It was about a week later – Magda was half sitting in bed for the first time – that she got a visitor. There was a soft knocking on the guest-room´s door, and the head of a shy young man with big baby-blue eyes peeped around the door. "Frau Nowak? May I come in, please?"

"Sure," she answered in surprise – she hadn´t seen anyone but Dr. Bauer for the past ten days; it might be nice to talk to someone else for a change.

The young man came in and his gangling figure sat down on a chair. He kept his eyes on the cap he was turning around and around in his hands, as if he was afraid to meet her eyes.

They sat silent for a few minutes, while Magda studied her visitor. She was pretty sure she had met him before, but... "Excuse me, sir, but I seem to have forgotten your name."

The young man looked up. "I´m Karl Langenscheidt, the man who..."

Magda sat up with a start, even though her suddenly pounding head and aching shoulder reminded her that she was not supposed to. "Karl Langenscheidt!? You were the one who...! Where is David? Is he safe?"

Karl nodded. "He is safe. For the moment. They didn´t get him."

A sigh of relief, and Magda suddenly felt the tears streaming down her face.

Langenscheidt watched her in agony for a few moments; then he handed her his handkerchief. "I´m so sorry, Frau Nowak," he told her quietly. "I had not expected they would take you instead when they didn´t find him. Otherwise I would of course have taken you along as well." He gulped. "I´m so sorry. In a way it´s my fault what they have done to you. And I hope I´ll be able to make it up to you – if only a little bit."

Magda had a vague smile. "Don´t worry about that. Where is David?"

He shook his head. "I´d better not tell you, for your own safety as well as for his. But as soon as Dr. Bauer thinks you´re fit enough to travel, I´d like to take you there, too. To go into hiding, I mean. The Gestapo has been watching your house ever since; probably hoping that David will return. But we don´t want them to get hold of you again either, do we?"

Magda slowly shook her head. "No. I´d rather not." She sat for a moment, her still slow brain digesting the information. "What do you mean: go into hiding?"

Langenscheidt sighed. "You know the nazis blame the Jews for every problem in this country, don´t you?"

Magda nodded. "But that´s nonsense."

"Of course it is. But it´s an excuse for what might become a genocide if they remain in power much longer."

"Genocide?" Magda frowned. "What is that?"

"Killing off an entire ethnic group," Langenscheidt replied quietly. "They might already have started: Jews are taken from their homes and never heard from again. But there are rumours: about labour camps, deportations... even about mass executions."

Magda paled. "They wouldn´t do that. They may not exactly be the good guys, those nazis, but I cannot believe sane people would do such a thing."

Langenscheidt sighed. "Neither can I. But when a country is led by a madman... As I said, they´re just rumours; I don´t know if it is true. But I do know that many Jews have left the country. And those who didn´t are mysteriously disappearing after a surprise visit from the Gestapo. And I´m afraid that most of them had no chance to go into hiding."

"You mean we´ll have to leave the country," Magda summarized.

Langenscheidt nodded. "That would be the wisest thing to do. At least until that madman and his party are replaced by a more humane government. It may seem like a drastic measure, but from what I´ve heard and seen of those nazis, I´d say: ´Better safe than sorry´. Just look at what they did to you."

"Is David already out of the country?"

"No, not yet. It takes time to organize fake papers."

"And where do we go?"

"To Holland. It´s closest, and there is a large Jewish community there, especially in Amsterdam. Many Jews from Germany have taken refuge there, and the Dutch are historically known for being pretty tolerant toward Jews." He sighed. "You may as well face it, Frau Nowak: by marrying Dr. Nowak, according to the present people in power you pretty much turned yourself into a Jew..."

Magda made no reply. She remembered father Geisler´s warnings. Dr. Bauer´s concern. Her own family´s fervent pleas not to get involved with this man. Reality had proven them right. But she had no regrets. Marrying David and being his wife was the best thing she had ever experienced. Even if she could have, she had no desire to alter her decisions.

"Herr Langenscheidt," she said quitely, "I assume that you know where my husband is."

Langenscheidt gave no reaction to her statement.

"Would you have the opportunity to pass on a message to him, without endangering your or his safety?"

This time Langenscheidt nodded. Slowly.

"Then please give me a piece of paper and a pen."

Langenscheidt complied without a word.

"Have you told him what happened to me?"

A shake of the head. "I only just found out myself."

"Good. Then don´t. I don´t want him to worry unnecessarily, and I´ll be allright anyway. I´ll tell him myself when I see him again."

She took the pencil in her hand. Writing felt rather awkward with a shoulder that didn´t quite work yet. She barely recognized her own handwriting; hopefully David would, for she could of course hardly sign it, in case it fell into the wrong hands. So the message had to convey that it came from her. And after some thought she scribbled down with some difficulty: "Don´t you worry, I´ll come back to you. I love you. Wait for me."

