The Last Innocent Hour

by Margot Abbott

  “Thank you,” I said, “I know he will enjoy hearing that.” Daddy would, too. He had once been kept waiting by the Chancellor, and although the slight did not offend him personally, he was extremely angry about the snub to the representative of the United States. But, he told me, it was indicative of the way the Nazis treated the United States, alternatively wooing and insulting us.

  A waiter brought pots of tea, coffee, and chocolate. Hitler, who was served first, took hot chocolate, and I had a cup of coffee. Next came trays of cakes, sandwiches, and pastry. I took a plain-looking sandwich.

  “Oh, no, my dear young lady,” cried the Chancellor. “You must have more than that one.” He snapped his fingers and the waiter returned.

  “Please, sir,” I said, smiling. “I had a very late lunch. You must understand I did not expect to be having this tea.”

  “I see. But I also know that you modern women are all starving yourselves in order to be fashionable.” He laughed. “For myself, I like women who are sturdy, and who like their tea cakes,” he said, lowering his voice as though he were imparting a secret. “But I will not insist.” And he waved the tray away.

  Pulling the white porcelain sugar bowl to him, he spooned two teaspoons of sugar into his chocolate. “I must say, Fraulein,” he continued, after a satisfied taste of his concoction, “I am impressed at how well you speak German.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate such compliments because yours is a difficult language.”

  “Is it?” he said, pausing for a moment. “This must be why so few foreigners take the trouble to learn it well, although I know many Germans who speak English or French extremely well.”

  He fell silent, becoming engrossed with ladling whipped cream onto his éclair. The gentleman to my left leaned forward.

  “Where are you from in the United States, Fraulein?” he said. He spoke loud enough for Hitler to hear and I understood he was keeping the conversational ball rolling for his Fuhrer.

  “California—San Francisco.”

  “Is this so?” said Hitler, putting down his fork. He turned in his chair to face me and fixed me with his pale eyes. He slapped the table. “I have read every one of Karl May’s wonderful stories about the American West. Did you know that?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but hurried on. “I read them as a boy and after I had read them, I played them out. Can you imagine? But, what fun it was! I have never forgotten the excitement of those stories—the cowboys, the wagon trains, the Indians. Especially the Indians—ah.” He shook his head in nostalgic remembrance. “Old Shatterhand. He was a friend to me.”

  Someone across the table, which had become silent during his little speech, asked, “Did you wear a feather, my Fuhrer?”

  “A feather?” said Hitler, looking up sharply, searching for an insult. “Oh, no. I was a cowboy—always.” Relieved, the company laughed. People at the second table were turning in their chairs, craning their necks to see and hear what was going on.

  Hitler continued, “I like best, I think, the beautiful descriptions of the canyons and prairies. And of the snow-covered mountains. I have always loved nature, you know, and I thought of myself alone under the vast sky. In the times of struggle, I admit, yes, I will admit, that I sometimes cheered myself thinking of Old Shatterhand, of how he had persevered in spite of the dangers.”

  The monologue continued in that vein, and I managed to keep smiling and nodding and drinking my coffee while the Chancellor of Germany waxed on and on about the beauties of a West created by a writer who had never seen it.

  I studied Hitler as he talked. He was an ordinary-looking, middle-aged man, unremarkable except for the odd little mustache and his pale, piercing eyes. The mustache, of course, had already amused me and his eyes had been staring out at me from posters plastered on every kiosk throughout the city, but I was surprised by the beauty of his hands and the graceful way he used them. They were an anomaly on his middle-aged body.

  Thoroughly bored and needing to go the ladies’ room, I sneaked a look at my watch and saw I also had to get to the hotel to meet my father. I was wondering how I was going to free myself when an SS man, an officer, entered the room and came toward our party. He leaned over to speak to the aide who had shown me in and who was seated at the other table. When he stood up straight, I got a good look at him. It was Christian.

