Resistance Women - Jennifer Chiaverini Page 0,1

to others. The woman must know, for she quickly looks away. Mildred’s heart sinks, only to rise again when the woman glances back and offers her the barest trace of an encouraging smile.

Mildred feels new strength flow through her. It is just a glance, but it nourishes her starved soul. Her heart pounds as she works out the timing of her diagonal strides and the woman’s slow circuit of the yard. She quickens her pace, not enough to draw the guards’ attention, but sufficiently that eventually her path and the woman’s will intersect in the far corner of the yard. All the while they steal glances at each other, silent messages that they are not alone, that there is always hope, that when one least expects it a shaft of light might pierce the darkest sky.

And then they intersect, though they cannot pause long enough even to touch fingertips.

“Take care of yourself,” Mildred murmurs as they shuffle toward each other and away. “I am in cell 25. Don’t forget me when you get out. My name is Mildred Harnack.”

I am Mildred Harnack, she repeats silently to herself as she turns to cross the yard again. Mildred Fish Harnack. Wife, sister, aunt. Author, scholar, teacher. Resistance fighter. Spy.

Don’t forget me.

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