Mister Wolf

by Chris Petit

  Herr Wolf complained that he had no one else who would just listen. Everyone looked to him instead. The relationship with Röhm was breaking up.

  Not long after they met, Anton became mildly obsessed on Herr Wolf’s behalf with the case of Therese Neumann, a local farm girl who took to her bed paralysed and went into an ecstatic trance. Visions included Jesus on the Cross. Neumann’s hands and feet wept Jesus’s blood, as did her side and even her eyes: the tears of Christ indeed. She received visitations from the Blessed Virgin, purveyor of dire warnings about the state of things. Neumann declared her only nourishment was Eucharistic wafers. Fed by the body of Christ!

  Neumann became a celebrated event, even among men who should have known better – including Fredi Huber. With Fredi it was sometimes difficult to tell how much he bought into the story rather than merely reporting it, but he was superstitious, and susceptible, being Bavarian and Roman Catholic and living too close to the dark forests of wild imagination.

  The ostensible reason for his interest was a political dimension to Neumann’s utterances: warnings that could have been written by a press office for the Roman Catholic Church trembling before godless Communism and the devil’s disciples. Deep sceptics came to Neumann’s bed and departed converted. Grown men left bathed in their own tears of forgiveness.

  Herr Wolf was interested in Neumann as a crowd puller and asked Anton if he should visit. He considered her his antithesis and wanted to know, ‘How does she do it, the business with the blood?’ ‘Vials probably.’ ‘Real blood or fake blood?’ ‘They live on a farm. The parents are probably in on it too.’ ‘We are both spoken through. My blood is the symbolic blood of racial purity, not some cheap trick. We are not fooling anyone into believing.’

  Herr Wolf asked Anton to attend on his behalf and report back. Anton duly made the journey and found an austere, cell-like room with wooden shutters and whitewashed walls, full of the pervasive and honest stench of country cattle dung.

  The visits were supervised by the parents. A crowd of fifteen or so was waiting that day. The mother made a show of humility, fingering her rosary beads. Her rough husband, hat clutched in both hands, announced that their daughter was ‘resting’ and no one should communicate with or disturb her. Three at a time, they were told, and no more than two minutes; all donations gratefully received afterwards. Anton Schlegel suspected the husband and wife operated a canny double act, which of an evening saw them sitting around with their feet up, counting their coins and joking about it. When Anton Schlegel’s turn came he shuffled in with a bent-double crone in black and a fidgety girl of maybe seventeen.

  Surrounded by religious accoutrements – holy water, crucifix, rosaries and tallow candles – a pale young woman lay abed, spectral in the wax white of her complexion, sculpted lids over closed eyes and only the slightest rise and fall of bedcovers to say she was alive.

  The crone and the young woman fell to their knees, babbling silently.

  Anton loitered after the wife came to say time was up. He listened to coins being dropped into a brass bowl by the departing visitors.

  Perhaps thinking she was alone Neumann woke and blinked in surprise to find Anton staring back. They viewed each other for an eternal second with naked eyes. The woman closed hers, and sighed in contentment, relieved perhaps to have been seen through by such another perfect dissembler.

  Anton left without tipping, and reported to Herr Wolf that the parents might as well open a restaurant as part of the business. The fleece of the Lamb of God against fleecing the lambs. What was the difference?

  *

  Anton was reminded of the Neumann visitation some months after Geli Raubal’s death, on the last occasion that he and Herr Wolf met socially. It was early in 1932, the location a beer garden, on the first day of the year that it was warm enough to sit out. While waiting for his habitually late companion Anton passed the time reading newspapers, including a book review about Genghis Khan, which casually wrote off the millions of deaths for which the warlord was responsible as meaningless within the larger context of historical progress. Herr Wolf, when shown the review, devoured it rapaciously and laid the newspaper aside with a dreamy look while Anton thought to himself: On such moments history turns.

  The niece was never mentioned between them.

  Hoffmann was always telling an extravagant story of a secret nocturnal drive to visit her grave immediately after the funeral, and how on returning to the car the Führer’s voice was restored, as if he had received a message sent by her from beyond, instructing him to proceed with his mission, for he immediately said, ‘So now let the struggle begin, which must and shall be crowned with success.’