  “But California, Fraulein,” Hitler was saying, moving, finally, on to another topic. “California is surely not the true West. After all, Hollywood is in California. Can there be any cultures further apart than the prairies and Hollywood?” He asked this of the whole table, who obligingly laughed at the irony of his comment.

  “But one thing I do want to know is this—have you ever seen a real wild Indian?” asked the Chancellor, leaning toward me again.

  “No, not really,” I admitted, trying to keep an eye on Christian.

  “No? What a shame.” He paused, noticing the other conversation. “What is it?” he called, obviously irritated. The seated SS officer looked up, then stood and hurried over to Hitler, Christian following at a respectful distance. The officer leaned toward his Fuhrer and they whispered. The rest of the party at the table talked quietly among themselves, trying to look as though they didn’t care. The whispered conversation came to an end.

  Hitler, turning to face the rest of us, sighed. “I wish Heinrich would not bother me when I’m trying to relax. Am I never again to be allowed these precious moments, just to talk and be with friends?”

  He was actually sulking, one arm stretched out on the table, his head drooping, the famous dark lock of hair over his forehead. He stared for a long minute at the tablecloth, then, picking up a crumb, popped it into his mouth. Quickly, he pushed his chair back and stood. Christian and the other officer slammed into a heel-clicking, arm-wrenching salute, which was ignored, because when the Chancellor pushed his chair back, he had bumped my chair, making me jog the elbow of the man next to me and, in turn, causing him to spill almost the entire glass of water he was drinking over himself and me.

  I leapt up. He did too. Hitler jumped out of the way. Everyone at the table jumped up. Everyone at the other table jumped up. For all I know, the entire restaurant did. Waiters flew forward with napkins and towels. My damp tablemate whipped out a huge white handkerchief.

  “Please, Fraulein, I am desolate,” said the Chancellor, raising his hands, as though he feared being soaked himself.

  I smiled at him. “It’s nothing. Please. It’s only water.” I looked down at my suit. I was very wet. “I think I’d better get back to my hotel. They can dry and press my suit there.”

  A storm of apologies, protests, and remedies broke out. The entire situation was becoming farcical and I didn’t know whether to laugh or yell at them all to shut up. In spite of the confusion, I noticed that Christian was gone.

  The young woman from the other table appeared at my elbow. “Come,” she said, “let me take you to the ladies’ room.” I gratefully retreated with her.

  She was my age, with a round face and merry blue eyes. Her only makeup was lipstick and her hair was loosely pulled back into a roll at the nape of her neck. A black felt hat that sported two flat daisies sat over one eye, and she was dressed in a becoming black-and-white-patterned long-sleeved dress with a wide, embroidered collar and black patent leather belt. She looked like a shop girl with little money but lots of style.

  When we got into the ladies’ room, she turned to me and, holding out her hand, almost shyly, she introduced herself. “I am Eva Braun.”

  “Sally Jackson,” I replied, shaking hands with her, noticing her nails were very well groomed. Mine never were.

  “You’re American?” She opened her bag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, holding them out to me.

  “Yes,” I said, shaking my head to the cigarettes. “And thanks for helping, although I really think I should go to the hotel and get out of this skirt.”

  “I hope it is not ruined.” She handed me a hand towel, and the washroom attend
ant came over with several more. “It is very smart.”

  “Thank you. It’s wool, it ought to be okay,” I said, using the towel to blot up whatever water I could. I was wet through to my skin.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ve heard that expression in American films?”

  “Probably.”

  “It means all right or fine?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled. “Okay,” she repeated. “My first American word.” She had her purse, with her and opened it, moving to the mirror. The room was narrow and badly lit. Eva fussed with her hair, her cigarette hanging from her red lips. “My hair is a mess. I wish I could bleach it, but he wouldn’t like it. Men. What do they know?” She giggled. “Do you perm yours?”

  “No. This is all my own curl.”

  “You’re lucky. I’m fussing with mine all the time.”

  “Well, I think mine is too curly.”

  “Oh, no, it’s wavy. And very pretty.”

  “Thank you. I guess we’re never satisfied with what we’ve got.”

