A/N: Issa long one.
That night Alice got to work.
Once she'd undressed after dinner she pulled open the false bottom of her drawer and removed everything that could possibly get her caught: her letters from Steve, Bucky, and Tom, Jilí's things, and her jazz records. She put it all in a cardboard box and once she was sure everyone in the house was asleep, she went out to the garden and buried the box behind the rose bushes. It would be smarter to destroy it all, but that would mean something, and Alice wasn't' read to face that. Burying it all was just… saving it for later.
She crept back up to her room and tucked herself into bed, her mind full of plans.
As Kiev fell to the German Army, Alice changed the face of her small network in Vienna.
She began by rallying her 'friends': Jilí's cousin Vano, Hugo and the Swingjugend, and many other people she'd met since arriving in Austria six years ago. Some Jewish and Romani, many not. Many of them were like her; people who'd seen something of the world and knew that this is not how it was meant to be. Alice didn't know if she could trust any of them.
Alice continued working within their usual network, but she overlaid a system of security and secrecy over it all. Every communication and piece of information came through a code – she taught codes from her childhood to everyone in the network, as well as some she'd learned since and some she'd picked up from Vera in France.
She developed one-time-pad ciphers to be distributed out to the crucial members of the network, a new one every week, so they could write uncrackable messages to each other. She printed the pads as small as she could and urged her friends to hide them in plain sight: Hugo and his sister stitched theirs into handkerchiefs, Vano and his roommates etched them behind the dust covers of books. Others kept the keys on tiny scraps of paper or on the underside of children's toys. Alice made sure they understood the value of secrecy. With those keys they wrote unintelligible messages to be slipped into a letterbox or left under a flowerpot, for another 'friend' to find and decrypt with their own hidden key.
Alice taught her friends how to arrange dead drops for information, food, and other materials – no more hand-to-hand deliveries, she urged. She taught them everything she'd learned from Vera about secrecy and disruption.
She also taught a select few how to cannibalize a radio and attach a telegraph key to it so they could send out bursts of static to unused frequencies. They didn't use morse code – too obvious to a casual listener – but used the radio sparingly to indicate drop zones and times. A single beep at ten o'clock meant go to drop zone E, two bursts at three in the afternoon meant meet me at the café on Deckergasse. They agreed on pre-arranged meanings to coordinate times. If Alice was preparing a food drop she'd put out a single burst of static on a certain frequency when the drop was ready. It was a simple way of coordinating people and times, and anyone idly flicking through channels would merely hear a slight shift in the crackly static of radio waves.
In reality Alice only taught around twenty to thirty people herself. Once she was sure they understood she instructed them to spread their newfound skills to their contacts, so they could learn as a system. Ciphers and drop site arrangements spread through Vienna like a whisper.
Another rule of Alice's was that no one exchanged names anymore. Alice knew more names than anyone else in the network, but she still didn't know everyone – this scared her, especially since she couldn't vet everyone, but she knew it was necessary to keep people safe.
She set down her list of rules and made sure everyone knew that breaking them meant putting themselves and everyone else at risk: Don't tell anyone your name. Never write anything down, unless it's encrypted. Restrict your illegal contact to two people at most, if you can. Never walk directly anywhere. Destroy your one time pad as soon as you get the updated version.
Alice coordinated it all from her bedroom in her uncle's house and on her feet, walking the streets of Vienna. She left messages under bricks, slid them through unlocked windows, and dropped them in the eaves of rooftops, sometimes marking the drop with a small chalk V. She left brown hessian bags full of food or money in similar drops. She did it all with cold, certain precision. Now that Jilí was gone she did not have room for whispered confessions or self doubt. Only accuracy.
She saved what little warmth she had left for when she met with hungry children hidden in basements, or when her friends needed someone to hold them as they cried. Alice didn't shed a tear.
She began to know people by codenames. She knew Scharlachrot [Scarlet] worked at the post office, and helped people get letters past the censors. Scharlachrot had helped Alice redirect all the mail to Jilí's house to a post office box, and passed back information about new policies at the office. 82 was in the catholic church, and Alice suspected he was part of a larger network, but he had useful international contacts. 82 was reliable for hiding people. Eichhörnchen [Squirrel] had a Jewish family living in their basement. Alice was working on escape routes for them. Gerste [Barley] she suspected was actually a group of people; they lived just outside Salzburg, and they ran small acts of sabotage against the German army: slashing tires, pouring sugar into fuel supplies and ripping up train tracks. They chose their targets based on information that trickled through the network.
When Alice went to a performance in Salzburg there was a box full of money waiting for her from 154. Alice had never met 154. She took the money with her to the next town over for her next performance and left it for Y8, who was going to take it to a group of young people living underground.
It was all small acts of resistance. Alice didn't fool herself that they were in any way chipping away at Hitler's empire, but they were making a difference in people's lives: feeding them, hiding them, getting them out. And the information gathered was going somewhere. Alice knew that it wasn't sabotage that would bring down the Nazis - it would be information.
Of course it was still necessary for pockets of people to meet in secret to get things done. Alice met regularly with Vano (he was Schloss [Castle] to their friends), Hugo (Strauß [Ostrich]), and some other Austrian-based 'friends', though more often than not she dressed as 'Al'. To those who didn't know her she never revealed herself as the spider at the center of the web. If they asked, she said she knew the 'man in charge'.
