Last Stop Vienna

by Andrew Nagorski

“What are you doing here? Where’s Frau Naumann?”

  “I don’t know,” he protested, trying to squirm away. “I just live here. I never met the lady. She died before I moved in.”

  I must have released him, because he quickly stepped back and started to slam the door. I stuck out my arm to block it.

  “I’ll call the police,” he yelled.

  “Please,” I said. “Please, are you sure she died?”

  “Ask the neighbors if you don’t believe me.”

  “When?”

  He looked at me curiously, no longer with fear. “What’s it to you?”

  “She was my mother.”

  “Two years ago. Didn’t you know?”

  I shook my head.

  “Kids nowadays,” he muttered. “Never do think about their parents. I don’t have any idea where my girl is. She could be a hooker for all I know.”

  He eased the door shut, and I didn’t try to stop him. I sat down on the stairs, not crying but sinking into oblivion, no longer noticing much of anything. When I finally got up and walked through the courtyard, it was getting dark. The woman who had been beating her rug was nowhere to be seen; there was no trace of her two kids, either.

  I don’t remember the journey across town. I assume I took the U-Bahn again, but I might have taken a tram or even walked. It was dark when I reached Otto’s neighborhood. My first recollection of that evening is of standing under a lamppost, realizing where I was and trying to decide if I really wanted to meet with Otto, or with anyone, for that matter. The next thing I remember is facing three young men, one of whom was screaming that I had walked right into him. Before I could do or say anything, he punched me in the face, but I instinctively pulled away, and the blow didn’t feel that bad. I struck back, landing a hard punch to his midsection, but then his companions were all over me. Within seconds I was on the ground, trying to curl up and protect myself. It must have hurt, but I felt detached. “That should teach you a lesson, you piece of shit,” I heard one say. And then they were gone.

  I got up, shaken, and walked the few steps to Otto’s building. I climbed the stairs and knocked on his door.

  Otto pulled me out of the dimly lit hallway into his apartment. “My God,” he said. “You’re a mess. They worked you over well.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Not bad?” He led me to a washbasin and pointed to the small wall mirror. I saw a black eye forming, and blood smeared under my nose and dribbling from my mouth.

  Otto sat me down on a wooden stool and filled the washbasin with water. He dipped a rag into it. “Here,” he said. “Clean yourself up, and we’ll see how much damage there really is. If it’s very bad, I’ll get the doctor we use in such cases.”

  I followed his instructions, then looked in the mirror again. “Nothing broken?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Good, you were lucky. Not like some of the others.”

  “What others?”

  “You’re not the first. People who work for our press operation or who visit me often get a welcoming committee.”

  “You mean this wasn’t an accident? One of those guys said I bumped into him.”

  “They always make some phony excuse. They’re your buddies, brownshirts. Except these are Goebbels’s brownshirts. He’s trying to push us out of town so he can be the only party publisher here. That’s why I called you. I’ve made a report on his actions that I want you to deliver to Hitler. Only he can stop this, if he wants to.”

  I had heard that Goebbels had started his own daily in Berlin, Der Angriff, in competition with the Strassers’ Arbeitsblatt. It had seemed to me a strange situation, but Otto was convinced there was nothing unusual about it. “Goebbels is trying to run us out of business, so that only his publications are read by party members,” he told me. “He keeps the times of party meetings secret from us so we can’t publish them, while of course he makes sure that Der Angriff does. Party members have to buy his paper to find them.”

  Otto paced the cramped room, which still overflowed with the leaflets, newspapers and propaganda I remembered from my last visit. He lit a cigarette.

  “Haven’t you complained to Goebbels about this?”

  “Sure I have. And you know what he told me? Those must be communists who are attacking our people. He said I should get the SA to protect us.” Otto waved the hand holding the cigarette, sending a few loops of smoke floating in my direction. “Can you believe the audacity? He wants us to take the SA, his SA spies, into our organization. The same guys who have been beating our people up. He’d like that, he sure would.”

