“It’s clean here.” Her father cast his eyes around the cozy dining room. By clean he did not mean tidy. He meant that their apartment above the Bendlerstrasse garage was not wired. No bugs recording them. Then he added, in a lower voice, looking down as if talking to the dumplings, “Aber man kann nie vorsichtig genug sein. Das Zimmer ist sauber.” One can never be too careful. The room is clean.
“I’ll get the strudel.” Her mother started to get up.
“Nein . . . nein, Lotte. I’ll get it. You’ve been traveling. You must be tired.”
Two minutes later, he came back with an apple strudel. But again it was Swabian style, with lingonberries mixed in with the apples. He set the pastry in the middle of the table. “Courtesy of Frau Meister, who will be working with you at OKW, in the general army office of the chancellery.”
Alice took a bite of the strudel. It was heavenly. The lingonberries added a slight tang. She close her eyes and savored the taste. She heard the fire crackling in the little porcelein stove that warmed the room. It was all becoming slightly surreal.
She wondered where the pilot, Stefan, was now. After they’d said goodbye, the plane had dissolved into the fog that had chased them up the Channel, then across the northern tip of the Netherlands and all the way to a potato field on the east side of the Elbe River. And now, after a two-and-a-half-hour ride, they were here in Berlin.
As delicious as the strudel was, Alice felt herself nodding off. “To bed, leiben. The necessities for the rest of your legend are in your bedroom. You have three days to study them before you start school.” Her father paused. “And oh, by the way. There is a gramophone in your room, so you may listen to music. And a set of headphones. Just turn it on when you get into bed.”
“Of course, Papa.” (No more Dad or Father.) “And what shall I be listening to?”
“Richard Wagner’s operas. The Ring cycle.”
“Oh yes, I remember we heard it in camp, two summers ago.”
“Hitler’s favorite operas, you know.” He paused. “Those Valkyries!”
Of course, thought Alice. The Valkyries, the choosers of the slain. In the Norse myth that had inspired the opera, the Valkyries were the winged young women who swooped down over the battlefield and picked up the heroic soldiers who had died. They flew them to Vahalla, the majestic hall, the warriors’ paradise.
But there was more to her father’s offhand remark than met the eye. She felt a shadow of apprehension. Something more would be coming. But she knew she must wait. Be patient. Although this was her first A-level mission, she was aware that there was a pace to these things. For a mission to be flawlessly executed, timing was everything. So in the meantime, she would listen to the music of Wagner’s greatest operas and work to find clues within them.
Rasas could absorb information in a number of different ways. And music was one of the most pleasant ones. These were fantastical operas filled with giants, beautiful maidens, gods and goddesses, and all varieties of mythical creatures.
Alice loved her bedroom. It was tiny, like a ship’s cabin. The efficiency of the small space was extraordinary. Her bed could fold into the wall. In a wall adjacent to the bed was a fold-out desk. A stack of papers had been set up on top. These were “soft necessities.” Once she had mastered the material, most of it would be burned—not eaten like the sweet paper. She would certainly have had a stomachache from consuming all that, for the stack was at least three inches high.
She got undressed. Turned on the gramophone and began to listen to the opening chords of the first scene of Das Rheingold. The oboes were beautiful, and then the French horns came in. The music coursed through her like the mists of the river where the three beautiful Rhine maidens guarded the treasure—the golden ring.
Six
The Gentleman Warrior
In addition to German opera, there would also be popular culture to absorb—including comics. She had read some of these comics already in other countries, and they were truly funny. She particularly loved the Max and Moritz, which were almost like comic strips. She had first encountered the comics about two naughty boys at her Rasa camp—untranslated. It was an easy way to learn some German. Max and his good friend Moritz were two very clever boys who committed all sorts of devilish tricks that ranged from the very violent—like putting gunpowder in the schoolmaster’s pipe—to the more harmless high jinks of putting beetles in their uncle’s bed.
The next morning, Alice found a letter addressed to her, slipped under her bedroom door by her mother, presumably; attached to it was a pamplet with a picture of a German girl with blond braids standing on a moutainside. Her arm was raised in the Nazi salute. At the top of the page was a dark eagle, the symbol of the Nazi party. She began reading the neatly typed note clipped to the cover.
“Welcome, Ute, to Jungmädelbund Group 22 of Berlin, District 5 of the League of German Girls for those ten to fourteen. You have already been certified to be of racial and ethnic German heritage—Aryan, with no contamination of foreign blood, and free of hereditary diseases. We understand from your record in Swabia that you have reached the highest levels that can be attained for girls of your age. You are nonetheless required to register at the League of German Girls administrative offices.
“However, despite these qualifications being met, you must now attend preparatory exercises in order to become a full member of Group 22 in your present home in Berlin. These consist of participation in a Jungmädelbund meeting, a sports afternoon to include a test of your courage known as the challenge, and a lecture about the tasks of the Jungmädel.”
This was not news to Alice. She had heard all about the Jungmädelbund since before the war broke out. They were like a diabolical version of the Girl Scouts in America or the Girl Guides in England, which Alice and Louise had been part of. Alice had started in the youngest Girl Guide group as a Rainbow guide, and then advanced to a Brownie pack. This year she would have become a full-fledged guide. Louise had been a Ranger but had become bored with it two years before her mission in Norway.
Alice glanced toward the desk. A new item had been added to the pile of soft necessities. Neatly folded on top of the stack of papers was some clothing. She went over and peered down at a crisp white shirt and a black kerchief with a brown leather knot. She knew she would not be able to wear the neckerchief until she had passed the Jungmädel challenge. Alice heard the door open and saw her mother. “I guess I have to do the challenge again.”
“Yes, the Swabian girls’ league is apparently not as stringent as the Berlin one.” Her mother gave her a wink. They both knew that Alice had never taken the Swabian challenge to begin with. All part of the ruse. “You want some toasted mutter brot and hot chocolate?”
“May I eat it here at my desk?”
“Of course.” Her mother smiled. There was work for her daughter to do.
With the extraordinary concentration with which most Rasa children were endowed, Alice had to master the nearly one thousand acronyms for all the military departments and the street maps of Berlin, as well as more mundane details about the Hermann von Haupt Gymnasium, where she would go to school.
By the time Posie Winfield returned with the small tray of hot chocolate and bread, she could tell from her daughter’s posture that she was in a state of dluth, an old Rasa word indicating deep concentration. It was a derivative of the Scottish Gaelic word “dlùth aire.” Each Rasa reached this state in a different way. Posie herself would count her pulse rate in her wrist. Alice would tip her head and blink for five seconds very rapidly, until it was as if she could see the most basic elements of the information in front of her eyes, of what she was studying—every detail and dot and how they were connected for meaning. At that point every single one of her millions of brain cells was ready to receive enormous amounts of information.