Prisoner of Night and Fog Read Online Free PDF

up her spine. She whipped around. Boys playing jacks, girls walking home, housewives carrying string shopping bags. Nobody suspicious.
    The boy scampered off. At the corner, a streetcar trundled to a stop, blue sparks flying from its electric cable, and she climbed up its steps.
    No one looked at her as she threaded her way to the back. Leaning against a pole for balance, she ripped open the envelope.
Monday, 17 August 1931
Dear Fräulein Müller ,
Although you hide it well, it is clear you are nothing like the others, which is why I presume to send you this letter. Last week, I was approached by one of the Nazi Party’s original members. He is old now, and his health frail, but his memory is clear. He told me a troubling story that I believe you, as Klaus Müller’s daughter, deserve to hear. Your father did not die a martyr to the Nazi cause, and your family’s precarious position within Hitler’s party is predicated on a lie .
I beg you give me a chance to explain, and I shall meet you directly outside your home this evening at half past six o’clock .
A Friend
    The paper rustled in her shaking hand. How dare anyone make up such lies? She knew Papa had been shot to death trying to protect Uncle Dolf, just as she knew the ocean’s waves would endlessly roll on the shore, each slap of water eroding the sand a little more. It was one of life’s truths.
    And no one—certainly not an anonymous stranger who signed his despicable lies with the appellation A Friend —could be allowed to question her father’s sacrifice. He had died so Hitler might live. No one must be permitted to forget his final, heroic act. Or question it.
    She glanced out the window at the long city streets winding past. The summer sun hung like a bright coin in the sky. Hours left before this mysterious friend showed up at the boardinghouse. She would meet with him, of course—Uncle Dolf always said the only way to deal with a perceived threat was to attack first—but she must have a means of protecting herself, in case the stranger was dangerous.
    The streetcar jerked around a corner. She grabbed a canvas ceiling strap to steady herself. And she thought of the knives in the kitchen drawer—long and shining and sharp.

 
    5
    THE HARD BLUE LIGHT OF EARLY EVENING SPREAD across the Königinstrasse. Gretchen waited in a narrow passage between the stone houses. Nerves tightened her grip on the knife’s hilt. Motionless, she let the alley’s shadows wrap around her like a cloak. Only the glint of her eyes and the knife in her hand, she knew, might betray her.
    But he wouldn’t be looking for her. He would be scanning the houses, searching for hers.
    Across the avenue, the massive Englischer Garten stretched its manicured lawns in both directions. Along the pavement, working-class men in rough jackets trudged to their rented rooms, grumbling about low wages, and she was reminded of Uncle Dolf’s laugh when he said the crippling depression was the best thing that could have happened to him or the Party. People were desperate for saviors, for change that put food in their bellies and coins in their pockets. For any kind of stability. And that was precisely what Hitler promised to provide.
    A few feet away, a group of girls played, their jump rope smacking into the sidewalk, and a rangy dog shot out of a front garden, its owner shouting about a mess on the carpet while the animal darted into traffic, dodging the private automobiles, buses, bicycles, and pushcarts that choked the Königinstrasse at half past six.
    Ordinary.
    But nothing was ordinary for her now, all the familiar sights rendered strange by the letter. She felt it burning through her skirt pocket.
    And then she saw him.
    There was no mistaking the man, although they hadn’t met. He was what she had expected—a solitary figure walking through the descending dusk, stopping occasionally to check the building numbers. Tall and lean, with a quick, long stride, as though he were in a hurry.