The Boy at the Top of the Mountain (12 page)

‘But why not?’ asked Pierrot, his interest growing now. ‘Please, Emma. I promise I won’t tell anyone.’

The cook sighed, and Pierrot could see that she desperately wanted to gossip. ‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘But if you breathe a word of what I’m about to tell you—’

‘I won’t,’ he said quickly.

‘The thing is, Pieter, at this time the master was already leader of the National Socialist Party, which was gaining more and more seats in the Reichstag. He was building an army of supporters and Geli enjoyed the attention he paid her. Until, that is, she grew bored of it. But if she was losing interest in him, the master still adored her, and followed her everywhere. And then she fell in love with Emil, the Führer’s driver at the time, and there was so much trouble over it. Poor Emil was dismissed from the master’s service – he was lucky to escape with his life – Geli was inconsolable and Angela was furious, but the Führer wouldn’t let her go. He insisted that Geli accompany him everywhere, and she, poor child, grew more and more withdrawn and unhappy. The reason I think the Führer watches Wilhelmina so closely is because she reminds him of Geli. They have a similar appearance. A big round face. The same dark eyes and dimpled cheeks. Equally feather-brained. Really, Pieter, the first day she arrived I thought I was seeing a ghost.’

Pierrot considered all this while Emma returned to her cooking. After washing up his bowl and spoon, however, and replacing them in the dresser, he turned to ask one last question.

‘A ghost?’ he said. ‘Why, what happened to her?’

Emma sighed and shook her head. ‘She went to Munich,’ she said. ‘He took her there. He refused to allow her out of his sight. And one day, when he left her alone in his apartment on the Prinzregentenplatz, she went into his bedroom, took a gun from his drawer and shot herself through the heart.’

Eva Braun almost always accompanied the Führer when he came to the Berghof, and Pierrot was under strict instructions to call her
Fräulein
at all times. She was a tall lady in her early twenties with blonde hair and blue eyes, and always dressed very fashionably. Pierrot had never seen her wear the same clothes twice.

‘You can clear all this stuff out,’ she once told Beatrix when she was departing from the Obersalzberg after a weekend stay, throwing open her wardrobes and running a hand over all the blouses and dresses that hung there. ‘They’re last season’s fashions. The designers in Berlin have promised to send samples of their new collections directly.’

‘Shall I give them to the poor?’ asked Beatrix, but Eva shook her head.

‘It would be inappropriate,’ she said, ‘for any German woman, wealthy or impoverished, to wear a dress that had previously touched my skin. No, you can just throw them in the incinerator out the back with all the other rubbish. They’re no good to me now. Just let them burn, Beatrix.’

Eva did not pay very much attention to Pierrot – certainly nowhere near as much as the Führer did – but occasionally, when she passed him in a corridor, she would tousle his hair or tickle him under the chin, as if he was a spaniel, and say things like ‘sweet little Pieter’ or ‘aren’t you angelic?’ – comments which embarrassed him. He didn’t like being spoken down to, and knew that she remained uncertain whether he worked for them, was an unwelcome tenant or simply a pet.

On the afternoon when he received the Führer’s present Pierrot was outside in the garden, not far from the main house, throwing a stick for Blondi, Hitler’s German shepherd dog.

‘Pieter!’ cried Beatrix, stepping outside and waving towards her nephew. ‘Pieter, come here, please!’

‘I’m playing!’ Pierrot shouted back, picking up the stick that Blondi had just retrieved for him and throwing it again.

‘
Now
, Pieter!’ insisted Beatrix, and the boy groaned as he made his way towards her. ‘You and that dog,’ she said. ‘Whenever I need you, all I have to do is follow the sound of barking.’

‘Blondi loves it up here,’ said Pierrot, grinning. ‘Do you think I should ask the Führer whether he might leave her here all the time from now on instead of taking her to Berlin with him?’

‘I wouldn’t if I was you,’ said Beatrix, shaking her head. ‘You know how attached he is to his dog.’

‘But Blondi loves it on the mountain. And from what I’ve heard, when she’s at party headquarters she’s stuck inside meeting rooms and never gets out to play. You can see how excited she is whenever the car arrives and she jumps out.’

‘Please don’t ask him,’ said Beatrix. ‘We don’t ask the Führer for favours.’

