The Castle in the Forest (37 page)

8

I
had, as I related, been at a distance from Lambach until after the assassination, and by then the Hitlers no longer lived in the grain mill nor even, indeed, in Lambach. They had moved to a larger town (Leonding, pop. 3,000) which, at first, was much to Klara's satisfaction, for it was the result of her subtle manipulation of Alois. That was novel. It had taken her years to begin to understand how to manipulate her husband. God-fearing, she did not like to use calculated tactics. Until they lived at the mill, it never occurred to her that she might make Alois jealous.

Indeed, Klara had never been able to believe that she was worthy of her husband—he was still so preeminently an uncle. But, at last, she came to realize that he might even need her. Even if he did not love her in large measure, he did need her.

Armed at last with this thought, she was able to recognize that Alois might be old enough by now to feel jealous. She, in turn, so long as she broke no Godly injunctions but merely bent them a bit, might, yes, might, make Alois jealous enough to wish to move away from the mill.

This possibility resided in the form of the big, soot-covered man on the ground floor, the blacksmith, Preisinger. Fascinated by him, Adi often spent hours at a time watching him work and listening to him talk. She could hear their voices even as she worked in her kitchen on the floor above, and the sounds that came up were curiously engaged with those she made—the splash of water from a pail to a basin seeming to be answered by a few ringing blows on an anvil.

She knew why Adi was eager to be with the blacksmith. The man worked with fire. That was exciting, even if she was not about to ponder why fire pleased her so. If she had known since childhood that God was everywhere, well, so was the Devil. As long as one did not oblige oneself to follow every thought, then the Devil could have no access. God would be there to protect your ignorance.

So it was enough for her to understand that Adi would be full of a sense of mystery as he watched the blacksmith heat a piece of iron until it was white-hot, at which moment another piece, also white-hot, could be attached. Out of such melding would come more complex joinings ready to become useful tools—for everything from forging carriage axles to mending broken ploughs.

Soon enough came an occasion when she had a reason to visit below. The water pump in her kitchen needed a repair on its cylinder. The crack was soon mended, but to her surprise, she stayed a little longer and talked with the blacksmith. Then he invited her to come back whenever she would like a cup of tea.

To her amazement, this big bull of a man, this Preisinger, had nice manners. He not only treated her with the greatest respect, but he could also speak well, considering that he was as uneducated as herself. He did not brag, but did leave the impression, which she found most agreeable (even as she had once had just such sentiments about Alois), that he was a person of natural importance. She could hardly believe how pleasing it was to listen to him as she sat in the one good chair of his shop while Adi stood beside her close to transfixed.

Preisinger's trade was not only engaged with farmers in the area, and occasionally with travelers whose horses were having trouble with a shoe, but, as he explained, many merchants in the area depended upon him for odd repairs. Moreover, he could diagnose many an equine ailment. “I have been able to act, Frau Hitler, as a veterinarian. Yes, I can say that. Because sometimes I have to know more than the vets.”

“Can you really say that?” asked Klara, and blushed at her own straightforwardness.

“Frau Hitler,” answered Preisinger, “I have seen valuable animals hobbled to where they could barely walk. And for a simple reason. The veterinarian, however good a fellow he might be concerning other animal diseases, did not know as much about a horse's hoof as was necessary.”

“I suppose that is true,” said Klara. “You have had so much experience.”

“Young Adolf will tell you. There are market days when I shoe as many as twenty horses, one after another. No stopping.”

“Yes,” said Klara, “how much work must come rushing in when there is ice on the ground.”

To which he answered, “I see that you understand these matters.”

Klara had to blush.

“‘Give me a better grip on the ice,'” Preisinger now said. “I hear that every winter. Over and over. Once, on a freezing day, I had to shoe twenty-five horses, and every one of those farmers was asking me to hurry up.”

“Yes, but Herr Preisinger would not agree,” said Adolf. “He told me, ‘Speed is speed, yet one nail gone wrong, and that horse will never trust you again.'” Adi's cheeks were flushed. He could not tell Klara what else the blacksmith had confessed. “Young fellow,” Preisinger had said, “there were nights when I couldn't sit down because I had the horse's name on my behind.”

“The horse's name?” Adi had asked.

“His hoof. I can recognize horses by their hooves.”

“You can?”

“Old Clubfoot. Old Crookedhoof. What name would you like? I will find it for you on my backside.”

He had laughed, but then, seeing that Adi was bewildered, Preisinger was quick to add, “I am joking. Only joking. But a good blacksmith knows that you can get kicked for your trouble.”

“How often does that happen?” the boy asked. He was so obviously seeing the event in his mind that Preisinger decided to remove himself from such images.

“No longer,” he said. “Now it is not even one time a year. In this work, you have to be very good or you don't last.”

With Klara, Preisinger preferred to discuss how he might compound his own special caulk for the hole left by old nails—he was proud of the various kinds of problems he was ready to solve. While he spoke, she looked at the occasional imprint of horseshoes on his dirt floor, there in the dark dust on the earth floor. She certainly did like this man. She could share his pride in the sea anchor he was making for a rich man—no, no ordinary problem, an anchor—one had to be certain there were no weaknesses between the ring, the stock, the crown, the flukes, the palm, and the shank. She did enjoy the sound of such words. “The palm and the shank,” she repeated.

After her third visit in two weeks, Preisinger insisted on returning upstairs with her one morning to collect all her knives, which he then proceeded to sharpen in his smithy. Afterward, he refused payment. What impressed Klara most was that his work clothes might be black with soot, yet he moved with such a sense of where he was that no detritus was left in her clean kitchen.

