Chocolate Cake With Hitler (4 page)

Day Three in the Bunker

Tuesday 24 April, 1945

I woke up in the middle of the night. Very suddenly. I don’t know what woke me. It was quiet except for the sleepy breathing sounds of the little ones and the hum of the ventilation. No footsteps or bombs or guns. It was as if I’d had a nightmare, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Just a black emptiness. I didn’t dare sit up. I wanted to call out for Mummy but I didn’t want to make a sound in case there were Russians who’d broken into the bunker and were waiting silently to pounce. I lay completely still so that no one would know I was there, trying to breathe tiny silent breaths through my nose without moving my chest. I thought I could hear someone outside our door. I tilted my head to see if I could see any shadows in the strip of light under the door but there was nothing there.

I must have fallen back to sleep in the end because
the next thing I remember was being woken by a
thudding
explosion. Bits of plaster fell on my face. We turned on the light but no one came. It was 7.30, so we got dressed in silence, not even Helmut saying a word, and waited for Mrs. Junge to come and get us for breakfast.

Everything always looks the same here whether it’s the middle of the day or the middle of the night, so what if the clock was completely wrong and we didn’t know? It could have been 10.30 in the morning and no one had come to get us because everyone had been killed in the night. I got the tight feeling again – of a large pebble under my ribs, which stops my breath going any further down than the bottom of my neck. But I didn’t let on to the little ones.

I felt a bit better once Mrs. Junge had finally come for us and we’d had some breakfast. We took our books and paints out to the landing table, and the little ones brought teddies and Helmut brought his soldiers and cars. I tried to do a painting – a washy blue sky – but all this playing and doing things just seems pointless. The same question keeps going round and round my head, the question no one will answer and no one will talk about: WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO US? I told Mrs. Junge that I had a headache and I went back to our bedroom on my own and screamed into the pillow.

I was lying there holding Elsa really tight – her old
face always looks so sad and comforting; she has tiny tiny cracks around her eyes and mouth, which make her, I think, much more beautiful than brand-new dolls – when Liesl came to collect our dirty clothes for washing. She scooped everything up into her basket and I thought maybe she hadn’t noticed me all scrunched up on the bed, but then she came and stood beside me and rubbed my back.

“Chin up!” she said.

I’ve heard the soldiers say that, although they add: “while you’ve still got a chin!”

“I expect you need a hug.”

I climbed down on to the lower bunk, and we both sat down with our heads resting on each other because there wasn’t enough height to sit upright. Liesl felt warm and soft.

“There, there. Don’t take on. We’re all going to look after each other. Where there’s life there’s hope.”

I didn’t mean to cry but I couldn’t help it. Liesl had a clean hanky, which she passed to me. The feeling of her warmth beside me gave me a bit of courage.

“Liesl, what do you think will happen if we lose the war?”

“Don’t be silly. We won’t lose the war. Give your face a good wipe.”

“But what if we did? Don’t you ever worry that we might?”

She paused. “Of course I do. It’s only natural to
worry, but you have to keep hoping or you’ll go mad.”

“What do you want to do when we get out of here?”

“I want to go home. I want to see my parents. I want to sleep in my own bed. I want to open my curtains in the morning and look out at the farmyard. I want to hear the cockerel crow, I want to hear the dogs bark, I want to drink warm milk, fresh from the cow, and I want to see Peter.”

She spoke softly and dreamily, but the last few words came out in a strange, twisted voice. I could see her tears. I didn’t know what to do, so I just rubbed the back of her hand until her sobs died down, and she let go of me for a moment and wiped her face quickly. She doesn’t have to worry about smudging like Mummy. If Mummy cries she always presses under each eye with a straight finger, trying to stop her eye make-up running down her cheeks.

“Who’s Peter?”

“Peter is my fiancé.”

“Is he a farmer?”

“No, no, no. Peter is a bookseller. Well, he works for his father who has a bookshop. He lives in a little town about two miles from my parents’ farm. But he’s in the army at the moment.”

