quietly under the cover of night and left no forwarding address, reminding Mildred uncomfortably of her childhood in Milwaukee and the many times her father, unemployed and months behind on the rent, had moved the family from one home to another to flee a disgruntled landlord.
As she and Arvid unpacked and settled in, Mildred resolved to focus on everything she loved about the new place and not dwell upon what she missed about the old. The rooms were beautifully decorated in appealing modern colors—warm yellows, dove tans, soft blues and greens—and the cupola in the front room offered plenty of sunshine, cooling breezes, and lovely views of the broad tree-lined avenues below. Mildred had a small, sunny room of her own for her desk, her bookshelves, and her favorite lamp, and although neither she nor Arvid said so aloud, someday it would make a perfect nursery, should the need arise. Arvid set up his own desk in the front room, near two tall vases where Mildred arranged bouquets of lavender cosmos. Throughout the day, but especially early in the morning, sweet, enticing aromas wafted into the flat from the patisserie on the ground floor.
“This is the perfect place for two scholars like us,” she told Arvid when they finished unpacking. “The light, the air, and the pleasantness of the rooms will encourage excellent work, I’m sure of it.”
Her first task was to find a new teaching position for the fall term. She updated her résumé, collected letters of recommendation, and made dozens of inquiries, steeling herself to meet with indifference or even hostility. She would persist as long as it took. All she had to do was find one school where being an antifascist American woman was an asset, not a liability.
Chapter Seven
July 1932
Sara
Dieter had been traveling on business to Budapest and Belgrade for more than a fortnight, but when Sara’s mother suggested they celebrate his homecoming with a family supper at the Weitz residence, Sara was so surprised that she hesitated before accepting. Her parents sometimes chatted briefly with Dieter when he picked her up for dates, and one afternoon after he escorted her home he had been asked in for Kaffee und Kuchen, but an invitation to dinner was something different altogether. Sara could only hope that this marked a shift in her parents’ feelings for Dieter, a thawing of the polite reserve that she feared concealed dismay and disappointment.
From the beginning Sara had suspected that her parents did not wholeheartedly approve of her relationship with Dieter, even if they did not object to him personally. She and Dieter had met through Wilhelm and Dieter’s employer, whom Wilhelm had hired to supply rare Italian marble to refurbish a crumbling fireplace in the east wing of Schloss Federle. Sara happened to be visiting her sister when Dieter had come to the estate to work out some details about payment and delivery, and she had been immediately struck by his good looks, confidence, and courteous manner. Amalie had invited him to join the family for lunch before making the long trip back to Berlin, and he and Sara had become so engrossed in conversation that Amalie laughingly declared that she felt quite forgotten. In parting, he asked if he and Sara could meet again in Berlin to continue their conversation, and she feigned a moment’s prudent reflection before agreeing. Amalie and Wilhelm teased her for swooning over Dieter’s dreamy blue eyes and dazzling smile, but what she admired most about him was his calm confidence, his stories of travel abroad to remote provinces and renowned capitals she had only read about in books, and his astonishing perseverance, which had enabled him to build a successful career from almost nothing. He had worked for everything he had, and Sara had never heard him utter a word of bitterness or envy for other men who enjoyed the benefits of family connections and fortunes.
Sara’s parents had not objected to their first date, but they had raised their eyebrows and exchanged significant looks when she had told them about their second. She and Dieter had been dating for two months when Sara overheard her mother lamenting to a friend about her daughters’ unfortunate penchant for gentiles. Wilhelm was wonderful, she had hastened to add, and she did not for a moment regret that Amalie had married him and had given her two beautiful granddaughters, but to see Sara follow a similar path was heartbreaking. To have one child marry a gentile was unfortunate. Two