Code name edelweiss, p.19
Code Name Edelweiss, page 19
“Are we eating at a restaurant?” Tess said in the same way one would ask if we were taking flight in an airplane.
“I told you it was an adventure.” I smoothed her hair and tweaked her sweater. “I’ll need your help with Steffen.”
We were just in time to catch the city bus on the corner of Pico and Memorial. The train station was less than a mile away, but not in the best of neighborhoods. We stepped off into a gathering dusk, close enough to the station to hear the squeal of train brakes.
“Take my hands, both of you,” I instructed. The three of us crossed the street. On the corner, a group of men in ragged coats warmed their hands over a trash barrel fire. As we passed by, they tipped their hats and Tess sang out a polite hello. Steffen squeezed my hand and pressed closer to my side.
The station cafeteria was a decent establishment, and I was thankful that Mr. Lewis had chosen something clean and well-lit. Tess’s eyes went wide as we entered. A long glass-and-chrome display case held an array of sandwiches, cold chicken, vegetable salads, and great slabs of cake and pie. “I’m hungry, Mommy,” Tess whispered. Steffen nodded in agreement. A black menu board listed the prices of each offering. Most of the dinner selections were over fifty cents. Our meager budget would not go far here.
Leon Lewis was waiting at a table. He stood in surprise as I approached with the children, but recovered quickly. “Who do we have here?”
I made the introductions. He directed us to sit as Tess gawked at the display of food.
“Would you mind if I—?” I gestured to the counter, where a man waited to take orders.
“Please, allow me.” He made to stand and reached for his wallet.
“No,” I said firmly. I had insisted upon this meeting and brought my children along. It would not do to let him pay for our dinner, even if it would take every penny I had—less the fifteen cents I’d need to get us all home.
“What are we having?” Tess asked, her face hopeful.
“You’ll see.” I left them at the table. When I returned, Tess’s mouth dropped open. Steffen smiled with delight.
“Ice cream for you both.” I smiled, passing them each a tall glass of vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry on top.
“For dinner?” Tess said in awe.
“Are you complaining?” I tucked my handkerchief under Steffen’s chin. He had already started eating and I didn’t hear another word from Tess. Ice cream for dinner. What was I thinking? That I needed to keep the children occupied while I gave life-and-death information to a spymaster.
I pulled the two sheets of paper from my pocket and smoothed them out on the table.
His eyes skimmed the bold handwriting. His brows rose. “I see.”
“You see?” I felt a rising impatience with his calm. I tapped the papers. “Plans of attack, assassinations. Your name is on that list. We can have them arrested.”
“Or . . .” He looked at me sadly. “Just scribblings on paper. No way to prove it is a plan or who is planning it.”
“Do people have to die before anyone believes us?” My voice had risen and the children stopped eating ice cream to stare at me. I took a breath and pushed the steno pad toward him. “Hermann dictated this to me. That is treason, is it not?”
He looked it over, reading the shorthand easily. “Perhaps, if we can prove he sent it.”
My hope deflated. “There’s something else.” I told him about the Silver Shirts membership file. My name and the children and Mutti listed on Fritz’s application.
At that he frowned and met my eyes. “Reprisals.”
“You mean—?” He couldn’t mean that. “If Fritz . . . ?” If he changed his mind, wanted out of the Silver Shirts.
“It is how they ensure loyalty.”
Reprisals. I thought of Wilhelm Otto. Think of your kids, is all I’m saying.
I asked, “And what am I to do—?” If something happened, if Thekla or Hermann discovered what I was doing.
Lewis pulled a pencil stub and a notepad from his pocket and scribbled something. “This is the number for the assistant district attorney, Mr. Torgeson.”
“Is he one of us?” I didn’t need to explain my meaning.
“No. I don’t entirely trust him.” He pushed the paper across the table. “But if you are in dire need.” He left it at that. “And I’ll get word to him about the Roosevelt letter. See if he can do something.”
That was a small comfort. “But what am I to do while you are gone?”
