“I want to write about the Finkenwalde experience and Christian community. I shall call it Gemeinsames Leben. It is an important work I must complete. After that, I do not know….”

Again his countenance darkened as his voice trailed off.

“You are not telling me all?” said Baron von Dortmann.

“Perhaps I was wrong in coming,” said Bonhoeffer, rising and taking a step toward the door. “There is no need for me to endanger you with—”

“Dietrich, Dietrich,” interrupted the baron, rising also to his feet and laying a restraining hand on his friend’s shoulder. “We have known one another too long for this.”

“I have no right to drag you into my troubles.”

“What are you saying? You plan to write about community but then withhold your thoughts from me? What does community mean, my friend, if it is not to bear one another’s burdens?”

Bonhoeffer resumed his seat and let out a heavy sigh.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I only wanted to protect you from…” Again the sentence trailed away.

“From what, my friend?” implored the baron with quiet earnestness. “You need not fear for me. Our Father will keep both of us in his hand.”

“Perhaps it is for myself that I fear,” sighed Bonhoeffer. “Not for what the Nazis can do to me, but for what they may make me become.”

“I do not understand you.”

“Ah, Heinrich, these are perilous times. Night is closing upon our beloved land. And I fear it is closing upon the church as well, and—God help me—I simply cannot sit by and watch the clock approach midnight and keep silent.”

“You have never kept silent, Dietrich. You have been one of the church’s most vocal opponents to the Nazi regime.”

“I have spoken, yes. But the time has come for stronger measures. Difficult decisions must be made. That is why I hesitated. I did not want to draw you into a decision I must make within my own conscience.”

“What decision? What kind of stronger measures?” asked the baron soberly.

The study became deathly silent. Even without the words being spoken, as with one mind both men seemed to apprehend the import of the moment in the future of their friendship and the future of the paths of their individual lives.

Several long minutes of silence passed between them. At last Bonhoeffer spoke.

“I have made contact with the resistance, Heinrich,” he said.

“You mean the resistance to overthrow Hitler?”

“Yes—Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.”

“But they’re… it’s strictly political, is it not? Aren’t they advocates of violence, if necessary, to bring down the government?”

Bonhoeffer nodded.

“When you say you contacted them, what exactly do you mean?”

“I’m considering joining the movement, Heinrich, offering my services.”

Now it was the baron’s turn to sigh. He leaned back in his overstuffed chair, pondering the implications of his friend’s words. Again it was silent.