Prisoner of Night and Fog

by Anne Blankman

There were no answers. He remained a mystery.

  But an answer came in the afternoon. They had gathered in the parlor. Frau Raubal had slipped off her customary flour-stained apron and sat beside her daughters on the faded sofa, sewing an eternal-sun motif on a handkerchief for her younger brother.

  Pillows embroidered with swastikas and rising suns clustered on every available surface, and Frau Raubal laughed, saying Adolf often complained that elderly ladies wouldn’t stop making him hideous pillows he couldn’t throw away, so he sent them here, where at least he wouldn’t have to see them often.

  The room was crammed with cheap-looking sofas and spindly chairs, and tacky decorations, including a brass canary cage, a cactus, and a rubber plant. Ugly and provincial, so unlike Uncle Dolf’s old rented room and his current posh apartment that Gretchen couldn’t reconcile the three.

  While Geli and Elfriede pasted dried flowers in a book, Gretchen flipped through an old photograph album, studying the photos: Uncle Dolf as a baby, with thick, dark hair and round cheeks, his little feet encased in white booties, and then a school photo of Hitler at about ten, whip thin with a fall of hair pushed off his forehead, arms crossed, chin raised defiantly, the obvious leader in the back row.

  “That was taken during Adolf’s naughty days.” Frau Raubal nodded toward the picture. “What a little scamp he was! Not even his mother could make him listen to reason, sometimes. But she had one trick for him that always worked. When we were children and he refused to get out of bed, which he often did, mind you, she would tell me to wake up my baby brother with a kiss. And if he didn’t shoot out of bed at hearing those words!”

  They girls laughed politely, and the Raubal sisters went back to pasting their flowers. A wisp of smoke rose in Gretchen’s mind, so faint she couldn’t reach it. Naughtiness, and an unwillingness to be touched . . .

  She tried to sound casual. “How was he naughty?”

  “Oh my, where do I begin?” Frau Raubal patted her ample bosom, chuckling. In her broad cheeks and smiling mouth and dark hair, Gretchen tried to find the same features that might brand Frau Raubal and Uncle Dolf as half siblings. Something about the bone structure, perhaps, but the woman’s ordinary, good-natured appearance divided her from her younger brother.

  “He was a terrible hellion.” Affection warmed Frau Raubal’s words. “Quite the leader in all the village boys’ games, always dashing off to play cowboys and Indians and ripping and dirtying his clothes.

  “He did all manner of mischief—he stole pears from the neighbor’s orchard and was caught smoking, and at night, Adolf used to shoot rats in the nearby cemetery.”

  Gretchen tried to calm the rush of blood to her brain. The photo album slipped from her fingers, landing hard in her lap. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Rats,” said Frau Raubal, picking up her embroidery again. “Adolf liked to shoot at the foul little things. With a pellet gun, I believe. Oh, how he laughed!” She shrugged. “It caused his mother some distress, for she didn’t like the thought of anything being in pain. But Adolf always did what he wanted.”

  With unseeing eyes, Gretchen looked at the picture of ten-year-old Hitler, slender, pale-faced, arms crossed, head tilted arrogantly to the side. Adolf used to shoot rats. She fell back through the last eight years, to the day she, Mama, and Reinhard had visited Uncle Dolf in prison, where he awaited his trial.

  She had never been to Landsberg before; it lay nestled in a deep valley like a bird in a nest. Looming over the small village was the prison. The interconnecting series of grayish-white stone buildings looked like an ancient fortress and had been divided into two sections, one for ordinary criminals and one for political prisoners.

  Hitler had gone on a hunger strike, the prison doctor warned as he led them along the long corridors, and they would find their friend much changed.

  When they entered the cell, Hitler slowly turned from the barred window to stare at them. He had lost a great deal of weight, and his clothes hung loosely on his skinny frame. His eyes had sunken back into their sockets, and his skin was stretched so tightly across his cheekbones, it looked as though it might rip if he smiled.

  “My friends,” he said quietly, “it is very good of you to come.”

  Mama started crying. “Herr Hitler, you mustn’t go on in this way! You’ll die if you don’t eat!”

