She might never again have the chance to talk to him. She slipped out of the room after Frau Reichert while Uncle Dolf and Reinhard chuckled together.
“Frau Reichert,” she said quietly, “may I speak to Herr Amann for a moment?”
The housekeeper raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment. “Of course.” She gestured to the telephone receiver lying on its side on the hallway table, then retreated toward the servants’ quarters on the other end of the apartment.
Gretchen snatched up the receiver. “Herr Amann? This is Fräulein Müller.”
“Yes?” The voice sounded weak.
She listened to the chatter from the parlor. Still talking and laughing. But Reinhard might come out at any second. She’d have to be quick. “Herr Hitler wants you to rest and not worry about the accounts right now,” she said in a rush. “I beg your pardon for bothering you at such a difficult time, but—” God, she couldn’t think of an excuse to ask the question! “—I was wondering if you drove with my father to the beer hall on the night of the putsch.”
“Yes.” The word came out as a sigh. She pictured him lying in bed, propped up on pillows, his shoulder and what remained of his left arm wrapped in bandages. She shouldn’t burden him now, and yet she had to ask.
“Your father made a tremendous sacrifice.” Amann sounded stronger, as if he had caught his breath.
A floorboard creaked. Gretchen whirled around. The hallway was still empty. But someone was coming.
“My poor papa.” She tried to sound tearful. If Amann was anything like the other SA fellows she knew, her tears would make him so uncomfortable, he would eagerly answers any questions just to get her to stop crying. “I understand the auto ride was upsetting for him.”
“He kept cautioning the Führer not to let his nerves get overwrought again,” Amann snapped. “We were all so sick of him yammering on that I’m not sure who first told him to shut his mouth.” He hesitated. “No mind. That time is best buried.”
Reinhard stepped into the hall. He glanced at Gretchen, his eyes questioning. Had he heard anything? Surely not or he’d already be asking her what the conversation was about.
“I hope you feel well soon,” Gretchen said hurriedly, and hung up. The smile she plastered on her lips probably looked ghastly. “I wished to give Herr Amann my wishes for a quick recovery,” she said to Reinhard.
He shrugged and ruffled her hair as he passed. It took all of her strength not to wince. She didn’t watch him leave but traced the sound of his whistling down the hallway and out the apartment door, when it abruptly faded. Whistling. A couple of hours after he had killed a man.
She steeled herself and walked back to the parlor to thank Uncle Dolf and Geli for the lovely dinner.
Later, on the streetcar ride home, she watched the buildings crawl past, trying not to see her reflection in the window, milk-pale and frightened. Trying not to remember Reinhard raising the pistol and firing, his face unchanging as the bullet bit into the man’s chest. Trying not to think about Papa’s comrades yelling at him, when he had only been attempting to soothe Hitler. Trying not to ask the questions torturing her mind.
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30
ALL THROUGH THE NEXT DAY, GRETCHEN thought about the papers under the floorboard in Reinhard’s room. Clippings from the Munich Post and the index card she hadn’t had the chance to read. What other secrets did her brother have?
But Mama kept her busy—Mass in the morning, then endless chores in the afternoon: scrubbing the bathtubs, beating the carpets, hanging laundry on the lines between the walnut trees in the courtyard. It wasn’t until the next night, after supper was over and Reinhard had ambled out, calling over his shoulder something about a beer hall with the fellows, that Gretchen saw her opportunity. She crept up the stairs.
She fitted a hairpin into his door lock. A few careful twists and she was inside. The room seemed unchanged: a blank canvas instead of a proper bedchamber, the only clue to its resident’s personality an SA uniform hanging in the open armoire, its shirt damp from a recent sponge cleaning.
The floorboard lifted easily. Below lay the stack of newspaper clippings and the index card. The articles stretched back nearly two months in time, the first dated 22 June 1931. She flipped through them rapidly. All came from the Munich Post.
What possible reason could her brother have for cutting out stories from the newspaper Hitler hated most in the world? Reinhard certainly didn’t read it.
Each clipping showed an ever-higher number in bold, black print. Someone, presumably Reinhard, had circled the numbers in red ink and written, Work of Cell G.
She’d never heard of Cell G, but she knew what those numbers meant. They were called “the murder column.” The figure, printed in every Post issue, was the running total of all of the murders unofficially credited to the National Socialist Party.
Carefully, she tidied the clippings and laid them down. Filthy propaganda, Uncle Dolf had said to her so many times, false numbers, the poisonous lies of poisoned minds. These murdered men might be the NSDAP’s political opponents, but their deaths had nothing to do with him. They were beaten in beer hall brawls, stabbed outside bars, shot in alleys, unfortunate victims of street violence.
She knew better now.
Names written in Reinhard’s quick, left-leaning script covered the index card. Each name had been crossed through with a black line. The last read, Dieter Adler Bogenhausen Munich 12 September.
Two days ago, and the location where Reinhard and Kurt had shot that poor man. Nerves prickled the back of her neck. She was looking at a death list.
