to her professor by late September, and if all went well, she would defend it in early October and have her doctorate in hand soon thereafter. Surely then American universities would find her a more promising candidate, when the economy improved and they began hiring again.
At seven o’clock, an earsplitting wail shattered the night skies.
“Air raid,” Arvid barked, bounding from his chair, snatching up his attaché case with one hand and the flashlight from the mantel with the other. Mildred barely had time to put on her shoes before Arvid took her arm and swiftly guided her into the hallway, pushing her toward the stairwell as he paused to lock the door. Racing downstairs, fighting back terror when slower residents blocked her way, she glanced over her shoulder and felt her heart constrict when she glimpsed Arvid a flight above. He gestured for her to proceed, so she did, crowding into the basement with other couples, families with small children, a few elderly men and women. The block warden had organized the shelter months before, and all residents had been required to participate in drills, but this was different, the semidarkness disorienting, the shriek of the sirens filling her ears and drowning out every sense but terror.
She found a seat on a bench near the wall but could not breathe easily until Arvid joined her there. With his arm around her shoulders, she shivered in the cool dark, her gaze fixed on the half window above, a faint outline on the opposite wall, sandbags barely visible through the glass. The air was dank and thick with the smell of fear and sweat, perfume and soiled diapers, stale cigarettes. A baby fretted. The minutes stretched out endlessly, and eventually speculation broke out whether it was the Poles, the Brits, or the French coming to bomb them, or if it was all just an unannounced drill, or why they bothered to cower in a basement anyway since the building would never withstand a direct hit. A few people hissed at that remark, and one man ordered the speaker to shut up before he frightened the children.
Mildred strained her ears, listening for explosions in the distance, but she heard only sirens and, infrequent and almost inaudible, a man issuing commands over a loudspeaker. Eventually the all-clear sounded, and Mildred and Arvid made their way back upstairs. “A false alarm, I suppose,” she said with false bravado as he unlocked the door to their apartment.
“Or a propaganda exercise,” he replied. “That would be my guess.”
The radio reported nothing, and in the morning, the papers praised the exemplary responses of the block wardens and citizens without disclosing the reason for the alarm. Rumors flew through the city all day, a few concurring with Arvid that it had been orchestrated for propaganda purposes, some that a careless officer had set off the sirens by mistake, and others who claimed that a single plane straying too close to the capital had provoked the air raid warning.
Throughout that beautiful, sunny autumn day, enthusiastic reports of artillery bombardments, military advances, and Polish treachery filled the airwaves, punctuated by occasional references to ongoing negotiations between British ambassador Sir Nevile Henderson and his counterparts in the German Foreign Ministry. From an illicit BBC broadcast, Mildred learned that President Roosevelt had urged the leaders of every nation involved in the conflict to affirm that its armed forces would not bomb civilian populations from the air. Mildred thought it was a noble appeal, and she fervently hoped it would succeed, but she could not imagine Hitler agreeing to anything that might bind his hands.
The air raid sirens remained silent that night, but in the morning she and Arvid learned that Henderson had delivered an ultimatum to the Reich Chancellery. If Germany did not immediately cease all aggressive action against Poland and withdraw its troops by eleven o’clock, a state of war would exist between Great Britain and Germany.
Shortly after the deadline, the British ambassador returned to the Wilhelmstrasse and received Hitler’s reply in the form of a memo. Germany rejected the ultimatum. Germany and Great Britain were at war.
Mildred learned the dreadful news as she was on her way to deliver an edited manuscript to Rütten & Loening, halting on the sidewalk amid other pedestrians as Hitler’s speech was broadcast over loudspeakers throughout the city. Rousing herself from her shock, she hurried on her way, wishing she could leave the strident voice behind, but as soon as it began to fade she would