MUNICH
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1938
“I hear it now.” Jim Purcell’s eyes widened as he sat in front of Peter’s Dictaphone.
“Good.” Peter opened the sleek black case and removed the wax cylinder.
“That’s fantastic.” Jim grinned at Professor Johannes Schreiber seated beside him. “I mean, ‘Das ist fantastisch.’ When I speak, in my head I sound like you. But when I listen to the recording, I hear how bad my accent is.”
“It isn’t bad.” Peter smiled at the junior year student and slid the cylinder into its numbered cardboard tube. “And you will improve.”
“With you teaching me, I will.” Jim stood and pumped Peter’s hand. “Thanks a million, Teach.”
Peter chuckled and said good-bye.
Professor Schreiber fingered the corrugated steel tube that connected the mouthpiece to the Dictaphone. “I am finally convinced.”
Peter placed the tube in its slot in the crate and suppressed a smile. “Convinced about this contraption or about my techniques?”
“Both. They go together. Now I see that not everything new is bad.”
Peter perched on the edge of the desk and gave the professor a teasing smile. “Flexibility, ja? Didn’t you tell me that when storms come, the reed bends but the stick breaks?”
Professor Schreiber blinked a few times, his brow furrowed, but then he smiled. “I did.”
“I’m glad my techniques have won you over.” Peter crossed his arms. “The problem remains that they work best in small groups. I can partly overcome this by training teachers in my methods and by placing diagrams of the mouth in textbooks.”
The professor scratched his chin. “You will include this in your dissertation, ja? How is it going?”
“It’s going well.” Peter opened the file drawer in his desk, pulled out the draft, and handed it to the professor. “I have fifty pages already.”
“Good.” Schreiber flipped through. “Your background section . . .”
Peter resumed his perch. “I describe the strengths and weaknesses of current teaching methods and the difficulties native English speakers have with the German language.”
“Excellent, then a section describing your teaching techniques.”
“Yes. I’ve also made a good start on my study methodology, and I’m typing up the data from my earlier recordings.”
“You will send this case to America soon?” He nodded to the crate full of recordings from the beginning of the winter semester.
“Tomorrow.” Peter had rated each recording from one to ten, beginner to fluent. Since he knew the students, he wasn’t impartial, so professors at Harvard also rated the recordings.
“If only Frau Schreiber and I could stow away.” He smiled wistfully at the case.
“Any word from Hans-Jürgen?”
“Ja.” His face brightened. “He loves Harvard. He has met some of your former students and has made friends. But he is . . . surprised.”
“Surprised?”
The professor stroked the edge of the desk, his mouth shifted from side to side, and he stared hard at the telephone. “He has met many Americans who hold to Nazi ideology.”
Peter followed Schreiber’s stare. Did he think there was a listening device in the telephone? “It is popular at American universities. However, students are allowed to hold other ideologies as well.” He flicked his head to the phone to let the professor know he’d received his message. “In this you see America’s great strength and great weakness.”
Professor Schreiber lifted a partial smile. Peter’s statement could be interpreted in two opposing ways.
The phone rang. Both men startled, then laughed.
The professor stood. “I will let you take your call. Auf Wiedersehen.”
“Wiedersehen. Give Hans-Jürgen my best.” Peter answered the phone. “Hallo?”
“Peter, old man, old friend.”
“Hi, George.” Peter settled into his desk chair. He could practically smell the whiskey through the telephone line. Why was George drunk at one o’clock in the afternoon? Celebration or dejection? “Have you found a job?”
George cussed.
Peter raised one eyebrow. George had never been one for cussing. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand. You and I—we have family in Congress, friends in power. Why can’t we get control of the papers? All owned by communists. That’s why they won’t hire me.”
Even when Peter was most virulently anti-communist, he wouldn’t have agreed. “Are you still in Berlin?”
“Uh-huh. Writing freelance articles. Sold a few.”
Clamping the phone receiver between his shoulder and ear, Peter stacked the pages of his dissertation and filed it. “That’s good. You’ll get a job.”
“No. No. They only want drivel from hacks like that Brand girl.”
Peter’s hand clenched around the drawer handle. Evelyn was no hack. “There’s no need—”
“D’you know how much I had to edit her work? Full of lies and warmongering and sensationalism. Now she’s the darling of the news world.”
“Is that so?” Peter smiled to himself.
“ANS let her cover the Munich Conference. Can you believe it? And what’d she do? Wrote a bunch of lies about Czech envoys being confined. Garbage.”
Peter took off his glasses and rubbed the inner corners of his eyes. “George—”
“All the world was rejoicing. Dancing in the streets in Berlin and Paris and London. You saw. Chamberlain said they’d achieved ‘peace for our time.’ He’s right. Peace. And that Brand girl’s articles sounded like funeral dirges.”
Peter sighed. Evelyn’s articles had been masterpieces. Instead of stating opinions that could have gotten her expelled, she’d raised questions to provoke thought. What was more important—one nation’s desire for peace or another nation’s desire for sovereignty and freedom?
The tone was indeed somber, as it needed to be. German troops had occupied the Sudetenland without firing a shot, and Hitler had been emboldened. He would keep nibbling away at surrounding nations until someone slapped his wrist. Meanwhile, the German military grew stronger, which would make future wrist-slapping far deadlier.
“That Brand girl.” A sound of liquid sloshing. “She messed with the wrong people.”
Peter’s jaw tightened, and he pushed back his chair and got to his feet. He’d been afraid Evelyn would be expelled for her scoop about the Czech envoys, but she hadn’t been. Meanwhile, George needed to be talked down. Maybe a change in subject.
