Virginia Woolf: You have a touch in letter writing that is beyond me. Something unexpected, like coming round a corner in a rose garden and finding it still daylight.

November 6th, 1938
Brooklyn
Dear Alice,

I'm glad things are more or less back to normal, but I noticed you've hardly mentioned your latest concerts or anything to do with your uncle. I know you said you couldn't tell me much, but at least tell me everything's alright? You're not doing anything big, are you?

Sorry for the short letter, it's winter so I am, of course, sick again. Bucky's just threatened to knock me out if I don't go to sleep now, so good night I guess.

Yours,
Steve

November 8th, 1938
Vienna
Dear Steve,

You don't need to worry, I'm not writing about all that because I despise doing it and don't want to think about it. As for 'doing anything big', there's nothing on that front. Just keeping people fed.

Sorry you're not feeling well – remember to drink that tea I sent you for your birthday! It'll help.

I'll keep my letter short as well, because I'm a little concerned. Yesterday a Jewish boy living in Paris shot a German diplomat. Today the German government banned all Jewish children from schools, banned all Jewish cultural activities, and stopped publication of Jewish newspapers. They've also been forbidden from owning weapons. The police in Vienna are antsier than usual, the city is simmering, and I want to head out to check on Jilí and Franz.

Hopefully it'll all blow over and the government will roll back the bans soon – I don't know how they can just ban all that and pretend that the people living here don't exist.

Yours,
Alice

[Translated] Excerpt from telegram to police units from Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller, November 9 1938:

In shortest order, actions against Jews and especially their synagogues will take place in all of Germany. These are not to be interfered with.

November 11th, 1938
Vienna
Dear Steve,

I'm okay. It seems I'm always reassuring you of that these days, but this… I want to make sure you know I wasn't hurt the other day.

Everything you asked is true. The German diplomat who got shot died two days ago, and the entire country just exploded.

I'd checked on Jilí and Franz the day before. They were scared (though they tried to hide it), but safe. But then on the evening of the 9th, when I was at home writing a song, I realised I could hear the sounds of smashing glass.

At about the same time my uncle got a phone call. He came into my room and told me I wasn't to leave the house – he got the maid to watch me again – before he left for who knows where. I can only imagine the worst.

I don't have the best view from my room, but the noise of the city outside was terrifying: smashing glass, yelling, sirens. I thought maybe a fight had broken out, except the sound was coming from everywhere. I asked the maid to fetch me a drink, then climbed out the window.

I can hardly describe it, Steve. It wasn't a fight. All over Vienna, groups of men were running through the streets destroying things. As I climbed down to the street I saw a group of them run up to a storefront, smash the windows in, then climb in to loot the place. I took off in the other direction to Jilí and Franz's house.

I got three blocks before I realized that the targets of the looting were exclusively Jewish-owned properties. The men were smashing in windows, tearing apart furniture and paintings, setting fire to houses. Dusk had fallen, so the orange glow flickered in the sky. I could hear screaming. One street away from Jilí's house I ran past a synagogue with flames licking up the walls. I saw the fire department at the end of the street and actually sighed in relief, but when I got closer I realized they were just sitting there, watching the building go up in smoke. I didn't know what to do, Steve. I just kept running.

I found Jilí and Franz at their house – thank god no one had come there yet – with some of their friends. I told them to get dressed and come with me.

I won't tell you too much about our trip through the city. I've never been so scared in my life, with the groups of men running by us and the screams and shouts in the air. One group stopped us, but when they saw me they either recognized me or figured I couldn't be Jewish, because we were allowed to go on our way. We picked up some people on the way – three teenage girls who'd been split up from their parents, an elderly couple who'd been beaten, and a young family.

I saw people whose faces I recognized smashing windows and setting fire to buildings. I saw others retreating to their homes with tears on their faces. The air tasted like smoke, and firelight glinted off the smashed glass on the street, making it look like a river of flames.

