Lavonne Mueller - The Patient Ecstasy of Fräulein Braun

I’m not physically satisfied after these love sessions. It’s enough to see his neck relax and his shoulders go limp. Afterward, he slowly puts on his Schnurrbartbinde—the little bandage he wears at night to keep his mustache flat and straight. I can’t sleep because of passion cramps, but I’d never let him know he’s caused me pain.

After all these years we’ve been together, there are still only V-Volk nights. Even here in the Bunker. Though he doesn’t permit himself the full measure, the desire to do so is a great comfort to me. But I’m waiting patiently for that time soon when I’ll finally have all of Him.

When we first met, I was young and naïve and had no idea how important he was. He was introduced to me as Herr Wolf, an alias used during his early years. I knew he was considered up and coming in the government, but so were a lot of men who asked me out when I was working at Herr Hoffmann’s photo shop at 42 Wiedenmeyerstrasse in Munich. Herr Wolf would stop by now and then to buy film and look at the new cameras. Many books were behind glass along the store’s back wall and that’s where he told me most books belong—behind glass. I said that when I was bored and there were no customers, I would read the titles of the many volumes out loud to pass the time. I couldn’t know then that he was an author himself as he didn’t look like a man who ever hunched over stacks of papers but was someone with a certain upright vitality.

He would often talk to Albrecht, the parakeet in a cage by the door. When I asked him why he didn’t take a picture of Albrecht, he said: “Why photograph what is already alive.”

“Does that mean you would never photograph a woman… such as me, Herr Wolf?”

He smiled and said cryptically: “Perhaps if you were a building.”

“That sounds very Art deco,” I offered, proud to be able to spar with him. I took one of the empty boxes from behind the counter. One slat was gone from the side giving the appearance—if one had an imagination—of an open window. I pushed my head against the opening like a human frame and waved at him. “Now will you photograph me?”

He answered with a quizzing stare, his mustache slightly twitching upward, a mustache so perfectly even that one side was exactly the same thickness as the other side. But I could tell he was amused.

Just then Hoffmann arrived and quickly grabbed a camera to take a delightful picture. But Herr Wolf roughly snatched the camera from Hoffmann, yanked away the box that still covered my head and shouted: “I don’t allow impromptu shots.” Later, as the Führer, when he was continually photographed, he would carefully stage each and every pose and forbid any picture when he wore his reading glasses. “A photograph is a reflection with a past,” he announced preferring the colored postcards of himself painted by the famous W. Willrich.

Though his pale blue eyes were fetching, I didn’t find Herr Wolf particularly mysterious or superhuman. He seemed very ordinary except for an Austrian charm in regards to our parakeet bringing his rain cape to hang around the sides of the cage so that Albrecht wouldn’t get chilled. Telling Herr Hoffmann never to buy Albrecht a wife, he explained that a parakeet would ignore people and concentrate on his mate.

We had a fish bowl on the counter and when one of them gave birth, I delivered the baby to Hoffmann’s eight-year-old niece, Hertha, for her birthday. When Herr Wolf found out, he was angry saying it was wrong to separate a mother from her child. I had to put the baby fish back in the bowl, and poor Hertha went without a gift.

Herr Wolf would often talk to Hoffmann about Arnold Fanck who experimented with lenses, camera speeds, and film stocks. They considered him a great artist who used high-contrast images and backlighting and even went so far as to put cameras to his skis for daring downhill-racer shots. But I thought Fanck was rather silly as his pictures didn’t look normal.

For many days Herr Wolf deliberated over buying either a Minox or the new Leica II. Hoffmann talked endlessly about the importance of the Leica’s trigger operated shutter, flat range finder top, and lens with click locking apertures. One Saturday, Herr Wolf finally bought the Leica II realizing, he said, that a superior camera would free him from any prison-hours of idleness. Afterward he walked directly over to me as I was changing Albrecht’s water and said earnestly in his soft Austrian accent: “Do you enjoy watching elegant and important people?” At first I was a little annoyed because I did get to see certain famous persons who came by the shop to talk with Herr Hoffmann who himself is prominent and happens to be an outstanding photographer. And I had often attended quaint parties in Schwabing, Munich’s Latin Quarter. I like to be where the songs are sung. I didn’t consider myself a stupid country girl, even back then. But my mother always told me: “One can eat with a knife and fork and still lack gentlemanly common sense.”

Herr Wolf invited me to an event where we could see the best and finest of Munich. I knew Hoffmann regarded him highly, and I thought it might be good for business. Also, the banker I was seeing was in Hamburg visiting his sister. I hesitated but finally said “yes.” Running outside to catch a bus, Herr Wolf paused by our display window to write my name backwards in the moisture. Later, when the shop closed, he came by for me looking very ordinary in an unbelted trench coat, a black velour hat, his mustache neatly clipped. He said my name softly, his tongue sucking the sound.

On a rack in back of the shop was a maroon silk party dress with a pleated skirt, puff sleeves and a small peplum around the hips for emergencies such as this. I thought the dress might smell of printing chemicals, so I wore a fresh flower pinned at the neckline. The shop had peony bouquets on the counter. I could take a peony whenever I wanted. When I came out to meet Herr Wolf, he leaned over to smell the flower on my bodice. Having once been a painter, he was instantly drawn to the skin of a petal. Then he complimented me on the pleats in my dress saying he loves repetition in good cloth as such folds are an important part of sculptures and frescoes.

We went in a taxi speeding down Maximilianstrasse and turned off to the Don Carlos Music Café: leather chairs, dark bread soup, turnip stew, hominy pudding so rich and thick that the sauce stuck to my teeth. As we ate, I noticed him gesturing to someone behind me, lifting his head and angling it to one side in silent communication. Once he actually stood and gave a celebratory wave to whoever it was behind me. Curious and believing I would discover one of his friends, I turned around only to find a large oval mirror.

“Catching sight of a loyal friend?” I asked him coyly.

“Loyal, to be sure,” he answered followed by a careful little laugh. But he was not embarrassed, and that impressed me.

When dessert came, creamy walnut cake with pistachio ice cream, he took off his jacket and hung it over the chair, and there were delicate stains on his chest, like marks women have on their blouse when nursing. That’s when I first knew he was special. Perfume came from his nipples. (In the Bunker, it’s a great benefit for it helps us with all the acid dampness of our underworld.)

Before leaving the restaurant, he left a wildly generous tip.

“You’re going to make this place impossible for me to return to in the future,” I offered, smiling.

“So you must always come with me.”

Then he left a tip for a waiter who hadn’t even served us saying he could see pain in that waiter’s stooped shoulders.

I miss those leisurely times. When he’s busy with his generals and I ache for him, I wish he were still just an artist with only colors to capture. His tints and hues are captives, after all. If I tell him that, he scowls and says: “Pasteur could have held his own among painters. Are you sorry he chose a scientific career? Frederick the Great played the flute. Should he have been a musician?”