The Boy at the Top of the Mountain (18 page)

‘If you so much as touch that cake, Pieter Fischer, I’ll have you over my knee with the wooden spoon before you know what’s hit you.’

Pieter turned round and stared at her coldly; he had been insulted enough for one day. ‘Don’t you think I’m a little old for these threats of yours?’ he asked.

‘No, I don’t,’ she said, pushing him out of the way and replacing the glass cloche over the cake. ‘When you’re in my kitchen, you play by my rules. I don’t care how important you think you are. If you’re hungry, there’s some leftover chicken in the fridge. You can make yourself a sandwich.’

He opened the fridge door and glanced inside. Sure enough, a plate of chicken was sitting on one of the shelves, along with a bowl of stuffing and a fresh bowl of mayonnaise.

‘Perfect,’ he said, clapping his hands together in delight. ‘That looks delicious. You can make it for me. I’ll have something sweet afterwards.’

He sat down at the table, and Emma stared at him with her hands on her hips. ‘I’m not your bloody servant,’ she said. ‘If you want a sandwich, you can make it yourself. You have arms, don’t you?’

‘You’re the cook,’ he said quietly. ‘And I am a hungry Scharführer. You will make me a sandwich.’ Emma didn’t move, but he could see that she was uncertain how to respond. All it needed was a little persistence on his part. ‘Now!’ he roared, slamming his fist down on the table, and she jumped to attention, muttering under her breath as she took the ingredients from the fridge and opened the bread bin to cut two thick slices. When it was ready and she placed it before him, he looked up and smiled.

‘Thank you, Emma,’ he said calmly. ‘It looks delicious.’

She held his gaze for a long time. ‘It must be a family trait,’ she said. ‘Your aunt Beatrix always loved a chicken sandwich too. Although she knew how to make one herself.’

Pieter set his jaw firmly and felt a fury build inside him. He didn’t have an aunt Beatrix, he told himself. That was another boy entirely. A boy named Pierrot.

‘By the way,’ she said, reaching into the pocket of her apron. ‘This arrived for you earlier.’

She handed him an envelope, and he glanced at the familiar handwriting for a moment before giving it back to her, unopened.

‘Burn it,’ he said. ‘And any others like it that I receive.’

‘It’s from that old friend of yours in Paris, isn’t it?’ she asked, holding it up to the light as if she might be able to see right through the paper to the words inside.

‘I said burn it,’ he snapped. ‘I
have
no friends in Paris. And certainly not this Jew who insists on writing to tell me how terrible his life is now. He should be glad that Paris has fallen to the Germans. He’s lucky to be permitted to live there still.’

‘I remember when you first came here,’ said Emma quietly. ‘You sat over there, on that stool, and told me about little Anshel and how he was taking care of your dog for you, and how you and he had a special sign language that only you understood. He was the fox and you were the dog and—’

Pieter didn’t allow her to finish her sentence, jumping off his seat and grabbing the envelope from her hands with such force that she slipped backwards and fell to the floor. She cried out, even though she could not have hurt herself very badly.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ he hissed. ‘Why must you always treat me with such disrespect? Don’t you know who I am?’

‘No,’ she cried, her voice filled with emotion. ‘No, I don’t. But I know who you used to be.’

Pieter felt his hands clench into fists, but before he could say anything more the Führer opened the door and looked in.

‘Pieter!’ he said. ‘Come with me, will you? I need your assistance.’

He glanced down at Emma, but seemed indifferent to the fact that she was lying on the kitchen floor. Pieter threw the letter in the fire and looked down at the cook.

‘I don’t want to receive any more of these letters, do you understand me? If any come, throw them away. If you bring another one to me, I will make you regret it.’ He picked up the uneaten sandwich from the table and walked over to the bin, throwing it inside. ‘You can make me a fresh one later,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you know when I require it.’

‘As you can see, Pieter,’ said the Führer when he stepped into the room, ‘the Obersturmbannführer here has injured himself. Some business with a thug on the street who attacked him.’

‘He broke my arm,’ remarked the man calmly, as if it barely mattered. ‘So I broke his neck.’

Himmler and Herr Bischoff looked up from the table in the centre of the room, which contained photographs and many pages of diagrams, and laughed.

