death by firing squad, but apparently that had been denied Harro. Hanging was regarded as the most degrading form of execution, one last cruel, malicious gesture from their Nazi tormentors.
She would face the guillotine. It was only a matter of hours now.
“Your husband was not alone in the hours leading up to his death, either,” Reverend Poelchau continued. “I was with him.”
Arvid had spent his last day writing letters to his family and reading Plato’s Defense of Socrates, the minister told her. He had asked Reverend Poelchau to read the story of the birth of Jesus from the Book of Luke, which his father had recited to the family every Christmas. Then he requested to hear the “Prologue in Heaven” from Goethe’s Faust, which the minister spoke from memory. In his final moments, he asked the chaplain to join him in singing Bortniansky’s hymn “Ich bete an die Macht der Liebe.”
“I pray to the power of love,” Mildred murmured.
“Dr. Harnack did believe in the power of love,” the minister said. “He went to his death bravely and heartened by his belief that your life would be spared.”
She was grateful he had had that last comfort, false though it had proven to be.
Reverend Poelchau glanced over his shoulder to confirm they were not being observed through the cell door, then reached into the breast pocket of his coat and took out a small packet and an orange, so colorful and bright in the dim light of the drab cell that she blinked. “From Inge,” he said, placing the packet on the table before her and handing her the orange. She took it, marveling at its brilliant hue, its full, round perfection. She lifted it to her face, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply, then set it on the table so that she could open the packet, uttering a small cry of joy when she beheld several family photographs. She studied each one lovingly, but when she came to one of her mother, her eyes filled with tears and she kissed the photo over and over. Then she set it facedown on the table, picked up her pencil, and wrote carefully on the back, “The face of my mother expresses everything that I want to say at this moment. This face was with me all through these last months. 16.II.43.”
She peeled the orange slowly, reluctant to spoil its beauty, and ate it, savoring its sweetness.
Reverend Poelchau left soon thereafter, but he promised to return at the appointed hour. Alone once more, grieving for her lost love, for her own too swiftly passing life, she opened the Bible the minister had given her and turned to 1 Corinthians 13. “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal,” she softly read aloud the familiar verses. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
She closed the Bible and held it for a moment, contemplating the scripture. Then she set the Bible aside and resumed her translation of Goethe. She would leave a note for the minister with her books, ask him to send them to Mutti Clara.
The day passed, and night descended.
At twilight, a silver-haired man the guards called the shoemaker was let into Mildred’s cell. His expression impassive, he searched her mouth for gold fillings, found none, and cut her hair short to bare her neck for the blade. She shivered, unused to the cold air on her scalp and neck. The shoemaker departed and a guard brought her a pair of wooden clogs and a coarse, sleeveless, open-necked smock. He ordered her to put them on; she obeyed, though her hands shook so badly she struggled to pull the smock over her head.
Another guard arrived, handcuffed her wrists behind her back,