The Girl from Berlin, #1 Read online

  My current state could only be described as head in the clouds. Three days ago Heinrich surprised me with an absolutely stunning ring that I was wearing without taking off now. And today my father was holding a big engagement party for both mine and Heinrich’s family that we’re supposed to meet for the first time. I was almost dancing on the tips of my toes in my new dress while my mother was trying to fix my hair.

  “Can you stand still for just one second, Annalise? Managing your amount of hair is not easy to begin with, and now you’re making my job almost impossible!”

  “Sorry, Mama. I’m just so excited!”

  “Of course you are. You’re getting married, and it’s the most important event in any girl’s life, I understand.” She paused for a second. “I just want to make sure you’re doing the right thing.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? I thought you liked Heinrich. You’ve know each other for how long? Twenty years?”

  “Maybe even a little more than that… but twenty years ago there was no Nazi Party, and he wasn’t one of them. And don’t forget for how long he’s been away, doing God knows what. I just don’t want you to make any hasty decisions and regret it later.”

  I turned around and looked at my mother, who was trying (out of good motives but still) to ruin my happy state of mind. There was no way I would let her do that.

  “Mama, I know what I’m doing. And Nazi Party or no Nazi Party, trust me, Heinrich is not like any of them.” After a pause I added, “He knows that I’m Jewish, and he’s still marrying me.”

  “What?” Judging by my mother’s wide open eyes, I quickly realized I shouldn’t have probably told her that. “You told him? Are you insane?! We’ve been trying to cover it for how many years, much more tolerant years, and now you go and tell one of the high-ranking SD officers – whose job is to find and get rid of any Jews – that you’re Jewish?!”

  Yes. Definitely shouldn’t have told her that.

  “If he hated Jews so much, he wouldn’t be marrying one of them, don’t you think?”

  “Why would you tell him?!”

  “Just wanted to make sure that he was all right with my heritage, that’s all.”

  “Well, thank God he is, but what if he wasn’t?!”

  My mother actually had made a good point. No matter how much I hated to admit it, when I made my confession I was too drunk to think what would happen if Heinrich really hadn’t been all right with it.

  “He is. So let’s just drop the subject.”

  My mother shook her head and pursed her lips. Just when I thought that the worst part of the day was over, the door to my room opened and there she was, my Grandmother Hilda, escorted by my father and Norbert.

  “Ilsa! How did you allow this to happen?!”

  “Hallo, Oma.”

  “Don’t you ‘hallo Oma’ me, Fräulein! Are you out of your mind to marry that man?!”

  Even though she was born and raised in Germany, Grandmother Hilda was still very Jewish. Unlike my mother, who was already very “Germanized,” grandmother still spoke three languages: German, Polish, and Hebrew (the last two only with Grandfather when he was still alive and very rarely with my mother, who didn’t understand any of it anyway). Needless to say that with everything anti-Semitic going on, she hated anything connected to the Nazi Party out of some former national pride, I guess, which she clearly refused to give up.

  “Mother, what can I do?” My mother tightly hugged Grandmother Hilda and kissed her on both cheeks. “She’s in love, she wants to get married.”

  “But why to a Nazi?!”

  “Oma, Mama is technically married to a Nazi too now.” Low move, but I was trying to distract my feisty grandmother from my persona. “Papa is a long-time member of the Party himself.”

  “He had no choice, he had a family to feed.” Grandmother had a habit of talking about people as if they weren’t standing next to her. “And I still wouldn’t come to your house for almost two years because of that, if you remember.”

  Norbert sat on my bed and was obviously enjoying the show. He loved Grandmother Hilda and how tough she was, unless her toughness was aimed at him, of course.

  “Oma, Heinrich is very nice. He’s not like the other Nazis.”

