Zelda leaned over the balustrade of the John W. Weeks Footbridge, watching the river’s slow, unhurried flow. She picked up a small stone from the ledge and tossed it into the water, following its arc with her eyes until it vanished beneath the surface. The ripples spread out, distorting the reflection of the leaden clouds and the skeletal branches of trees on the banks. Her thoughts mirrored the disturbed water as she grappled with a decision she’d come no closer to making: give up this child, returning to what was left of the life she’d had planned for herself, or disappear.
The bridge, named for a long-dead senator, had been built during the Coolidge administration to connect a then-new business school with the rest of Harvard. It had a secret, however: its concrete underbelly concealed the university’s steam, electrical, and communication networks. But, she reasoned, that only gave it more in common with the students; everyone was hiding something. Beneath the veneer of humanity’s own beautiful architecture, with its pageants and parades, souls writhed together in the darkness of unspoken need.
She’d been locked in her room for almost a week, during which she’d had a lot of time to think. Adjusting her scarf against the chill, her fingers lingered on the cashmere as if searching for warmth. No matter how she’d wrestled with her thoughts, she’d drawn the same conclusions again and again until she’d lapsed into a troubled half-sleep. Klaus’s relentless logic had forced her to face the truth: that what August did to other people, he’d do to her. She’d thought she was immune, different somehow—and that August understood, on some level, his own behavior to be wrong. He didn’t, though; he’d simply been acting on his nature, like the scorpion who’d asked to cross the river on the frog’s back.
The sun peeked out, only to retreat again, erasing that strange mirror image of the world from the water. In its place was a rippled sheet of pewter that reflected nothing. Or a shroud, came the unbidden statement, as though whispered in her mind by a ghost. There were bodies under there, bumping along on the bottom. In colder temperatures, the bacterial action responsible for bloat was slowed, keeping them down. Their skin absorbed more water instead, peeling away from the underlying tissues as fish and crabs and sea lice nibbled their fill. In her dreams she saw them, empty eyes staring up at her from ravaged sockets, alternately begging and accusing.
Shivering, she pulled her coat tighter around her and picked up another pebble, turning it over in her hands. August had never given her the slightest indication that he harbored some ulterior motive—quite the opposite! She’d assumed that his being so open about his innumerable issues meant that he was sincere. All of Boston called him the Spider, behind his back, and he was more of a spider than a scorpion; he’d coerced her into his web, not due to inescapable instinct or because he didn’t care, but because the stakes had been too high to let her escape. That he loved her, to the extent that he could feel that emotion at all, was what drove him.
She remained rooted to the spot, her fingers tracing the contours of the pebble. He knew perfectly well that, from her perspective, he wasn’t the rational choice—not long term, regardless of how sincerely she wished otherwise. For normal couples with normal issues, theirs was a huge age gap. He’d enlisted when she was still in diapers; he’d gotten married for the first time when she was a third grader pining for Tinkerbell nail polish. Of course he wanted to settle down and of course she didn’t, and that was enough reason to end things with the most stable man in the world. Except even his friends didn’t call him stable, while his enemies called him psychotic and psychopathic, a demented reprobate who fetishized suffering as some sort of cleansing ritual.
A sculler moved through the arch underneath her, leaving a delicate wake. The rhythmic sound of the oars slicing through the water was a reminder of better times. She’d watched the same hitching, gliding motion from the grass below during the Head of the Charles. Oma Jeanette had packed the best picnics, passing out heaping servings of potato salad and lemonade and all the other food that tasted most magical when served on a blanket. All of Cambridge had joined them, all of New England it seemed like, cheering on their universities.
Now, the area felt deserted and grim, a stark contrast to those idyllic days. There’d been no Head of the Charles this fall; the universities were all still closed until further notice. She turned her head, letting her eyes trail up the desolate stretch of land that had once been such a vibrant park, the throngs of laughing students replaced by silence and shadows. At times like this, her memories felt less real and more like moments half-remembered from a favorite book, proof she clung to in the depths of her despair that someone’s life somewhere was better.
She picked up another stone, feeling its cool surface against her skin before letting it drop. That Klaus might make a salient point about anything, ever, had never occurred to her! But friend wasn’t shorthand for good guy; the world wasn’t divided into people she liked and people she didn’t, but into right and wrong. And a lot of people she didn’t like, it turned out, agreed with her about what it meant and didn’t mean to be a decent human being.
Alex was still her best friend, but he’d collected resentment after resentment until how he’d been slighted was all he saw. His bitterness had festered into something darker, a twisted sense of entitlement that fed into a toxic mindset; he blamed everyone else for his failures and saw the world as a place that owed him. But Klaus, in insisting that she marry August, was trying to do the same thing she’d been trying to do when this whole sordid saga began—protect her family.
