approach another Platz with more loudspeakers, and so the madman dogged her steps all the way to the publisher’s office.
The next day, the British and French embassies closed and their diplomats and families left Berlin, scenes to Mildred painfully reminiscent of the partial closure of the American embassy. It seemed that every friendly nation, every potential ally of the resistance, was leaving Germany as swiftly as their chartered trains could carry them away.
In the days that followed, if Mildred did not turn on the radio and hear the exultant reports of the Luftwaffe raining down destruction upon Poland as the Wehrmacht marched inexorably eastward, she could almost believe that the nation was not at war. Early in the morning of September 9, an air raid siren again broke the predawn silence, but the all-clear sounded soon enough and it was evident Berlin had never been in danger. The British had sent twenty-five planes to bomb Wilhelmshaven and had dropped leaflets over the Rhineland, but if the reports were true, not a single shot had been fired along the western front. Mildred and Arvid heard halfhearted jokes around the city that they were engaged in a “phony war,” and indeed, except for the rationing and the blackouts, life went on almost as it ever had. Restaurants and shops were open, theaters and concert halls and cinemas enjoyed full houses. Rumors that a peace accord with France and Great Britain was imminent alternated with reports that Russia was preparing to invade Poland from the east. From what Arvid observed in the Economics Ministry, he found the latter far more plausible than the former.
He was right. On September 17, the Soviet army invaded eastern Poland. Ten days later, after relentless artillery bombardments, Warsaw surrendered to Germany.
In the first week of October, on the same day that Mildred successfully defended her dissertation and earned her doctorate at long last, Adolf Hitler appeared before the Reichstag to announce a peace proposal for Great Britain and France. Essentially he offered the two countries peace in the West if they did not interfere with Germany’s plans to acquire Lebensraum in Eastern Europe. Bitter experience must have taught their leaders to put no trust in Hitler’s promises, for this time they did not concede.
If only they had given this strong, united response years ago, Mildred thought. Now it seemed that another world war was inevitable, and her dread of what might befall them was infused with a deep sense of failure. For years the resistance had worked to oust Hitler in order to avoid war, to end suffering. Now Hitler was more powerful than ever, and although the Allies had met the terms of their treaty with Poland by declaring war on Germany, they seemed reluctant to engage in battle.
“You should have stayed in the United States,” Arvid told Mildred one evening as they fixed the blackout curtains in place. “I wish I would have insisted.”
“It would have broken my heart to disobey you,” said Mildred lightly. “I wouldn’t have stayed without you, and I couldn’t have stayed without a way to support myself.”
“Your sisters and brother offered you a place to stay.”
“I refuse to become a burden to them. They have enough mouths to feed.”
But she did often wish that she and Arvid were safe in America. So many other friends had fled. With renewed confidence thanks to her doctorate, and with little to lose, Mildred sent out another round of inquiries and applied for Rockefeller and Guggenheim fellowships. She arranged for all replies to be sent to Donald Heath at the American embassy, for it would jeopardize Arvid’s position in the Economics Ministry if it became known that his wife was trying to leave the country.
In the meantime, preparations for war went on. On the western front, British and French forces built fortifications on one side of the Rhine in plain view of German defenses on the other, but no shots were fired. Children were swiftly packed off to relatives in the countryside for their safety, despite official assurances that it was impossible for enemy planes to get past German defenses and bomb Berlin. Death notices began appearing in the papers, poignant tributes by bereft parents mourning sons killed in battle in Poland.
One afternoon in mid-October, Arvid came home unexpectedly early from work and barely paused to greet her in his haste to pack a bag. He was going to Jena, he called over his shoulder on his way to their bedroom. His mother had been