Last Man to Die (26 page)

They started walking along a narrow gravel path. She breathed deeply of the evening air, and the creases on her forehead vanished as quickly as they had come.

‘Where are we?’ Hencke enquired.

‘The Bunker garden. We’ve just come out of the emergency exit. You’re not supposed to use it, of course, except with the Fuehrer. Or me. You must be careful, Captain. Here less than a day and already taking tea with the Fuehrer and walks in his private garden. There are those who will grow jealous.’ Her mood was light and easy, but he had the impression that her words should not be dismissed as idle chatter.

‘Who?’

‘You’re very direct, Captain.’

‘I’ve only just arrived, remember. And I doubt whether I’ve got time to learn all the subtleties.’

‘Ah! Too direct, I fear, for this city. It’s not the habit here. People prefer to talk in code or riddles and you need an interpreter or an astrologist to find out what they really mean. Why, only an hour ago I heard that tub of lard Goering profess undying faith in the Fuehrer, yet already he is on his plane flying as far south as possible. With such faith, whole Reichs could be toppled, eh?’

Hencke’s brow puckered as he heard the bluntness of her comments aimed at one of the most powerful men in the land. Who was this woman of the Bunker? ‘I’m confused. Forgive me … Who are you?’

‘Me?’ She smiled, lowered her eyes, blushed a little? ‘Of course, you’ve never been in Berlin and Goebbels makes absolutely sure that nothing ever appears in the newspapers.’ She shrugged. ‘But you’ll know as soon as you ask any corporal in the Chancellery, and you seem to prefer directness … I am Eva Braun.’

His expression told her that the name meant nothing to him.

‘I am the Fuehrer’s companion. His mistress.’

‘Then it would seem that you, too, should beware in this city of jealousies, Fräulein Braun, for you certainly have far better access to the Fuehrer than me.’

She clapped her hands with delight, her green eyes sparkled and her voice fluttered with laughter. She moved gracefully, athletically; her body was slim, almost boyish, her teeth white and her lips naturally red, and she had a dimple in the middle of her chin. Although she could never be called a beauty there was an untainted naturalness about her which belied
her age and her fashionable clothes. She seemed and sounded much younger than her thirty-odd years. ‘You are not like the others, Captain. I feel I can be honest with you. They all play games and intrigue against each other. I hope you won’t be long enough in Berlin to catch their disease.’

‘You don’t seem to like Berlin.’

‘I hate it. I’m a Bavarian, from the mountains.’

‘You must be looking forward to returning there.’

‘It … would be wonderful.’ Her words were wistful, as if she were describing a dream rather than the reality of a few days’ time.

‘I thought it was decided. Yet you sound uncertain, Fräulein Braun.’

‘We have made so many plans, over these past years …’ She trailed off, her gaiety gone.

Darkness had fallen and a chill was catching the air. There were goose-bumps on her bare arms but she seemed not to notice. She was wrapped in thought and her words came cautiously.

‘I’ve had fifteen wonderful years with him, Hencke. Every year has been like a lifetime and I have been so happy. I’m not afraid to die, if I have to. If that’s the price.’ She was twisting a ring on her little finger, the only jewellery she wore, and it had obviously come from him. ‘I know everything has to come to an end. Some time. I’m not complaining, really …’ She was biting her lip hard, losing her carefree composure.

‘You feel that much for him?’

‘He’s … been so kind to me. So considerate. I was only seventeen, an assistant in a photographer’s shop when we met. He’s older, of course, much older, and I’m such an empty-head where he’s so wise. Like a father. He trusts me because I don’t play games like
the others. I don’t discuss politics or push new military strategies. And I never argue with him – I daren’t. We just relax together. He says that if he closes his eyes and reaches out he needs to know that someone will be there, not with a knife in their hand but with virtue and steadiness in their heart. And all the rest are liars, every one of them. Goebbels tries to manipulate him for his little propaganda games, Goering promises to defend the skies above Berlin with planes he hasn’t got, and as for that disgusting toad Bormann … He hates me because I’m the one woman he knows he can never have. He tells fearful lies, even pretends that he’s a non-smoker and vegetarian like the Fuehrer. Vegetarian! One night one of the girls found a salami hanging behind his pillow. And she says that’s the least of his revolting habits. But even with an oaf like him I have to share the Fuehrer.’ She sighed with resignation. ‘I have to share the Fuehrer, with the whole of Germany at times. I shouldn’t mind. I’ve been at his right hand all these years. That should be enough for any girl, shouldn’t it?’

