confounded men debating in council rooms in London, Brussels, and Paris—and when their anger was spent, throwing their hands helplessly into the air and deciding yet again to wait and see. Mildred could almost hear their rationalizations: Hitler had long regarded the imposed demilitarization as shameful and degrading to the German people. Perhaps occupying the Rhineland would satisfy him. Why put their own troops in harm’s way and jeopardize the peace and stability of Europe by provoking Hitler if he wanted no more than what he had already taken?
“He will always want more,” said Arvid as Mildred lay in his arms in bed one morning in early May, both of them reluctant to get up and face the day. “The Rhineland, the constant adulation of the people, the timid acquiescence of the great leaders of Europe—none of it will ever be enough to fill the void where his soul should be.”
Mildred imagined a dusty, echoing hollow in Hitler’s chest, empty of all compassion and empathy. Strange that such a cold, dark place should be the source of so much heated rhetoric and fiery hatred for the Jews. How much more would Germany’s Jews be able to endure? Only a few days before, Sara had turned up at the Harnacks’ flat tearful and distressed, having just been informed that Jews would no longer be permitted to sit for doctoral exams.
“I’ve worked so hard for so many years,” Sara had lamented, choking back tears, “and just when my degree is within reach, it’s snatched away. What am I to do now?”
Mildred had comforted her young friend as best she could, plying her with Kaffee und Kuchen and offering pragmatic advice—to secure a copy of her transcript, obtain letters of recommendation from favorite professors, create a portfolio of her papers and research, and continue to read and study on her own so she would not lose ground while she arranged to transfer to a university abroad.
“Ambassador Dodd has influence at the University of Chicago,” said Mildred. “Martha would put in a good word for you with her father. I myself have contacts at the University of Wisconsin—”
“I can’t leave Germany now,” said Sara, startled out of her tears. Shaking her head, she took a handkerchief from her book bag and wiped her eyes. “You need me.”
She meant the resistance needed her, but she was clever enough not to say so aloud, not even in the presumed security of the Harnacks’ flat. “We could spare you for the sake of your future,” said Mildred.
“What future will I have if I don’t do my part to stop my country from hurtling toward its own destruction?” Sara gestured as if indicating the edge of a precipice. “I don’t see you packing up and heading back to America, even though all you have to do is buy a ticket and brandish your American passport, and you’re halfway home.”
Mildred shrugged noncommittally to hide her chagrin. Arvid alone knew that a month after the German army occupied the Rhineland, she had written to William Ellery Leonard, her former mentor at the University of Wisconsin, to inquire about joining the faculty of the English Department. His reply, regretful and yet oddly sanguine given her circumstances, described state budgets severely tightened due to the Great Depression, staffing cutbacks, and a surplus of unemployed academics. Unlike most scholars competing for scarce positions in academia, Mildred had not earned her doctorate, which put her at a distinct disadvantage. She seemed to have found her niche in Berlin introducing great works of American and British literature to Germans, he wrote condescendingly. Perhaps she should resolve to find greater satisfaction in that.
“Even for me, leaving wouldn’t be as easy as you might think,” Mildred told Sara. First and foremost, she could not bear to leave Arvid. In Berlin she had a job and a higher purpose in the fledgling resistance. If she returned to America, safer but heartbroken, she would be entirely dependent upon the generosity of her siblings until she found work—if she found work, when millions of others were unemployed and struggling.
Mildred was grateful for her job at the Abendgymnasium, which remained fulfilling despite the Nazi influence over the curriculum and admissions policies. Although the National Socialists constantly boasted about Germany’s miraculous economic recovery, the economy had improved only slightly under Hitler’s rule. It was true that many men had found decent jobs thanks to public works schemes like the National Labor Service—building roads, digging irrigation ditches for farms, planting trees—but the dramatically