‘But it’s not for me!’ insisted Pierrot. ‘It’s for Blondi. The Führer won’t mind. I think if
I
say it to him—’

‘You’ve grown close, haven’t you?’ asked Beatrix, an anxious note creeping into her tone.

‘Me and Blondi?’

‘You and Herr Hitler.’

‘Shouldn’t you call him the Führer?’ asked Pierrot.

‘Of course. I meant that. But it’s true, isn’t it? You spend a lot of time with him when he’s here.’

Pierrot thought about it, and his eyes opened wide when he realized why. ‘He reminds me of Papa,’ he told her. ‘The way he talks about Germany. About its destiny and its past. The pride he takes in his people. That’s the way Papa used to talk too.’

‘But he’s not your papa,’ said Beatrix.

‘No, he’s not,’ admitted Pierrot. ‘He doesn’t stay up all night drinking, after all. Instead he spends his time working. For the good of others. For the future of the Fatherland.’

Beatrix stared at him and shook her head before looking away, her eyes glancing towards the tips of the mountains, and Pierrot thought that she must have got a sudden chill for, quite unexpectedly, she shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

‘Anyway,’ he said, wondering whether he could go back and play with Blondi now. ‘Did you need me for something?’

‘No,’ replied Beatrix. ‘He does.’

‘The Führer?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you should have said,’ Pierrot cried, rushing past her towards the house, filled with anxiety that he might be in trouble. ‘You know he should never be kept waiting!’

He made his way quickly down the hallway towards the master’s office, almost colliding with Eva as she emerged from one of the side rooms. Her arms flew out and she grabbed him by the shoulders, her fingers digging in so deeply that he squirmed.

‘Pieter,’ she snapped. ‘Haven’t I asked you not to run in the house?’

‘The Führer wants to see me,’ said Pierrot quickly, struggling to release himself from her grasp.

‘Did he ask for you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very well,’ she said, glancing up at the clock on the wall. ‘But don’t keep him too long, all right? Dinner will be served soon and I want to play some new records for him before we eat tonight. Music always helps with his digestion.’

Pierrot skipped past her and knocked on the large oak door, waiting until a voice inside beckoned him to enter. Closing the door behind him, he marched directly to the desk, clicked his heels together as he had done a thousand times over the last twelve months and offered the one-armed salute that made him feel so important.

‘Heil Hitler!’ he roared at the top of his voice.

‘Ah, there you are, Pieter,’ said the Führer, replacing the cap on his fountain pen and coming round the desk to look at him. ‘At last.’

‘I’m sorry, mein Führer,’ said Pierrot. ‘I got delayed.’

‘How so?’

He hesitated for a moment. ‘Oh, someone was talking to me outside, that’s all.’

‘Someone? Who?’

Pierrot opened his mouth, the words on the tip of his tongue, but he felt anxious about saying them. He didn’t want to get his aunt into trouble, but then again, it was her fault, he told himself, for not delivering the message more quickly.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Hitler after a moment. ‘You’re here now. Sit down, please.’

Pierrot sat on the edge of the sofa, perfectly straight, while the Führer sat opposite him in an armchair. A scratching sound came from outside the door, and Hitler glanced towards it. ‘You can let her in,’ he said, and Pierrot jumped up and opened the door; Blondi trotted inside, looking around for her master and coming to lie at his feet with an exhausted yawn. ‘Good girl,’ he said, reaching down to pat her. ‘You were having fun outside?’ he asked.

‘Yes, mein Führer,’ said Pierrot.

‘What were you playing?’

‘Fetch, mein Führer.’

‘You’re very good with her, Pieter. I seem to be unable to train her. I can never discipline her, that’s the problem. I am far too soft-hearted.’

‘She’s very intelligent so it’s not difficult,’ said Pierrot.

‘She belongs to an intelligent breed,’ replied Hitler. ‘Her mother was a smart dog too. Did you ever have a dog, Pieter?’

‘Yes, mein Führer,’ said Pierrot. ‘D’Artagnan.’

Hitler smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘One of Dumas’ three musketeers.’

‘No, mein Führer,’ said Pierrot.

‘No?’

‘No, mein Führer,’ he repeated. ‘The three musketeers were Athos, Porthos and Aramis. D’Artagnan was just . . . Well, he was just one of their friends. Although he had the same job.’

Hitler smiled. ‘How do you know all this?’ he asked.

‘My mother liked the book very much,’ he replied. ‘She named him when he was a puppy.’