Hencke was the schoolmaster once more, listening to a girl pour out her heart and her confusion, and in spite of her protestations of loyalty he knew there was something missing. ‘But it hasn’t been enough. Has it?’

‘All these years, at his right hand, but never properly by his side. Sharing him with so many. Worrying that the difference in our ages was so great he must take me for a silly chattering girl. Wondering what love was like for all the rest …’

Hencke tried to imagine the decrepit old man he had seen that afternoon lying beside this young, vibrant woman. But he couldn’t. No matter how hard he
tried. He realized it couldn’t be, or couldn’t have been, not for a very long time. So that was the problem. A young woman. Facing death. Alone. She deserved it, of course, for the folly of a loyalty so blind. She could be condemned for a love which was twisted, unnatural, obscene many would call it. But even as he shared in the distaste he knew that he, of all people, could not join in the condemnation. Not condemn her for her love, for love could never be a crime. That he understood all too well. They sat down in a gazebo which had somehow remained untouched by the assault on the city, and he reached in the dark to touch her hand, as he would have comforted one of his pupils. He did it instinctively, without thinking, and she did not draw back. He could feel the warm splash of tears on his skin. But no sound, no complaint. Damn it, she was fighting hard.

‘You are such a good listener and I am nothing but a silly blabbermouth, but I have no one else to talk to.’ She squeezed his hand in gratitude and tried a brave laugh, to pretend she wasn’t hurting, but couldn’t sustain it. ‘Tell me. Is facing death … difficult?’

In the semi-light she was looking at him with the earnestness of a young woman, spoiled all her adult life and who had never grown up, never had to, but who had the honesty to realize it. Now she was having to catch up for those wasted years, to mature, to deal with pain, to face death, all in a hurry. Even in this place he couldn’t help but have sympathy.

‘Facing death difficult? I’ve found facing life much harder. Death is just another challenge, and not the most difficult. There is no pain in death, the pain is all in the waiting. You can spend every day of a whole lifetime fearing something which will come only once and, when it does, be gone in a moment.
Why waste our lives fearing something over which we have no choice? You have only one really important choice, and that’s nothing to do with dying, it’s all about living. How long we have is of little consequence, what we do with it is everything. That’s what makes facing death difficult, the regrets. The things you’ve done or, even worse, the important things you’ve left undone.’

‘Will you die with regrets?’

He paused. ‘I hope not.’

The darkness had closed around them like a confessional. She had stopped crying, they were still holding hands.

‘Have you ever helped anyone to die?’

He ran his tongue across his lips to moisten a mouth which had suddenly run dry as he considered how best to answer, or if he should answer at all. He began hesitantly. ‘Once, many years ago, a friend asked me to help him die. He felt alone, victimized. His colleagues and family had rejected him. He was in despair. He felt he had nothing left to cling on to.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I gave him something to live for.’ Hencke’s voice was no more than a whisper, as if every word had to be carved from his soul.

‘And is he …?’

‘No, he’s dead now. The war … But I think he died without regrets.’

‘Then he was a very fortunate man to have such a friend as you, Peter.’

‘Maybe.’

They sat in the gazebo for some while, in silence, joined in spirit and by the touch of their hands. Eventually they were brought back from their private thoughts by the sound of heavy boots making
their way up the Bunker stairs towards the emergency exit.

‘We have to go. My friends are waiting for me – for you, really; they’ll be disappointed! – and I mustn’t keep them waiting. I’m going to take a short cut through the gardens but you must go back through the checkpoints in the Bunker and sign out. But Peter …’ There was pleading in her voice. ‘Promise you’ll help me, too.’

‘Help you? How?’

‘Help me to live, to die if needs be, with no regrets. Tomorrow. This time. Meet me. Help me.’

‘Where?’

‘The reception area in the Chancellery. It’s always crowded. Don’t come up and talk to me. Just follow me. Please?’

He had no chance to consider or reply before she pushed him in the direction of the Bunker entrance, while she ran off, disappearing into the night, leaving him bewildered. What did she want? How could he agree to help her? He felt the uniform grabbing at his throat once more and beads of perspiration gathered on his brow. Christ, Hencke, remember what you’re here for!

