Resistance Women: A NovelKindle

Part One

Chapter One

June–October 1929

Mildred

The sharp wind off the water where the North Sea met the Weser River whipped locks of hair from Mildred’s braid and brought tears to her eyes, but nothing could compel her away from the railing of the upper deck of the SS Berlin as it approached Bremerhaven. Ten days earlier the ship had set out from Manhattan for Germany—ten long days after nine lonely months apart from her beloved husband—but the last few hours had passed with excruciating slowness. As the ship came into harbor, she scanned the crowd gathered on the pier for the man she loved, knowing that he stood somewhere among them, waiting to welcome her to his homeland.

The ship’s horn bellowed overhead, two long blasts; sailors and dockworkers tossed ropes and deftly secured knots. The passengers shifted in anticipation as the ramps were made ready for their descent. Where the pier met the shore, a brass band played a merry tune in welcome; men clad in traditional lederhosen, embroidered vests, and feathered caps; women in pink-and-green dirndls and white blouses with wreaths of ribbons and flowers in their hair.

Hearing her name aloft on the wind above the music, Mildred searched the crowd, her grip tightening on the rail—and then she saw him, her beloved Arvid, his fair hair neatly combed back from his wide brow, his blue eyes kind and intelligent behind wire-rimmed glasses. He waved his hat in slow arcs above his head, calling her name, radiant with joy.

“Arvid,” she cried, and he waved back, and soon she was ashore and darting through the crowd into his embrace. Tears of joy spilled over as she kissed him, heedless of the sidelong glances of the more reserved passengers and families all around them.

“My darling wife,” Arvid murmured, his lips nuzzling her ear. “It’s wonderful to hold you again. You’re even lovelier than I remember.”

She smiled and held him close, her happiness too great for words. If absence had made her lovelier in his eyes, he was even more handsome in hers.

How immeasurably beloved he had become to her since the day they met three years before. In March 1926, soon after Arvid came to the University of Wisconsin on a prestigious Rockefeller Fellowship, he had wandered into her Bascom Hall classroom expecting a lecture by the renowned economist John R. Commons, only to discover Mildred leading a discussion on Walt Whitman. Enchanted, he took a seat in the back row, and afterward he stayed behind to apologize for the interruption, explaining in endearingly imperfect English that he had meant to go to Sterling Hall but had apparently lost his way. Charmed, Mildred had offered to escort him to the correct building. They enjoyed a chat along the way, and in parting agreed to meet again to study together. She would help Arvid master English, and he would help her improve her German, which she had allowed to lapse after learning the rudiments as a child in Milwaukee, that most German of American cities. Arvid arrived for their study session bearing a lovely bouquet of fragrant white gardenias. Their language lesson over coffee at a diner on the corner of State and Lake streets turned into a long walk along the forested path on the shore of Lake Mendota. As they conversed in a mix of English and German, Mildred discovered that Arvid had earned his doctorate of law degree in 1924 and was pursuing a second doctorate in economics. He had come to the United States to study the American labor movement, and like herself he was deeply concerned about the rights of workers, women, children, and the poor. They shared a passion for education and aspired to become university professors, although Mildred also yearned to write, not only academic essays and reviews, but also novels and poetry.

One date led to another, and soon Mildred realized she had fallen in love with him—inevitably, utterly. And in return, she found herself beloved, admired, and respected by the finest man she had ever known.

On Saturday, August 7, 1926, two days after Mildred passed her master’s degree exams, she and Arvid married in an outdoor ceremony on her brother Bob’s 180-acre farm about twenty miles south of the university. For two years the couple worked, studied, and enjoyed newlywed bliss in Madison, but when Arvid’s Rockefeller Fellowship ended in the spring of 1928, they realized that they could not afford for her to accompany him back to Germany.