One last look, then she handed the note to the man at her bedside.

He folded it in two and put it away in his pocket. "I´ll see to it that he gets it, Frau Nowak."

xxx

That night, the archives of the local registrar´s office in the Hamelburg town hall went up in flames. Apart from the room they were kept in, the town hall suffered but minor damage. But from that day on, the nazis had no records of the people living in Hamelburg. And maybe even more important: nor of their descent.

The night following, a similar thing happened at the registrar´s office in nearby Flenzheim. And two nights later, an explosion destroyed an entire wing of the Düsseldorf town hall – including the registrar´s office.

The nazis in the area fumed. This could not possibly be a coincidence; no, it was a deliberate act of sabotage! And even though several witnesses claimed to have seen an elderly man with a white beard acting somewhat suspiciously around all three of the town halls the night of their disasters, the culprit was never found.

xxx

"Dr. Bauer? Frau Nowak!"

Dr. Bauer jumped as an agitated, rather corpulent stranger with a large grey moustache barged into his living-room.

"Dr. Bauer, have you seen Dr. Nowak?"

"No." Dr. Bauer eyed his uninvited visitor from head to toe. "And who might you be, if I may be so bold to ask?"

The visitor tore off his cap, revealing a bald head with just a few fluffs of hair above the ears and a face more wrinkled than Dr. Bauer´s. "It´s me, Karl Langenscheidt. Father Geisler´s nephew."

All Dr. Bauer could do was stare at the stranger. The voice sure sounded young enough, but could his eyes betray him that badly?! Wasn´t it an elderly man standing before him?

"It´s me! Honest!" the man calling himself Karl Langenscheidt urged the poor confused doctor. "I don´t have the right papers about me right now, but..."

And then something clicked in the good doctor´s brain. Those baby-blue eyes with the – for a man – exceptionally long eyelashes... Yes, perhaps the man before him could be Karl Langenscheidt, father Geisler´s nephew. But how... why...?

But the Langenscheidt-stranger had run out of patience by now and with a swift movement ripped off the plastic layer of baldness. "See?"

Dr. Bauer gulped. "Yes. I see." The figure in front of him looked totally unreal now: thick goldish brown hair, an old wrinkled face, the grey moustache... and the corpulent body was quite a change from the gangling young man he thought he was acquainted with, too. "You could have fooled your own mother!" he muttered.

A lopsided grin. "I know. By experience." But then he cut down to business again. "Have you seen Dr. Nowak?"

"No. Should I have?"

"You´d better not, but... Is Frau Nowak upstairs?"

"Yes. In her room. Still resting."

Before the doctor could make objections, Karl Langenscheidt was already back in the hall and racing up the stairs.

He found Magda sitting in the pillows against the bedboard, and after a first incredulous look when she saw him, she burst out laughing. But she stifled her laugh right away, with her hand going to her face, to her chest. "Don´t make me laugh. It hurts," she told him in mock stern.

"Sorry."

"Is this your latest disguise?"

"Half of it. I had to remove a piece to make Dr. Bauer understand it was really me."

She snickered; at least that hurt less.

"Frau Nowak, you haven´t seen or heard from your husband these days, have you?"

"No. Why?" Magda tensed visibly.

"He´s gone," Langenscheidt said simply.

"Gone?! What do you mean: gone?" She paled. "The Gestapo?"

Langenscheidt shook his head and sat down. "The people who were hiding him and a few others got a visit from the Gestapo yesterday. Apparently someone betrayed them, for they knew exactly what they were looking for. They turned the whole house upside down. They found the three other people in hiding, and they demanded that they´d tell them where number four was. But they all insisted they didn´t know. The people were hauled off in a Gestapo truck, with a few men left behind to continue searching the house for this last one. But after a few hours, and pretty much having trashed the place, they left empty-handed. No shooting has been heard, so it´s not likely that they have found him anyway and killed him on the spot. And from the description I have got of the people taken away, there is no doubt that your husband was the one missing."

Magda let out a sigh. "Thank God..."

Langenscheidt sighed with her. "The problem is," he continued, "that no one seems to know where he is. I´ve enquired with all my contacts in the area; nobody has seen him. And the one thing we do know for sure is that he has no money, and no papers on him. Nor does he have any details about the escape route or contacts; all he knows is that we were preparing for the four of them to get to Holland. And..." He gulped. "And since I had not yet had the opportunity to contact him since my visit here, he didn´t even know yet that we were going to send you with him..."

Magda sat deadly still. "You think he´s dead, don´t you."

