The Serpent's Egg (6 page)

September 1938

It was time for Max’s third visit of the year to see his mother. He took the Autobus to Lutherstadt Wittenberg.

He might have expected questions about his plans to marry, but his mother’s mind didn’t work like that.

She was bursting to tell him a story about a neighbor, one Frau Magda Dallerbruch whose son, Karl, had followed his father into the Kriegsmarine. Karl had drowned in a training accident. Max had vague memories of a young boy of that name. His mother seemed unaffected by the tragedy, although she had attended the boy’s funeral. Max wondered if he detected a slight trace of
Schadenfreude
, but dismissed the notion as unlikely. His mother lacked the natural empathy needed to feel another’s pain and the self-knowledge necessary to take pleasure from it.

After that they settled into a stuttering conversation full of non sequiturs, tangents and deviations. Max kept track, making sure they covered everything on his list, and picking up her fragments of important news. 

He returned to Berlin drained of emotion.

#

Madam Krauss had a visit from a Wehrmacht officer waiting to be shipped out to Czechoslovakia. Leaving a young family behind and facing the very real prospect of military action, he needed to know that he would survive. While providing the necessary reassurance, Madam Krauss gently extracted details of the date and strength of the planned military incursion. Breathlessly, she passed the information to Greta, and Greta passed it to Arvid.

Encrypting the information took an hour of concentrated work. The result was 244 characters arranged in groups of four on a single page. These he transcribed onto a piece of rice paper no bigger than a stamp, using a fine pen and a magnifying glass. Finally, the rice paper carrying the coded message was rolled into a narrow tube and inserted into a cigarette. The cigarette was placed in a pack with about 12 others, and the pack was carried by a courier for transfer to his contact at the Soviet Embassy, a cultural attaché called Alexander Korotkov.

#

Arvid also arranged to meet his contact at the American Embassy. Donald Heath, First Secretary at the embassy, carried a brief for the nascent US Intelligence service. When they met at an Embassy reception on New Year’s Eve, Arvid had found a willing outlet for his intelligence. Born in Germany, Arvid had studied in the United States. His wife, Mildred, was a US citizen. As a committed Marxist his first loyalty was to the Soviets, but he was happy to share any intelligence he could gather with the Americans – or anyone else for that matter – as long as it helped to hasten the downfall of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.

Both men were thin, weedy individuals, Heath more so than Arvid. Both had receding hairlines, Heath’s the more advanced of the two. Heath was not one to tolerate stupidity, his thin lips and the line of his mouth creating an expression of distrust, if not outright hostility. They preferred to meet in the open, as both men were heavy pipe smokers. On this occasion they met in Heath’s office. The room was soon full of aromatic smoke.

Heath listened with interest to Arvid’s information. “How solid is this, Arvid?”

“Rock solid.”

“I’ll pass it on. You know I appreciate every morsel you give me. And everything
you’ve given me so far has been priceless. It’s golden. Washington is more than grateful…”

Arvid sensed a ‘but.’

“But I’m concerned about your other activities.” He pulled a leaflet from his briefcase and placed it on his desk. “Is this one of yours?”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“You do realize these are all over Berlin? They’re everywhere. If you’d dropped a ton of them from an airplane you couldn’t have done a better job of spreading them around. And what’s this nonsense about Hitler’s niece.”

“It’s a story. She died in mysterious circumstances. Mud sticks. There may even be a grain of truth in it. The point of the story is to shake the people out of their complacency. Life is too soft, and everything seems to fall into their laps since Hitler took over as Chancellor. We want them to think for themselves and not swallow every feel-good story published in the national press.”

“Well, I’d like to ask you, in the strongest possible terms, to put a stop to these activities. They raise the stakes enormously, drawing attention to your network when you should be keeping as low a profile as possible, collecting valuable Intel. That’s the most effective way you can fight for Germany. This…” He stabbed at the leaflet with the stem of his pipe. “This rubbish is not helping anyone.”

