Goebbels arrived in the early evening in a panic about rumors he had picked up on the road.
There were many—Albert was one of them—who wondered how Goebbels had survived Kristallnacht, the insane mob’s attack that almost destroyed the Reich’s finances and had successfully turned all the world against Germany—Roosevelt, Halifax, and a host of others saw the Ninth of November as the Rubicon. As the gobemouches told it, it was only little Paul’s wife that saved him—“her ovaries rattled whenever she was in the presence of Paul’s boss,” was the commonest view. But, for Germany it had been a disaster—America’s ambassador recalled; worldwide horror; the real and justified panic at the Reichsbank.
Goebbels became apoplectic when he saw Jodl, Milch, Albert and the commander of the local SS unit all smoking cigars and drinking champagne in the great room with their boots on the low coffee table—the highest act of sacrilege.
Until that day the coffee table had acted as a sort of tiny shrine to the British aristocracy, covered as it was with back copies of The Tatler magazine with photographs of smiling corgis and their happy, albeit very dim-witted, masters. The magazines were devoured by the late host until they were dog-eared. In the photographs of the smug, smiling, supercilious faces, there was the superior caste rightly destined to rule a great empire; at least this was what the poor peasant boy from Linz wanted to see. But in spite of his boyish phantasies and dreams, all the magazines actually proved was simply the desperate need for a second Cromwell, one this time that would do a proper and complete gutting.
“What are you doing, what are you doing—you know smoking in the great room is forbidden? It’s a deep insult. When I am asked, as I surely will be asked, I will have to tell the truth.”
“Well that will be a first,” said Milch, who detested Goebbels.
“Are you all mad?”
Albert passed the small pink piece of paper to Goebbels.
“Oh God, it is true. God, we’re doomed, we’re all doomed.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Milch said with real vitriol.
“The Army has occupied all the towns; the Gestapo scum are already under lock and key; and I have extra flights flying and reporting to the local Army commanders. God is in his heaven and your late boss is probably in the other place.”
Jodl rose and walked over; putting his arm around little Paul’s shoulder, he said softly,
“Paul, this is what you are going to do. Albert has put together a small announcement, which you are going to read, now, from the broadcast room down stairs.”
Goebbels read the hand written note, and reflexively said,
“I cannot say this, I will need to clear this with…,” then he stopped as he realized the completeness of the situation for the first time.
“But.”
“Paul, look, here is the situation: Albert, Erhard and I together are the new chancellor committee—we are your new bosses—we’re the ones with the power. So let’s all go and make the announcement; otherwise Albert will, and if Albert has to then, well, that will not be good for you.”
Ten minutes later Dr. Paul Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, broadcast to a shocked nation and an even more shocked world. He told the microphone that the late leader had specifically asked for no memorial and no special services. Of course this was completely false, but Albert’s goal was to erase immediately from the German consciousness and psyche any memory of the bitter, petty and vindictive Austrian in hours, not weeks.
Then the good doctor, somewhat reluctantly, called editors of all the German and Austrian dailies and told them to lead tomorrow’s front page with a large piece about a sudden snow fall in Kitzbühel and how this was the first time since 1822 that such an amazing event had occurred in September. As the editors had no information, the papers’ accounts varied wildly to a comic degree—in some it was a light dusting at the start house; for others, it was ankle-deep on the Rasmusleitn. And the happy phrase “September Snow In Kitzbühel” entered the German language as an astonishing—but not completely unwelcome—event.
13: A Gift for Ayinotchka
ALBERT ARRIVED IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON. The streets were dozing fitfully in the afternoon heat. He had taken a taxi from the train station to the Grand Caudillo hotel, frantically renamed to honor the short and pot-bellied conquistador, who had conquered Spain from his exile in Spanish Morocco courtesy of the German Luftwaffe—it was said that without the Luftwaffe, Franco would have remained exiled in that foul and desolate hell hole.
The lobby was almost empty with just three sleepy bellhops and a single officious concierge, who brightly greeted the modest German businessman, looking for a tip. The two resident whores seated in the lobby drinking coffee glanced at him for a second and judged him boring and not worth approaching—no Latin heat there and no interest or desire for a mid-afternoon dalliance, however exhilarating.
The senior bellhop carried Albert’s single modest case to his suite on the top floor. After tipping the bellhop, Albert surveyed the suite. It was typically Spanish—extremely high ceilings to counter the overpowering heat of the Spanish summer. The huge bathroom was deliciously cool in white marble with small, square, white tiles on the floor. The bathroom was dominated by a large, old-fashioned white enameled bath that proudly sat in the center of the room on its cast iron claw feet. Out of professional interest, Albert briefly ran the cold and hot water taps—water gushed out of both in a torrent and the hot was indeed very, very hot; the massive bath would only take a minute or two to fill.
Satisfied with his inspection of the bathroom, Albert returned to the main room and picked up the telephone and called room 353.
“I’ve arrived, please come over when you are ready,” he said into the instrument.
Five minutes later there was a sharp knock on the door.
Albert opened the door, and a woman entered.
“Albert, so wonderful to see you, I have been waiting to see you again for so long,” she said in a thick Russian accent.
“Mrs. O’Connell, wonderful to see you. Please, come in.”
“Oh Albert, you always call me Ayinotchka, do you not?”
“Please take a seat; how are Oscar and Oswald?”
The woman smiled. She was short, with the wide hips that one associates with the East, perhaps Leningrad. She gauchely wore a somewhat odd outfit topped with a white triangular hat that more suited an effeminate Napoleon than a woman. Her dress was plain brown and did not flatter her mannish body. She had the round face of a friendly Russian peasant. Her dark-brown hair was cut short, in the style of a 1920s flapper, in a forward-slanting bob. However, what Albert—and what all men—noticed were her eyes: deep, luminous, hypnotic and magnetic.
“I have brought you a present.”
With that, Albert opened his small suit case and gave her a box wrapped in brown paper, inside there were six boxes marked “Panzerschokolade.”
She opened it and gasped,
“Oh Albert, you shouldn’t have. Or perhaps you should have.”
They both laughed.
“You know I love tank chocolate, and it will help me complete the book. You know I am just a writing machine and this is the most wonderful gift. There is just so much more to do.”
“Well, when my friends at the Spanish embassy passed me your letters from America, I thought it might come in useful.”