Understanding that, understanding Klaus, made her feel like her soul needed a shower. But the world also wasn’t divided into Nazis and good guys; everyone, whatever their espoused beliefs, had both light and dark inside them. What mattered was the part they chose to act on—and how. Klaus had no end of faults, but he didn’t violate his own code of ethics. That woman he’d sent Moritz to kill on Fuller Place had been a complete innocent, but Klaus hadn’t seen her like that, and neither had his lieutenant. Nor had he issued the order out of emotional selfishness—which was the difference. Bill knew perfectly well that targeting children was wrong; he’d done what he’d done for the joy of revenge, just like Alex had done what he’d done out of rage that the woman he’d felt entitled to for so long had finally rejected him.
A sudden gust of cold tore through her, rattling the leaves behind her like bones.
She’d only ever seen August through the lens of her own infatuation, she realized now. He wasn’t the white knight she’d wanted him to be but a golem she’d constructed from scraps here and there, tacking them onto the man in front of her and telling herself that he was real. And hadn’t he wanted her to? He’d maneuvered her into this impossible position like she was an enchanted doll, or a puppet dancing to his strings, only letting her think the decisions were hers.
Then, when she’d finally wised up, he’d had the gall to act like he was the victim! She’d told him she loved him so—what, she was somehow obligated to want the life he wanted, forever? Maybe men were supposed to feel obligated, but men were also supposed to care whether women married them out of free will! That it apparently made no difference to August, whether she accepted his proposal due to her actually wanting to spend her life with him or due to her literally having no choice, revealed how blind she’d been. He was an odious con artist, his charisma the thinnest veneer over an overwhelming narcissism, so why did she still love him?
Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she heard a footfall.
Straightening, she turned.
August stood a few paces distant, watching.
She’d asked herself, before, when this had become more than obsession—or if that was all it’d ever been. When she wasn’t seething with disgust and revulsion, she was lying in bed and wishing he were there beside her, to hold her and lie to her that everything would be fine. Even now, she looked at him and couldn’t help but think that he was the most beautiful man in the world. To him, though, beauty was just another weapon. He wanted to be feared.
She pressed her lips together in the imitation of a smile.
Approaching her, he leaned down and kissed her formally on the cheek.
“Hello,” she replied, staring at his shoulder. He was in civilian clothes again, a topcoat over a suit, grayscale like the clouds above save for a tie at his neck the color of dried blood. That was one advantage of being so much shorter, she decided grimly: avoiding his gaze wasn’t hard.
She felt it, though, making her skin crawl.
August’s eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of something—concern, irritation—passing over his features before he spoke. “How are you feeling?”
Looking up, she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “Physically,” she queried, “or about the fact that I’m a prisoner in my own home?” The answer to the first was obvious—being pregnant was some obscure form of torture. As to the second, she’d been forbidden from so much as going to Darwin’s for a sandwich. The corner store was off-limits, as was anywhere that allowed an escape from Klaus’s constant lectures—and Charlotte’s weeping.
August offered her his arm in response, a formal and courtly gesture that still somehow managed to be intimate. Placing her hand carefully into the crook of his elbow, she let him lead her toward the far side of the bridge. They moved with a measured grace, both acting so distant, so polite, like two acquaintances feeling out where they stood rather than lovers who’d professed their undying devotion in breathless whispers again and again.
Kicking a rock, she watched it skitter and jump, the sharp clack against the concrete breaking the silence. “Men and women are like birds, Klaus tells me. The female bird pretties herself for a mate and hatches eggs for him,” she recited in a singsong voice, making no secret of how idiotic she found this so-called argument for the joys of subjugating herself. “In exchange, the male bird gathers food, stands guard, and wards off enemies!”
“He’s quoting Goebbels,” August offered, his lips quirking in amusement. “Who was, similarly, not a scientist. But, for what it’s worth, the male is the one who pretties himself. And, generally, also builds the nest. The female is stronger, larger, and more aggressive across raptor species,” he added, before lapsing into thought. “She hunts prey like voles and rabbits, while he contents himself with dormice and other easier catches. And regarding penguins, the female gathers all the food, sometimes through hunting and sometimes through prostitution.”
Zelda’s eyebrows shot up, incredulous. “What?”
August nodded, his tone remaining bland and matter-of-fact. “She performs the mating dance. Her client then presents her with either fish or a pebble for her nest. Although females have also been observed seducing the males and providing no sex, proving that penguins would understand strip clubs.”