Her name became (though she wasn't sure who first came up with it), Steinkauz, a kind of small owl that sometimes haunted the eaves of the older buildings in Vienna's outskirts. Whenever Alice heard the name it reminded her of the time she'd taped up a cut on Steve's forehead and asked 'You think I'm a bird of prey?' He'd looked up at her, his eyes wide, and swallowed. 'A little bit, yes.'
Alice didn't mind being called Steinkauz at all.
Three weeks after Jilí vanished, as Hugo and Alice sat on a bench overlooking the Wien river, Hugo suggested that they should name themselves like the Swingjugend had.
"There's a reason the Swingjugend were brought down," Alice murmured to him. "If we give ourselves a name, then they have a name for us. We already know that sergeant in the police force was sniffing around after the food shortages at the military canteen. He didn't find anything, thank god, but that's because there wasn't anything to find."
Hugo nodded slowly, his dark eyes on the river. "If we're nameless, we don't exist."
Alice eyed him, reflecting that though she'd met him as a boy, Hugo had become a man. He still looked much the same as always with his lanky limbs and dark curly hair, but he didn't traipse across the ground as if the world belonged to him anymore. He didn't laugh so freely. It made her cold, frozen heart ache. "If we're nameless," she murmured. "They can't find us."
For all her newfound commitment to secrecy, Alice could not stop writing to Steve and her brother. Her letters to her brother stayed as normal as ever: checking up on his schoolwork, talking to him about his friends, telling him the most sanitized version of her life that she could. On his thirteenth birthday at the start of November, she sent him a finely carved Viennese chess set since he'd mentioned he'd joined the chess club at school. Alice paid attention.
In her letters to Steve… she began to feel as if she were lying to him.
She told him nothing of what she'd been doing. She didn't even tell him that Jilí had disappeared. She had gone beyond the realm of even attempting to write anything important down, even in code. If just one censor or postman happened to see… it would put dozens of people in danger.
So Alice wrote to Steve about her performances, about how her uncle continued to frustrate her, about how she was afraid – but she didn't write specifics. In return Steve told her normal things about New York that gave her the sensation of rising through a layer of smog and dust and finally taking a breath of fresh air. Because no matter how insane her world became, there were still kids running down the streets of Brooklyn and jazz playing on the radio.
Steve knew that Alice was hiding things from him. She had been for a while, but since September something had changed. It felt like writing to a memory of an old friend who with every passing month drifted further and further away.
He understood. It was hard enough to send letters to the US at all, let alone write potentially dangerous things in them. As he worked his low-paying jobs and followed Bucky around the dance halls of Brooklyn, he wondered what Alice was doing. He wondered if she was safe. He wondered if one day a letter would never arrive, and he'd never know what happened.
Steve found himself waking up in cold sweats some nights. He'd had the same nightmare since he was small: he saw a rain-drenched trench in the mud. He moved in closer, rain in his eyes, and he'd see a man writhing there in the shadowed hole in the ground. He'd move closer and see his father, like in the portrait on the wall of the living room, but in the nightmare his father choked and scrabbled in a cloud of billowing gas until he fell still.
He still had the same nightmare, but sometimes the figure writhing in the poison gas turned into Alice: her eyes red with swollen veins and her lips a choked purple-blue. When she fell still the mud seeped across her pale blonde hair and over her wide, blank green eyes.
To escape the dreams that made his heart race dangerously Steve crept out of bed and out into the dawn light breaking over Brooklyn. He walked the streets until his breath grew slow again, wishing he was strong enough to run.
Alice stopped pushing back against her uncle when he suggested performances for Nazi generals and troops. She let him negotiate with Goebbels's propaganda department again. She also went with him to all the old parties – not with any specific plan in mind, but she'd had the old saying on her mind recently: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Alice danced with Nazi officers and laughed at their jokes, and they were flattered at how she hung onto their every word.
Alice kept in touch with Vera Izard in Paris, learning new things to pass on and passing on information and advice in her turn. She had a wide range of contacts in other countries now, at least one in every occupied Axis country. Not all of them knew exactly what Alice got up to in her free time, but all of them were useful.
She had a small net in Vienna with spidery connections to other countries, gradually expanding. Alice sent out information and supplies, and like an echo information trickled back. M7 says the Gestapo are planning to raid Josefstadt. Alice and some others went to Josefstadt and warned everyone they could. Hours later the Gestapo tore through the district like druden on the Wild Hunt, to limited success. An officer in the Emigration Department is offering Jews voluntary emigration west instead of deportation to the East. Alice and the others quietly arranged for the Jews who wanted an immediate escape to find this officer. Milan and 34 say that the Italian diplomat to Germany will be visiting Vienna in two days time. Alice… didn't know what to do with that. She told Vera just in case her foreign connections might find it interesting.
Those from blue collar backgrounds brought back rumors about the new science installations in the Austrian mountains, and Alice sent out questions. She didn't learn much: the places were secretive, she knew that much, all anyone knew was that they were almost finished construction and were manned by soldiers in strange faceless uniforms. No one seemed to know exactly where they were, since laborers were driven up into the mountains in blacked-out trucks.
Alice quickly realized that the people like her in Austria wanted to get information to people who could do something with it, so inevitably it all made its way back to her, because she was the one at the root of this strange network. But Alice didn't know what to do.
She learned more and more information, some of which she could make use of in Vienna, but more which felt important elsewhere. She learned things of her own volition too. At parties and after performances, soldiers and generals and politicians told her things almost inadvertently. They weren't afraid of sharing with the dim, airy singer with pretty eyes. They had conversations amongst themselves that they thought no one else could hear.