Then, on a Saturday evening when he must have known Herr Hitler would be off to the Gasthaus for his beer, Preisinger came by on a visit, dressed in his Sunday shirt and suit. That caused no little perturbation in Klara (and in Angela), but he, too, was uncomfortable and sat on the edge of the sofa.

Yet Klara would look back on this occasion with satisfaction. That was because when Alois returned, he was even more disturbed than his wife at the sight of Preisinger installed on their sofa, huge hands clamped together in his lap. While the blacksmith departed soon after, he did bow to Klara and manage to say, “Thank you for your invitation.”

Alois waited until he and Klara were alone in their room.

She was contrite. “No, I didn't invite him.” She shook her head as if to tumble a few bits of memory back into place. “Well, yes,” she then said, “I suppose I did.” She had been courteous, merely courteous. Adolf had been spending so much time down below with Herr Preisinger that she thought it would be polite to make a suggestion, no more, that Herr Preisinger visit them for her strudel. But only on some day or other. She had not specified. It had not been a true invitation.

“And did you serve him strudel?”

“Well, I had to. Does one offer a guest nothing?”

“A guest?”

“Well, a neighbor.”

On it went. Afterward, she never knew how much of all this could have been planned. She would deny such a possibility. Yet, not two days later, Alois informed her that he had sent a letter to a friend in the Customs House at Linz inquiring whether real estate was available in Linz or nearby. “I am bored here,” he told her. “The noise from below is becoming intolerable.”

A week later, an answer came. There was a fine little house at a good price in Leonding, not too far from Linz.

Klara and Alois knew that they would buy that place before they even went to look. Each was full of the same determination, if for altogether opposite reasons.

9

T
his would be all I need to narrate about Preisinger (since they would never see him again after the move), but I cannot leave the man without speaking of one of his final conversations with Adi, now that he knew Klara would soon be gone.

Preisinger had fallen in love. Needless to say, it could not be love with lively hope for the outcome, yet all the same, he had felt a sympathetic quickening in her. Conceivably, it could in time become a legitimate match. Her husband was certainly getting old. So Preisinger, full of his own hard-acquired dignity, was desolate when he heard that she and the boy would soon be gone.

He acted, therefore, in the only way he could. He took the liberty of offering up the depth of his working philosophy. The boy might be only nine, but by Preisinger's estimate, there was true eagerness to know more.

“Why is iron so strong?” Preisinger asked, and replied to his own question. “Because it is in its spirit to be strong.” He paused. Any further exposition would depend on the boy's reaction to what he would next be told. “Every material,” Preisinger said, “has a spirit which is its own. Some spirits are strong, some are gentle.”

Young Adolf did not reply but chose to nod. Preisinger decided to proceed. “Grass,” he said, “will bend before every wind. It is ready to give way to any foot that steps upon it. It is the opposite of iron. Even so, iron ore can be found deep in the same earth where grass grows above. And, once this iron ore is smelted you can make it into a scythe. A scythe is there to cut the grass.”

“That is so interesting,” said Adi, with real enthusiasm.

“Yes. You do not step on a piece of iron. Iron will hurt any foot that does not show respect.” Preisinger's breath grew heavy with the ardor he felt for his subject. “That is because iron ore, once it has passed through the hottest fire, will turn into a unique material.”

“Unique?” the boy asked.

“Unlike any other. Unique.”

“Yes, that is so.” The boy paused. He hesitated to ask his question, then did. “What is a will of iron? How is that made?”

Preisinger was delighted. “Think of how hot a fire must be to call out the will of iron that is in the ore. Iron is strong against every force except the one that made it into iron. I will say that I have felt such a force within myself.”

Adi was agog with the incandescences necessary to create a will of iron. He even made the mistake later that night of trying to explain what he had been told to Angela and to Edmund. Alois, however, happened to overhear and roared with derision. “The mark of a truly stupid man,” he announced to Klara, “is that he takes his own occupation so seriously that he comes to believe it is superior to others.”

Nonetheless, Preisinger's discourse on the will of iron was to prove of considerable use to Adi after he received his first serious whipping. The spirit of restraint Alois had been looking to develop came to an end on a given night when Adolf was playing soldier in the woods and continued to stay out long after dusk. Normally, as evening approached, Alois had only to whistle and Adi would race upstairs from Preisinger's shop or come whipping back from the nearby woods. Indeed, if he did not arrive soon after the echo of the first whistle, Alois would put him over his knee and give him one rousing slap on his behind. In secret—he would hardly admit it to himself—he liked the feel of Adi's buttocks.

On this evening, however, the light that lingered in the forest proved too exciting. It was night before the boy came through the door.

Alois had been brooding over Paula's condition—just that day she had been trying to jump up and down in place (which, the doctor had assured Klara, would be a sign of development) but the child soon gave up. Despite Alois' coaxing, she would not try again. Then, Alois had to whistle for Adi. When the interval became too extended and he had to whistle again, Alois decided it was a willful insult and proceeded to give him a genuine whipping.

Full of Preisinger's precepts, Adi took an oath. He would live with whatever came down. He would fortify his will of iron. Even as the first blow fell, he was issuing orders to himself to fortify such determination by biting his lips.

Tears stood out in his eyes but he would not allow himself to cry. Even as he was being belabored, Preisinger's mighty biceps oscillated before his eyes. Let his father injure himself against a will of iron.

BOOK XII

E
DMUND
, A
LOIS
,
AND
A
DOLF