Marianne paused and reached into her pocket for the letter she was delivering. It felt cool and soft with wear and sent a rush of adrenaline through her. She rapped lightly on Benita’s door.

Lying in the narrow army cot Marianne had arranged, Benita no longer appeared the rosy German peasant Mädchen she had once been. Marianne had chopped her blond hair to help protect her from germs, and shorn like this Benita looked thin and world-weary—her full cheeks hollowed, the color of paper, and her eyes huge and dark. She was still beautiful, but now in a painful, trampled way.

Marianne placed the tray of broth and water beside the bed, and Benita’s eyes fluttered open.

“Is Martin all right?” she asked, and immediately began to cough.

“Shh.” Marianne raised a finger to her lips. “He’s fine. He and Fritz have been up to all sorts of healthy little-boy things.”

“He isn’t,” Benita began but was again interrupted by her cough. “He isn’t sick?”

“Perfectly healthy,” Marianne said. She did not mention the fall.

Benita nodded, but her eyes remained anxious.

Before the war, Marianne had imagined that Benita would become mother to a horde of children, a robust and placid matriarch. Connie had always wanted a big family: five or six children at least, a different experience from his own as an only child. What had happened in the meantime? Miscarriages? Infertility? Connie had never confided in Marianne about his marriage, and she wasn’t close enough to Benita for her to do so. How ironic that she, bony, flat-chested Marianne, would be the more fertile of the two women.

Marianne sat on the edge of the cot and lifted a spoonful of broth to Benita’s lips, the last of the bouillon they had smuggled out of Weisslau.

Dutifully, Benita opened her mouth.

As Marianne leaned in to spoon the soup, the letter crinkled. It was time, certainly, to give it to her. But it was so difficult to part with! Connie had left it with her the last time she saw him: To my wife, Benita Fledermann was written on the envelope in his long thin script, surprisingly elegant for a man’s. She was supposed to give it to Benita in the event of his death. And this time, when he’d enlisted her help, Marianne had not protested.

But when the plot failed and Connie died, Marianne found she could not deliver the letter. It was too dangerous with Albrecht in prison. Six months passed between the assassination attempt and Albrecht’s trial and hanging. And Marianne had spent those months pleading for his release—visiting high-powered contacts, writing letters, and even, on three occasions, being interrogated by the Gestapo. Her possession of a letter from Connie Fledermann would not have helped matters. And then afterward, when Albrecht was dead, it was impossible to gain access to Benita, who was sequestered in a Nazi prison. So she had held on to the letter the entire journey back from Berlin, waiting for the right moment, which never seemed to come.