Somehow Marianne managed to get through the afternoon, a blind woman fumbling her way down a familiar path. She filled out the ledger with the number of pigs born in the last month and the bushels of wheat harvested. She presided over tea. If the conspirators were intercepted, what would happen? Arrest? Imprisonment? Death? Albrecht’s connection would surely be discovered. How could it not? He had hosted the plan’s primary actors on many occasions and was a known critic of the Nazis. Of course, they had been careful—last month they had burned letters and buried notebooks and plans. Even the guestbook of Weisslau had been “lost.” But there were countless threads to implicate him.

Meanwhile, outside, the crow staggered around in the dark margin of shadow between the woods and the lawn. Its wing dragged, its shiny eye blinked. She did not want the children to see it. Don’t look, don’t look, she told herself, but her eyes were helplessly drawn to where it hunched, damaged wing extended like a cape.

Before supper, Frau Gerstler, the cook, entered the study with a stricken look on her face: “Our Führer has been injured! Our dear Führer! Assassins have made an attempt on his life, but praise God, he has only been hurt.”

Marianne clutched the arms of the chair to steady herself. It was less a shock than a confirmation.

“Our Führer, our Führer,” Frau Gerstler cried. “Thank God he has survived!” Almost as if he were her own son or husband.

“What is it? What happened?” the children clamored around her, drawn by instinct from wherever they had been playing.

“Frau Gerstler has heard rumors,” Marianne said, amazed she was able to speak.

“The Führer?” Fritz persisted. “Did she say he was almost killed?”

“Don’t eavesdrop on adult conversation,” Marianne snapped, drawing courage from the sound of her own voice.

“Frau Gerstler,” Marianne said when the children retreated in confusion, “I would appreciate it if you kept such rumors out of our house.”

“But, madam,” Frau Gerstler said, “it is on the radio.”

After that, there was no possible excuse for turning off the radio. Hitler himself was expected, at any moment, to give a speech.

The urgency forced Marianne to calm the storm inside her head. She had to be careful. From now on, every movement she made would be suspect. Frau Gerstler loved the family, but she did not love them so much that she wouldn’t inform on them if the Gestapo asked.

So they listened to the broadcast as a group, Frau Gerstler at their center, wringing her hands and shaking her head. Fritz too could barely contain himself, his eyes bright with anger and astonishment. But Marianne was too distracted to be rattled by her son’s ignorance. The girls listened with less fervor. Elisabeth rolled her eyes at the hysterical tone of the announcer behind Frau Gerstler’s back. Katarina sat quietly beside her mother, looking up from time to time with wide, perceptive eyes, trying to read her face.