His Majesty's Hope (25 page)

“And then he just—threw you over?” Alexandra said one day as they knitted soldiers’ socks.

“It’s … complicated,” Maggie said.
Oh, you have no idea exactly how complicated
.

“Too bad you didn’t have his baby!”

Maggie looked up.

“I’m joking! I can tell you’re the type who wants a proper wedding. But, were you in love with him?”

St. Gottlieb? Not likely!
Maggie exclaimed inwardly. But then she thought of Hugh. “I do miss him,” she confessed. “I do.”

“Hmmm,” said Alexandra, who had clearly been hoping for more drama.

“Sorry it’s not romantic enough for you. I should have drowned myself in the Spree instead?”

“Well, that’s more dramatic. Wagnerian, even!”

Maggie had to laugh. “I prefer to stay dry.”

“What was it like in Rome?”

Maggie had been prepared for this question. “Very hot, very dusty. But we just worked and worked, all the time. We barely had any chance to see the city.”

“Do you speak Italian?”

“Not much—they just wanted German girls, to speak and type in German.”

“And that’s where you met Gottlieb?”

“And that’s where I met Gottlieb, who was there with the Abwehr.”

“Was he”—Alexandra looked so young—“your first love?”

Maggie stared out the window, at the garden and the sparkling lake beyond. “No,” she answered. “Not Gottlieb.”

“Who was your first love, then?”

“He was a pilot.”

“Was?”

“He—he died. On a mission.”

“A pilot—I’m sorry for your loss.” Alexandra pressed a hand to her heart. “One of our brave Luftwaffe, defending the Fatherland. Do you miss him?”

“Very much.”

The two women knitted together in silence.

“Have you ever thought …” Alexandra began.

“Yes?”

The girl had the grace to blush. “My father?”

Maggie didn’t see Herr Oberg much, but she was aware of the way he looked at her. “Nonsense!” She smiled, determined to change the subject. “What do you say we play some records while we knit? Bach? Or today, perhaps, Beethoven?”

Maggie’s effort to get into Oberg’s study was proving difficult. He often didn’t get home until late, and then spent hours and hours working, leaving only a short window between the time he went to bed and when he woke up in the morning.

Finally, one day late in August, Herr Oberg arrived home early from work and went to bed early. Maggie catnapped, then woke at two. In order not to make any noise on the stairs, she slid down on her bottom, using her hands, one stair at a time. She then crept quietly in stocking-clad feet over the thick carpets on the floor where Herr Oberg’s and Alexandra’s bedrooms were, holding her breath and listening for any sounds.

Finally, she reached the study. She’d been eyeing the lock and didn’t think it would take much to open. She pulled out a hairpin from her bun and gently inserted it. If it were the type she thought, a gentle push with the pin would release the mechanism and open the door.

It was not that kind of lock.

Damn, damn, damn
, Maggie raged.
All right, I’ve spent enough time in the hallway
, she decided, looking around, listening, making sure she was alone. Time to painstakingly make her way back to the safety of her bed, to plan her next attempt.

On Maggie’s day off, she toyed with what to do. And then, impulsively, knowing it was against all SOE rules, she decided to call Elise.
She’s my sister
, she rationalized as she picked up the handset of the telephone.
And the world’s at war. Who knows if we’ll ever see each other again?

Maggie felt she couldn’t have a guest to Herr Oberg’s, and she certainly didn’t want to go back to Clara’s house, so she suggested meeting at the beach at Wannsee.

Elise took the S-Bahn from Grunewald to Wannsee and met Maggie near the sparkling blue lake. She spread out a blanket on the sand, and Maggie opened a large umbrella she had borrowed from the Oberg villa. The air smelled of spicy pine needles. There were a few other people—mothers and their children, building elaborate sand castles under striped umbrellas or splashing in the shallow water. Boys played in sand forts, brandishing toy guns. Birds sang from nearby chestnut trees. The two young women kicked off their sandals and stripped down to their bathing suits.

“Are you feeling any better?” Elise asked as she slipped on sunglasses and lay back.

Maggie was pretending to be still mourning after her breakup with Gottlieb. “Every day, it’s a little better,” she said with a smile. The warm sand under the blanket felt good, the sound of the water lapping against the sand was relaxing, and Maggie felt her shoulders drop just the slightest bit for the first time since she’d arrived in Germany. “And how’s Fritz?” Elise had told Maggie about Fritz, her dance partner.

Elise sighed. “I adore Fritz, but in the same way I adore puppies and kittens. It’s not serious. And he doesn’t believe that, when the war is over, I want to take my vows to become a nun.”

“Oh, come now, Elise—I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true! I want to dedicate my life to Jesus.”

“What about, you know, waiting until you’re older? After you’ve lived a little. Fallen in love.”

Elise shook her head. “I know what I want.”

“Do you think it’s a kind of rebellion?” Maggie cocked an eyebrow over the tortoiseshell frames of her sunglasses. “Against your mother?”

Elise’s eyes followed the flight of a black heron. “I never thought of that. It’s possible, I suppose. But it doesn’t change the fact I love God and want to devote my life to Him. And, of course, I’ll still be a nurse. Maybe even a doctor, someday. After this horrible war.”

“And how does your father feel about your donning a habit?”

“He doesn’t seem to mind. He’s away so much, with the opera.… But you’re right—my mother, she despises the idea.”

Elise fingered the tiny cross on the thin chain around her neck. “It even bothers her that I wear this. She’d rather I wear a swastika.”

Her tone was bitter.

“She’s, um, quite important in the party, I gather?”