As the sound of boots on concrete steps drew closer, he discovered he was still holding the case containing the photograph. He turned it round on all sides, rubbing his thumb over the soft leather, knowing what honour the gift implied, remembering the inscription. ‘A brave and devoted follower … From your Fuehrer …’ He weighed it carefully in his hand, testing its weight before casting around to make sure no one was watching. Then he threw it down the jaws of the broken cement mixer.

‘Hencke, Peter. Born when he said he was – Second of February, 1910. Born
where
he said he was, just outside Eger in the Sudetenland. Only son, father a local shopkeeper, killed at the battlefront during the 1916 offensive at Verdun. Left Eger to study at university in Karlsbad, never returned. No surviving relatives left in the area.’ Bormann’s bullet-shaped head looked up from the slim folder that held the notes of his conversation with the flustered Buergermeister of Eger. ‘He checks out, your Hencke. He’s all right.’

Goebbels sat, staring into the fireplace, the corners of his mouth dragged down almost to the bottom of his jaw as he concentrated, giving him an air of unremitting gloom. It was a while before he responded.

‘What else?’

‘Else? Nothing else. I said, he left Eger. We’re now checking with the people in Karlsbad and Prague. But what’s your problem? The creep checks out.’

‘You’re talking about nearly twenty damned years ago! Nothing since then. You call that “checking out”?’ The tone was accusatory, the look that Goebbels threw at Bormann far worse.

‘For God’s sake, what’s bothering you? Haven’t we got bigger things to worry about? Three hundred thousand men just surrendered in the Ruhr, Russian
tanks already driving along the autobahn around Berlin, the Fuehrer a stumbling wreck, the last opportunity we’ve got of getting out of this hole rapidly going up in smoke … and you keep fussing about one lousy man. A man
you
brought here in the first place. What the hell do you think you’re doing!’

Bormann’s fingers were trembling, a flush creeping up his thick-set neck and across his bony features. He was angry, exasperated, frustrated, but Goebbels could see it was more than that. The man was scared. A shaking leaf. It was as simple as that.

‘Don’t you see? It’s precisely because we want to get out of this hole that Hencke is so important. If we just scuttle off to the Alps the whole of Germany will think we’re running to save our wretched skins. White flags will sprout like weeds all the way across the Reich and the war will be over within days. Dammit, as soon as we start heading for the aircraft they’ll be ripped apart by those being left behind. We’ll look like deserters. But with Hencke, with the example of a man who’s risked everything to fight at the Fuehrer’s side, we might still make it appear like an inspired move to a new fortress, a brilliant plan to outwit the Russians. An example which might keep resistance burning throughout Germany.’

‘You don’t sound too bloody sure …’

‘Of course I’m not sure, you idiot! What do you think I am, a witch doctor? But I know one thing for damn certain. If we stay here we’re all going to have our balls dangling on the end of Russian bayonets before the end of the week. So make your choice. Hencke? Or singing castrati for the Communists!’

Bormann made no reply. His head sagged and he
looked mournfully towards the floor, while Goebbels took several panting breaths to regain his composure.

‘So, my dear Bormann, check out in Karlsbad, check out in Prague, get them sifting through the records of the Wehrmacht, enquire anywhere you might find something about Hencke. Check, check, check. We need this bastard firmly under our thumb, because next to the Fuehrer, he may be the most important man in the Third Reich …’

The reception area of the Chancellery was crowded still, but something had changed since the previous day. There were fewer armed guards standing around than Hencke remembered from his last visit, the piles of packed suitcases seemed to have grown higher, more people were off in corners whispering anxiously between themselves. They appeared to be discussing more than where to spend their evening. The vast foyer retained the bustle and atmosphere of a railway station, but one in which the last train was about to leave with not enough room for all the passengers. A new form of greeting had become common around the Chancellery – ‘How’s your family? Where are they?’ Anybody with sense was trying to get their families moved west, away from the advancing Russians, and those with influence were trying to join them. A major with responsibility for issuing transportation permits had been busy the previous day dealing with a long line of applicants, shouting down the phone to discover when the next train, road convoy or airplane was leaving; today the queue had gone and he sat listlessly by a silent telephone, head in hands. Nobody was bothering with permits any more, the transportation
system was shot to hell and it was every man for himself.