‘And what breed was he?’

‘I’m not sure,’ replied Pierrot, frowning. ‘A little bit of everything, I think.’

The Führer made a disgusted face. ‘I prefer pure breeds,’ he said. ‘Do you know’ – he almost laughed at the absurdity of the idea – ‘that one of the townspeople in Berchtesgaden once asked me whether I might allow his mongrel to sire pups from Blondi. His request was as audacious as it was repugnant. I would never allow a dog like Blondi to sully her bloodline by frolicking with such worthless creatures. Where is your dog now?’

Pierrot opened his mouth to tell the story of how D’Artagnan had gone to live with Mme Bronstein and Anshel after Maman’s death, but remembered Beatrix and Ernst’s warnings that he should never mention his friend’s name in the master’s presence.

‘He died,’ said Pierrot, looking at the floor and hoping that the lie would not be obvious on his face. He hated the idea of the Führer catching him in an untruth and losing his trust in him.

‘I adore dogs,’ continued Hitler, offering no condolences. ‘My favourite was a little black and white Jack Russell who deserted from the English army during the war and came over to the German side.’

Pierrot glanced up with a sceptical expression on his face; the idea of a canine deserter seemed unlikely to him, but the Führer smiled and wagged his finger.

‘You think I’m joking, Pieter, but I assure you that I am not. My little Jack Russell – I called him Fuchsl, or Little Fox – was a mascot for the English. They liked to keep small dogs in their trenches, you see, which was cruel of them. Some were used as messenger dogs; others as mortar detectors, for a dog can hear the sound of incoming shells much faster than a human can. Dogs have saved many a life in this way. Just as they can smell chlorine or mustard gas and alert their masters. Anyway, little Fuchsl went running out into no-man’s-land one night – this must have been . . . oh, let me think . . . 1915, I suppose – and made his way safely through the artillery fire before leaping like an acrobat into the trench where I was stationed. Can you believe it? And from the moment he fell into my arms he never left my side again for the next two years. He was more loyal and steadfast than any human I have ever known.’

Pierrot tried to imagine the little dog charging across the terrain, dodging bullets, his paws slip-sliding on the blown-off limbs and ripped-out organs of the two armies. He’d heard these stories before from his father and the idea made him feel queasy inside. ‘And what happened to him?’ he asked.

The Führer’s face grew dark. ‘He was taken from me in a despicable act of thievery,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘In August 1917, at a train station just outside Leipzig, a railway worker offered me 200 marks for Fuchsl and I said that I would never sell him, not for a thousand times that amount. But I used the bathroom before the train pulled out, and when I returned to my seat, Fuchsl, my little fox, was gone. Stolen!’ The Führer breathed heavily through his nose, his lip curling, his voice rising in fury. It was twenty years later, but it was clear that he was still angered by the theft. ‘Do you know what I would do if I ever caught up with the man who stole my little Fuchsl?’ he asked.

Pierrot shook his head and the Führer leaned forward, indicating that the boy should lean forward too. When he did, he held a hand up and whispered into his ear – three sentences, all quite short and very precise. When he was finished, he sat back, and something resembling a smile crossed his face. Pierrot sat back too but said nothing. He looked down at Blondi, who opened one eye and glanced upwards without moving a muscle. As much as Pierrot liked spending time with the Führer, who always made him feel so important, at this moment he wanted nothing more than to be outside again with Blondi, throwing a stick into the forest, running as fast as he could. For fun. For the stick. For his life.

‘But enough of this,’ said the Führer, patting the side of his armchair three times to signal that he wanted to change the subject. ‘I have a present for you.’

‘Thank you, mein Führer,’ said Pierrot, surprised.

‘It’s something that every boy your age should have.’ He pointed over to a table next to his desk where a brown paper parcel was sitting. ‘Fetch that for me, Pieter, will you?’

Blondi lifted her head at the word fetch, and the Führer laughed, patting the dog’s head and telling her to rest easy. Pierrot walked over and collected the package, which held something soft inside, and carried it carefully over with both hands before holding it out for the master.

‘No, no,’ said Hitler. ‘I already know what’s inside. It’s for you, Pieter. Open it. I think you’ll like what you find there.’

Pierrot’s fingers started to undo the string that held the package together. It had been a long time since he’d received a present and it was rather exciting to get one now.

‘This is very kind of you,’ he said.

‘Just open it,’ replied the Führer.