The Seventh Secret

by Irving Wallace

  Doing so, she heard a shrill cry, then a keening sound from a distant room, the kitchen.

  Eva's eyes sought the clock. Only a few minutes had passed. As she took the bag off the bed she heard footsteps, and quickly wheeled to see a wild-eyed, distraught Klara in the doorway.

  For a moment Eva felt compassion and pity. "Klara, I'm sorry, very sorry—"

  Klara's voice was strained. "This is a joke, isn't it, a cruel and sick joke?"

  "It's the truth, darling. . ." Eva started for her daughter, wanting to embrace her, but Klara backed away. "You're not my mother. You can't be. I don't believe it.

  "I am your mother," Eva said steadily. "And he was your father."

  "No, never! You're a crazy person! None of this is true!"

  "It's true, Klara, darling. I am your mother, and he was your father."

  "Never in a million years!" Klara screamed. "Not that monster—I"

  Eva was across the room in an instant, hand up-raised. She slapped Klara hard. "Don't you dare!" she shouted. "I won't have you speak of him that way! Not now or ever!"

  Klara burst into tears, convulsed, shoulders heaving.

  There was no time to straighten out the child now, or to console her over the shock. There was only time for strength. He would have wanted it.

  "Klara," she said firmly. "We must go now. We must not be found."

  "No," Klara whimpered. "I won't go. Franz—our life—our child—"

  "You can't stay," said Eva. "All of us, we must leave."

  "No."

  "Klara, we can't let them find you. Now will you do as I tell you?" She tried to make herself heard over Klara's hysterical sobbing. "Do as I tell you! You will, won't you?"

  As he was driven toward Stresemann Strasse, Foster felt weariness to the marrow of his bones. He had been on the move, constantly, for an exhausting day, a hectic night, a savage morning, without rest, and for the first time he was beginning to feel sapped of all his strength.

  Furthermore, the overcast, the low hanging clouds above, added to the grayness of his mood.

  Then, nearing his destination, he began to discern that the overcast was not caused by clouds, but by a steady pall of smoke. At once his curiosity was piqued, and he became alert.

  The source of the smoke might be from the explosions he'd heard and the fire he had seen a half mile from Checkpoint Charlie. As the driver slowed the car, Foster could make out above and beyond the buildings to his left the peak of a steady mountain of flame that extended into the distance. It was not the kind of blaze that came from the incineration of buildings alone. It was the kind of fire that he had seen before, resulting from a gas explosion.

  Going past Askanischer Platz, he saw a large gathering of spectators. Fire engines, firemen, endless lines of hoses spouting foam, filled Stresemann Strasse, and all of the buildings were thorough wreckage, every timber still aflame.

  At once he understood and knew what was happen-ing. Leaving the driver and taxi at the corner, Foster raced to Askanischer Platz. Approaching, he knew what had taken place.

  The gas-filled secret underground bunker had some-how been destroyed. The result was evident—

  Götterdammerung.

  The hiding place of Hitler's mad pack had been incinerated. There would be nothing left of the underground bunker but a hole in the ground.

  Shoving his way through the curious mob, Foster saw Kirvov, then Tovah, and at last Emily among the spectators. He elbowed his way toward them, grabbed Emily, hugged her tight, and returned her kisses.

  Emily was clinging to Foster again. "It's over," she breathed. "Thank God, it's over."

  Foster gave his attention to the sputtering and simmering fires in front of them. "When did this happen, Emily?"

  "About an hour after the Mossad agents filled the bunker with gas. No one down there escaped. Golding told me about it. Then, just before dawn, there was that thunderous explosion. Everything blew sky high, and it's been aflame ever since. Maybe the gas was ignited by accident."

  "Maybe," said Foster. "Maybe not."

  "Somebody down there could have ignited this by lighting a cigarette," Emily speculated.

  Tovah shook her head vigorously. "Impossible. You forget, they were all dead down there well before the explosion."

  "Of course." Emily shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "I can't imagine what happened."

  Foster was peering beyond the row of fire trucks down the length of Stresemann Strasse. Destruction of everything from the Café Wolf to the Berlin Wall itself had been complete. Even a portion of the wall had been torn asunder and crumbled. Through the gaping hole, at least forty or fifty yards wide, could be seen the vast crater which extended into the Security Zone.

  Foster touched Emily, and pointed to the huge breach in the wall. "If anyone was inside there, and wanted to walk out, they could have just strolled through it."

  "You mean anyone like—say—Eva Braun."

  "Yes, Eva Braun." Foster reached for Kirvov's arm. "Nicholas, where does Klara Fiebig live?"

  "Knesebeckstrasse, right off the Ku'damm."

  "Then what are we waiting for? That should be our last stop. We may still get our hands on Klara—and Eva."

  They gathered with Nicholas Kirvov as he insistently pressed the doorbell, and kept knocking on the apartment door.

  There was no response for a long time, but finally they heard someone inside, and the door was slowly pulled wide open.

  A round-shouldered youngish man, maybe tall on another day, with tangled black hair, thick spectacles perched on a hooked nose, gaunt features, was staring out at them uncomprehendingly. Foster could see that the youngish man was in a daze, his magnified eyes red-rimmed and swollen, his sunken cheeks tear-streaked.

  Kirvov hesitated. "You—you are Franz, Klara Fiebig's husband?"

  The youngish man facing them moved his head up and down slowly, dumbly.

  "Where is she?" Kirvov said. "We must speak with her."

  Franz Fiebig continued to stare at them, actually through them, and fresh tears began to form. "You are too late," he said, and he turned away.

