But if Louise was to arrive at events tired, it wasn’t going to be because of their cold room and attending too many parties. Every night, she had trouble settling down because her mind was filled with images of Mack. She would replay their conversations and remember what it had been like to wrap her arms around his broad back and kiss him. How was a girl supposed to fall asleep with visions like that filling her head? After a few minutes in the dark, Tidye’s breath became soft and steady, but Louise rolled over to her other side restlessly.
A commotion in the garden under their window made her stop moving and tilt her head to hear better. Muffled giggling and whispering floated into their room. Louise crawled across her bed to the window, pushed the curtain aside, and peered out. Below in the courtyard, underneath the boughs of a linden tree, two figures merged into one. Louise concentrated on their shadows. After several moments, they separated. Judging by the taller one’s height and husky voice, it was Helen, while the other’s gleam of blond hair could only belong to Ruth. The women leaned toward each other again and then eventually parted. Ruth vanished from the courtyard as the door to Friesenhaus creaked open and then closed behind Helen.
Louise remained staring into the courtyard. She had assumed the connection between Helen and Ruth to be platonic, but now she wasn’t so sure. She lacked the vocabulary to describe such a relationship, however of one thing she was certain: if Mr. Brundage was willing to throw Eleanor Holm Jarrett off the team for carousing, he would be horrified by whatever Helen was doing with Ruth. Louise felt a pang of sympathy that surprised her. Yes, Helen tended to be loud and too eager to take the spotlight, but without her remarkable athletic abilities, she would simply be an awkward, homely woman unlikely to find satisfaction in a conventional life. What did the future hold for someone like her?
From her crouch, Louise’s legs began to cramp so she shifted to slide back into bed, but as she did, dark figures appeared visible in the wooded space beyond the garden below her window. Clouds scuttled across the full moon overhead, but as she leaned closer to the crack in the curtains and looked toward the woods, movement flashed through the darkness. For a moment she held her breath, but then exhaled, watching the moon, waiting for a spell when the clouds would clear and provide an unobstructed view of the woods.
And then she got what she had been waiting for. The clouds cleared. Silver moonlight flooded the garden and the edges of the woods, illuminating a weird tableau. Through the trees, rows and rows of figures became visible. They marched in lockstep to a rhythm that Louise couldn’t hear but could feel in her chest as they moved. One, two, three. One two, three. Soldiers. The woods were full of them.
As if they could feel Louise watching them, they halted, dropped, and raised rifles to their shoulders for a beat before standing. Shocked, she leaned away from the window, a cold fear gripping her. Had anyone seen her?
A minute passed. She couldn’t resist looking again. The soldiers were back on the move. Marching and then dropping to their knees. They did it over and over again, and Louise realized they were practicing. But for what?
She shrank back into bed and curled into a ball, almost expecting the soldiers to explode into the room at any moment. Yet Friesenhaus remained peaceful. Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep, and when she awoke to another unseasonably cold gray dawn, she peered out the window again to an empty garden and woods. No soldiers. In the light of day, the previous evening’s military exercises felt unlikely. Had she dreamed them?
And then she saw smudged fingerprints on the glass of the window. Her fingerprints. The soldiers weren’t a dream. She had seen them.
50.
July 31, 1936
Berlin
SEVERAL NIGHTS LATER, BETTY STOOD BEFORE THE open door of a shiny black Mercedes-Benz and paused before climbing inside and settling into the deep leather seats next to Helen and Ruth. Though Betty tried to ignore it, she had a funny feeling about the evening ahead of them. Because of the high hopes pinned upon her, Helen had been issued the invitation to a party on Pfaueninsel Island thrown by Reichstag president Göring and Herr Goebbels, the minister of public enlightenment and propaganda. After securing Mrs. Brown, the wife of one of the team doctors, to chaperone, she had elected to bring Betty and Ruth too.
“Don’t forget that you’re representatives of the United States,” Mrs. Brown reminded them as the car maneuvered southwest through the evening traffic clogging the city’s streets. “Be sure you act accordingly.”
“According to what?” Ruth asked.
“It’s an idiom.” Helen laughed. “Apparently we’re supposed to comport ourselves in a virtuous manner and represent our country with pride.”
“I see.” Ruth fidgeted with the buttons running up her cream-colored silk frock.
“Fräulein Haslie, it’s delightful that you’ve struck up such a strong friendship with Helen and Betty,” Mrs. Brown said, but her narrowed eyes belied the compliment.
“She sure has,” Helen said, taking Ruth’s hand, immune to Mrs. Brown’s chilly tone. “And boy, have her translation and guide services come in handy.”
“Mrs. Brown, that’s the most becoming color on you,” Betty said quickly, gesturing at their chaperone’s seafoam-green taffeta gown. “Where did you find such a fetching dress?”
As Mrs. Brown launched into a full description of the shopping she had done in Paris the previous spring, Betty elbowed Helen, hoping to caution her. Helen was getting careless and seemed to be taking unnecessary chances and drawing attention to her infatuation with Ruth, and this worried Betty. Since their arrival in Berlin, Helen’s star had been on the rise. Reporters,
