Eva's Cousin

by Sibylle Knauss

  Only later, when all of this was past history and belonged to another world in which we had been other people, did I discover what actually happened: Göring had telegraphed Hitler asking whether, in view of his decision to stay in Berlin and, as could be predicted, die there, he, Göring, was to regard himself as Hitler’s successor and take over his official duties, as specified in a law of June 29, 1941. It had been a cautiously phrased question, ending with the hope that Hitler might yet escape from Berlin. What could a man like Göring have betrayed that had not already been betrayed long before?

  At the time, and at close quarters, I understood none of this. I couldn’t understand why the old dramas were still being acted out on our tottering stage. Dramas of betrayal and faithfulness, revenge and regicide. The protagonists were still declaiming their way through old conflicts, forming new bands of followers. Hotheads were still fanning the flames of insubordination. Intriguers were weaving nets to bring others down. The faithful reported at once and readily offered the loyalty they owed. Those who trimmed their sails hesitated for nights on end deciding which side it would be best to come down on. Toadies bowed low. The stiff-necked remained stiff-necked. Those who had been passed over continued to suffer resentment at being passed over. And although they were in free fall together already, there were some who would still try to topple others if the opportunity arose.

  I was on this tottering stage myself, involved as I was in a liaison with one of the less high ranking officers, a young guards officer, a minor character in the drama, of attractive appearance, to be sure, the two of us reflecting and providing a commentary on the main plot on our less important level.

  So now what? I ask, rather stupidly.

  Now I’m responsible for all security measures, he says. Arresting conspirators, imposing curfews, searching premises.

  Searching premises? On the Mooslahner Kopf, too?

  There, too.

  You must stay at the Berghof tonight, says my lover.

  I can’t, I say. I don’t have a nightdress or a toothbrush. . . . And I don’t think they have a spare bed for me at the Berghof.

  The question of the bed where I am to spend the night is occupying his mind. I can see it. At the same time I see how drawn he is to his great tasks of imposing order, maintaining the state. The man’s double message comes through to me. It says: I have much more important things to think about than you. It also says: Although I have much more important things to think about, you are more important than anything.

  It is the message of both his strength and his weakness. It captivates me. I have never tasted such a heady mixture before. I lean back against a doorway. But my lover remains unapproachable. He does not follow my choreographic guidelines. He stands in front of me without moving.

  At that moment I would do anything to keep him from wanting anything but me. I want the utmost sacrifice from him, the sacrifice of power. Just now, if he would give me that, he could drive me out of my mind. At the same time it is the aura of his power that unleashes sexual desire in me, that and nothing else. I see the holster of his pistol at his belt. The leather is gleaming. What would he do, I suddenly think, if I were to put my hand on it, just touch it? After all we’ve already done.

  I put out my hand. He takes a step back.

  I’m sorry, he says, but it can’t be helped. You’ll have to stay here tonight.

  I spend the night with Gretl, who whimpers quietly to herself in her dreams. I can’t sleep. I keep thinking of Mikhail all night. When they have found him, they will come for me, too.

  In the morning we are told that no one can leave the house yet. We breakfast in the bay window of the dining hall with its pine paneling up to the ceiling: Aunt Fanny, Uncle Fritz, Gretl, Hertha Schneider, her two little girls, and me. Eva’s dogs lie at our feet. We present the perfect picture of a large, talkative family beginning the spring day with a hearty meal.

  It is a pleasant place in which to breakfast, there in Hitler’s dining hall. In sunny weather like this it is bathed in a flood of warm, agreeable, honey-colored light that makes the fine grain of the wood on the walls seem to glow. Everything in this room suggests solidity. Everything speaks of a sense of well-being conveyed not only by its furnishings, the fine wood, the floral decorations still arranged for the birthday of the absent master of the house, the attractive shades of red in the huge oriental carpet under the dining table that will take twenty-four guests, the curtains patterned in the red of the leather-covered chairs and the honey-colored tone of the wood, but above all by the height from which we look down over the valley as if from a pulpit, enjoying the famous view of the Watzmann massif, the view that appeals so much to the master of the house, particularly on days like this, when an immaculate blue sky extends overhead and the snow has withdrawn to the higher parts of the mountains. It could be a picture from an Alpine calendar.

