“What are you doing here?” Marianne asked.

“Just playing,” Fritz said.

“With what?” She extended her hand. “May I see?”

Fritz did not move.

“Here.” It was Martin who placed his carved soldier in her palm.

Marianne frowned. The little figure was beautiful—carved with rough tools but still quite detailed, a soldier crouching with a rifle. Reluctantly, Fritz handed her his as well: a soldier standing at attention, wearing a long coat.

“They’re lovely,” she said, confused by the boys’ diffidence. “Where did you get them?”

Neither spoke.

“My mother,” Martin said finally.

“Why such long faces?” Marianne laughed. “I thought you had something terrible. Did you think you weren’t allowed to play?”

“Tante Benita said not to show you,” Fritz blurted. “She said you wouldn’t like it because Herr Muller made them.”

Marianne’s face fell. “Ah,” she said. “I see.”

In her palm, the figures suddenly seemed heavy and sharp, their forms weirdly undefined.

“Well, you have them now. I won’t take them away. But in the future—” She broke off. What did she want to say? Don’t listen to Benita? Don’t take gifts from a Nazi? Don’t hide things from me?

“In the future, you are not to visit with Herr Muller,” she finished. “Don’t—” She raised a hand at the protest she knew Fritz was forming. “I don’t want to hear your complaints.”

Marianne brooded over this all afternoon. So Benita had cast her in the role of righteous humbug, and about something you couldn’t expect two young boys to understand. And what was worse: Benita was right. Marianne didn’t approve. And Marianne didn’t want Herr Muller making things for the children. She didn’t want him working his way into their family. Benita had known that and had given the toys to the boys anyway. It was bad enough that they hung around Muller as he worked. That they spent hours in the woods watching him split wood, talking about God knows what. The man was a prisoner of war, an ex-Nazi, and she knew nothing of his character. She did not want him playing a paternal role for these fatherless boys. She had been wrong to accept his help.

It wasn’t until that evening that Marianne remembered the cat and went looking again. But like half the living creatures on the continent, it could not be found.

The following day, Marianne went to Lieutenant Peterman.

“I should have asked for Franz Muller’s file before I accepted his help,” she said, standing before the man’s cluttered desk.

Peterman looked amused.

“His file?” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Do you think we’re as organized as the Nazis?”

Marianne frowned. “Well, presumably he has filled out a Fragebogen?”

Peterman sighed and turned to one of the overstuffed cabinets behind him. He opened a drawer and began rummaging.

The Fragebogen was a questionnaire the Allied occupiers used for denazification. It consisted of six pages of questions, ranging from height and weight to membership in the Nazi Party and whether the subject had ever been involved in the destruction of Jewish property. No one thought highly of it, including the Allies. What was to stop people from lying? But Marianne saw its value—weren’t most Germans too literal and unimaginative to lie? And how else were the Allies supposed to begin sorting ordinary Mitläufer fellow travelers from true Nazi criminals? But apparently she was nearly alone in this sentiment. Even Peterman took a dim view of the forms, which were proving a great hassle for the Americans to process.