  “Perhaps it would be better,” he murmured as Gretchen came forward to be kissed. His lips felt cold and cracked against her cheek.

  She had imagined a stark cell and Uncle Dolf in prison coveralls and rations of bread and water. But Uncle Dolf wore his own suit, and she heard him say that he took his meals in the cafeteria with his imprisoned comrades, and every day they were permitted exercise outdoors in the prison courtyard.

  The cell was quite small, but it contained a pretty white iron bed. Sunshine poured through the barred window, sending slats of gold and shadows across the floor.

  “My goodness, Uncle Dolf, this is much nicer than your room on the Thierschstrasse,” she said.

  A stunned silence stretched until Uncle Dolf started laughing.

  “Come to me, my sunshine,” he said, and she went to him obediently and didn’t move as he tipped her face back so he could look into her eyes. He smiled. “Such a pretty girl, all sweetness and light. If only all the world could be like you, there would be no need of a man such as me. And I have become a joke, a laughingstock around the world. The newspapers say the putsch has ruined all my future chances.”

  “Your trial hasn’t started yet,” Mama said. She stepped forward, her gloved hands twisting anxiously. “There are many in Germany who are sympathetic to you, Herr Hitler.”

  A small crunching sound spun them around. Reinhard knelt on the floor. With his thumb, he was methodically crushing ants crawling in a line.

  “Stop that this instant!” Mama snapped. “Don’t you remember what the doctor said? You aren’t supposed to touch animals anymore—”

  Uncle Dolf interrupted with a dry, dusty chuckle. “He’s simply being a boy, Frau Müller.” And he smiled at Gretchen and Reinhard, patting their cheeks as he always did. “The future,” he murmured. “What do I care for adults when I have their children?”

  Now, eight years later, as fading afternoon sunshine filled the little parlor, Gretchen saw the first glimmers of light rimming the edges of the dark.

  At last, she understood. Franzl, the family cat that had gone missing the month before her father died, hadn’t run away. Her brother had killed him.

  Perhaps Reinhard had wanted to know what it felt like to snuff out a life. The reason hardly mattered now. But her father had recognized the danger in Reinhard. That must be why he had found another cat for her so quickly, so she wouldn’t figure out what had happened to the first one. That was why he circled Reinhard nervously, like a man confronting a wild beast.

  “Excuse me,” Gretchen murmured. “Some fresh air . . .”

  She walked out onto the terrace. Pine trees rose like black spears into the sky. Adolf used to shoot rats. And Reinhard had liked to kill animals, too, when he was a boy. . . . She remembered Herr Doktor Whitestone’s warning. The fox and the wolf, the twin souls.

  Sightlessly, she gripped the terrace railing. She had thought Reinhard and Hitler were nothing alike. But Herr Doktor Whitestone had said they were twisted reflections of each other. . . .

  The door slapped shut and Geli joined her at the railing.

  “Does your uncle like doctors?” Gretchen asked.

  “What? No, he hates them. But—”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Geli looked bewildered. “I suppose because he’s like most hypochondriacs. He always imagines he’s ill but dreads a doctor finding something truly is the matter with him. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Everything,” Gretchen said, and she saw the long hospital corridor as her father had described it in his letter—two doctors conferring in hurried whispers while her father stood nearby and a yo
ung Austrian corporal sobbed brokenly in his bunk. In her mind, she heard Herr Doktor Whitestone saying in his schoolboy German that one of the distinguishing characteristics of a psychopath was his childhood interest in torturing animals. She whirled to face Geli. “How soon can I get back to Munich?”

  Five minutes later, she was standing in the parlor, trying to convince Frau Raubal that she was having a perfectly lovely time but had remembered pressing business in Munich that would compel her to leave tonight, when a knock sounded on the door.

  “Who on earth can that be?” Frau Raubal asked. “We have so few visitors. . . .”

  She started walking toward the front hall, but Friedl came in, followed by Reinhard and Kurt.

  Both boys wore brownshirt uniforms. Reinhard caught her eye and grinned. He extended his arm in the National Socialist salute, saying “Heil Hitler!” to Frau Raubal.

  She didn’t return the salute. “If you’re looking for my brother, he isn’t here.”