“Keep doing the same,” he answered, “and stay in the good graces of the Schwinns at all costs.”
I had failed at that already.
“Another thing, Edelweiss—find anything you can about the German vice-consul, Georg Gyssling.”
Georg Gyssling? The name rang a bell. Hadn’t Stella said something about him?
Lewis tapped his finger on the table. “Listen for anything about der Angriff or the people on this list. I will come back quickly and with help.” He stood. “Thank you, Edelweiss. Your work is invaluable. Please believe that.”
“It’s just that . . .” I was suddenly overcome by doubt. With all I’d brought him—what I’d risked to get it—I’d thought he would call in the cavalry and arrest Hermann and Thekla for treason. That this whole nightmare would be over. It did not look to be so. Leon Lewis was leaving and Thekla and Hermann suspected me. Was I doing anything right?
He sat down again across from me. “I understand, Mrs. Weiss,” he said kindly. “I have felt the same. And I wonder, is it any use? Is what we are doing making a difference?”
He understood, but of what help was that when my family was in danger?
“I can only tell you what I believe, and in the words of a rabbi, translated and interpreted over centuries: If not me, who? If not now, when?”
He looked at me as if that should help.
If not me, who? If not now, when? Was that supposed to comfort me? And yet it was true. Who else would stop these people? No one but us.
Leon Lewis stood, tipped his hat to me and the children, and left me as unsure as ever. I helped Tess and Steffen clean their faces, forcing myself to smile in a reassuring way and ask them if the ice cream had been as delicious as it looked. As I gathered my handbag and gloves, a commotion broke out at the entrance. A woman—dark-skinned and with two little girls—stood just inside the door.
“Says right on the sign, lady.” The man who had taken my order and winked at me while he’d put extra chocolate sauce on the ice cream was all scowls. “We don’t serve Negroes and Mexicans here.” He pointed to a hand-lettered sign in the corner of the window.
The girls stepped back at his harsh voice, leaning into their mother’s legs. The mother wore a cotton dress, mended and too short in the hem. Her smooth-skinned face had a pinched look. I knew that look. It was not her own hunger that caused it but that of her children. “I have money.” Her voice had a Southern twang. “We’ll eat outside. Only we have to catch a train.”
“Get out before I call the cops. This is a clean place, lady, you hear me?”
“Mommy?” Tess looked from me to the woman at the door. Steffen stared at the two children. It was a scene played out in restaurants and shops everywhere and hardly unusual. Had I not seen the same at Grundbacher’s?
I had stayed silent that day and regretted it.
The little girls gazed at the fat sandwiches and slabs of cake, just out of their reach. Not because they hadn’t the money, but because of the color of their skin. Leon’s words echoed in my thoughts. If not me, who? If not now, when?
The woman turned, ushering her children back outside. I grabbed Tess and Steffen and ran out the door, catching her half a block away. “Ma’am. Can I do something to help?”
She looked at me with surprise and suspicion, and well she might. My golden hair, fair skin, and stylish dress were unlike her own.
“You want to help me?”
“If I can,” I answered.
She pulled money from her handbag. I marched back into the cafeteria and ordered sandwiches, cartons of milk, and three large cookies from the scowling man. When I returned, Tess and the two girls were giggling together and Steffen was joining in.
“I’m sorry about that,” I said, giving the mother the food and the change. She hadn’t told me her name and I didn’t ask.
“You don’t have nothing to be sorry for,” she said. “It’s the way of the world.”
It was the way of the world. But it should not be. As we said goodbye and she hurried toward the station, I hoped that someday the world would change.
CHAPTER 32
LIESL
Mutti met us at the door in her apron, a scrub brush in her hand. “Where have you been, for pete’s sake?”
Tess and Steffen recounted in detail their adventure. The cafeteria, ice cream for dinner.
“Of all the cockamamie things,” Mutti said as if I’d taken the children to the Cocoanut Grove for cocktails and dancing.
