The Last Innocent Hour Read online

  “A man?” he had echoed. “Who?”

  “What does it matter?” she said, and realized they had been whispering. She glanced at her brother and saw his face. “A stranger. Matt. Walt. Some name like that.”

  He turned and looked at her, his forehead wrinkled in confusion. “A stranger? How could . . .?” He stopped, as understanding flooded his face, and as the full implication of that strange man in his sister’s room dawned on him, he blushed.

  Sally smiled sadly at him. “You shouldn’t have asked if you didn’t want to know. I was in his room, Eddie. Some guy. There were a lot of guys in those days. You shouldn’t have asked.”

  “No, Sal, no,” he said, reaching for her hands. “I had to know. It’s haunted me. Why would you do such a thing? All of it. That hospital. How sick you were. How you might have succeeded . . .” His voice faltered. “You could have done it and maybe I’d have never known.”

  “Oh, sure, Eddie,” she said, extricating her hands from his. “A stiff in a lousy L.A. hotel was not going to go unnoticed for very long.” She had been purposely cruel because his tears had frightened her. “Besides, there was so much blood.”

  “Sally. . .”

  “I’m sorry;” she said. She looked again at her reflection in the dark window.

  “Why?” he whispered after a pause.

  “Why, what?” she answered, facing the sink again. “Why the man? There were a lot of them. Bet you didn’t know that. I wanted . . . I don’t know what. But it never worked. And, truthfully, I never expected it to.”

  “But why the razor blade? Why try and kill yourself?”

  She bent her head and studied the green-and-yellow linoleum on the floor.

  “Was it because of Berlin?” he asked, still whispering. “Was that it?”

  She turned her head and slowly raised it to meet his eyes. They were light blue, lighter than her own, clearer than hers, and his lashes were long and thick, oddly feminine in his wide, square face. Looking at her brother, Sally realized how much she cared about him, yet how little she knew him. Still, he was the only person in the entire world who loved her in spite of everything. She knew that about him.

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath and looked again at the linoleum. “Berlin,” she repeated so softly that the word was only a brush of sound in the quiet kitchen.

  Without a word, Eddie opened his arms and they stood there, holding one another, for a long time. It was the last time she had seen him, but she knew, that if she was sane at all now, he had helped her become so with his embrace.

  CHAPTER 2

  BERLIN WAS A city of rubble.

  Sharp, perilously suspended stonewalls stood without obvious support. Vast fields of broken gray stone stretched as far as Sally could see. All the parks, the greenery, were gone. The setting sun cast the plane’s shadow onto the silent and frightening ruins. The shadow plane, slipping effortlessly across the shells of buildings, the blocked streets, the burned cars and tanks still visible here and there, was the only moving thing in this huge dead city. Surely people, even feisty, stubborn Berliners, could not be alive down there.

  The devastation produced in Sally a dull emptiness and the violence of the destruction frightened her profoundly. She stared out of the small porthole, angry at the tears that started to her eyes.

  She reminded herself of the pictures Frank Singleton had shown her. The people down there had let those things happen. And that frightened her as well.

  On the ground, things weren’t much better, although the military bustle at Tempelhof Airport was reassuring. As were the American uniforms and voices, busy, purposeful, and energetic. Sally had never been particularly chauvinistic, and she experienced mixed feelings as she watched the activity: gratefulness at the no-nonsense attitude and dislike of a certain callousness in the midst of the colossal ruins.

  Waiting for her bags, she saw Tim Hastings’s tall figure disappear through a door to the outside. He glanced around at the last moment and, spotting her, waved. Sally raised her hand and he was gone. He would be here too, in Berlin. The thought was oddly comforting.

  She found a ride to her billet, and as the driver drove cautiously through the narrow passageways cleared in the rubble, she began to feel a sense of dislocation. She could not tell where she was, the streets had either changed so much, or had entirely disappeared.

  “Are we going toward Neukolln?” she asked the driver.

  “No, ma’am, Dahlem.”