‘Anyway, he can’t write for the time being so he needs a note-taker. Sit down, stay quiet, and write down what we say. No interruptions.’

‘Of course, mein Führer,’ said Pieter, remembering how frightened he had been almost five years earlier when the Duke of Windsor had sat in this same room and he had spoken out of turn.

Pieter was reluctant at first to sit at the Führer’s desk, but the four men were gathered around the table so he had no choice. He sat down and pressed his hands flat against the wood, feeling an enormous sense of power as he glanced around the room, the flags of the German state and the Nazi party standing on either side of him. It was hard not to imagine what it would be like to sit here as the one in charge.

‘Pieter, are you paying attention?’ snapped Hitler, turning to look at him, and the boy sat up straight, pulled a notepad towards him, unscrewed a fountain pen from the desk and began to write down what was said.

‘Now here, of course, is the proposed site,’ said Herr Bischoff, pointing down at a series of schematics. ‘As you know, mein Führer, the sixteen buildings that were here originally have been converted for our use, but there is simply not enough room there for the number of prisoners that are being sent.’

‘How many are there at present?’ asked the Führer.

‘More than ten thousand,’ said Himmler. ‘Most of them Poles.’

‘And here,’ continued Herr Bischoff, indicating a large area around the camp, ‘is what I call “the zone of interest”. About forty square kilometres of land that would be perfect for our needs.’

‘And all this is empty at the moment?’ asked Hitler, running a finger along the map.

‘No, mein Führer,’ replied Herr Bischoff, shaking his head. ‘It is occupied by landowners and farmers. I imagine we would have to consider buying the land from them.’

‘It can be confiscated,’ said the Obersturmbannführer with an indifferent shrug. ‘The land will be requisitioned for the use of the Reich. The residents will simply have to understand.’

‘But—’

‘Please continue, Herr Bischoff,’ said the Führer. ‘Ralf is correct. The land will be confiscated.’

‘Of course,’ he replied, and Pieter could see that the man was starting to perspire noticeably around his bald head. ‘Then here are the plans that I have designed for the second camp.’

‘And how large will it be?’

‘Around four hundred and twenty-five acres.’

‘That big?’ said the Führer, looking up, clearly impressed.

‘I have been there myself, mein Führer,’ said Himmler, a proud expression on his face. ‘When I looked across at it, I knew that it would serve our needs.’

‘My good and loyal Heinrich,’ said Hitler with a smile, resting his hand on the other man’s shoulder for a moment as he looked down at the plans. Himmler beamed with pleasure at the compliment.

‘I’ve designed it to hold three hundred buildings,’ continued Herr Bischoff. ‘It will be the largest camp of its type anywhere in Europe. As you can see, I have used quite a formal pattern, but it will make it easier for the guards—’

‘Of course, of course,’ said the Führer. ‘But how many prisoners will three hundred buildings hold? That does not sound like very much to me.’

‘But, mein Führer,’ said Herr Bischoff, opening his arms wide, ‘they are not small. Each one can hold anywhere between six and seven hundred people.’

Hitler looked up and closed one eye as he tried to calculate. ‘And that would mean . . .’

‘Two hundred thousand,’ said Pieter from behind the desk; once again he had spoken without meaning to, but this time the Führer did not look at him angrily but with pleasure.

Turning back to the officers, he shook his head in amazement.

‘Can that be right?’ he asked.

‘Yes, mein Führer,’ said Himmler. ‘Approximately.’

‘Extraordinary. Ralf, do you think you can oversee two hundred thousand prisoners?’

The Obersturmbannführer nodded without hesitation. ‘I will take great pride in doing so,’ he said.

‘This is very good, gentlemen,’ said the Führer, nodding approvingly. ‘Now, how about security?’

‘I propose dividing the camp into nine sections,’ said Herr Bischoff. ‘You can see here on my plans the separate areas. Over here, for example, the women’s barracks. Over here, the men’s. Each one will be surrounded by a wire fence—’

‘An
electrified
wire fence,’ added Himmler.

‘Yes, mein Reichsführer, of course. An electrified wire fence. It will be impossible for anyone to escape their particular section. But should the impossible happen, the entire camp will be surrounded by a second electrified wire fence. To try to escape will be suicide. And of course, there will be guard towers everywhere. Soldiers can be placed there, ready to shoot anyone who tries to run.’

