almost two weeks ago. He isn’t at his apartment, and he isn’t answering his phone. That’s why I came here, to see if any of his friends know where he is.”
“You asked to see Konrad Dressler.”
She nodded. “Natan mentioned him, and I know he still works here.”
“Miss Weitz—” Meinholz paused. “There is no Konrad Dressler.”
“But I’ve seen his byline.”
“Yes, his byline, but your brother’s words.”
“You mean . . .” Sara studied him. “My brother is Konrad Dressler?”
Meinholz nodded.
“Then Natan violated the Editors Law. If the Gestapo figured it out—”
“No one here would have breathed a word,” Meinholz assured her. “Betraying him would put us all in danger.”
But a jealous rival could have informed on Natan nonetheless, or the Gestapo could have found out another way. They could have followed him from his flat to work, or recognized his writing style. Regardless, he had broken the law and had put himself in terrible danger.
Sara murmured her thanks and quickly left Meinholz’s office. She ran back to Natan’s flat, tried the door again, roused his landlord, and convinced him to unlock the door for her. She was afraid to ask if anyone else had come by looking for Natan—Gestapo or Brownshirts or police.
The landlord fumbled with the key in the lock, but eventually he opened the door and waved her inside. The spare key sat on the table in the entryway.
“Thank you,” she said, managing a shaky smile as she stooped to pick up Natan’s scattered mail. “I’ll lock up when I go.”
Grumbling, he left her. Immediately she closed and locked the door.
She left the mail beside the key on the table and searched the flat. The bed was made. Breakfast dishes were piled in the sink. A hand towel near the washbasin was perfectly dry. The air was still and stale, the plants on the windowsill unwatered. Natan’s suitcase sat on the floor of his closet beneath a half-full laundry basket.
Natan was gone, but if he had fled Germany, he had told no one and had taken nothing with him.
Chapter Twenty-three
June–July 1934
Martha
Early on the morning of Saturday, June 30, Martha gave her father a jaunty wave and her mother a quick peck on the cheek before snatching up her bag and her wide-brimmed hat and darting out the door to meet Boris, who was waiting in the driveway at the wheel of his Ford convertible with the top down. “Shall we go?” she asked as she climbed in and slung her bag into the back next to a folded blanket and a picnic hamper. She slipped on her sunglasses and considered putting on the hat too, but she tossed it on top of her bag instead, the better to enjoy the wind in her hair.
Boris started the car, a corner of his mouth turning inquisitively. “You hope to make a quick getaway before your parents discover who is driving away with their daughter?”
“Don’t be silly.” She had confessed that she was seeing Boris shortly after her strange date with Chancellor Hitler. There was already too much deceit poisoning the world. “They know I’m with you.”
“And they still let you leave?”
Martha laughed lightly, and as he turned the car onto Tiergartenstrasse, Boris grinned back. They both knew there was very little her parents could do to prevent her from doing as she pleased.
Exhibit A: her upcoming tour of the Soviet Union. Her parents were vehemently opposed to the trip, even though she had explained that it was not admiration for communism that compelled her but love for Boris. As much as she adored him, she could not ignore her nagging worries that their romance was doomed. She needed to learn more about him, his beliefs, and his country before she could possibly know whether they had a chance at a future together. And she needed to know. Every day, as her feelings for him grew stronger, so too did her concerns that the differences between their two worlds were irreconcilable, and she ought to get out now rather than set herself up for worse heartbreak later.
She did not confess her worries to Boris, but she suspected he knew. “I could show you the Soviet Union,” he had protested when she first announced her trip. “You’ll get a much better sense of my country that way than on an official government tour, with everything scripted and curated to impress.”
“If you’re there, you might influence me even without meaning to,” she had said, running a hand through his hair and kissing his cheek to