Martina stayed with Franka a few more minutes before duty called and they said their goodbyes. Franka tied the crutches to her backpack and made her way out of town, explaining to the guard who stopped her that they were for her war-veteran boyfriend. He didn’t ask questions after that and handed her papers back.
Franka arrived back at the cabin, brandishing the crutches like a trophy. John slipped them under his armpits and pushed himself upward. Movement was still difficult, and he had to drag his legs behind him, but his situation now was miles ahead of being stuck in bed. His first journey was to the kitchen. They sat at the table together as Franka made up a meal of soup, bread, and cheese, and they ate it like it would be their last.
Later that day, Martina Kruger thought long and hard about the meeting with her old friend. Why hadn’t Franka wanted her boyfriend to see a doctor? Even if the bones were healing well, surely it would have been better to make sure? The thought stayed with her through Christmas, and even into the new year of 1944. She couldn’t shake the way Franka had looked at her and how unusual her request was. It was with some regret that she went to the local Gestapo office to report her friend. It was probably nothing, she reasoned, and surely Franka didn’t have anything to hide, but it was best to let the professionals deal with it. She suppressed any feelings she had about loyalty to friends, because in times of war like these, it was more important to put the führer first. Franka Gerber was a criminal after all, and Martina couldn’t risk getting involved. She had her family to think about. The Gestapo agent agreed with her—she had done the right thing.
Christmas came. They spent it together. They talked for hours on end. She went through every idea that the White Rose championed, and he told her he’d heard of the massive drops all over Germany of the Munich students’ manifesto. That was her Christmas present—the quiet satisfaction that what they’d done hadn’t been in vain. She told him of her childhood in the mountains. They had time to go through every summer she spent here, every memory she had. He taught her some English phrases—military language mostly. He told her of Philadelphia, his parents’ house, and sunny days at the shore during the summer. He talked about his father’s business and how uncomfortable he was with the privilege he’d been raised in. But the way he spoke about it was different from before. It wasn’t something to hold a grudge over. There were far more important things to live and die for.
He told her about meeting his wife in Princeton, and about how happy their first few years together had been. She married her airman a week after the divorce went through, a month before John shipped out. He’d never told anyone his story this thoroughly before—his ex-wife, his childhood, his parents, and where he’d grown up. He’d never had the time. He went through every conceivable detail he could remember about Rudolf Hahn and told her everything he knew about his work, which wasn’t much. There were parts of the mission shrouded even from him. He didn’t need to know everything.
They talked about how they’d get Hahn back to the cabin. It would be best to wait until John’s legs healed. That would be at the end of January. Only then could they strike for the border. With all they talked about, all the hours they spent together, they never mentioned the future. They never spoke about what Franka would do once John set off for Switzerland with Hahn. Only the mission mattered. He repeated those phrases over and over in his mind, until they became a mantra, words to live by.
Franka moved his bed above the pried-up boards in the bedroom. They developed a drill—what to do if the Gestapo did come looking for him. They went through it dozens of times. The only warning they would have would be the sound of a car pulling up. In that case John was to go to the bedroom immediately and slip the boards over himself as he lay in the space beneath that she’d made as comfortable as she could. The bed would cover the floorboards, which in turn would cover him. There would be no hiding if the Gestapo conducted a thorough search, but what reason would there be to do so? No word had come in the local papers of missing Allied airmen, or of spies. It seemed that they didn’t know he was in the area, let alone hiding in her father’s cabin.
The new year came. She had seen no one but him since her last trip to town almost two weeks before, when she had only spoken to Martina, the officer who’d asked for her papers, and the people working in the various stores she visited. John was spending more time outside the room. When she returned from her daily walk, she often found him sitting in the rocking chair by the fire, reading banned literature. He wanted to read only the books that the Nazis would throw her in jail for. The stiffer the sentence for having it, the more he wanted to read it. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann sat on the table where he’d left it, his bookmark jutting out. They only listened to illegal, foreign radio stations, reveling in the freedom of their solitude. She was fascinated as he told her about what was going on elsewhere in the war, the battles in Russia and Italy, the combat in the Pacific.
She cooked stew most nights, and he helped cut and dice the vegetables so thinly that they melted in her mouth. They had started eating together on Christmas Day, and it was a habit now.
They were silent as they ate that night in January. His table manners were exquisite. She tried to imagine him sitting down with his fellow soldiers and eating the C rations he’d described in such detail. It was hard to picture.
He raised his napkin and dabbed away breadcrumbs on the sides of his mouth before continuing with his meal.
“I see you looking at me with that smile on your face,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m just trying to picture you with your fellow soldiers, the ‘grunts,’ as you called them.” She was proud of herself for using the English slang he’d taught her.
“It took a while for some of them to accept me in basic training. Once they saw that we were all on the same side, and prejudice against your own could cost you your life . . . I’d like to think I earned their respect.”
He put his fork down, his meal unfinished.
“I know you’re nervous about tomorrow,” he said. “Everything will be okay. You only need speak to him for a few minutes. No one will suspect a thing. As far as we know, he’s not under any suspicion.”
“As far as you know . . .”
“Of course, there are things we don’t know, but I wouldn’t trust this job to just anyone.”
“You don’t have much choice.”
“Of course I do. I could wait. Hahn might change his mind, or finish his work, or get caught, or something else could happen in the meantime. But I can’t wait, and I can’t go myself.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “When are you going to realize what a valuable asset you are to this mission? I can’t believe I found you. If it weren’t for you, I’d be dead already.”
Franka pulled her hand away and picked up the cup of coffee in front of her. “What makes you so sure I can do this?”
“I can see the strength in you. Who else could have done what you’ve done and still keep going?”
“The fire needs tending to.”
“Never mind that. It can wait a few minutes.” He reached for her hand again. His hands were warm, strong. “You can do this. You have every quality inside you to do this. You’re brave, and—”
“I’m not brave. I’m a coward.” She felt the tears coming and was ashamed to cry in front of him. “I sold out to save my own skin. I pretended I didn’t know what was going on, and what Hans and the others were doing.” She turned away from him, grabbing for the wood stacked in the corner. The fire under the stove crackled as she tossed on a couple of logs. “They were the real heroes, prepared to give their lives for what they believed in.”