She'd been eavesdropping on powerful men pretty much since she arrived in Europe, but Alice learned to fish.
She engaged with the generals and officers who wanted the chance to speak to Die Sirene, chatting with them and using every conversational skill she'd learned. She got them to speak about what was bothering them or causing them stress. She smiled and nodded and furrowed her eyebrows appropriately. She was surprised at how much they were willing to tell her.
Alice heard talk of troop movements, strategies, final solutions. Each time she learned something new she felt a chill down her spine. I don't know what to do with this information. It was too large, too much for her chain of whispers and secretive food drops. What could they do against nations?
She was pretty sure some people in the church had outside contacts, but she couldn't trust them. So she thought of the other countries she'd been to, and their outside connections. She knew the Allies had sent spies into France and Poland. But no one would be stupid enough to send a spy into Austria.
Alice pondered the problem as she spent her days going from glittering performance dresses to grimy clothes that concealed her true identity as she committed hundreds of small crimes. She thought of a story she'd heard about a French man who sneaked into England, spoke to General de Gaulle, and came back with resources and tricks and followed by Allied agents. She thought about the whispers she'd heard of Allied intelligence organisations set up to wreak havoc in Europe. Vera Izard had certainly hinted that she was in contact with some of those organisations.
By October Alice realized her network of friends would have to truly cross borders. So she spread her wings.
Alice began to travel again. Only this time, instead of sneaking out at night to wander the streets aimlessly, she had purpose. In France she met with Vera again.
Vera's eyes widened as Alice spoke to her, her voice a low murmur as they both sat in the darkened sitting room they'd first met in.
"You've been busier than you let on," Vera eventually said.
Alice merely shrugged. "I'm trusting you with this information, Vera, because I don't know what to do with it." She met Vera's almost violet dark eyes. "Do you?"
She knew the resistance in France was changing – it had even started to seep into the German news. They were training, acting: every now and then Alice would hear about an assassinated informer or official, or a sabotaged train. She had no way of knowing if Vera and the OCM had anything to do with that but she was willing to bet they were part of it.
Vera took a drag of her cigarette and eyed Alice with an assessing look. "Yes," she eventually said. "Yes, I do."
Alice began to funnel information out of Austria. Whenever she or someone she trusted went travelling they'd bring their information with them, and sometimes she entrusted it to letters. She didn't just go through France; she performed in neutral Switzerland, Axis Italy, occupied Poland. Wherever she went she talked to the important people as the Siren. But then she sneaked out in disguise and found the other important people. At first, it had been about curiosity: a sick hope that she wasn't alone. But it had become more than that.
As the game of trust and suspicion played out, her new contacts were rightly suspicious of the slight young man telling them information he had no right to know. But when they found out the value of her words (in Poland she warned them of a new general who intended to arrive in Warsaw next week, to crack down on resistance in the ghetto), they began to trust the Steinkauz. Alice learned from them in turn: how to hide, how to fight back.
Each time she returned to Vienna she found that the network had grown just that little bit stronger, had learned to grow without her. It scared her sometimes. But she supposed every parent was surprised by their child's growth.
Excerpt from German Propaganda Department memorandum 'Progress Report - Vienna', October 20 1941 [translated]
Excitement for the progress of the war is at an all-time high thanks to our efforts, though the Gestapo have reported incidences of vandalism, theft, and fugitives disappearing, likely abetted by accomplices. There are many criminals at large. The glorious Reich has enemies even in the heart of Vienna, it seems. But public expressions against the Reich have declined. Sergeant Wilhelm believes that there is little resistance to worry about, and our propaganda will turn any loyal Austrian against traitors.
If our budget is increased in the next month, we expect to be able to inspire further love and fervor for victory in the hearts of Austrians through film, advertisements, and music...
...
...additionally, HYDRA failed to communicate with our Department before undertaking activities in the country, for which reason we will be filing a formal complaint...
Around November, Alice realized that this wasn't enough. She was helping people and funneling information and people out of the country, learning more and more as she ingratiated herself with the people her uncle loved to seek out, but she still had no idea where her information was going. She trusted Vera, more or less, but her contacts in other countries were murkier.
Alice was good at finding information. But all she had was a one-way line with who-knew-what at the end of it. Alice didn't know what those faceless generals across the sea needed. She needed to do something more.
When she wrote to Vera about it, using not a one-time-pad but a code they'd set up so it only appeared they were talking about a mutual sick friend, Vera's reply was short.
I'll think about it.
Alice, frustrated with Vera's obfuscation and reticence, enjoyed burning that letter.
On the first Sunday of December, Alice sat massaging her feet by the fire at her uncle's house after a long day of chasing down a rumor about a young Jewish boy living on the streets in an effort to avoid the Gestapo. She'd found the boy stealing scraps from the bins out the back of the Schönbrunn zoo after hours of searching as 'Al'. The boy had cheeks so gaunt he looked like a ghost, and a filthy yellow star on his coat. He hadn't trusted her, but she'd managed to find her friend Liesl, whose father had been a rabbi when he was still alive, who convinced the boy to come home with her. Tomorrow Alice intended to set about getting the boy papers.
She glanced out the window at the darkening sky. She was glad the boy was inside.
With a crackle, the crooning operetta on the radio cut out. Alice glanced up with a frown. The radio tubes had been replaced a week ago, perhaps the technician had misaligned something? But then the staticky silence was replaced by a crisp voice:
"Apologies for the interruption to our regular programming," said the German newsreader, "Word has just come in that the Empire of Japan has carried out a surprise disabling attack against the United States Pacific Fleet in Hawaii."
