Twenty-Six
A Flash of White
A crisp autumnal wind blew a mixture of ashes and leaves on the sidewalk where Alice sat with her old school chums. Of course they had barely recognized her when they all returned to school ten days before. But then they finally remembered the RP girl who had done so well, they began pumping her with questions.
“So what does Eva Braun look like? I mean, gorgeous, of course, right?” Birgit asked.
“Well, not . . . not of course,” Alice replied slowly. “She needs a lot of makeup. Her face is sort of . . . of . . .”
“Pasty?” Margret said almost hopefully.
“Not exactly pasty—kind of like tapioca pudding.”
“Tapioca has bumps,” the beautiful Lena offered. “If that’s the case, I would suggest a salt mask. It draws imperfections to the surface.”
“So you’re suggesting I bring this up with the Führer’s lady friend? Take a good look at this zit on my chin! It will be in full bloom by tomorrow.”
The girls broke out laughing. They seemed to appreciate Alice’s sense of humor. She made sure she wouldn’t be seen as stuck-up, even though she got the highest marks.
And these girls were nice girls, even mousy Margret, who had ratlike tendencies. Yes, they believed all that Aryan pureness nonsense that Frau Mueller served up in their Racial Awareness class. But these beliefs were their Bible. It was their parents’ Bible too. To question would make one a dissident or, worse, a Communist, or maybe a suspected Jew, and that would be fatal. It would invite terror into their lives. Now there was just plain old war.
At least twice a week, people had to take refuge in air-raid shelters from the bombs. They were being battered by both Russian and Allied troops. Let these girls wake up after the war. After their country had been defeated and humiliated worse than they ever had been before.
But once upon a time, Alice thought, all of them must have started out in some way innocent. Babies were born innocent. That’s all babies were—just little packages of innocence. You could not be born a Nazi. You had to be taught and cultivated, like some rare seedling that would grow and bloom into a horrid flower. Alice pictured a rose, its blossoms opening. Then the rounded petals suddenly transforming into spikes.
Her mind began to wander back a winding cobbled lane in the Cotswolds, where they had once lived in a charming cottage. It was built of sandstone that softly glowed like gold, and scrambling up its walls were ribbons of roses and ivy. It was the loveliest place they had ever lived. Alice had called it the good witch cottage—as opposed to the bad witch cottage of Hansel and Gretel. It seemed like a fairy tale now, and here she was right smack in the land of the Brothers Grimm.
She heard her friends giggling. Their attention was focused on a table by the edge of the terrace where they sat.
“What’s so funny?” Alice asked.
“Can’t you see?” Birgit whispered. “Those two! They’re necking!”
“Oh, oh!” She caught the flash of white. The two lovers had their backs to them, but their arms were entwined. The white hair sticking out from beneath the cap had to be Fritz, the Werewolf. The couple broke apart momentarily. The woman turned around.
Louise! Alice choked on her lemon fizz drink.
“Too much for you, Ute?” Margret laughed and poked her in the ribs. “My mother would kill me if I behaved like that in public.”
Alice fought to stay calm. “Lucky for her you’re not her mother,” she answered glibly. But my sister is necking with a Nazi Werewolf! Louise had looked right at her and not even blinked. Her eyes were vacant. It was like the time Alice had walked home from school and run into Louise and two of her friends in the village. Louise had looked straight at her, through her, without a flicker of recognition. Or the times in their very own house when Louise would startle as if Alice—or her own mother—was an intruder!
Now Alice was just another person at a café in Berlin. A faceless girl.
“You know, I’m running late. I better get going. I promised my mother I’d try for some real bread at that bakery on Hoffmannstrasse.”
“Good luck,” Lena said.
Alice was already getting up. She noticed that Louise—or was it Louisa?—had hung her pocketbook on the back of her chair. She quickly swept by the table. The scent was there—Laurel Bright. It swirled around Alice’s head. But she had never been more alert. She stumbled a bit on purpose, knocking the pocketbook off the chair. She stooped to pick it up.
“Oh, pardon me, Fräulein. I’m so clumsy.”
Louise bent over to retrieve it at the same time. “Not to worry.” Their faces were mere inches apart. The scent flooded the space between them. “Lovely perfume,” Alice murmured.
And still not even a twinkle of recognition. In fact, it felt as if in that moment the entire world had gone dark.
Twenty-Seven
Alice I Am
“You’re not yourself,” Posie Winfield said to Alice upon her return from the fateful afternoon at the café. And what self would that be? Alice thought. But she said nothing.
Now five days had passed since she had stopped to pick up that pocketbook of her sister’s and their eyes had locked. Her sister’s eyes, totally blank. All right, Alice had thought. If this is how you want to play it, I’ll go along.
Alice had waited at a corner behind a newsstand just outside her sister’s line of vision until the pair got up to leave. They walked off arm in arm. Alice followed. The couple parted ways after a lingering kiss. Alice thought she’d throw up. She followed Louise for the better part of an hour until Louise entered an apartment building. Alice waited as long as she could, hoping Louise would leave the building again. But she didn’t. Alice was back the next day before school to see if she could catch her leaving the building. No luck. But she was patient. A cardinal rule of spycraft.
Alice was obsessed, yet at the same time she was worried about David. It was as if two thoughts were warring in her head. Louise and David. His cough had worsened. Autumn had turned damp and chilly. Winter was knocking at the door, and the Russians were breathing down Berlin’s neck. American B-17s had begun bombing the city again. So the Winfields were still in their basement apartment, and Alan Winfield had started to work on an exit plan. But what about David? Alice would often come home and find her father poring over maps. “They’re close to the Vistula River. They cross that and Berlin is done for,” he murmured.
“They? The Russians? The Red Army?”
“Who else?” He looked up and smiled. “Their artillery divisions. They only need to be six, seven miles away to shell us. The Reds and their rocket launchers—Stalin’s organ, they call the launchers.”
“Who calls them that?” Alice asked.
“The Germans. The rocket makes a howling sound that is absolutely terrifying. I hope we’re out of here by the time they come.”
“But how, Papa? How will we get out?”
“I’m working on it. I’m working. Be patient.”
In that moment, she was so tempted to tell him that she had seen Louise. But she couldn’t. She hesitated to say anything before she confronted Louise herself. Was Louise some kind of double agent? Why was she here? Here in Berlin with her new face?