Arvid took a deep breath. “The broadsheet leaflets are the most direct way that I can strike a blow against the Nazis. This is my country, Donald. I can’t sit on my hands and do nothing while insidious Nazi propaganda worms its way into the minds of our young people.”

Chapter 16

September 1938

Greta saw very little of Adam during September, and when she did see him he never had time to talk to her. Something important was afoot, but she couldn’t find out what it was. She paid a visit to Libertas’s mansion to see if she knew what was going on.

Libertas shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve hardly seen Harro these last three weeks. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with Hitler’s negotiations with the British and the French over the Sudetenland. All I can tell you is that we had a visit from Hans Oster and Walther von Brauchitsch a few days ago.”

Greta knew who von Brauchitsch was. Everybody did. He was supreme commander of the German army. “Who’s Hans Oster?”

“Generalmajor Hans Oster is deputy head of Military Intelligence, the Abwehr.”

“And you’ve no idea what this is about?”

“None. Have you spoken to Mildred? She might have picked up something from Arvid.”

#

Mildred Harnack had little enough to add. Arvid had been spending so much time at the Economics Ministry that she had jokingly suggested he should have a bed put in his office. He had done exactly that, and now she never saw him from one end of the week to the next.

Mildred was sinking back into depression. Arvid had made promises to her when she left the sanatorium, promises that he had failed to keep. Greta did her best to cheer her up, but Mildred’s problems were deep-seated and stemmed from homesickness. She needed to be in Maryland with her elderly mother, whose health was declining.

And then one day toward the end of September, Adam swore Greta to secrecy and told her what was happening. The British were taking a firm stance on the Sudetenland. They had threatened a war if Hitler moved against any part of Czechoslovakia. The French and Italians had sided with the British and Neville Chamberlain was to attend a conference in Munich to copper-fasten the British position. Generalmajor Oster and a wide grouping of senior Wehrmacht figures were planning to remove Hitler from power. As soon as the conference ended the army would storm the Chancellery and arrest Hitler. A subgroup of the more militant conspirators wanted to have him executed. The SS would be neutralized and the armed forces would run the country until a new government could be elected.

Adam finished by saying, “I want you and Ule out of Berlin when all this happens. Take Ule away somewhere, anywhere. I’ll contact you when it’s safe to return.”

Greta took Ule to Düsseldorf for a week.

#

On September 30, the conference in Munich broke up. Neville Chamberlain emerged waving a piece of paper that guaranteed “peace for our time.” As the price of peace, key parts of Czechoslovakia had been ceded to the Third Reich. Hitler emerged from the talks as the world’s greatest negotiator, and without the support of the British, the planned coup was doomed to failure.

Chapter 17

October 1938

On October 6 Pauletta, the maid from the Schulze-Boysen household, delivered a package to the Kuckhoffs’ apartment. While Greta opened the package the maid played peekaboo with Ule.

Inside the package Greta found Anna and Max’s two
Ariernachweise
and a short note from Libertas.

“Greta: Sorry for the delay. Emmy has set everything up. Tell the lovebirds to make a new application to the Ethnic and Racial Affairs department without delay. They should ask for an official called Kurt Framzl. He’ll be expecting them. Tell them not to offer any more than the standard application fee (RM 20). The SS are now very strict about bribery. Corruption is considered one of the worst crimes against the Reich and they are determined to stamp it out in the lower ranks. We must have another get together soon, the three of us.

Affectionately, L.”

The following day Greta set off for the young couple’s apartment in Kolonnenstrasss, pushing the pram. The wind blew, but there was warmth in the patchy sunshine. Greta enjoyed the journey.

She found the apartment building, parked the pram, and carried a sleeping infant up the stairs to the second floor.

Anna opened the apartment door and invited Greta inside.

Greta said, “I thought you might both be at work.”

