Nazis favored, the museum stretched in a long limestone box with marble columns that led the locals to dub it the Weisswurstpalast—the White Sausage Palace.

In the morning, Hitler had made a grandiose speech opening the 1938 Greater German Art Exhibit, which would run through October 16.

At the museum entrance, Evelyn showed her press pass and Libby handed in her ticket.

The ladies wandered through the spacious rooms past an enormous portrait of Hitler, busts of Hitler, a painting of Hitler at the infamous 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.

A painting of corpulent Hermann Göring in hunting garb, with dead birds piled beside him.

Evelyn exchanged a glance with Libby and turned away quickly so she wouldn’t laugh.

They passed pastoral scenes of farmers in the field, militant scenes of marching brownshirts, and nudes.

So many nudes. Well-muscled men in heroic poses and well-rounded women lounging in gardens and homes.

Libby giggled. “Apparently clothing violates Nazi ideology.”

Evelyn smothered her own laugh and entered the next room.

The works were competent without genius, without creativity, without innovation. And certainly without modernism. Only Nazi-approved artists and Nazi-approved subjects and Nazi-approved techniques.

Libby sighed and frowned at yet another nude female statue. “I want to go home.”

Evelyn sighed back. “I have to see the whole exhibit for my article, but you don’t have to stay.”

“No, I want to go home to the States.” Libby faced her in the middle of the sterile white limestone room.

“But you’re a sensation here.”

Libby gestured with a graceful hand around the room. “My wings are clipped as much as these artists’ are. I love Mozart and Bach and Beethoven. But I also love the Russian composers and the Jewish ones, even the moderns—not my favorite, but I like the challenge.”

Evelyn twisted her red purse strap and stifled her protests, all of which were selfish. Libby had welcomed her into her apartment when Evelyn had been sent to Munich, and rooming with her had been wonderful, just like college. “How much longer will you stay?”

“A few more months. I have offers in New York. I feel awful leaving you in the lurch with our apart—”

“Never mind that. I should be in Berlin soon. If not, I can afford it. But I’ll miss you, of course.”

They resumed their tour, and Evelyn paused in front of a portrait of Dr. Joseph Goebbels. The artist had captured the intelligence on the man’s gaunt face, but he’d imbued him with a thoughtful spirit. Evelyn had only attended a few of Goebbels’s press conferences. The Minister of Propaganda had surprising wit and a grin that transformed his face from sharp to genial, but occasionally something sinister flashed in his eyes, chilling Evelyn to the bone.

“Admiring your boyfriend, Brand?” a male voice said behind her.

Evelyn turned to Bert Sorensen of the New York Press-Herald. “Pardon?”

Sorensen flicked his pointy chin to Goebbels’s portrait. “Gonna plant a kiss on those lips, Gigi?”

Evelyn hiked up an eyebrow. “Gigi?” No one had ever called her that. She didn’t even have a G in her name.

The reporter’s gray eyes sparked with a mean sort of teasing. “That’s what we call you—Goebbels’s Girl.”

“Goeb—what! That’s disgusting. They don’t think I’m—” She waved a hand toward the portrait.

“Making little Nazis with him? No. Just living in his back pocket.”

Evelyn’s chest filled with churning, burning heat. “Why on earth would anyone think that?”

He barked out a laugh. “We see your articles. We read them to ourselves when we want a laugh—‘each athlete reveling in the joy of camaraderie’ and all that.”

Norwood. Evelyn’s lips pressed tightly together. How could she be both honest and diplomatic? “That is not how I wrote those articles. They were edited. Heavily.”

“Sure, they were.” He winked. “You fit in at the ANS—Adolf’s News Service.”

Evelyn’s mouth hung open, and she slowly turned to Libby, whose mouth also hung open. “Now I want to go home. I have a phone call to make.”

“Mr. Norwood’s in France,” the receptionist at the Berlin bureau said. “Mr. O’Hara’s in charge in his absence. Would you like to speak to him?”

“Yes, please.” Evelyn stood by the phone, drumming her fingers on the table, reminding herself to speak cautiously in case the phone line was tapped.

A few clicks. “Hey, Ev. What’s up?”

All caution went up in flames. “Goebbels’s Girl? Adolf’s News Service? Have you heard this?”

Mitch O’Hara groaned. “I have.”

“Because of Norwood.”

“He’s afraid we’ll get kicked out and—”

“It’s more than that. Have you seen my articles, how he’s edited them? He doesn’t just make sure the Nazis don’t look bad—he makes them look good.”

“I’ve only seen a few.”

“Listen.” Evelyn spread out a clipping and an original article. “This is what I wrote about the movie Olympia—‘The athletes march in precise formation. The camera skims past faces and shows muscled arms and legs swinging in uniformity, the individuals blending into a mass.’ That would have passed, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” O’Hara said. “That works.”

“This is how Norwood edited it—‘They march in precise formation. Riefenstahl’s camera shows the beauty of muscled arms and legs swinging in unity, each athlete reveling in the joy of camaraderie.’”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“There’s so much more.” Evelyn put her hand on her hip. “Everything negative deleted. Everything neutral made positive. Everything positive expanded.”

“What’d he do to your café article?”

“Rejected it.”

O’Hara fell silent. No, not silent. Low curses flowed through the telephone line.

Evelyn strode to her desk, as far as the cord allowed. “Now I have two articles to write, on the art festival and the art exhibit. He’ll edit those to death too.”

“He’s at the Evian Conference this week.”

“Of course, he is. Plum assignment like that.”

“Not so plum. Nothing’s coming out of that conference.”

Evelyn picked through papers on her desk. As pressures increased on the Jews to leave Germany—and as life became increasingly difficult for them—they were seeking new homes. But quotas and restrictions in other nations hindered their escape.

President Roosevelt had called an international conference to resolve the problem, but since the US State Department refused to increase America’s immigration quota from Germany, the US had lost moral leverage.

“Say, Ev. I’m in charge while he’s gone.”

She smiled. “You’ll edit my stories?”

“I don’t have time for that nonsense. Send them to New York, same as the rest of us do.”

Evelyn restrained a childish cheer—on the outside anyway. “I would love that.”

“Tell you what. How many articles are you working on? Finish them fast. I don’t expect Norwood back until the eighteenth. Get as many articles to New York as you can. You know how to follow the rules now.”

“I do.” She’d make sure no Nazi would squirm—but Americans would.

“Say . . . that café article. You didn’t throw it away, did you?”

“No. It’s too close to my heart.”

“Update it. You know what I mean.”

“I do.” On July 6, Germany had passed a law requiring all Jewish-owned businesses to be closed or sold by the end of the year. “I’ll update it and send it tomorrow.”

“Good. I have an idea.”

Evelyn grinned at her piles of articles, soon to see the light. She didn’t know what O’Hara’s idea was, but she knew she liked it.