Elise gave a snort. “Once upon a time, Mutti had everything—beauty, fame, glamour, handsome men, including my father. He was her conductor, you know. Their love affair made them famous. He divorced his first wife for her. Oh, the scandal!”

Maggie bit her lip.

“But then she had the surgery. And, as a result, she lost her upper range and retired from singing. As you heard, at the party—although she’s not too bad as a mezzo, as long as she isn’t projecting to a large hall. But one of her greatest admirers was Herr Goebbels. Who brought her to the Abwehr, where she’s become a sort of star. I think working in Intelligence has replaced opera for her.”

“I see,” Maggie responded.
Substituting one stage for another
.
Although Clara must have been working for German Intelligence long before she officially went to the Abwehr …

“And she definitely bought into all the propaganda about Hitler. ‘Hitler will save us from the Communists!’ she said. ‘He will restore the glory of Germany!’ I do believe she pictures everything in Wagnerian terms. And she was a favorite of Hitler’s—he adored her in the role of Elsa. Göring and Himmler did, too. Goebbels—well, I’ve always suspected there was, or still is, something between them. They can be loyal and generous friends to people in their inner circle. And they admired her—she brought the Nazi party glamour and culture. Do you think she could”—Elise lowered her voice—“find anything monstrous in such a party, in such men, when they adore her so? Absolutely not. She thinks they’re brilliant and has swallowed their politics whole.”

Maggie felt she had to tread carefully. She and Elise hadn’t talked about politics. “And what about you?”

Elise gave a short, sour laugh. “Well, since my parents ignored me for the most part, I was free to read, free to think, free to make up my own mind.”

As her companion went on, Maggie gleaned the impression of a beautiful but distant and narcissistic mother, who knew very little about her own daughter. And a preoccupied and famous father. It sounded lonely, and far different from the childhood she’d imagined Elise had enjoyed. Yes, she was a smart and capable young woman with high ideals and morals, but she was also the solemn child, who, despite worldly and wealthy parents, grew up very much alone. Maggie felt a warm rush of love and appreciation for her own Aunt Edith.

“What do
you
think of all this?” Elise asked suddenly.

“I’m … an optimistic agnostic,” Maggie said, knowing she had to be careful. “A secular humanist. And not at all political.”

She smiled. “Shall we swim?”

The next night, Maggie tried the study door again, this time with a long, thin knitting needle. Again, she’d failed. Maggie bit her lip and stopped herself from pounding at the door in frustration.

There was a noise in the hall. Maggie whipped around, hiding the needle behind her back. She knew she could talk herself out of almost any situation, but if not, she knew how to kill with a knitting needle—through the eyeball and deep into the brain, the same technique that could be used with a pen or pencil.

“Mein Gott,”
she heard a deep male voice whisper. “Are you a ghost?”

Maggie took a ragged breath. “No ghost, Herr Oberg. It is I—Fräulein Hoffman.”

Herr Oberg, still wearing his uniform, took a few steps closer and appraised her, in her nightgown and robe. The appraisal lasted too long for Maggie’s taste.

“What are you doing here, Fräulein Hoffman?”

“I—I couldn’t sleep,” Maggie lied. “I thought I’d come downstairs for some cooler air.”

Herr Oberg looked down on her. “I couldn’t sleep, either,” he said at last. “We seem to suffer from the same affliction.”

He put his hand on her shoulder. In the darkness, given her state of undress, it seemed a forward, even possessive, gesture. The touch of his hand on her shoulder burned. Maggie kept completely still, not meeting his eyes. “Get some sleep, Fräulein Hoffman,” he said finally. “I’m having a few important guests over on Saturday night. I would like you to sit at the foot of my dinner table and be hostess.”

Maggie’s mind raced. She remembered that he’d mentioned the possibility earlier. “Wouldn’t that honor fall to your daughter?”

“Alexandra is in no condition to be seen,” he said. “You—you will be splendid.”

She had to get away. “Yes, Herr Oberg,” she said, making her way back to the door to the servants’ staircase.

“Wear something pretty,” he called. “If you don’t have anything suitable, my daughter surely has something. And there are gowns and jewels that belonged to my late wife—have my Alexandra show you those. They would suit you well.”

“Yes, Herr Oberg. Good night,” Maggie said as she reached the door and opened it, bolting up the stairs, her heart in her throat. Play hostess at a Nazi dinner? Wear a dead woman’s jewels?
Oh, which ring of hell are we in now?

Maggie went back to her room, her head spinning. She felt as if her cover might be approaching its expiration date.

Freddie knelt by David’s still body until the ambulance arrived. One of the onlookers found David’s wire-rimmed eyeglasses, which had fallen during the attack, miraculously unbroken. He handed them to Freddie, who slipped them inside his breast pocket. Without his spectacles, David’s face looked young and intensely vulnerable.

The ambulance finally arrived. “You know, we have bombs falling almost every night,” one of the medics grumbled, adjusting his steel helmet. “It’s not like you lads need to go out looking for trouble.”

Freddie looked up with a grim face. “Trouble found us.”

The other medic was examining David’s wounds. “Stab wounds to the abdomen. Can’t tell how deep, but he’s lost a lot of blood. Let’s take him in.”

“Where?” Freddie asked.

“Guy’s Hospital has a few open beds last I heard. We’ll try there.”

“You’ll
try
there?”

“Lots injured this week—all the beds are full.” The medic and his partner lifted David onto a stretcher and moved him to the back of the ambulance. “But we’ll make sure he’s all right and they get all the glass out, of course.”