The Secret of Lions (15 page)

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but this is a matter
that we should discuss,” Herr Maelstrom said.

“I don’t want your help, Maelstrom.
Especially since Hitler is the reason for all of this. I know
it.”

“Excuse me, Frau Kessler, but I assure you
that my employer has no prior knowledge of these debts,” Herr
Maelstrom said.

“I don’t believe you,” Gracy returned.

“Herr Hitler has nothing to do with this.
But if you don’t need my help,” Herr Maelstrom said. He waited a
moment for her to respond. It appeared that my mother was
considering the possibility that Adolf Hitler was not behind this
insult.

And she was considering it. She could not be
sure that he was behind it. The economy suffered greatly in
Germany. In order to look out for their own interest and survival
in a highly competitive market, the banks were notorious for
repossessing and collecting on unpaid debts.

She also considered the possibility that
there were never any collection inquiries made by the bank. Heinrik
had warned her about dealing with the banks when they had first
started searching for loans for their dream house. He had told her
it was not beneath the banks to take advantage of widows by
repossessing their belongings. The houses were worth more than the
actual debts. They collected on the debts and made a good
profit.

Maelstrom became impatient and retreated.
Gracy watched him walk away, get into his car, and drive off. The
banker continued to speak. Finally, the police officer grabbed her
arm roughly and asked her to get her things together and leave the
apartment.

47

With the small amount of cash she had, Gracy
took a cab to her parents’ house. She walked up to the front stoop
and knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked harder.
Still there was no answer. She looked through the windows. All she
could see was the same old, worn furniture that her parents had
owned for years.

She could not make out any movement in the
house. So she sat down on the steps pregnant, and waited for them
to return home. She thought it was strange they were gone. During
the week, it was rare that her parents ever left the house at the
same time. Generally, one of them was always home. At least her
mother was usually home. Except on Sundays when they went down to a
little café and ate breakfast together.

Gracy waited.

Hours later, she woke up, not realizing she
had been there long enough to sleep. She got up and looked in the
windows. Still there was no movement in her parents’ house. She
decided to wait longer. There were no sign of any of her parents’
neighbors either.

More time passed and there was no sign of
her parents anywhere. Nightfall approached. Gracy became
increasingly concerned.

The next morning she woke up, and there was
still no sign of her parents. Starving, she was desperate. So she
did the one thing she’d dreaded. She found a cab, spent the rest of
her money, and told the driver to take her to Hitler’s
building.

48

Hitler’s building was the regional
headquarters for the Nazi party. It was downtown. His office was on
the top floor. Gracy got out of the cab; the sky was dark. Clouds
rolled in slowly from the south. The rain was coming, just as Gracy
had felt it would. She walked through a set of heavy glass doors.
She stopped at the front counter.

“I’m here to see Herr Hitler,” she told the
woman. The woman politely asked if she was expected. She said no
but that Hitler would want to see her regardless. After waiting for
two hours, she was finally allowed to enter his office.

She followed the receptionist down a long
corridor. At the end of the hall, she entered a large room. High
ceilings, a long red carpet, and a single oak desk were the first
things she noticed about the room. Then she noticed the mismatched
furniture scattered throughout the room, including two tall-backed,
brown chairs that sat in front of a fireplace with a small fire
crackling in it.

“Frau Kessler?” a voice asked from the front
of the chair.

Gracy moved closer. She felt the warmth from
the fire brushing across her face.

“Yes,” she finally answered. As she made her
way to the side of the chair, she recognized Hitler’s profile. He
sat with a glass of brandy resting in his hand. He’d purposefully
avoided turning to look at her. She had to walk completely around
the chair to face him.

“Why, Gracy, it is you. I was sorry to hear
about Heinrik. I wanted you to know that I personally attended the
funeral services and I have consistently tried to make an audience
with you,” Hitler said. He still did not stand; instead, he just
stared up at her.

Gracy clenched her fists. She was nauseous.
“I apologize, Herr Hitler,” she reluctantly said.

