I love being spontaneous, imagining he’s pleasuring me, never stopping to reason things out. Never avoiding my immediate impulses. That’s the way Ilse was.
I was once good friends with Ilse Hess who is much more down to earth than Magda. Ilse can laugh at herself. What makes me think of Ilse now? Maybe cracks in the walls that spiral out into cloud shapes. But clouds are only made of water and drip like concrete and are as much a false illusion as any fantasy, even the romantic memories I have of Ilse. Her handsome husband—in his blue-gray uniform, dark blue tie and insignia of a Hauptmann—liked Ilse to go with him when he was flying. They ate doughnuts with melted glazes and Kokosnussbonbons, their lips rimmed in chocolate, swooping over fields and gliding down low to scare the cows. Screaming as the plane dived and seeing her frightened made Rudi feel manly. We laughed at her acting in the sky. Ilse wasn’t afraid of flying saying, “It’s dead birds who never fall from their nests.”
Hess. Once the Führer’s deputy. I loved his thick Bavarian brogue. But what a terrible thing he did to Adi by going off secretly to make peace. What was he thinking? Adi was once so fond of him. Hadn’t they both been wounded in the First World War? Ilse told me Rudi still had little pieces from an exploding shell in his left hand and upper arm. She wanted him to have a surgeon remove all that, but he refused never wanting to forget the Battle of Verdun and how General Von Falkenhayn had been so glorious in leading him and the others along the River Maas. But Ilse couldn’t help but cry when she saw Rudi’s scars. They made love that way, she crying, he trying to comfort her. Soon he was the aviator and went up. As he made love like the Frontschweine, those still alive from the great bloody infantry, there was no comfort. It was trench-love, she said, not all together unpleasant, but it was rough. Not that he could help himself when he wore his black leather flight suit and kept on his parachute harness. Wearing fleece-lined flying boots, he used them to pry her open. She acquired plenty of bruising. Many were lavender over time, and now with him in some British prison, lavender blemishes are all she has left. So it was good that he gifted her in whatever way he could.
I have no contact with Ilse at present, but she must lead a dreary, lonely life.
When I mention to Adi the slightest thing about Ilse, or even Rudi, he naturally gets upset. I always have to remind him that Rudi was a corporal, too, in the infantry.
“He was never a corporal for long.”
“But Adi, Hess was with you in prison.”
When agitated, Adi bites his mustache. “Did he appreciate that!”
“Landsberg Prison. Cell 7,” I say proudly. “You were the admired one who got to keep a light on until midnight. The warden became a National Socialist because of you.”
“You never forget anything,” Adi says in admiration.
“And to think you once dictated Mein Kampf to Hess.”
“He added some lines of his own in Kampf. On the sly.”
“Even then he was a traitor,” I add.
“In spite of that, my book sold over a million and a half copies. And you, my Evchen, are probably the only one who has read every single word of it,” he says lovingly. He pauses for emphasis. “You could be a man. It would be a lot easier for me.”
His words make me deliriously happy.
“Regardless of Hess’ stupidity, I foolishly helped him all the time. Even got him to marry that fat wife of his.”
“She’s not fat, Adi.”
“She ate lunch every day at the Osteria Bavaria Restaurant which serves huge platters of beef.”
“In spite of the beef, you got him to marry Ilse?”
“She had spider veins on her legs, but she was the daughter of Oberstabsarzt Dr. Prohl.”
“She probably really fancied you,” I teased.
Adi gave a sultry smile. “She got as close to me as possible. I visited them often at 48 Harthauserstrasse.”
“Now he’s in prison,” I say gaily. But sometimes I can’t help but miss Ilse, especially her stories of trench-love and how she and Rudi use to scare the cows.
14
A SPANISH CAPTAIN LOPED THOUGH THE BUNKER. It’s amazing how international the Bunker can be. Rather short as Spanish men tend to be, he was nevertheless handsome in boots as soft and supple as Sunday gloves. Thick black hair curled up above sled-runner epaulets. He insisted that he see Adi. Bormann made him wait for two hours because the Führer was lunching with his secretaries. The captain waited patiently, all the time tapping the tip of his boots with his whip. If Spain hadn’t remained neutral, perhaps Bormann would have got the Führer to shorten his meal. Adi never eats much, some chilled asparagus and hardboiled eggs. Most of those desserts he craves come with his linden tea in the late afternoon. Spain did give us some volunteer troops because Adi helped them in the Spanish Civil War.
When the captain went topside for a quick smoke, I followed him, eager to sneak a few puffs myself. He offered me a hand rolled cigarette, but I refused for I knew the paper around this hand-rolled cigarette was sealed with the captain’s saliva. Who knows what foreign germs were hidden there.
Spain can do more than give us one little division, so when I let the captain privately join me in my quarters for lunch, I permitted him to clasp my two hands. His legs wandered if his hands could not. I pretended not to notice his superficial indiscretions because he talked endlessly about Chamberlain in the newsreels who pranced around with an umbrella while our Führer strutted like a powerful European player. Being a cavalry captain, his thighs could do things to me that his horses probably never had much interest in. With only one division, I couldn’t let myself be amused for long, so I abruptly pulled away as he grunted and happily released himself into his Spanish yak underwear.
As the captain made himself more presentable, I went to see if the Führer was ready to meet his Spanish envoy.
Adi and his secretaries, wearing matching aprons, were rolling chocolate bon bons over a platter of sugar.
As a rising politician, Adi thought it was unmanly to like sweets. Saving as much money as he could, he’d buy sugary treats that his followers never knew about and eat them secretly in his bedroom. He got jaundice from all the sugar. The whites of his eyes turned yellow, and he denied being sick to anyone who asked. These days he attempts to eat only two or three cakes in the afternoon, but with Fräulein Manzialy hovering around him with dishes of cookies and pudding, that’s hard to do.
“The Spanish captain has been waiting for many hours,” I announced. “He’s had to endure sitting at the commissary table and listening to all your generals do nothing but complain about the high cost of dress uniforms. And that major who is a ventriloquist is making the cups talk again.”