  Sally sat back. Her head ached and she dug her handkerchief out of her bag and blew her nose. She closed her eyes.

  It was nearly dark when the driver let her out in front of the building she would be living in. As she got out of the car, she could smell the terrible air, even through her stuffy nose. She grimaced.

  “You’ll get used to it, Lieutenant,” the driver said, seeing her expression. He carried her bags up the steps of the building and into the entry hall, then came back.

  Sally stood on the top step and studied the block of rubble across the street, the flattened buildings and twisted concrete. She had heard that, during heavy bombings, the heat had made sidewalks warp. She hadn’t believed it. But she was sure that she would be seeing a lot of things she would never have believed.

  “This city used to have the best air,” she said to the driver. “Berliner air,” she added in German.

  “It’s the dead,” he said. “Lots of them still buried in the rubble, in the canals. It’s not so bad now, but when the wind comes from the right direction . . . phew.”

  There was nothing to say in response, so she turned to look at her new home. The block of nineteenth-century apartment buildings—all still standing—had been built for middle-class families and now quartered single American women. The women were Red Cross and UNRRA workers, military nurses and doctors, and administrators who were trying to organize the various programs the military government of occupation had brought along with it.

  The entry hall was surprisingly crowded with furniture, all of it worn and old. The place looked like a junk store, a rummage sale of good, solid, middle-class nineteenth-century Berlin furniture, but, for all the clutter, everything was clean and the stuffy air smelled of furniture polish.

  A thin, middle-aged woman came striding across the faded, patched carpet, her hand outstretched. “Hello, you must be Lieutenant Jackson,” she said. “I’m Dr. Mavis Chambers. I’m with the Red Cross. In refugee relief.”

  “Do I qualify? I sure feel like one,” said Sally, with an attempt at humor.

  Dr. Chambers laughed, causing her glasses, round ones with thin frames, which were slightly too large for her narrow face, to fall down her long nose.

  “I bet you do,” she said, shoving her glasses back up. “I bet you do. I am also the official greeter of our little home away from home here. So, you’ve come to work with D-6?”

  “Yes,” said Sally, glad someone knew about her. Then she coughed. She still felt rotten and searched in her pocket for a handkerchief.

  “That sounds bad.”

  “It is,” Sally said, blowing her nose. It hurt.

  “Well. I’ve been working with the boys, and your new boss, Colonel Eiger, asked me to keep my eye out for you. He’s a good egg. Come along, I’ll show you to your room. I imagine you’d like to get to bed.”

  She gestured toward Sally’s bags. “Can you carry one? I’ll get the other.” They started off up the marble stairs, lugging Sally’s suitcases. “It’s the air on those planes. You’d better get right in bed. I think tomorrow you’re going to have to hit the floor running.”

  Sally’s room, her home for the next year or so, was on the second floor, down a short hall. Mavis waved at a closed door. “The WC. There’s one on each floor. Bath, too, but separate, down that way.”

  The doctor opened a door and flipped on a light switch. Sally dropped her bag by the door and sat on the nearest bed.

  “I really do feel terrible,” Sally said, pulling off her cap and gloves. “
I guess I should go to bed.” She smiled weakly at Mavis. “I feel as though I haven’t slept in a week.”

  “Traveling does that to me, too. I’ll find you some tea while you get undressed. Do you have aspirin? Do you need some help with your bags?”

  “No,” Sally said, standing to take off her coat. “I’ve got overnight stuff, and aspirin, in this bag.”

  “Well, for goodness’ sake, hang your uniform up. Your boss is regular army, and a stickler for the niceties of army life.”

  Then she was gone, closing the door behind her, before Sally could tell her she had met Colonel Eiger. Nevertheless, Sally followed Mavis’s suggestion and hung up her rumpled uniform in the huge wardrobe that took up almost all of one wall. Next to it was a small sink, with a mirror over it, and she washed her face and brushed her teeth. Though the water ran hot and cold, it tasted of chemicals. She took two aspirin, swearing as the flaky tablets scratched her raw throat. After pulling her pajamas out of the bag and putting them on, Sally climbed into her single bed. There were two beds in the room and they faced a good-sized window. Tomorrow she’d see what was out there.

