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“Please don’t tell Dr. Goebbels that, Zillah,” Jacob said, his voice suddenly grating. “This is the peak of his achievement, so far. All the works of these people, among hundreds of others—even Helen Keller, for God’s sake—are to be collected up and burned, to protect the German soul from their polluting influence.”
Zillah stared at him, as if unable to decide now whether he was joking, exaggerating, or just plain wrong. She was not yet prepared to think that he could be right. “Nonsense,” she said at last. “You shouldn’t go around saying things like that, even to me. Not everyone understands your rather twisted sense of humor.”
Jacob bent his head, elbows on the table, and ran his fingers through his thick hair. For a moment there was complete silence in the kitchen, except for the ticking of the clock on the mantel above the oven. Finally, he looked up.
“I’m not joking, Zillah. God help us, I’m totally serious. They’re going to do it tonight. Fires in every major city in Germany. Here it will be in the Opernplatz, between the opera house and the university. I’m going to watch from the shadows, the darkness at the edge, which is where I imagine a lot of us will be from now on.” He looked across the table at Elena. “It’ll be midnight, so you could come and watch it, with your camera, if you like. It will be a signal moment in history. You should record it for the future. The suicide of the German intellect. It might be quite a spectacle, or it might not. Odd to think that a sudden shower of rain could save the soul of a nation…for one more night.” His voice was angry and Elena could hear the edge of despair in it.
Without thinking whether it was appropriate or not, she reached across and touched his hand. “A temporary insanity,” she said quite clearly. “Other people have copies, in probably every country in Europe, or America, at the very least. You can’t kill an idea by burning a book.”
“You can kill a nation’s ability to read it,” he said, searching her face as he spoke. “And please don’t go out alone, and not at all in the daylight. The neighbors here are pretty good, but your description is all over the place, and it takes only one person to report it to get the Gestapo here.”
“I know,” she said very quietly. It hurt to say it. The only thing that would help would be to stay here. “I can’t stay here. I’m endangering everybody.”
“We’ll get you out, but not yet.”
“Yes, as soon as I can leave without being seen, and making it worse. They’ll be looking for that young man. They mustn’t find me, or they’ll take you all.”
“I’ll find a way. Just stay here and stay inside!” There was an edge to his voice. Was he angry because he had no idea how to help? Or because she was right, her presence in Eli and Zillah’s house was endangering them all?
“I can’t stay,” she repeated. “If I get caught, it will be hard, but if you are all caught, it will be far worse. I know that, and so do—”
It was Zillah who interrupted her. “Do you think we have never sheltered anyone before, or that we won’t have to do it again? We do this for ourselves, because it is right. We each have to fight against the darkness in our own way. You will do it with photographs. Jacob does it with words. Eli and I do it by seeing that you have that chance. You have to stay alive to tell the rest of the world what is happening, and what is going to happen.” She gave just the shadow of a smile. “You are no use to anyone dead in some execution chamber, shot for a crime you did not commit. Empty self-sacrifice may feel like a noble thing, but it is self-indulgent, and we can’t afford it. We need weapons that will work. Go with Jacob after dark and watch the books burning. See what Hitler and Goebbels are trying to do, then go home and show people. Not just the facts; make them feel the pain…and believe it. Don’t let this waste go unseen. Build a fire in the mind that nothing can put out.” As if suddenly exhausted, she stood up and returned to her cutting board, chopping carrots for the pie she was making.
Elena did not argue. She would do what Zillah said. She would build that fire and make it hot enough so no one could deny it, or she would be killed trying.
* * *
—
Jacob left and took with him the film that Elena had already taken of the assassination. He had it developed by a friend with a dark room, but only the negatives. Prints could come later. She would not carry bulky prints easily, and anyone could look at, and almost certainly confiscate, them. But if left undeveloped, the film could be exposed and the impressions wiped out.
“You have some good ones,” he told her, handing them back. They were in the sitting room, talking quietly. It was after six, and Eli would be home in minutes. “There are a couple I’d like to buy from you, to go with my article when I send it back to New York. I might even get it in the Times.” He looked at her questioningly.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said in amazement, and saw him blink, as if she had made to strike him. “You can have anything you want!” she added. “You saved my life. You are still saving it. Don’t you think that’s worth something?” She gave a sudden wide smile. “And I’d rather like to get my photographs into the New York Times.”
He relaxed into a smile as well, then held out his hand.
She shook it, quite solemnly.
“And I’ll come with you to the book burning tonight,” she added.
* * *
—
Elena and Jacob set out a little before eleven. She wore the dress Zillah had provided, and her few other clothes and personal belongings were in a bag over Jacob’s shoulder; she was carrying her camera case. There was no need to cover her hair now that it was blond and short. And she had used Zillah’s dark brown mascara to color and increase her eyebrows. Before leaving the house, both Jacob and Zillah agreed that the change made her almost unrecognizable.
They walked most of the way, stopping now and then as if merely strolling. The evening was fine and the streets were still busy. There was a kind of excitement in the air, the anticipation of some event not to be missed.
Elena looked at the people they passed and wondered what they were thinking. Was this blind excitement or fear of what the future held? Could she not tell the difference in herself? Could any of these young people? Walking arm in arm, as she was doing with Jacob, whom she had met only yesterday, and yet with whom she felt so comfortable already.
As they walked, he described his home in Chicago, and then the very small apartment he shared with another journalist in New York. He and Elena spoke in German, so as not to stand out if anyone was close enough to catch a word here or there.
“It works quite well,” he said ruefully. “We’re seldom home at the same time. And when we are, he cooks, so that’s an advantage. He enjoys it, and I express my appreciation. I’m not sure if I offer any service in return, other than emptying the garbage and doing the occasional errand. Hardly skilled.” It was self-deprecatory, but he said it with such amusement that it felt entirely natural.
She told him about her own small flat in London, taken simply in order to be independent of her parents. “I don’t know that I
want to be untidy,” she said. “But I want to have the freedom to be, if I feel like it. My mother is a perfect housekeeper. Or that’s the way it looks to me.”
