“I’m still here,” Franka said. “I don’t know why, but my trip home was delayed. Today is my last day on the farm. It seems ridiculous, but I’m going to miss this place, and all the wonderful people I’ve met here.”
“The war is over. The Nazis are gone. It’s time to get on with our lives, whatever might be left of them.”
The two young women walked together. Others joined them as they went, and by the time they reached the barn, the group numbered more than twenty, each wishing her the best as she said goodbye.
Memories of Hans came to her as she washed up before dinner in the bathroom she shared with the ten other women she knew as sisters now. His words had lived beyond the brevity of his own life. Hans, Sophie, Willi, and the others who’d given their lives in the cause of freedom would soon be held up as the heroes she knew them to be. She went back to her room and sat on her bunk bed. The dorm was empty, all the other women outside enjoying a drink in the evening sun. She pulled out from under her bed the case that constituted her belongings. The leaflet was folded in the side pocket. She took it out, as she did often these days, and read its headline:
THE MANIFESTO OF THE STUDENTS OF MUNICH
It was the sixth leaflet of the White Rose, smuggled out of Germany by a lawyer, and duplicated and dropped in the hundreds of thousands over Germany by Allied bombers. Sylvia Stern, a Jewish refugee from Ulm, had carried it across the border with her and given it to Franka as inspiration when Franka first arrived in the camp in winter 1944. Franka never told her, or anyone else, that she’d been there the night Hans, his sister Sophie, and best friend Willi had penned that leaflet. She didn’t tell her that she’d helped distribute it, or that she’d spent time in jail for the words on that piece of paper. That memory was theirs now. They deserved that honor alone.
She folded the leaflet, tucked it back into her suitcase, and went to the window at the end of the row of bunk beds. Franka peered out at the Black Forest, miles in the distance. What was she going back to? The Nazis had been destroyed, and their Reich, which was to last a thousand years, had too. But what was there for her now? Everyone she’d loved most was dead. Only their memories remained, bathing her in comfort and sorrow, and immersing her in love. She still spoke to her mother, still felt her father’s arms around her, still saw Fredi’s smile in her dreams. They would always be with her, as long as she lived.
She still thought of John. She could still feel the weight of him on her shoulders, the warmth of his blood spread over her, and the look on the customs man’s face—somewhere between pity and incredulity—as she burst through the door with him on her back. The customs man had tried to convince her to give up, that John was dead, but she’d refused to believe it. She forced him at gunpoint to drive them to the hospital three miles away. She was sure they’d lock her up for that. But they didn’t. The US consulate stepped in. The microfilm was smuggled back to the States, and the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She’d never know how much she’d contributed to the horror of those days, but the war was over now. The Americans said that those bombs saved hundreds of thousands of lives. It was best to think of it that way, for the alternative hurt too much. Perhaps the role they’d played in ending the war was the legacy that one day she could come to terms with. It was enough to know they’d contributed.
She’d been confined to the safety of the camp after he’d entered the hospital, hadn’t seen him since that day, and had only been informed by letter of the miracle of his survival. He’d sent letters thanking her for saving his life through the sheer force of her will, asserting over and over his promise to return to her, but somehow she still felt alone. She couldn’t bring herself to believe him, and the hope within her faded as the flow of correspondence between them dwindled to a trickle.
Night was drawing in, the light of day little more than a glow above the Black Forest in the distance. She hadn’t turned on the lamp in the corner. The room had darkened around her. There seemed no point in lighting a room she was about to leave. It was time. There was no avoiding it now. Her suitcase sat by her bed. She went to it and packed the last of her possessions. It was barely half-full as she closed it. She picked it up and in one hand felt the weight of what was left of her life.
She heard the soft sound of the bedroom door closing. “I told you I’d come back for you,” came the voice from behind her—a voice she’d heard only in her dreams these last months. She moved her hand to the lamp in the corner and flicked it on. Golden light enveloped the room, illuminating where John stood at the door, in full military dress, a bright line of medals across his chest. He took off his hat and put it under his arm. “I’ll never leave you again.”
“I’ll never let you,” she replied.
He came to her and took her in his arms, all other words lost in their embrace.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank my wife, Jill, for her belief in me and for being my all-purpose sounding board. I want to thank my beta readers for their work in sifting through the rubble of my early drafts: Jack Layden, Shane Woods, Betsy Frimmer, Carol McDuell, Chris Menier, Jackie Kosbob, Nicola Hogan, Liz Guinan Havens, Morgan Leafe, and of course the beautiful Jill Dempsey. Thanks also to Dr. Liz Slanina and Dr. Derek Donegan for their technical help. Thanks to my fabulous agent, Byrd Leavell, and to my editors, Jenna Free, Erin Anastasia, and Will Champion, who made me laugh out loud many times with his colorful language in the edits. Thanks to Jodi Warshaw and Chris Werner, my fantastic editors at Lake Union, and all the staff there who are so friendly, responsive, and kind.
Thanks to my brother Brian for keeping me honest, and my brother Conor for helping to instill a love of all things historical in me. Thanks to my sister, Orla, for her constant support, and of course to my parents, Robert and Anne Dempsey, for making me this way. And thanks to my beautiful sons, Robbie and Sam. You are the keys to everything now and the main force driving me onward in my journey toward becoming the writer I one day hope to be.