  SALLY HAD MET Colonel Eiger after she joined the WACs, toward the end of her four-week basic training at Fort Des Moines. She still had to do her officer’s training, but hadn’t received her assignment, and she had gone to her CO’s office expecting to be given her orders. Instead the CO had introduced her to the colonel and had quickly retreated.

  Standing square against the window of her CO’s office, his arms crossed, the colonel did not look pleased to see Private Jackson.

  “Sit down, Private,” Colonel Eiger growled. Sally quickly complied, sitting in a chair facing him. “I’ll get to the point,” he said. “I read your file back in D.C. and I don’t want you on my team. I don’t want a woman, and if I did, I wouldn’t want one with your background. I don’t trust you. How could I?”

  Sally sat stiffly under his attack, glad for once of the protocol of military behavior into which she could retreat and remain silent and motionless.

  The colonel continued. “But the brass and your boss at State convinced me that I should come to talk to you and see for myself exactly what kind of a person you are. I was coming west anyway, so I agreed.”

  Eiger left his spot by the window and walked to the desk, where he could look down into Sally’s face. He leaned on the corner and folded his arms again. “So tell me, Private.”

  “Sir?” Sally looked up at him. The colonel was of medium height and build, although he had a broad chest. His uniform, with its impressive array of battle ribbons on his left breast, was perfectly tailored. His thinning red hair was cut so short, the color barely showed. He had pronounced cheekbones, a long, sharp nose, and deep-set pale eyes with golden eyelashes. His intense gaze frightened Sally.

  “Talk, Private. Who are you? Why should I let you on my team?” Sally detected a slight Southern accent.

  “What do you want to know, sir,” asked Sally, “if you’ve already read my file?”

  “How old are you?”

  “Surely that’s in my file, sir.” Sally couldn’t see why she should answer. The man had already made his conclusions about her.

  “No sass, Private. Answer the question.”

  “Thirty-two,” said Sally, keeping her voice steady and expressionless.

  “Ever been married?” Sally, surprised by the question, hesitated. “Well?” insisted Eiger.

  “Yes, I was married. For a short time, a long time ago. To a German,” she added defiantly, knowing that was what he was interested in.

  “Why?”

  “Why what, sir?”

  “Why’d you marry a Kraut, Private?”

  “I didn’t, sir. I married a German and I married him because I loved him.” She raised her chin, then added: “Sir.”

  The colonel grunted and walked around the desk to sit in the chair. He leaned back, one arm extended to the desk where his fingers lightly tapped the wood.

  “You are close to being way out of line.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

  “It’s all in your file,” he said. “I just wanted to hear your version.”

  Sally looked at his hand, the powerful fingers tapping one after another.

  “A messy, unsuitable marriage that ruined your father’s career and you . . a stint in several hospitals for various reasons, including the incident in Los Angeles. Was that your only attempt? I asked that, but no one could tell me.”

  “That was a long time ago,” said Sally.

  “And what have you accomplished since?” Sally was silent, staring at the light swirls on the wood of the desk. “What, Jackson? Tell me.”

  “My work.” Damn. She raised her head and looked at him. “I’ve done what I could. And what happened in Berlin was. . . it happened then and is no longer relevant.” She bit off the words, hearing her father’s well-bred, highly educated tones in her voice.

  “All right, about your work — it’s why I’m talking to you. I read some of your reports. I agree with Singleton that you’re becoming a top-notch analyst of visual material. And I read your report on Heydrich. It was and will be very useful to us in our work in Berlin.”

  After General Heydrich’s assassination by Czech commandos in the spring of 1942, Frank Singleton had asked Sally to write an analysis of the Reich Protector’s career in the Third Reich. Sally had done her research and the writing in two weeks, and when she was finished, had walked the completed report over to Frank herself. She dropped off all the research materials in the various offices on the way, and had thrown her notes away, as well. She wanted to rid her office of every shred of paper referring to Reinhard Tristian Heydrich.

