She rose, and pulled up her collar. It was time to return to the hotel. She knew she should speak to Gilbert Leslie soon—but she would go to the consulate tomorrow, after she had seen Leon Donat. With her plan for the following day made, she stepped out along the path.
It was as she was walking back toward the Residenz that she stopped, and stepped back into the shadows. On a bench farther along, an SS officer was seated, his eyes closed, as if he were deep in thought. Maisie recognized him; without doubt it was Hans Berger. Had he followed her there? Or was he in the Hofgarten just by chance? Hadn’t he told her how much he enjoyed the peace of the Residenz and gardens?
Should she approach? No—after all, what could she say? She began to step back, ready to turn around and exit in another direction, when she saw Berger pull a handkerchief from his pocket and draw it across his eyes. Perhaps he was tired. Or a man shouldering a deep and wounding grief.
As Maisie began to walk away, she realized that the only exit available to her was straight onto the Odeonplatz and the memorial to the martyrs, the men who had died to protect Hitler. Her arms felt leaden as she pressed her hands down into her pockets. She prayed dusk would conceal her deliberate lack of respect.
CHAPTER 16
The sound of rain hard against the windowpanes woke Maisie from an unsettled sleep. For a moment she thought she was back in Spain, where the endless spitting of gunfire peppered the night, and bombs and incendiaries dropped from aircraft flying so low, they looked like seabirds descending to snatch prey from calm waters. Her memories snapped back and forth: at the convent, waiting for the wounded to be brought into the makeshift casualty clearing station—and then to Canada, and another aeroplane swooping low over the escarpment, the ack-ack-ack of the aircraft’s gun, and then the long spinning down to earth. Memories streamed over her, and she sat up, images converging in her mind’s eye, the sneaker wave of grief catching her in its riptide pull once again, leaving her washed ashore, bereft, with two deep desires: to sleep forever, or to live life for them both.
“Oh, James.” She turned her head into her pillow. And even though she continued to question why she had ever allowed herself to be talked into this assignment, she knew that it was in part an effort to please James, as if he were still alive, as if she could go home and recount everything that had happened, and hear him say, “Oh, Maisie—well done. You’re doing your bit.” As he had done his.
She dressed, choosing the navy jacket and, this time, not a skirt but woolen trousers with turn-ups. The long coat would do much to disguise the trousers—she had only seen one woman wearing them since she arrived in Munich, but she suspected the ease of movement they offered would be a good idea, especially if more tunnels were involved. She stood in front of the mirror to position and fit the wig. As she pushed and prodded it into place, she saw how much it changed her. For a second she stared at herself. Who am I?
She lifted her hand and allowed a finger to trace the outline of her face as she watched in the mirror. Other Maisies seemed to be reflected, taking her back into the past before returning her to the present. Maisie, the daughter of a dying mother. Maisie, a girl who keened for hours through the dark night of loss, then steeled herself to become a maid in a grand house, never—she thought—to hold a book in her hands again. But life changed; the girl before her was a student at Girton College. Then war came, and instead of wearing a wig of hair so different from her own, she’d pulled back her hair each day and placed the veil-like cap on the unruly mass, carefully checking the exact position of the white linen points that made her look like a nun. Maisie closed her eyes, as if to push against the images flooding back to her. She’d fought them so many times. She’d almost lost her life when the casualty clearing station was shelled, and then she recovered, choosing to become a nurse in a secure ward for shell-shocked soldiers. But in time she had to move on, into her apprenticeship with Maurice Blanche . . . then her own business, then . . . then James, and marriage, and at last the feeling that she could trust someone with her heart. And all too soon, after the joy, the anticipation of motherhood, she was a widow. In Spain she’d come full circle, a nurse again. She shook her head as if to shake away these thoughts. Picking up a small compact, she began to dab powder on her cheeks, across her nose, and down to her chin, gazing into the mirror as if to see her future. If I am in a circle, then I know what comes next.