Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman

but I couldn’t help hearing your voices as I climbed the stairs.”
    My God, what now? “That’s all right, Herr . . .”
    “Please, permit me to give you my card.” He handed her a square of pasteboard. Although it was in English, she could read enough of it to know he was Alfred Whitestone and the address was somewhere in Oxford. “My name,” he went on in the same halting, stilted German, “is Whitestone. I am a doctor, but perhaps not of the sort you are accustomed to.”
    “I’m pleased to meet you, Herr Doktor Whitestone.” Habit forced her to smile politely. “I hope your stay will be pleasant.”
    “‘Pleasant’ is immaterial to me,” he said. Behind his spectacles, his eyes were sharp. “What I aim for is an informative visit.”
    She was tired of playing verbal games with everyone she spoke to tonight. “I’m sure it will be. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Herr Doktor Whitestone, I must go to bed.”
    She climbed the stairs to her room. Once she had locked the door and wedged the chair beneath the handle, she stood for a moment, listening. But it was several long minutes before she heard him move again and walk upstairs and into the room beside hers.

 
    10
    THE BRAUNES HAUS WASN’T A BROWN HOUSE AT all, but a former palace of pale stone. Huge swastika flags dripped down the front of the large building. Gretchen heard the bloodred rectangles snapping in the summer breeze as she locked her father’s decrepit bicycle to an iron railing..
    Two black-uniformed SS men guarded the enormous bronze front doors, and they stepped back to let her enter the massive lobby, whose walls were carved with thousands of swastikas. Inside, uniformed men moved quickly, intent on their destinations. A couple of the younger ones eyed her curiously, and she realized what an odd picture she must make—she was the only female in the lobby, and the only person not wearing a uniform.
    Although it had been months since she had last visited the Braunes Haus, she remembered the plaque’s location. Even as she told herself not to look for it because she couldn’t afford tears on her first day, her feet turned toward the wall.
    The plaque listed the names of the sixteen National Socialists who had died during the failed putsch. Her father’s was etched there, and she resisted the almost overwhelming urge to run her fingers over the smooth grooves forming the letters KLAUS MÜLLER .
    She glanced over the other names: Max Scheubner-Richter, Lars Dearstyne . . . Dearstyne . The same surname as the old man, Stefan, who had been dragged from the Circus Krone. Cohen had said that Stefan had been troubled after reading his late brother’s diary. This could be his brother, who had perished during the putsch. What upsetting discovery had Stefan made? And what did it have to do with her father?
    She felt the curious stares of the adjutants passing through the lobby. As if from far off, she heard air rasping in her throat. Quickly, she wiped her face clean of emotion. She couldn’t think about this here.
    The grand staircase loomed at the lobby’s far end. As she climbed the steps, she passed more adjutants, some in SA brown, some in SS black and brown. She didn’t recognize any of the men belonging to the new, racially elite Schutzstaffel unit..
    The SA men grinned at her, a few saying, “ Heil Hitler ,” but the SS members only nodded at her sharply without breaking stride. The SS men moved quickly, not a movement wasted. All of them dressed identically in brown shirts and black trousers. Lightning zigzags in silver thread shone on their collars. None wore a weapon, which seemed so strange. She didn’t know a single SA man who didn’t carry a knife or a pistol.
    From below, she heard the name “Müller,” and she turned, thinking someone was calling to her. Two SA fellows climbed the stairs, talking quietly to one another—Kurt and an older man with graying hair whom she had never seen before. When they saw her