“Let’s check the numbers again,” Mildred had said, studying the neat columns of notes and calculations written in Arvid’s precise hand on a yellow notepad, calculations of his income and estimates of their expenses, adjusted for Germany’s excessive inflation. When Arvid smiled wryly and handed her his pencil, she laughed and added, “Although I suppose a doctoral student in economics can work out a simple family budget.”

Arvid removed his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. “The facts distress me too, Liebling, but they’re still facts. I can’t support you as a graduate student, and given the state of the German economy, we can’t assume you’ll be able to find work there.”

Mildred reached across the table and clasped his hand. “Then I’ll find a faculty position here in the States and we’ll pinch pennies until we can afford to be together.”

Until then, they would have to live apart.

When Arvid returned to Germany to continue his studies at the University of Jena, Mildred had moved to Baltimore to teach at Goucher College. The months had slowly passed in loneliness and longing, but in the spring Mildred won a fellowship for postgraduate study at a German university of her choice. With her stipend added to the money they had saved, they could finally afford for her to join Arvid in Jena.

Now, with her overseas journey behind her, they were reunited at last—and if it were up to her, they would never be parted again.

They gathered her luggage and boarded the port train to Bremen, where Arvid suggested a walking tour to stretch her legs. Mildred could hardly take her eyes from the dear face she had missed and dreamt of all those long months apart, yet the charming city stole her gaze away time and again. She admired the tall peaked, half-timbered buildings lining the cobblestone streets and the sun-splashed, manicured squares, the window boxes bursting with red alpine geraniums, white peonies, and green trailing ivy. Bicycles were everywhere, their handlebar bells chiming out a ceaseless melody, but the occasional motorcar also drove sedately past, and now and then a horse-drawn wagon.

“How picturesque it is,” Mildred exclaimed, briefly resting her head on Arvid’s shoulder as they strolled arm in arm. “And to think how Greta tried to lower my expectations.”

Arvid’s eyebrows rose. “Greta Lorke disparaged her own homeland?”

“Not exactly,” said Mildred, amused by his instinct to assume the worst of his former academic rival. Mildred was loyal to Arvid, of course, but she had become very fond of Greta after they met through the Friday Niters, Professor Collins’s renowned group of graduate students and faculty who studied social welfare, economic, and labor policies and helped the Wisconsin state legislators draft progressive laws. Where Mildred was tall, slender, and blond, Greta was petite, curvy, and dark-eyed, and she wore her dark brown hair cropped in a wavy bob. She had high cheekbones and a full mouth fashioned for warm, beckoning smiles, but a certain wariness in her manner suggested that she was not unaccustomed to strife.

“Greta once told me that she feared my understanding of Germany comes from your poetry, novels, and fairy tales,” Mildred explained. “She warned me that my perspective is romantic and idealized, and that I ought to read German newspapers to learn about the real Germany, for my own good.”

“How foreboding.”

“And yet it was good advice. Why shouldn’t I learn all I could about your home?”

Mildred knew that Germany was not perfect, that like the United States it grappled with various economic, political, and social problems, but now, exploring Bremen with Arvid, she felt a keen sense of relief. Greta—dear, smart, serious, skeptical Greta—had painted a far too ominous picture of her country.

Mildred and Arvid left Bremen just as the bells of St. Peter’s Cathedral rang out the noon hour. The sun shone brightly in a perfect blue sky as they set out in a gleaming cream-colored Mercedes convertible that Arvid had borrowed from a cousin, passing through forests and farmland, rolling hills and charming villages. For hours the beautiful scenery captivated Mildred’s attention, but after they stopped for lunch in Hanover and continued southeast through Lower Saxony, she felt waves of trepidation rising and receding with increasing frequency. Although Arvid never boasted, she knew that his distinguished family was admired and respected throughout Germany, especially in academic, political, and religious circles. They were, as Greta put it, intellectual royalty. Mildred had far humbler origins. Her father, a handsome, unfaithful, irresponsible dilettante who had habitually squandered his pay at the racetrack, had been temperamentally incapable of holding on to any job for long. Mildred’s mother, an intelligent, self-reliant Christian Scientist, had supported the family with domestic work and by taking in boarders, but despite her best efforts the family had moved every year one step ahead of landlords demanding overdue rent.

