The Boy at the Top of the Mountain

by John Boyne

  The Duke bit his lip and frowned. ‘Can’t be done,’ he said after a moment. ‘I had my chance.’

  ‘Anything can be done. Look at me – I am the leader of a unified German people and I came from nothing. My father was a shoemaker.’

  ‘My father was a king.’

  ‘My father was a soldier,’ said Pierrot from the corner of the room, the words out of his mouth before he could take them back, and the two men turned to look at him as if they had forgotten that he was even present. The Führer threw the boy a look of such fury that he felt his stomach lunge inside and thought he might be sick.

  ‘All things are possible,’ continued the Führer after a moment as the two men turned back to face each other. ‘If it could be done, would you take back your throne?’

  The Duke looked around anxiously and bit his nails, examining each one in turn before wiping his hand on his trouser leg. ‘Well, of course one has to consider one’s duty,’ he replied. ‘And what might be best for one’s country. Any way that one could serve, naturally one would . . . one would . . .’

  He looked up hopefully, like a puppy hoping to be taken into the care of a benevolent master, and the Führer smiled. ‘I think we understand each other, David,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind me calling you David, do you?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that no one does, you see. Other than Wallis. And my family. Although they don’t call me anything any more. I never hear from them. I phone Bertie four or five times a day but he won’t take my calls.’

  The Führer held up his hands. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘We shall stick with the formalities. Your Royal Highness.’ He shook his head. ‘Or perhaps one day, once again, Your Majesty.’

  Pierrot emerged slowly from a dream, feeling as if he had only been asleep for a couple of hours. His half-open eyes registered the darkness of the room and the sound of breathing. Someone was standing over him, staring down at him as he slept. He opened his eyes completely now to see the face of the Führer, Adolf Hitler, and his heart leaped in fright. He tried to sit up to salute, but as he did so, he found himself being pushed back down onto the bed. He had never seen the master with such an expression on his face before. It was even more frightening than the one he had seen earlier when he interrupted his conversation with the Duke.

  ‘Your father was a soldier, was he?’ hissed the Führer. ‘Better than mine? Better than the Duke’s? You think because he’s dead that he was braver than me?’

  ‘No, mein Führer,’ said Pierrot breathlessly, the words catching in his throat. His mouth felt terribly dry and his heart was pounding fiercely in his chest.

  ‘I can trust you, Pieter, can’t I?’ asked the Führer, leaning over so the bristles of his moustache were almost touching the boy’s upper lip. ‘You will never give me cause to regret allowing you to live here?’

  ‘No, mein Führer. Never, I promise it.’

  ‘You better not,’ he hissed. ‘Because disloyalty never goes unpunished.’

  He tapped Pierrot twice on the cheek before marching out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  Pierrot lifted the sheets and looked down at his pyjamas. He felt like crying; he had done something that he hadn’t done since he was a small boy and he didn’t know how he was going to explain it to anyone. But he swore one thing to himself: he would never let the Führer down again.

  CHAPTER TEN

  A Happy Christmas at the Berghof

  The war had been going on for more than a year, and life at the Berghof had changed considerably. The Führer was spending less time on the Obersalzberg, and when he was there, he was usually locked away in his office with his most senior generals, the leaders of the Gestapo, the Schutzstaffel and the Wehrmacht. Although Hitler still made time to talk to Pierrot on his visits, the officers who ran these divisions of the Reich – Göring, Himmler, Goebbels and Heydrich – preferred to ignore him completely. He longed for the day when he might hold such an exalted position as theirs.

  Pierrot no longer slept in the small bedroom that had been his since arriving on the mountain. Once he turned eleven, Hitler informed Beatrix that the boy was to take her room, and that she should move her things into the smaller one – a decision that made Emma shake her head and mutter something about the boy’s lack of gratitude towards his aunt.

