V Alexander - The Taster

The door to the study opened and Eva came into the room. She was wearing her blue dress from the morning. She collapsed on the couch and wiped tears from her cheeks. She looked at me with an uneasy smile and poured a glass of champagne. She took a sip and said, “It’s so hard to say good-bye, Magda.” She rested the glass next to her on the couch. “Interruptions, always interruptions. Now we can’t even die without being interrupted. My life with Adolf has been one of constant delay. ‘Duty calls, my dear Eva. Perhaps next month, perhaps next year.’ Waiting and waiting for what? A consummation that never happened. For years, he couldn’t make love to a woman because the Führer was too important. Germany was his mistress. Now that we’re married, it’s too late. He’s not physically able.” She laughed and took another drink. “I shouldn’t tell you these things, but I guess it doesn’t matter. If you record my words for history, they will ask, ‘Who was Eva Braun?’ No one will believe a word I said.”

I started to answer, but we heard someone enter in the study. Eva held a finger to her lips. I recognized the voices as those of Magda Goebbels and Hitler.

“You must leave Berlin!” Magda pleaded hysterically. “If you die, we will die also—the children as well. There will be no life in Germany without you.”

“Nothing you can say will dissuade me,” Hitler said. His tone was flat, complacent. “You have the choice of leaving or staying. Why would you kill your children? Think of what you’re doing. I must end my life here—for Germany’s sake.”

Magda burst into sobs. “Then it is over for all of us.”

“There is nothing more to say,” Hitler said. “Please leave us and attend to your children and husband.” The door to the study opened and then closed.

My stomach knotted as I thought of the murder of six innocent children, particularly the boy, Helmut, I had met in the hall. Hitler was as responsible for their deaths as he was for any soldier or concentration camp prisoner. I tried to think of a way to keep the children alive, the tragedy in abeyance, but my mind raced with other thoughts as well.

Hitler walked unsteadily into the sitting room and closed the door. He wore his dark uniform jacket with the Iron Cross pinned to his chest. He looked at the floor with sullen eyes and then at me. He walked past and the smell of death filled my nostrils, as if his flesh were already putrefying from decay. His left arm shook as he lowered himself onto the couch.

“Frau Weber,” he said. His voice was faint, restrained, a fragment of its former power. “Eva has told you why you are here?”

I nodded.

“Then let’s be on with it. The barbarians are at our door.”

“I will die first, Adolf,” Eva said, “but for a moment’s pause. Let’s toast to a lifetime in eternity.”

“Millions will curse me tomorrow, but providence would have it no other way,” Hitler said. “For many years the Fates were on my side. Now I have to face reality. There is no way out except by an honorable death.”

Eva poured champagne for both and they drank. She kissed him on the cheek and said, “Good-bye, my love.” Before I could react she had the capsule in her mouth. The glass crunched between her teeth and a metallic gasp, like the sound of a grate closing, escaped from her lips. Her face contorted and she drew up her legs involuntarily against her chest in pain. The odor of bitter almonds filled the room. She died, frozen on the couch, as if she had suddenly been struck dead by some divine power.

I walked to the table and grabbed both pistols. I pointed one at Hitler’s head and said, “I am here to give you an honorable death. You are right—there is no way out.”

Hitler lurched forward but then fell back on the couch.

My body shook so violently I dropped the other weapon near the door. I held the remaining pistol with both hands and steadied my aim. “You think you are powerful, but you are a coward.”

“I’m far from it.” He leered at me. “Kill me now.”

“Death can wait. It will not come before I say what millions have known but were afraid to admit. Many, many soldiers, including your closest staff members, have wanted you dead for years. I am sorry that they failed. Perhaps the war would have ended sooner, but there was always the question of who would take your place. The death of one devil could spawn a bigger demon. But Germany no longer has to worry about that.”

He put his fists up to his face and shouted, “Traitors, all traitors.”

“No! You are the traitor. My husband, my mother, perhaps even my father have died because of your false pride, your hollow words. I saw firsthand the horror of your camps. What good was the Reich? It was nothing but an illusion perpetrated for your gain.”

His face flushed and he threw his champagne glass past me. The crystal shattered against the door. “What I did, I did for the good of Germany. You are a small-minded traitor like the rest. If the people hadn’t failed me, Germany would have been the most powerful country in the world. I should have you arrested and executed.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “Shout for the SS. They can’t hear you. I will shoot you between the eyes before you get to the door.” I smiled and drew closer to him, the pistol still pointed at his head. “You think Germans love you. A few may—the bullies you surrounded yourself with: Goebbels, Bormann. But the common people whom you disparage for their lack of courage, the people you supposedly loved, despise you. If you walked into the street now, they would string you up like Mussolini. They would stone you and spit on your corpse.”

He reached for the cyanide capsule. “I will hear no more of this.”

I waved the gun at him and swiped the ampoule from his reach. “Don’t touch that! It won’t be much longer.”

He withdrew his hand.

“My husband wanted you dead. He knew, as others did, what suffering you caused for all you deemed as enemies. Those you murdered were honest people, caring people with families who had done nothing wrong other than being named enemies of the Reich. Your Reich. They were less than your vision of what German perfection should be and they died. For, after all, they were the cause of Germany’s problem—sinful, decadent money-grubbers who had ruined us for a thousand years. At least they died with honor. They were so much stronger than you could ever be. I hope those you murdered, those you executed, those innocents who died because of your maniacal dreams, will spit on you beyond the grave. They deserve some measure of revenge. In the beginning, they believed your hollow words. That was before you betrayed their trust—as you crushed them to fulfill your quest for absolute power.”

I leaned close to him because I wanted him to hear my words. “You will be despised as the most evil man in history. The mention of Adolf Hitler will bring shame upon this nation—not glory. Your name will be reviled as long as man inhabits earth.”

He bowed his head. “Your kind has brought Germany to defeat. Look at the destruction that surrounds us, the deaths on every corner. If the people had stood with me, Germany would have been invincible. Think on that as you return to the ashes.” He thrust out his hand for the capsule and, this time, I did not stop him. He slowly put it between his teeth.

“For good measure,” I said, and knelt beside him. I put the pistol to his right temple. “There is no way out.”

He bit into the capsule and I pulled the trigger. The blast knocked my hand backward. A hole opened in his head and blood poured from the wound. Hitler slumped on the couch, his eyes still open in death. Then, he fell, his head crashing against the table. My hands, the couch, the carpet and the wall behind him were slick with his blood. Even Eva’s body carried some of the stain of his death. I looked at the crimson flow and marveled that it had been part of him. I was proud I’d killed him. For a few moments, I reveled in the gore around me, as if I had gone mad. The blood didn’t bother me; it would wash away down the sink. But for now, I wanted to feel its warmth as it flowed down my hands. Time was against me, however.