“There, there,” Frau Ostertag soothed her. “Here, take a drop of this.” She pulled out a small vial from a satchel. “This will help.”
Eva Braun’s anger seemed to melt away. She looked lovingly at her maid. “You, dear Liesl, are the only one who truly understands me.” Eva put her head on Liesl’s shoulder.
Alice studied Eva’s face. Her mouth seemed to be in a permanent pout. Alice would not call her dumb, but simply devoid of any real thoughts. Thoughtless as a dim little minor planet circling a sun.
Alice leaned back in her seat. The lavender water did little to relieve the smell of dog vomit. Ulla cracked her window a bit. Hans did not seem to mind. Alice put her head back against the seat. She remembered once when she and Louise were driving back from Rasa camp after their parents had picked them up. She had become carsick and thrown up all over Louise. They pulled off the road at a spot that was close to a babbling creek. The day was beastly hot.
“I know what to do,” Louise cried out. “Let’s go swimming in our clothes and wash out all the throw-up.” And so they did. To dry off, they rolled themselves in the clover of a nearby meadow.
It all came back to Alice now, the delicious feeling of swimming in the creek. Her sister’s face . . . the one she knew so well. And then that face in the crowd. That scent in the bakery. Was this some terrible joke? She felt as if she was being cruelly teased with these memories. She must look for her sister. But which sister? Which face? Her head drooped. She was on the brink of sleep but woke as the car stopped once again, this time at the station where the special Führer train awaited them.
All fifty people boarded the train quickly and found their assigned compartments.
“Thank god!” Hannah sighed as they all sank into the upholstered seats of the compartment they would share for the rest of the trip to Berlin. “Are you going on to the Wolf’s Lair?”
“I believe that is the plan.”
“Not me! I get to see my boyfriend, Frank!”
“You get a break?” Ulla asked.
“I do indeed.” A blush crept across Hannah’s face.
“No!” Ulla cried out. “You’re not!”
“I believe I am.”
“Am what?” Alice asked. The girls burst into a gale of giggles.
“Pregnant, silly.” For a moment Alice was confused. Silly for what—not knowing or not being delighted at this announcement?
But of course—the Fount of Life, she knew of this. It was the program that rewarded young German women for giving birth.
“Yes, Frank and I both passed the purity tests and shall soon be married. He has to go to the front, but I’m to go to the Lebensborn home, where the crème de la crème of expectant mothers go. We’re treated like princesses during our confinement.” She now turned to Alice. “Isn’t it fantastic?”
It was unthinkable for Alice at this moment. “I . . . I . . . ,” she began hesitantly. “I think you must have a very strong stomach not to have thrown up with the smell of the dog vomit.”
Ulla and Hannah burst into peals of laughter.
Everything, Alice thought, everything is turned upside down and backward in this country. It’s all so wrong.
And then they were back in Berlin. When they drove out of the train station, the city appeared ghostly and shrouded in a strange gray mist. The latest bombing raids had left their mark. There were the skeletal remains of several buildings. Those left standing had been cordoned off with signs that announced that the sidewalks were closed: Warning: These Buildings Are Unsafe to Walk Near. Darkened and charred, the ruined buildings loomed threateningly behind a scrim of ashes. To Alice they seemed like an invasion of zombies.
At last, Alice stepped out of the car.
“And who are you?” The plump apple-cheeked woman peered at Alice.
“Ute. Remember me?”
“Oh . . . oh yes . . . the RP girl. Must be all that time in the healthy air of the mountains.” She was chattering nonstop. “But now I remember that a message came in about you. You can have a break until the Führer goes to the Wolf’s Lair.”
“She gets to go, and I don’t!” Eva Braun’s piercing voice split the air as she stomped off.
Twenty
In So Many Words
“Downstairs, Fräulein. Downstairs!” Walter, the top mechanic under her father, pointed at the floor. “With the recent bombings, the apartment was no longer safe.” He pointed to a heavy metal door. “And be careful on the steps.”
It was a long spiraling staircase. At the bottom was another door. She could see a seam of light beneath it, and she heard some music. She knocked on the door.
“Ja ja . . . ich komme.” It was her mother. There was almost a chime-like quality to her voice when she spoke German. The door opened.
“My goodness . . . my goodness,” Posie Winfield kept exclaiming. “She’s back, Gunther. Our Ute is back.” Her mother embraced her fiercely. She wished just once she could be called Alice again. It was as if she felt herself an imposter in her mother’s arms. Then her father came. His long arms encircled them both.
“We know! We know.” Her mother pressed her mouth to her ear as they embraced.
“Not too long, maybe it will all be over.” Her father was muttering close to her other ear. “All together again!”
Louise’s face flashed in her mind. And her mum was cautioning her father not to count one’s chickens before they hatched.
The apartment in the basement was smaller and dimmer and had a slightly damp smell mixed with that of oil. Her father told them that this was where he had lived during the worst of the bombing of Berlin, right before Alice and Posie had arrived. Moving down again was no problem, as the apartment had already been set up. This most recent bombing was nothing apparently compared to the autumn of the year before in 1943, when more than two thousand people had been killed in Berlin.
When they settled down around the small kitchen table for some tea, her father took out a money clip with some reichsmarks. “You’ll need some warm clothes, as it can get cold there even in July, and rainy.” She didn’t reject the money, although she knew she could buy all these items without cash at the department store where the Führer’s household had an account. What she planned to do was to buy clothes for David. She was as determined to see David Bloom on this trip and to bring him a whole cake, an apple cake, as she was to search for her sister.
In the conversation it became clear her parents already knew about their daughter’s impending trip to the Wolf’s Lair and also what was to transpire. Rasa agents were keenly intuitive. In just a few words they could communicate with a degree of fluency that others could never aspire to. They asked about her time away, and she told them of her performances.
“The Führer was quite charmed with me in the role of Brünnhilde, I believe.” Then she added, “Of course he could not remember my name or who I was a bit later.” Both her parents nodded knowingly, with pride.
“Perfect,” her mother whispered. In short, she was “on mission.” Posie sensed that what her daughter had just said was a key element to her mission.
In so many words—words that were not quite in normal context—much information was exchanged. But Alice did have one question that she wanted answered—those motorcycle riders with the badges of the wolf trap.