“Why do you apologize, Gracy? What do you
have to be sorry for?” Hitler remained seated. He took a sip from
his brandy and calmly awaited her response.

Gracy clenched her fists even tighter. At
the same moment, she could feel the baby inside her. He was
restless and hungry. Her own stomach muscles tightened at the
thought of eating. Her body was weaker than normal. She could not
go very much longer without eating. She had nowhere to go. Hitler
had trapped her. He had ambushed her.

“I apologize, Herr Hitler because…”

“Please, Gracy, call me Adolf,” Hitler
insisted. He listened patiently as she gulped.

“Adolf, I’m sorry that I ignored your
pursuits. I have nowhere to go. And so I am here.”

Hitler stared at his brandy for a moment. He
savored the moment. Gracy's humiliation was his reward.

He has been rehearsing this moment,
Gracy thought.

He stood up, sipping his brandy one last
time before setting it down on the arm of the chair. He approached
her with raised hands. He came close to her face, brushing her
cheeks softly with his fingertips. Almost instantly his hands
retreated away from her face and he rested his hands on her
shoulders.

“Gracy, you are welcome to stay with me. You
can stay with me as long as you need to. Both you and the baby will
have a home and a life here with me. For as long as you need. As
long as you need,” he said.

The thought echoed in the caverns of Gracy’s
mind. One word in particular resonated with her: long. It would be
long. She knew in her heart she was trapped. She would never escape
Hitler. Never.

49

Tegern Lake, Germany

Six Months Later

Eerily, snow-covered trees surrounded the
quiet lake house like the trees from the prophecy in Shakespeare’s
Macbeth, Birnam Wood. The wind gusted through them, slowly moving
them toward the lake house as if they were setting up to invade
it.

The driveway was iced over. The wind blew a
chilled air swiftly across the lake. Gracy lay in bed and stared at
the ceiling. She was numb. Everything was numb. She leaned over a
bloated, sleeping man. He slept deeply next to her body.

An infant rested near the foot of the bed in
his crib. It was her and Heinrik’s son, Willem. It was me.

Gracy had laid me down two hours earlier.
She had thoughts of murder. I was the only thing keeping her with
Hitler. She wanted Hitler dead. She suspected he’d killed Heinrik
and destroyed our family. In fact, she was sure of it.

When I was old enough I would understand why
she hated Hitler. She hoped I would understand what she had done
and why she wanted to do what she felt she had to do now. Gracy sat
up and left the bed.

She walked out to the porch of the lake
house that was supposed to belong to her and Heinrik. Only now it
belonged to Hitler. He said that he had gotten it for her. He said
it was to be their home when they were not traveling.

She didn’t know how he knew about Tegern
Lake. Heinrik must have told him or he learned from the bank when
he’d falsified Heinrik’s debt. She wasn’t sure what was true. The
only thing she knew for sure was that the lake house was tainted to
her now.

She waved at one of the SS guards as he
passed by the front of the house. She sat on Heinrik’s chair and
looked out over the beautiful landscape.

Heinrik should be here to see this with
me. He should be holding me and Willem, watching over the
landscape. Together. We should all be here together,
she
thought.

Gracy pulled out a Luger she had hidden from
the passing guards. She stared at it. She thought about putting the
barrel in her mouth, but she could not imagine what might happen to
me if she went through with it. Death would be an instant escape
for her, but I would be left behind with the man she hated more
than anyone in the world.

Gracy dreaded the path her life had taken.
Staring out over the dark land a little longer, she swallowed hard
and returned to bed.

Before she lay down again, she suddenly felt
sick. Her stomach muscles tightened, and her head felt light. She
knew she was going to vomit.

She rose from the bed and ran to the
bathroom. Hitler did not stir. He continued to dream.

In the bathroom, the pain grew. She thought
back about how she hadn’t eaten anything for a couple of days. Then
she realized that the only other time in her life that she had felt
this sick was when she was pregnant for the first time with me.

No! I can’t be pregnant! I just can’t be!
Not with his baby,
Gracy thought.

The thought lingered in her mind like a
dark, seductive serpent hatching eggs in her brain. The idea
hatched. It coiled around her thoughts.