He saw her descending the huge marble staircase. She didn’t look up. She was wearing a bright floral-print dress with long sleeves, and carried nothing but her handbag. She wore no make-up. Her shoes clipped purposefully across the marble floor as she headed towards a side door off the reception area, her well-cut dress brushing across her legs. Once again he noticed the athletic grace with which her hips swung and her body moved. He also noticed many men casting similar furtive looks as she passed by but, unusually in this place, their appreciation remained silent. Nobody mentioned it or offered any of the usual ribald remarks.

She passed close by Hencke but gave no sign of recognition. He allowed a respectable distance to develop before following her out through the side door, striding after her. She led him quickly away from the central reception area with its crowds into increasingly remote areas of the Chancellery where many fewer people scurried around. For several minutes he followed along anonymous corridors, up and down flights of stairs, through reception rooms, until he had become completely disorientated. It was as if she were trying to lose him, had she already changed her mind? He hurried around yet another corner to find himself in a bare corridor echoing in its emptiness. She had gone, disappeared. He’d lost her and lost himself into the bargain. He had no idea where he was or what she wanted of him. Why the secrecy? What was he doing here? Where the hell had she gone? He was stumbling mystified along the corridor, growing more bewildered with each step, when a hand reached out and dragged him into a
doorway. It was Eva. Putting a finger to her lips, she pulled him into a small, windowless secretarial office with two desks and typewriters, and papers strewn across the floor. The room had been vacated in a hurry. She showed no interest in their surroundings and was leaning against the door, ear to its panelling, listening. He moved across to join her but once more she raised a finger to her lips, demanding silence. A few moments later came the sound of booted footsteps approaching from the way they had come, hesitating, scraping in uncertainty, then quickening and moving sharply onward. Before they disappeared completely the footsteps broke into a run, bringing a wry smile of satisfaction to Eva’s face.

‘I thought as much. They’ve put a man to keep an eye on you,’ she whispered.

‘Following me? Why?’

‘I told you many would be jealous.’

‘They suspect me? Of what?’

She smiled reassuringly as she saw the look of alarm twitching around his eyes.
‘Everybody
is suspect in this city. It was only a few months ago that generals in the High Command tried to kill the Fuehrer. And you they suspect because you’re different, you’re new, dropped in out of the blue. They don’t yet know what your vices or ambitions are. Everybody in Berlin has vices and ambitions, and they’re all recorded somewhere on somebody’s files. But not yours, not yet. Perhaps you should make it easy for them, present them with a written list,’ she chuckled impishly.

He showed no sign of appreciating the humour. ‘Who are “they”?’

‘Practically everybody. No …’ She paused while
she considered her response, her ear to the door once more checking for further sounds of pursuit. ‘Come to think of it, probably Goebbels or Bormann. The rest of them seem to have lost interest in what goes on here. Yes, probably one or other of that rotten pair.’

The lids closed slowly over his eyes and his lean face sagged as he contemplated the horror of his position. Under constant watch, with seemingly no chance of finding the opportunity he sought. Now locked in some mysterious conspiracy with Hitler’s mistress. His eyes flashed open. ‘What am I doing here?’ he demanded.

‘Come with me’ was all the explanation she volunteered. She grabbed his hand and, after listening once more for sounds outside, proceeded to lead him through the labyrinth which made up the service areas and passageways of the Chancellery. Several times she stopped to ensure they were not being followed, but they were deep inside the disused section of the Chancellery, evacuated because of bomb damage, and there was no one about. They started to climb, up flights of stairs littered with debris, fallen chunks of plaster and the occasional brick or abandoned file. In one section the wrought-iron balustrade had fallen away and paintings sagged at drunken angles from the wall; elsewhere the lights had failed, but she seemed surefooted and to know precisely where she was headed, leading him onwards with the aid of a small torch she had taken from her handbag. They were several storeys above the inhabited section of the Chancellery before they came to a set of tall doors. She tried the handle, but the door refused to budge. Once more she tried, before appealing to Hencke. He turned the handle;
the door wasn’t locked, just jammed. He put his shoulder to it and it gave way with a shudder, covering him in a shower of plaster dust.

