Adeline closed the door between the kitchen and the dining area in the Soviet officers’ billet, checked the sugar beets she had stewing to make fresh molasses, and then dug out Emil’s fourth letter to her. When she opened it, her hands trembled, but not with the shock and ecstatic wonder that had erupted through her when she first learned he was alive and living at a displaced persons camp fifty kilometers south of Hanover, Germany, near the town of Alfeld.

Adeline was thrilled to get this latest letter, of course, but she was also anxious to see that—once again—someone had opened the envelope and read the contents before she had the chance. Lieutenant Gerhardt, no doubt. The secret policewoman had known the Red Cross had written to her back on Christmas Eve. That was why Gerhardt had warned her about trying to go west.

Since that letter, the woman had gone out of her way to let Adeline know that she was reading every word that passed between her and Emil. The secret policewoman knew that he had escaped Poltava, come all the way across Ukraine, Poland, and eastern Germany, then smuggled himself into the British Zone with a group of returning army soldiers and the invaluable help of one who liked sausage and gave Emil documents to wave at a border guard before his final crossing.

“Your husband is a criminal, an enemy of the state,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said several times. “And you will be a criminal and an enemy of the state, Adeline, if you decide to run to him with your sons.”

Gerhardt seemed to enjoy saying these kinds of things to Adeline, who knew the secret policewoman was trying to goad her into a revealing reaction. But she had grown up understanding that, in this sort of situation, the best reaction was either no reaction or a well-placed deflection.

“I am filing the documents for the three of us to join him legally,” Adeline said every time Lieutenant Gerhardt brought up Emil, their letters, and her suspicion that she was preparing to try to leave Soviet-occupied east Germany.

“They’ll shoot your sons as you run,” Gerhardt said when they last spoke.

But so far, the secret policewoman’s suspicions were just that. Lieutenant Gerhardt may have read every word that passed between Adeline and Emil, but she had not figured out that not only were they declaring their love and describing their lives and longings for reunion in their letters, they were speaking in a “mirror code” they’d used earlier in life when dealing with Communist authorities. All the speaker or writer had to do was mention a mirror or a reflection or something silvery like the surface of a lake or river, and the listener or reader would know that the sentences that followed were the exact opposite of what was intended. The use of the words “I do” in a sentence indicated that the lying had stopped, and they were now telling the truth.

Adeline, in her first letter to Emil, wrote:

My dearest love,

You don’t know how overjoyed I was to receive your letter on Christmas Eve. The boys were so happy, they were jumping up and down and screaming at the tops of their lungs! I looked in the mirror that night and thought how I wished you would come here to be with us. Our lives are so much better than they were in Friedenstal. We are happy here. No one listens to our conversations like the old days. I do think of you every hour while I work in a kitchen cooking. Walt is studying geometry, and Will is learning to read. Until we are in each other’s arms, I do love you with all my heart. Your Adeline

Now Adeline read Emil’s latest response, which made her stomach hollow and shaky with adrenaline.

My dearest Adeline,

I pray you are well and happy, and the boys grow strong. There is a silvery pond near the camp, and I often stare at it, wondering if I should not wait here, if I should try to come to you and the boys. The border is almost completely closed now. I heard that the only way across for refugees in either direction is the official way. At the pond yesterday, I thought if life is the way you describe it, I want you to stay there and I will make the journey east to you. Slow down your plans and wait for me to knock on your door soon, or to call you before I come in at the train station there. Know that I do love you and I am in great spirits, hoping to see you very soon. Hug and kiss the boys for me. Your adoring husband, Emil

Adeline put the letter down on the table and put her face in her hands. If she’d read the letter correctly, Emil was not telling her to wait for him to come to her. He was telling her that she, as a refugee, had to sneak across the border as soon as possible because there were still places where it could be done. But she had no idea where to cross where there were not already fences or patrols or dogs or towers or all four that she and her two young boys would have to avoid and evade.