‘And here?’ asked the Führer, pointing to a place at the top of the map. ‘What is this? It says
Sauna
.’

‘I propose to create the steam chambers here,’ said Herr Bischoff. ‘In order to disinfect the clothes of the prisoners. By the time they arrive they will be covered in lice and other pests. We do not want disease to spread around the camp. We have our brave German soldiers to think of.’

‘I see,’ said Hitler, his eyes wandering over the complex design as if he was in search of something in particular.

‘Each will be designed to look like a shower room,’ said Himmler. ‘Only there will not be water coming from the ceiling.’

Pieter looked up from his notepad and frowned. ‘Excuse me, mein Reichsführer,’ he said.

‘What is it, Pieter?’ asked Hitler, turning round with a sigh.

‘Forgive me, I think I must have misheard,’ said Pieter. ‘I thought you said that there would be no water coming from the showers.’

All four men stared at the boy, and for a few moments no one spoke.

‘No more interruptions, please, Pieter,’ said the Führer quietly, turning away.

‘My apologies, mein Führer. Only I don’t want to make an error in my transcript for the Obersturmbannführer.’

‘You have made no error. Now, Ralf, you were saying . . . The capacity?’

‘To start with, about fifteen hundred per day. Within twelve months we can double that number.’

‘Very good. The important thing is that we are consistent in our turnover of prisoners. By the time we have won the war, we need to be sure that the world we inherit is pure for our purposes. You have created a thing of beauty, Karl.’

The architect looked relieved and bowed his head. ‘Thank you, mein Führer.’

‘All that is left to ask is when we begin construction?’

‘With your order, mein Führer, we can start work this week,’ said Himmler. ‘And if Ralf is as good as we all know he is, then the camp will be operational by October.’

‘You need have no worries about that, Heinrich,’ said the Obersturmbannführer with a bitter smile. ‘If the camp isn’t ready by then, you may lock me up there too as my punishment.’

Pieter felt his hand start to grow weary with all his writing, but something in the Obersturmbannführer’s tone triggered a memory in his head and he looked up, staring at the camp commandant. He remembered now where he had seen him before. It was six years earlier, when he was hurrying towards the arrivals and departures board in Mannheim, looking for the platform for the Munich train. The man in the earth-grey uniform who had collided with him and pressed a boot onto his fingers while he lay on the ground. The man who would have broken his hand, had his wife and children not appeared to take him away.

‘This is very good,’ replied the Führer, smiling and rubbing his hands together. ‘A great enterprise, gentlemen; perhaps the greatest the German people have ever undertaken. Heinrich, the order is given. You may start work on the camp immediately. Ralf, you will return there immediately and oversee the operation.’

‘Of course, mein Führer.’

The Obersturmbannführer saluted and walked over to Pieter, standing before him and looking down.

‘What?’ asked Pieter.

‘Your notes,’ replied the Obersturmbannführer.

Pieter handed him the notepad, on which he had tried to scribble almost everything the four men had said, and the Obersturmbannführer glanced at it for a moment before turning away, saying goodbye to all and leaving the room.

‘You can leave too, Pieter,’ said the Führer. ‘Go outside and play if you like.’

‘I will go to my room and study, mein Führer,’ replied Pieter, seething inside at the way he’d been spoken to. One moment he was a trusted confidant who could sit in the most important seat in the land and take notes on the Führer’s special project; the next he was being treated like a child. Well, he might be young, he decided, but at least he knew there was no point in building a shower room without water.

Katarina had started working in her father’s stationery shop in Berchtesgaden just after her fifteenth birthday. It was 1944, and as Pieter made his way down the mountain to see her he had, for once, decided not to wear the Hitlerjugend uniform of which he was so proud, but a pair of knee-length lederhosen, brown shoes, a white shirt and dark tie. He knew that Katarina, for some inexplicable reason, didn’t like uniforms, and he wanted to give her no cause to disapprove of him.

He hovered outside for almost an hour, trying to summon up the courage to go in. Of course, he saw her every day at school, but this was different; today he had a specific question to ask – though the idea of broaching it filled him with anxiety. He had thought about asking in a corridor between classes, but there was always a chance that one of their classmates would interrupt, and so he had decided that this would be the best way.