  “That’s what he always says,” she said, giggling. “Is your suit going to be okay?” She smiled when she said her new word.

  “It is,” I said, handing the towel to the attendant and fishing in my bag for a coin to put in her saucer.

  Finishing her cigarette, Eva walked to the stall and tossed it in. Then she fished in her bag for a mint.

  “He doesn’t like me to smoke,” she said, snapping her bag shut. “We have been in here long enough to make those men feel better. I hope you realize I only dragged you in here to get you away from them. They were all behaving so helplessly. They’re so impractical, aren’t they?”

  “You rescued me,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She paused, her hand on the doorknob. “Okay?” she said, and laughed. “Now,” she asked as we reentered the restaurant, “do you have a car?” I shook my head, not looking at her, searching for Christian. She must have followed my look. “Looking for the handsome one?”

  “Oh, no,” I said quickly. “I thought I knew him, but I must have been mistaken.”

  “Well, you ought to meet him. I wonder if . . . let me see what I can do. That would be so romantic, if you met at the Fuhrer’s tea table.”

  When we reached the table, she went to the heavyset man and spoke to him. My attention was taken up with trying to extricate myself from the party without offending anyone. The man Eva had spoken to whispered to the Chancellor.

  “Good,” he said emphatically. Hitler turned to me. “Fraulein Jackson, we have a car to take you to your hotel.”

  Eva, back in her seat at the second table, nodded at me. The arrangements were made and I was escorted out to the sidewalk.

  Christian was in the passenger’s seat in the front, another uniformed, man in the driver’s spot. He wore a kepi, the distinctive cap of the SA. Christian was arguing with the Chancellor’s aide, who stood by the car.

  “I’m under orders from Reichsfuhrer Himmler,” Christian said.

  “This is a Fuhrer order, Obersturmfuhrer, it supersedes all others,” snapped the aide and wheeled around to go back into the restaurant.

  “We don’t have time to ferry girls around,” Christian muttered as I came up to the car.

  “Even me?” I said. Christian’s expression was a perfect example of shock and surprise. I was very pleased. He made a move to get out of the car. “Don’t bother,” I said, opening the door myself.

  “Surprise, surprise,” I said in English, then very politely told the driver the name of my hotel and we started off. Christian was still silent.

  “I’m Sally Jackson,” I said to the driver. His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. He grinned. He had a very short haircut and looked bald under his kepi-style hat. But his cheeks were rosy and his eyebrows black crescents above brown eyes.

  “Hans Behrens,” he said.

  “You are not SS?”

  “Not bloody likely. SA. Unlike my pansy friend here, who started with the men and went over to those intellectuals and pretty soldier boys in the SS. Eh, Mayr?” From his bantering tone, I could tell this was a subject they had gone on at each other about before.

  “Shut up, Hans,” said Christian. “We have an important passenger here. A girlfriend of the high and mighty. Let’s just deliver her as ordered.”

  “Is he telling the truth?” Hans asked, his eyes again on mine via the rearview mirror. “Are you really somebody important’s girl?”

  “No,” I snapped.

  “Then what were you doing there?” asked Christian.

  “Tell me, Hans,” I said, folding my arms along the front seat between the two young men. “Do you fellows in the SA condemn people, friends, without listening to their side of it?”

  “Of course not, but that’s the SS for you,” remarked Hans. “It’s all that time they spend on their tailoring. Weakens whatever brains they had. Which wasn’t much.”

  “All right,” Christian protested. “All right.”

  I leaned back against the backseat. “I’m not talking to you,” I said imperiously. “I’m talking to Hans. Go on, Hans, tell me what you think.”

  “Not me,” he said, laughing. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I know enough not to get involved.”

  “You will agree that making such accusations is quite dishonorable,” I said.

  “I will,” he agreed.

  “Dishonorable,” said Christian. “It’s not at all.”

  “Oh,” I said, leaning forward, “then how would you describe it, Rottenfuhrer Mayr?” I knew he’d understand the English insult.