  The situation of the Berghof, halfway up the mountains, tempts one to feel on familiar terms with the great giants on the other side of the wide valley, as if we were as far above the plains below as they are.

  Someone opens a window, and the mild air drifts into the dining room of Hitler’s Berghof. Spring will come to the mountains now without many preliminaries, forceful and triumphant. Spring will be victorious. There are already royal blue gentians to be seen on the way to the Tea House, and the cowslips, violets, and anemones are in flower. The leaves of the beech trees are unfolding. Trees will soon be in blossom down in the valley. There is something of all that is in the air making its way in to us. It carries a message, the same every year, a message to the poor hearts overwintering within us. Be of good cheer, says the message.

  Teacups clink. A curtain moves gently. Everything must change now, everything, our hearts tell us. Even now. I can’t believe I am lost, and none of the others around me believe they are lost either.

  There are two prealerts at the Berghof during the morning, and the blue spring air is clouded by dark gray mist. The birds fall silent. Bombers thunder overhead and away. It is like a sinister mingling of the seasons. As if we could dispute the spring’s dominion with impunity. As if we could soil and humiliate it.

  That afternoon I am told I’m to go to the Platterhof. The way things are now, that is an order. I am accompanied this time not by two men following me at a distance, but by one on each side of me as if I were a dangerous delinquent. I don’t know if I am being taken to an interrogation or a lovers’ tryst.

  There are a great many SS men milling around the foyer of the Platterhof. My guards ask what to do with me and take me to one of the doors on the first floor, where I am made to wait.

  When the door finally opens I enter a suite of rooms obviously converted into an ad hoc office, the HQ for carrying out security measures after the coup d’état of which Reichsmarschall Göring is accused.

  Not a lovers’ tryst, then.

  But the two SS men flanking me are sent out again, and the door to the next room where a typewriter is clattering away is closed. I am alone with the man who loves me.

  What’s all this about? I ask.

  He looks at me for a long time. I cannot interpret the expression on his face.

  We’ve searched the Tea House, he says.

  The spring air of Berchtesgaden comes in through the open window. A superfluous spring that has nothing more to do with me, which excludes and derides me.

  So? I say.

  I try to sound as indifferent as possible.

  We found something, says my lover.

  He looks as if he hasn’t had any sleep. Like someone carrying a burden too heavy for him. Our conversation is one of long pauses and duels fought by our eyes, which I win more often than he does. But it is clear that it is not a good thing for me to be delivered up to an obviously overtaxed man, and one who, in addition, still loves me.

  In the cellar, he says. Someone must have been in the cellar. Someone was sleeping there. Don’t tell me you don’t know anything about it.

  Well, I
don’t, I’ve no idea, I say. It must have been before my time in the Tea House. I mean, I’d have noticed. I’ve never been down in the cellar. What would I want there?

  Suddenly the whole thing seems to me farcical. As if we were in an amateur production of a mediocre detective play, acting to an empty auditorium.

  Did you notice anything? he asks. Anything suspicious.

  No, I say. No, I didn’t. That’s to say . . .

  What? he asks.

  I tell him about the suspicious things we’d noticed before I moved into the Tea House. The open fridge door. The used towel in the bathroom.

  That must have been him, I say. The man who was sleeping in the cellar. But there’s been no one in the place since I moved in.

  Are you sure? asks my lover.

  I suddenly feel that he is really concerned about something different. He looks at me long and hard. Is he bluffing? Has sentence already been passed on me? Have they found Mikhail? Or did he manage to get away from them? I cling to that possibility.

  There’s something else, says the man who loves me.