  ‘The decision was the Führer’s,’ declared Pierrot, not even bothering to look at her as he spoke. He had grown taller – no one would call him ‘Le Petit’ any more – and his chest had begun to grow muscular from the daily exercise he took across the mountain tops. ‘Or do you question his decisions? Is that it, Emma? Because if that is the case, we could always discuss it with him?’

  ‘What’s going on here?’ asked Beatrix, entering the kitchen and sensing the strained atmosphere between the two.

  ‘Emma seems to think that we should not have swapped bedrooms,’ said Pierrot.

  ‘I said no such thing,’ muttered Emma, turning away.

  ‘Liar,’ said Pierrot to her retreating back. Turning round, he noticed the expression on his aunt’s face and felt a curious mixture of emotions. He wanted the bigger room, of course, but he also wanted her to recognize that it was his right to have it. After all, it was closer to the Führer’s own room. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked.

  ‘Why should I mind?’ asked Beatrix, shrugging her shoulders. ‘It’s just a place to sleep, that’s all. It’s not important.’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea, you know.’

  ‘Wasn’t it? I heard differently.’

  ‘No! All I said to the Führer was that I wished my bedroom had a wall large enough to hold one of the big European maps, that’s all. Like yours does. Then I could follow the progress of our army across the continent as we defeat our enemies.’

  Beatrix laughed, but it didn’t sound to Pierrot like the type of laugh a person made when they found something funny.

  ‘We can swap back if you like,’ he said quietly, looking down at the floor.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Beatrix. ‘The move has been made. It would be a waste of all our time to put everything back as it once was.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, looking up again and smiling. ‘I knew you’d agree. Emma has an opinion on everything, doesn’t she? If you ask me, servants should just keep their mouths shut and get on with their work.’

  One afternoon Pierrot made his way to the library in search of something to read. Running his fingers across the spines of the books that lined the walls, he examined a history of Germany and another of the European continent, before considering a book that described all the crimes committed by the Jewish people throughout history. Next to it was a thesis denouncing the Treaty of Versailles as an act of criminal injustice against the Fatherland. He skipped past Mein Kampf, which he had read three times over the last eighteen months and from which he could quote many important paragraphs. Squeezed in at the end of one shelf was a final volume, and he smiled to remember how young and innocent he had been when Simone Durand had thrust it into his hands at the train station in Orleans four years earlier. Emil and the Detectives. How had it found its way into a bookcase filled with such important works? he wondered. Taking it out, he glanced towards Herta, who was on her knees sweeping the fireplace. As he opened it, an envelope fell from the pages and he picked it up.

  ‘Who’s that from?’ asked the maid, looking up at him.

  ‘An old friend of mine,’ he said, his voice betraying his anxiety at seeing the familiar handwriting. ‘Well, just a neighbour, really,’ he added, correcting himself. ‘No one important.’

  It was the last letter from Anshel that Pierrot had bothered to save. He opened it again now, however, and looked at the first few lines. There was no salutation, no ‘Dear Pierrot’; just a drawing of a dog and then some rushed sentences:

  I’m writing this in haste as there is a lot of noise from the street outside and Maman says that the day to leave has finally arrived. She’s packed some of our belongings, the most important thin
gs, and they’ve been in suitcases by the front door for weeks now. I’m not sure where we’re going but Maman says it’s not safe for us here any more. Don’t worry, Pierrot, we’re taking D’Artagnan with us! How are you anyway? Why haven’t you replied to my last two letters? Everything has changed here in Paris. I wish you could see how

  Pierrot didn’t read any further, but simply crumpled the letter up and tossed it in the fireplace, causing some of the previous night’s ash to blow out into Herta’s face.

  ‘Pieter!’ she snapped angrily, but he ignored her. He wondered whether he should have destroyed the letter in the kitchen fireplace instead, which had been roaring since early that morning. After all, if the Führer found it, he might be angry with him, and he could imagine nothing worse than suffering his disapproval. He had liked Anshel once, of course he had, but they were just children back then, and he hadn’t understood what it meant to be friends with a Jew. It was for the best that he cut off their acquaintance. He reached back in and retrieved it, handing the book across to Herta as he did so.

