“As you say,” I replied, though the words were bitter on my tongue. Would I ever be free to have an opinion again that didn’t take the party into consideration? Would I ever have the liberty of disagreeing with anyone without fearing for my freedom and safety? My very life?
The air hung heavy over the table, and none of us could find words to lighten it. Asking Harald about his day would be met, quite rightly, with a sullen grunt as he stabbed his food a little too ruthlessly with his fork. He didn’t have the energy to inquire after ours, and neither of us could fault him for it.
Mama shooed me from clearing the table when Harald stood with a murmured thanks for the meal. I could hear the dishes clinking in the sink as I joined Harald in bed. For the first time in ages, I felt his arms coil around me as his lips sought out mine in the dark. Gentle, then insistent as I felt his weight shift on top of me. It was not the slow, passionate lovemaking from our past, but something more desperate. He held me down so tightly, I could barely move, so I didn’t try. I looked into his eyes, but the Harald I loved was gone. There was no affection in his embrace, only physical need. He found his release after only a few minutes, and I realized that I was, in that moment, completely disinterested in finding my own.
“My God, Johanna. I’m sorry,” he whispered a few moments later as he wrapped his arms against me anew and pulled me tight to his chest, tucking me under his chin. I could feel the warm, wet proof of his remorse on the top of my head.
“No need to apologize, my love,” I said, kissing his neck.
“It was selfish,” he said. “I can’t bear being that way with you.”
“Don’t trouble yourself with such worries right now. I know you love me. It can’t be fireworks and champagne every time.”
“Don’t try to make me feel better, Liebling. I deserve to feel horrid. Taking things without regard for others is their way. Not ours. Not mine. You should be furious with me.”
“No,” I said. “I will do as you ask and not offer you sympathy, but I won’t be angry with you. You can’t command that, Harald. Even if I were a good, obedient sort of wife. Which I’m not.”
“Thank God for that,” he said, a throaty chuckle finally rattling loose from his chest. “How dull that must be.”
“Deathly,” I said. I breathed him in, not that his steel-hard embrace left me much choice. The same clean scent of vetiver soap and new leather that had always clung to him. There was something precious about the things they couldn’t steal from us.
“I swear by all I hold dear, I am going to keep you safe from all this,” Harald said, his voice already sounding as though he were drifting off to sleep.
“Just keep yourself safe, my love, and I’ll fend for myself,” I replied.
“There are thousands of dead who thought the same,” he said, sounding more alert. “Maybe millions. Something must be done. And if no one else will, it must be me.”
“Harald, you’re frightening me.”
“Don’t be frightened,” he said. “I will say no more, but if I send you word to hide or run, you must do so. Get in a plane and go to the very ends of the earth if you must.”
“Never without you.”
“You must promise me, Johanna.” He sat up in bed and pulled me up to look him in the eye. “Promise me,” he repeated.
“You have my word,” I said, reluctant to give it. I wanted so much to demand Harald include me in his plans before consenting to them, but I knew him well enough to see he was on the brink of losing his composure. I acquiesced out of compassion.
He exhaled and relaxed visibly. Within moments he drifted to sleep, less troubled than I had seen him in weeks.
But though this nonconfession of his gave him a measure of comfort, it robbed me of mine.
Harald had a plan, perhaps as unthinkable as Louisa’s, and though he tried to protect me with ignorance, I feared it would only serve to make us both more vulnerable when the wolves came to the door.
The order to begin the training necessary for Louisa’s plan came down almost immediately after I made my promise to Harald, and I’d lived on a diet of coffee and anxiety in the four weeks since. My opinion hadn’t been sought, so at least I hadn’t been forced to lie or risk my neck over the horrific endeavor. I was to do all that she required when it came to design work and testing, but she would be training the men herself. Thank heaven for that small mercy. But I was at her beck and call when it came to design and testing. My clothes hung on me like wash on a line, and my cheekbones looked razor sharp, but I managed to make an appearance at the office each day.
“The planes have been delayed,” she said in lieu of a greeting, shutting my office door with a loud bang.
“I’m sorry to hear that. I sent the specifications for the alterations to the factory in Thuringia almost a month ago. I hope there haven’t been any problems with them.” I’d sent the plans in the earliest days of the operation, at Louisa’s request. There wasn’t any reason the plans themselves would have been at fault.
“Not that I was made aware of,” she said. “Not that they told me much.”
“The factories everywhere have been inundated,” I said. “They simply can’t keep up with demand. I’m sure it’s just that.”
“You’re more charitably minded than I am,” she said. “I’m half convinced they’re scrapping the whole idea.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that until they tell you otherwise,” I said. “There’s a war on. It’s impossible to know what their priorities are.”
She sucked in a breath and crossed her right leg over her left knee in an unladylike slump. She didn’t dare criticize their choices . . . it was unpatriotic to speak against the decision-making at the highest levels.
“I don’t see why they would scrap the plan. It’s a good one. I am choosing only willing men,” Louisa assured me. “Men who fully understand what they are signing up for and who understand the sacrifice we are asking of them.”
“You have the endorsement of the highest sort,” I said, knowing full well that the Führer had given her his consent. “I don’t know why you continue to try to persuade me of your plan’s merits.”
Her eyes didn’t reach mine but seemed to focus on the edge of my drafting table. She played with a loose splinter of wood on the edge where the varnish had worn.
“Because yours matters more,” she said.
“Nonsense,” I replied. “I’m an engineer. How could my opinions possibly compare with those of the head of the entire country and his closest advisers?”
“I’ve never liked you,” she admitted. “You’ve always acted superior. As though your work were more important than mine.”
“First, I don’t see how that’s a logical response. Second, that was never my intent. My work is different from yours, that’s all. If I ever implied that mine was more important, it wasn’t intentional.”
“I know,” she conceded. “You’re still a countess. You came from a comfortable family even before you met your husband. My parents worked in a factory and we scraped by day to day . . . but despite all that, you know what an uphill climb it is to get where we are, even if you started up a rung or two higher on the ladder than I did.”