Eva (31 page)

And survival.

He looked around. On a hill overlooking the town stood Coburg Castle. At first it seemed undamaged, until he suddenly realized that he could see right through the tall, gabled roof of one of the main buildings. Only the steepled supporting timbers remained, scorched and black against the sky.

The safe house was a small
Gasthof
—a small hotel on a side street off Coburg Square. The streets on the outskirts of town were still cluttered with the piled-up remains of barricades erected in a futile attempt to stem the enemy tide; now dismantled and as useless as ever. They walked past the dismal reminders of defeat, ignoring them and their futility as studiously as the townspeople did. They crossed Coburg Square, passed by the gutted
Adolf Hitler Haus,
and presently they stood before a dingy little hotel ambitiously calling itself
Zum Stern
—At the Star.

They had arrived at the Coburg
Anlauffstelle.

Ever since he and Eva had emerged from the caves in the Harz Mountains, blinking at the sun like hemeralopic troglodytes, Willi had been keyed up, on the lookout for trouble. Any trouble. Although everything along the
Achse
escape route had run as smoothly as the wheels in a well-oiled machine. He was impressed but not surprised at the capability and ingenuity of the SS organization.

Eva had been uncomfortable in Madame Zorina’s establishment, but he had spent a delightful couple of hours—on the house. The stops in the
Zum Stern
hotel in Coburg and in Neustadt had been uneventful as they had been passed on with efficient dispatch.

The accommodations in the
Anlaufstelle
in the little Bavarian town of Nördlingen halfway between Nürnberg and Munich were cramped but adequate.
Achse
travelers were put up in the cellar or in the attic of a small tailor shop run by one Reinhold Hacker, who specialized in the repair and alteration of old clothes, a thriving business in postwar Germany. Hacker’s living quarters were on the second floor of the little half-timbered building. Behind the shop was his cluttered workroom, curtained off by a heavy portiere of blue velvet, badly faded in the folds, that hung across the doorway. It was a good choice for a stop. All sorts of people came into the shop every day. Strangers would not be noticed.

Hacker was making arrangements for them to leave the next morning. For the town of Memmingen about 120 kilometers directly to the south. It was a long haul and he had promised them motor transport. Meanwhile he had cautioned them to stay in their attic quarters except for the necessary trips to the grimy little bathroom off the workshop. And that was exactly what they were doing.

Eva was sitting on the mattress that served as her bed, looking up at the tiny patch of blue sky visible through a skylight window in the roof. The whirring sound of Hacker’s old treadle-operated sewing machine, occasionally interrupted by the thin tinkling of the shop doorbell announcing a customer, floated in the air along with the dust particles in the beam of light from the window.

She wondered if she would have a sewing machine of her own in the new world she was headed for. She looked forward to sewing little things for her son. Adolf. Little Adolf, she had decided to name him.

A pang of grief swept through her. His father would never see him. He would have loved him so, she thought. She just knew that Adolf would have been a good father. A wonderful father. He always loved the little children who came to him with their flowers and their awkward little curtsies. He would always pat their cheeks and have a kind word for them.

She remembered a speech Adolf had once made to the National Socialist Women’s Auxiliary. “I should love nothing more dearly than to have a family,” he had said. She had been in the audience and she remembered his words very clearly. “When I feel I have accomplished my historical mission, I intend to enjoy the private life which I so far have denied myself. I intend to have a family of my own.” And he had looked right at her. She had been certain of it.

She sighed. The world had robbed Adolf of a family—and his son of a father.

For a moment she sat, lost in daydreams, listening to the distant whirr of Hacker’s sewing machine.

Willi watched the girl. A bond of affection had sprung up between them. It had quickly become obvious to him that Eva was a young woman very much in need of affection, something she had done without through most of her life. At times he had wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but the thoughts of the Führer and his unborn child forbade any such action. It would likely as not have led to a deeper involvement, which, of course, was out of the question.

But they had talked. The hours of waiting in the various
Anlaufstellen
had been longer than any other hours they had ever known. It was disquieting to be so completely dependent on others, on strangers, as they were, and their mutual uneasiness had brought them together.