Unable to help herself, Zelda burst out laughing, the sound ringing out across the bridge. “He and my sister share a bed, I know they’re doing something there, but I really can’t picture it.”
“I sincerely hope for Charlotte’s sake that his idea of foreplay isn’t also reciting propaganda,” August opined mildly. “Or, if it is, that he favors more stirring passages.”
“He started reading aloud from Mein Kampf at the dinner table.” She snorted in disgust. “Even Charlotte drew the line at that, but he just switched to Hitler’s speech on how the emancipation of women was a fabrication of Jewish intellectuals. The woman has no need to emancipate herself!” she shouted, waving her free arm and drawing a look from the man crossing on the other side. “‘She possesses exactly what nature has given her to administer and preserve.”
“We must march out to slay the dragon,” August quoted, “so that we may again attain the most holy thing in the world: the woman as maid and servant. Heydrich said that, once, in a speech.”
She sniffed. “Charming!”
Catching her eye, he winked.
They reached the riverbank and, turning onto the sidewalk, she tightened her grip on his arm. “I only got as far as the front gate,” she acknowledged ruefully, “because I was meeting you.” And, Klaus presumed, finally knuckling down and doing her duty.
Adolf and Ingrid had been making the most of their time stateside—and made themselves scarce—meeting with a number of important personages, including both Malcolm X and the President of Texas. Klaus and Charlotte were having dinner later with Senator Shakur and his partner, but not at the house; Zelda couldn’t be exposed to civilized society. Staring at the river, a listless sigh escaped her chest; August had called, the phone ringing into the silence, and she’d refused to pick up.
Eventually, however, he continued the conversation. “I have a new assistant.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Oh?” she ventured, trying to sound casual despite her sudden pang of insecurity. “Is she obedient?”
“Indeed,” he informed her, with a knowing look. “And his name is Schmidt. Scharführer Oskar Schmidt.”
Suppressing a satisfied smile, she schooled her expression to one of serious contemplation. “And how is he at serving coffee?”
“Fair,” August admitted, his tone dry. “Considering he’s lost an eye.”
She tried to maintain her air of disinterest, but the melancholy that never quite left her had suddenly returned full force. Dropping her gaze, she studied the cracked surface beneath her feet, wondering where she fit into her own life—and where she wanted to. “I gather, then, that you’re not about to start an affair with him.” The statement carried a forced lightness.
August’s scoff was dismissive. “I might!”
“Lucky man,” she teased, but without enthusiasm.
His brows knitted together, as he looked down sharply, trying to gauge her true feelings. “Oskar, or me?”
She didn’t answer, only shook her head.
Stopping, he touched her face with a gloved finger, the brush of leather soft against her skin. “Tell me,” he urged gently, his voice filled with genuine concern.
The easiest thing in the world would be to throw herself against him, confess how helpless she felt and beg him to make it all go away—and he would, and they’d fall back into their same old pattern, and she’d grow old never knowing whether she could stand on her own two feet. So instead, she slipped her hand over the wool of his sleeve and stepped out into the grass. “I keep asking myself what went wrong,” she began, watching another sculler move down the river. “With Bill, I mean.” Her features twisted in pain as once again, in her mind’s eye, she was back at the execution. “And with Marta!” she added. “The Marta I knew was far from perfect, but she never would’ve hurt a child, or condoned anyone else doing the same.”
August moved closer, his presence a steadying force as he rested his hand on her shoulder. “Bill knew what he was fighting against,” he replied, his tone measured. “Not what he was fighting for.”
Refusing to turn, she chewed on her lip. “But you do?”
“Yes,” he agreed simply.
She’d never fathomed how he could be so confident, so sure that his own perspective was right no matter who disagreed. “Isn’t the desire to be free,” she insisted, “in and of itself, reason to fight?”
“Where there’s power,” August answered, “there’s resistance.”
She made a noncommittal noise as a man and his dog jogged past. A gaggle of biddies came next, chatting animatedly, their bobbing heads reminding her again of birds. None of them paid either her or August any mind, but she waited until they’d left to walk again, picking a slow path down to the reeds that lined the bank. A duck quacked at her and hopped into the water, angry at being disturbed, its ungainly body bobbling up and down like a buoy.
After a moment, August continued, his tone still quiet. “Everyone wants to ruin his life in his own fashion. For me, that was joining the SS. For Bill, that was joining the resistance. And it’s a noble cause, even I can admit as much, but that doesn’t make Bill himself noble, or his reasons for doing what he did.” He paused, letting the pronouncement hang in the air. “In the end, I think I hated Bill so much because I understood him. He and I acted on the same impulse.”