Gracy spent the rest of the night in the
bathroom.

50

The next morning, Adolf Hitler awoke in his
bed. He felt satisfied, refreshed. His night had been filled with
soothing dreams.

He peered down to the foot of the bed. He
saw that I was still sleeping.

Gracy was missing. Hitler looked over to her
side of the bed and beyond. He looked to the bathroom door, which
was wide open.

“Gracy!” Hitler called out. “Gracy?”

He saw her on the floor, hunched over.

51

Gracy stood outside of Dr. Levinson’s office
once again, months after she had visited him for morning sickness.
She realized she hadn’t seen him since right after Heinrik had
died.

It was early in the morning. The clinic had
only been open for a short time. She looked back over her shoulder
and watched Herr Maelstrom sitting in the car waiting for her. She
was not alone at the clinic. There was a strange man standing near
her. He leaned against the wall of the clinic.

He watched her closely. She knew he was a
part of Hitler’s entourage. The one memorable thing about him was
how silent he was. He terrified her.

She entered the office and asked to see the
doctor.

“Why, Gracy,” Dr. Levinson said as he walked
past his secretary’s desk.

“Hello, Dr. Levinson,” Gracy said.

“Come in, Gracy. Greta, let her through. She
can go ahead of anyone else who is waiting,” Dr. Levinson said to a
nurse who sat behind the counter.

Greta nodded and Gracy went through.

The back room was just as Gracy had
remembered it from months before. She sat on the examining table
and looked at Dr. Levinson.

“So what is going on, Gracy?” he asked.

“Dr. Levinson, you have been a trusted
friend to me through my pregnancy. I am a prisoner now. Willem and
I are both captives in our new lives. I live with him now—Hitler, I
mean,” she whispered.

“Oh dear, Gracy!” Dr. Levinson said. He fell
back into a chair that was meant for guests. The doctor’s stool was
in the middle of the room, where Dr. Levinson would have normally
sat.

“Dr. Levinson, you have to help me,” Gracy
said. She looked at him with desperation.

“Gracy,” he began. “I’m not sure what I can
do for you. You know that I am also a Jew. Those Nazis have left me
and my clinic alone, but they terrorize all of my friends. They
hold much of our Parliament now and Hitler is the leader of the
party. I’ve even heard rumors that some Jews have disappeared.”

“Dr. Levinson, you don’t know what this is
like for me. He keeps us secret from everyone. I’ve seen the eyes
of sympathetic people. They ask about who Willem and I are and they
end up dead. The only freedom I have is when Hitler is with one of
his other girls.

He is mad, doctor, truly insane. He’s having
sex with one of his nieces. He comes and goes all the time. He
jumps into these fits of rage! I’m terrified for Willem’s safety.
Terrified!” she exclaimed. She leaned forward and stared gently
into his eyes.

“And, Dr. Levinson,” she whispered. “I’m
pregnant.”

“Oh, God, Gracy!” Dr. Levinson said. “And it
is Herr Hitler’s child?”

“Yes, Dr. Levinson,” Gracy said. “I need you
to end the pregnancy.”

Dr. Levinson looked at her in complete
shock. His mouth hung open.

“Gracy, do you know what you are asking of
me?”

“Yes, Dr. Levinson. I know. I loved
Heinrik…I hate Hitler! I can’t bear the thought of having a child
from that monster. I can’t have Hitler’s baby. If you don’t help me
then I will take my own life,” Gracy declared. Her eyes filled with
tears. She rose from the examining table and dropped to her
knees.

“Please, Dr. Levinson. I beg of you to help
me end this pregnancy,” Gracy begged on her knees.

Dr. Levinson looked at the once admirable
Gracy Kessler, my mother. There was only one choice he could make.
It was a clear choice.

52

1930

The beauty of Berlin was boundless. Clouds
covered the horizon. It was early morning. A massive crowd filled
the square. They listened as the Führer stood high above them on a
stage and spoke. A slight wind blew through the onlookers. Calmly,
they listened as their leader proposed to them his vision of their
future.