The Munich Girl by Phyllis Edgerly Ring

Author:Phyllis Edgerly Ring
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Eva Braun, WWII fiction, WWII family saga, wartime Germany, historical fiction, women's friendships, family saga
Publisher: Whole Sky Books
Published: 2016-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

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Like Entering a Nest of Snakes

CHAPTER 13

Munich

22 August 1936

As my train glided into the station, I realized how much I’d missed Munich, and Aunt Paula. This little surprise for her birthday would be my last visit for a while, now that my Foreign Office job anchors me in Berlin.

The intercity express picked up many more carriages on its overnight trip south, so the procession from the platform into the station took forever. The swarms of passengers dispersed the morning quiet like a stadium cheer. Most are tourists visiting Bavaria on their way home from the Olympics.

Exiting onto the street, I heard a chorus of bells from three churches, then saw the blood-red banners with their dark Swastikas everywhere I turned. I’m accustomed to this in Berlin, but seeing them on these lovely old façades is like finding graffiti scrawled on my grandmother’s house. The Nazis are relentless with this display, like dogs marking territory. Do they imagine it will make us forget a Germany untainted by them?

In a week-old American newspaper I found on the train, some stupid reporter claimed that the Olympics have made Germans “more human”—than what? Starving in degradation and humility after the “Great War” wasn’t human enough?

Idiots like that always fall for the propaganda. They parade their opinions but do nothing as thugs ruin the country. In the end, they’ll protect their own interests by sending boys off to slaughter, just like last time. Like they always do.

But I mustn’t think of that, or the awful visions will return, though I fight so hard for them not to. What good is it to “know” things, see dangers, horrors, when no one listens? Believes?

Erich says he may leave Berlin soon. I don’t know how I’ll bear it. At least cognac’s still cheap. And working in the Foreign Office will help me know where he is.

I can’t believe how much has changed since he brought me to Erich Mühsam’s grave last Sunday. Campbell finally came and found me that afternoon I sat waiting in the Adlon’s lobby, his face flushed. I knew it wasn’t drink—he never starts that early, though he looked like he needed one.

“They took Erich for questioning.” His voice was so low I could barely hear him. He grabbed my arm when I nearly fainted. I didn’t need to ask who “they” were.

“It’s all right,” he tried to reassure me. “He’s safe. I’ve come to take you to him.”

He didn’t speak to me during the half-hour ride in the crowded train out of the city. Instead, he handed me a book to read and sat a short distance away.

Sitting with it open on my lap, I kept reading snippets of things that made no sense. Or the same paragraph over and over. I had to remember to turn the pages. I couldn’t think, my mind like a deer with three weapons trained on her.

We got off the train separately at Dahlem, as he wanted to be sure we weren’t being followed. He walked with me as far as the gatehouse entrance to the Waldfriedhof cemetery.

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