  “No such thing as a good Nazi!” Once that woman made up her mind on something, no arguments normally worked to persuade her in the opposite, so I just shrugged and turned to the mirror to put on my earrings. “All of them are evil and merciless killers, that’s what they are! They think they’re better than everybody else! The descendants of Gods! And whoever is not ‘purebred’ enough needs to be gotten rid of, in order not to ‘pollute’ the genes of the ‘superior’ race! Just look what they did to those poor people during Kristallnacht! And now my only granddaughter is marrying one of them!”

  “Heinrich wasn’t even in Germany during Kristallnacht, Oma. He didn’t kill anybody.”

  “Well, it’s true, Frau Brauer.” My father finally came to my rescue. “Heinrich is more of a… an office worker. He works for Intelligence. He just collects information, he doesn’t actually walk around and kill people.”

  “Collects information about who, Richart?” Under grandmother’s stern look, my father now didn’t seem quite so happy to have gotten involved in the whole conversation. “The ‘unfits.’ The undesirable for the Third Reich people, which includes Jews, Communists, and everybody else who doesn’t support them. Maybe he doesn’t hold a gun himself, but the result is the same. Those people are dead. Or in camps.” She turned to me. “But I guess that fact doesn’t concern you, does it? You betrayed your roots!”

  “I didn’t betray my roots, Oma! I can’t marry a man who I love, just because he’s German? What, are you discriminating against Germans now?”

  “They discriminate against us, and I can’t discriminate against them? Since your great-grandfather was forced to come to this country every single member of our family would only marry Jewish people. They were hiding their origin just like us, but that didn’t matter. We knew who we were and we honored it. And now you want to marry a Nazi! Do you even realize that your children are going to be Nazis?”

  “Nazi is not a nationality or religion, Oma.”

  “It is both a nationality and religion now, girl!”

  “I’m not going to listen to this anymore!” I’d finally had enough of the preaching for one day and couldn’t stand it anymore. Or maybe I just got upset about a lot of things that Grandmother Hilda said, which made perfect sense, and I didn’t want to admit it. “This is done; it is my final decision. I’m marrying Heinrich whether you like it or not! And if you don’t want to be nice to him or his family at dinner tonight, you might as well leave right now! If you would rather put your political preferences above your granddaughter’s happiness, then go now.”

  With these words, which left both my parents and Norbert speechless, I stormed out of the room and went to the kitchen to help Gryselda with dinner preparations. Actually what I did was just sit in the corner, where our housekeeper put me so I wouldn’t be under her feet, drink hot chocolate, and talk about how unfair both my grandmother and life was.

  Chapter Eight

  The dinner went surprisingly well, apart from my Grandmother Hilda shooting menacing looks at my future husband and pursing her lips every time someone from his side praised Hitler and approved of the Party politics. I could understand Heinrich’s family too, they were multi-generational “purebred” Aryans, and unlike us, they had nothing to hide and nothing to be afraid of, and when your country’s leader constantly tells you that you belong to a superior race, I bet it feels nice to be proud of it.

  Aside from the political talk, both families seemed to be really getting along; both belonged to the upper middle-class, most members of each family were very well educated (except for the black sheep – me – who decided that dancing was more interesting than studying), so they were very much satisfied with becoming related soon.

  When the last guests final
ly left, Heinrich and my father moved to the living room to have some after dinner drinks and discuss the details of the upcoming wedding. Normally when men talked it would mean that my mother and I would be excluded from the conversation, but since this time I was quite a big part of the discussion, I was invited to join them. The financial details, as well as the guest list, half of whom would be military, bored me to death, so I got busy sketching the wedding dress and quietly consulting with mother about what would look better. I guess I got so carried away that I didn’t even hear my father calling my name.

  “Annalise!”

  “Yes?”

  “Heinrich was just saying that you have a very important dinner next week.”

  “Do we?”

  “Yes.” Heinrich took a sip from his glass. “Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler is holding a dinner for the commanding staff and wants me to bring you along.”

  “Me? Why me? What did I do?”