  “You were always a bratty, irrational kid,” he said. “And you haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Haven’t I?” I said calmly, giving him a superior smile.

  He looked at me, then letting his eyes travel down my wet skirt, said slowly, with a sly smile, “Yeah, you’re still as sloppy as ever.”

  “Oh!” I yelled, and hit him on the head and shoulders with my purse. He laughed and yelled for me to stop, holding his hands up and ducking his head. I knocked his cap off.

  “Hold on, you two,” cried Hans, pulling the car to the side of the street, “you’re going to get us killed, which I wouldn’t mind, but I’m fond of my old car here.” He switched off the ignition and watched Christian scrambling for his cap. “I take it you know each other?”

  “Oh, yes, we certainly do,” said Christian, shaking his cap, running his sleeve across the shiny bill.

  “That is a matter of interpretation,” I said.

  “No, I recognize your uppercut,” said Christian. I feigned another hit and he cringed. “What a violent girl you are. Always were. Have to be careful what you say to her, she’ll beat you up,” he said to Hans. “You’d never think it, she looks so sweet and feminine.” They both turned to look at me. I made a face at them.

  “Well,” said Hans, “now that we’re all such good pals, why don’t we go drink some beer. That is, if you’d like to, Fraulein. The Fuhrer order was to deliver you wherever you wanted to go.”

  Christian remained silent, intent on polishing the bill of his cap.

  “All right, but I need to go to the hotel and change.” And let my father know, I added to myself.

  At the hotel, Christian got out and opened the door for me. We walked up the steps together and into the lobby. It was a small, exclusive, utterly respectable place and people turned to look as we entered. We walked in silence across the lobby toward the elevator.

  “You want to come up?” I gestured toward the open door. The boy stood, bored, waiting, in it.

  “All right.” And Christian followed me into the elevator. “Sally,” he said, touching my arm lightly. He stood behind me as we faced the doors. “I am sorry.”

  “What you thought was wrong,” I said quietly.

  “Well, when I saw you at the fencing match . . .”

  “You saw me there? Why didn’t you say something?”

  “You know why. I thought .
. .”

  “That’s no excuse.” I noticed the elevator boy watching us and held my next question until we got out of the car on my floor. “Christian, are you afraid of Heydrich?”

  Christian came to a stop and, holding his cap in his right hand, studied the silver trim as though he had never seen it before. “Don’t be silly. He’s my boss. If he were your . . . if you were his girlfriend, I wouldn’t dare interfere.” He buffed the bill again.

  “Stop playing with that hat. Did he order you to come to the party?” I said, taking a step toward him.

  “He did. I was very angry about it. I was very busy that week. Doing a special officer’s course. I’ve just been promoted.”

  “Congratulations. Did he speak to you afterward? He told me he would clear things up. What’s your rank?”

  “Obersturmfuhrer. A lieutenant in English. And no, he did not speak to me about you. In fact, I haven’t seen him in several weeks.”

  “Then he lied to me. Why would he lie to me? I thought he liked me, that we were friends.”

  “I was away. Maybe he tried and couldn’t find me.” He suddenly grinned at me. “I was glad to see you.”

  “Was?”

  “Am,” he said, and I grinned back.

  “Christian.” I reached out to touch his sleeve. “You really don’t believe that Heydrich is anything to me, do you? Now that you’ve talked to me?”

  “No.”

  I breathed a great sigh of relief. “Thank you,” I said. We smiled at each other again, and for a moment I was totally unaware of the hall around us.

  HANS WAS A delightful, funny companion. He wasn’t at all handsome, but so full of humor about everything, even the SA, even the National Socialists, that I grew very fond of him in the few hours we three spent drinking beer together.

  But Christian . . . Christian was quieter, with less to say, and my impression of his seriousness was proved correct. He was a serious person. His sense of humor was there, but buried, and he was slow to laugh, although he was obviously fond of his friend. Underneath his pleasant good mood was a sadness, and, remembering his father’s suicide, the scattering of his family, I thought I understood why.