As she fitted the floorboard in place, memories flashed through her mind. Kurt and an older SA man in the Senators’ Chamber saying Reinhard had been approached and had accepted, and would give them no trouble, for he had ice in his veins. Reinhard declaring he had important work for the Party. Leaving for an overnight trip, not telling where he was going or why.
Even though the air was warm, she shivered as though she stood in a rainstorm. A death squad, organized and run by SA men, operated in accordance with Hitler’s wishes. He must know. She had heard him make the same boast so many times: Nothing happens in the Party without my knowledge. Even more, nothing happens without my wish.
She closed Reinhard’s door with trembling hands. With her hairpin, she jiggled the lock back into place. Half past nine. Daniel might be home by now. She crept downstairs, slowly so she could skip the stairs that creaked.
By the time she reached the street, she was running.
Stars lay scattered across the sky like a handful of coins. Beneath their soft glow, Gretchen and Daniel sat on the straw mat he had unrolled on his apartment terrace’s cold stone floor.
“I didn’t want you to learn about Cell G in this way,” Daniel said at last. “It must have been an awful shock.”
The street below was dark and empty. She stared at it with dull, dry eyes.
“How long have you known?” she asked.
“About a week.” His tone was apologetic. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. My editor, Martin Gruber, swore me to silence, and it wasn’t my secret to tell. We’ve got a source within the SA who’s been slowly feeding us information. Once we’ve verified everything, we’ll break the story.” He took her hand, turning it over, tracing the lines in her palm. “I had no idea your brother was involved. Perhaps I should have suspected.”
She bowed her head. Suddenly, it felt too heavy for her neck to support. “I’m sure Reinhard has been an ideal recruit. They can turn him into a killing machine with scarcely any effort.”
Her brother, who had played jacks with her on the pavement when they were children. Who had stolen peppermint sticks from the corner druggist’s and given her half—when their father’s pay hadn’t bought enough bread to last the week. Who had lain beside her on the divan they s
hared as a bed, silent, unmoving but awake, after one of Papa’s beatings.
Her throat tightened. Who had ripped apart her paper dolls after she beat him at jacks. Who had insisted she write out his mathematics homework in payment for the peppermints. Who had said she should shut her mouth when she asked if he needed bandages or salve.
How desperately she had wanted to love him. And how long she had wondered if something was wrong with her because she couldn’t.
Daniel’s lips brushed her temple. “Gretchen, you should stay here. You shouldn’t go back to the boardinghouse.”
When she shook her head, he said, “You’re living with an assassin. He has already beaten you with barely any provocation. Imagine what he would do if he knew that you’ve come to me tonight with this information.”
“I know.” She leaned against his comforting warmth. “But you said it will take some time for you and the other reporters to substantiate the story about Cell G before you can print it. And I must learn what happened to my father. I can’t live with these lies any longer.
“I leave for Herr Hitler’s mountain home with Geli in the morning. I believe—I hope—I can learn more about Hitler from his sister, who is the housekeeper there. Hitler’s secrets are buried in the past, and if I can find out what happened in that hospital, I will be closer to knowing what happened to my father.” When he said nothing, she went on, “You must see that I have to do this. There is no other way. Not for me.”
For a moment, he stayed silent.
“I know,” he said at last, and because he did, because he understood her as no one else ever had, Gretchen leaned forward and kissed him.
Her heart raced. Never had she been so bold. Her mother’s admonition ran through her head—once a girl’s reputation is tarnished, it is tarnished forever—but she threw the warning aside, and let Daniel’s arms come around her back and gently guide her down to the straw mat.
She lay beside him in the silver-lined darkness, feeling his lips touch her cheeks, her eyes, her throat, tasting the warm saltiness of his mouth. When he drew back, her eyes snapped open. His face hovered above hers. Even in the dimness, he looked shaken. As though they had done far more than he intended. Then he grinned ruefully.
“I’d best get you back to the boardinghouse,” he said. He stood up, extending a hand to help her to her feet. “While you’re out of town, I’ll try to track down the doctor who treated your father and Hitler during the war. In the letter, your father said he was a consultant from Berlin, so perhaps I’ll locate him there.”
Gently, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t think I told you how much I like your haircut.”
She tried to conceal her sudden shyness under a flippant tone. “Thanks. I look quite different, don’t I?”
“No.” He rolled up the mat. “You look like yourself.”
For an instant, she stared at the top of his dark head, at his shoulders moving as he wound a tie around the mat. If he had written her reams of poetry, he couldn’t have said anything more beautiful.
When they reached the street, they didn’t speak, walking along in easy silence, hands clasped. On the streetcar, they stood next to each other, smiling, ignoring the drunks clustered at the back. At the Königinstrasse, Daniel walked several paces behind, in case her brother or the boarders happened to see them.
As she unlocked the front door, she felt his gaze, and she turned to find his lone figure, a familiar shadow, standing across the avenue, near the garden entrance. She waved a hand in farewell and went inside, hurrying to her bedroom so she could watch him walk back alone in the direction from which he had come.