I fell once, and landed hands-first in the broken glass. I've gotten it all out, but I'm writing with bandage-swaddled hands now. Feeling the glass dig into my skin that night made it all suddenly, startlingly real.

I got back up. I got our small group of terrified people to the Academy of Music. I've got a key for one of the practice rooms, so we slipped in a side entrance and hid in there overnight. I don't think anyone slept.

The next morning a friend found us and gave us the all clear. I walked Franz and Jilí back to their house, which thankfully hadn't been touched. They've been living quietly. But the evidence of what had happened the night before was written throughout the city. It still is. Even looking out the window now, I can see graffiti scrawled across buildings and boarded-up windows. The synagogue three blocks away is a burnt-out shell. People walk the streets like they're afraid of their own shadows.

I didn't realize until that morning that the violence we'd seen in Vienna had been echoed everywhere throughout Austria, Germany, and the Sudetenland. It was sanctioned by the German government, started by the police, and continued by citizens.

27 people were murdered in Austria. Countless more were arrested and sent away to who knows where. What's more, the government fined the Jewish community.

I'm safe. But I am very, very scared, Steve. I knew one of the men who died – he was a friend of a friend, living a few suburbs away. It could have been Franz.

My only consolation is that I'm not the only one who's scared. More people than ever are criticizing what happened. Those in government are all for it, of course, but its as if those who agreed with them have finally realized where all this hatred leads. And they're terrified of it. The priest at the catholic church down the street openly criticized the looters.

So out of that night I've taken some hope. I know other countries are already condemning it, so maybe this is enough. Maybe this will be the turning point, the darkest day.

Until then, I'm going to be more protective than ever of my friends.

My uncle never noticed that I was gone. He arrived back after me the next morning, stinking of smoke. He called that night Kristallnacht, meaning 'crystal night', which I soon realized was its official name. He said it with pride.

Please write soon, with something normal.

Yours,
Alice

November 13th, 1938
Brooklyn
Dear Alice,

It seems I'm always scared for you these days, but once again I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw my name and address in your handwriting on the outside of an envelope.

I'm real sorry that happened to your home, Alice, and that you and your friends got caught up in it. I can't imagine what that would have felt like. Keep your hands clean, I've gotten a few nasty infections before and they're not much fun to deal with.

Bucky and I read today that the bans on Jewish people aren't being lifted, and that they're transferring all Jewish property to Aryans. Does this affect your friends?

But you asked for normal. It's getting real cold here in New York, I go outside in two coats and a scarf and still feel like an ice cube by the time I get back in the apartment. Everyone's losing their minds because on the night before Halloween CBS ran a radio drama called 'The War of the Worlds' (remember when we read that book at school?), and some of the listeners freaked out. Apparently some of them thought that a Martian invasion was really happening. The cops got called, everyone was angry, and now they're all wanting the station to undergo regulation.

Bucky and I missed the program since he was teaching me how to box at the gym, but Bucky's been enjoying riling people up about it. Keeps running to the window and calling 'Look! Aliens invading New York!'

He thinks he's so funny.

I know you said to talk about normal stuff, but there's been more army recruitment advertisements going around. I even got hired to draw a small one for the paper.

Got to go head to work now. Take care of yourself. I'm really glad you're okay.

Yours,
Steve.

November 20th, 1938
Brooklyn
Dear Alice,

I'm glad you were able to take ownership of your friends' things. I'm sorry it was necessary in the first place, but it's better their stuff went to you than a stranger. Don't be disheartened that you can't do more – you're doing so much already. Remember to be safe.

Normality: the Nancy Drew movie came out today. Bucky and I went to see it, for old times' sake, and because you won't be able to watch it what with it being banned in Germany and Austria. No idea why they banned it. I've heard they keep a running tally of Jews in Hollywood though, maybe one of them was involved in production.

It's too bad, since it's a great movie. You'd love it, Alice. Reminded me of you in lots of ways. I remembered you absolutely devouring those books when you were a kid, sitting on a door stoop or curled up in the back room of the tailor shop. Nancy reminds me a lot of you, too; here's something to be said for tenacity.

