The Secret of Lions (18 page)

“Yes, Father. I understand you.”

“You must forget your Jewish side. Like
Germany, you will forget. Now, let’s go inside and join our
guests.”

Hitler took me by the hand, and we walked
through the terrace doors and into the house.

59

In a grand ballroom, Germans, Europeans, and
Americans mingled. All of the guests were Nazi party members or
contributors to the Reich. Many were the most respected politicians
and entertainers in the world. Others were wealthy elites and
aristocrats.

They were all there to invest in Hitler’s
dream, his vision. The room was burnished like a palace ballroom.
Richly decorated tables sat in every corner. Waiters walked around
carrying trays of fine wine and fresh fruits. Some carried trays
filled with bite-size pieces of Germany’s best chocolate.

I stood just over five feet now. I was tall
for my age. I wore a suit that was tailored specially for this
event. I did not make many public appearances. Hitler kept me near
but away from all of the politics, the people, and the media.

I stayed near the darkest corner of the
ballroom. I gazed through the thick cigar smoke that flooded the
air. I leaned against lime-green wallpaper that covered the wall. I
was next to a painting of a woman’s face. The painting was rather
abstract, and the face had been painted so that it slowly merged
with the background, almost as if the face were becoming invisible,
fading away into my memories.

A quartet of violin players stood in the
middle of the room. Political leaders—wearing swastika pins on the
outside of their tuxedos—filled the room. Generals talked with rich
politicians and their contributors about matters of state.
Everywhere I went, I felt out of place and uneasy. I could not
remember why.

I pulled out a small, black sketchbook. It
was old and worn. I had drawn in it for as long as I could
remember. I’d struggled with my memories all of my life. I rarely
looked back at the old drawings. But when I did, they triggered
some details I had forgotten.

Hitler had raised me to believe in the
future and not the past. I turned the pages to a new sketch. It was
of the magnificent German countryside. There were horses in the
distance and a German flag that protruded before a large command
center just at the belly of a mountain range.

“That’s beautiful,” a voice said. It sounded
like a girl’s voice. I looked up to see Anna Milan. She was the
daughter of one of Hitler’s Italian friends, a businessman.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Your name is Peter, right?” Anna asked.

“Yes,” I answered. My hair fell slightly in
front of my eyebrow. I reached up and furrowed it. I took in the
beauty of Anna. Her blond locks fell across her shoulders and over
the tops of her breasts. She was an attractive girl. If I were to
engage in a relationship with Anna, I was certain my father would
approve.

“Your father is the Führer?” Anna asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I wonder why I have never met you before.
My name is Anna Milan; our fathers are friends,” she said. She
walked over and leaned against the wall next to me.

My palms began to sweat a little. I was not
very experienced with girls. Actually, I was not very experienced
with people in general. Hitler kept me isolated from others. Anna
was a year older than I was, but I had heard my father’s friends
talking about her body. Many of the older Nazis looked at her with
lustful desires.

“So, you like to draw?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Can you say anything other than yes?”

“Yes, sorry,” I responded.

“That’s okay. So what are you drawing?”

“It’s my father’s vision. I just draw it. He
tells me things and teaches me things and then asks me to draw them
for him.”

“Interesting,” Anna said.

“What about you? What about you?”

“Well, I’m here with my father and now I’m
talking with you. You know I’ve noticed you before.”

“You have?”

“Yes, I saw you looking at me last month
when your father and my father met for dinner with some people I
don’t know. I sat at the far end of the table from you. You just
sat and stared at your food.”

“My father told me that it is better to
observe than participate. He always says, ‘The man who observes can
act later with a strategic course of action.’ Or he says something
like that. I‘ve heard his speeches and talks many times.”

“Are you sure he said that? It doesn’t sound
like him,” Anna asked.

“You are right. Maybe I said that,” I said.
We giggled. “Honestly, I sometimes don’t listen to carefully.”

The two of us were now sitting on the floor
next to each other. We sat unnoticed by the politicians and
onlookers. We were alone in our own space. The lights grew dimmer
in the ballroom and candles flickered from their perches and
candlesticks. There were more people concentrated around the
ballroom dance floor than around the edges of the tables.

“You know, being the son of the Führer must
be exciting,” she said.

“It can be,” I said.

“What’s the matter? You are not always
excited by the things that are going on around you all of the time?
The governing and planning are not exciting? You are witnessing
history.”

“I guess so. I sort of just watch. I don’t
really have a very active role in anything that my father does,” I
said.

“What about your mother?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t remember her. My father and I don’t
talk about her very much. She died when I was very young. I don’t
remember her that well,” I said. “I think she was ill. My father
doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Ah, well, that must be painful,” Anna
said.

“No. I don’t think about it that much. Like
I said, I don’t remember her.”

“Not at all?” she asked, leaning in closer
to me. I could feel her breath on my cheek.

“Sometimes I dream about her, but they are
only dreams. Sometimes I dream of drawing her, but that is all,” I
said.

“And your father never says anything about
her?” she asked.

“He never talks about her. He says that it
is not wise to dwell on the past because the past leads us backward
when we must go forward. We must always be facing forward. You
can’t travel forward when you are watching the road behind you,” I
said.

60

In a dank room, two of Hitler’s SS guards
stared at a man tied to a chair. He was stark naked. His hands and
feet were tightly bound. Dirty brown hair was the only thing that
kept his head warm. The prisoner was French. It appeared he was
barely conscious. The bruises on his body had swelled to the size
of lemons.

Black and red bruises had been left on his
body by a large, blood-drenched mallet that lay on the floor near
the corner of the room. The head of the hammer was warm from the
strikes against the Frenchman’s stomach and side. A pail,
half-filled with vomit, rested on the floor next to him. He had
been tortured for hours, and now he was beyond fear. He had given
up long ago.

