“I must tend to the fire,” she said, and left him there.
Thoughts bounced around inside her mind and collided. She knew everything now, everything except why. Why was he here? What was his mission? What was this help he’d asked her for? The logs crackled as she tossed them onto the glowing embers in the fireplace. She stood for a few seconds, warming her hands before going to the kitchen. She was hungry. Little food remained. Stretching her rations for two people was hard and would only be more difficult now that the reserve of canned food they’d had was gone. She thought of going to town tomorrow. No need to go all the way to Freiburg. She stopped and rested against the kitchen table, her arms folded across her chest. She closed her eyes, then walked back toward the bedroom.
“So now you know everything,” he said.
His accent was unchanged, but she could see the cracks in it now. She wondered how he would hold up under questioning—wondered if those trained to weed out such details would notice more quickly than she.
“Your German is excellent, not rusty at all.”
“It was a little before my training. It came back quickly. That was the easy part.”
“What was the hard part?”
“Learning to resist interrogation techniques. The simulated torture.”
“I was interrogated by the Gestapo.”
“Of course.”
“They didn’t need to torture me. They knew everything already.” She paused for a few seconds and went to the window. “Do you still think of your family, of your home in America?”
“I’ve tried not to. I tried to be Werner Graf, but John Lynch kept rearing his ugly head.”
“You were thoroughly convincing.”
“How did you suspect?”
“I heard you talking in your sleep when I found you. You were delirious, calling out in English.”
“I had no idea I could ever meet someone like you. I didn’t know someone like you existed.”
Franka had heard how earnest Americans could be. It was a different experience.
“I do have a question for you—why did you hold taking over your father’s business against your brother, when you didn’t want it?”
“I didn’t like what he was doing. He’s going to run it into the ground. My father’s life’s work is in jeopardy.”
“If that was so important to you, why didn’t you take over yourself? You gave up the right to criticize Norman’s decisions when you turned your father down.”
“You don’t miss a beat, do you?”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I didn’t want to pursue a path that led only to making money. I wanted something more. Who knows what would have happened if it weren’t for this war? I’d probably be home right now, working with Norman.”
“Instead of fighting with him.”
“I was trying to help.”
Franka felt she’d pushed it enough. “You must be hungry. You haven’t eaten all day.”
“I’m famished.”
“Food is getting low. I’ll need to go to town tomorrow.”
She went to the kitchen and heated the last of the stew and tore off a hunk of the bread she’d made to go with it. It took him less than two minutes to eat it all. She waited until he’d finished to ask the question.
“Why are you here?”
John took the napkin she’d laid on the edge of the tray and wiped the corners of his mouth.
“You deserve to know,” he said, and put the napkin down. “I was never meant to be here. My drop zone was a few miles outside of Stuttgart. We mapped out the safest route to get us there, avoiding the major cities where we knew the ground-to-air fire was concentrated. I don’t suppose they anticipated the installations around Freiburg. They must be new.”
“They were installed after the bombing raid that killed my father. The city hadn’t suffered too much before then. It was only a matter of time before Freiburg joined the other German cities the Allies have flattened.”
“I’m sorry about your father. War has a habit of victimizing innocents.”
“He was in bed when the bombers came. I don’t suppose he ever knew what hit him. He never knew who murdered him.”
“Your father’s death was unfortunate,” John said, immediately regretting his choice of words.
“Unfortunate? He was the last person I had in this world, and you took him from me. And now you’re asking for my help?”
“The Nazis are your enemy, not the Allies. The bombers who came to Freiburg that night had no idea—”
“Are you going to tell me that they had no idea they were bombing civilians? What about the raids on Hamburg, Cologne, or Mainz? Thousands of innocents have died in firebombing raids.”
“As thousands have died in London, and Birmingham, and throughout the occupied territories.”
“But you imply that the Allies are the just cause? How can you justify the murder of hundreds of thousands of German civilians?”
“War is a foul beast. To tell the truth, I don’t think the lives of German civilians matter to the generals who send those bombers, just as the lives of British or Soviet citizens don’t matter to the Germans.”
“What about to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do they matter to you, John? You lived here once.”
“Franka, I see the newsreels of German citizens yelling allegiance to Hitler. Everyone back home did. The Allied bombing campaign is designed to break the will of the German people to fight.”
“Don’t you realize that the will of the German people doesn’t matter? The Nazis subjugated the will of the German people years ago. The phrase doesn’t hold any meaning anymore.”
“That may be the case, but the Nazis started this. They started the indiscriminate bombing of Warsaw and London before the US even entered the war. If the Nazis are using the German people as a shield, then that’s a pity, but that won’t hinder the Allied efforts to win.”
“Would you help me if German bombers had killed your father?”
“I don’t see how that could be possible.”
“But what if it did happen? What if your loyalties were torn between government and people? Would you go against the will of your government for the good of the people they’re meant to serve?”
“That could never happen.”
“No one thought it could happen in Germany—a modern industrial nation. A bastion of science and the arts.”
“If you’re asking me if I’d maneuver against my own government like you did, under pain of death, then the answer is that I don’t know.”
“Would you help a foreign agent against the apparent will of your own people?”
“If everyone I loved was dead because of them, and if they had warped the things that made America great, and noble, and just—yes, yes I would.”
“Robespierre said, ‘No one loves armed missionaries.’”
“I am not your enemy, Franka. You wouldn’t have saved my life and kept me here these past days if you believed I was. There’s a reason you took me in. Perhaps one day the German nation will grow to appreciate the efforts of the Allies.”
“If there’s a German nation left to consider the past.”
“It may seem ironic, but the Allies are the only hope left for Germany. Use me, Franka. Give me the chance to help rid this country of the Nazis on your behalf.”
Franka snatched the tray off his lap. A fork clattered onto the floor, and she had to bend down to grab it.
“I hate the Nazis. I don’t want to feel that, but it’s with me every day. I think about what they’ve done—”
John’s voice was sharp as he interrupted her. “Leave the hatred behind. Do something for the future of the German people, for your father, and Fredi.”
“I don’t know. What do you want me to do?”
“Something simple. Something almost any adult could do.”