Alice's foot dropped to the floor with a clunk.
"…in two waves, hundreds of Japanese aircraft bombed and torpedoed the American fleet at 7:48AM GST. Early reports indicate that four U.S. battleships have been sunk as well as many other naval craft, and casualties are in the hundreds…"
Alice didn't realize that her mouth had fallen open until a new voice spoke behind her:
"This is wonderful."
Her mouth snapped shut and she glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. It was her uncle, of course; he stood in his pajamas and dressing gown with a cigarette in his mouth and a gleam in his eyes. He came over and set a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't you see, Alice? Our allies have crippled the Americans in one stroke and may finally coax the cowards into an honest fight. They've been feigning neutrality so long." He took a long drag from his cigarette and curled his fingers away from Alice. She shifted in her seat. "This is the birth of the true German Reich. Finally."
Alice's shoulder burned where he'd touched her. Her head swiveled numbly back to the radio.
"… Japanese diplomats are yet to deliver a formal declaration of war to the United States, though it is certain this will cause the entry of that country into the glorious war-"
Alice stood up abruptly and strode out of the room.
"Where are you going?" her uncle called with a bite in his voice. "I'm calling for our friends, let's celebrate!"
She ignored him.
As soon as her bedroom door shut behind her, Alice sat down at her dresser table, tore a few sheets of paper from her drawer and began to write.
Excerpt from 'Pearl Harbor and the American Plunge into World War II' by Harry Toach (1998), p44
The attack on Pearl Harbor took the German commanders by surprise, as it did the rest of the world. But four days after Pearl Harbor and the outbreak of hostilities between the US and Japan, Germany declared war on the Americans. This wasn't necessary, as through their alliance with Japan they were already technically at war, but Hitler had actually been eager to begin making war on the United States. This may seem strange given the American military force and the fact that Germany was already viciously battling on the Eastern Front, but America had been in Hitler's sights since before the war broke out - since, some might argue, since the very end of World War I.
Hitler was eager to declare war on the Americans before they declared war on Germany, as one of his ministers explained: "A great power does not allow itself to be declared war upon; it declares war on others."
Whatever Hitler's reasons, the formal German declaration against the United States was a great relief to the British Prime Minister Churchill, who had been concerned that America would turn its forces only toward the Pacific, and not to Europe. But war had been declared, and so the Americans would come to Europe. Consequently, the entire face of the war changed in a day.
Three weeks later, Steve hurried up the stairs to his apartment, fumbled his keys until he opened the door, and fell inside in a tangle of coat, scarf, and bag. He shrugged out of all of it and went straight to his table where the letter opener rested. His cheeks were burning from the cold outside and his fingers clutched a thick envelope with a Lisbon return address.
He'd just slit open the newly arrived envelope when he heard a thudding knock at the door.
Alice's letter slid out onto the table. Another knock.
Steve glanced from what he could see of Alice's flowing handwriting, to the door, and back again. With a sigh he turned away and went to the door.
He yanked it open to Bucky's flustered face and mussed hair.
"Buck," he said in surprise, "I thought you were already gone."
"My train's in an hour, pal, don't be so keen to get rid of me." Bucky brushed his hair back into place. "Did you get a letter from Alice?"
Steve blinked. "Yeah, just got home and found it in the mail. I'm reading it now."
Bucky slid his hand into his pocket, retrieved a folded piece of paper and waved it at him. "Well if yours is anything like mine…" he blew out a breath. "She's not messing around."
Steve's eyebrows rose and without another word he waved Bucky in. Bucky traipsed in after him, cocking an eyebrow at the pile of coat-scarf-bag in the entryway, then flung himself into a chair at the table.
"Hurry up and read," he urged.
"I'm reading, I'm reading." Steve swiped up Alice's letter.
December 7, 1941
Vienna
Dear Steve,
Just heard the news about the attack on Hawaii. It's early hours yet but no one's pretending that the US won't enter the war now. And if they go to war against Japan, they go to war against Germany.
I know you're going to try to enlist.
I don't know how quickly things are moving, but before you go anywhere I want to make sure you understand some things if you get sent to Europe. Some of it will apply if you get a Pacific posting.
Keep your head down. Literally and metaphorically. If you're captured, don't fight them or mouth off. They won't hesitate to kill you. Train your hardest so you have the skills you need once you get here. Be near a gas mask, always. Geneva might have banned chemical weapons but the rules mean nothing here.
The German Army doesn't rely entirely on carefully planning out an attack beforehand – they adjust, adapt, and are therefore ready for anything. You need to be ready for anything too. Don't underestimate them.
If you get stranded without your company, take off your uniform. They don't think twice about shooting at uniforms, and I've heard too many soldiers brag about picking off lost soldiers.
I'm sure you've heard of the term 'blitzkrieg' by now. It means 'lightning war'. They'll come at you with everything they have – infantry, tanks, Luftwaffe – in a lightning-fast blow that drives you back so fast it'll send you reeling. Be ready for this. As far as I can see, the best defense is to not be where they think you are.
They're investing in science and technology for this war. Don't assume you know what kind of weapons you'll be facing, because it might be nothing the world has ever seen before.
The Germans fight a battle of annihilation, which means they seek victory by totally eliminating the opposing army. That means you. Don't expect mercy.
Keep your equipment clean and functional. Take care of that before you eat, even. It'll keep you alive longer than food will.