  What tosh Hoffmann talked, thought Anton. Hoffmann’s pretty secretary was, by the by, now ensconced as Herr Wolf’s latest little secret. No danger of anything getting out of hand there.

  With the whole sad business of Geli Raubal, Anton looked back at his own role as arbiter of what at first had been a diverting and unlikely experiment in romantic Gothic – the monster ambushed by love – until the night of Herr Wolf’s drunken call when for the first time Anton saw him for what he might become: the beast unleashed.

  Anton Schlegel had been the unannounced presence in Herr Wolf’s reception room during the early hours of Friday, 18 September, noted by Hoffmann. Anton was the first to be summoned by a hysterical Herr Wolf shouting down the telephone that his niece had been attacked by an intruder. He arrived to be met by the astonishing sight of the virtually teetotal Herr Wolf staggering around blind drunk, hissing, ‘A Jew has killed her!’

  Anton checked. Not dead. A pulse. Unconscious and badly beaten.

  Herr Wolf seemed scarcely to comprehend, repeating only that the girl must have forgotten to lock the front door. She was the one with the keys as he didn’t bother himself with such minor inconveniences. Anton called in Bormann, who had the Party connections.

  Anton did not share with Bormann what his immediate thoughts had been upon being confronted by such a wildly deranged Herr Wolf. He told himself: First, the decadent scene, with which the Party and you are too closely associated, must be jettisoned and transcended. The vociferous opposition of the press must be tamed, after being drawn. A scandal must be provoked followed by what public relations companies call an image makeover.

  He addressed the pathetic, collapsed man: ‘Herr Wolf, the risks are huge but they can be overcome and you will become unstoppable. The opposition will be exposed and can be disposed of when the time comes. It will be like lancing a boil.’

  Herr Wolf looked up at him with crazed eyes. Nevertheless, Anton Schlegel suspected that in one of the darker recesses of the man’s mind he understood perfectly what was being said.

  Time for the Party to clean up its act.

  Standing there in the chaos of that night, it was blindingly clear to Anton Schlegel that a sacrifice was needed and what that sacrifice had to be.

  Betrayal is such an exquisite thing.

  *

  In the storm-tossed days that followed, everyone agreed it was a tragedy with the girl gone so young. Anton saw how they were all compelled to share in her death, claiming it for themselves as though she were the sacrificial victim. The tight clique surrounding Herr Wolf reflected the wider feeding frenzy, partaking in private ceremonies that Anton came to regard as acts of symbolic cannibalism. But of greatest significance was the calculated effect of Herr Wolf’s grief. For all the man’s devastation and suicidal state, Anton watched him coming to realise that the tragedy gave him the one element previously missing.

  Depth.

  Anton understood what the rest were too busy scurrying to realise: how their glorious leader needed to love, be loved and rendered loveless. The mysteries surrounding the death were irrelevant beyond the fact of her being gone: the casting asunder of Geli was the last piece in the making of Herr Wolf. Love lost forged the alchemical solution and little more than a year later he was in power.

  Without her, it would not have b
een the same.

  THE BERGHOF

  43

  The first race was already under way. Breezy weather, fluffy white clouds and a huge cheering crowd pressed against the rails as horses with improbable names flashed past, thundering hooves, churning turf, the going soft after the rain, the blur of jockeys in their bright silks jostling for an edge, using their whips to thrash their mounts on, the tinny report of the race’s progress coming over loudspeakers with the commentator tripping over his words to keep up, two horses breaking for the lead, snorting breath, riders high in the saddle, taking hold and positioning themselves lower over the horse until their heads were level with those of their mounts as they rounded the final turn, ground shaking from the deafening hooves until they merged with the roar of the crowd. The two leading horses crossed the line neck and neck – photo finish! – and the jockeys loosened their reins and stood relaxed in the saddle to slow their mounts, and look back exhilarated at the rest of the straggling pack of already forgotten also-rans.