  ‘You may give this to a child in Berchtesgaden with my compliments,’ he instructed her imperiously. ‘Or simply throw it away. Whichever is easier.’

  ‘Oh, Erich Kästner,’ said Herta, smiling as she looked at the dust jacket. ‘I remember reading this when I was younger. Wonderful, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s for children,’ said Pierrot with a shrug, determined not to agree with her. ‘Now get back to work,’ he added, walking away. ‘I want this place clean before the Führer returns.’

  A few days before Christmas Pierrot woke in the middle of the night in need of the bathroom, and made his way quietly down the corridor in his bare feet. Returning, still half asleep, he made the mistake of heading for his old room, only realizing his error as he reached for the door handle. He was about to turn away when, to his surprise, he heard voices inside. Curiosity got the better of him, and he leaned close to the woodwork to listen.

  ‘But I’m afraid,’ Aunt Beatrix was saying from inside. ‘For you. For me. For all of us.’

  ‘There’s nothing to fear,’ said the second voice, which Pierrot recognized as that of Ernst the chauffeur. ‘Everything is carefully planned. Remember, there are more people on our side than you might imagine.’

  ‘But is this really the best place? Would Berlin not be better?’

  ‘There’s too much security there, and he feels safe in this house. Trust me, my darling, nothing will go wrong. And when it’s over, and wiser heads prevail, we can chart a new course. We are doing the right thing. You believe that, don’t you?’

  ‘You know I do,’ said Beatrix fiercely. ‘Every time I look at Pierrot I know what needs to be done. He’s already a completely different boy to the one who first came to live here. You’ve seen it, haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course I have. He’s becoming one of them. He’s getting more like them every day. He’s even started ordering the servants around. I scolded him a few days ago and he told me that I should take my complaints to the Führer or be silent.’

  ‘I dread to think what type of man he’ll become if this continues,’ said Beatrix. ‘Something must be done. Not just for him but for all the Pierrots out there. The Führer will destroy the whole country if he’s not stopped. The whole of Europe. He says that he is illuminating the minds of the German people – but no, he is the darkness at the centre of the world.’

  There was silence for a few moments, and Pierrot could hear the unmistakable sound of his aunt and the chauffeur kissing. He was almost ready to open the door and confront them, but instead he went back to his own room and lay in bed with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, repeating their conversation over and over in his mind as he tried to understand what it all might mean.

  At school the next day he wondered whether he should discuss what was happening at the Berghof with Katarina, and he found her at lunch time reading a book beneath one of the great oak trees in the garden. They no longer sat together in class; Katarina had requested that she be moved next to Gretchen Baffril, the quietest girl in the school, but had never given Pierrot a reason why she didn’t want to sit next to him any more.

  ‘You’re not wearing your tie,’ said Pierrot, picking it up from where she had thrown it on the ground. Katarina had become a member of the Bund Deutscher Mädel a year earlier, and she was constantly complaining about being forced to wear the uniform.

  ‘You wear it if it means that much to you,’ said Katarina, not looking up from her book.

  ‘But I’m already wearing a tie,’ said Pierrot. ‘Look.’

  She glanced up at him for a moment before taking it from him. ‘I suppose if I don’t put this on then you’ll tell on me,’ she asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Why would I do that? As long as you’re wearing it again by the time lunch is over and classes have restarted, then it’s not a problem.’

  ‘You’re so fair-minded, Pieter,’ she said with a sweet smile. ‘That’s one of the things I like about you.’

  Pierrot smiled back at her – though, to his surprise, she simply rolled her eyes and went back to her book. He considered leaving her on her own, but he had a question that he wanted to ask and he couldn’t think who else to ask it of. He didn’t seem to have many friends in their class any more.

  ‘Do you know my aunt Beatrix?’ he said finally, sitting down next to her.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Katarina. ‘She comes into my father’s shop all the time to buy paper and ink.’