Never trust the locals completely, wherever you are. There are local informants in every country and they won't hesitate to sell you out for a loaf of bread or a bit of safety for their family.
Learn German. If you don't remember what you learned from me, pick up a phrasebook. Learning how to say 'don't shoot' may save your life.
(nicht schießen)
If you end up on the front, wherever they send you… tell everyone you can to get out. I mean the people who live there. Staying where they are is not sustainable, especially if they're Jewish. Tell them to get as far as they can.
I'm writing all this in a panic in my room, I'm sure there's lots more advice I could give you but for the life of me this is all I can think of right now. I…
I wish this was a letter convincing you not to enlist. I wish I could do that. When we were growing up I wanted nothing more than for you to become a soldier like your dad. I wished I could be one too, most days. But I've grown up, Steve, and I've seen what war is like. I don't want you anywhere near this.
And at the same time, I know this is a war that must be fought. I think I'm relieved that the US will be joining. What does that make me? I'm relieved that soldiers from America are going to come here to fight the Nazis, and inevitably die for the cause. Because it means we might have a chance. But then I see your face and Bucky's in those uniforms. I see Finn Neri's face, and our teachers from school, and maybe even Tom's if this war stretches on much longer.
I shouldn't be writing any of this down.
I have to go. Please, Steve, stay safe. Stay smart. For me.
Yours,
Alice.
Steve let out a long breath as he finished the letter and put it back on the table. He sank into the seat across from Bucky.
The moment Alice had heard about Pearl Harbor, her first thought had been of him. Steve's first thought had been of her. He'd been at an art class at Times Square with Bucky, and the news had rippled through the room like an earthquake. The teacher had said we're going to war, then, and Steve had pictured faceless GIs marching into Vienna. His stomach twisted.
"From the look on your face," Bucky said, "I assume your letter was pretty much like mine. I suppose... I guess it's better to know than not?"
Steve looked up at his friend's face and saw the worry there. "What're you gonna write back?"
Bucky shrugged. "I guess I'll tell her I enlisted."
Bucky and Steve had gone to the same enlistment center. Bucky had been given a pat on the shoulder and the details of his training, including a train ticket. The train he was due to get on in… fifty minutes now.
Steve had gotten a pitying look and a red stamped 4F on his form.
Steve ran a finger over Alice's words. I wanted nothing more than for you to become a soldier like your dad. His jaw tightened and he pushed down the twist of jealousy he felt toward Bucky. Guess you don't have to worry, Alice.
He took a deep breath and looked up at Bucky again, who was off in his thoughts.
"And," Bucky continued, "I'm gonna tell her I'll take her advice." He ran a hand through his hair. "Seems like she knows what she's talking about."
"It sure does," Steve murmured. He had an unsettled, disturbed feeling in his stomach. Tell everyone you can to get out. Tell them to get as far as they can. She'd been keeping things from him.
Steve shook himself and set down the letter. "C'mon, private," he said in a lighter tone. "Let's go get your stuff, and I'll walk 'ya to the train station. Gotta see you leave Brooklyn myself or I won't believe it."
"Place won't be the same without me," Bucky said with a dramatic sigh as he stood up.
"It won't," Steve agreed. "Peace and quiet, at last."
They tumbled out the front door with Steve's head locked under Bucky's arm, tussling back and forth until Steve's elderly neighbor stuck her head out the door and snapped "Cut it out, boys, you're old enough to know better!"
They meekly ducked their heads and made their way downstairs.
Alice and her uncle did not get along. They never had. But over the six years that she had been living with him, Alice had gotten to know him very well. So she knew that if she dropped precisely two hints that she was concerned about travelling abroad because of resistance activity, and left his newspaper open one morning to an article about the assassination of a Nazi collaborator in Poland, that he would invite one of his officer friends in the SS over for tea.
When the morning of the visit came, Alice sat in her housedress in the sitting room with her uncle and the SS-Oberführer [Senior Leader] for Vienna, her fingers gentle on her teacup and her expression bored. For a few minutes the men talked about things that Alice genuinely didn't care about: sport, the likelihood of a good fishing season this coming spring. They laughed together about how their bodies seemed to be falling apart now they'd hit fifty.
Finally though, Alice's uncle leaned back and said "Friedrich… I am a little concerned about how safe it is to travel these days."
The chestnut-haired SS officer cocked his head. "What do you mean? You're worried about the Allied planes?"
"Not so much, I mean the resistance in countries like France and Poland. It seems as the war progresses they are only getting more dangerous." Her uncle leaned back and stroked his jaw. "We travel often, you know."
Friedrich waved a hand. "You needn't worry about them anymore, we're taking stricter measures."
"Such as?" asked her uncle with a frown. Alice almost felt grateful to him for anticipating the questions she most wanted to ask.
Friedrich leaned forward. "It's called the Night and Fog decree – no more wasting time and lives on drawn out trials and hostage-taking to quash the terrorist groups. We can imprison them without the mess of judicial proceedings." He gave her uncle a reassuring smile. "As of this month, anyone who endangers German security will just" – he snapped a finger – "disappear."
Alice's uncle let out a heavy sigh. "Well. That is a relief." He looked over. "You hear that, Alice? We'll be safe to travel after all."
Alice had been carefully perusing a magazine on the coffee table, but when her uncle called her name she looked up with an absent smile. "Oh? That's excellent news." She turned back to the magazine as the two men began discussing the new rationing in Venice. Neither of them noticed her fingers shake as she reached out to turn the page.
