V Alexander - The Taster

I answered with a gut-wrenching lie, but I had to speak. “I am loyal to the Führer. And so is my husband.” Memories of Karl rushed into my head and tears welled up in my eyes. I put my head down and sobbed.

“No more tears,” the Colonel said. He rose from his chair and lifted my shoulders. “The cook is sending a car for you. It will arrive this afternoon. In the meantime, you must stay here. I will have Gerda look for your wedding ring. I hope it hasn’t been sent to be melted down.” He gathered his cap in his hands, wished me luck and walked out of the room.

I was alone for about an hour before Gerda returned to the office. “You may have breakfast in the kitchen,” she said. “We didn’t know you worked for the Führer.” She studied me as if I were an actress, a star in my own right. She was in awe of someone so close to Hitler. I knew she was also suspicious of me, a woman who worked at the Berghof and the Wolf’s Lair only to end up in Bromberg-Ost. It made no sense to her.

“An SS Colonel wanted to see me punished,” I said to satisfy her curiosity.

She looked at me with more questions in her eyes.

“I’m not sure why myself,” I said, “but the Führer understands the situation. That’s why he is calling me back to the Wolf’s Lair.”

“I see,” she said, and the muscles in her thick neck tensed. She opened her clenched fist and revealed my silver wedding ring.

A rush of feelings swept over me and I was overjoyed that my connection to Karl had been restored. I put the ring back on my left hand.

“Follow me,” Gerda said. “The car won’t be here until this afternoon.”

I spent the next few hours in the mess hall with the kitchen staff. Some were guards and Party workers, the rest prisoners from the camp. Everyone stared at me, including Jenny, who happened to walk through the hall. She said nothing, only glowered at my betrayal of her plans for me to be a brothel woman. After lunch—a sumptuous feast of pork, potatoes, green beans and cake for the guards and officers, as opposed to the meager offerings for the camp inmates—I walked back to the office where the Colonel had questioned me.

About two in the afternoon, I saw a black Mercedes touring car pull up outside the gate. Gerda came to the office and asked me to follow her. I was “processed,” the gate opened and I stepped out to freedom. The SS driver opened the car door and we sped away. Escaping Bromberg-Ost was as simple as that. As I reclined in the seat, I looked at my ring as it flashed like a silver star in the alternating patterns of sun and shade coming through the window. I wondered what had happened to Katrina at Stutthof. Was she dead? I suspected so. Would Helen, the communist Jew, meet the same fate? I would never know, and that haunted me. I wished I could save her, but to ask such a favor from the Reich would have been impossible.

The driver kept the car rolling at a high speed. He said little to me and seemed in a hurry to get back to the Wolf’s Lair. After three hours, the car was in the wooded plains of Poland. We arrived in Rastenburg about six. After we passed through security, the driver left me near Hitler’s private rail station. I didn’t know whether the room I’d shared with Karl would still be waiting for me, so I picked up my suitcase and walked to the mess hall. Cook, I thought, would be in the kitchen, in the middle of dinner preparations.

As I entered it, a hush descended on the staff. Everyone stared at me—the marked woman returned from her imprisonment. Cook stood at a table in the far corner of the kitchen. When she saw me, she rushed toward me with open arms, hugged me and inquired about my well-being. The staff watched our reunion with interest and then slowly returned to their work.

“Magda, I must talk to you,” Cook said. I could tell from her tone that something serious had happened. She walked me to her small office near the entrance. We sat knee to knee in the two chairs crammed inside. Oddly, the surroundings of cookbooks, inventory lists, the fancy spices, our intimacy, felt comforting after my long days and nights at Bromberg-Ost.

“The Colonel has been relieved of duty,” Cook said. “The Gestapo has taken him away.”

I was shocked, but relieved to be rid of him. “Why?”

“No one knows,” Cook said. “So much has happened since von Stauffenberg’s attack on the Führer. It’s insanity here.” She tapped her fingers on her small oak desk. “If I smoked, I would have a cigarette. A glass of wine would do me good.” She looked at me with furrowed brows. “I want you to be strong—the Gestapo wants to talk to you. I only know this because I spoke with the Führer personally to arrange your return. I told him you would never raise a hand against the Reich.” She paused and the concern in her eyes deepened to sadness. “He’s not well. He usually takes his meals alone, but sometimes he dines with his secretaries for company. His left hand shakes and he walks with a stoop. He is not the man he used to be before the blast. I’ve been told his rages are more pronounced than ever. No one crosses him.”

Cook’s words set my nerves on edge.

“Even Eva spoke highly of you,” she continued. “Usually she has no say in these matters. But the Führer knows you and believes you had nothing to do with this crime; otherwise, I would not have been able to free you. Many have been rounded up and executed for the bombing—I’ve heard hundreds have already been arrested. You are fortunate.”

“Thank you,” I said, and reached to touch her hands. She took mine in hers and we sat for a moment as the tension in her body flowed into mine.

“Bromberg-Ost was horrible,” I said. “The prisoners are treated worse than farm animals. I heard rumors of—”

She withdrew her hands from mine with a look of disgust. “Magda! Please. Never speak of such things. It isn’t allowed. Whatever you saw must be a mistake. If the guards act like criminals they will be punished. The Reich would not allow such atrocities to happen. Tell no one what you experienced.”

A knock interrupted us. A young man, a valet, opened the door and motioned for Cook. “Wait here,” she told me as she left.

I waited for thirty minutes before the door opened again. A middle-aged man with thinning black hair stepped inside. He wore a dark suit with the Party pin attached to the lapel.

“Frau Weber,” he said, and sat down across from me. He held a black dossier, which he placed in his lap. “I would tell you my name, but my identity isn’t important.” He smiled, showing perfect white teeth.

Something in his character unsettled me. He was formal and businesslike, not harsh or overtly threatening like the Colonel. However, I judged he would have no difficulty in slitting my throat and watching me bleed to death. He would draw the knife across my neck gracefully, as if committing the deed were an art. He struck me as a cold, calculating killer.

He withdrew a black eyeglass case from his jacket and placed it on top of the dossier. “Let me say, you are a lucky woman. Others have not been so fortunate.” He opened the case, pulled out his glasses and slid them on. “The Führer, in his wisdom, has judged you innocent of the crimes claimed by the Colonel.” He opened the dossier, flipping to the first page, and said, “You will have no further interaction with the Colonel, rest assured. He has been sent away.”

“To where?” I asked. “How can I be certain he won’t return?”

“You needn’t worry. That’s all I can report. The matter is of no consequence to you. Perhaps in the future…”

He looked down at the typewritten lines and read, “‘The Reich reports the death of Captain Karl Weber.’”

He continued to read, but my ears refused to hear the voice that droned on. I felt myself slipping from the chair into the void. A strangled scream poured from my mouth, but it seemed to have come from somewhere outside myself, from some distant point in the universe. I tumbled through the darkness until the man caught me and lifted me back in my chair. I refused to believe what I’d heard.