  “No, Frau Raubal,” Reinhard said, “we have come to fetch my sister.” He flashed Gretchen one of his wide, careless grins. “Uncle Dolf is anxious to see you again.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  32

  THE BRAUNES HAUS WAS MOSTLY DARK WHEN Kurt’s automobile coasted to a stop along the Brienner Strasse; only the windows on the second story were lit. A shape paused before the glass, and Gretchen’s throat closed in panic. Hitler was waiting for her.

  What was he going to do to her, now that he must suspect her disloyalty? Reinhard and Kurt hadn’t spoken to her during the drive—they had talked to each other, laughing about some chorus girls they’d seen in a cabaret—but they must know, or else Hitler wouldn’t have sent for her.

  The two guards positioned outside the massive bronze doors were gone, no doubt dismissed for the night. From the back seat, Gretchen glanced up and down the avenue. A couple walking arm in arm, yards away, and a single car gliding past. No one she could run to before Reinhard would catch up with her.

  He opened the car door and grabbed her suitcase off the floor, grinning easily. “Mustn’t keep Uncle Dolf waiting. You know how impatient he gets.”

  She got out. Reinhard slung an arm across her shoulders, pulling her close. Kurt walked on her other side as they climbed the front steps.

  Inside, a lone adjutant was crossing the great hall when they entered. He barely glanced their way, but Kurt whispered, “Not a word,” and Gretchen nodded.

  She doubted she could have spoken. A band had encircled her chest, squeezing tighter and tighter until she could scarcely breathe. It took all of her concentration to mount the grand staircase without falling.

  Rudolf Hess stood when they entered Hitler’s anteroom. He had been reading through a sheaf of papers, which he now tucked into a manila folder and set on the desk. His deep-set eyes flickered over Gretchen, but his expression didn’t change from its habitually mournful one. “Thank you for fetching Fräulein Müller, gentlemen. The Führer is grateful for your prompt service. You’re dismissed for the night.”

  Somehow, Gretchen half-expected Reinhard to object—she had never heard him take orders from someone other than Hitler or Röhm before—but he saluted, dumped her suitcase on the floor, and spun on his heel, Kurt at his side. The door banged shut behind them. She glanced at the closed door to Hitler’s office. What was he waiting for?

  Hess gestured toward a chair. “Some tea, Fräulein Müller? Or do you prefer coffee?”

  “I . . . Tea, please.” She calculated the number of steps to the corridor. She could never make it. She sank into a chair and watched while Hess fetched a silver tray from a nearby table. Perhaps he was coddling her to lull her into a false sense of safety. “I don’t understand why I was summoned.”

  “The Führer had need of you.”

  Her hands shook as Hess handed her a white porcelain cup.

  “The Führer is lonely,” Hess went on, settling into a chair across from her. “It is not easy for a man in his position, with so much resting on his shoulders. You are a balm to his soul, Fräulein Müller; I have heard him say it many times.”

  Hope drifted like a plume of smoke through her chest. Maybe they knew nothing; maybe she was still safe. She shot a nervous glance at Hitler’s shut door. Why was he making her wait so long? Was it possible he had figured things out and was enjoying letting her dangle at the end of a long chain, twisting and turning until he finally snapped it?

  The office door swung open, a long shaft of lamplight falling into the dim anteroom. Hitler stood in the doorframe, feathered by the golden glow. Tonight he wore his usual plain brown uniform. His face was calm, his hair slicked back with brilliantine except for the front strands that flopped over his forehead and irritated him.

  “I thought I heard voices,” he said. “Did you enjoy your time in the mountains, my sunshine?”

  “Yes, I—I—” For God’s sake, say something normal before he suspects! “Yes, thank you, Herr Hitler. You have a beautiful home.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Herr Hitler, Gretchen? I thought we had moved beyond such formalities long ago.”

  “Uncle Dolf.” She forced the words out, and he smiled as he ushered her into the office. The door shut, leaving Hess alone in the anteroom. “Perhaps it’s no longer seemly for me to address you so casually. I am getting older now—”

  “Yes,” he interrupted. “I know.”

  Something in his tone made her look at him. He appeared as he always did: a half-starved face softened by the office’s lamplight, a slight figure starting to round at the waist, heavy-lidded eyes that fastened her in place when they focused on her, as they did now.