“Is he here in Berlin?” I didn’t mean to set her off crying again.

“No, I’m not sure where he is exactly. It’s difficult with Auntie Eva. We have to move about a lot. Our
whereabouts are secret. Letters don’t always get through. I haven’t heard from him for, well, for a long time. He was sent to the Eastern Front.”

“Do you have a picture of him?”

She did. Tucked in a pocket of her chemise, so it was a bit warm and crumpled. Not in uniform, but dressed in a suit. A serious face. Dark hair parted on the side and flopping down over one eye. He looked clever and certain and very far away.

“He’s very handsome,” I said.

Liesl nodded and shifted herself upright. “I must get on. This washing won’t do itself. But I feel better for a cry. Thank you, Helga. Please don’t tell Auntie Eva I got upset. She likes everyone to keep cheerful. Let’s go and see what the others are up to.”

We went back to the round table where Mrs. Junge had got the others playing a game of forfeits. Papa and Mummy ate lunch with us. Well, Papa ate. Mummy wasn’t hungry. We had thin, pale brown soup and mashed potato. A bit of an odd combination. Mash is another Uncle Adi favourite, apparently. Actually, I’m not surprised because Miss Manziarly makes excellent mash. No lumps. Even Holde ate a bit. Tinned peaches for pudding. Not a patch, mind, on the peaches in the greenhouse on Swan Island.

We were just about to go for our afternoon rest when Auntie Eva came running up the staircase: “Darlings! Would you like to come and have a bath? Uncle Adi is
in a meeting, so we won’t be in his way. You can all have a bath in our bathroom! Helga, darling, can you help everyone find their towels?”

Auntie Eva and Uncle Adi have the only bath in the bunker, and usually nobody except them is allowed to use it. It’s not exactly luxurious. Stone floor, concrete walls, just the single bare bulb dangling from the
middle
of the ceiling. And it smells pretty bad. A mixture of diesel and damp, I think. Not the kind of bathroom you’d expect Auntie Eva to have, although she has, of course, made the most of it. There’s a candle, and a shelf full of her perfumes and powders and bath salts. And her beautiful lace dressing gown hanging on the door. When we went in she gave the room a quick spray of cologne. The tap water came out rather slowly and rather brown, but she threw in handfuls of bath salts which disguised the colour a bit. The main thing was that the water was so deliciously hot.

“OK, children. You are going to need to squeeze up really tight.”

My face must have fallen because Auntie Eva gave me a look and quickly changed her mind.

“Actually, no, Helga can have the water first, then Holde and Hilde can share, then Hedda and Heide, and last of all Helmut can have the bath to himself.”

It was just bliss to sink down into the deep warm water, and drift away from everything – all the dirt and the rubble and the smelly soldiers. I closed my eyes and
plunged my head down under the water. Heaven. But brief heaven, because I knew all the others were waiting and wanting the water while it was still hot. Auntie Eva had warmed the towels on the hot pipes for us, and I sat wrapped up in one in her room for a little while, simply enjoying being warm. Most of the time I feel just slightly chilly. Auntie Eva says the bunker is kept cool because Uncle Leader hates being hot. Apparently he can think better when he’s cold. I’m the opposite.

Liesl had clean clothes ready for us, and I got dressed while Auntie Eva was what she calls “repairing” her make-up. Liesl dried and combed my hair, very gently, and then I had a cuddle with Foxl.

After everyone had had their baths and got dressed, it was time for tea with Uncle Adi. We went through to his sitting room with the dogs. He was already there, sitting on the sofa, and he patted his lap for Heide to jump on to it.

“Here, sing me a nice song, Heide.” It’s amazing how she isn’t shy. Immediately she started bouncing on his knee and singing “Bumpety bump, rider”, which made Uncle Adi laugh. Miss Manziarly had set out
sandwiches
as well as cake and hot chocolate. Cheese and pickle. Uncle Adi didn’t touch them. He ate three huge pieces of chocolate cake, one after the other, without stopping, or speaking, except to ask for more. When he’d finished, he drank his whole hot chocolate in one go. Then he pointed to a painting on the wall.

