Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

to ask questions,” he said. Although his Berliner dialect altered the sound of the words, she understood him easily. “Stefan Dearstyne rang me as I was closing up the Munich Post offices a few minutes ago. He said Röhm and his men were following him, and he would rather die by his own hands than by theirs. He was using one of the public telephones at the train station, and he said that as soon as we hung up he would fling himself in front of an incoming train.”
    He ignored Gretchen’s startled gasp. “Most likely, he’s already dead. But his brother’s diary is in his apartment, and we must, at all costs, prevent Röhm and his men from finding it. The diary is the only proof I have that your father was murdered. I need it, and you’re going to help me get it.”
    She felt like she stood on shifting sand. All the perfectly smoothed edges of her old existence seemed jagged now. What the boy proposed was impossible. “I—I can’t.”
    They had reached the curb. Traffic curled around the corner, a black Mercedes, then a white Horch. Across the street, a tired-looking old horse pulled a cart. The driver lashed his whip across the beast’s back.
    Even as Gretchen watched, the animal’s skin split apart. Three long red welts marred its matted brown hair. The horse kept walking, its head hanging, its slender legs moving more and more slowly. Sweat gleamed on its neck, from the strain of pulling such a heavy load, and its white eyes rolled when the driver cracked the whip across its back again.
    She swallowed hard. Had she become that horse—beaten and bloodied but still serving its master without question? A beast of burden. An easily dismissed pet.
    Someone who was so scared, she would choose the familiar lies over the truth? Papa deserved better than that. And so did she.
    “I’ll do it.”
    “Good.” Cohen was nervous now; she could see it in the way he scanned the street, his eyes narrowing at the cluster of SS men, still laughing, digging in their pockets, probably looking for cigarettes or change. “We must leave straightaway. Röhm and his men may be heading toward Dearstyne’s apartment even now. Get on the handlebars.”
    She said nothing more as she clambered on. She felt the bicycle shift as Cohen straddled it; felt his breath on the back of her neck as he pushed off the pavement with his foot; felt his arm brush hers as he leaned forward to pedal. She flinched. What would Uncle Dolf say, if he saw her now?
    She should move away. She must .
    But when she twisted her neck, she looked into Cohen’s eyes, dark and clear and determined, focused on the street ahead. She saw the smooth curve of his cheek. And she couldn’t fear him.
    So, even though she knew she should move away, she stayed still, leaving her arm where it was, lightly touching his.

 
    12
    STEFAN DEARSTYNE’S APARTMENT WAS IN A narrow brick building on a side street by the central train station. The front door wasn’t locked. The lobby, a depressing box whose walls might have been white once, years ago, was lit by a dying light fixture flickering off and on.
    “Third floor,” Cohen said. It was the first time he had spoken since they had left the Braunes Haus on her bicycle. The glimmering light gilded his face for an instant, and even though she knew she shouldn’t, Gretchen couldn’t help looking at him.
    In profile, she saw things about his features she hadn’t noticed before: the straightness of his nose, the full shape of his lips, the sharp point of his chin. Why couldn’t he appear the way he was supposed to? The human shape of his face, the human smell of him—all combined to make it difficult to remember he was a subhuman.
    “We must be quick.” Cohen dashed across the lobby, making for the ancient linoleum-covered stairs. She raced after him.
    Their jagged breathing and pounding footsteps mingled in the quiet. When they reached the third floor corridor and Cohen whipped a tool out of his pocket, forcing it into the