  I know that the surprise about to be sprung on me will be no real surprise. I shall know a moment in advance what is coming next. I need to know, so that I am not so vulnerable. But however feverishly I try to think what it can be, something awkward, some small detail that has escaped me, something hidden, something that will give me away, I can think of nothing, except that his name, his first name by which I have never called him, comes into my mind. That is a dark, obscure spot, the sore point of our relationship: the fact that I never call him by his first name.

  Hans, I say, as if I could ward off discovery in that way. As if this were the reason why he had to subject me to an interrogation: my reluctance until now to speak his name. Hans.

  I feel I am blushing. I am moving from one level of conversation to another, which is impermissible: a cheap attempt to use our private relationship to win an advantage. Almost an attempt at bribery.

  I can see that this catches him off balance, too. The magic of our role-playing game is gone, giving way to a sense of overwhelming awkwardness that exposes us to each other.

  Here, he says, placing a sheet of paper torn from one of my notepads on the table.

  Not my Heisenberg, thank goodness, I think. All I noted down on those pads was calculations and diagrams.

  Look at this, he says.

  It is written in indelible pencil in Cyrillic script.

  I can’t read that, I say.

  Nor can I, he says. But I’ve had it translated. It says, literally:

  We last met outside the big barracks gate by the floodlights, dear Marlene—and so on and so forth—But when the smoke mortars generating mist are switched on this evening I shall be by the floodlights as usual, dear Marlene.

  Who translated it? I ask.

  Trust me, we have translators in the security service for all enemy languages. That’s no problem for us. This is in Ukrainian.

  It’s “Lili Marleen,” I say. Someone’s translated “Lili Marleen” into Ukrainian.

  My lover looks at the piece of paper in front of him.

  But the smoke mortars . . . he says.

  I recite the last verse to him.

  Resting in our billets, just behind the lines Even though we’re parted your lips are close to mine. When the night mists swirl and churn, To that lantern I’ll return, My Lili of the lamplight, my own Lili Marleen.

  Quietly, incredulously, he joins in with me until we are speaking in unison. It is as if Lale Andersen herself were stepping through the wall. We are chanting, almost singing, with her voice. No song in the world is better suited to speech-song than “Lili Marleen.” As in the film, it sounds quiet at first, then grows stronger, and the love theme returns, although we both know that this is good-bye, the finale of our Nazi love story, which will perish with the Nazis themselves, ruined and extinguished. Even the memory of it will be dust and ashes.

  Where does it come from? he asks again, in an unrelenting voice. Where did you get this piece of paper? Who wrote it?

  No idea, I say.

  I know that only lying will help now, but even that, I also know, won’t really help. Now that his jealous suspicion of my fidelity has been laid to rest, the other, worse suspicion remains. Jealousy made him weak, laid him open to my little diversionary maneuver. But now it’s serious.

  There was someone with you in the Tea House who shouldn’t have been there, he says.

  There wasn’t anyone there, I say.

  Then where does this come from?

  I don’t know, I say.

  The radio in your room was tuned to an enemy transmitter. Marlene, he says, his voice suddenly very soft, I can’t afford this kind of thing. Everyone here knows I have a personal interest in you.

  Have you? I say.

  He does not reply. I realize I am genuinely making him suffer. I realize how serious he is about the battle he is losing.

  Everyone listens to enemy transmitters, I say. How else are we supposed to find out what’s really going on? Or haven’t you heard that the Americans have reached the Elbe?

  We have other sources, he says.

  I hope you’ll find out in good time when they get here, I say.

  You can be sure we will. And we’ll give them the reception they deserve, says my lover. But just at the moment we have other things on our minds.

  Other things? You mean you think I’m a spy.

