"If you went to Goring, he would want just one thing from you, and it wouldn't be stories
about any Jews."
What could Irma say to that? She knew that if she refused to believe it, she would annoy her
husband. But she persisted: "Would it do any harm to try?"
"It might do great harm," replied the anti-Nazi. "If you refused him, he would be enraged,
and avenge the affront by punishing the Robins."
"Do you really know that he's that kind of man, Lanny?"
"I'm tired of telling you about these people," he answered. "Get the Fürstin Donnerstein off
in a corner and ask her to give you the dirt!"
III
Any pleasure they might have got out of a visit to Berlin was ruined. They sat in their rooms
expecting a telephone call; they waited for every mail. They could think of nothing to do that
might not make matters worse; yet to do nothing seemed abominable. They thought: "Even if
he's in a concentration camp, he'll find some way to smuggle out a message! Surely all the
guards can't be loyal, surely some one can be bribed!"
Lanny bothered himself with the question: was he committing an act of bad faith with
Johannes in not informing him of this new situation? He had assured Johannes that the family
was all well. Was it now his duty to see the prisoner again and say: "Freddi has disappeared"? To
do so would be equivalent to telling the Gestapo— and so there was the same round of problems
to be gone over again. Even if he told Johannes, what could Johannes do? Was he going to say:
"No, Exzellenz, I will not sign the papers until I know where my younger son is. Go ahead and
torture me if you please." Suppose Goring should answer: "I have no idea where your son is. I
have tried to find him and failed. Sign—or be tortured!"
The agonizing thing was that anywhere Lanny tried asking a question, he might be involving
somebody else in the troubles of the Robin family. Friends or relatives, they would all be on
the Gestapo list—or he might get them on! Was he being followed? So far he had seen no signs of
it, but that didn't prove it mightn't be happening, or mightn't begin with his next step outdoors.
The people he went to see, whoever they were, would know about the danger, and their first
thought would be:
Rahel's parents, for example; he knew their names, and they were in the telephone book. But
Freddi had said: "Don't ever call them. It would endanger them." The family were not
Socialists; the father was a small lawyer, and along with all the other Jewish lawyers, had been
forbidden to practice his profession, and thus was deprived of his livelihood. What would happen if
a phone call were overheard and reported? Or if a rich American were to visit a third-class
apartment house, where Jews were despised and spied upon, where the Nazis boasted that
they had one of their followers in every building, keeping track of the tenants and reporting
everything suspicious or even unusual? The Brown Terror!
Was Lanny at liberty to ignore Freddi's request, even in an effort to save Freddi's life? Would
Freddi want his life saved at the risk of involving his wife and child? Would he even want his
wife to know about his disappearance? What could she do if she knew it, except to fret herself ill,
and perhaps refuse to let Lanny and Irma take her out of the country? No, Freddi would surely
want her to go, and he wouldn't thank Lanny for thwarting his wishes. Possibly he hadn't told
Rahel where Lanny and Irma were staying, but she must have learned it from the newspapers or
from her parents; and surely, if she knew where Freddi was, and if he needed help, she would
risk everything to get word to Lanny. Was she, too, in an agony of dread, hesitating to
communicate with Lanny, because Freddi had forbidden her to do so?
IV
Lanny bethought himself of the Schultzes, the young artist couple. Having got some of Trudi's
work published in Paris, he had a legitimate reason for calling upon her. They lived in one of the
industrial districts, desiring to be in touch with the workers; and this of course made them
conspicuous. He hesitated for some time, but finally drove to the place, a vast area of six-story
tenements, neater than such buildings would have been in any other land. Almost with out
exception there were flower-boxes in the windows; the German people didn't take readily to the
confinements of city life, and each wanted a bit of country.
A few months ago there had been civil war in these streets; the Brownshirts had marched and
the workers had hurled bottles and bricks from the rooftops; meetings had been raided and
party workers dragged away and slugged. But now all that was over; the promise of the
appearance of the neighborhood had changed; the people no longer lived on the streets, even in
this brightest spring weather; the children stayed in their rooms, and the women with their
