And then one day she would be walking down Amalienstrasse and pause outside Photo Hoffmann and gaze at the Kodaks and Leicas and Voigtländers in the windows and she would open the shop door and hear the little bell clanging to announce her arrival to the girl working behind the counter who will probably say Guten Tag, gnädiges Fräulein, or perhaps she will say Grüss Gott because this is 1930 when people can still address you with Grüss Gott and Tschüss instead of endless Heil Hitlers and absurd martial salutes.
And Ursula will hold out her old box Brownie and say, ‘I don’t seem to be able to spool the film on,’ and perky seventeen-year-old Eva Braun will say, ‘Let me have a look for you.’
Her heart swelled with the high holiness of it all. Imminence was all around. She was both warrior and shining spear. She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
When everyone was asleep and the house was quiet, Ursula got out of bed and climbed on the chair at the open window of the little attic bedroom.
It’s time, she thought. A clock struck somewhere in sympathy. She thought of Teddy and Miss Woolf, of Roland and little Angela, of Nancy and Sylvie. She thought of Dr Kellet and Pindar. Become such as you are, having learned what that is. She knew what that was now. She was Ursula Beresford Todd and she was a witness.
She opened her arms to the black bat and they flew to each other, embracing in the air like long-lost souls. This is love, Ursula thought. And the practice of it makes it perfect.
Be Ye Men of Valour
December 1930
URSULA KNEW ALL about Eva. She knew how much she liked fashion and make-up and gossip. She knew that she could skate and ski and loved to dance. And so Ursula lingered over the expensive frocks in Oberpollinger with her before visiting a café for coffee and cake, or an ice-cream in the Englischer Garten where they would sit and watch the children on the carousel. She went to the skating rink with Eva and her sister Gretl. She was invited to dinner at the Brauns’ table. ‘Your English friend is very nice,’ Frau Braun told Eva.
She told them that she was improving her German before she settled down to teach at home. Eva sighed with boredom at the idea.
Eva loved to be photographed and Ursula took many, many photographs of her on her box Brownie and then they spent their evenings sticking them in albums and admiring the different poses that Eva had struck. ‘You should be in films,’ Ursula told Eva and she was ridiculously flattered. Ursula had mugged up on celebrities, Hollywood and British as well as German, on the latest songs and dances. She was an older woman, interested in a fledgling. She took Eva under her wing and Eva was bowled over by her new sophisticated friend.
Ursula knew, too, of Eva’s infatuation for her ‘older man’ whom she made sheep’s eyes at, whom she trailed around after, sitting in restaurants and cafés, forgotten in a corner while he conducted endless conversations about politics. Eva started to take her along to these gatherings – Ursula was her best friend, after all. All Eva wanted was to be close to Hitler. And that was all Ursula wanted too.
And Ursula knew about Berg and bunker. And really she was doing this frivolous girl a great favour by inserting herself in her life.
And so, just as they had got used to Eva hanging around so they became accustomed to seeing her little English friend as well. Ursula was pleasant, she was a girl, she was nobody. She became so familiar that no one was surprised when she would turn up on her own and simper with admiration at the would-be great man. He took adoration casually. To have so little self-doubt, she thought, what a thing that must be.
But, ye gods, it was boring. So much hot air rising above the tables in Café Heck or the Osteria Bavaria, like smoke from the ovens. It was difficult to believe from this perspective that Hitler was going to lay waste to the world in a few years’ time.
It was colder than usual for this time of year. Last night a light dusting of snow, like the icing sugar on Mrs Glover’s mince pies, had sifted over Munich. There was a big Christmas tree on the Marienplatz and the lovely smell of pine needles and roasting chestnuts everywhere. The festive finery made Munich seem more fairy-tale-like than England could ever hope to be.
The frosty air was invigorating and she walked towards the café with a wonderful purpose in her step, looking forward to a cup of Schokolade, hot and thick with cream.
Inside, the café was smoky and rather disagreeable after the sparklingly cold outdoors. The women were in furs and Ursula rather wished that she could have brought Sylvie’s mink with her. Her mother never wore it and it was left permanently mothballed in her wardrobe these days.
He was at a table at the far end of the room, surrounded by the usual disciples. They were an ugly lot, she thought, and laughed to herself.
‘Ah. Unsere Englische Freundin,’ he said when he caught sight of her. ‘Guten Tag, gnädiges Fräulein.’ With the slightest flick of a finger he ousted a callow-looking acolyte from the chair opposite and she sat down. He seemed irritable.
Es schneit, she said. ‘It’s snowing.’ He glanced out of the window as if he hadn’t noticed the weather. He was eating Palatschinken. They looked good but when the waiter came bustling over she ordered Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte to eat with her hot chocolate. It was delicious.
‘Entschuldigung,’ she murmured, reaching down into her bag and delving for a handkerchief. Lace corners, monogrammed with Ursula’s initials, ‘UBT’, Ursula Beresford Todd, a birthday present from Pammy. She dabbed politely at the crumbs on her lips and then bent down again to put the handkerchief back in her bag and retrieve the weighty object nesting there. Her father’s old service revolver from the Great War, a Webley Mark V. She made fast her heroine heart. ‘Wacht auf,’ Ursula said quietly. The words attracted the Führer’s attention and she said, ‘Es nahet gen dem Tag.’
A move rehearsed a hundred times. One shot. Swiftness was all, yet there was a moment, a bubble suspended in time after she had drawn the gun and levelled it at his heart when everything seemed to stop.
‘Führer,’ she said, breaking the spell. ‘Für Sie.’
Around the table guns were jerked from holsters and pointed at her. One breath. One shot.
Ursula pulled the trigger.
Darkness fell.
Snow
11 February 1910
RAP, RAP, RAP. The knocking on Bridget’s bedroom door wove itself into a dream that she was having. In the dream she was at home in County Kilkenny and the pounding on the door was the ghost of her poor dead father, trying to get back to his family. Rap, rap, rap! She woke with tears in her eyes. Rap, rap, rap. There really was someone at the door.
‘Bridget, Bridget?’ Mrs Todd’s urgent whisper on the other side of the door. Bridget crossed herself, no news in the dark of the night was ever good. Had Mr Todd had an accident in Paris? Or Maurice or Pamela taken ill? She scrambled out of bed and into the freezing cold of the little attic room. She smelt snow in the air. Opening the bedroom door she found Sylvie bent almost double, as ripe as a seed-pod about to burst. ‘The baby’s coming early,’ she said. ‘Can you help me?’