He was still brushing the dust from his SS uniform when she pulled him inside. Even in the darkness he could see they were in a magnificent library, perhaps forty metres long with towering mahogany bookcases on all sides. Some of the bookcases were empty, their contents strewn on the floor or thrown into packing cases which stood abandoned in the centre of the room. Every one of the tall French windows was smashed, some hanging crazily off broken hinges, yet elsewhere the room seemed almost untouched. A sumptuous tapestry adorned the far wall and fine oil paintings still hung in their places between the bookcases. Beautifully carved chairs, desks and expensively covered chaise-longues were scattered around, and a tray of coffee waited on one of the tables. Hencke picked up the pot but it was stone cold and there was a deep ring of dust around its base. It hadn’t been touched for several weeks.

‘What on earth are we doing here?’ he demanded once more.

‘I wanted to show you the view,’ she said, leading him to one of the windows. Outside there was a small balcony which afforded a panorama of the city. A huge sweep of Berlin was scattered before them in the early night, from the Brandenburg Gate and the wooded Tiergarten lying behind, to the ruined Reichstag which had burned in 1933, and onwards to the ministries, embassies and hotels that crowded along Unter den Linden. Many of them were burning now. Through the low-hanging clouds of smoke and dust that swept across the city they saw the silhouettes
of great cathedrals, hospitals, monuments, boulevards and railway stations, thrown into stark relief by the fires that glowed all around. Away into the distance the whole city was lit by flame. In some places conflagrations burned out of control and consumed whole blocks where the firefighters had given up in despair; in others there rose the flicker of fiery geysers where a gas main had been breached and was burning, despite the order issued days before to cut off the last of the supplies. Elsewhere, on street corners and in courtyards, they could see the flickering campfires of the Hitler Youth, lit not so much for physical warmth as to comfort the spirit while they manned roadblocks and waited for the assault. Where buildings still stood they burned, where they lay in ruins they smouldered, and this once-great city of Berlin was cast in the light of its own pitiful destruction.

Yet it was the sounds, the noises of a city dying around them, which made the deepest impact. There was no sound of warfare; the artillery bombardment had stopped for the moment and, although they couldn’t know it, the Anglo-American aerial bombardment had stopped too, for good. The Russians were now so close that the pilots of the British Lancasters couldn’t know at night whether they were bombing ally or enemy. But there were other sounds; in place of the noise of battle came that of the capital tearing itself apart. The screams of a battered city yielding to final assault; the pathetic cries for help of the injured and maimed still trapped in the rubble; the drawn-out death rattle of masonry as buildings gave up the struggle and collapsed; the crackle of flame; shattering glass; frantic shouts of alarm as a horse-drawn ambulance
tried in vain to force its way through the chaos; the tears of children wandering the streets in search of parents who would never come home. The howling of dogs driven frenzied with terror. Yet, as in the madness of a nightmare, though assailed by the cries of misery they could still hear raucous shouts, laughter even, as many of those who were left anaesthetized themselves in drunkenness, lust, revenge. While naive civilians cowered in their cellars still praying for salvation, soldiers who had given up all hope wandered the streets looking for distraction. Occasionally a shot would ring out, whether as a sign of success or failure in that search there was no way of telling, but news of what was going on in the cellar of the Chancellery had spread like disease and with it had been wiped out any last vestige of military discipline and self-control.

‘I wanted you to see this, Peter. When I see what is happening to Berlin, I know it’s all nearly over. Down in the Bunker the retreat to the Alps might make sense, but not up here. The whole world seems to have gone insane, and I don’t think anyone can save it.’ They stared across the burning city, standing side by side, until he found her hand in his.

‘Peter?’ The voice was tremulous, anxious, full of uncertainty. Gone was the self-confident authority of the chase through the Chancellery, the uncertain schoolgirl had returned. She clutched his hand ever more tightly as his eyes turned upon her, but he said nothing. Already he knew what she wanted. He had turned to face her, still silent, but now she held both his hands. Tentatively, hesitating as if at any moment she might change her mind or be rebuffed, she raised herself unsteadily onto the tips of her toes, leaning against him for balance, her body
pressing into his as she craned her slim neck. When their lips met it seemed scarcely a kiss, more a light brushing, a dance of butterflies, testing her own resolve as much as his, but she was committed now and searching more eagerly for him, her fingers working their way up his back to force his head down, her lips taut, inexperienced, the kiss for all its earnestness that of a woman many years younger. In many ways she was still a child, an innocent in this city of slaughter. ‘No regrets,’ she whispered. ‘Help me die. With no regrets.’