  “And you think Hitler will order Goebbels to leave you alone?”

  Otto shrugged. “I’d like to believe that, which is why I’m sending this report. But will Hitler do anything? I have doubts. Goebbels is his man, and he follows Hitler’s line, which is friendly, much too friendly, to the big industrialists. Our publications are against them. We are keeping the commitment to socialism. Gregor thinks Hitler will listen.” He paused and took a deep drag on his cigarette. “But I worry that we have a Dr. Caligari on our hands. You remember the movie?”

  I had seen the movie, but I wasn’t sure I was keeping up with Otto’s train of thought.

  “Caligari, the madman, remember? The guy who travels in a carnival and sends out his assistant, Cesare, to kill anyone he doesn’t like. And when the friend of one of his victims tracks Caligari down to an insane asylum, he turns out to be the director instead of an inmate.”

  “Hitler as Caligari?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But I have no doubt Goebbels would be happy to play the role of Cesare.”

  First the news about my mother. Then the beating. And now Otto was suggesting that our leader might be a deranged monster.

  “I’ll deliver the report. But you’ll see, Hitler will stop Goebbels. He’s no Caligari.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he said. “But I’m beginning to believe that I have to prepare for the possibility that you and Gregor are wrong.”

  —

  I was to meet Emil at a Munich café that he had suggested, just off Marienplatz. The ban on Hitler’s public speaking had been lifted. The boss, Emil explained, was busy preparing his next round of meetings and didn’t want to be disturbed. Emil assured me that he would deliver Otto’s letter directly to Hitler, and I had no doubt he would keep his promise.

  Emil’s choice of café surprised me. I knew he liked the beer halls better, and this establishment was the kind that attracted its fair share of old ladies along with the young, well-groomed men and women who made me feel scruffy. I took in the rows of polished wood tabletops and the molded white ceiling with pale pink designs that matched the pink curtains. I felt out of place. Sabine had been angry when I returned the previous evening with my black eye and swollen lip: further evidence that I should abandon politics for a normal life. We would have quarreled if not for the news about my mother’s death, which made her wipe away tears that I hadn’t expected to shed. I fell asleep in her arms, and in the morning she kissed me gently before going off to work.

  I didn’t see Emil. I picked out a table in the back where I’d be inconspicuous. A waiter asked for my order. I decided on tea, figuring it would be the cheapest thing. When the waiter returned with a translucent blue cup and saucer and silver spoon, his expression said: Don’t think you’re kidding anyone. This isn’t a place for deadbeats like you.

  Emil arrived a few minutes later. “Sorry I’m late,” he started—and then stopped. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing much, a little run-in with some boys in Berlin.”

  “What boys?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they were our boys, brownshirts. Maybe they weren’t.” I handed him the letter. “That’s what Otto is writing to Hitler about.”

  I explained Otto’s theory that this was Goebbels’s doing.

  “You know I’m close to the boss, but I often don’t know what’s going on,” he conf
essed. “Somehow it all seemed simpler earlier.”

  The waiter came to take Emil’s order. “The usual, Herr Maurice?”

  Emil nodded. “That’ll be fine.” And bring a piece of that strudel for my friend here, so he doesn’t go away hungry.

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “The usual?”

  “I know this isn’t the kind of place we usually hang out. But the boss likes to come here. So they’ve gotten to know me.” He leaned forward. “And Geli likes it here.”

  “You and Geli?”

  “Surprised? Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed her Viennese charm.”

  I confessed that I had.

  “And didn’t you notice her occhi parlanti?”

  “Her what?”

  “That’s Italian for eyes that speak.”

  “Well, excuse me. I forgot what a man of the world you are. Viennese charm, Italian eyes. I’m just a simple German, you know, and I can’t identify these things by their nationality.”

  “So you did notice her eyes?”

  “They’re hard to miss.”

  “Well, don’t let them carry you away, my friend. She’s already taken, or soon will be.” He laughed. “Anyway, you’re a happily married man.”