  *

  Schlegel watched in a daze. He had been taken there by a man who introduced himself as Thomas Huber, Anna’s brother, fetching him from the archive as though that were perfectly normal and driving them out to the racetrack at Reim in the eastern suburbs. Huber, unlike his sister, was an ordinary sort, who offered a damp handshake; once fit but muscle turning to fat, the chin starting to double. He wore a cheap suit with what looked like an expensive hat. Schlegel supposed him about thirty.

  He stared out of the window, wondering what to expect.

  *

  The letter. Being told the unadorned truth for once, which was what he had always thought he wanted, he now wished had not happened. He was annulled, like a dead man walking through lank space.

  *

  Schlegel was taken by Thomas Huber to the winners’ enclosure where the strangest party awaited. Morgen and Anna Huber, with her aggressive new haircut. Hermann Fegelein surrounded by a crowd of sycophants. He was the owner of the winning horse. ‘By a whisker!’ he crowed. The Braun woman was there dressed to the nines. A man with a pencil moustache nodded at Thomas Huber and Schlegel found himself looking at an older version of the young man in Hoffmann’s photograph, his father’s apparent assassin, Emil Maurice. For all that, it was like any day out: bright convivial chatter, an aimlessness. Stand around and no one pays you much attention. Schlegel made for Morgen, who asked where on earth he had been.

  He said, ‘Unavoidably detained,’ and left it at that.

  Anna Huber was staring. Schlegel said, ‘I see you made it.’ He thought Morgen looked captivated by the woman.

  ‘We need to talk,’ he said to Morgen.

  ‘We’re here to enjoy ourselves,’ Huber announced, like it was one of those deadly polite parties where everything was kept horribly light and everyone was on their way to getting smashed.

  He looked around for some sign of the man in the powder blue suit. Perhaps he didn’t make public appearances. The rigmarole of the previous night suggested someone in hiding and perhaps forced to use go-betweens.

  Morgen and Huber were drinking a sparkling wine. Schlegel asked if Morgen was anyone’s guest in particular. Morgen said, ‘It was her idea.’

  ‘How did you find each other?’ Schlegel asked but before they could answer Thomas Huber arrived carrying two bottles of beer, one of which he gave to Schlegel. Anna Huber pointed out Fegelein’s wife, a darker, plainer, less showy version of her sister, Fräulein Braun, and equally well turned out. Huber dismissed Fräulein Braun as a fake blonde, and seemed sour about the sister. Schlegel watched Fegelein flirt with Fräulein Eva. Both were in a gay mood showing off by coming together for a quick mock waltz with their drinks still in their hands, in celebration of Fegelein’s win. Schlegel suspected Anna Huber had her claws into Morgen. He steeled himself to approach Fegelein, thinking how since Anton Schlegel’s letter everything had become less readable.

  Fegelein looked about to give him the cold shoulder then introduced his wife, who immediately turned to someone else.

  Schlegel said, ‘I am looking for a strange-looking man who last time I saw him was wearing a bright blue suit. He didn’t tell me his name.’

  Fegelein looked at him in surprise. ‘You must mean Toni Tieck.’

  ‘If that’s his name.’

  ‘Then you have met already?’ Fegelein asked sharply.

  ‘Not intentionally,’ said Schlegel.

  Fegelein, with a look of supercilious concern, asked, ‘Knowing that the man is your father?’

  Schlegel rocked back, thinking Fegelein had to be lying. He could see nothing of himself in Tieck.

  Fegelein gave him a look of mock concern as it dawned on him that Schlegel hadn’t known. ‘Sorry if I spoke out of turn.’ He sounded anything but apologetic.

  Fegelein was the last man Schlegel wanted to be told by, and he could see Fegelein knew that.

  ‘Didn’t mean to spoil your day,’ Fegelein said casually. ‘Anton and I go back years, or Toni as he calls himself now.’

  Toni Tieck. Anton Schlegel. Ha-ha, Schlegel thought, seeing the joke, Tieck and Schlegel being joint translators of Shakespeare. The man was hiding in plain sight.

  ‘What are you and he cooking up?’ Fegelein asked in a conspiratorial tone. ‘Was it he who sent you here?’

