Siegfried Page 15

  Had I heard correctly? Was Adolf Hitler going to marry me? Surely that couldn’t be true? I had been waiting for those words all my life! My heart leaped. I sat up with a jerk and, crying with happiness, embraced him. While I was kissing him, there was a knock, and I stood up in alarm, as I had done for all those years—but it wasn’t really necessary anymore: in a little while the whole world would finally know who I was! Linge reported that Colonel General Ritter von Greim was awaiting instructions, whereupon my fiancé, helped by the two of us, stood up with a groan.

  While I quickly combed his hair, he said, “Everyone will wonder for centuries why I’m doing this, but only you will know.”

  I immediately went to get changed. I should have most liked to get married in white, but I haven’t anything of the kind here in my wardrobe; instead I put on Adi’s favorite black silk dress with the roses, and with it the loveliest jewelry I had been given by him: the gold bracelet with the tourmalines, my watch with brilliants, the topaz necklace, and the brilliant hairpin. I still have them all on—and I know that I shall never take them off.

  Goebbels had meanwhile had an official located with powers to solemnize our marriage.

  “His name is Wagner,” said Goebbels with shining eyes as I went to the map room on his arm at two in the morning. “What do you say to that? Wagner—here in this Twilight of the Gods! The Führer still has magical power over reality.”

  He and a surly-looking Bormann were our witnesses. Apart from that there were a few generals; Magda, constantly casting jealous looks at me; the ladies from the secretariat; and Constanze Marzialy, who will shortly cook our farewell meal: spaghetti with tomato sauce. Wagner was in the uniform of the Home Guard, and when I had to confirm that I was of pure Aryan descent, I realized that Adi had wanted to hear that “Yes” from my own mouth. But he cannot have been as happy as when I heard his “Yes” in reply to the question of whether he took me as his lawful, wedded wife—those three letters, that short sound, which for me meant heaven on earth. When I signed the certificate after him on the map table, by the trembling index finger of Wagner, I saw that a large cross had been drawn in red pencil across the map of Berlin. This is the last thing that I shall write. There is already street fighting in the Wilhelmstrasse; the Russians may appear in the bunker at any time. My husband has dictated his will and on top of everything had to endure the report of Mussolini’s end: shot by partisans and hung upside down from a gasoline pump with his girlfriend, Clara Petacci. “Just like St. Peter,” said Goebbels with the cynical humor on which he has the patent. That is exactly what must not happen to us, and my husband has had gasoline delivered to burn our bodies in a little while.

  In the corridor Magda’s children are running about making a terrible din, but no one says anything, for their fate is also sealed. I am reminded of Siggi but try to suppress the thought that I owe my happiness to his death.

  Half an hour ago my husband had Blondi poisoned by Tornow. He no longer trusted the cyanide capsules that he had been given by Himmler and which are intended for me. She died immediately; silently, without emotion, he looked at his favorite animal for a moment and turned away. Ten minutes ago Tornow suddenly appeared in my room, with his Schlumpi under his arm, who started wagging his tail when he saw me. With tears in his eyes, he said that he had had to take Blondi into the garden and on my husband’s orders had to shoot her five puppies, including little Wolfie, as they hunted for the teats of their dead mother. I did not understand what he had come for, whereupon he stared silently at Stasi and Negus, who were sitting next to each other on the bed.

  “It’s not true!” I cried. “Surely the Russians can have them!” I went numb and looked at his dachshund, a chocolate-colored sweetie with a brown nose. He started crying and without a word disappeared with the three dogs. Fortunately I cannot hear the shots. When he comes back, I shall ask him to burn this manuscript in the garden. He is the only one I can trust here.

  I can’t go on. I don’t know what to do. I love my husband, but what possesses him? Nine dogs! Why? In a little while he’ll knock politely on the door to fetch me for our wedding night in the flames.

  NINETEEN

  When Maria returned to the room, she froze on the threshold. She saw immediately that something fateful had happened. Herter was still lying in the same position in which she had left him, with eyes closed, but at the same time he had altered beyond recognition, as if he had been exchanged for his image from the waxworks in Amsterdam.

  “Rudi!” she screamed.

  Without closing the door behind her, she ran to the bed and shook him to and fro by his shoulders. When he did not react, she listened at his mouth. Silence. With trembling fingers she loosened his tie, tried to unbutton his shirt, then tore the sides apart and laid her ear to his chest. Deep silence everywhere. As well as she could, she tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, heart massage, but to no effect. At her wits’ end, heart pounding, she sat up and looked at his unreal face.

