“Canaris was executed in 1945 in a concentration camp. Canaris. You know who that was? The head of military intelligence. He had been fired not long before then on account of there being too many slipups.”

She interrupted him. “What are you trying to get at, Joe?”

“Do you remember the Nazi agents in the movie? Those saps? Don’t you think they had better people?”

“What exactly are you trying to say?”

He leaned forward and whispered, “They intentionally took on people who were incompetent, or people like me who weren’t involved voluntarily and ended up betraying the whole effort. They didn’t want to see America reduced to rubble and ash. They always made it look like they were carrying out Hitler’s plans, but they were secretly working against him. It was a kind of resistance.”

She seemed reluctant to hear this. Only little by little did she grasp his meaning, and when she did she put on an empty smile. As if she wanted to give him a chance to drop the subject.

“There was opposition! For a long time they weren’t talking about it here at all!”

“I understand. You want to be one of the good guys.” She smiled icily. Her lipstick had rubbed off on her front teeth.

“No. I want to know what happened!” he said angrily.

She pushed back from the table a bit, looked over at the window, the glass clouded with salt.

He gave her an imploring look. He had imagined this moment being different, easier.

Finally she raised an eyebrow. “Joe, in Germany today they’re claiming every little thing was resistance and opposition. Suddenly everybody was a resistance fighter. And now you’re saying you were too?”

He now pulled the newspaper article with the tear down the middle fold from his pants pocket and handed it to her, just like she’d always done with him.

“Look, Lauren. Here it is in black and white. In summer 1942 eight saboteurs were sent to America by U-boat, without any training, without anything. Canaris was head of military intelligence. All he said was ‘Well, I guess we’ll lose eight good Nazis.’ It was a sham operation, put on for show.”

She looked at him dismissively, with hostility, even. He didn’t have anything else to offer. That was his biggest argument, the eight good Nazis.

“When is the article from? And who’s the source?”

“The head of sabotage, Lahousen, gave an interview to the international press in Nuremberg in December 1945.” He was afraid of what Lauren’s reaction would be and looked at the feet in the Florsheim slippers, feet that jittered nervously—everybody was nervous here.

“He’s saying it after the war. At that point they can say anything to try and present themselves in a good light.”

“But what could they have said about it at the time? It’s not the kind of thing you brag about!”