“To bed now. It’s late,” I told Tess and Steffen. I was weary to the bone.
“What about homework?” Tess asked.
I could not face the spelling list and mathematics tables. “Not tonight,” I said. “I’ll send a note to your teacher.” Ice cream for dinner and no homework, what kind of mother was I becoming? One like my own, as I had declared I would not be?
I helped Steffen wash his sticky hands and brush his teeth, then spoke sharply to Tess more than once before she settled into bed. Ice cream was not conducive to good behavior at bedtime. I came back downstairs to find Mutti sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. “What is it?” I asked. The pervasive smell of vinegar and scrubbing powder meant something was bothering her.
She did not answer but brought a book from her lap and set it between us. Mein Kampf.
I flushed with a shame I didn’t merit but felt keenly nonetheless. How to answer her unspoken question? I could not tell her about Leon Lewis. Not with her tendency toward outspokenness. “Mutti, it’s not—it’s for work.” It was the truth and yet not what she wished to hear.
“And Fritz?” she asked. “Is he part of this—this New Germany business?”
“I’m not sure.” I refused to speak for Fritz when I was lying enough for myself.
The questions kept coming. “Is this why you aren’t on speaking terms with Miriam?”
My reaction was an unbidden “No!” Then I reconsidered. It was the reason I could not apologize to her as I wished. “I mean, yes, in part.” Mutti would do well as a sergeant. I needed to end this conversation before she managed to pry out secrets that she would not keep to herself.
“It’s that man,” she said grimly. “I was right about him, you know. He did work for the studios. The girls knew his name tonight and told me all about him.”
A jolt of alarm went through me. “What did they say?”
“It was years ago, when Bette did makeup for Paramount. She remembered a Wilhelm Otto who used to drive for Mr. Zukor. He got a girl named Eva Taylor in trouble. You know what I mean.”
I did know what she meant.
Mutti went on. “He left town. Bette said the girl had the baby. Doesn’t know what happened to her after that but she didn’t work at Paramount again.”
“Was she sure it was him?” Wilhelm Otto was dangerous, but he didn’t seem the type to run out on his responsibilities.
Mutti snorted. “For pity’s sake, she described him right down to that scar on his lip. He’s trouble, Liesl.”
“It’s just a ride home, Mutti,” I assured her. “And I’m tired.” I picked up the copy of Mein Kampf and tucked it under my arm. “Please don’t worry,” I said to her. “This isn’t what you think.”
She looked unconvinced, and I did not blame her. Yet I had far more to worry about than Mutti’s prying and Wilhelm Otto’s womanizing.
Mr. Lewis was gone, on a train across the country. I was alone and facing two more days of deception with Hermann and Thekla—who was clearly suspicious of me—before the weekend. If they discovered my deception . . . reprisals, he had said.
My family was in danger.
Somehow I must restore myself to Thekla’s good graces and waylay Hermann’s advances. And I must find what I could about Georg Gyssling and der Angriff. I would be counting the days until Leon Lewis’s return and hoping he came back with help.
For if I did not stop the Friends of New Germany, who would? And if not soon, it might be too late.
——————
I woke to a quiet house filled with moonlight.
I climbed out of bed and tiptoed past Tess and Steffen, touching each of their brows briefly, assuring myself of their safety. They slept peacefully, no doubt dreaming of ice cream dinners. I stopped in the small bedroom where Mutti snored. She meant well and one day I would tell her the truth. Downstairs, the kitchen smelled of vinegar. A single drop of water hung on the silver faucet, catching the gleam of moonlight like a diamond.
Fritz slept on the divan in the sitting room, as he often did when his attic room was stuffy or he couldn’t be bothered to climb the ladder. In sleep he looked like the boy I’d spent my days with on the MGM lot. Quick and funny and always in trouble. I stood for a moment, remembering how fiercely I had loved him. I still did. How could I get through to him? Talk to him as we used to do, like brother and sister instead of adversaries? What would it take to bring him back from this brink of hatred?
