“You must be Johann,” she addressed him in a pleasant voice, while her hand, heavy with rings and bracelets, caressed the long strands on her son’s head.
Johann clicked his heels and bowed his head, to which Frau von Sielaff only laughed in apparent amusement and pulled him into a sudden embrace as well. Through the cloud of her French perfume, over her shoulder, clad in a delicate silk cloth, Johann saw a young girl run down the staircase, long golden braids shifting with every light step on top of her white BDM blouse. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen but already stunning, alight with the same inner, golden glow which had made Willi so popular with the ladies. Momentarily losing all sense of propriety, Johann forgot to untangle himself from Frau von Sielaff’s arms and stared over her shoulder, wide-eyed and mute, at this infinitely dazzling creature in front of him.
She stopped in her tracks as soon as she noticed a stranger on her doorstep, her oval face taking on a guarded expression at once.
“Mina, come to say hello.” Willi was already by her side, kissing both of her cheeks and nudging her towards Johann without any reservations. “This is my best friend, Johann. Johann, this is Mina, my sister.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you had a sister?” Johann whispered as the two rode in the back of Willi’s father’s Mercedes. General von Sielaff, a decorated officer with a pale, somewhat haggard face, picked them up near the New Chancellery building, the construction of which had almost been completed and at which Johann had been gawking for the past twenty minutes. The General shook hands with Johann, asked Willi if he wanted to eat French, German, or Italian for dinner, nodded his acknowledgment and got into the car, his adjutant◦– or driver, whatever the hell he was, Johann didn’t quite know◦– climbing into the driver’s seat.
“Because you only asked me if I had any bothers.” Willi shrugged, obviously surprised by the question. “Well, I don’t have any.”
“You could have mentioned her.”
“Why?”
“We could have brought her something.”
“Like what?”
“Flowers, I don’t know…” Johann turned away, thoroughly hiding his face.
“Why would we bring her flowers? She’s my sister, not my girlfriend.” Willi shrugged again.
The restaurant, to which General von Sielaff brought them, was drowning in opulence. The velvet drapes, the starched tablecloths, the finest china with intricate designs on it, the crystal chandelier bathing the main dining room with millions of opalescent lights◦– it blinded Johann and made him feel completely and utterly out of his element.
Willi barely scanned the menu, informed the waiter, in his perfectly starched attire, that he’ll have his usual, gulped half of the glass of some nineteenth-century wine and sat with his fist butting his chin, looking positively bored, replying in a clipped manner to his father’s few questions about the school. Yes, they feed us just fine. Yes, the classes are interesting. Yes, Herr Hauptmann is being very kind to me. No, no more trouble with the SS. Yes, I know. All right, I will.
Johann stared at the outrageous prices and wondered if he should order anything at all.
“Eat your fill,” General von Sielaff said with a polite smile as though reading his thoughts. “You must be starving after your army gruel at school. I want to treat you both tonight, so order whatever you wish.”
Johann mumbled his bashful thanks and decided to express his gratitude by drinking from the glass, which Willi’s father had moved in his direction. He’d tried wine before and beer too, but only with his father and just to see what it tasted like. The nineteenth-century wine went straight to his head; not only was Johann not used to alcohol but he and Willi had also barely eaten anything, sharing only some nuts they bought from the street vendor. He more than welcomed the food when it arrived; intricately laid out appetizers, some cheese and salads and God knew what else but he noticed that it was only the two of them eating◦– Willi and he◦– while General von Sielaff was observing them with the oddest expression on his face.
He was looking at his son like a man who, after spending years in a foreign country, returns to his native land only to realize that he no longer speaks its language. The oddest mixture of regret and frantic desire to be understood shone in his deep, gray eyes, met with nothing but tolerant indifference in Willi’s amber ones.
“Wilhelm, do you remember how I used to take you to the Zoologischer Garten when you were little?” He started with uncertainty, not even noticing how he was crumpling the napkin in his long, nervous fingers. “We would buy sunflower seeds and you would feed them to the birds. Do you remember?”
Willi stopped chewing, raised his head from his plate and shook his head.
“I was probably what? Three?” Willi offered, as his version of consolation.
“Yes, I would think.” The General lowered his head, hiding his disappointment behind the glass of wine. “Yes, of course, you wouldn’t remember. You were far too small. You did like animals though.”
“I still do.” Willi poked a goose with a fork, suddenly losing all interest in it.
“Wilhelm likes jazz.” General von Sielaff suddenly turned to Johann with a bright smile. “Do you like jazz, Johann?”
“I suppose,” Johann lied just to appease the man. He looked so positively miserable even with all of those ribbons and crosses on his chest, so abandoned and alone…
“I’ll take you both to the place that Wilhelm likes.” Willi’s father was almost beaming with joy. “It’s not particularly legal, but Wilhelm always says that rules were only made to be broken, so…” He broke into laughter which sounded artificial; leaned towards Johann and started reassuring him in a soft voice that he shouldn’t worry, that the cabaret was on a sort of a governmental payroll and even the high-ranking SS were frequenting it without any problem. “We’ll have a grand time, you’ll see!”
As the two proceeded to the exit while General von Sielaff stayed behind to take care of the bill and say a few words to the maître-d, Willi lit a cigarette with a familiar smirk on his face◦– a mask which Johann had seen far too often when they’d first met. “Pathetic, isn’t he?”
Johann felt as though someone had hit him in the chest. “Why would you say that? He’s only trying to make you happy.”
“Should have tried harder not to fuck our maid while my mother was pregnant with his daughter,” he threw over his shoulder before walking briskly outside.
Johann stood in the middle of the hallway, getting in the way of the patrons and waiters, trying to decide whether to stay and wait for Willi’s father or follow Willi outside. The latter seemed rude.
“Is he upset with something?” General von Sielaff’s voice sounded just above his ear. “He gets moody when he drinks.”
“He drinks far too much for his age,” Johann noted, strangely emboldened by alcohol. “I worry about him. He goes out almost every night, catches a ride to Vienna and goes to all of those clubs, sees all of those women far older than him… He’ll get in trouble one day.”