Never before had Gerlinde heard about “the old world” from that angle. All that used to be said about it was invariably replete with “Jewish conspiracies,” “communist revolts,” and “disgusting, Weimar, drug-induced decadence.” From an early age, the youth was taught to loathe that old world. It was the new Reich that ought to have been glorified, according to their BDM leader. Der Führer saved us from the Weimar filth and poverty. He made Germany strong. He unified us Aryans, under his flag and delivered us from being overrun by the Eastern immigrant hordes.
Gerlinde’s face changed slowly as she looked toward the window behind which the obliterated city lay. Over it, those very “Eastern hordes” now presided. All thanks to our Führer, a familiar slogan flashed through her mind, mocking and forever tainted. Suddenly, Gerlinde was overcome with an overwhelming desire to see the old, Weimar Berlin as Margot had seen it; suddenly, she began considering reading All Quiet on the Western Front. The way Margot had portrayed him, Remarque wasn’t such a bad fellow at all. Much too sensitive for his own good… It was a shame what the Gestapo did to his sister, too.
Gerlinde hissed, as she pulled her finger away from her mouth and winced at the sight of blood. She hadn’t realized that she was biting it obsessively until she tore her cuticle completely off. She was never a nail-biter but now, she couldn’t get hold of herself. One thing Margot was right about – it was all too much to take in. Gerlinde felt as though her head would split in two any moment now.
With a trembling hand, she pulled the curtain away from the window and stole a peek outside, into the bright, still-living world. The sun got caught on the gilded letters of the books and another hot wave washed over her. What if Margot was speaking the truth and life belonged to her now? Her life, to do with as she pleased. Gerlinde gulped, once, twice. How positively terrifying, to live without direction, without guidance from above, making her own decisions, thinking with her own head…
With her eyes wide open, Gerlinde stared at the books, the door. Skittish and inexplicably hot, she ventured outside, down the stairs, into the hallway and listened to the voices. Inside the drawing-room, she found Morris. Frau Hanke was cleaning after the guests. Margot was long gone but her perfume still hung faintly in the air, familiar and oddly reassuring.
“Agent Morris,” Gerlinde spoke with carefully faked resolve, “may I speak with you, please?”
Even if he had been expecting her, his face didn’t betray anything. He calmly closed an issue of Stars and Stripes he was perusing and escorted Gerlinde into her father’s study, knowing how comfortable she felt there. Once they were inside, he closed the door. For some time, Gerlinde sat silently in her chair, staring at the painfully familiar desk and having not the faintest idea of where to begin. The windows were closed in the study and the air had grown stuffy and she was suddenly so very hot and speechless.
Morris encouraged her with a gentle smile. “Miss Neumann, is something bothering you? You can talk to me about anything at all. It doesn’t have to be related to your father.”
Slowly, with effort, she passed her hand over her forehead. The words refused to string themselves together into a sentence – alien, treasonous, even without being spoken yet. “Agent Morris, do you think…”
She paused; looked as if she were about to say something but then turned away, ashamed of herself. She shouldn’t have come here. No deals with the enemy.
“Gerlinde.” Such an inappropriate intimacy and such a genuine desire to help in Morris’s voice. “You’re not betraying your father by talking to me. It really is all right. He would want you to talk to someone. A friend, not an interrogator. Talk to me.”
“It’s not about my father,” she grumbled a bit more defensively than she’d initially intended. “It’s about… what is it going to be now? For us, Germans, I mean? What kind of… government?” She cast him a probing glare. Morris encouraged her with a nod and a smile. “A military government? What will we have? What is life going to be now that you’re here?”
“We won’t always be here. Someday, we shall leave.”
She regarded him with great mistrust.
“Yes, someday,” Morris continued pensively. “But before that, a lot of work needs to be done. We need to completely rework the entire system but most of all, we’ll need to rework people’s minds. After we do that, we shall leave. When we are certain that you people won’t make a mess out of yourselves once again.”
On Gerlinde’s face, her smile mirrored his with uncertainty. She tried turning it into a smirk but it came out wistful, full of strange longing.
“There shall be some temporary, allied-approved government, I should imagine,” Morris proceeded, “but in essence, it will be you, German people, who will be governing yourselves.”
“Communists in the Soviet zone and former social-democrats in ours?”
“For now.”
For some time, Gerlinde considered, with her head tipped to one side.
“What is it going to be, with social-democrats in charge?” she asked at length.
“I imagine like any other democracy.”
“I don’t know anything about democrats except that they’re the enemy of the people.”
“Why is that?” Morris seemed genuinely amused.
“They always plotted against the Führer, from the very beginning.”
“Did you like the Führer?”
“He was very kind,” Gerlinde replied softly, averting her eyes.
“To you?”
“To me. To everyone around.”
“His immediate circle.”
“To the German people.”
“A lot of them would respectfully disagree.”
She looked up at him, sharply. Just now, upstairs in her bedroom, she was entertaining
