Duchess

Chapter 2

Munich, Germany, 1944
    "Fräulein Bonhoffe," Alfred Rosenberg said, stopping by my dilapidated desk in the Munich newsroom, "Have you finished researching for my article yet?"
Forcing a patient smile, I answered, "No, sir, I haven't. It should be in by seven o'clock. I had a little bit of trouble finding any sources because females are not allowed in the backrooms and social clubs your subject occupies most of the time. And Mr. Hoffman borrowed my typewriter again, sir, and the ink ribbons aren't functioning anymore."
The middle-aged editor raised his eyebrows. "If you're going to keep a job here with the Vőlkischer Beobachter, Fräulein, you need to stop giving excuses. The Führer is in need of every Aryan's help in this cause. Schnell!"
He walked away and found a seat in his spacious office across the room, clicking away at a pen with his feet up on the desk.
Fuming, I wiped the sweat dripping from my forehead and continued working on the broken typewriter. The metal folding chair I'd dragged from the basement was too short for the desk I salvaged from the alleyway, so I had to sit on my knees in order to look inside the machine.
Just a little longer here, I told myself, and soon you'll be back in America.
The Office of Strategic Services had hired me to infiltrate the German newspapers and propaganda centers, because I could speak fluent German and had the Aryan complexion every American and British spy dreamed of having.
Of course, I was not really Liesel Bonhoffe; my real name was Louisa Tallmadge. My husband Benjamin was a Major General and the Coordinator of Information for the OSS. We worked together on many assignments.
Most of the time, I would publish coded advertisements and hidden messages for the Resistance forces and scope out whatever information I could find, but recently it was just trying to lay low while the bombers decimated the city from the air.
By the end of the day, I had fixed the typewriter, bribed a seventeen year-old boy to go into the hotel nightclub and ask my subject of interest a few questions, and typed six pages full of information on him.
Reapplying lipstick and running my fingers through my dark blonde curls, I took a deep breath before entering the editor's office with his research.
"Here it is, sir," I said as sweetly as I could, "everything you asked for."
He grunted and rubbed the bald spots on a he sides of his head, flipping through it lethargically.
As I was about to leave, he called, "Warte ab." I stopped and turned to face him again, anxiety rising in my chest. He never wanted me in his office for longer than necessary.
     "Yes, sir?"
     "I noticed that you've been receiving quite a few telegrams recently. It seems to be distracting you from the tasks being set before you."
     My mouth went dry. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll do better; I promise. Thank you for understanding."
     Hoping to avoid more questioning, I turned quickly towards the door and began to hurry out of the room.
     "Halt, Fräulein," he shouted, a look of determination in his eyes, "Sit down."
     Clenching my shaking hands in my lap, I gingerly sat on the edge of one of his chairs.
     "If it had been my choice," he said, "you would have never set foot in this building. You lack sturdiness and substance in your writing, and your lack of imagination is an embarrassment to this office, as servants of the Führer. You can't interpret the news correctly like the men here and you're fragile and dumb. Your only job should be producing future servants of the State, Ms. Bonhoffe."
     I was stunned. I took a deep breath and began to speak, but he interrupted me.
     "Let me see your telegrams."
     "They're nothing, sir. Just messages from my family in Berlin."
     "Then it should be no problem for me to see them, ja? If I find that you have a secret lover, Ms. Bonhoffe, you will be fired immediately. There ought to be no women in this office, let alone married and distracted ones."
     My heart raced. They were coded quite tremendously and I wasn't afraid of him interpreting them, but the suspicion was what terrified me. If he suspected that something was off about me upon reading them, he'd send the secret police to kill me without hesitation. 
     I slowly retrieved the telegrams from my desk and brought them back into his office, handing them over nonchalantly.
Rosenberg read through each one meticulously and set them down in frustration when he was finished, looking up at me to gauge my reaction. I stayed calm.
"Go home, Liesel Bonhoffe. And come back tomorrow morning with information on the Führer's four-year plans. It better be a step above this trash," he brandished my hard work from the day and dropped it into the garbage can, "or you're fired. You may be already, Bonhoffe, depending on what schiesse you write tonight."

      Running through the crowded streets of Munich with my head down, I headed for Frau Vogel's house, the only place I knew of with a working teletype machine that I could borrow.
     A strict Nazi party member, Frau Vogel had granted me full access to her radio teletype. I told her I had distant family in America that were trying to come live in the Führer's new Germany, and she was barely ever home to look over my shoulder anyway.
     While the OSS in Washington D.C. had the resources and manpower to relay telegraph messages to me through New York, England, France, Berlin, and then finally Munich, I did not.
     In the rare occasion I needed to contact someone in the United States, I had to use the teletype to bypass the Nazi government intercepting my messages, despite it's impractical nature.
I knew that I had to get out of Munich before Herr Rosenberg tried to investigate more and sent the secret police after me, but it was up to the OSS to send a plane for me.
     Setting my belongings down on Frau Vogel's couch, I turned on the huge contraption and let it roar to life loudly. I dialed the remote number of the OSS office's teletype machine and went right to work as quickly as I could.
     There was no use fully encoding it or attempting to make it flow like a normal letter; this would go straight to the United States.
"Cousin Samuel, I hope the family is well. Perhaps I will visit sometime soon. In three days, I will be in Starnberg and hope to see friends. Things are well at work but I am tired of interviews."
I paused and my fingers hovered over the crude keyboard.
"I love you."
Somewhere in that musty office with those green chairs, a nervous intern was receiving the message as I typed it, and calling for Major General Tallmadge to read the letter addressed to one of his code names.
The family referred to the OSS, and my hope to visit them was more of a plea than a simple statement.
The statement about Starnberg was to let them know that I would be ready for a plane to pick me up in three days and, in order for them to know which secret airstrip to land on, they would use a map and locate whatever city was 50 miles west of the one I mentioned. It was a simple process but one that would be almost impossible to fathom if the rest of my message was ever intercepted.
My sentence about work let them know that I hadn't been found out yet, but people were getting suspicious and asking questions of me.
Just then, a door slammed behind me and Frau Vogel came inside with her hands full of groceries.
     I grabbed the paper from the machine and stuffed it into the pocket of my dress, turning it off quickly.
"Heil."
"Heil."
"Another letter?" she asked cooly, accepting my help carrying the food into her little kitchen.
I nodded. "Yes, ma'am. My cousins are desperate to get out of that American pit. Thank you for letting me use your machine."
     She waved a hand dismissively and patted me on the shoulder as I made my way towards the door, saying, "It is nothing, my dear. Any time. Auf Wiedersehen."
     I waved to her on my way out and sighed as I hurried uptown to my apartment, clutching the crumpled-up paper in my hand.