Alice did not tell the news to everyone she saw, as she longed to do, but let the information slip out into the network like an oil slick spreading over water.
Arrest is no longer on the line. Anyone involved in any form of resistance – smuggling, deceit, fugitive activities – will be killed. No trial or jury. You will disappear into the night and the fog. If you want to get out now, get out. No one will judge you.
Alice lost a dispatcher or two, but it seemed most people knew the consequences already. For herself, Alice allowed herself a moment of fear: she had no illusions that her status would give her safety if the SS found out what she'd been up to. She wondered how she'd feel if the chains closed over her wrists. She wondered what she would think if she found herself on one of those crowded, fear-soaked trains bound east.
It'd be worth it.
Alice shook off her fear for herself and got back to work. Hugo's sister Marie was visiting Paris midway through the month, so Alice instructed her to pass on the information about the Night and Fog decree to Vera, as she suspected the decree was specifically directed at the French resistance.
Four days before Christmas, the German newspapers crowed over a victory: Jacques Arthuys, a Great War veteran, had been arrested in Paris on suspicion of being a resistance organizer. Alice saw the headline and set it down with a sour taste in her mouth, but thought nothing more of it until Marie returned from Paris with wide eyes and a hushed tone to her voice.
"Arthuys was the head of the OCM," she told Alice as the two of them met in the back of a darkened cinema. Alice stiffened in her seat but didn't face Marie directly. "The Gestapo had their eye on him for a while but they finally snapped him up. You were right, Alice – he's not going to have a trial. No one's heard of him since he was arrested."
Alice watched the black-and-white drama on screen unfold. "And the OCM?" she murmured.
"They have a new leader already. I heard he used to be a Colonel in the army."
"Don't tell me anything else about him," Alice warned. Though she was glad to hear it; with army connections, the new OCM head likely had connections with the Free French in Britain. "Are we safe? What did Arthuys know about us?" She was sure he was a very trustworthy man, but she trusted no man under torture.
Marie shook her head. "Vera said he was hiding in the provinces when she met you, and she never told him anything specific when he came back. She says we're fine." Marie glanced sideways. "She did say she wanted to talk to you again, though. Gave me this for you-" Marie leaned forward and with a mutter of discomfort pulled a small letter out from where she'd tucked it down the back of her skirt.
Alice took the letter with a wry look and cast a quick glance over it. In code – she'd expected no less. "Thank you." She leaned back in her seat and propped her chin in her hand. "I s'pose we'd better see the rest of this movie, then."
Marie laughed in the darkness. "It's not very good."
It was some propaganda flick about a Germanic hero on the front. Right now he was valiantly fighting a cowering US Army GI. "No," Alice sighed. "No, it isn't."
Excerpt from 'Night and Fog Decree', the Holocaust Encyclopedia
The "Night and Fog" decree was directed against persons in occupied territories engaging in activities intended to undermine the security of German troops. They were, upon capture, to be brought to Germany "by night and fog" for trial by special courts. This circumvented military procedure and various conventions governing the treatment of prisoners.
...
After capture, interrogation, and, frequently, torture, Night and Fog prisoners might face special courts (Sondergerichte) which handed down death and prison sentences. After acquittal or the termination of the sentence, German authorities often transferred these prisoners directly to concentration camps, typically to Gross-Rosen and Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camps. Once registered in the concentration camp, "Nacht und Nebel" ("Night and Fog") prisoners wore uniform jackets marked with the acronym "N.N." to explicitly identify their status. The death rate among "N.N" prisoners was very high.
Christmas Day, 1941
Alice used to be the first to wake up on Christmas mornings when she'd lived in Brooklyn. She liked to creep through the house to the small pile of presents that had appeared in front of the rickety old heater overnight, and shake her own present to figure out what it was before anyone else woke up.
She'd lost her excitement for the day after coming to Austria.
So she didn't wake up of her own accord in the silence before the sun peeked over the horizon. Instead, she woke up to the shrill terror of Julia's scream.
Alice's eyes snapped open as the maid's scream curdled into silence, followed by thundering footsteps. She looked up at the canopy of her bed and thought: they've found me.
She closed her eyes, fighting back a bitter well of tears. If I'd only had more time, she thought, I could have escaped. Fled out of Austria just like I've helped others do. Her fists clenched in the sheets. She wished she could apologize to Steve, Bucky, and her brother somehow.
But when her door burst open it wasn't a heavy-booted SS soldier. Only Julia, her stricken face glistening with tears. Her chest heaved.
Alice slowly sat up.
"Fräulein," Julia breathed. Her brows furrowed as she looked at Alice's sleep-mussed face.
"What is it, Julia?" Alice climbed out of bed and padded over to her distraught maid. She set a hand on her shoulder.
"Fräulein, I'm so… so sorry." She shook her head and began weeping again. Alice frowned. "Your uncle… he's… passed on."
Alice's hand on Julia's shoulder went rigid.
Julia put her face in her hands and began to weep in earnest. "I'm so sorry," she kept crying between gasps. After a few moments Alice blinked, and looked out the open door to see the house manservant on the telephone.
"Need a doctor," she saw him mouth, "… death overnight… the body's cold."
Alice blinked once more, and suddenly there were tears rolling down her cheeks. Julia had taken that moment to peek between her hands, and at the sight she looped her arms around her mistress and pulled her into a hug. Alice let herself cry, and be held.
But it wasn't grief that she felt.