  The waiter returned with a Turkish coffee for Emil and two pieces of strudel. I took a bite of mine. “Delicious. But what about the boss—how does he feel about you and Geli?”

  Emil scanned the room. “You know, I have a confession to make: I arranged to see you here because I’m to meet Geli. She’s always late.”

  “And what does he say?”

  I saw something like anxiety in Emil’s face. “I don’t know—I mean, he doesn’t know yet. Geli and I haven’t made any big decisions so far. But he’s very possessive of her, sometimes too much so. Geli doesn’t tell me much, but I see plenty. And she did tell me about this one incident.” Emil looked like he was about to continue but stopped.

  “Well?” I asked. “What incident?”

  He had a bite of strudel and sipped his coffee. “It may not mean anything.”

  Geli and Hitler had been sitting in the same café a week or so earlier, and Hitler had asked her what kind of a man appealed to her, how such a man would look. Geli laughed, saying that she had to see a man to know, since there was no ideal type. Hitler quickly pulled out a pen and a drawing pad and proceeded to sketch the outlines of a face.

  “Someone like this?” he asked.

  Geli said no.

  He sketched another face, and then another. Each time Geli shook her head, even when Hitler outlined a face like his own.

  “I want the man I fall in love with to be a surprise. A total surprise, even in the way he looks.”

  Hitler had not been pleased, although he tried not to show it. He paid the bill and rushed off, claiming an important appointment. Normally when he was with Geli, Emil noted, he acted as if he had all the time in the world.

  “You know Geli,” Emil added, draining his coffee. “She just thought it was terribly funny that Hitler would want her to fall in love with someone who looked like him. I’m not sure it was really so funny. What does he want from her?”

  “She’s his niece. You don’t mean—”

  “I don’t know what I mean,” he cut me off and stood. He had spotted Geli at the door. She looked at the front tables, then saw us in the back. She rushed over, her cheeks red and damp from the wind and rain, her hair curling more than usual.

  “What are you doing hidden back here?” She embraced Emil and held out her hand to me.

  “I think our friend is less than at home here. He chose the table.”

  “Oh, Karl, we must instill a bit of sophistication in you. And if I were your wife, I’d make sure to keep you away from those beer-hall brawls.”

  “If I were your husband, I’d ask why you’re hanging around fancy cafés instead of studying medicine like you’re supposed to.”

  “And I’d say it’s none of your business why I dropped out of medical school.”

  “I didn’t know, honestly I didn’t,” I protested. “I’m sorry—I was just joking.”

  Geli patted my hand on the table. “No offense taken,” she said, smiling again. “Besides, I’m taking singing lessons now. Uncle Alf feels that’s a better occupation for a woman than medical studies.”

  The conversation steered into more neutral territory. When Geli learned that I was involved with the Hitler Youth Movement, she wanted to know about the activities. I told her about the camping trips, the bonfires, the games we played.

  Her face lit up, and she turned to Emil. “Why don’t you drive Uncle Alf to one of those outings and I’ll come along? It sounds like so much fun.”

  “If you talk him into it. You know I can’t tell him what to do, and you can talk him into anything.”

  I thought I detected a trace of resentment in his voice. Geli hadn’t noticed. Or if she had, she pretended not to and smiled at me. “Oh, I’ll do that, all right. He should see how good a job Karl is doing with recruiting young people.”

  “Thanks,” I said, preparing to leave. I began reaching into my pocket for money.

  “Forget it, Karl,” Emil ordered. “My treat. You’ll buy me a beer next time.”

  I shook hands with them both.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” Geli said, giving my hand a light squeeze. “Be sure to tell Emil when your next outing is so I can get Uncle Alf to go there.”

  As I gathered up my coat, she persisted: “Promise you won’t forget?”

  “Of course not.” I avoided Emil’s eyes. “You can count on me.”

  As I left, I was sure they were looking at me. But when I turned at the door, I saw I couldn’t have been more wrong. Geli was regaling Emil with a story, her laughter echoing across the room, their eyes never leaving the other’s.