"I didn´t say that," Langenscheidt replied gently. "There is nothing to indicate it, but... yes, he might be dead."

Magda didn´t move.

"But it is just as possible that he has managed to escape in the initial confusion of the Gestapo arriving," Langenscheidt continued. "And in that case, I figured he might – just might! – have headed back to you. To Hamelburg. But he hasn´t been seen around here either. So I have some hope that he has indeed managed to get away and found another hiding-place. Perhaps he has even made it across the border by himself. But as it is, I do not know..."

Magda still didn´t move.

"Frau Nowak?" Langenscheidt tried worriedly.

"Please leave me alone, Herr Langenscheidt," came a quiet voice. "I need to think."

xxx

To Dr. Bauer´s worried dismay, Magda had completely retreated into herself upon receiving the news of her husband´s disappearance – or death. She didn´t eat, she didn´t sleep, she didn´t speak, she didn´t cry. She drank whenever he held out a cup of tea to her – with lots of sugar in it to fight off the shock. But for the rest she just sat there, with empty eyes staring into the distance.

It wasn´t until three days later that Langenscheidt´s next visit brought back some life into Magda. For Karl Langenscheidt had news. Even though it was but vague: a truck-driver remembered having given a guy more or less matching David´s description a lift to Köln a few days ago.

"What would he want in Köln?" Dr. Bauer wondered.

"I don´t know," Langenscheidt admitted, and they both looked at Magda for a possible explanation.

"I knew it," Magda whispered. "He´s alive!"

"Why would he go to Köln, Frau Nowak?" Langenscheidt repeated gently. "Do you have family there? Friends he can trust?"

For the first time in three days Magda´s eyes focused again. "Not that I know of. As you know, we only just moved here. We´re from Dresden. And as far as I know, I don´t recall ever having heard David mentioning acquaintances in this part of the country."

A triple sigh.

"Well, at least you will be fit enough to travel in a week or so," Dr. Bauer said. "At least we can make sure that you´ll get to safety."

"No."

"What?!"

"No." Very determined. "I´m not going. I´m not leaving Hamelburg."

"Why on earth not? You´ll be far safer across the border!"

"And there is no guarantee the Gestapo won´t bother you again!"

"I realize that. But I´m not going."

"Why?" Dr. Bauer demanded.

Magda looked up into his angrily worried eyes. "Just before he left with Herr Langenscheidt, David told me to wait for him. For he´d come back. And he will; he has never gone back on his promises. Right now, I don´t have a clue where he is, but he knows exactly where to find me. If I were to leave Hamelburg, not only would I have no chance of finding him, but he wouldn´t be able to find me anymore either! So unless he´ll let me know where to find him, I´m not leaving here. I´m staying. Waiting for him to come back to me."

The two men looked at each other. Her arguments made sense, but...

"Do you realize you are taking a huge risk?" Langenscheidt asked gravely.

"Yes, I do realize that."

"Do you realize that there is a chance that he may not come back?"

"He will. He said he would."

"That he may not be able to come back?" Langenscheidt carefully rephrased his question.

Magda bit her lip. "It doesn´t matter. As long as there is a chance that he´ll come back to me, I am not leaving this town."

Langenscheidt sighed. "Allright. I´ll see what I can do."

xxx

"No!! I´m not divorcing him!" Magda yelled at the top of her voice. "How dare you even suggest such a thing!"

Langenscheidt staggered back as she furiously slapped him in the face. "Hold it," he tried to cool her down. "Of course you´re not really divorcing him. But if we can get the world to believe that you have, there is a fair chance that in time they´ll forget your stigma as the lady who married a Jew."

"I don´t care; I´m not betraying him, no matter what you say!"

Langenscheidt sighed and took her trembling hands in his. "Frau Nowak, will you please calm down and listen to me?"

"I´m not divorcing him. Not now, not ever," Magda insisted.

"Sit down," he told her.

More or less against her will she sank down beside him; her strength was still very weak.

"There are lots of people in the area," Langenscheidt began his explanation, "who know that Dr. Nowak is a Jew, and that you – a non-Jew, if I may use that expression – recently married him. In the eyes of the present authorities, that pretty much makes you a Jew as well.

"You know by experience that certain powerful groups in this country do not regard a Jew as a human being. Instead, they´re being bullied, abused, tortured, and possibly killed. And as long as the nazis are in power, I´m afraid that is only going to get worse.

"Now if you stay here in this town as Dr. Nowak´s wife, the authorities are bound to get on to you again sooner or later, and you´d be treated like any other Jew. Which means you would disappear: to a labour camp or something, or perhaps simply be killed. Either way Dr. Nowak will not find you here on his return."

