V.S. Alexander - Her Hidden Life

His cold hands patted down my body. Satisfied, he waved me on toward the door. ‘Of course.’ His tone was as dark as the shadows on his face.

I returned to my empty room and got ready for bed. Franz and Ursula were obviously smitten with each other. I briefly imagined kissing Karl before I convinced myself the thought was ridiculous. I needed my job. There was no turning back now. No charming man could force me to break rules that might cost me my position, despite how ‘human’ he might be. I thought of the SS officer who had taken the couple off the train. How human was he? Did he go home that night and make love to his wife? Did he tuck his children into bed and kiss them good night?

These thoughts swirled through my head as I tried to sleep. Was the war really going badly?

Sometime after midnight, Ursula returned to the room. She didn’t turn on the light to undress. She slipped into her nightgown, got into bed and sighed like a girl who had spent a rapturous evening with a man.

I envied her.

My hands trembled as Cook busied herself with various mushrooms, vials and small bowls containing powders. Her thin arms hovered over the oak table. My first class in poisons occurred early one morning in a corner of the kitchen while the rest of the staff went about their business.

I had no appetite for breakfast and my stomach churned as I looked at the items laid out before me. I sat because I felt too nervous to stand.

‘We will deal with four areas,’ Cook began. ‘Mushrooms, arsenic, mercury and cyanide. We can’t possibly cover everything today, but this will be our starting point.’ She pointed to the mushrooms. ‘One of these is safe to eat, the other isn’t. Can you tell them apart?’

Dread crept over me. I had no idea. They looked the same to me. She pointed to two white spheres that looked like puffballs. ‘Come now, which of these is poisonous?’

I shook my head.

‘I can see we have a long way to go.’ She pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and held one of the funnel-shaped mushrooms in her hand. ‘This is Omphalotus olearius. It grows in Europe. It’s rarely deadly, but can cause severe illness. It looks similar to Cantharellus cibarius, a Chanterelle, which grows here as the Pfifferling. It has a peppery taste.’ She broke off a small piece of the Chanterelle and held it on the tip of her finger. ‘Go ahead. Taste it.’

I took the yellowish-orange meat between my fingers and was about to put it into my mouth.

‘Wait,’ Cook cautioned. ‘Smell it first.’

I felt silly smelling and tasting mushrooms, but this was to be part of my daily routine.

I put the piece to my nose and sniffed. ‘It smells like an apricot.’ I popped the bit into my mouth and let it slowly dissolve until the peppery taste was too much. I swallowed it and swished my tongue trying to get out the taste, worrying that Cook was playing a horrible trick. Did she want to poison me?

‘Look at the Omphalotus. It grows in America and Asia as well. It has unforked gills and the interior is orange – not like the Chanterelle.’ She split the two mushrooms in half to demonstrate the difference in color. ‘The Führer rarely eats mushrooms. He doesn’t really like them, but see how easy it would be to grind, chop or mince the Omphalotus and slip it into his egg and potato casserole. You must be aware of the colors and smells of the poisonous foods and be on the lookout for their evidence.’

Cook then explained the difference between the two puffballs that lay on the table. One was deadly, the second not. My eyes must have glazed over, for other than the size and the amount of soil on both, the mushrooms looked strikingly similar. I could not tell the difference. Cook shook her head as if chastising a lazy student for her stupidity. ‘You will learn,’ she said in a firm voice.

Or die .

We moved on to arsenic. Cook took a small amount of the powder and heated it in a pan. It smelled like garlic. She also took a piece of the grayish-white granules and struck them with a hammer, causing friction and heat. The odor of garlic filled the air. ‘The poisoning causes symptoms very similar to cholera: diarrhea, vomiting, cramps and convulsions,’ Cook said. ‘That’s why it was easy to hide such poisoning hundreds of years ago. Cholera was prevalent. The pain from arsenic is acute. Real garlic is an antidote against a slow poisoning.’ She ordered me to put on gloves and sniff the arsenic, which smelled metallic rather than like garlic. My hands shook when she told me to taste a small particle. My jaws clenched shut. Cook gave up, pried my mouth open and placed the tiny piece on my tongue. It tasted faintly of iron, hardly enough to notice.

She then held up a brown bottle of Mercury Chloride. ‘This was used to treat the syphilitic disease of sexual intercourse, but it can kill as a poison. It causes profuse sweating, high blood pressure and rapid heartbeat. No need to taste it – it has no taste.’ Cook handed me the small bowl of white salts and had me examine it. A faint smell of chlorine wafted from the bowl, but I may have imagined it, the odor was so weak.

Finally, we dealt with cyanide. This was the poison, Cook said, that would most likely be used against the Führer. The white granules had a faint smell of bitter almonds. Cook was pleased when I noticed the odor. ‘Some can’t smell cyanide. It’s a genetic trait. You’re lucky you did; otherwise, you might have had to find other work.’ I was shocked at my own misfortune. If I had lied about the smell, I might have been assigned as the kitchen bookkeeper or to another less dangerous task. Instead, through my ignorance of poisons, I’d secured my job as a taster.

Cook swirled her gloved finger in the granules. ‘Cyanide salts are exceedingly poisonous. It knocks you unconscious and you can’t breathe; your skin turns blue.’ She pointed to a metal vial on the table. ‘Unfortunately, a few of our officers have already committed suicide in this manner. Breaking a cyanide capsule with your teeth will cause death in a matter of minutes. Nothing can be done once the poison’s in your system.’

The liquid looked harmless enough, almost colorless, but I was surprised at how quickly death could come. I would take Cook’s word as to the assessment of the poison.

My head spun with all that had been shown to me. One of the other cooks needed to see Fräulein Schultz, so she stepped away for a few minutes. I held the cyanide vial in my hands and looked at the thin glass ampoule. I replaced the vial on the table and looked around the kitchen. Cook was supervising Hitler’s breakfast preparations. I could only wait. As I sat in my chair, I marveled at how such a small glass capsule might change the course of history, if only someone had the courage to carry out a plan. Hitler was no hero to me, but I dared not speak what I thought.

Captain Weber asked me to a movie the first night I tasted food for Hitler. Karl arranged our date through Eva Braun. Apparently, his looks and standing in the SS were important enough to get himself positioned occasionally within Eva’s circle. Since Karl and I had talked in his quarters, I had seen Eva several times in the kitchen. Her presence was a special event that disrupted the cooks and orderlies, for she demanded that attention be paid to her wishes. Cook told me Eva was the Führer’s companion and the social mistress of the residence. She appeared in fine dresses that flattered her figure even as she walked about inspecting the ovens and stoves. Mostly, she wanted to know what the staff was preparing for her invited guests, not for Hitler. She talked to each of the cooks and even asked to taste a lamb dish as it was being prepared. This caused much consternation to Cook, who scolded Eva without insulting her, and stated that she could not guarantee her safety if she continued such unorthodox actions. Eva tossed her head, shaking her curls, and laughed. She exuded an air of invincibility, as if no disaster could ever befall her.