He always was perceptive, Gudrun reminded herself. And if his loyalties haven’t changed, I may be putting my head in the noose.
She braced herself and looked up, meeting Volker Schulze’s eyes. “On Sunday, someone handed out thousands of leaflets in Victory Square,” she said. She had no idea if Volker Schulze had received a copy of his own through the letterbox. “Have you seen them?”
Volker Schulze’s eyes narrowed. “I have seen the leaflets,” he said, neutrally.
Gudrun swallowed. Volker Schulze was a former SS officer, after all. If he decided his loyalties still lay with the SS…
“The leaflets claim that wounded or dead soldiers have been concealed by the government,” she said. She tried to put a pleading tone into her voice. “Is there any way you can check up on Konrad? Ask what happened to him? You must have contacts…”
“Most of the people I knew have retired or moved on to other posts,” Volker Schulze said, carefully. His face was completely expressionless, denying her any chance to glimpse his emotions, but his wife looked worried. “It wouldn’t be easy to get any information on Konrad’s current location…”
Gerde leaned forward. “But you are going to try,” she said, sharply. Gudrun had never heard her speak in such a tone before, even when she’d been asking questions about Gudrun’s family and future prospects. “Just for our peace of mind, if nothing else.”
Volker Schulze gave his wife a sharp look. “There’s no proof that Konrad is wounded or dead,” he said. “And I…”
“We should have been told if he was dead or wounded,” Gerde insisted. “My father was visited by two officials when my brother was killed in the Middle East. If Konrad has been wounded, or killed, we should have been told.”
“But we haven’t been told anything,” Volker Schulze said, irritated. He couldn’t be pleased with Gerde arguing with him, not in front of a visitor. “Konrad is fine.”
“Konrad used to write to us every third day,” Gerde said. “Even if it was just a short note saying he was fine, he’d write to us. We haven’t heard anything from him for months.”
“Nor have I,” Gudrun said, quietly.
“Konrad would hardly have stopped writing to his girlfriend,” Gerde snapped. “He wouldn’t have wanted to lose her through neglect.”
“Asking questions could also get us in trouble,” Volker Schulze reminded his wife. “Do you really want to risk our family…?”
“Konrad is our family,” Gerde snapped. “And Gudrun is going to marry him. She’s practically part of the family already!”
Gudrun winced, inwardly. Volker Schulze wasn’t looking happy at all. She understood his refusal to ask questions – he had a wife and daughter at risk – but she needed him to ask questions. And he wouldn’t be very pleased with his wife afterwards. Gudrun hoped – prayed – that they wouldn’t have a colossal fight after she left. She wasn’t sure she could bear the guilt of splitting up Konrad’s family as well as concealing the truth from them.
“I just want to know what’s happened to him,” she said, lowering her eyes and trying to sound plaintive. “I miss him.”
“We do understand, my dear,” Gerde said. “We miss him too.”
“Konrad knew he would be parted from his friends and family for months, if not years,” Volker Schulze reminded her, sternly. “We knew there would be a long separation when he graduated.”
“But we also knew he’d be writing to us,” Gerde reminded him. “He was raised to stay in touch, was he not? So where are his letters? The censors might have covered the pieces of paper in black ink, Volker, but they wouldn’t destroy them altogether.”
Volker Schulze rose to his feet. “I shall contact an old comrade,” he said, stiffly. He gave Gudrun a sharp look that made her cringe. “And if Konrad is fine, young lady, your conduct will be reported to your parents.”
“Her worries are understandable,” Gerde said. “Volker…”
“There are limits,” her husband snapped. “And I think she’s crossed them.”
He stalked out of the room before his wife could reply. Gudrun watched him go, feeling a yawning despair opening within her heart. Her father would be angry, if Volker Schulze carried out his threat, but her mother would be furious. Gudrun knew she’d probably spend the rest of the week in the kitchen, barred from leaving the house, if her mother found out what she’d said to Konrad’s parents. And yet, she knew she’d had no choice. The only way to ensure that Konrad’s parents knew what had happened to him was to make his father use his contacts to check up on his son.
“Don’t worry,” Gerde said, reaching out to squeeze Gudrun’s hand. “Volker may try to put a brave face on it, but he’s worried too.”
“You got one of the leaflets,” Gudrun said. She hadn’t had one sent specifically to Konrad’s house, but whoever had been distributing them had clearly stuffed one through their letterbox. “I… I worry about him.”
“That’s the curse of being a grown woman, my dear,” Gerde said. She patted Gudrun’s hand gently. “We bring the men into the world, we marry them, we bear their children… and then we have to stay at home when they march off to war, knowing that they may never come home – or, when they do come home, that a demon might come back with them.”
Like Grandpa Frank, Gudrun thought. He was so horrified by what he’d done that he tried to drown himself in drink.
She shuddered. Grandpa Frank wasn’t the only one who’d gone off to war and come back a changed man. She’d heard horror stories, filtered through the grapevine at school and then at university, about men who woke up screaming, fathers who beat their children bloody, husbands who bragged to their wives about how they’d slept with whores while at the front… she’d wondered, at the time, why anyone would want to get married to a soldier. And yet, her father was strict, but he wasn’t a drunken monster – and nor was Volker Schulze.
Mother must have had a hard time of it, she thought. She wasn’t quite sure how the dates added up, but she suspected that Grandpa Frank had come back from the wars shortly before he’d married, long before his daughter had married Gudrun’s father. How did Grandpa Frank treat his wife and daughter?
Gerde cleared her throat. Gudrun realised, suddenly, that Konrad’s mother had been speaking… and she hadn’t heard a single word.
“I’m sorry,” she said, softly. “I was miles away.”
“I understand,” Gerde said. “I was wondering if your brother is still unmarried.”
“None of my brothers are married,” Gudrun said. Gerde couldn’t be planning to marry her daughter to Kurt, could she? Johan would be a better fit, if only because they were the same age. “I don’t think Kurt plans to marry in a hurry.”
“Handsome young man like him?” Gerde asked. “Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?”
“If he does, I don’t know about it,” Gudrun said. She didn’t really want to think about Kurt having a girlfriend, let alone a wife. “Why do you want to know?”
“Liana needs a man,” Gerde said. “And your brother is already an established soldier…”
Gudrun shook her head, sadly. “I don’t know what he’d want,” she said. The thought of her brother marrying Konrad’s sister was… icky, even though it wouldn’t be technically illegal or immoral. But she knew now she wasn’t going to marry Konrad. He’d be lucky if they didn’t turn the life support off in a few weeks, if he showed no signs of recovery. “You’d have to talk to my parents.”