Eva sighed. She hugged her knees. He knew she missed her cigarettes, but there was a strict rule of no smoking in all of the
Achse
hiding places. She looked troubled. It was a special look he had seen on her face before. He wondered where her thoughts were taking her. She had told him many little confidences during the long days in the
Baumannshöhle.
Her moments of delight. And of anguish.

The thrill when the Führer, on her twenty-seventh birthday, with obvious pride had presented her with one of the very first Volkswagens which he had just ordered mass-produced for the people . . . Her joy in sports, a joy he shared; skiing, swimming, and hiking, and her childlike excitement over the 1936 Olympics—until her jealousy of the beautiful and talented Leni Riefenstahl, the “priestess of the Nazi Olympics,” who found such obvious favor with the Führer, had soured her on the event . . . Her genuine happiness in the memories of her times alone with “the Chief,” a term of endearment she often used when she spoke of the Führer . . . Her pleasure in his small attentions . . . And the hurts, the aches. The humiliation she felt at being snubbed by the grand ladies of the Nazi regime, the wives of the high-ranking officials who surrounded her lover, affronts which often thinly disguised an icy animosity. Emmy Goering, Anneliese von Rippentrop, Elsa Himmler, and Magda Goebbels in the forefront. Only once had the Führer angrily stood up for her. Emmy Goering had given a party for all the lady secretaries, assistants, and servants of the Berghof—and on the list had been Eva Braun. Emmy Goering was never again allowed at the Berghof . . . And he knew of the disappointment, the lonely ache when she was being excluded from the glamorous affairs and the big balls attended by the Führer . . . He had felt the raw pain beneath her bantering confession, that after hearing Goebbels proclaiming in a speech that “the Führer is totally devoted to the nation and has no private life,” she had referred to herself as
Fräulein Kein Privatleben
—Miss No-Private-Life . . .

And in a moment of emotional anguish she had even let slip in a wretched whisper the two times she had attempted to take her own life when the misery and agony of her relationship with the Führer became unbearable.

He watched her. Her eyes haunted, she was staring out through the window, seeing something other than the bright, blue sky. He frowned, concerned. Something was obviously tearing at her, he knew not what. But he could not afford to have her fall to pieces. Not now.

He touched her arm. “What is it, Eva?” he asked gently. “I am your friend. Perhaps I can help.”

Eva turned to him. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. Suddenly she sobbed. She flung herself impulsively into his arms and buried her face in his shoulder. She wept. Uncontrollably. Great sobs shook her body as she clung to him.

He held her. He let her cry.

Presently she stopped. She lifted her tear-stained face to his and gazed at him, her eyes liquid in anguish. “I am sorry, Willi,” she whispered. “I . . . I . . .”

“It is all right,” he said quietly. “Why not tell me what is troubling you?”

For a moment she sat silent. She looked down, her eyes not meeting his.

“It—it was so terrible,” she whispered. “And I was there. I— helped. And—she looked so much like me. I—I killed her, Willi. She is dead because of me.
I
should be dead!”

“Who, Eva? Who did you kill?”

She told him. In a rush of anguished words she told him about the young woman who had taken her place in the bunker. Told him how she changed clothes with her and how she helped put her own dress on the unconscious girl. She told him about the death spasms that racked the young woman’s body when the poison phial was crushed in her mouth, and how her own life had been saved by the deliberate sacrifice of another. And she told him of the guilt that had gnawed at her, eaten her—and grown into a monster in her mind, threatening to devour her sanity.

She looked at him, tears brimming in her eyes.

“But I did not do it for me,” she sobbed. “I did it for Adolf. For the Führer. And for our child. You must understand that, Willi. Please . . .”

He nodded. “I do understand, Eva,” he said quietly. “And you were right in doing what you did. You need feel no guilt. The life of the Führer’s son is above all else.” He looked solemnly at her. “Put away your guilt,” he said. “Guilt is like any other pain. Whether real or imagined, it hurts just as much. Don’t be hurt by a guilt you need not feel.”

