“Go ahead. He knows what I am doing. He doesn’t care. Mother is like you! Brainwashed!”
He was angry at the mention of their mother, at the lack of respect. The words about their father fell quickly to the back of his thoughts. He dismissed them. His sister always had a vivid imagination, the gift of storytelling, or lying. It was hard to tell the difference sometimes.
She looked back up the road. It was an area heavily populated with students in accommodations not of wealth. Most houses there were small, with modest furnishings. Claudine liked it better there, she once said. She liked not having furnishings that had been stolen from those put in prisons. She could live with herself better.
She looked down at the cobblestones, which were shiny and black from a light rain.
“You have always wanted to control people and what they think. You can’t control everyone, Erich. You can’t control me.”
“My dear sister, that is where you are wrong. I have the power to control you and stop your friends from illegal practices. If you continue, I will interrogate all the printers, all the teachers and students at your university, until someone reveals the ringleader of this madness and false propaganda.”
She shifted then. He had her attention. Her face took on the fierceness of a lioness. It was funny to Erich how he could face men, large and hostile when interrogated, but who never rattled him. It had only ever been Claudine whom he was somewhat afraid of. It was perhaps the thought that he couldn’t control her. Despite everything she was given, despite being on the winning side, she was freely making a choice; something that most had accepted was no longer available to them. He had always admired her courage, but he despised her disloyalty.
He decided to take a softer tone.
“Claud, I don’t want to report you. You’re my sister.”
“Then don’t. I will not stop doing this. What Hitler is doing is wrong. What this country has become is unrecognizable.”
“How would you even know? You were too young to take any political side when Hitler was voted in. Too young to see any change at all.”
“I see things more clearly than you. I see the truth, my dear brother. I see the people who are now locked up in prison, intelligent human beings, Erich. Locked up because they either were Jewish or had their own opinion. Harassed, shamed, and persecuted for having one that does not suit the Nazi order. You are too wrapped up in your own seniority to see the damage, Brother, the lies.”
“I see disloyalty by my sister. You have brought a very bad mark on this family if this gets out.”
“Hitler has made a very bad mark on this country,” she says. “First your wife, now me. How will you ever control these women? Her story is still being told in underground circles. It still brings a smile to our faces.”
He did not like that she brought this up. It was humiliating that she talked about the incident with others, and he resented being reminded about Monique’s past. Things had gone from bad to worse between Erich and his wife.
The two women had seen each other rarely when they had lived in Berlin, but on the occasions that they did, they would gravitate to each other. Claudine had admired Monique when she revealed her experience of storming into the Gestapo’s office. Erich had later chastised Monique about mentioning the incident. But his sister had refused to let it go, retelling the story at every opportunity. Even this far away from Berlin, Monique was still a bad influence.
Claudine crossed her arms. He felt himself weakening. For the first time he felt trapped.
“Please, Claud! Stop all this, and I won’t say anything.”
“You can do as you please, but I will not stop.”
“Then I will have you arrested.”
“If you can find me.”
His heart felt suddenly heavy. The wind was spiked with cold needles, but he was sweating underneath his coat. “Come home where we will talk some more.”
“Don’t you see, Erich? I’m not coming home. I can’t. Not now. Not ever. You should not have followed me here.”
“It will kill Mama if you don’t come home.”
“I know you are lying. She hopes I don’t come home. She does whatever it is that this Germany wants from her. We both know that. But you are not a true Nazi, are you, Erich? I wonder what Herr Führer would do if he knew what is hidden there beneath the uniform?”
The last piece was spoken cruelly.
“What are you saying?” he said.
“I know you, Erich. Everyone thinks you were doing Monique a favor, but I know the real reason you married Monique. There had to be something else in it for you.”
He was cornered and confused by her words that held more animosity than she had ever used on him before. He went to speak, and then stopped. Ovid had come outside, carrying a suitcase, and Claudine’s attention was diverted as he helped her into a coat he brought also.
“If you touch a hair on the heads of Ovid’s family once I’m gone, I swear that I will despise you forever.”
“Where are you going?”
“Goodbye, Erich! Don’t come for me.”
“You will be sorry, Claudine! If it isn’t me that catches you, someone else will. I won’t be able to stop them.”
She laughed then, short and brittle.
“By all means come looking, I challenge you, but it is my wish that you never see me again. I loved you once, looked up to you. But I stopped loving you the moment you put on your Nazi suit.”
As she walked away into the night, he yelled in her direction, but it sounded foolish even to his ears. He could not afford to lose control. He watched her vanish and felt a moment of bereavement. For the first time he questioned himself. She had made him do that.
The next day he went to see his father at the Berlin office to tell him about Claudine, to seek his advice. If it had been anyone but Claudine, he would have ordered them searched for and arrested without any further consultation.
His father seemed neither alarmed nor surprised.
“So be it. She is gone.”
“Your daughter is a traitor, Father!” he hissed. “And something has to be done!”
“And what are you planning then, Erich?” he said, challenging him.
Erich did not know how to answer. He knew what he had to do, but it was difficult to say it aloud, to talk about his sister this way.
“I have lost my only daughter, Erich, and she has lost a family. I think that is enough punishment.”
He was protecting the daughter he loved more than anything, and in that moment something else became clear.
“It was you who tipped her off so she could warn her friends!”
“What does it matter now?” he said, defeated. “What good have I done?”
“I must relieve myself of this case,” said Erich, shocked by the admission. “I must send someone to find her.”
“And what do you think will happen when they do? You have control of this, Erich, and I trust that you will make the right decision.”
Erich looked at his father, at the red rims and saggy flesh below his eyes. He was not the same man, he thought. He appeared frail, less important suddenly.
“I lost her years ago,” said Horst. “I saw it in her face, and it has always made me ashamed. Ashamed that one so young could see things long before me.”
Erich was lost for words, wondering what he had missed about the pair of them. He decided then he could no longer seek advice from his father.
There was only one course. He would need to report her. She must go on the wanted list. And it would undoubtedly bring shame to the family, but it would prove that not even blood would stop him from becoming the best he could be. His loyalty would never be in doubt.
Present-day 1945