But I know that he hasn’t lived like an ordinary man, and he will not be dead like one.
Our black ashes will glow and sparkle like the Olympic torch he invented.
Adi leaves to receive the justice of peace. I look at Blondi who is no longer my rival, now unimportant, like a throw rug that was used in a back room, like something too inconsequential to have ever mattered.
A single shot. Tornow has killed Renate. I’m without any rival as I’ve wished though my selfishness has hurt him. Where did it go, those feelings he had for Blondi? One less living thing loves him.
Taking a handkerchief from my sleeve, I put it on Blondi’s head to mark a creature that truly loved him.
As I look in the mirror, I wonder how my face will change when I’m Frau Hitler? How will this wedding make my eyes look different? Though it will be a simple ceremony, I’m as excited as any bride.
Since the enemy’s advance guard is close, Adi leads me promptly to our wedding room. I take his arm above the elbow as I’ve seen so many women do when they walk with their husbands. When introduced to Walter Wagner, the city councilor greets me as “Mein Precious Eva.” Josef, Bormann and Magda are at our side. Götz Rupp stands in back of us wearing with devotion an army pompadour that makes him look like a sawed-off Hindenburg.
After Walter Wagner hears us declare that we’re third-generation Aryan, we’re united with a correctness and efficiency Adi loves. I start to sign the official paper “Eva Braun”—then laughingly correct myself to write “Eva Hitler” with pride. Bormann and Goebbels sign as witnesses before we walk to the dining area for the reception.
Magda whispers in my ear, “Thank you. Thank you,” as she displays the gold party badge the Führer took from his lapel to pin on her dress.
She doesn’t tell me what was said in her sacred five minutes with the Führer.
Bunker soldiers move in and out of the room, drinking syrupy champagne, congratulating us with gifts such as a statuette of Frederick the Great in white porcelain. Two captains practice their fencing techniques while chewing wedding cake.
Götz Rupp touches my arm, his hands engraved in dirt that comes from a scarcity of soap. “Mein Bride, I have most exciting news to deliver today at your wedding party.”
“What good news?” Adi asks hopefully.
“The pigeon was found in Prenzlauerberg.”
“Jupp?” I ask.
“Jupp delivered the Easter message to your mother, and I’ve sent him off with your wedding announcement. The Oberfeldwebel soared to the sky even though his wings are starting to rot.”
Adi was hoping for word of an Endsieg, a final victory however small.
Pushing herself between us, Magda tells Adi the children are asleep and now ready for us to view them.
On the way to the children’s room, Adi tells me what Magda requested in her five minutes alone with him.
“Something for her children?” I’m sarcastic, but since I’m now Frau Hitler, I have certain concessions.
“Helga.” Her name is said without emotion, as if she were someone he had never known.
“What about Helga?”
“She wants Helga to experience being a woman. Before she dies.”
So that was it. Adi should bed the girl in a glorious last living moment. I’m elated. My husband confides in me.
“I told Magda I’m no longer the husband of Germany,” Adi states.
“Though she bore Helga for you, that girl is no longer your concern.”
“Ein kind für den Führer! A child for the Führer! They all bore their children for me. Every German woman considered me her husband.”
“Helga should remain intact.”
“I told Magda you’d want it that way.”
Walking quickly ahead of me, Adi reaches the family room and stands beside Magda calmly. The six children are dressed in white nightgowns, a golden fan of hair on each pillow.
“Heidi has a bit of tonsillitis.” Magda takes a scarf from the drawer of an ink painted table by the bed, a table that was carefully transported from her country estate, a table that once cost three million Reichsmarks. As she tucks the elongated material around her child’s thin white neck, Heidi doesn’t move, so trusting in her sleep… not knowing she has to be watchful even in her bed.
“And Helga?” Adi moves to her side and stares down without emotion.
“As you can see, Mein Führer, I have loosened her hair. If you would only braid it this last time.”
“Magda, he has no time for that,” I say.
Adi stares silently at the sleeping Helga.
“They are so deeply under,” I whisper, looking at the children in one sweeping glance.
“This is a dress rehearsal. This is how it will look tomorrow. I’ve consulted Dr. Morell, Dr. Stumpfegger and Dr. Helmut Gustav Kunz agonizing over the final procedure for hours. The children were given a chocolate with Finodin. They’ll eagerly look forward to their more potent sweets tomorrow night, nicht? When they’re well into their merciful dreams, I’ll crush a cyanide capsule into each sweet little mouth.” Looking carefully at them one by one, she suddenly turns away. “Josef and I will follow. Father and mother will follow. Der Krieg ist aus. The war is over.” Scratches line her face where the children have fought against this dress rehearsal. “Josef and I keep our own cynide in a clean Upmann Havana cigar aluminum tube. We don’t trust a hollow tooth,” Magna says.
“Do not smoke or drink,” I order, my voice firm. “Leave in a tidy manner, as the Führer would wish it.”
“I’ll play one pure game of solitaire. Cards settle me.” Magda clutches at her blouse picking nervously at the sleeves. From my Bavarian lore, I realize this reflex action is known as “plucking”—the sign of a near and certain end.
How clever she is. I can never have his children. Never. If cards settle her, she’s played six aces. But I know that her little “aces” were helpful props Adi used for his health posters and family scenes. Like all good props after the run of a play, they’re discarded.
I see the children’s small inert faces as no more human than the concrete wall. “Remember what Frederick the Great said,” I announce, knowing this will please my husband. “‘No matter how important we may think such lives are in the events of the world, in the whole scheme of things, they are not significant.’”
Magda’s eyes bulge like pinches of clay sticking out from her pale face. “Frederick wasn’t a mother.”
“Death. That dark noun is masculine in the Teutonic languages but feminine in French,” Goebbels says softly as he reaches down and touches Helga’s head. “The French are right. Death is a girl.”
“The Earth will shake when we depart.” Goebbels adds.
Magda bends over the children crooning,
Adi listens for only a moment, then abruptly leaves.
I return to my room and sit on the bed knowing he’s waiting for me. He is waiting for me.
Wearing one cyanide capsule each on leather strings around their necks, Magda and Josef are sleeping beside their children, Magda, no doubt, snoring softly with her bronze and silver Mother’s Cross at her throat. Bormann is restless on a cot in his office, prepared for the final duty to burn our bodies after death. The last of the guards protect the top bunker while sniffing powder made of dried syphilis scabs to make them immune to syphilis after the war. And I take a final look around this, my home, where I’m the official Hausfrau.