a little harder to impress her. Considering his position, perhaps he thought the burden was upon her to impress him.
Putzi seemed jubilant as he drove her home, which Martha did not understand in the least, because she could not imagine that she had made a very good impression. She had no idea what sort of woman it would take to inspire romance from Chancellor Hitler.
It came as no surprise when the days passed without an invitation from Hitler to meet again, or even a perfunctory, impersonal note from the chancellor’s office acknowledging their meeting, which an ambassador’s daughter might have expected.
Putzi seemed disappointed at first, but he got over it by mid-November. The most enduring outcome of the date was the jealousy it provoked from Boris—which was quite thrilling, and added another element of excitement to their clandestine relationship. The United States officially recognized the Soviet Union on November 16, but even after Martha’s father paid his first official visit to the Soviet embassy, the couple remained utterly platonic in public. Their romance, if it became widely known, would displease Martha’s parents, Boris’s superiors, and the innumerable Nazi officials who spotted threats and conspiracy in every chance meeting between foreign diplomats—and their daughters too, apparently. Martha was certain the Gestapo shadowed her and Boris on walks through the Tiergarten to admire the autumn foliage, and at private dinners at discreet restaurants. Fortunately, Tiergartenstrasse 27a had many rooms, and her parents preferred to turn in early. How fortunate it was, too, that she had obtained a diaphragm back in Chicago during her brief stint as a married woman. It would have been all but impossible to get one as a single girl in Berlin.
The Dodds’ first Thanksgiving abroad passed, and winter followed swiftly after with starry nights and gentle snow showers. It seemed to Martha that no one celebrated Christmas more merrily than Germans. Even in those troubled times, candles shone in the windows of every home and electric lights in every storefront, their illumination reflected in the streets and sidewalks, wet from melted snow. Strings of electric bulbs adorned the tall evergreen trees in public parks and squares, and shoppers bustled about purchasing delicacies for neighborhood parties and family feasts.
“I find the German enthusiasm for Christmas absolutely extraordinary,” Martha’s father told his family a few days before the holiday. “Christmas trees at public squares and in every house I’ve entered. One might be led to think that Germans believe in Jesus and practice his teachings.”
When his wife gently reminded him that many Germans did, Martha’s father acknowledged that he was wrong to conflate all Germans and the Nazis.
“Never mind, Dad. We’ve all made that mistake,” said Martha, with a sudden flare of sympathy for the Harnacks, for Greta Lorke, for other Germans she knew who strongly opposed the regime, an increasingly shrinking minority in a country increasingly intolerant of dissent.
Chapter Twenty-two
January–June 1934
Sara
On the first day of the New Year, Sara’s brother and many of his colleagues were abruptly thrown out of work when the Editors Law went into effect. Foreign correspondents were exempt, but all German writers and editors were required to present church records or civil documentation to prove that they were Aryan. If they could not, they were forbidden to register with the Reich Press Chamber, and unregistered journalists caught writing or editing faced up to a year in prison. Jews who had served in the Great War, who had lost a son in battle, or who wrote for Jewish newspapers were exempt, but very few slipped through those loopholes. Natan was one who did not.
Their father offered to ask Mr. Panofsky if there were any clerical posts available for him at the bank, but Natan said he would prefer to look for something that better suited his talents. Their mother reminded him that he could always move back home to save on rent until a new job came along. Natan thanked her but declined; he had been putting money aside ever since the law was announced in October, and he could afford to keep his apartment for now.
Sara thought her brother was being remarkably stoic for someone whose career had been stolen from him. Natan had been forced to give up work he thrived on, and his circle of friends diminished as colleagues and competitors, newly unemployed and with most other professions closed to them, decided to emigrate. Some found their plans thwarted by bureaucracy. When Natan mentioned that some journalists he knew struggled to get visas,