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PART FOUR
THE INFERNAL MACHINE
The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
—Adolf Hitler, MEIN KAMPF
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31
THE HAUS WACHENFELD STOOD AMONG THE rolling green mountains, a modest-sized rustic villa of dark wood and plate glass windows. Somehow, it wasn’t what Gretchen had expected, although she didn’t know what she had thought she would see: a country home as spartan and bare as Hitler’s old room on the Thierschstrasse, perhaps, or a mansion as stunning and luxurious as his apartment on the Prinzregentenplatz.
But this pleasant and plain house rested between the two extremes of his Munich homes—a middle-class mountain retreat whose bourgeois appearance seemed strange for the leader of a workingmen’s party. The house wasn’t large, his elder half sister, Frau Raubal, had said apologetically as she led Gretchen and Geli to the chamber they would share, but to Gretchen, who was accustomed to a cramped boardinghouse, the place seemed sizable, with a dining room, a parlor, and three bedrooms.
After unpacking and having tea, Gretchen followed Geli and her little sister Elfriede on a hike in the direction of Berchtesgaden, the nearest village. Dirt tracks meandered down the mountains into the valleys below, where the buildings of brick, beige, and gray lay scattered about like toys that a child had tossed down in a fit of pique.
As far as Gretchen could see, the mountains undulated on and on. Some of the peaks were already covered with snow, and as she watched, they seemed to disappear behind a patch of sunset-tinted clouds. Seconds later, they emerged again.
“The magic mountains,” Geli said. “Because of the high altitude, the snow there never melts.”
By squinting hard, Gretchen could make out the jagged shape of the Untersberg. Sunlight glittered on its snow-capped peak. According to legend, Emperor Charlemagne still slept inside the mountain, and one day he would rise again to restore the old glory of the German Empire. Uncle Dolf always said it was no coincidence his country home stood opposite it.
Long grasses whispered against the girls’ legs as they wandered off the path to pick wildflowers for the dinner table. From the corner of her eye, Gretchen watched the Raubal sisters, both tall, dark-haired, round-faced, chattering in their Linz accents. In the spring, Friedl was saying, the flowers were so plentiful—primroses, bluebells, yellow-eyed daisies, pink clover. But now, in the autumn, there were few blooms on the ground. Gretchen picked Bavarian blue fairy thimbles, thinking.
So often she had heard Uncle Dolf say how much he longed to live among the mountains and clouds forever. Someday, when his work was finally done, he planned on retiring to Haus Wachenfeld.
Her gaze swept down the grassy mountain to the valleys, then back up to the dark wooden house. Harsh autumnal sunlight flashed off its plate glass windows. Spare and simple, the house reminded her of an owl perched in a tree, studying the forest for prey, or a king settled on a throne, surveying the kingdom spread out below him. Removed and remote, for the house’s isolation separated its occupants from the rest of the world. Apart from the villages below and the farms dotting the mountain. Alone. Like Uncle Dolf.
As they ambled along the dirt trail, Gretchen asked about Hitler’s childhood, but nothing Geli or Friedl said told her much. Crowded rooms, sickly babies, a distant and rigid father, a meek and subservient mother, frequent moves because of his father Alois’s job as a customs official. None of the poisonous ingredients Whitestone had led her to expect.
She wished Daniel were with her. Maybe he would catch a crucial detail she had missed. Later, as she lay in the spare room beside Geli, listening to her friend’s shallow breathing, she watched moonlight pushing through the curtains and filled her mind with him.
What would he think of this bourgeois mountain retreat? She pictured his dark eyes, intent and focused, as they swept over the kitsch-filled parlor, and his mouth, curling in derision, as he peered through the windows at the valleys so far below. Playing the part of the genial country
host, now, is he? she could hear him say, and her dry eyes ached. How clearly he saw things. And how long it had taken her to see anything but shadows. Shame weighed her down, until finally she closed her eyes and escaped into sleep.
The next morning, Frau Raubal taught them how to make one of Hitler’s favorite Austrian desserts, poppy seed strudel. As she punched the dough, she explained she had learned to be a good cook when her husband died young and she’d found work in a Jewish students’ hostel, in the kitchen.
“Adolf was living in Vienna with a boyhood friend.” Frau Raubal rolled the dough on the counter until the pastry was paper thin. Gretchen’s dough tore as she tried rolling it out, and she formed it into a ball again. “But he came back when his mother—my stepmother—was dying from cancer of the breast. He cared for her like a good son. He moved her into the kitchen, since that was the only room they could afford to heat. He prepared her food, scolded our little sister Paula over her poor marks. He was eighteen when she died, making us all orphans, for our father was already gone. The doctor—Doktor Bloch, a Jew but still a very good doctor—said he had never seen anyone so prostrate with grief as my little brother. Then Adolf returned to Vienna, to apply for the second time to the Academy of Fine Arts.”
There his life faded to a sheet of white until he volunteered for the Germany army when war was declared. Sometime during that period he had moved to Munich, the place he called the city of his heart. Gretchen reached for the rolling pin. Seven years of nothing, carefully hidden. She pressed the pin into the dough, flattening it.