She nodded. She wiped her eyes. She felt better. Perhaps she had just needed to confide her feelings to someone. Willi was right. What had been done was for the greater good; for the future.

“I will be fine,” she said resolutely. “Thank you, Willi.”

He smiled at her. He had suspected that something like what Eva had told him had taken place, but he had, of course, not known the details. It must have been an ordeal for a girl, unaccustomed to the necessity of violence. He looked into her face. The shadows in her eyes were still not completely driven out. She had escaped from the bunker, he thought, without a scratch.

Unless you look inside her head.

The air in the little hotel room was charged with tension. Grim-faced the man looked at Woody. “There is nothing I can do,” he said flatly. “You and your woman will have to remain here at the
Zum Stern
for a few more days. Perhaps a week.”

The dawn of Saturday, June 9, was cloudy, gray, and dismal. It matched Woody’s mood perfectly as he listened to the dour
Anlaufstelle
agent destroy his mission with a few words.

He faced a real dilemma. If he was delayed a week, even a couple of days, he would never be able to catch up with Eva and her escort. On the other hand, if he made too much of a damned fuss, he might arouse suspicion and finish off his whole operation himself. There had to be a way.

“Even if the next stop on the route has been closed down,” he argued, “for security reasons, as you say, you must have alternatives—other than just having us waiting it out.”

The agent looked at him suspiciously. “Why?” he asked tersely. “Why are you so anxious to be on your way? You are quite safe here.”

“Ah,” Woody said, “that’s just it.”

The man glared at him, sharply. “Explain yourself,” he snapped.

Woody looked straight at him. “I did not want to say this,” he pointed out. “But—how safe are we here? Right now—yes. But when more and more travelers gather here to wait, the risks of discovery increase. Perhaps they become too big for me to accept.”

The agent frowned at him.

“I am merely looking for a way to minimize any risk that grow out of the closing down of the next stop on the route,” Woody explained. “Our risks—as well as yours. The fewer travelers you have to shelter here, the better the odds are for you. The less danger there is. For you.”

The man looked thoughtful.

“When you were told of the
Anlaufstelle
shut-down,” Woody continued, “you must have been given other instructions. Alternatives. Emergency measures.” He let a hint of authority creep into his voice, the ring of a man used to giving orders, and having them obeyed, “I know no plans are made without a backup,” he said sharply. “What is it?”

“It will not work,” the man said.

“Let me judge for myself,” Woody said brusquely. “What is it?”

“We were given the location of the stop next on the route after the one that had to be closed down,” the agent said. “For emergency purposes.” He looked at Woody. “But it will not work. It is too far. Over a hundred and twenty-five kilometers. Only with motor transportation could you make it. And we have none available.”

What transportation do you have?” Woody asked.

“Only bicycles.”

Where is the stop?”

For a brief moment the man contemplated him. “In Neustadt on the Aisch,” he said. “Between Würzburg and Nürnberg.”

“Are our papers ready?” Woody asked. “Up to date?”

The man nodded.

Woody made a fast calculation. A hundred miles. Give or take. They should be able to make it in ten hours on bicycles. They
should
be able to reach Neustadt before curfew. Anyway, they had to try. They had no choice. Resolutely he turned to the
Anlaufstelle
operative. He thought he caught a flash of animosity in the man’s eyes. He dismissed it.

“I want to leave for Neustadt,” he said firmly. “Within the hour!”

Woody was getting worried. There was a damned good chance they wouldn’t reach the stop in Neustadt in time. They had been on the road over two hours and they were just pulling in to the little town of Lichtenfels, only fifteen miles south of Coburg. He cursed under his breath as he pumped the pedals on his bike. Dammit! He hadn’t counted on the fucking baskets! Their travel permits stated that they were delivering a load of the famous Coburg baskets to Neustadt. Each of their bikes had a little cart—mounted on bicycle wheels hooked to the back—piled high with the damned things. Even though Ilse valiantly tried to keep up, it slowed them down. Especially on the upgrades, where they often had to dismount and push. No way would they make it, Woody thought gloomily.