“Max’s at work, but I haven’t been feeling well for a couple of days. You have news for us?” Anna looked terrified that Greta might have bad news.

Greta took a seat on an old sofa, settled Ule on her lap and handed Libertas’s package to Anna.

Anna dropped it on the table as if it was too hot to handle. “What is it?”

“Open it.”

Anna tore the package open. She read the note, the smile on her face growing wider and wider. “Who’s this L?”

“She’s a friend.”

Anna read the note again. She squealed. “I can’t believe it. It’s fantastic. We can get married and it won’t cost us a pfennig more.”

“You’ll have to pay the marriage application fee again.”

“I meant it won’t cost us any more than the fee we paid to Madam Krauss.”

“You paid Madam Krauss a fee?” Ule began to cry. “He’s teething.” Greta put him on her knee and rubbed his gums. The crying reduced to a gurgling whimper.

Anna read the note for a third time, tears of joy rolling down her face. “I still can’t believe it.”

“How much did you pay Madam Krauss?”

“Oh, she charged us 100 Reichsmarks. I was glad to pay it. Max wasn’t convinced that she would succeed. She said she’d try, but we shouldn’t get our hopes up too high. This is wonderful! I can’t wait to tell him. You must thank Madam Krauss for us.”

Greta smiled. She said nothing. Madam Krauss had some questions to answer.

Greta lowered her wriggling infant onto the floor. He crawled across to Anna and stood up, holding her knees. He looked over his shoulder, grinning at his mother. Anna lifted him onto her lap and he stuffed a fist into his mouth.

“He likes you,” said Greta.

Anna beamed. “He’s big. He’s heavy. How old is he?”

“Ten months. He’s an eating machine.”

“He’s gorgeous. You must be very proud.” She handed the infant back.

Greta asked if there was somewhere to change his diaper. Anna cleared a space on the table and watched the whole procedure with interest. Then Anna was struck by a thought. “I should call my parents and tell them.”

“Don’t do that yet. Wait until you have the Marriage Authorization in your hands. Something could still go wrong.”

#

In the evening, Greta fed the baby and got him off to sleep. She served a meal for Adam. While he was eating she put on her coat.

Adam looked up from his plate. “Where are you going, Greta? It’s late.”

“The Rosens. It’s been four days since my last visit. They must be running low on supplies.”

“The Rosens are not your responsibility, Greta. They need to stand on their own feet, like everyone else.”

“And how would you suggest they do that?”

“I don’t know. It’s not our problem. David Rosen has his antiques shop.”

“I explained about that. The Brownshirts, the intimidation.”

“It’s really not your problem. I wish you’d drop it.”

Greta took a deep breath. She loved Adam, but she hated it when he told her what to do. She wasn’t a child. “Keep an eye on Ule. I shouldn’t be gone more than a couple of hours.”

She picked up her basket and left the apartment before he had a chance to object again. She set off toward the Rosens’ home at a brisk walk. She had loved Adam since she met him as a student in America, and she respected his courageous stance against the Nazis, but his attitude on the subject of the Rosens was so wrong, so out of character. She couldn’t understand it.

A beaming Matilde Rosen opened the door. She led Greta into the kitchen and poured her a glass of sherry.

Greta took a sip. The sherry warmed her as it went down. “What are we celebrating, Matilde?”

“David has gone back to work. He opened the shop three days ago. He’s had some customers and brought home some money. I’ve been out to the grocery shop for the first time in a month.”

“That’s wonderful, Matilde. How is David?”

“He’s almost back to his old self, making plans. He has started believing in a future for us again. He’s convinced the bad times are at an end.”

“Is that what you think?”

“You know what I think. Things will be much worse for us as long as this government is in power.”

“And Sophie?”

“Sophie’s happy that her old papa is back.”

Greta looked up the staircase on the way to the front door, and caught a glimpse of Sophie and her doll, Aschenputtel, listening at the top of the stairs.