  “Nothing, I hope.” He was laughing. I, on the contrary, didn’t find anything amusing about meeting Reichsführer, the most brutal anti-Semite in the whole of Germany. “When it comes to SS and SD staff of my rank deciding to get married, he wants to personally approve of the future spouse. I don’t want you to worry and think that you’re getting some sort of special treatment, everybody goes through it, he just wants to look at you and ask you a couple of questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something general. He just wants to know you a little.”

  “Why would he want to know me? He’s not the one who’s marrying me!”

  “Annalise!” My father always worried that being a careless girl, I’d say something negative about somebody important and would get us all in trouble, so he tended to interrupt me as much as he could.

  “Richart, the girl is just curious, that’s all.” At least my mother was on my side.

  “No, no, that’s absolutely fine.” Heinrich gave my father a reassuring nod and turned to me. “Herr Himmler just wants to make sure that you’re… how should I put it? A suitable wife for an SD Standartenführer. I know it doesn’t sound too great, but believe me, you’re not being singled out in any way, and many women have gone through the same… testing.”

  “Why doesn’t he just check her papers?” I guess my mother was even less enthusiastic about her only daughter meeting Heinrich Himmler, than the daughter herself was.

  “Oh, trust me, his staff made sure that her papers and Aryan certificate are all in order long before he decided that he wanted to meet her in person.”

  “What if he doesn’t like me?”

  “He’ll like you.” Heinrich seemed to be very sure of it, but I was still quite terrified. “You’re blue-eyed, blonde, beautiful, and athletic, you could say that you won a genetic lottery, so believe me, you’re good.”

  I won a Jewish genetic lottery, I thought, but stopped asking questions. Whether I wanted it or not, when Heinrich Himmler invites you to dinner, the attendance is very much mandatory.

  I was dreading that day for almost the whole week, and here it was. That Friday, I was supposed to be giving a performance, but several days prior Frau Martha called me to one side, told me that Gretchen would dance my part, and that I shouldn’t be worried about anything but making a good impression on Herr Himmler, since I was the face of her ballet company. I never thought I would say it, but for the first time in my life, I wanted to switch places with Gretchen.

  Heinrich was supposed to pick me up any minute now, and I was pacing back and forth in my room like a caged tiger. I couldn’t even sit down in order not to wrinkle my silk, dark-red evening gown, but I was too nervous to keep still anyway. I always liked being all dressed up like a doll, but this time I felt more like a member of a tribe who’s being decorated up, only to be sacrificed to the ancient gods. My mother did a great job of putting my hair up in a complicated hairstyle, which, combined with several layers of mascara, red lipstick and some blush, made me look like a movie star.

  “Annalise, Süße, Heinrich’s here! Come down, Herzchen, you can’t be late!” my mother called from the hallway.

  That’s it. I’m going to die of a heart attack. I came down the stairs and saw my future husband standing there with my mother, smiling and confident in his black uniform.

  “You look absolutely stunning.” He kissed me gently on my cheek, took the fur coat from my mother’s hands, and helped me put it on. “You’re going to break a million hearts tonight.”

  “Thank you,” I barely whispered. My mouth was all of a sudden too dry, and my hands were too cold and sweaty. I caught myself thinking that I’d never been so nervous in my life.

  “Bless you, baby.” My mother kissed me on my forehead. “Be careful, all right? Heinrich, please take good care of my girl.”

  “Don’t worry, Ilsa. I’ll bring her back so soon that you won’t even notice that she was gone.”

  Hanz, Heinrich’s loyal driver, greeted me with a smile and held the door open for the both of us. Halfway to the hotel (where the dinner was taking place) Heinrich, obviously sensing my anxiety, took my hand in his and slightly squeezed it.

  “Don’t worry about anything. You’ll do fine.”

  I squeezed his hand back and whispered, “Just please, don’t leave me alone with those people.”

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  As soon as we pulled up to the entrance, I immediately spotted two SS officers casually walking around with machine guns. Several more men, who I assumed belonged to the Gestapo, were smoking not too far from the door. Security measures were very impressive. I took a deep breath and followed Heinrich inside.