  You don’t understand me, he says. It’s not a question of what I think. It’s a question of laying all suspicions to rest. Doubt makes us weak. Having a traitor in the camp like Göring does us more damage than any enemies can do from outside. If we are true and keep faith and are blameless, then we’re invincible. Then we are German. A true German keeps faith. Don’t you understand that, Marlene? No ifs and buts. That’s how we are. We don’t play a double game. We are absolutely true. Absolutely faithful. Absolutely German. That’s our secret weapon. That’s what makes us superior to others. And we shall win with it. I say what I tell you now for your ears alone, but we have no other weapon left.

  He seems to be expecting me to contradict him. I don’t.

  That’s why it is so important, he continues, for you to tell me the truth now. It’s more important than ever, now that everything most sacred to us is in danger, now that our great ideal is endangered. It all depends on us. Who will act correctly, properly, reliably if we don’t? There must be something left to cling to. So I beg you . . . I beg you, Marlene . . .

  His voice has dropped to a hoarse whisper. He is almost stammering, pleading.

  What are you begging me for? I ask.

  The truth! he shouts at me.

  He is shouting for the benefit of the men in the room next door. And for himself. He has remembered that he’s subjecting me to an interrogation.

  The truth is that we’re beaten, I say. None of this will be important anymore once the Americans are here.

  I see, he says. So my sweetheart’s already preparing to welcome the conquerors.

  An ugly grimace twists his face. He is trying to be sarcastic.

  Like all men, he is most dangerous when he is weak, but I am not old enough yet to understand that. I don’t realize that he would rather kill me than see me fall into enemy hands. I don’t know the pattern, as ancient and simple as it is cruel: The last defiant action of the defeated warrior as he surrenders is to kill his own wife so that she cannot bear children to the victors. It is the scorched-earth strategy of retreat, the spirit in which Hitler’s last orders are issued: Leave nothing that the victors can still use. Destroy the bridges, roads, industrial plants, transport routes. Leave the enemy a civilization now turned to desert.

  Listen, says my SS lover, his voice dropping to a whisper that certainly cannot be heard outside the room where he and I are alone, I could have you shot, you know I could. But I won’t. Oh no, darling. No one is going to touch a hair of your head unless I say so. And I won’t say so. Why would
I? I love you, you know I do.

  I hate the tone of voice in which he is speaking to me. I hate it not because it frightens me, but because I feel that his sarcasm is artificial. I know my lover better than he would like. Nonetheless, what he has just said has not failed in its effect on me. I have understood who is in power—for the time being.

  But if even the slightest suspicion of political unreliability is confirmed I won’t be able to do anything for you, he continues. In that case please don’t count on me. Personal feelings will never influence my decisions. You know that. You’re going to be taken to the Mooslahner Kopf now and you will stay there until further notice under strict house arrest. And closely guarded. Don’t doubt that. No one will come near you without being spotted. You won’t be able to take a single step unobserved day or night. Think about it!

  When I am outside the door, flanked by the guards who are to escort me to the Tea House, I am tempted to turn and say something else. Some kind of clarification to ease the tension, something crucial that has not been said between us. I don’t know what. Something to cancel out this all-or-nothing game, this love-against-duty situation. It is an impulse that I shall recognize later in my life, in other love quarrels.

  Stop, I have always wanted to say. Let’s start again. That wasn’t us. A kind of nervous compulsion to laugh sets in, and I have to fight it harder than the fear that lies in recognizing how close misunderstanding, anger, a final break has been to love all the time. Such a small step unleashes it. The Fury of lost love is suddenly so immediately present.

  It can be called back. It can be overcome. It is a chained wild beast lurking in every love affair. But now, meeting it for the first time, I know for certain that this is serious. It is the end. I shall not turn around. I shall not laugh. I shall not say: You can’t mean that seriously! Have you forgotten how we feel about each other? In this first love quarrel of my life it really is all or nothing. A matter of life or death. I can’t pretend to myself it isn’t. And the wish to laugh that I try to control as I walk down the path to the Mooslahner Kopf between two security men is only the expression of my helplessness and fear: I don’t know where Mikhail is. I don’t even know if he is still alive.