ONE
BERLIN, GERMANY
TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1938
Evelyn Brand had done a crack bit of journalism, and she hadn’t even had to dress like a man to do so.
She perched her hip on the desk in the American News Service office in Berlin, while Hamilton Chase III, the European bureau chief visiting from London, reviewed her article.
George Norwood, the Berlin bureau chief, paced the office, glaring at Evelyn with each turn. If he’d arrived in Vienna on time, the story of the year would have been his, not hers. But he hadn’t, so it wasn’t.
After Adolf Hitler bullied the Austrian government into allowing Nazi Germany to annex the country, German troops had marched across the border without firing a shot.
And Evelyn would get the ANS byline.
She’d stood under the blood-red swastika flags as the Führer’s cavalcade rolled into Vienna to thunderous cries of “Heil, Hitler!” In her story, she’d described the little girl in native costume tossing flowers and the black-uniformed SS officer handing the bouquet to the Führer.
But she’d also described the scene on another street, where a mob forced two dozen Jews to scrub anti-Nazi graffiti from the sidewalk. She could still see the silver-haired man down on his knees, still see the jeering boy knock the gentleman’s hat into the gutter. The man had reached for his hat, then thought better of it and returned to work.
When Hamilton Chase set down the article, Evelyn gave him a triumphant smile. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
He ground his cigarette in the ashtray. “Yes, it’s good.”
“Good?” George Norwood flung a hand in her direction. “She shouldn’t have been there. She’s assigned to Munich. She lives there.”
“I’m in the room, Mr. Norwood.” Evelyn sent her boss a thin smile. “I did call the Berlin office beforehand. Mr. O’Hara said no one from ANS was in Vienna. But I was already there.”
“I was on my way.” Norwood wasn’t even thirty, but he glowered at Evelyn as if she were a naughty five-year-old.
Silver fanned back in Chase’s sandy hair. “Why were you in Vienna, Miss Brand?”
Evelyn rearranged her houndstooth check skirt over her knees. “My roommate is a flautist, and she wanted to attend a certain concert in Vienna. I didn’t think she should travel alone, given the tensions.” More like she’d used the concert to lure Libby into accompanying her to Vienna. Bait and switch, Libby had said. She wasn’t incorrect.
“She tried to sneak into the press conference.” Norwood ran his hand through chestnut hair almost the same shade as Evelyn’s.
“I didn’t sneak. I presented my press pass and asked politely. With no one from ANS in town, it was worth a try.” Instead of asking why Evelyn was in Vienna, Chase should have asked why Norwood wasn’t. The only major news service or paper without a correspondent in town. Almost criminal.
Norwood blew out a roiling cloud of cigarette smoke. “She knew she wouldn’t be admitted. She wasn’t on the list.”
Evelyn crossed her arms. “Bert Sorensen from the New York Press-Herald wasn’t on the list. He got in. But he’s a man. I should have—”
“Don’t even think about it.” Chase speared her with his gaze. “I will not have a repeat of the Paris fiasco. You made the ANS a laughingstock.”
Evelyn lowered her chin. “Yes, sir.” If only she’d used more pomade and bobby pins that day. With her fence-post figure and a man’s suit, she’d been admitted to the press conference given by that woman-hating French official. No one would have been the wiser if tendrils of hair hadn’t sprung from under her fedora.
Chase handed Evelyn’s article to Norwood. “Clean it up and send it to New York.”
Evelyn clutched her hands in her lap. “Please keep the part about the man and the hat.”
Norwood’s nostrils flared. “That’s the part that needs cleaning.”
She’d never forget the desolation in the gentleman’s eyes. He’d reminded her of Grandpa Schmidt, who had been born Jewish. He’d converted to Christianity, but the Nazis wouldn’t care. To them, Judaism was about race, not religion. If Grandpa hadn’t come to America, he would have been forced to scrub sidewalks too.
“Please, Mr. Norwood,” Evelyn said. “The story needs to be told. America needs to know. I owe it to him.”
“To him?”
“The man on his knees.” If Libby hadn’t held her back, Evelyn would have rushed to his aid. And she would have failed, one woman against a mob.
“Fight with words,” Libby had told her. “Your words have power.”
Not if edited to death by George Norwood.
“Keep as much as you can, Mr. Norwood,” Chase said. “And remember, Miss Brand, we American correspondents are guests of the German government. They don’t censor us, but they do have limits.”
“They certainly do.” In other countries, correspondents wired their stories to the US. But the Nazis screened telegrams, and they only transmitted stories they liked. So American reporters usually phoned their stories to their London or Paris bureaus to be wired home.
Chase fished a cigarette case from inside his vest. “Never forget. You’re not in the US.”
Evelyn’s shoulders slumped, but she rolled them straight again. “I know. No freedom of speech. No freedom of the press. No freedom of anything.”
“Yes. So, what are you working on next?”
“I have an assignment for her.” Norwood rummaged through a folder on his desk. “A feature on the American students at the University of Munich and their experiences here.”
Evelyn tried to find a smile but failed. Another softball assignment.
Norwood handed her a slip of paper. “Peter Lang is one of my oldest and closest friends. We were roommates at Harvard, and his father served with mine in the House of Representatives. Peter’s earning his doctorate in German.”
Another East Coast prep school Hah-vahd man, like Norwood and Chase and every bigwig at ANS. Evelyn tucked the piece of paper into her purse.
“Lang can introduce you to the other American students. He’s a fine fellow.”
“Of course, he is.” Somehow she kept the sarcasm from her voice.
Hamilton Chase stood. “I’m looking forward to that article.”
“Thank you, sir.” After she shook his hand, she went out into the newsroom full of clacking typewriters, lively banter, and the actual news.
This was where she belonged.
Even with all the huge stories happening around the world—the Great Depression, civil war in Spain, Japan’s invasion of China, and Stalin’s purge of tens of thousands of his own people—Berlin was every reporter’s top choice. But Evelyn was exiled almost four hundred miles away in Munich writing softball stories.
“In trouble again, Brandy?” Frank Keller stopped typing and pointed his cigar at her. “You know what you need? A husband to keep you in line.”
Exactly why she’d never marry. She hated lines.
Evelyn leaned against Keller’s desk and batted her eyelashes at the pudgy, middle-aged reporter. “Volunteering for the assignment?”