She went up to the front door of one of the houses and knocked. A man answered, and she asked for the Fricks. The man shook his head. “Number 29,” he said. He seemed relieved she wasn’t enquiring about him, happy to direct the attention of this foreigner elsewhere.
She climbed the steps of 29 and knocked. She saw a tarnished mezuzah on the door post. There was a shuffling sound on the other side of the door and a woman called out faintly, asking who was bothering her. The door opened a crack, and an elderly woman, hunched over with a mole on her face, peered out.
“Ja?”
Aubrey asked after Lydia.
“She’s not here. At work.”
“Where does she work?”
“The bakery. Where else. Who are you?” Aubrey noticed milky-white cataracts on both of the woman’s eyes.
“A friend of a friend.”
“You’re not German.”
“No, American.”
That made no impression on the woman.
“What time will she be home?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is the bakery?”
The woman huffed and slammed the door as hard as her frail body could manage. Aubrey stood there, her ears ringing. Two door slams in less than an hour. She descended to the street and looked around. Farther down, she saw a middle-aged Hassidic Jew in a straight-rimmed black hat. The long tendrils of his payot hung down on either side of his face, and the rope-like tzitzit dangled from under his black coat.
She approached him. He had his nose buried in a book of prayer as he walked, but became aware of her and backed up.
“Excuse me,” she said, “I’m looking for a bakery in this area of the city. Is there one nearby?”
The man stepped out into the street to avoid her, holding up the book of prayer to fend her off.
“I don’t mean to frighten you. I just want to know where the bakery is. I’m looking for someone.”
The man hurried off, skirting far into the street to get around her.
“There is one farther up the street,” someone called. She turned to look.
The man was young, younger than Aubrey, but he was confident, cocky. He was leaning up against the lamppost across the street. He hadn’t been there a second ago.
“This way, you said?” she asked, pointing in the direction she’d been walking.
“Yes.” He spoke English. “What’s a foreigner doing in this place?”
She crossed the street to him. “I’m a journalist.”
“Come to witness the end?”
“No, I—what?”
“It’s dangerous here for you,” he said.
Just then there was the sound of a drum from farther up the street, and a squad of men in those same brown shirts and dark pants rounded the corner four abreast. They were marching, swastika flags held in front of them. One was pounding on a bass drum.
“Come on, you must get off the street,” the young man said urgently. “They are SA men—the Sturmabteilung.”
“But—” Aubrey said.
The man grabbed her hand and hauled her into a vacant yard, bordered on three sides with a wooden fence. There was a gate, almost invisible until the young man wrenched it open.
“Quick—in here.”
Aubrey stepped through. The squad of brownshirts passed, their voices raised angrily in song.
“Why are you looking for Jewish pastry in this part of Berlin, American journalist?” the young man said.
“Do you know this girl?” She showed him the photograph. The man showed no recognition. “The bakery is just down the street, you said. I was told she works there.”
“Leave this area of Berlin, miss. It is too dangerous.”
“Thank you, but not until I speak to her. I made a promise of sorts.”
The man peered out the gate and was satisfied the brownshirts had gone away. Then he was through the makeshift gate and gone, back the way the SA squad had come from. He made no indication that Aubrey was to follow him. Besides, he was too fast for her. He probably had to be, given all that was going on here.
“Nice talking to you, Aubrey,” she said to herself. “Yeah, real helpful.”
She walked along the street in the direction the young man had indicated, and soon found herself in a row of shops. Aubrey strolled along, looking in the windows at the goods for sale. She first smelled then saw the bakery. It was open and had a line out the door; most of the men were dressed like the Hassidic Jew she’d encountered.
She passed by the bakery and made a concerted effort to look in the other shops. Many of them had crudely painted six-point stars on the windows. Some windows were boarded up, and there were glittering shards of glass here and there on the pavement. When she looked in the Jewish shops, she could see store owners behind their counters, their faces masks of despair. One or two saw her, smiled and nodded. She nodded back, although right now her window shopping was not just a show of support for the oppressed Jewish community.
As Purnsley had taught her in their brief time together, she was using the windows to spot a tail. And spot one she did. The young man she’d spoken to a few minutes earlier was behind her. He wasn’t as good as the seasoned man from British Intelligence.
She saw a break in the traffic and dashed across the street—not running away, just trying to avoid being hit by a truck or car or one of the constantly passing trams. She headed back in the direction of the bakery. Again she slowed, pausing at a store front. He was still there, behind her, hands in his pockets, pausing when she did, resuming when she started moving again. She saw him give a quick shake of his head to someone unseen. He put his hand out and waved it down at the sidewalk in a dismissive gesture. A tram came by, its bell clanging, letting out a moan as it slowed to let a lorry with canvas sides clear the tracks.
An open-sided truck filled with brown-shirted thugs weaved its way down the street, deliberately sliding out into the opposing traffic, causing everything to