  “You are growing up, Gretchen.”

  There was no mistaking the measuring look in his gaze. She recognized the way his eyes swept up and down her body. Her face burned with embarrassment.

  “Herr Hitler—Uncle Dolf,” she corrected quickly, “I have known you for many years. Since I was a young child—”

  “Yes, yes,” he interrupted. “You shall keep me company tonight and distract me from my worries.” He led her to the red upholstered chairs lining the wall.

  What if this was all an elaborate trap? How he would enjoy toying with her, watching her wonder if he suspected the truth. The muscles in her arms tensed, ready to yank her hand free from his.

  She glanced at his chest. Through the brown jacket, she saw the unmistakable ridges of a cartridge belt. If he wanted to shoot her, he wouldn’t miss. He was one of the best marksmen in Munich. Her fingers, still wrapped in Hitler’s, convulsed.

  He squeezed hers back. Shock froze her in place. He thought she was flirting with him.

  There was almost a laugh in his voice when he said, “You have saved me from listening to Hess’s interminable complaints about his health. Once he was mein Rudi, mein Hessrl, but now spending time with the man is torture. Yet,” he went on, sounding almost shy, “I cannot bear solitude. I prefer the company of a pretty woman over a thousand men, but . . .”

  He lifted his free hand helplessly. “A man in my position cannot choose the little pleasures that make life bearable. I must think only of the good of the Fatherland.”

  Hitler’s knee brushed hers, but for once he didn’t spring back as though the unexpected contact repulsed him. He began to talk, a steady stream of words that widened and deepened to a river. The upcoming presidential elections; the campaign trip throughout Bavaria he would commence in a few days with Hess and Hoffmann; filthy Communist swine; beloved president Paul von Hindenburg who was slowly turning to dust and would surely die before the year was out; and the tremendous burden that lay on his, Adolf Hitler’s, shoulders, for he had such a mighty task ahead of him to right all the wrongs . . .

  “Do you see why I summoned you tonight?” he asked suddenly. His eyes met hers with such force that she nearly lost her breath. The br
ight blue reminded her of snapping live electrical wires, downed in a storm, sizzling in the darkness. “In the midst of all this, I find I am alone, quite alone. A yawning chasm seems to greet me at the end of the day, and the only thing that draws it closed is the company of a pretty young girl.”

  It was clear what was expected of her. Unconsciously, she had been filling this role for Hitler for years, and she saw that now—the giggling, cheerful child who had demanded nothing more from him than an occasional kindness, indulgent smiles, presents of chocolates at Christmas, cheap jewelry at birthdays, praise over her school marks. Easy and meaningless.

  His fingers slipped from hers. He wiped his hand on his jacket, as though scrubbing away her touch. Thank God. Maybe he had grown tired of her company and would send her back to the boardinghouse.

  But he leaned so close, she saw the tiny flakes of dandruff dusting his shoulders. “Cheer me with your chatter, my child.”

  “Your home on the Obersalzburg is so lovely,” she began haltingly, and he nodded eagerly, encouraging her to go on. She prattled about the beautiful mountains and the long hikes and his sister’s delicious cooking, and underneath the chatter, she heard the steady ticking of the desk clock.

  Her mind worked furiously. Herr Doktor Whitestone had been wrong. Hitler and Reinhard were not alike. Reinhard could never comprehend loneliness, and Hitler seemed to ache from it.

  Bewilderment caused her to stumble over her words and drop the string of what she had been saying, but Uncle Dolf reminded her gently about Charlemagne sleeping within the mountain, and she went on, talking about the snow that never melted. About the cold that never disappeared into warmth, so the ice and snow always remained.

  Herr Doktor Whitestone had said psychopaths could not experience loneliness, because they could not feel love or yearn for companionship. Was it possible he had been so deeply mistaken about Hitler? Or did Uncle Dolf have a new kind of mental disease, one that doctors hadn’t encountered before?

  Hitler rose, and she stopped in mid-sentence, afraid she had somehow angered him. She stood, too, mentally counting the steps to the door. Sixteen. She could make it, but she might not get past Hess.