When you come back, we'll see the next Nancy Drew movie.

See you then.

Yours,
Steve.

Walter Copland Perry: [The sirens'] song, though irresistibly sweet, was no less sad than sweet, and lapped both body and soul in a fatal lethargy, the forerunner of death and corruption.

January 4th, 1939
Vienna
Dear Steve,

We found Franz.

As you know we've been searching for two days now, searching down every angle we can think of; no one at the music club has seen him, his blackmarket contacts haven't heard from him, not even his cousins in Innsbruck had a lead. Many thought he had been arrested and deported.

But late last night Jilí remembered that Franz sometimes came back with flowers for her. We started searching around the local florists.

We found him in an alleyway behind the Stadtkino theatre, a hundred yards away from a florist stall. He was in a narrow gap between buildings so we might not have seen him save for the crumpled bunch of flowers just outside.

He was frozen solid, the blood glittering red around his head. We were only able to recognize him because of his clothes.

Jilí has been so strong these past two days, unrelenting in her search. But when we saw him stuffed into that tiny gap she fell to her knees in the snow and fell apart. She beat her fists against the bricks of the building until her knuckles went bloody, and screamed so loud I had to put my hand over her mouth. She stopped fighting then and grabbed on to me. I still have bruises from how tightly she held me.

We knelt in that stinking alleyway with the snow bleeding through our stockings as Jilí cried and choked. She didn't look back at Franz, but from my angle holding her there was no other direction I could look. He didn't look like a person anymore, Steve. They took that away from him.

After what must have been nearly half an hour, Jilí suddenly stopped crying. She pulled away and I could see that she'd leashed herself together. Jilí's always been tough, pragmatic, but I've never seen her like this before. She was hard like a compressed diamond: glittering and unbreakable.

"We need to leave," she said.

We both knew what had to be done. We left, and had the police called anonymously so they could pick up the body.

Jilí will never see Franz again. If she approaches the police to arrange a funeral for him, that will only bring further attention to herself and could end with her arrested or deported. It's possible they're the ones who killed him. The government will put him in an unmarked grave, or burn him.

I'm writing this from Jilí's house. She hasn't spoken much since we left the alley, and she hasn't shed a tear. She seems very tired, though. I've been plying her with tea, and holding her as she sits speechless. The house seems so cold without Franz in it. They've only been married a year and a half, but he brought out the best side to Jilí – he the genial jokester, her the tough-love Valkyrie.

She'll get no justice for him. Not with the world the way it is now, anyway. Not even I can do that for her.

Up until now this has all been about strangers. I've cared, deeply so, but everything I've done has been to protect people I don't really know. I haven't been able to help them, and now I haven't been able to help Franz.

I keep thinking back to that night in Brooklyn when I saw those men attacking Matthias. I never really thought seriously before about what might have happened if I hadn't come down from the roof.

Up until now I've been secretive, but in the way a teenager is secretive, to hide their actions from their parents. I can't be that teenager any longer. I must be two people. The Siren, in her gilded cage with her patriotic songs and glittering parties. Then Alice – Alice who hides in the shadow of the Siren's blazing glory.

I think I sent you a photo of Franz and Jilí's wedding last year. Could you draw Franz for me? I'd like something to give Jilí when we hold a small gathering a few days from now.

Yours,
Alice.

January 6th, 1939
Brooklyn
Dear Alice,

I'm so sorry. I barely know what to say, I go from angry, to sad, to horrified, to scared.

Franz seemed like a really swell guy, I know how close you were to him. I wanted to meet him one day. I've attached a portrait of him. Hope it's okay.

I can't believe nothing can be done about him being killed – isn't there anyone who would look into it? A private investigator or something?

Pass on my condolences to Jilí. She didn't deserve any of this.

Consider this letter my way of making you a cup of tea and giving you a hug. I'm angry for Franz, for Jilí and for you, but mostly I just want to make sure you're okay. Write soon.

Love,
Steve.