  ‘I am supposed to be contacted,’ Schlegel offered, to see if Fegelein reacted.

  ‘What are you doing later?’ Fegelein asked instead.

  ‘Going to Nuremberg apparently.’

  ‘You don’t want to do that.’

  Was it a veiled threat? Schlegel couldn’t tell.

  ‘Come back with us to the Berghof. We can sort everything out there.’

  Fegelein stood looking pleased with himself, as though all was now in order. ‘You really didn’t know about Tieck?’ Schlegel still wasn’t sure if it was a joke against him. For the life of him, he could not square his vision of the poised, rather cruel letter writer with the vulgar Michelin Man he had met.

  Fegelein gave Schlegel an insincere pat on the shoulder. ‘I can see I have left you with a lot on your plate. Must dash. More anon at the Berghof.’

  Schlegel was sure that the apparently casual revelation had been deliberate malice and felt like socking the man.

  There was more cheering as the horses passed the post.

  Fegelein looked at his watch. ‘Must dash. I have another horse in the next race.’

  Schlegel scanned the crowd in vain search of Tieck, with no idea of what he would say to him. There was a viewing stand, bars in tents, food stalls, blared announcements on loudspeakers, paddocks, enclosures, and a separate glazed viewing area for important guests. He saw Emil Maurice up in the VIP area, standing by the window with a group and making expansive gestures. The air was heavy with the smell of cooking oil and bad food frying, interspersed with the whiff of horse dung. Schlegel passed the shiny black boots of jockeys nonchalantly riding to the winners’ enclosure, their horses lathered in sweat, and he wondered if a horse actually knew if it had won a race.

  The crowd was drunk to the point of fights breaking out. Litter lay every where. Pickpockets were at work. A woman cried out that she had just lost her purse. The sun beat down, as indifferent as the grass, which would have the place back to itself tomorrow.

  Thomas Huber was talking to his sister, apparently handing her something, but too far away for Schlegel to see what. Thinking they might have something to do with Tieck’s business, he went over but they offered only bright, anodyne conversation, looking rather furtive about it while agreeing that they were getting pleasantly drunk. Anna had a race card and said she had already picked a winner at 33–1.

  Schlegel asked if either of them had seen Tieck. Anna Huber gave what he took for a warning look, which stopped him from asking if she knew that Tieck was really Anton Schlegel. He still couldn’t believe it. It was Anna Huber and her brother who had first raised the possibility of Anton Schlegel still being alive. He left them to it
after deciding neither was to be trusted.

  He wandered around and considered making himself scarce until the meeting ended and sneaking onto a coach going to Nuremberg and lying low for a while. Curiosity got the better of him when he spotted Morgen standing alone. He went over and gave him gave a hurried explanation about Tieck, not mentioning Anton Schlegel.

  ‘I think Tieck is behind the Hitler confession,’ he said, ‘which I am now supposed to give to Bormann.’

  ‘Then you have it?’ Morgen was apparently not surprised by this news, leaving Schlegel to wonder as usual exactly who could be trusted.

  ‘No, but Fegelein seems to be under the impression I do.’

  ‘Fegelein told me he is interested in it too.’

  ‘Who isn’t?’ Schlegel asked sarcastically. ‘Does your authority extend to access to the Berghof?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Fegelein insists I go there with him. Tieck, on the other hand wants me to go to Nuremberg with a document I don’t have and take a train from there.’

  ‘Go to the Berghof,’ said Morgen, ‘and I will come with you.’

  Schlegel looked up towards the glazed stand. Maurice and his gang appeared wildly drunk. Then he spotted Tieck, alone in the opposite corner, not immediately recognisable, being dressed in top hat and tails, leaning on his stick, which was what gave him away, and surveying all below in a godlike manner.

  Schlegel told Morgen to wait and went up into the stand, shoving his way through the raucous crowd. Two SS guards on the door announced that entry was by permission only and tried to stop him until Schlegel shoved his badge in their faces. He saw the guests inside all wore special rosettes that gained them admission to the stand. Most were whooping drunk.