  “Look, Private,” continued Colonel Eiger. “I don’t mean to bully you, but I can’t afford to take along someone, no matter how talented, who’s nuts. You can see that.” He looked down at his hands, which were out flat on the desk. “There’s something else; it’s about your . . . your loyalties, shall we say.”

  “Colonel Eiger,” said Sally angrily, “I deeply resent that remark. If you are so. . . I didn’t ask to do this,” she said, standing up. “You think I look forward to this job, looking at pictures of god-awful things, being in the army? Going to Berlin, for God’s sake. Do me a favor, throw me out.”

  “Whoa, simmer down, Private,” Eiger said calmly. “Besides, once in, you’ll find it difficult to get out of the army.” And, for the first time during their meeting, he smiled.

  “Tell me, then, why did you agree to do this? C’mon, sit back down and tell me.”

  Sally deliberated for a moment, then sat. What the man had said about her was true, but there was more.

  “I don’t see why I have to be forever justifying myself,” she said, trying to control her anger.

  “You can’t see why you could be a liability for D-6?” asked Eiger.

  “I would more likely be an asset,” she snapped back.

  “All right,” he said, holding up one hand, palm out, “then tell me why.”

  “You’ve already dismissed me,” Sally said, sitting up straighter, looking him in the eye. “You came here as a gesture. You’ve already decided. Why the hell should I tell you anything? Sir.”

  Eiger looked at Sally for a long moment, then said, “Okay, I’ll try to put aside my preconceived notions about you. If you’ll be honest with me. You convince me that I don’t have to worry about these two points, and I’ll agree to have you on my team.”

  “With an eye on me,” said Sally.

  “No. If you’re part of the team, you’re part of the team. No probation. No conditions. We have to trust each other.” Sally nodded, and he continued, “Now, tell me why you agreed to go back to Berlin.”

  Sally took a deep breath. She wanted to tell him—the truth—as far as she could.

  “I owe it. My brother died at Bataan and the ship my sister-in- law and niece and nephew were on was torpedoed in the Pacific. The kids were babies.” She wondered
if she should tell him about Frank’s photographs. “Is that enough? There is probably more, but those reasons are all either in the past or indirect ones.”

  “Sorry.”

  “What for?”

  “Your family. The kids. That stinks.”

  “Yeah.” Barbara, Stevie, and Ellie, the niece she had never seen, had been evacuated from Manila in 1942, as the Japanese were moving in. Sally didn’t think they ever knew what happened to Eddie; nor that he knew what happened to them. Her father had died quietly and quickly of a heart attack before Pearl Harbor, so he never knew either. Only Sally knew how her family had been decimated.

  Colonel Eiger was watching her intently. Picking up a pencil from the desk, he started rolling it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. “What about the ah — incident in L.A.?”

  As Sally searched for the words, she clutched one wrist with the other hand. “I did what I did. Because it seemed to be the only way out at a time I was in despair. I don’t, know much now, but I do know one thing for certain. I don’t want to die. If I die, the bastards win. But I’m alive. That’s a victory for me, Colonel, and it was hard-won.”

  She leaned forward. “The main reason I’m here is that my boss showed me some photographs. I don’t understand them. Why we let them happen. I want—I need to do something.”

  “Photographs?” He eyed her. “Of the camps?”

  Sally nodded.

  “My outfit liberated a small POW camp in southern Germany. I think I understand what you mean.” Eiger nodded, the fingers twirling the pencil paused for a moment. “Yeah, well. Now, what about your loyalties? What if…” he started to say, but Sally interrupted him.

  “Oh, Colonel, please. You aren’t looking at the facts realistically if you can think there’s the slightest question of that.”

  “What about you and. . .”

  Sally stood abruptly and walked to the window. “God, it’s stupid to think that just because . . . that I can’t differentiate between right and wrong. Well, maybe the edges got blurred, but that’s what happens when you try to cover up, try not to see. I was young, which I realize is not an excuse, but, well, I won’t go into all of that.”