~ Death visits ~
Alice barely had a moment to think the rest of the day and the next, too busy with morgue forms and funeral arrangements and visitors offering their condolences.
"The poor dear," she heard an acquaintance of her uncle's at the production company whisper to her husband as they left the house. "She's in shock."
Alice sat down with her uncle's lawyers and stared numbly at financial documents. She'd become independently wealthy of her uncle since becoming the Siren, but surprise stirred in her chest when she saw that he'd left pretty much everything to her: the house, his cars, his money. She supposed he didn't have anyone else.
Alice didn't sleep that night. Some housewives in the area had taken it upon themselves to cook her Christmas dinner and stayed with her long into the evening, plying her with cups of tea and wine. Alice cried some more, because it felt rude not to, and the women fussed and dabbed at her eyes with handkerchiefs. When they finally left Alice didn't return to her cold, unmade bed. She paced the empty rooms of her uncle's house and peered out the dark windows into the night. She finally came to settle in the armchair by the fire in the dining room, her uncle's chair. She sat in the middle of all his gathered splendor with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes dry, waiting for the sun to rise.
The next day the bustle of arrangements continued. Mid-afternoon, once the funeral director had left, leaving Alice blessedly alone, she let out a sigh and went to turn on the radio for a moment, rubbing her scratchy eyes.
With a furtive glance around, even though she knew all the servants were out for the day, Alice tuned in to one of the long-range British channels she knew of. She couldn't stomach the harsh German propaganda today. She wanted the comforting sounds of English.
When the crackly static resolved itself into the smooth voice of a British radio presenter Alice closed her eyes and smiled, even before she understood the words.
"… seems the leaders of the two nations spent Christmas together reviewing strategy for the war, and earlier this afternoon Churchill gave a rousing address to Congress."
"What?" Alice said in the emptiness of the house. She turned up the radio volume.
"Just after noon in the U.S. Capitol, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill attended the joint Congress gathering, after almost a week spent in the country coordinating military strategy. We will now play his address in whole."
Alice gripped the mantelpiece of the fireplace with wide eyes. A moment later, her eyes widened further when the distinctive crisp voice of none other than Winston Churchill spoke into her uncle's – her – living room. For the first half of the speech Alice listened dumbly, trying to understand why she felt so overwhelmed at the idea of the British Prime Minister speaking in the nation's capital. Churchill spoke of his gratitude to the U.S., his love of democracy, his admiration of the American spirit, his thoughts on the war.
"For the best part of twenty years," Churchill said as Alice clutched her mantelpiece, "the youth of Britain and America have been taught that war was evil, which is true, and that it would never come again, which has been proved false. For the best part of twenty years the youth of Germany, of Japan and Italy, have been taught that aggressive war is the noblest duty of the citizen and that it should be begun as soon as the necessary weapons and organizations have been made."
Alice clenched her jaw and listened to the British Prime Minister lay out the facts of the war and the offensives they had undertaken in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. Hearing it laid out on such a global scale made her heart pound.
"The United States, united as never before, has drawn the sword for freedom and cast away the scabbard. All these tremendous facts have led the subjugated peoples of Europe to lift up their heads again in hope. They have put aside forever the shameful temptation of resigning themselves to the conqueror's will. Hope has returned to the hearts of scores of millions of men and women, and with that hope there burns the flame of anger against the brutal, corrupt invader."
Alice's scalp tingled almost painfully, a thrill that shot down her spine and made her body prickle like she'd been electrified. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.
"If you will allow me to use other language," Churchill said in the tone of a man coming to the end of his point, "I will say that he must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below of which we have the honor to be faithful servants. It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will, for their own safety and for the good of all, walk together in majesty, in justice and in peace."
Tinny, uproarious applause flooded into Alice's living room, and she turned off the radio with a shiver. Her whole body was shaking, as if she'd been the one speaking to Congress instead of Churchill.
She'd heard words like his since the war began a year ago. But something about hearing those words, today, straight from the U.S., had sparked something deep in her chest. Up until now the war had just been what she saw of it. But Churchill's words had made it clear that there was a whole world bleeding from this.
And she was right here, arranging her uncle's funeral, not doing anything to stop it.
A knock echoed into the living room from the front door. Alice sniffed, wiped her eyes even though they were dry, and after a moment to take a deep breath she went to let in the latest flood of commiserating guests.
Throughout all of it, in the back of her mind she pondered the letter Marie had brought her back from Vera. She'd decoded it right away and then burned it, but was yet to compose a reply. When she lay awake at night, staring at the underside of her bed's canopy, she recalled what Vera had written and her heart pounded.
They buried her uncle on New Years Day. The church was packed despite the holiday season, with officials from every branch of government, the top strata of the Austrian and German music industry, social elites, and a smattering of distant family members. Alice sat alone on the front row and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief as each speaker spoke of her uncle's dedication to music, his support of the national cause, his passion and moral steadfastness.
When they walked outside to the pre-dug hole in the ground, Alice was reminded of her mother's funeral. It had been a wintry, snowy day like this one. There hadn't been so many people at her mom's funeral.
Alice stood and watched as the men lowered her uncle's coffin into the hole in the ground. She stepped forward, took a spade, and cast down the first shower of cold dirt, then stepped back to let everyone else finish the job. She stood by and watched as the dirt gradually swallowed him up.
His gravestone read: Josef Huber. Beloved pioneer. Alice stared at the words so hard that her eyes burned and teared up.