He circled the desk, raising the phone cord so it wouldn’t knock books off his desk. “Say, have you talked to Charles lately? Has the embassy made any progress getting a visa for my friend Jakob Gold?”
“You’re wasting your time, old boy.” More sloshing. “You know how many Jews are clogging up the waiting list? We have a quota for a reason. Charles might be able to bring in a scientist or an industrialist, but a baker? With ten million unemployed in America, we can’t let in people like that.”
People like that? Peter couldn’t stand another minute. “I need to go.”
“Sure. Good old Peter. What would I do without you?”
“Good-bye, George.” He hung up.
His head throbbed, and he rubbed his temples. How could George talk that way about Evelyn? About Herr Gold? Was it due to unemployment and whiskey? Or had the unemployment and whiskey merely unmasked meanness that lay beneath the surface?
Peter put his glasses back on and returned books to his bookshelf. The sooner Herr Gold left Germany, the better.
Things grew worse for the Jews every day. Germany had revoked the licenses of almost all Jewish physicians and lawyers, with the remainder only allowed to aid fellow Jews. The Reich had also revoked all passports for Jews and required them to obtain new ones, stamped with J for Jude—Jew. Jewish people were even required to have “Jewish names” by the first of the year or to add new names—Israel for men and Sara for women.
At least Herr and Frau Gold had obtained visas for Bolivia and were collecting the documents required for exit visas.
Herr Gold might not have been a scientist, but he was a bright and funny man who gave generously to friends. And his definition of friend was wide and long. Due to shortsighted politicians and their quotas, the US wouldn’t benefit from those fine traits. Bolivia would.
At his desk, Peter pulled out his research log and made sure the data was complete for the recordings he’d ship to the States the next day.
After he finished, he’d go to the café and tell Herr Gold the bad news. Maybe he’d see Evelyn. However, she’d started visiting the café at a later time. Too dangerous to see him, she insisted in the notes she left with Herr Gold.
With a groan, Peter closed the logbook. Too dangerous because of the Gestapo or because of him?
He’d pushed too hard at the Oktoberfest, but he’d do it again. He loved her too much not to push.
“Entschuldigung? Herr Lang?” Two army officers entered his office.
Peter greeted the men in gray. He’d met Oberst Heinz-Eugen Eberhardt at Nazi Party meetings, but not the older officer. Eberhardt introduced him as General Rolf Richter.
Peter showed them to the chairs in front of his desk, and the general sat, removed his peaked cap, and smoothed pewter strands of hair over the top of his head.
Eberhardt closed the office door. “I will get to the point, Herr Lang. I investigated your credentials and brought you to the general’s attention.”
Peter strolled behind the desk, his back to the men, his breath hard in his throat. “May I ask why?”
“We are interested in your research,” Eberhardt said. “We would like to invite you to remain in Germany after your year is over.”
Remain? When he was counting the days until the semester was over? Peter prayed for calm, sat in his desk chair, and spread his hands and his smile wide. “Ach, if only I could. But I must return to Harvard to finish my doctorate.”
Eberhardt sat too, and a disarming grin transformed his long face. “We have spoken to the faculty. The University of Munich will accept your work and grant your doctorate.”
Highly unorthodox. “Thank you, but—”
“You will join the faculty, a great honor at your young age. And we would hire you.”
“The . . .” Peter’s gaze darted between the officers. “The German army?”
General Richter’s small eyes gleamed in his full face. “You can imagine how useful your skills would be to us.”
Peter couldn’t breathe. He had to look like a Nazi sympathizer—his life depended on it. But he absolutely could not take the job.
He managed to chuckle. “I’m sure your men would find an American accent useful when visiting the States.”
“Yes,” the colonel said. “Or England. The Americans and English are friends, ja?”
“Too much so,” Peter said.
The officers laughed.
Peter shifted his shoes and found the perfect excuse. “Although I would love to accept your offer—it’s an honor—I have another assignment for Germany.”
Eberhardt frowned. “What sort of assignment?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, but it comes from high up. Sadly, it requires me to leave this fair land and return to America.”
The general glared at the colonel. “High up?”
“Yes, Herr General,” Peter said. “But thank you again.”
The officers strode to the door, and the general turned to Peter. “I will make this happen. It is vital that you stay in Germany.”
Peter forced himself to smile, thank them, and bid them farewell.
After he shut the door, he sank into his desk chair and ran his hands into his hair. “Lord, what have I gotten myself into?”
The last thing he wanted was to be trapped in Germany, training Germans to spy on America and Britain.
That would be treason. He wouldn’t do it. He’d make excuses, say his widowed mother needed him. If that didn’t work, he’d refuse outright.
And he’d be dead.
His head throbbed harder. He tore off his glasses and massaged his temples.
Better dead than a traitor.
He pushed up to his feet and paced the length of the office. He needed to go home now. Get away from this insanity.
The list of American Nazi sympathizers burned inside his shoe, under the insole where he kept it. He needed to turn it in to the FBI.
He couldn’t mail it or cable it or phone it to the US—the Germans could intercept the message. He’d considered giving the list to an American military attaché in Germany. But what if the FBI questioned the people on the list while Peter was still in Munich?
He’d be dead.
Peter had to leave. He strode back to the desk and leaned his palms on his logbook. Could he abandon his research? His commitment to teach?
No. No. He had a fellowship. He had too many years invested. Too much of his heart. And Harvard would deny his doctorate.
His doctorate. Peter blew out a long breath. Even with generals pulling strings, the University of Munich needed a dissertation to grant a doctorate. And he wouldn’t have the final data for his research until February.
“February,” he whispered. A plea. A prayer. “February.”