  Foster stepped forward. He went into the living room after Fiebig, and the others trailed him inside.

  Fiebig stood disconsolately in the middle of the room, back to them, and then he shuffled almost directionless toward the corner, and fell into an overstuffed chair. He was weeping again, and trying to find a handkerchief. Foster took out his own, slowly went to him, and handed him the handkerchief

  "Too late?" Foster prompted him.

  "She's dead," Fiebig said, moving his head from side to side with disbelief. "I came home from school to have lunch with Klara. I found her dead in our bedroom. She committed suicide."

  "Suicide? Why? Do you know why?"

  Fiebig did not reply.

  Foster lowered himself to one knee next to Fiebig's chair. "Perhaps I know why, Franz. I think we all know why." He paused. "Her mother was here to see her. Her mother—Eva Braun."

  Through his thick lenses, Fiebig focused on Foster, and wiped his cheeks. "Yes," he murmured, "her mother—Eva Braun. That's what happened."

  "How did you find out, Franz?"

  "The note. Klara left a note on the dresser."

  "Do you have it?"

  "I tore it up. I flushed it down the toilet after the doctor came."

  "Can you—can you remember what Klara wrote you?"

  Fiebig dropped his chin to his chest and stared at the carpet. Foster leaned forward to catch his words. Fiebig was speaking in a hushed monotone.

  "Evelyn—Eva—Eva Braun came here in a great hurry. She told Klara the truth. That she was Klara's mother. And her father . . ." He could not bring himself to utter the name. "She learned about her father. Lies! confirmed it all. Eva and Lies! told her they were leaving, must leave, and Eva insisted that Klara accompany them. Poor Klara, my poor dear Klara."

  "What else did she write?"

  "Eva and Liesl wanted her to go with them, but then
they were afraid her hysteria could give them away. They said she needed to pull herself together first. When she did, she was to meet them at a certain place. Klara did not say where. If she would not come to them, they told her, she must disappear, that life would be impossible for her here. Under no circumstances could she stay here. Klara wrote, 'Eva said my father would have demanded it. He would never have allowed me to become a spectacle. I must never be found by our enemies.' Then—then—Klara wrote, Eva and Liesl left and she was alone, and she had nowhere to go, yet she knew that she had to leave somehow. 'I'm sorry, so sorry, Franz,' she wrote, 'but they are right. Someday, someone will find out. I cannot hurt you or mark our child for life. So I am leaving. I will love you forever.' " He began shaking his head. "Oh, no, no, no, she didn't have to leave me. I loved her so. I didn't care. There was no blame. She was a victim. I would have loved her until eternity."

  He covered his face, and broke into sobs.

  Foster struggled to his feet, shaken and deeply moved. "The doctor—is the doctor here, Franz?"

  Fiebig gestured toward the other rooms.

  Foster trudged through the dining room, into a hall, and found the first bedroom. Entering, he was assailed by a bitter almond smell, a telltale smell.

  The doctor, a graying heavyset German, a handkerchief at his nose, was seated beside the double bed, a pad on his knee, writing his report. On the bed was a figure covered from head to toe by a sheet.

  "Doctor—" Foster called out.

  The elderly physician raised his head.

  "—I'm a friend of the Fiebigs, and I think Franz needs some help. He's in pretty bad shape."

  The doctor nodded. "Who can blame him? How else can he be? Never mind, I'll be giving him something, and seeing after him." His eyes strayed to the covered body. "Too bad, too bad, a terrible tragedy."

  "She did kill herself?"

  "Yes, certainly."

  "How?"

  "Cyanide capsule. I can't imagine where she got it."

  But Foster could.

  He left the room, and returned to the others. He signaled Emily, Tovah, and Kirvov.

  They followed him out of the apartment.

  It was the morning after.

  A balmy, clear day, and the sun bathed the city in its warmth. Arms linked, Emily and Foster stood on the roof of the Europa Center office building for one last look at the beautiful and disturbing city of Berlin. Near the Wall, a trail of smoke still rose to the sky, but beyond Budapester Strasse below, they could make out the bright green expanse of the Zoological Gardens, and the Tiergarten beside it, with glimpses of the Bellevue Palace and the Reichstag, and farther on the snaking blueness of the River Spree.

  It was a gorgeous city, this Berlin, Foster thought, a beautiful city that had been visited by endless horrors. Yesterday, another nightmare had been averted, but he suspected that Berlin's nightmares would never cease. Danger and doom were part of the city's character.

  "At least now," said Foster, "you have the real ending of the Hitler story. You can tell the world the truth."

  "The truth?" Emily reflected. "I doubt if it will ever be known. I'm a historian. I must have proof of everything I write. What proof do I have now? Can I prove that you and I talked to Eva Braun? Can I prove she wasn't an imposter?"

  "But the hidden bunker," said Foster. "What about the bunker?"

  Emily shook her head sadly. "To the wide world there is no bunker, never was such a bunker, only a huge hole in the ground where it is unlikely that anyone could have lived. The bodies, all evidence, crushed, incinerated, eliminated. There is only one person on earth who can prove the true ending. She was our only proof of the truth, and now she's gone," Emily reflected. She took Foster's hand. "We'll never find her, will we, Rex?"

  "She's out there somewhere all right." Then he shook his head. "But no one will ever find her."

  Once more Emily gazed in silence at the city beneath them, and then off beyond its boundaries. "The Merry Widow," she said, "that's what her family and friends called her when Hitler first took her into his life. The Merry Widow, because she was almost always alone." Emily continued to stare into the distance. "Well, she is still alone, with her mystery, and maybe she will be to the very end."