It’s important. Think.
She woke up panicked and feeling powerless. Someday I will testify. She stretched her body, feeling for all the painful places. She pointed and flexed her feet. They were slowly healing.
“Elise, are you awake? You have a delivery!” her father called.
Elise rose and slipped into one of her father’s dressing gowns, which he had given her.
The package on the dining room table was from the KaDeWe department store. Elise knew the luxury store well, from the days before the war.
“Well, open it!”
Inside, wrapped in lavender-scented tissue paper, were an abundance of clothes: tights, wool dresses, sweaters, underthings, nightgowns and bed jackets, fur-lined boots, and, yes, a wig. She gasped, then impulsively pulled it over her scalp. “What do you think?”
Her father clapped and beamed. “A film star! Ingrid Bergman!”
Elise stepped to the large mirror in the hall. She saw herself with long golden waves once again and repressed a gasp. Then she reached out a hand to touch the locks. It was hair, yes—real human hair—and she suddenly had a good idea of how it had come to be a wig. She blanched and ripped it off, throwing it on the floor.
Still, it’s not his fault, she thought, struggling to control her breath. “Thank you, Papa,” she said, picking up the wig and giving her father a hug.
“I wish I could take credit, but it’s not from me.”
“Then who—?”
“Perhaps there’s a card?”
Left in the box was a heavy envelope with her name handwritten on it in old-fashioned Fraktur script.
Dear Fr?ulein Hess,
I have taken the liberty of asking my sister to put together some items a young lady might need at this time of year.
Yours sincerely,
Alexander Fausten
“Completely inappropriate!” She backed away from the box as if it were a bomb. “Throw it out,” she declared. “Wait—give it to the poor. I won’t wear anything from him.”
Hess’s eyes blazed. “Who? Who sent you these things?”
“Captain Alexander Fausten. The man I met with yesterday at the Gestapo.”
Hess’s demeanor changed from angry to beaten. “I didn’t want to ask you yesterday, because you looked so tired,” he ventured, “but how did it go? With”—he couldn’t say the words—“them?”
Elise began to pace. “Captain Fausten wants me to sign a paper exonerating Dr. Brandt and incriminating Father Licht.”
“How is Father Licht?”
“Dead.”
“They killed him?”
“The official story is he suffered a heart attack on the train trip to Dachau.”
“Ah.” Then, “If you sign this paper, what happens?”
“Then I can stay here, in Berlin.”
“And if not?”
“I go back to Ravensbrück.”
Elise’s father was silent for an agonizing moment. “How long do you have to decide?”
“I must give them my answer next week.”
Her father was silent. Then he placed his large, warm hand over hers, tears welling in his eyes. “Think carefully, my darling. Think very, very carefully.”
—
Mass at St. Hedwig’s was a somber affair, with Nazi banners hung from the soaring arches and a gold-framed picture of Hitler on the altar. When it was over, Elise waited in line to speak with the new priest, Father Ulrich Kappler.
“Thank you for a wonderful mass, Father Kappler,” she said as the crowd dissipated.
The priest took in her shorn head and scarf and took an involuntary step back. “Thank you, Fr?ulein,” he murmured, recovering. “May the peace of Christ be with you.”
“And also with you, Father Kappler. It is I—Elise Hess. I worked closely with Father Licht—”
The priest glanced around to make sure no one had overheard. “We do not speak his name here,” he whispered.
“Why not? He was a good man. A great man. A great priest.” People were beginning to stare, and Elise ignored them. “We should be celebrating Father Licht’s life and raising our voices in protest against his death—”
Father Kappler looked to a few Brownshirts at the church doors. At his glance and the sound of a rising voice, they began to walk over.
But before they reached Elise, Captain Fausten appeared at her side. “Thank you, Father,” he stated, pulling Elise’s arm through his. “Fr?ulein Hess isn’t feeling well. I’m sure you’ll understand if I take her home now.”
Father Kappler’s worried eyes took in his SS uniform and rank. “Of course, Captain. Heil Hitler!”
“Heil Hitler!”
—
“Are you insane?” Fausten hissed as they walked down the front steps.
“St. Hedwig’s is my church. My home. My sanctuary.” Where once tears would have flowed, now Elise’s eyes were dry. “Father Licht, my priest—my hero—is dead after being taken away to Dachau—and I’m not supposed to even acknowledge his existence? I’m not supposed to speak his name?”
“No.” Fausten’s face was shuttered like a Wannssee villa closed for the winter. “He is now considered a traitor to the Reich, and the less you say about him—the less you think about him—the better.”
“He will be sainted.”
“Maybe.” Fausten exhaled. “Someday.”
“Years from now, we will pray to Saint Licht. And the Father Kapplers of the world will be either reviled or forgotten.”
“In the meantime, Fr?ulein, I strongly advise you to keep quiet.”
As they walked down Behrenstrasse, their breath made white mist in the frigid air. The church bells rang, their silvery music cutting through the chill. But even though Elise was physically home, in the city where she grew up and lived all her life, she felt incredibly alone.
Who are these people? What have they done with everything I’ve ever known and loved about my city—my country? And her heart was filled with longing. For kindness, for peace on earth, for goodwill toward man. Where has it gone? How did it disappear so fast? Will it ever return? She looked up to the cloudy gray sky, searching for some sort of answer. There was nothing.
Elise gave Fausten a sideways glance. “What are you doing?”
“I’m walking you back to the Adlon.”
“Why? Am I under surveillance?”
He smiled. “No, I am a proper German gentleman. I will see you home.” They walked together in silence. “I had no choice, you know,” Fausten offered. “I didn’t choose this way of life. I went to law school, before I was conscripted. I wanted to be a lawyer. But not for the rich—to defend the poor.”
“So, you’re educated. That fact makes it even worse. For it makes you not only arrogant but also willfully ignorant. You should have known better. You should know better now.”
Fausten stopped her. “I’m not your enemy, Fr?ulein Hess.”
Elise gave a bitter laugh. “Of course you are.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “No, you don’t understand—I am Alexander Fausten. My favorite book is The Magic Mountain. My favorite composer is Bach, especially the Brandenburg Concertos. My favorite opera is The Magic Flute. I love mountain climbing and Pfannkuchen filled with plum jam. I love playing the violin but have no sense of pitch. I don’t always believe in God, but I go to church and try, every single Sunday. My mother, I’ll have you know, loves me and thinks I’m a great catch for any young German woman. I’m a person. I want you to see me as a person, not this uniform.”
“Not like a Jew? Not like a Pole? Not like a ‘rabbit’? Of course your mother loves you. I’m sure Hitler’s mother loved him. But—let me ask you this—how can you believe in God, at least try, and do what you’re doing?”
“I am many things and one of them is honest, Fr?ulein. Blunt, even. And I will tell you now, in all honesty, that in these times you must learn to be quiet and play the game—or else you’ll end up back at Ravensbrück.”
“Would it be the worst thing?” Elise turned away.
Fausten caught up with her easily. “Well, yes. Your chances of survival there are low, despite your Aryan blood.”
“Would it be worth betraying Father Licht? All those dead children? All those parents who grieve now, whose children are dust in the wind or lying in unmarked graves?”