Mildred wondered how much of this Arvid had revealed to his family. Although they had been unfailingly warm and gracious to her in their letters, Greta had warned that the Harnacks and their extended clan of Bonhoeffers and Dohnányis might receive her with cold disdain.

It was early evening by the time their borrowed Mercedes crossed the Harz Mountains and descended into the hills of eastern Thuringia. When they reached Jena, Arvid pointed out the university, the city square, and other significant landmarks they passed on the way to his childhood home. Eventually he pulled up to a tall white half-timbered residence with black shutters, balconies on the first and second floors connecting the two perpendicular wings. Arvid’s mother had moved with her children into this house when Arvid was fourteen, after his father’s suicide. Mildred took a deep, steadying breath as Arvid parked the car and turned off the ignition. “They’re going to love you,” he said, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. She managed a smile.

As he escorted her up the cobblestone path to the front door, her heart thumped as several men and women and two eager young boys hurried outside to welcome them. Her nervousness faded as they embraced her, smiling, greeting her warmly in German and English. As Arvid proudly made introductions, Mildred felt a curious sense of recognition when she learned that the handsome young man with Arvid’s warm smile was his seventeen-year-old brother Falk. The two lovely women with familiar blue eyes and bobbed blond hair were his sisters, Inge and Angela, and the two cheerful boys were Inge’s sons, Wulf and Claus. Mildred also met several cousins, including one Arvid had often mentioned when reminiscing about home—Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister, a round-cheeked, bespectacled fellow with a strong chin.

Next Arvid escorted Mildred inside to meet his mother. “My dear child,” Mutti Clara said warmly in flawless English, clasping Mildred’s hands and kissing her on both cheeks. She had strong features and a keen, intelligent gaze, and she wore her graying light brown hair in a soft chignon. “You are even more beautiful than Arvid described. Welcome to Germany. Welcome home.”

She summoned the family to gather around the supper table, where Dietrich led them in prayer. The meal of bratwurst in a vinegar and caper sauce, potato dumplings, and cabbage rolls, with poppyseed cake for dessert, was delicious and satisfying after a long day of travel. Everything was seasoned with warm smiles and laughter as the family teased and praised one another, joking in Greek and Latin, quoting Goethe, quizzing Falk and the younger boys on their schoolwork. Mildred marveled at how delightful it was, and how very different from the family dinners of her childhood, marked by tension between her parents, worries about money, and her father’s frequent absences.

At the end of a perfect evening, Arvid took her home—at long last, a home they would share, a suite of rented rooms in a house on the Landgrafenstieg, small but cleverly arranged to make the most of the limited space. The front windows offered wonderful views of the mountains, and plenty of room remained on the bookshelves for the new volumes they hoped to acquire in the years to come. After a few days in Jena, Mildred and Arvid embarked on a second honeymoon to the Black Forest, where the loneliness of their long separation soon faded to a distant memory.

In autumn, Mildred began her doctoral studies at the University of Jena. Once again her life was satisfyingly full, her days devoted to study, her nights to her beloved Arvid. She missed her family in America, but the Harnacks made her feel so welcome that she could not complain of homesickness.

Then, on a beautifully clear, vividly hued autumn day at the end of October, Arvid found her in the garden studying in the afternoon sunshine. “I’m sorry, Liebling,” he said grimly, handing her a newspaper. “Bad news from America.”

As she scanned the headlines, her heart plummeted. The stock market had crashed, losing more than three billion dollars over the span of two days.

She steeled herself. “Arvid?” With his academic training and expertise, he would know as well as anyone on Wall Street what this meant for her country.

He held her gaze and shook his head. She knew then that much worse was yet to come.