  ‘And Ernst, the Führer’s chauffeur?’

  ‘I’ve never spoken to him, but I’ve seen him driving through Berchtesgaden. What about them?’

  Pierrot breathed heavily through his nose and then shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘How could it be nothing? You brought their names up.’

  ‘Do you think they are good Germans?’ he asked her then. ‘No, that’s not a sensible question. I suppose that would depend on how you define the word good, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Katarina, putting the bookmark in the centre of her novel and looking directly at him. ‘I don’t think there are too many ways to define the word good. You’re either good or you aren’t.’

  ‘I suppose I meant do you think that they’re patriots?’

  ‘How would I know?’ asked Katarina, shrugging her shoulders. ‘Although there are, of course, different ways to define patriotism. You, for example, might have the opposite view of it to me.’

  ‘My view is the same as the Führer’s view,’ said Pierrot.

  ‘Well, exactly,’ said Katarina, looking away towards a group of children who were playing hopscotch in the corner of the yard.

  ‘Why don’t you like me as much as you used to?’ he asked after a long silence, and she looked back at him, the expression on her face suggesting that she was surprised by his question.

  ‘What makes you think I don’t like you, Pieter?’ she asked.

  ‘You don’t talk to me like you used to. And you moved seats to sit beside Gretchen Baffril and never told me why.’

  ‘Well, Gretchen had no one to sit next to,’ said Katarina, ‘after Heinrich Furst left the school. I didn’t want her to be alone.’

  Pierrot looked away and swallowed hard, already regretting beginning this conversation.

  ‘You remember Heinrich, don’t you, Pieter?’ she continued. ‘Such a nice boy. So friendly. You remember how we were all shocked when he told us the things his father had said about the Führer? And how we all promised to tell no one?’

  Pierrot stood up and brushed down the seat of his trousers. ‘It’s getting cold out here,’ he said. ‘I should go back inside.’

  ‘You remember how we heard that his father had been taken from his bed in the middle of the night and dragged out of Berchtesgaden and no one ever heard from him again? And how Heinrich and his mother and his younger sister had to move to Leipzig to stay with her sister because they had no money any more?’ />
  A bell rang from the doorway of the school, and Pierrot glanced at his watch. ‘Your tie,’ he said, pointing at it. ‘It’s time. You should put it on.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will,’ she said as he walked away. ‘After all, we wouldn’t want poor Gretchen to be left sitting on her own again tomorrow, would we? Would we, Pierrot?’ she shouted after him, but he was shaking his head, pretending that she wasn’t speaking to him; and somehow, by the time he got back inside, he had removed their conversation from his memory and placed it in a different part of his mind – the part that housed the memories of Maman and Anshel; a place he rarely visited any more.

  The Führer and Eva arrived at the Berghof the day before Christmas Eve while Pierrot was outside practising marching with a rifle, and after they had settled in he was summoned indoors. ‘There’s to be a party in Berchtesgaden later today,’ explained Eva. ‘A Christmas party for the children. The Führer would like you to accompany us.’

  His heart jumped in excitement. He never went anywhere with the Führer, and he could only imagine the envious expressions on the faces of the townspeople when he arrived with their beloved leader. It was almost as if he was Hitler’s son.

  He put on a clean uniform and instructed Ange to shine his boots until she could see her reflection in them. When she brought them to him, Pierrot barely glanced at them before saying they were not good enough, and sent her away to do them again.

  ‘And don’t make me ask a third time,’ he said as she made her way back to the maids’ parlour.

  When he stepped out onto the gravel with Hitler and Eva that afternoon, he felt more proud than he had ever been in his life. The three sat together in the back seat of the car, and as they made their way down the mountain, Pierrot watched Ernst in the rear-view mirror, trying to decipher his intentions towards the Führer; but whenever the chauffeur glanced up to check the road behind him he seemed oblivious to the boy’s presence. He thinks I’m just a child, thought Pierrot. He thinks I don’t matter at all.