I went back to my bed, thinking on what Mr. Lewis had said about fear . . . and love.
——————
The next morning, I took a chance. Fritz was in the bathroom, shirtless and shaving, the door cracked open. I ducked in and shut the door behind me, locking it with a firm click.
“What are you doing?” Fritz plucked his shirt from where it hung on the hook and shrugged into it with an outraged look.
I sat down on the closed toilet. “I’ve seen your bare chest before.” I’d changed his diapers as he well knew. “Tell me what happened to Yitzak.” I didn’t really want to hear the answer.
He turned back to the sink and picked up the straight razor. Fritz had the peach fuzz of a twelve-year-old boy and yet insisted upon shaving every day. “He got what he deserved.”
How could he say that? Yes, they had their differences—mostly Fritz being angry because Yitzak cut the grass or cleaned out the gutters, making him look bad—but this was a man who was our neighbor for six years. “Did you do that to him?” Could he have?
Fritz drew the straight edge over his cheeks and down his throat, avoiding my gaze in the mirror. “The boys at the precinct.” He rinsed the foam-coated razor in the sink with an angry flick of his wrist. “Liesl, he attacked women and children.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself, or was that just my own wishful thinking?
He pulled the plug and the water began its descent down the drain, leaving a film on the basin. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
Yours, I wanted to say. My anger flared at him and then I remembered what Leon Lewis said about fear. What could Fritz possibly fear? And about love. But Fritz knew he was loved. Yet there was no harm in telling him so. It was, of course, the truth—even if I was so frustrated with him I wished to give him the spanking Mutti should have administered years ago.
“Fritz.” I tried to see in this angry young man the sweet boy I had known, the one I remembered last night. “I know I don’t say it often but . . . you know I love you. Don’t you?”
He stopped, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “What?”
“I love you. You know that, nicht wahr?” I slipped into German. “And so does Mutti, even if she doesn’t say it.”
A flash of confusion, but also something else, went over his features in the cloudy mirror. “Sure, I know that.”
I left him then, wondering if I’d made anything better. It felt awkward, talking about such feelings. We did not do that in our family . . . but perhaps we should.
CHAPTER 33
LIESL
Never had I longed so much for a Friday to be over.
The atmosphere in the Friends office since the ink incident was positively arctic. I’d apologized profusely to Thekla, but she was unforgiving. Now she stood over my desk with her hands on her hips, questioning me about the flyers I’d sent to members two days ago. “Gertrud informed me hers did not yet arrive in the mail.” Her tone was icy. “You’re quite sure you brought them to the post?”
“Perhaps they were delayed, Thekla.”
She gave me a look that said she did not believe me.
Hermann became bolder still. He’d managed a pinch on my behind and a few suggestive comments, which were—in the entire scheme of what I was doing for Leon Lewis—small worries, but how I wished to slap his overly handsome face. Thankfully, he left with Wilhelm Otto to do whatever it was they did together and I was relieved of them both.
The task of replacing the papers in Hermann’s office was a difficult one with Thekla watching me like a prison guard. But I knew her daily routine. When she went to freshen up at her usual time, she found the upstairs lavatory out of order. I had a precious few minutes while she went downstairs to the restaurant. I slipped quickly into Hermann’s office and found—thankfully—the drawer was still unlocked. I smoothed the papers as best I could and slipped them back in place. I was back at my desk by the time she returned. “Liesl, call a plumber for the ladies’ room,” she said curtly.
“Of course, Thekla,” I answered, my pulse still pounding, the wrench I’d used to shut off the water hidden deep in the bottom of my handbag.
At two o’clock, Paul Themlitz asked for my help in the bookstore. I escaped Thekla’s cold presence to organize Paul’s receipts and listen to his despicable chatter. “You know of course, Liesl,” he said, “how they run the studios, promoting all sorts of filth.”
I continued adding receipts and clamped my teeth together. The Aryan Bookstore, I discovered, was not a profitable business. In fact, it was running at a considerable loss.
