Werner glanced out the train window with indifference at the countryside passing by him. His breakfast with Heimrich had been its usual mundane chatter about inconsequential things. The only good thing about it was that Heimrich had paid for it. Such a nosey bastard! Werner mused. Tight-lipped and mastering the art of deflection ensured that his erstwhile friend never got close to the heart of his personal business. Anyway, as he saw it, friendship was one of those lean words that carried little to no weight in his life because it entailed trust. Trust to him was a myth, a tool used on naive others, a means to an end, when called upon to project. In other words, trust was like a bone without meat, dressed up only when needed. His mind drifted back to the summer when he was nine years old. It was during a school trip. He remembered the log raft that he, and his Jewish classmates, Hans and Kurten, had spent the day making as part of a school project. Once launched onto the lake and the sail set, the threesome was overjoyed when it was deemed seaworthy by the teacher and given top marks. Wind, time, and strong paddling took their creation away from the shore as it followed the bend of the coastline, out of sight of both peers and teachers.
Werner glanced at the pretty girl sitting across from him and smiled. She reciprocated the gesture. An older gentleman who sat beside her was fast asleep. From the quality of their clothing and shoes he surmised they were wealthy. On the man’s lapel was an official looking button. Across the man’s lap was a newspaper neatly folded with half the front page exposed. In his attempt to read it, he noted that the young woman’s marriage finger was barren. The man snorted, and his arm fell heavily across the page.
“Would you like to read it?” she whispered, barely able to contain her giggling. “This is so embarrassing! As you can see my father has no use for it at this moment.”
“Yes. Thank you, Fräulein,” Werner replied, watching her with great amusement as she tactfully eased the newspaper from under her father’s arm and passed it to him.
“Would you mind if I join you?”
“Not in the least…But…what about your father?”
“Oh, he’s safely wedged into the corner and not likely to awake until we arrive in Berlin where like clockwork, he’ll awake refreshed.”
“By the sounds of it you’ve done this Berlin trip before?”
“Several times.” She stepped across the space between them and sat beside him. “My father’s business draws him there. “And you?”
“First time for me.” His eyes took in her pretty face. Breathtaking! And briefly he was at lost for words. “What does your father do?” Her scrutinizing glance cast a pall on his question, and with a quick clearing of his throat, he ventured no further.
She nodded toward the newspaper. “Anything special?”
Werner hesitated to answer as he peered into her very dark brown eyes. He had developed a skill for reading what a person thought or felt but quickly realized that the shutters on her windows were tightly closed. “Why do you ask?”
“Don’t mean to prod; only interested, nothing more.” Her focus redirected to her father snoring across the aisle. “I worry about him.”
“Not well?” he asked, with a jerk of his head toward her father while flipping the paper over to read the article near the bottom of the front page. He felt her move closer.
She shook her head. “No, it’s just…lately his work takes him late into the evening.”
Werner resisted the strong temptation to ask again what her father did and wisely chose to return his attention to reading the paper. He felt the intensity of her eyes peering at him.
“Are you a Hitler fan?” she asked, stabbing her forefinger at the article on the front page.
Werner cocked his head and looked askance at her. “And, if I am?”
She smirked. “No need to be suspicious. You are in good company. My father and I are fans of Herr Hitler. I would bet most people on this train are if you were to ask them.” She snatched the newspaper from him and read a portion of the article out loud in a deep voice, attempting to emulate Hitler. “We must not say down with France, but down with our own traitors and criminals.” A profound expression mapped her face as she returned to her normal voice. “He has it right, you know! Look at the present state of Germany!” And she began to count them off. “Inflation out of control, reparations in default, the Ruhr occupied by France and Belgium, French proclamations banning singing of German patriotic songs, displaying flags and emblems of old German colours, I can’t go on. It makes me too angry.” She pushed the paper away and distracted by her father’s restless stirrings, tightly crossed her arms against her chest and became quiet.
For a moment Werner was speechless and just stared, half expecting her to say more, but when nothing was forthcoming, he decided on a different ploy. “You know,” he said with a smile, “I don’t even know your name. Mine is Werner.”
Her frown softened as she glanced at him. “Gisella,” she replied, presenting her gloved hand.
“I think we have much in common,” he said, releasing his hand from hers.
Haughtily, she sat back. “In what way?” Her eyes scanned his meagre attire.
“Politically speaking. You see, I believe Germans should not only protest against France but there should be a frantic determination to square matters with the scoundrels in our own country. Namely those responsible for our whole misery, the Weimar Republic and the cronies that hold them up. If you are a Hitler fan as you profess…
“You speak your mind freely,” her father snapped, sitting up. “Perhaps too freely. Aren’t you afraid of who might overhear?”
“The last I heard freedom of speech was still a German right!”
“Politically, Berlin is seen as a left-wing stronghold,” her father replied. “It’s just that I would not like to see you hurt.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Her father smirked. “I see.”
“The communists will be taken care of in due course, as will the Versailles Treaty,” Werner replied, jutting his jaw out.
Gisella’s father glanced at her before he redirected his focus on Werner. “You may not worry about people overhearing but we do. So, I ask that you please… keep your voice down!” He waited until Werner composed himself. “How long will you be in Berlin?”
“Maybe a day. Maybe two. Maybe more. It depends.”
“On what?” her father asked, pointedly.
Werner had no intention of telling him he was a thief. “Lodgings.”
“He could stay with us, couldn’t he father?” Gisella said. “We have lots of room.”
Her father peered at Werner. “I have always found it difficult to deny my daughter. Well young man, what you think?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“A simple yes will do,” her father replied.
Werner’s eyes scanned both Gisella and her father. “Then, yes, it is.” There was nothing else he would say. Their apparent wealth was a grifter’s delight, similar to letting the fox have free range to the chicken coop. “Earlier, Gisella said your business as of late has kept you very busy. May I ask what you do?”
Her father hesitated before he replied. “Oberst of the Berlin Police.”
Werner went cold. The day when he and his classmates, Hans and Kurten, sailed out of sight of their teacher and other peers flashed through his head. Though their drownings had been ruled accidental by authorities, he knew otherwise. The family had managed to get the case reopened. That is why he left Frankfurt.
“Are you alright?” Gisella asked him.
Werner gave a quick nod. “There’s someone I want you meet,” he heard her father say and he feigned interest as he turned to face him.
Her father leaned in closer. “His name is Joseph Goebbels. He heads a paramilitary organization called Sturmabteiling. I think you might be the kind of person he has been looking for.”