She kept staring, standing silently in her long dark coat, until one by one everyone who'd come to the funeral walked back to the church. It was too cold outside to pay respects for too long. Even the priest wandered back inside after a sad smile to Alice.
Alone with the grave, Alice let out a breath of vapor and watched it rise into the crisp, clear air and vanish. She looked back down at her uncle's headstone.
"It was this," she said to the empty air, "Or I would have killed you, uncle."
The words felt as sharp as a knife. Alice lifted her chin. "I would have." She stared at the ground, wishing she could look into her uncle's indifferent dark eyes. "Not because you despised my mother, or because you tore me away from my only remaining family in the world, or because you made my life here a living nightmare. Not even because you're a coward willing to step on the weak to make yourself strong."
She took in a deep breath that seared her lungs. "I'd have killed you because you were getting in my way."
With that, she turned and walked back toward the church. She knew she'd never return.
Alice returned home to hear that nearly thirty Allied nations had signed an alliance called the Declaration of the United Nations. Alice felt a thrill down the back of her neck at the news – there was a united front now.
Alice finally knew how to respond to Vera's letter.
Her first move as an heiress was to fire her uncle's household servants. She felt guilty for putting them out of work, but she couldn't have them watching her any longer. Julia didn't seem all that surprised, and even offered Alice a parting hug. Alice wondered what Julia would do if she knew what Alice had been up to all these years. They'd never liked each other, but Julia had always looked at Alice with… not quite fear, or respect, but something bordering on both.
Alice's second move as an heiress was to reinforce her uncle's connections in the music industry and the government. There was once a time when she couldn't wait to be rid of them all, but now she invited them for tea and commiserated with them over the loss of her uncle, drawing them closer.
Instead of listening to and passing on rumors, Alice put out a rumor of her own: she was deep in grief over her uncle's sudden death. His loss had shaken her to her core. She was considering taking a hiatus from society to heal. Her contacts in the music industry weren't happy, neither was Goebbels's propaganda department, but everyone seemed to understand.
At the same time Alice put out feelers in her network. Not for specific information, but to check that it worked. To see how much it had grown. She spent two days with Hugo, giving him instructions and warnings. At the end of the two days she was certain that the network had grown strong enough to survive without her, at least for a time. It was a strange feeling: for months she'd felt like she'd been carrying this strange, secret responsibility on her back like a tortoise shell – a burden and a shield. But it carried itself now. Others ran food drops, passed information to contacts in attics and on trains to France and Poland, fed false rumors to police. Hugo started putting out codes of his own.
One morning before the sun had risen over the stretching buildings of Vienna, Alice walked out of her uncle's house with a trunk in her hand and a heavy coat on her shoulders. She started up the only car of her uncle's she hadn't sold and drove out of the city. In Linz she parked the car at a friend's house and got on a train bound west.
She left behind her friends and the people under her protection. It made her heart stutter, but she knew they would be able to continue on without her, at least for a short while.
Vera looked surprised when Alice appeared at her doorway in Paris that afternoon, though the surprise only lasted for a moment. They sat down together for three hours, discussing plans and paperwork and contacts.
"Are you sure about this?" Vera asked when she stood up to leave.
Alice met her eyes and nodded. "I'm sure. We need this."
Vera ran a hand through her thick dark hair and sighed. "I don't disagree with you. But this will put you in much more danger, Moser. I hope you realize that."
Alice laced her fingers together. "Even if this ends up with the Germans spreading across the globe, and with me in some camp in the east starving to death…" her hard eyes flickered for a moment, and Vera sighed. "I'd want to know, even then, that I did everything I could. Because if I didn't, then I'm no better than the people who put up a Nazi flag out the front of their house and salute when the Führer marches past."
Vera bowed her head. "I'll gladly join you in that camp then, Moser." She looked up with steely eyes. "Get yourself ready. You'll have to leave soon."
The next night at midnight, Alice sat on the back of a tiny wooden rowing boat as two rough-jawed men rowed it out to sea across the dark water. Her travel trunk was tucked under her legs. Alice could just see the beach of the unnamed French coastal town she'd left behind as Vera, alone on the moonlit sand, raised a hand.
Freezing wind blew off the dark water and made Alice shiver. Vera was swallowed up by the night.
Ten minutes later the rowing boat thunked against the side of a larger ferry. Pale faces glanced down at Alice as she shakily climbed the rope ladder on the side.
"Welcome aboard, young man," said a man whose cap and body language identified him as the captain. He spoke English with a Scottish accent.
Alice tipped her own cap, careful not to dislodge her hair. "I appreciate you having me." She was careful to add a low French lilt to her accent.
"Your bunk's below deck, settle in and we'll be off in no time. Got to get out of these waters, we know where the mines are but it ain't safe to hang around."
Alice inclined her head, but didn't head below deck. As the sailors quietly hoisted up the rowboat and set the engine to its lowest setting to set away from the French coast, she walked to the front of the ship.
The ship pressed west, away from the battle-torn shores of Europe and away from everything Alice had known for the last six years. Her trunk felt heavy in her hands.
She looked out into the waiting darkness and felt the wind whisper against her face.
The info about Churchill's congress address comes from the United States Senate website and the National Churchill Museum. The Holocaust Encyclopedia excerpt is a real one from their website.
Reviews
Guest: Oh, she's definitely going to give them hell.
Two JackeandAnAce: Hi, thanks so much! I'm really glad you're enjoying the story and I hope you will continue to enjoy as the plot progresses. Have a great week!