The company runner called the Zoo Fritz says his real name is Private Ernst Schmidt. I have a cousin named Ernst with blond hair and for that reason I feel close to this private. Adi reaches in his pocket, takes out three potato dumplings wrapped in paper that Fräulein Manzialy gave him for his afternoon snack and holds this gift out to the runner. Ernst takes the Führer’s gift gingerly and in awe. For the last year he has only seen a soldier’s “iron rations” of raisins, nuts, milk soup, an occasional can of headcheese and the dark hard Kommissbrot so different from his mother’s baked bread.
“Your Magnificence, is this for the bear cub?” Ernst asks.
“I like that, Private. Not thinking of yourself.” Adi’s lips relax in a smile.
“Thank you, Herr Führer.”
“A bear should not be measured by man. Bears are in their own superior rank, a rank that man aspires to in the world order.” Adi leans forward until his face is close to the boy’s cheeks. His nose twitches, and I can tell he smells the soot and oil on the youth’s skin.
“Before I joined up, I smelled of hyena paste as I had to clean the hyena cages every day though I didn’t have to clean the oxen as they hose themselves down with their own urine. But now, Mein Führer, I smell like a soldier.”
Adi smiles and pats his shoulder.
“My zoo keeper father calls animals our other Reich.”
Adi is pleased. “A zookeeper can have more capacity to understand his country than a general. And you never know what a cub can bring. It brought you.”
Adi has a sudden desire to confide in the boy as he says, “You have no idea how even a Führer needs to hear faith and courage from one who believes.”
“I believe. My father believes.”
Adi quotes from Ruskin: “All the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war; no great art ever rose on earth but among a nation of soldiers.” Adi feels Ruskin is England’s wisest spokesman.
“When Napoleon was a young school boy, probably no older than you, Herr Fritz, his comrades would pull him out of the library to lead them in snowball fights.”
“Mein Führer, where can I find snow at this time of year?”
“In Ruskin,” Adi says softly.
The bicycle bell of little Helmut Goebbels tinkles softly as he rides in and out of the dining room while balancing a tin of pudding in his hand. Even when Napoleon was banished to St. Helena, Adi says, he took 72 porcelain dessert plates with him. There are no dessert plates in the Bunker.
Goebbels says the Führer is as obsessed by Napoleon as Napoleon was obsessed by Charlemagne.
A beef carcass over his shoulder, a soldier descends the stairs, eyes down, as he makes his way to Fräulein Manzialy’s chopping block. He unfastens the flap of his holster to show earnestness and grabs a butcher knife. Adi dreads the hacking sounds that will soon come from the kitchen. As a child, Klara read him Das Gespensterschiff, the story of a ghost ship and its captain nailed through the head to the topmast by his rebellious crew. With the sound of carrots, squash or carcass being chopped… ump… ump… ump, Adi hears the captain screaming.
After delivering a civil service report in orange ink (color denotes seniority), Ernst asks in his crisp Bavarian accent if we wish to go topside to see the zoo ruins. Adi gives his approval for me but says he has no desire to go as he must protect himself from fresh-air poisoning. I am to stay close to the Bunker entrance. He adds, “Goebbels finally got through to our Munich headquarters only to have his call answered by a Russian. Still, we must remember… Wagner portrayed the end of the world. ‘twilight of the Gods.’ Our ideas will continue after this necessity of destruction.”
I am eager to go up, to breathe in what Goebbels calls Berliner Luft, the city’s special air. The “visible me” can’t wait to “show” myself in Berlin. I’m going to be His wife, everyone!
As I help Ernst pull off his boots, we see large blisters seeping blood on the bottom of his feet. He apologizes for not having stronger feet. I help drain his blisters with a syringe, something I learned from Dr. Morell, and apply paper bandages.
Ernst can’t be more than 15 years old. He tells me how grateful he is for the Staatsjugentag, the state youth day Adi introduced so that there was no school every Saturday and he could enjoy the outdoors as a Hitler Youth and learn military commands.
Ernst is efficient making sure I see him adjust the pistol under his armpit. Then he gets permission to take a No. 42 rifle from the ammunition rack and firmly pats a bayonet on his belt. His shoes flap and clank on the concrete throwing out a sharp echo as he very gallantly escorts me past the sign on the wall that states “The Fürherbunker of Adolf Hitler” and up the 38 steep steps of the spiral staircase.
“Must you be so loud? You’re not clomping into Poland,” I say.
He softens his steps.
“Being with the Führer just now is the first time I’ve ever heard something personal and not an order from the high command,” Ernst says proudly.
“Our Führer is a retired corporal.”
“Think of it… I was just close to the court of last resort.” The Zoo Fritz smiles before attempting to light a cigarette over and over, but the war tobacco is bad, and he chews it dry.
As we enter the garden of the Chancellery, I’m startled by sunlight, my eyes blinking in blindness to remind me not to forget the dimness below. I never know what it’s like outside as weather forecasts are top secret because of military operations. A curious wasp dips near my neck. I focus clearly on the plot of dirt where the Goebbels children and I planted peas and carrots only a short time ago and now find that our little garden is pitted with bomb craters. The evergreen tree from which I cut sprigs for my flower arrangements is split and broken by shrapnel into a charred stump. The entire grounds surrounding the entrance are churned and chopped as if they were lumpy porridge. Never has the enemy been this close. I talk about my Bavarian childhood as Ernst helps me across the mud and chunks of stones. He tells me that his grandfather’s farm is not far from where I grew up. That eases me, and I visualize my mother in the kitchen of our little house, though I know she can’t be happy with so many bombs falling from the sky.
“These days, I hope for a full moon at night. So I won’t stumble into street holes.” He helps me over numerous craters. “The hungry have eaten the swans right off the lake.” He tries a lighter tone. “Is your uncle still in Simbach?”
“Yes. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t modern. He sent one of his sons to study in New York. In America.”
“Is New York like Berlin?”
“Nein. Nein. Uncle Werner said there are more streets in New York.”
“How is that possible?” Ernst stops and stares at me in disbelief, but I just smile. What is the use of trying to explain something to a child, this Sonnenkind—an innocent child of the sun. I’d love to see his golden body on the Wannsee beach.
“And how many times have we bombed New York?” he asks.
“Enough.”
“Did we hit Macy’s?”
“Surely.”