  Chapter Twelve

  You’re stupid to be thinking about her, I told myself. I felt foolish and excited about the way she teased me. She tantalized me. So did the life she led, the afternoons spent at elegant cafés, the rumors I had heard that Hitler took her to dinners and concerts. I knew it was crazy to think that way about Hitler’s niece, to believe that there could be more between us than an occasional flirtation, that I could somehow become part of her glamorous world. But what I knew and what I felt couldn’t have been further apart.

  In early spring, as the weather improved I organized the Hitler Youth Movement’s first outing of the season. And I was quick to tell Emil of our plans so he could let Geli know. She was supposed to talk Hitler into seeing his young followers in action. I spent the night with my group beside a campfire I had located to be visible from the road. As we sang songs and roasted sausages, I kept glancing toward the road, hoping for the headlights of Hitler’s Mercedes.

  A few days later, back in the city, I made sure I ran into Emil.

  “Hey, what happened the other night?” I asked. “It was a great evening, but you never showed.”

  “The boss was busy: He and Geli went to the opera.”

  I feigned indifference. “In case he’s interested, I’ve scheduled different groups in the same place for the next three Friday nights.”

  He promised to pass along the information. On the next outing, I was again disappointed. The following Friday I resisted the impulse to keep looking at the road. They’re not coming, I told myself.

  The weather was perfect for our final outing, a warm, sunny day that sprouted fresh leaves from the trees and brought dandelions seemingly from nowhere. My teenage charges were bursting with energy as well, chasing one another around and between the trees and, I couldn’t help noting, disappearing in couples for a few moments, the girls often reappearing with flushed faces, the boys trying to both hide and trumpet their sense of triumph. When Monika, one of my favorites, emerged holding Klaus’s hand with a guiltily happy look, I called the group to order. We prepared the bonfire, with a few more couples slipping off as they supposedly gathered wood, but I kept Monika near me cutti
ng up the sausages, and I assigned Klaus the job of collecting and sharpening the sticks we’d use for roasting. “Herr Naumann, can Monika help me with the sticks?” he asked. Monika blushed and looked at me expectantly. “No, she’s busy here,” I replied more gruffly than I intended.

  I looked in the direction of the road a couple of times, without any real anticipation. “This isn’t how you hold the knife when you cut sausages, Monika,” I said, reaching around her and grasping her hand, supposedly to show her a different technique. She had a long blond braid that brushed against my face as I stood behind her, and she turned to shoot me a questioning look, knowing full well that she hadn’t done anything wrong. I stepped back, feeling silly, and retreated to the bonfire, where I issued orders to two boys to light it. I sat down, wondering why I was behaving so stupidly. I felt more awkward than the kids.

  The bonfire sent up showers of sparks when a log slipped down through the large pile. As twilight set in, the teenagers settled into singing songs and roasting sausages with only minimal direction from me. I found myself watching as the couples, including Monika and Klaus, sidled closer together and leaned or pressed against each other. Monika cast one or two abashed looks my way, but when I didn’t react, she stopped paying attention and turned back to Klaus.

  The dry logs burned quickly, and the bonfire diminished. The logs now emitted low flames that licked around their sides. Manfred, one of the most athletic boys in the group, grabbed a girl’s hand and yanked her up. “Let’s jump,” he said. It was a game we had played before, usually when the bonfire had burned down a bit more. When I didn’t object, Manfred and the girl backed up far enough to get a running start and leap over the flames; they made it but not by much. The others cheered, and Klaus jumped up with Monika. I considered stopping them but thought better of it. As the leaping began in earnest and the couples became more and more excited, I remained glumly perched on a log, wondering what I was doing there.

  Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and bolted at the sight of Geli, in her simple plaid dress, brown shoes and white socks, her eyes alive with excitement. Behind her on the road, I could see the black Mercedes, with Emil standing beside it. He gave me a short wave. I waved back.