“Do you know who that is, Helga?”

I hate it when grown-ups do that. Even though we’ve done all those intelligence quizzes with Papa, I never seem to get used to being asked a question out of the blue in front of other people. I immediately feel stupid and sure that the answer that pops into my head must be wrong.

The painting is of a tired, nervous man with white curly hair and a big silver star on his jacket. Come to think of it, he looks rather like someone’s just put him on the spot with a horrible question. I think I know who he is because Papa has a picture of him in his office; I just don’t want to sound too certain in case I’ve got completely muddled.

“Frederick the Great?” I try to make my voice sound confident and curious at the same time, which doesn’t really work.

“Clever girl!” (Phew). “Frederick the Great, and rightly so-called. He was the most outstanding man of his century. He understood how victory demands a great struggle. A great sacrifice. He lost all his teeth, you know. That was the strain of facing the Russian army. Our old enemies.”

“Uncle Adi,” said Helmut – he doesn’t think a thing of interrupting – “how long till we beat the Russians?”

“Very soon!” Auntie Eva burst out before Uncle Adi had a chance.

“When are the new soldiers going to arrive?”

 “Helmut, dear, don’t bother Uncle Adi with all these questions. This is his time of day for resting.” Mummy put her hand on his shoulder.

“Just one more question: when are you going to use the Wonder Weapons?”

Papa answered this time: “When the time is right, Helmut.”

“Uncle Adi,” Helmut continued, “which is your favourite Wonder Weapon? Mine is the Amerika rocket that will zoom through the stratosphere and smash down on New York. When is it going to be set off?” And he made a massive
rocket-through-the-air-city-exploding
noise to go with it.

Uncle Adi laughed, but he didn’t answer Helmut’s question. “You are a natural soldier, my boy, a natural soldier. What the people need to understand is that the Empire is like a patient with a critical illness. The patient has to take medicine. Sometimes the medicine is quite unpleasant; it takes time for the medicine to work; sometimes the patient feels like he is getting worse. But he must wait and trust that the medicine will work. The Empire will recover. It will be stronger than ever. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Uncle Leader.”

“Clever boy, I wish my generals were as sensible as you.”

Helmut beamed. I don’t know if he did understand; I certainly didn’t, but Uncle Adi’s not the sort of person
you like to question, because he says things with such certainty that you feel like you’re an idiot if you don’t understand.

After tea we still had an hour or so before bedtime and we were sitting in the corridor in the Upper Bunker, reading and trying to stay out of everyone’s way, when we saw Mr. Speer.

I quite like Mr. Speer, but he always makes me feel shy. I think it’s his eyebrows; they are so dark and thick and somehow unimaginable. Seeing him now though, I felt safe, and suddenly hopeful. Before we came into the bunker, I had overheard the servants saying that Mr. Speer had been trying to persuade Mummy and Papa to hide us from the Russians on a river barge. Maybe he’d come to get us. He greeted us with a small smile.

“What are you all up to?” he said, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets. I thought he might have sweets in them, but he didn’t produce any.

I didn’t know what to say, because he could see we were reading a story, but Heide answered and told him about our tea with Uncle Adi and our bath and the chocolate cake, babble, babble, babble…

It’s only about ten days since we last saw Mr. Speer. He came to Swan Island to see Mummy. We were playing in the garden when he arrived, and he stayed and talked to us for a bit. We gave him a tour of all the daffodils and crocuses. He said that when he’s an old man he will spend all his time gardening. Then he went
inside to see Mummy, and he was with her for maybe an hour, anyway it seemed like ages, and then he left really quickly. His car was waiting and he just jumped into it with a very sharp wave to us, and was gone. I had the feeling he was angry. The next day his secretary, Miss Kempf, came. We hadn’t met her before. She had tea with us and then she went alone with Mummy into the drawing room. When she came out I could see that she’d been crying. I asked Mummy later why Miss Kempf had been upset and she said that it was a private matter. It might all have been about escape plans, but I’m not sure.