  “I don’t believe it!” she cried. She grabbed the telephone and phoned reception. “Send a doctor at once! At once!” Sobbing, she embraced the lifeless body that seemed to want nothing more to do with her, while keeping at bay with all her might the idea that he might be dead.

  The doctor, a small man with curly black hair, was in the room a few moments later. Without saying anything, all his attention on the motionless body, he sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted Herter’s left hand in order to take his pulse. Something shiny fell from the hand onto the floor. He picked it up, studied it for a moment, and gave it to Maria. In astonishment she looked at the weirdly shaped piece of metal, lead perhaps, which she had never seen. What kind of mysterious thing was it? Where did it come from? Why had he picked it up?

  The examination with the stethoscope produced no expression on the doctor’s face that gave hope. Carefully he moved Herter’s eyelids apart and shone a flashlight into his pupil.

  He sighed, looked at Maria, and said, “I’m sorry, madam. The gentleman is dead.”

  “But how can it have happened so suddenly?” asked Maria, as if an answer to that question could still turn things around. “He was alive half an hour ago!”

  The doctor got up. “His heart suddenly stopped. That’s possible at this age. Perhaps through an excess of emotion.”

  “But he was just going to have a nap!”

  The doctor made a gesture indicating that he was equally mystified; he took his leave with a few more words of sympathy. The manager of the Sacher had meanwhile appeared in the room. Very upset, he took Maria’s hands in his and tried to find words.

  “Madam . . . such a great mind . . . a loss to the world . . .” he blurted out. “Of course we shall help you with everything.”

  Maria nodded. “I’d like to be alone with him now for a little while.”

  “Of course, of course,” said the manager, and he left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.

  Maria felt the irrevocable fact starting to sink in. What was to become of her she could deal with later; now she must call Olga at once. Poor little Marnix! How were they to tell him?

  In Amsterdam there was no answer, and she got the voice mail.

  “It’s Maria,” she said after the tone. “Dear Olga, something terrible has happened. Prepare yourself for the worst. Rudi suddenly died just now. In his sleep . . .” She felt something like paralysis, but she forced herself to go on talking. “Phone back to the Sacher right away. You’ve got the number. I hope you come home before you go to Schiphol; otherwise I’ll try to reach you there. Perhaps it’ll be better if Marnix hears from me that—” Her voice broke. “I can’t speak anymore. . . .” she said hoarsely and put the receiver down.

  With the shiny piece of metal in her hands, she looked at Herter, her face wet with tears. “Where have you gone to?” she whispered.

  Her gaze fell on the cassette recorder in Herter’s right hand. While her eyes widened a little, she got up and tried to take it out, but the fin
gers held on to it. She carefully extricated it, feeling that the body had already grown colder.

  The tape had stopped at the end. In the chair by the window, she rewound it, listening to it briefly now and again.

  Suddenly she heard, “. . . The bodies were laid in a grenade crater close to the exit and quickly had gasoline poured over them. Because no one dared venture into the ring of fire again, Adjutant Linge threw a burning cloth on top—and a policeman who saw the scene from a distance testified later that it was as if the flames flared up from their bodies of their own accord. Of their own accord! So that was Nietzsche’s torch! . . . I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. . . .” Then her own voice: “I can imagine. Go and sleep for a bit; you’ve got half an hour or so. The embassy car will be here in an hour. I’ll go downstairs and have a Viennese coffee—to bring me around. If you need me, just ring.”

  She heard the door of the room close, after which there was silence. She remained listening intently. For minute after minute, there was nothing to be heard, just the traffic outside in the street. When the telephone rang, she turned the machine off.

  “Olga?”

  “No, madam, the driver from the embassy. I’m down in the lobby ready to take you and Mr. Herter to the airport. Mrs. Röell sends her apologies—she gave birth to a girl this afternoon.”

  “No, there’s been a terrible accident, driver. Mr. Herter is dead. Please ask the ambassador to call me as soon as possible.”

  When the driver was obviously too taken aback to answer, she hung up.

  She turned the recorder on again and went on listening to the silence, not taking her eyes off Herter’s face. Outside there was the clip-clop of horses’ hooves. After a few minutes, she suddenly heard a faint hubbub that she could not place—and then, very faint and distant, his voice. Groaning, sounds, words . . . She covered up one ear and closed her eyes with effort. Not until she had played it for the third time did she understand:

  “. . . he . . . he . . . he is here . . .”

  Then nothing more.