T HE LITTLE SWISS TOWN of St. Gall is very near the German frontier. And Mrs. M., who has come out of Germany especially to speak to me, is to meet me here. I park my little Ford in the square; a huge car, a magnificent pale Mercedes in front of the hotel, catches my attention — dusty, just come from Germany, from Munich, as the license-plates show. Its number is conspicuously low, the number of a government official. I feel uncomfortable at the sight. Mrs. M. shouldn’t even be speaking to me. It’s daring to receive me, even in a friendly hotel on neutral ground; she could be arrested for it when she returns to Munich. For haven’t I been guilty of high treason — or at least what they call high treason over there? Haven’t I failed to show the respect due the gentlemen of the Third Reich? Haven’t I chosen to leave their rule rather than accept it — to get out, go anywhere to escape the whiff of blood — Prague, Amsterdam, New York, St. Gall?
I look around for an owner for the Mercedes, and to make sure that no one has recognized me. But, in the still noon, the hotel square is deserted. I take heart, run past the doorman, up the wide old staircase to Room 14. Mrs. M. wishes to speak to me, in spite of the danger and although she does not know me personally. I knock, and she opens the door.
She is tall and blonde — a slim, strong woman with blue-gray eyes, a little bridge of freckles across her nose, and tanned bare arms. In her light linen dress, she looks like the perfect advertisement for a summer resort.
“I almost imagined that was your car,” I begin, “—the official one in front.”
She starts a little.
“An official car?” she repeats, and, very low, “Did you give your name downstairs?”
She has the nervous habit of looking about furtively, as if there might be people under the bed, past the curtains, behind the door. It is a phobia of those who come out of Nazi Germany.
“Returning today?” I ask.
Yes, she is. This is a day trip; they expect her home.
Now that we are speaking, we close the windows without a word and in perfect accord, this woman from Germany and I.