Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman Page A

standing on the landing, they nudged each other and fell silent, doffing their caps as they passed and continued along the second-floor corridor.
    They had been talking about her. She sensed it, from the way their gazes had skittered away from her.
    As she watched, they slipped into one of the offices lining the hallway, leaving the door ajar. She glanced at her wristwatch. Ten minutes to nine. She was still early. And the hallway was empty.
    She darted down the corridor. She vaguely remembered the rooms’ positions: Hitler and his personal secretary Rudolf Hess’s offices were housed on this floor, and the Senators’ Chamber was the room Kurt and his companion had entered..
    Its heavy door was open an inch. Scarcely daring to breathe, she placed her eye against the door’s crack.
    Kurt and the older man stood beside a shining wooden table surrounded by dozens of red leather chairs. She remembered Uncle Dolf talking proudly about those chairs, purchased to commemorate the Party’s recent election of additional members to the Reichstag. Marble and mosaic decorated the walls. Deep-pile rugs woven with swastika symbols covered the floor. The older man was pacing, his footsteps whispering against the carpet. “What’s this about?” he demanded. “I haven’t much time, Herr Jaeger.”
    “It’s Reinhard Müller,” Kurt said. While the first fellow’s voice had sounded strained and weak, Kurt’s was young and polished, a stone rubbed smooth by a river. “He has been approached and has accepted.”
    “Müller? The son of that dead shoemaker?”
    Gretchen couldn’t stop a little sound of distress. The SA men stopped speaking. She didn’t dare move away.
    But nothing happened. Cautiously, she peered through the sliver of open door.
    Apparently satisfied the noise had been nothing, the SA fellows had picked up their conversation.
    “The very same,” Kurt said. “But he’s a different sort from his father. Reinhard has ice instead of blood. We shan’t have any problems with him.”
    “Good. I’m depending on your judgment, Jaeger.” The man barked out a sudden laugh. “The sainted, dead Müller. He was the sorriest excuse for a street fighter I ever saw.”
    Gretchen stared at the carpet. She felt the roughness of Papa’s beard against her face when he kissed her, the warmth of his arms holding her until the last icy grip of a nightmare melted away. He had been more than all the labels he had garnered in death: the martyr, the sainted Müller, the heroic shoemaker. He had been a husband, a father, a soldier who came back from the war with tremors in his hands and an occasional blankness in his eyes, as though the battles had scooped out something inside him.
    The swastikas woven into the rug blurred together, and she had to blink several times before they came into focus again. He had been someone she was only beginning to get to know when he died.
    “Then it’s agreed,” Kurt said. “Reinhard Müller can receive his first assignment.”
    The inevitable Heil s and clicking of heels followed. They were turning to leave. Gretchen stepped back, horrified when her high heel clicked on the floor. She couldn’t get away. They would hear her.
    A group of SS men poured into the corridor from the grand staircase, their boots tramping loudly. Thank God . She hurried toward them, pasting on a smile, waving without stopping. They tipped their caps, greeting her in their quiet, respectful manner as she took to the staircase, heading for the third floor and trying not to break into a run.
    Below, she heard the rumble of their voices, but she couldn’t separate out the smooth strand of Kurt’s. Maybe he hadn’t left the Senators’ Chamber yet. It didn’t matter. She was gone, and she doubted any of the SS men would mention her appearance in the corridor.
    As she climbed the steps, she ran a hand over her blouse, smoothing out the wrinkles and hoping she looked presentable on her first day. What sort of assignment