“We use that bowl all the time.”
“Duties go beyond sentiment, just as I assume you will not be serving the duke something as mountainous and regionally common as roast porcupine, ragout of bear paws, and moose muzzle.”
“We are serving marinated beef as you requested and…”
Interrupting me, the duchess began an aria about the collection of China pugs and other possessions that she longed to display at her home. “I have Aubusson carpets, thousands of them that I would adore to spread on my floors. Hundreds of jersey dresses, many glitter swing jackets, fifty Petersham fan brim hats, twenty-five Chinese shawls after Stiebel, twenty-two lipstick-red topcoats from Nicoll of Regent Street, seven mannish felt hats, two dozen amusing looking clogs with thick wooden soles covered in rubber, a hundred pastel turbans, a half-dozen suits from Bon Marché, Liverpool. There’s simply not enough room in our five houses. One’s home should never be the Ufitsi Museum. Everything is stored in a warehouse in Zurich. One does worry about the safety of warehouses. Stealing is rampant. You wouldn’t believe my twenty-two-carat gold bathtub in Antibes was hacked at by a crook like some demented dentist pounding away on a gold tooth. How many carats the thief got away with is now up to the insurance people to determine.”
Having confided in me, I felt obligated to respond with equal candor. “I get an allowance from the Führer. But it’s handled by Bormann who makes me beg. He requests I list all my personal purchases. Should I be interrogated for what’s mine?”
“How awful.” The duchess clutched her thin muscular neck protectively, as if begging for money was like getting your throat slashed. “Surely you’ve mentioned this to Adolf.”
“Ja. Ja. He’s been known to rush into his office, open the safe, and stuff bills into my purse. But too often, he’s away. Or in conference. Then I have to account to Bormann for every lipstick. Pads for my monthlies are itemized on legal sheets. Once Bormann gave me some bills that had funny oriental marks stamped on the back. He did it on purpose to embarrass me, giving me money that had once been used in Japan and was now worthless.”
“Get rid of him!”
“Impossible. Most people complain that Bormann never contributed a single idea to our National Socialist World, but Adi likes him.”
“But why?”
“Duchess, he records every detail. And can be called at any hour. One night, at three in the morning, Adi telephoned him to find out the market price of an orange in 1905. Bormann called back with the answer in twenty minutes.”
The duchess reached into her black beaded purse for a small box. “Take it. You won’t have to account for this in front of that evil man.”
I had no idea what she was giving me, but she explained it was a box of perfumed pessaries. Snapping open the lid, she extracted one of the suppositories, lifted her skirt, shoved aside what I thought might be the fleshy pouch, and inserted the sweet smelling cylinder into her vagina. After I inserted one into myself, we walked to the terrace to join Adi and the duke for lunch.
Silently eating his afternoon vegetables, Adi stared at peas so intently they might have been the first peas he’d ever seen. The sun was bright, and Wally complained about the light in her eyes. Adi said: “Duchess, perhaps it’s the glare from the beef on your plate.”
After lunch the duke held a small flat wooden screen in which he did needlepoint, the needle moving rhythmically in and out of the material. “I learned from my nanny,” he announced to us as he stitched some little pugs. “Oh, I have a favor to ask. The duchess and I would like to visit your marvelous marmalade factory in Dresden?”
Finding her brittle and more of a man than her husband, Adi despised talking to Mrs. Simpson. Her lips were little calipers hiding a male tongue. That body was noisy, discreetly passing wind. I attributed her “combustion” to the 161 pieces of baggage that went with her everywhere. Steamer trunks are known to be gassy.
18
ADI NEVER GOT THEM TO THE MARMALADE FACTORY, and Magda said there was a strong rumor that the duchess was to divorce the duke and marry the Pope.
Perhaps if the duchess had brought all her dogs to Berchtesgaden, it would have been difficult for Adi to detest her.
There was a time Adi considered kidnapping the duke and restoring him to the throne in order to get rid of Churchill. But it was the duke’s wife that put an end to that plan. Wally was considered more of a nuisance than Winny.
After they departed, we learned Wallis told their hall-boy that the Berghof was lacking the simple basics of civility.
I hate to think what the duchess would think of the Führerbunker.
Following the progress of the enemy as his adjutants phone it in, Adi moves pins of battalions that are no longer in full strength on white greaseproof maps. He makes inroads with tanks, his magnifying glass and spectacles resting on truck convoys that are greatly depleted. Sometimes I think his maps are more appealing, even more sensuous than me. He fondles them, runs his hand along their spines, caresses each juncture, leans into towns and cities and beckoning country roads as if he were penetrating their forked curves and splayed mounds.
But maps aren’t my rival nor is Magda who loves him madly though I don’t believe she ever got physically close to him. With Adi, one never knows to what extent he lets himself get intimate. Sometimes he considers a cheerful hug as virtually fornication.
To have all of him concentrated on just me would be heaven. For when he touches me, he’s inwardly dealing with some logistical problem. When his eyes are focused directly on me, his hands are fidgeting with orders and code sheets. His heart beats so secretly when we embrace, I can’t feel the slightest pulse.
Thinking about his doubles, I fantasize they could fill this ache. But they’re merely substitutes for the real thing. Would they be better than nothing, the long nothing hours when he’s working and traveling?
Adi has four doubles. I can tell instantly they’re not Adi. In cars or planes or balconies, at a distance, the average person wouldn’t know. Sepp, Ewald, Jochen, Baldur. They’re Adi’s height with his same facial structure and a little mustache. They’re indeed handsome as my Adi is handsome. As close as they are to the original, they lack that fiery beauty of the real thing. Adi is not friends with these men. They’re only mannequins or what he calls “gestures of immolation.”
A driver tried to shoot Adi in the arm. The pilot Kummer wanted to take him up in a plane so he could push the Führer out. An idiotic potato farmer threw a hatchet at Adi’s Mercedes. Then there was the Munich banker who couldn’t shoot straight. Finally the awful bomb under his desk that didn’t kill him but caused his ears to ring, his arm to shake and persistent agony.
“Adi, let Dr. Morell give you something for your pain.”
“Pain is good.”
“How can you say that?”
“Don’t leprous people pray for pain?”
“You’re not a leper.”
“Some of my generals think I am.”
Then I tell Adi his arm would get better if he exercised it, but he only says: “Not until I get the injury out of my mind.” Adi can’t be destroyed. Never. Unless He himself chooses it.
When a young girl jumped up and kissed him, he nearly fainted as he felt her sharp wire metal glasses on his cheek and thought it was a knife. Later, he became apprehensive when people threw flowers at him fearing hidden grenades.
It was Magda who knew the four doubles, not me. At least on one occasion. I felt no jealousy as they were hardly the real thing, and if they helped her release that passion she has for Adi, then why not? Her longing for Adi is annoying. I understand how one must feel to want him, to yearn, knowing the impossibility of it. One day, holding a bag of fresh cherries that were bleeding through the paper bag, she confessed, “I have an appointment with the Führer’s four doubles at the Hotel Klomser.” Smiling in acceptance and maybe with a hint of superiority, I knew she had to settle for second best.