Emil’s words from long ago echoed in Adeline’s memory: At some point, you’ll have to decide where you want to spend your life—in slavery or in freedom—and if you choose freedom, you’ll have to run through a no-man’s-land with bullets zinging around your head to get there. I don’t think there’s any way around it. If we want that life, we’ll have to risk death for it.

Adeline glanced at the clock in the kitchen at the Soviet officers’ billet and saw it was almost noon. Colonel Vasiliev and his staff were in Berlin overnight. Once the molasses was done and poured into two glass jars, the afternoon was hers.

After the jars were sealed, she left them on the table and decided to go for a walk to try to get her thoughts straight. Putting on her coat, she wandered through the village and found herself turning onto the road that led up to the Schmidts’ farm. She hadn’t gone more than a hundred meters when she saw Lieutenant Gerhardt’s car rolling her way.

For a second, she considered walking into the woods to avoid the secret policewoman but decided that would be about the worst move she could make. Adeline stood there, waiting for the black sedan to pull up beside her. The window rolled down.

Lieutenant Gerhardt smiled thinly. “I would think you’d be in the kitchen, Adeline.”

“I was given the afternoon off.”

“Yes, I know. How was your trip to the commissary yesterday?”

“Later than I’d planned because they’ve changed the hours,” Adeline said, and handed her the list as well as the receipt.

Gerhardt scanned the list. “Cigarettes?”

Adeline had prepared for that question. “The colonel started smoking again.”

“Hmm,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said, nodding. “And where are you going?”

“I’m out for a walk. It’s the nicest day we’ve had lately.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Gerhardt sniffed. “I’ve just come from your friend, Frau Schmidt’s. Her husband has taken a turn for the worse. A stroke, the doctor thinks.”

Adeline tried not to react, but did, wringing her hands. “Then I could be of help to her. May I go, please?”

“I hear your husband is thinking of joining you?”

She nodded. “That is his thinking.”

“He is not worried about being sent east if he comes here?”

Adeline didn’t know what to say, then blurted out, “I think he’s more worried about not seeing me and my sons.”

“As he should be,” Lieutenant Gerhardt said, and rolled up the window.

The car drove off. Adeline stared after it, feeling more and more anxious. Ever since Emil had contacted her, she had been trying to meet the midday train so she could talk to people in the stream of homeless refugees who came to the town to beg and barter and see what they knew about leaving the Soviet Zone safely. But every time she asked, she had gotten little solid information. And every time she opened her mouth to query another person, she risked one of them reporting her to someone like Lieutenant Gerhardt.

Emil wants me to run, but he can’t tell me how, she fretted before turning and hurrying up the road to the lane that led to the farm. She knocked on the door a few minutes later. Frau Schmidt opened the door, saw her, and smiled sadly.

“You heard?” she said.

“About Peter? Yes. Where is he?”

“Upstairs with the doctor,” the elderly woman said, a tear dribbling down her cheek. “He doesn’t know who I am, Adella.”

Adeline hugged Frau Schmidt, who hugged her back twice as hard. When they parted, the farmer’s wife sat at the table and folded her shaking hands, saying, “It gets worse. The party believes we are too old and now too infirm to farm. As you predicted, we are to be moved.”

Adeline’s heart ached for her friend. “I’m so sorry, Greta.”

The doctor clomped down the stairs. He glanced at Adeline, greeted her, and then spoke with Frau Schmidt about her husband’s condition. He’d given Herr Schmidt a shot, and he was sleeping. He cautioned her not to try to feed her husband anything other than water until he returned the following day and left.

The elderly woman went upstairs to check on her ailing husband and then came back down to the table, saying wistfully, “I wish we’d done it last week before he . . .”

“Done what?” Adeline asked, looking at the clock and seeing she had another hour or so before the boys got out of school.

Frau Schmidt hesitated before saying, “Tried to go west. We have relatives near Dusseldorf. But now . . .”

Adeline debated, and then said, “What does Lieutenant Gerhardt ask about me?”

“She wants to know if you are going to try to leave and go west.”

“And what did you say?”