Magda sat quiet. She hated to admit it, but Langenscheidt probably had a point.

"If instead you pretend you´ve divorced him, there is a fair chance that you will be treated as an ordinary German again. Which means that you will be here when Dr. Nowak returns. And isn´t that the most important?"

"But what if he hears about it?" Magda asked with a tremble. "Wouldn´t he think that...?"

"He´s a smart guy; I´m sure he´ll understand."

"But how would you do it?"

"Easy. The local registrar´s office has been destroyed. So they can´t check you out anymore. I´ll simply get you an Ausweis in your maiden name."

She burst into desperate tears. "But I don´t want to divorce him!"

"I know." Langenscheidt heaved a sigh, and awkwardly he took the crying woman in his arms. "I know it´s hard. But try and remember that it´s only temporary. As soon as this madness is over, you´ll be back together again."

She just kept crying on his shoulder. "I want him. I want him so badly!" she moaned.

Soothingly he patted her back, until she sat up and made a clumsy effort to brush her tears away.

"But if we do find out where he is, I can still go to him, can´t I?"

"Of course you can. That´s what I´m actually hoping for."

"And I don´t want father Geisler to think that I´ve divorced him."

Langenscheidt had a slow smile. "Sure. I´ll tell him about the arrangement if you like."

She frowned. "You?"

"He is my uncle, remember? Anyway, I do not want you returning to your house until the Gestapo has lost interest in it. And I´d like to keep a bit of an eye on you there, so you´ll see me quite often."

"Yes, but..." She hesitated. "I´m going to have to find a job. I think I have enough savings to get me through a few months, but... That is, if they´re still there..."

"At the house? I doubt it, I´m sorry." He sighed. "Well, we´ll cross that bridge when we come to it. First..." He picked up the bag he had placed on the floor upon his entrance. "We´ve got to make you look a little better."

He opened the bag and to Magda´s surprise he pulled out a female´s wig. And another one. And another...

"Where did you get those?"

He smiled bashfully. "I need them for my work."

"But... I thought you were an actor!"

"I am." A deep sigh. "I´d rather not mention this, and I´d appreciate it if you´d keep the lid on it as well, but..." Another sigh. "My main line of work is impersonating women."

"What!" Magda was stunned, and involuntarily she moved away from him a bit. "You´re joking..."

He shook his head. "No, I´m not. But I have a stagename of course. And I´d rather not have the name Karl Langenscheidt linked to that part of my life."

Magda let go of her breath. "Yes, I can imagine that." She was quiet for a moment, digesting the information. "So..." she hesitated awkwardly, "are you one of those... men... who... well... actually want to be a... a woman?"

"No." Langenscheidt frowned, obviously pondering how much he could or should reveal. He studied the ceiling for a moment; then he continued quietly: "It started when I was still in school, as a joke. A bet. But with eleven sisters for an example, I happened to be so good at it that I sort of got trapped in a career. At least it was a way of making money in a time of crisis at home. Later I´ve been trying to build up another career, as an ordinary actor. But that hasn´t been easy."

Suddenly he looked her straight in the eye. "Look, I´m only telling you this so you know I´m not some kind of weird oddity. I´m an ordinary guy, with my heart in the right place, who just happened to get trapped in a successful career I didn´t really choose myself. I can understand it if you suddenly don´t trust me anymore, but I hope..." He gulped. "I hope I can trust you to keep this information to yourself. My work requires that I live so many double lives; my life here in Hamelburg as father Geisler´s nephew is one of the very few opportunities I have to simply be myself now and then. Please don´t deprive me of that...?"

He was practically begging by now, and Magda knew she couldn´t possibly reject his appeal to her secrecy. If only because he had done so much for her these past weeks. And for David. "I won´t. I won´t tell a soul. I promise," she agreed quietly.

The gratitude was in his eyes. "Here. Try this one." He handed her one of the wigs, in an effort to get past the awkward moment. "I brought the ones that are more or less similar to your natural colour. But you´ll have to decide which hair-dress you prefer for the upcoming months."

Magda tried on the wigs, and settled for one with the hair pinned up in a somewhat similar fashion as she used to wear it.

"It feels odd," she told him, "but kind of nice to have my head covered with hair again."

He smiled. "Just don´t go to bed with it. Or take a bath," he told her. "And I´d advise you to take shelter when it´s raining as well."

She nodded. "Of course." A shy glance in his direction, and then she suddenly hugged him. "Thank you, Herr Langenscheidt. Thank you so much... For everything. And for your trust."

.

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A/N: Please try and remember that the ethics as described in this story not necessarily coincide with my own. All I am trying to "recreate" in that matter is the moral of the era in which this story is situated.