  I didn’t expect to see so many people. Since we’d gone in, in about fifteen minutes I’d almost lost count of all the officers who kissed my hand and congratulated me on my engagement. I was trying really hard to remember their names, some of which I was sure I knew from newspapers, but soon gave it up as something impossible. Commanding staff’s wives were all simply breathtaking, all fur, silk and diamonds, and soon my cheeks started to hurt from constantly smiling to every single one of them.

  And then I spotted him. Heinrich Himmler himself, standing not too far away, with a group of officers, and a couple of plain-clothed men. I recognized him right away: his pictures were in every newspaper, next to every article discussing “the Jewish problem.” And here I was, a little Jewish girl, standing within several steps of him. He’s turning his head. He’s looking at me. Oh God, he’s looking right at me.

  Himmler nodded to the officers that he was talking to and walked right up to us with a wide smile on his face. Heinrich saluted him with the usual “Heil Hitler!” after which they exchanged handshakes. After regular “how do you do’s” during which I realized that I forgot how to breathe, Heinrich finally turned to me.

  “Herr Reichsführer, allow me to introduce my future wife, Annalise Meissner. Annalise, say hello to Reichsführer Himmler.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you.” I slowly extended my hand, and Himmler slightly shook it.

  “The pleasure is all mine, Fräulein Meissner. I’ve heard a lot about you and was really looking forward to meeting the young lady, who conquered one of my best SD officers. Now I see why.” Himmler smiled. “Heinrich, she is absolutely beautiful, you certainly didn’t disappoint me!”

  He turned to the men he was previously speaking to and waved at them.

  “Dr. Goebbels, say hello to Standartenführer Friedmann and his bride-to-be, you have to see her!”

  Dr. Goebbels? Not Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda? And then I realized that a short man, who was wearing a suit among all these military men, was Dr. Goebbels indeed. It certainly wasn’t getting any better! At this point I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Führer himself, had shown up.

  Meanwhile the Minister of Propaganda approached us and after exchanging greetings with my Heinrich, kissed my hand.

  “Joseph, just look at her, isn’t she lovely?”

  “Absolutely.” I
could feel Goebbels’s piercing gaze analyzing every single feature of my face. After a pause he continued, “You have gorgeous hair, Fräulein Meissner. Is it your natural color, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Yes, it is, Herr Minister.”

  “Beautiful. Very beautiful. You also have a very nice posture.”

  “Thank you, Herr Minister. I’m a ballerina.”

  “Ballerina?” He looked me up and down. “That’s very nice. You must be very athletic. I heard you have to practice a lot for that, almost like our soldiers.”

  “Well, I’d say ballerinas have a more difficult routine.”

  “How come?” Himmler raised his eyebrows.

  “Because your soldiers don’t have to move on their tip-toes all the time.”

  After a second they laughed, and I laughed with them. I have to be as charming as possible with these people, I reminded myself. My future depends on that.

  “She’s witty, Friedmann, I like her!” Himmler patted Heinrich on the shoulder. “Where did you find her?”

  “She’s my good friend’s daughter.”

  “Is he in the military?” asked Goebbels.

  “No, he’s a lawyer.”

  “So he’s a member of the Party then?”

  “He certainly is.”

  “Do you go to the university, Fräulein Meissner?” This time Goebbels addressed me.

  “Unfortunately not, Herr Minister. I was admitted to the ballet school after I finished my high school and since then I’ve been working in the company.”

  “Well, why would she need an education anyway?” Himmler shrugged at Goebbels. “The main purpose of a woman is to be a wife and a mother, and that’s exactly what she’s doing. You made the right choice, Fräulein Meissner, don’t listen to the Minister. Instead of wasting your time with school, it’s much better to get married early and start having children for the Reich. How old are you, by the way?”

  “I’m eighteen, Herr Reichsführer.”