Hitler was notorious for being able to avoid
traps. The French assassin did not care how dangerous his
assignment was; he had had to accept it for his country. He was a
patriot.

Hitler had successfully avoided the
assassin’s attempt to kill him.

61

Anna and I had moved away from the wall with
the painting of a woman’s face long ago. We escaped into the warmth
of the kitchen. Waiters would occasionally go in and out the main
kitchen doors. Some of the waiters carried out new trays filled
with snacks or drinks. Except for the traffic of the waiters, the
two of us were alone.

“Peter, we have been talking for an hour now
and I have not heard you mention much about the politics that your
father talks about all the time in his speeches,” Anna said.

Her neckline revealed her dark tan. Her eyes
sparkled. All of the boys I knew wanted Anna. She was one of the
reasons many of the other sons of Germany’s elite looked forward to
these parties. They all wanted to see her. Tonight, however, she
chose to talk only to me. No one else mattered.

“My father doesn’t involve me too much in
the politics he deals with. I have heard his speeches when he
writes them, but I have no input. I suspect he is going to start
involving me more someday, as I grow older.”

“Do you think that he will give you his job
one day?” she asked.

“One day? Maybe. I don’t know. He is always
grooming me to say the right thing or he is teaching me how to make
decisions. He tells me what to wear. What music to listen to. When
I can talk and to whom I may talk. There are even people who tell
me what to think.”

One of Hitler’s aides, a gangly man, walked
into the kitchen at that moment and searched around and then
stopped, his eyes directly on me. He beckoned me to follow him.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you two, but the
Führer is asking for you, Peter,” the aide said.

“I must go,” I said. I stood up and
stretched my legs. Then I headed toward him.

“Peter,” Anna said.

“Yes,” I stopped and turned back around to
face her. She was standing now.

“Will I see you again?” she asked.

“I hope so,” I said, and then followed the
aide into the banquet area.

The violin music resonated through the
kitchen doors as they opened. The music filled my ears. I followed
the aide through the array of guests. We stopped occasionally so
that I could acknowledge one of my father’s powerful friends. One
such friend was Anna’s father. He smiled at me in a peculiar way,
as if he had something to say, but he thought it best not to say
anything.

The aide led me down a flight of stairs and
into a part of the building I had never been before. Of course it
could be troublesome for any boy my age to keep up with all of the
rooms in the building, especially when we were always in different
buildings to begin with. Hitler hardly stayed in the same building
over a month at a time. We had numerous homes all over Germany,
especially in Berlin. Many of our homes were kept secret.

At the bottom of the stairs, a guard sat
behind a desk and another stood behind him in front of a thick
steel door. This door led into an underground bunker. I assumed it
was where my father negotiated his private dealings.

Hitler never told me about any of the things
that went on in the bunker. And there weren’t too many things he
didn’t share with me. At least that was what I had thought up until
that day. I believed, wholeheartedly, that we didn’t have any
secrets between us. He had really brainwashed me into believing
that he was my father.

The guard at the desk looked up at me for a
moment and saluted me in a way I had never seen before.

He said, “Hail Hitler,” with an outstretched
arm raised toward the ceiling.

The aide returned the salute, and they both
stared at me strangely for a long moment. I looked at them in
confusion, and then catching on, I mimicked the same salute. I had
never been saluted before.

“Hail Hitler,” I said.

“Perfect form, sir,” the guard said. “You
may enter.”

The guard signaled to the other one behind
me. He turned to the door and retrieved a key from under his shirt.
It was tied to a silver chain; he knocked on the door twice near
the bottom, signaling his entry. He unlocked it, pulling the door
open. After waiting for us to enter, he shut it behind us.

Following the aide, we made our way down
into a small chamber. Inside, Hitler was waiting with two guards
and a middle-aged man. There was something strange about the
middle-aged man. He seemed emotionless. His eyes, his face—there
was no expression on them. He had short black hair and rugged
features. He appeared battle-hardened. He wore a black shirt and
black trousers. He looked down at me with piercing eyes.

I had never seen him before. He was not in a
uniform, but he seemed to obey my father as if he were a personal
servant.

“Peter,” Hitler said. “This is Beowulf. I’m
sure you have heard mention of him.”

“No, Father, I haven’t,” I said.

“Well, Beowulf is many things to me and to
Germany, but for now, think of him as a patriot and loyal friend to
your father. He loves this country and your father. He is a skilled
man and soldier. He performs many services for us.”

I trembled at the meaning behind the word
services. I hoped no one noticed, particularly my father.

Hitler stepped over to me and grabbed me
firmly by the shoulders.

“Today you will begin to learn new lessons,
important lessons. I have been proud of you your whole life.
Continue to make me proud,” Hitler said, gazing deeply into my
eyes.

“Yes, sir,” I said. I broke off his gaze and
peered over to Beowulf.

I lied when I’d said I had never heard
mention of Beowulf. I had heard the name before. It was a name of
violence. Beowulf was a cold-blooded killer, heartless and
soulless. His name had been uttered by my father’s lips before. I
had overheard his name is whispers and hushed conversations. He was
a notorious assassin. He was wanted in France, England, and even in
Russia. No one was sure of his country of origin. And I knew little
else about him.

“Peter, I have prepared you for many aspects
of leadership; you have been taught by some of the most prominent
minds in all of Europe when it comes to theory, mathematics,
literature, and art. Now it’s time you start to learn about
leadership,” Hitler said, pacing.

Hitler and Beowulf led me back out into the
hallway and around a corner. We passed the door where I had entered
and made our way to one of many doors in the long corridor. Hitler
reached out and turned the knob and pushed the door open. The odor
inside the dark room intruded into my nose. I began to choke on the
wretched smells. It smelled of sickness in there.