Hitler's Niece

“Are you confined here?”

“I go out. With my uncle.”

“And not with Emil?”

“Were your letters about this?”

Christof sighed. “Earlier, before I started at the university, I thought politics was all clamor and vulgarity. The fanaticism of parties seemed so alien to the purity and simplicity of the intellectual life. This is what I was writing you last night. With the hard times in Germany, though, and the popularity of Communism, I have forced myself to look again at the strongest alternative, National Socialism. And what did I find? Energy and vitality and attractiveness to the young, Germany’s future. And so two nights ago I went to hear your uncle speak. Were you there?”

She shook her head no. “I generally don’t go.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “It’s boring.”

“Oh, but it’s not! It’s thrilling!”

“Are you carrying cigarettes?” she asked.

Christof got a packet and shook a cigarette out. She took it, hunted for a match, and lit it. She lifted a window as high as she could, letting fresh air and flurries of snow sail in, then sat again on the sofa, folding her legs. “Tell,” she said.

“There were five thousand students there, and many respected professors on the stage, and Hitler was not a zealot, as I’d heard. The Jews were hardly mentioned. Rather, he talked in measured tones about social justice and harmony and an idealistic new world, one that sought freedom and work and bread for the masses while rejecting materialism and selfishness and class distinctions. Unlike other politicians, he appealed directly to the young, offering us a chance to join in his crusade for the good and glory of Germany if we would only follow him without hesitation. By the end, we were all elated. We felt that if he could excite us so much with just a speech, then maybe our fatherland could be saved if he was our leader. A friend of mine, a Jew, was there, and he surprised me by saying that if it weren’t for the party’s anti-Semitism he’d be joining them himself.”

“And so you joined the party,” she said flatly. “And you needed to tell me that, face-to-face.”

“Aren’t you pleased?”

She heard the door chimes. She cursed.

“Who is it?” Christof asked.

“I have no idea.” She stood up and leaned out the open window to see Prinzregentenplatz. Hitler’s Mercedes was there, gray smoke swirling from its exhaust pipe, and her uncle was huddled in the front seat, poring over a newspaper. “Oh no.” She heard the foyer door open.

“Hallo!” Emil called.

As she went to the hallway, she touched a hand to Christof’s mouth to silence him. “Emil!” she said. He was wearing jackboots, a gray soldier’s coat, and a storm trooper’s stocking cap that was pulled so low it folded out his ears. His hands were red with cold and he blew into them as he asked, “Would you like to join your uncle at the Osteria?”

“Oh, I think not, thank you,” she said.

His face seemed indifferent to her answer. Then he frowned. “Are you smoking, Geli?”

She saw that she was holding the cigarette between the middle fingers of her right hand just as Doktor Goebbels did.

“Who’s there with you?” Emil asked.

And then Christof was hulking in the doorway. “An old friend,” he innocently said.

Emil sneered and calmly called Geli “Meine Dirne,” a term that could be as inoffensive as “my lass” but could also mean “whore.”

“We were just talking,” she said.

“Well, that’s how it always starts, doesn’t it,” Emil said. Walking forward, he seemed to find vicious joy in Christof’s frail lifting of his hands, as if helplessness would pacify him.

Geli firmly said, “Don’t, Emil.”

“I joined the party,” Christof weakly said. “We’re comrades.”

Emil smashed him hard in the nose and blood flew against the soft-green trellis wallpaper. Christof groaned and held his face with his hands as he knelt on the floor. Geli screamed and crouched over Christof as Emil said, “Oh, you think it’s over so soon?” and he kneed him in the mouth. Christof cried out and folded over, blood and saliva drooling from him as he found a lost tooth on his tongue.