How can he come here, to her home, and dump this repugnant story in her lap?
That can’t be true, she tells him.
Max attempts an ironic smile, but a muscle flutters near his jaw.
Oh, it’s true, he says. I know it seems impossible. But it’s happening as we speak.
How do you know? How do you know it’s not just a rumor?
It’s not a rumor, Max says wearily. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it.
He withdraws his hands from hers and fumbles in the pocket of Gerhard’s trousers, producing a small cylindrical parcel.
What’s that?
Film of the camp. There’s a photography studio the SS use for identification shots of the inmates. Some of the prisoners have managed to take pictures of what goes on up there, don’t ask me how. I have to make sure that this film gets to a safe place.
Where?
Somewhere in Switzerland. Exactly where, I don’t know. It’s safer that way.
So the SS found out you were working for this—Resistance network.
Yes.
And they were looking for the film.
Yes.
Max drops the little canister into Anna’s palm. The waxed paper it is wrapped in is greasy to the touch. It will repel water.
Such a small thing, says Max. You’d never suspect it was worth so much blood.
Anna returns it to him, trying to parse this new Max with the man she knows, the good doctor to whom she has confessed secrets she never knew she had. All along, while she has been thinking only of beguiling him, he has been engaged in an infinitely more complicated and important game. She looks at the braided rug beneath her feet, suddenly shy.
Who else is involved? she asks.
Max slips the film back into his borrowed trousers.
I don’t know the extent of the network. A handful in Weimar. Most beyond. Frau Staudt, for one—Frau Staudt?
Anna pictures the baker trampling through the forest on the Ettersberg and begins to laugh helplessly.
I would have gone to her tonight, but I saw the SS outside the bakery, says Max. I couldn’t think where else to go.
Anna gets up and kisses him on the forehead, inhaling, for a moment, the smell of his hair.
I’m glad you came to me, she says. So glad. Now come, time for bed.
Anna, are you mad? I can’t stay here!
You’d rather go back to the bushes?
Max frowns, but he allows Anna to help him stand. He is shaking with fatigue.
In the morning, he says, as soon as things settle down, I’ll find a safer place.
He follows Anna to her bedroom, where she bustles about, folding back the eiderdown and plumping the pillows. She turns to see him looking at the shelves of Dresden figurines and trophies from the League of German Girls, the embroidered samplers, the canopied bed in which Anna has slept since girlhood.
No, he says. It’s too risky.
You couldn’t be safer in heaven. My father never comes in here. I’ll bring you some food.
Max glances at the doorway as if considering flight, and then at the high lace-curtained window, through which even he, skinny as he is, couldn’t fit.
All right, he says. For one night, since there’s no feasible alternative. But Anna, please don’t trouble yourself with food. I’m so tired I can barely see.
As Anna starts to object, Max climbs into her bed without removing Gerhard’s trousers.
Shhh, he says. He settles into the pillow.
Anna closes the door and moves about the room, shedding her clothes. She exchanges her slip for her shortest nightgown and eases in beside Max, who is lying with his back to her.
I forgot to give you socks, Anna whispers. Your feet are cold.
She rubs them with her toes. Max shifts his legs away.
Anna presses against him and rests her lips on the nape of his neck.
Max rolls over. No, Anna, he says.
Why not?
Anna senses that he is smiling.
I’ve already told you, you’re far too young for me, Max says, and they both start to laugh, shaking with it and trying to muffle the noise against each other’s shoulders.
It is then that Anna hears her father’s unsteady progress up the stairs, the risers complaining under his weight. There is a soft thud as part of Gerhard, a shoulder or knee, hits the wall in the hallway. His labored breathing stops outside her room.
The door swings open. A slice of light falls across the bed.
Anna, Gerhard says.
Anna forces herself up on one elbow, though every instinct screams that she curl into a fetal position.
Yes, Vati, she says, mimicking a voice soft with sleep.
Gerhard braces himself against the doorframe. The medicinal odor of