The next morning, Kassel seemed transformed. The air carried the smell of coal smoke and damp stone, but beneath it pulsed an urgency Christian had not noticed before. Perhaps it was only his imagination, sharpened by the knowledge of what awaited him. He rose before dawn, buttoned his uniform with fingers steadier than he felt, and slipped Kristina's letter back into his coat pocket. His mother watched silently from the kitchen doorway as he laced his boots. She had said little since he'd announced his appointment. Now her eyes, rimmed with shadows, followed his every movement.
"Eat something," his mother urged softly, sliding a slice of black bread across the table. "I'll eat at the office," Christian replied, though he accepted the bread and tore off a piece. He knew the gesture was more important than the food itself. "You are your father's son," she said at last. The words carried neither praise nor condemnation, only a weary acceptance.
Christian wanted to answer, but instead kissed her hand and stepped into the gray morning. The Abwehr offices bustled with quiet intensity. Christian joined a group of young men at the entrance, their boots echoing in unison against the marble floor. Some wore expressions of excitement, others of unease. One boy, no older than Christian's sister Katia, clutched his papers so tightly that his knuckles shone white.
Herr Müller appeared, his presence commanding without need for raised voice or polished uniform. His eyes swept across them, weighing, discarding, selecting. When they met Christian's, Christian felt again the peculiar sensation of being both exposed and measured.
"You are not soldiers here," Müller began. "Forget the parades, forget the medals, forget the shouting of officers drunk on slogans. You are ears where others are deaf. Eyes where others are blind. Mouths that must often remain closed, even when silence costs you dearly."
He let the words settle like dust. "Follow me." The recruits were led into a narrow hall lined with doors. Behind each lay a lesson, a test, or a deception. Christian soon learned that nothing in the Abwehr was as it first appeared. In the first room, they were asked to describe objects placed on a table for only a few seconds. Most recalled shapes, fewer recalled colors, fewer still the position of each item relative to the others. Christian forced himself to breathe, to notice not only what was there but what was absent—the chipped rim of a teacup, the faint scorch mark on a folder, the smell of tobacco lingering on the handkerchief.
Herr Müller watched him closely, saying nothing, though Christian caught the faintest narrowing of his eyes in approval. In the second room, they were instructed to listen to a recording played once. Voices overlapped, conversations blurred, yet each recruit was expected to recall details. Christian closed his eyes, isolating tones and accents, the rhythm of one speaker's breath, the hesitation in another's voice.
He thought of Kristina reading poetry aloud, how he could tell her mood not from the words but from the cadence between them. Again, he found himself answering questions others had missed. But the third room chilled him. Here they were given slips of paper with statements; some true, some false, some dangerous if repeated outside. They were instructed to discuss them in pairs while an officer observed.
The task was not about knowledge, Herr Müller explained afterward, but about control: what one revealed, what one concealed, and what one manipulated. Christian realized, with a tightening in his chest, that this was not training in loyalty but in duplicity. When the session ended, Müller called Christian aside.
"You notice more than most," he said, his tone almost conversational. "That can be a strength. Or it can drown you." Christian inclined his head, unsure how to respond. "Tell me," Herr Müller continued, "do you believe everything you hear?" "No, Herr Müller." "Good. Do you believe everything you see?" Christian hesitated. "I try to."
Müller's lips curved faintly. "Then you will learn. Seeing is not always believing. In war, truth is a currency—forged, spent, stolen. And you, Christian Wolfe, will learn to trade in it." That evening, after the sessions ended, Christian walked through the streets of Kassel, his mind heavy.
The town looked unchanged. Lamplights glowed in windows, children darted between shadows, lovers strolled beneath the chestnut trees, but for him, everything was altered. He thought of his father, who believed duty was simple: obey, serve, and endure. He thought of his mother's silence, a silence deeper than words. He thought of Katia, who teased him for polishing his boots too brightly, unaware or perhaps too aware of the darkness those boots now walked into.
And he thought of Kristina. Her last letter had smelled faintly of lavender. She had written of her parents, of fear, of the tightening noose around those like her. Come away with me, she had urged. There is still time. Was there? Christian felt the pull of her plea, as tangible as the weight of Herr Müller's words. But he also felt the invisible chains of duty, expectation, and history binding him tighter with each step.
A week later, the recruits were summoned again, this time to a lecture hall hung with maps. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris himself entered, flanked by aides. The man radiated an austere calm, his face lined with both intelligence and fatigue. Christian had seen his name whispered in newspapers, but in person the Admiral seemed less like a symbol of power than a man burdened by too much knowledge.
"Gentlemen," Canaris began, "the storm approaches. Germany moves east. When our soldiers cross the border into Poland, the world will shift. Some of you will serve at desks, decoding messages, analyzing reports. Others will serve abroad, gathering what the Reich demands. Some of you will not return. But all of you will be remembered by silence, not by banners."
His gaze swept across them. For a moment, Christian thought the Admiral's eyes lingered on him, not with approval but with a warning as if to say: Choose carefully what you become. When the Admiral departed, Müller leaned close. "Remember what you felt just now. Not every man in uniform believes what he wears. You will learn that, too."
Christian said nothing. But inside, something shifted. He had entered the Abwehr seeking purpose, loyalty, perhaps even glory. Now he saw only corridors of shadow, where truth itself was uncertain. And still, he could not turn back. That night, as he wrote to Kristina, he found himself hesitating over every word. How could he speak of what he had seen? How could he admit that he was being shaped into something he did not fully understand? At last, he wrote only:
I am learning much. Too much, perhaps. But I carry your words with me. Always.
He sealed the letter, though unease lingered. He had crossed a threshold, and with every passing day, the path behind him seemed to vanish. Ahead lay Poland, war, and a life with men who trusted shadows more than truth. Christian Wolfe, son of Herr Otto Wolfe, brother to Katia, fiancé to Kristina, was no longer simply a young man of Kassel. He was becoming something else, something he could not yet name.