Meeting his gaze, Zelda knitted her brows together in confusion. “Which was?”
His shrug was the merest movement. “Self-sabotage.”
She felt a pull of empathy, which she angrily resisted. “Living under the constant threat of death also tends to warp a person,” she snapped, her voice rising with frustration at how he kept managing to derail her. “Even if he never seeks out conflict, in war or elsewhere.”
August’s expression soured. “Death was always convenient and predictable,” he challenged, “before we came?”
“No,” she conceded reluctantly, “but people didn’t die from having the wrong opinion.”
“Didn’t they?” His exasperation finally seeped through that cold façade, his patience wearing thin. “I’ve read about the hate crimes committed against African Americans, along with anyone else who dared to speak out. The American Civil War was a war of opinion, fought over who got the right to have an opinion. Black men didn’t win the right to vote until 1867, but were still beaten and terrorized for trying to exercise it right up until the moment we landed in California.”
“Fine,” she wailed, hating that he was making sense. “The world’s awful!”
“No one in the Reich dies from want of basic medicine,” he countered, his tone unbearably patient as he laid out more facts she’d rather not acknowledge. “Or housing, or food. As unpleasant as this truth might be,” he finished, “we conquered the United States as easily as we did for a reason.”
She swallowed, her eyes scouring his for some hint of what he was really thinking. “Do things have to be perfect,” she questioned, her tone quavering, “to matter?”
His expression hardened, darkening. “According to you, they do.”
Some hardy watercolorist had his kit set up nearby and was doing his best to capture the mood of the river. His painting, so far, looked like tears. Her own were welling up again, scalding prickles that came over her at a moment’s notice. It felt like all she did lately was cry. “Reality doesn’t impress me,” she choked, searching for a tissue. “That’s all I mean.”
August handed her his handkerchief, as perfect and pressed as the rest of him. “No,” he clarified. “What you mean is that you don’t like what life is offering, which is a pointless view to take.”
Her lower lip quavered with the effort of not kicking him, and she scowled as she blew her nose. “And I’m sure you’re about to tell me what view I should take,” she grumbled.
“The choices we’re given are rarely the choices we want,” he insisted, his tone low and heated. “The world is what it is, for altruists and cynics alike. No one has the power to change it,” he concluded, with a mixture of resignation and defiance. “Except for God.”
“Meaning what?” she challenged, irritation coloring her voice. “That there’s no such thing as free will?”
Drawing a deep breath, he exhaled and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Meaning that we can’t control what happens to us, only how we respond to what happens.”
She noted that he’d said respond rather than react; reacting was an immediate and instinctive action, while responding involved a considered and deliberate course of conduct. She did the former, and he did the latter; she was impulsive and reflexive, while he was thoughtful and disciplined. “I thought I was in control,” she said tightly. “Because I was a fool.”
Hearing the new note in her voice, he stiffened, his teeth clenching. “I never asked for anything but the truth,” he retorted, his voice tight with suppressed anger.
“And if I’d been some shrinking violet?” she demanded hotly, her voice rising. “A virginal milkmaid in a dirndl for whom vanilla was the strongest and most exotic flavor? What then?”
He snorted, annoyance evident in his tone. “I concede the point. If we were two different people, we might not have fallen in love.” Turning, his eyes locked onto hers, searching. “Or are you telling me that you don’t love me, now, that I’m one more thing you never actually wanted?”
“Of course I….” She deflated, giving up. “Of course I do.” But the words came out as little more than a whisper.
The silence between them stretched, broken only by the watercolorist’s dog whining at a different duck and the occasional car passing on the road behind them. There wasn’t a lot of traffic even this far into the occupation; gas was still being rationed. A parade could’ve marched through, though, and she wouldn’t have noticed; her attention was all for the man in front of her, the only man who’d ever really meant anything and ever would.
She watched as his expression shifted, the hard lines of his face softening. His usual mask of indifference slipped, revealing a storm of emotions swirling beneath the surface. She saw his jaw clench and unclench, a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes as he wrestled with something deep inside. His shoulders, usually squared in defiance, sagged slightly, as if he was letting go of a long-held burden. The air between them seemed to thrum with the weight of his internal battle.
In that silent moment, she witnessed the transformation—a man surrendering his anger, grappling with his conscience, and summoning the strength to do the right thing. His lips parted, and she braced herself, but what came out shocked her. “I won’t force you to have this child,” he stated, his voice soft but determined. “Not if you truly can’t bear to.” He swallowed hard, his mouth forming a soft line as he looked away for a moment, struggling to maintain his composure before he forced himself to continue. “I have connections and I can…arrange something. No one needs to know that it wasn’t a miscarriage, and after that you can do with your life as you see fit.”
