Once on the floor, he had Eva do all the work, perched above him bobbing up and down like a cork on a fishing line. She was so tight that when she descended fully for the first time, he felt her start to complete, so he thought no reason in waiting and he dumped all he had into the First Mistress Of The New Reich, or as she preferred to think of herself, the First Lady Of The New Reich. His extra lubrication made her climax deepen. Bormann smiled to himself at the thought of someone interrupting them—the insanity of the event, the shock. But, what the hell? He would lie his way out of it as he always did. But no one appeared and he stood her up and with Eva facing the picture window, he hardened again and took her from behind. This time, very roughly and she made a lot of noise; clearly the forced abstinence made her like it even more.
After 15 minutes, she collapsed.
“Oh my God, I needed that. We need to do this more often. I miss it so much. You know, I am a normal girl with normal desires and needs. Once, when I was very randy just like this, I had Hoffie relieve my tension, even though he is a homo. You know, it was like a dream—once I saw that slut Sally stroking him and teasing my boss in the office and I knew I had to have Hoffie, it was like an invisible hand of some primitive spirit that made me force him to put his thing inside me first, and complete inside me first. I don’t know what it was, it was just that he had to do me first to give me of him before Sally got any. It was madness. I need this more often.”
Bormann shook his head, “No, Eva, this is the first and last time—too many problems.”
She nodded, sad and wistful, “Yes, I suppose you are right.”
As it happened, Bormann’s boss—his beloved Chief—was never again to see Bormann or Eva or the large table.
12: The Wingless Eagle’s Last Flight
THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER was the hottest day of the hellish summer of ’41. And at a mountain house, it was a real tar burner. By nine in the morning, the sun had already turned the terrace into a furnace, the alpine elevation doubling the sun’s power. It seemed like every blade of grass had given up the struggle and decided to turn brown, as if it was a wounded animal feigning death.
Breakfast, normally served to the guests on the terrace, had been moved to the great hall. Bormann had the “manufactured air machine”—his dated term for the air conditioning plant located in the lowest basement of the mountain house—running at full capacity. Like a prized Pekingese, he moved from guest to guest to annoy each of them in turn with his self-important chatter, mentioning to each in turn how hard he was working—“Like a draft horse. No, worse actually, as animals get Sunday to rest; for me there is never any rest.”
“And less brains than a draft horse,” was Albert’s unspoken thought.
Albert move to the balcony and sat alone, allowing the heat to envelop him. But, even with his second excellent double espresso, he was getting just a little sleepy. Nevertheless, the glorious view of the mountains and the sound of the birds made Albert feel completely at ease—no squabbling petty officials with their fastidious attention to their shirt cuffs and the precise knotting of their ties, and their vacuous arguments about why they should be the sixth car in the entourage—“not stuck in the back in car 17”—oh, the horror of not being in the top eight.
His brief reverie of calmness was broken when Jodl greeted him, accompanied by Milch.
“Well, it is one for the record books today,” Milch said.
His two companions agreed.
On the terrace the three men sat under one of the light-blue-and-white-striped umbrellas. They were alone except for the occasional cack-handed spying exercises by Bormann who would periodically patrol to inquire if they needed anything: Would they be having lunch with us today? Did they need any more coffee—it is real coffee here? His inane list seemed endless.
Jodl was universally known for two traits: the extreme ugliness of his wealthy Swabian wife and his ears. He was pitied for the first and named “Wing Nut” for the second. Regardless of these two trivialities, Jodl possessed the greatest tactical, and certainly the strongest strategic, mind living, with the possible exception of his British counterpart, the dour and modest teetotaler, Ulsterman Field Marshal Alan Brooke.
Jodl was a swarthy and earthy Bavarian with a very quiet demeanor that belied his outstanding intellect. It was Jodl who had held his nerve during Narvik while his leader, whimpering and vacillating like a whipped dog, changed his mind by the minute. It was Jodl who rapped his knuckles with each word until they were white on the massive oak table in the conference room, as he stated, “In—times—of—extreme—pressure—a—leader—needs—to—lead.” The nine other staff officers in the room each inwardly gasped at the audacity of this act.
At the end of this statement, there was a very, very long pause; the leader straightened, and actually pulled down the tails of his uniform jacket, as nervous young cadets the world over do. Careful to been seen studying the map and avoiding any contact with Jodl’s eyes, he asked the plaintive question, “Jodl, so what do you recommend?” showing Jodl’s dominance over the Austrian. The effect on all of the professional military men present was to cast the very first seeds of doubt about the so-called supreme commander, whose only real experience was as a very brave but very lowly message runner on the Western Front in the Great War.
“Let’s go to the lookout,” suggested Jodl, “Fewer ears there.”
The other two nodded.
The trio made their way down the stone path Bormann had created two years earlier.
The lookout was a collection of three Austrian gazebos Bormann had had built the previous year. Rough-hewn, they were in the traditional Austrian mountain style so favored by the owner.
Once seated, Jodl offered his cigar case—from Dunhill’s of London.
“A gift from a Swiss colleague,” Jodl explained.
Both accepted.
Albert was not a great cigar smoker, but he was the greatest chameleon of the Reich. On the other hand, Milch loved to smoke—“Cigar” was one of the two nicknames his staff had given him; “The Diplomat” was the other, as he was probably the least diplomatic commander in the Reich—“totalfuckinghorseturd” was his mildest statement of reproach.
Five minutes of small talk followed about the quality of the Cuban cigars.
Albert moved the conversation to France of the previous year.
Jodl said,
“Yes, sitting here is a far cry from the dust of France in last May. Last year in France, we were constantly on the move. There was no quietude or stillness. We covered so much ground. The French collapse was astonishing. It was like watching snowflakes land on a red-hot stove—they were gone in an instant. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t image it happening again in my lifetime.”
There was a thoughtful pause,
“I suppose this is what 1870 must have been like, when the Krupps destroyed the French in an afternoon.”
Albert said nothing. His extensive dealings with officers had taught him that getting them to start speaking was the hardest task. And while a few were buffoons, his experience was that the senior Wehrmacht ranks were far more sophisticated, better educated, and above all, more thoughtful than the shallow politicians who were their nominal overlords.