And just like that, she’d be free.
She might never be the next Chanel, but she could work for the Deutsches Modeamt, carving out what passed for a career. She could leave for Berlin or Paris or stay right here, with her family, helping Charlotte and Klaus raise their adopted brood and spoiling them rotten. Things with August would end, undoubtedly, but there were other men—other and more suitable men, she reminded herself, whose idea of a romantic date night involved neither daring her to eat sautéed brains nor expecting her to keep something lodged in her ass at the restaurant while she did.
But she couldn’t.
Not because he’d trapped her or because she even wanted to be with him, but because leaving him was as impossible as deciding that she no longer wanted to breathe air. She realized, in that heart-stopping moment, that her life had veered so far off the path she’d envisioned that she was standing on the edge of an abyss. The future she’d meticulously planned now seemed like a distant, irrelevant dream. As much as the thought of being a housewife terrified her, the idea of a life without August was a void even more terrifying.
Her tongue darted over her lower lip, wetting it, as she forced herself to hold his gaze. Even knowing what he was, she couldn’t shut off these feelings and she’d tried. But he’d twisted her so much that she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began, and she’d spent the last week feeling like she’d cut off her own limbs. “Ask me again,” she whispered, the tremble in her voice betraying how exposed and vulnerable she felt. “Ask me again to marry you.”
His gaze abruptly shuttered, whatever had been peering out from behind it vanishing. “What changed?” he asked. It was the same clinical tone he might’ve used for a patient, curious but nothing more.
She made an exasperated noise. “I want you to, and that should be enough!”
His mouth twisted in a grimace as he glared down at her. “It isn’t.”
She wanted to scream into his face and cling to him, sobbing into his chest, anything to bring back the man who even in that wretched bathroom had made her feel safe. She couldn’t have thrown away her only chance, she wouldn’t let that be the answer, and the torrent was tumbling out of her mouth before she even knew she was speaking. “You think this is me being practical, lying back and thinking of the Führer so I can keep a roof over my head.” Her breath hitched, her chest heaving. “You think I’m resigning myself to a life of doing my duty, loathing you, just like Anna.”
The statement was a defiant one and she saw his eyes widen fractionally, but he didn’t respond.
“This is awful,” she declared, flapping her hands hopelessly as the dog galloped in circles. “I hate everything about the idea of wearing some frilly apron and pureeing peas for disgusting, smelly babies, but I’d rather go to Hell with you than stay behind alone. Even in a perfect world, then, everything I’ve ever dreamed of doing would mean nothing.” Running out of words, she stared at him.
He only hesitated a fraction of a second before pulling her to him, their mouths meeting in a fiery collision. The kiss was more than desire; it was the meeting of souls craving the understanding found only in each other’s arms. Time seemed to stop as their bodies melded together, the heat of their embrace melting away the barriers that’d kept them apart. The kiss was a declaration of love that transcended words, a promise of unity in a world that sought to keep them divided. Their lips moved in perfect harmony, an unspoken vow to stand together, no matter the challenges ahead. In that moment, they weren’t just two people; they were the embodiment of hope, of love’s power to bridge even the deepest divides.
After what seemed like forever, she pulled back.
The watercolorist was staring at them, agape.
“You’re a part of me,” she promised. “And so is this child.” She cupped the sides of his face with her hands, her expression resolute. “I love you both, although I am still getting used to the idea.”
Leaning down, he kissed her again. It was either a very bad thing, she decided, or a very good thing that they were in public. “You brought a light with you,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers. “When we met, a light that shines on everything and makes it beautiful. You’re the only one who can’t see it, because it comes from you. It’s the only light in my world, Zelda, and you’re the only thing in it that matters. I belong to you, and I have since the moment we met. Whatever is worthwhile in me is yours, along with everything that isn’t. I’m not a good man, but I can be good to you. Please marry me, and let me love you for the rest of my life.”
“Yes,” she breathed, stunned.
That unwavering gaze bore into hers, pinning her in place. “Do you promise?”
Something in his question sent a shiver down her spine, but she nodded.
His fingers dug painfully into her flesh, drawing a gasp from her throat. “I hope you’re telling me the truth,” he growled, desperation warring with accusation. “Because you’re not leaving. Ever. Not now that you’ve given me something to live for.” Pulling her to him again, he pressed his forehead to hers, that simple contact grounding them both. “I can’t face the world without you. And I will kill you, and then myself, before I let you go.”