Through the Eye of Time (15 page)

The Führer was standing amidst the debris, arms taut at his sides, fists clenched, eyes fixed as in a trance on some distant non-existent object. He was wearing pyjamas and a silk dressing-gown embroidered with his initials, one letter on each lapel in large gothic script.

Although my attention was on him I caught the fleeting impression of Eva's white strained face amongst the crumpled bedclothes, tear-streaked, watching me with a kind of dumb terrified pleading. I motioned to her to remain calm and stepped up quietly behind the Führer.

He seemed to be in the grip of a catatonic brainstorm, totally rigid except for his jowls which were quivering and his nostrils flaring and closing, the harsh breath rasping in his throat.

This requires careful handling, I thought to myself. He doesn't seem very well, probably a tummy upset; the news from the Eastern Front must have disturbed his gastric juices. However, I have seen him suddenly lash out on such occasions, blindly, completely oblivious to his surroundings, and I didn't want to receive a black eye or a broken jaw for my pains.

‘Are you all right, mein armes, krankes Kälbchen?'
*

His breathing faltered at this familiar phrase and he whimpered a little down his nose. I put both hands on his shoulders and gently pushed him towards a chair. He sank down into it, I could feel his body trembling, and it was as though someone had released the strings on a puppet and the tiny wooden limbs and tiny wooden head are slackly at rest.

‘Have you had the visions?' I asked, taking his limp wrist and feeling for the pulse. ‘Have they been troubling you again?'

He stirred and lifted his head a fraction, apparently seeing me for the first time; the dull blue-grey eyes hardened into focus, the lips moved, the moustache twitched, and he said:

‘I couldn't get it up.'

‘Get what up?'

He made a weary indication with his head in the direction of the bed.

‘Well, you
are
a bad boy,' I said. ‘I gave you some tablets for that, don't you remember? And some ointment to rub on it.' I released his arm and it flopped into his lap.

‘I took the tablets and used the ointment but they didn't work. I just felt dizzy. What am I to do, Theo? I can't do the trick. I want to but I can't.'

‘Now, now, don't upset yourself.' I glanced over his head at Eva and she was making a strangling gesture with both hands round an invisible throat and miming instructions to go with it. I cautioned her with a slight gesture and she stuck her tongue out at me.

‘Is it the spirits, do you think?' he asked in a low voice. ‘You
told me that the spirits of the body sometimes get angry and take their revenge by disobeying the owner's wishes.' He was looking at me beseechingly.

‘That might be the reason. It's very complicated. It might be the spirits but it could well be the signs. Have you studied the omens recently? If the omens are not propitious it's possible that the spirits of the body are fighting amongst themselves. The juxtapositions are all-important.'

He sighed heavily. ‘I wish I understood it more clearly. Where did you learn all these things, Theo?'

‘It took many, many years to become an adept. I studied the mystical chronicles and drank deeply at the well of ancient wisdom. It is a gift, this understanding, not given to many.'

‘What would I do without you, Theo? All the rest are vermin. They think they can fool me with their degrees and their paper qualifications. But they couldn't even relieve me of the cramps.'

I sat down in the chair opposite and took his hands in mine. ‘Dismiss them from your thoughts, süsses, armes Kindchen
*
Adolf. If they had their way they would butcher you – slit you open and poke around inside. Why, only the other day von Hasselbach—' I checked myself. ‘Not that it matters. Let us forget it.'

‘Forget what?' he said, his body stiffening.

‘Never mind, it isn't important. In any case they don't really mean it.'

‘What don't they really mean?' His hands were clammy and cold in mine. ‘What is it, Theo? What have they been saying about me?'

I raised my eyebrows. ‘If you must know, mein Führer, if you insist on dragging it out of me …'

‘Yes. Yes. I do. What is it?'

‘They say you have Parkinson's disease.'

He looked at me thunderously. ‘They dare say that? Those quacks, those cretins say I have a
disease
? I have never met the man. Whose son is he? Have I met him? Is it contagious?'

‘Whose son do you mean?' I asked.

‘Parkin's.'

‘No, you misunderstand, Liebchen. The disease is called
Parkinson's
. It is a nervous complaint.'

His lips were working, his jaw thrust forward pugnaciously. ‘Nervous?'

‘Otherwise known as shaking palsy.'

His eyes bulged and the veins in his neck stood out. His hands, held within mine, were like claws. He tried to speak but the words were strangled in his throat.

‘Characterized by rigidity of the facial muscles,' I added.

Tiny specks of foam escaped his lips. His left eye developed a nervous tic. He tried again to speak but nothing came out.

‘It produces, so they say, a mask-like expression,' I informed him. ‘There's also muscle weakness which leads to a peculiar stooping gait. It's a disease usually associated with people approaching old age, caused by deterioration of the brain cells.'

‘
Urglhhmaaach!
' went Hitler.

‘I'll read you the full definition if you like,' I said, reaching for my bag. ‘I have a medical dictionary with me.'

His head moved jerkily to and fro in what I took to be a negative reaction.

‘You'd better give him something, Theo,' Eva said. ‘He's about to have another fit.'

‘Not yet, I want him to remain conscious. I can't talk to him if he's flat out.'

I patted his hand and made soothing noises for a few minutes and gradually he regained control of his motor functions. A semblance of colour returned to his face, though once again I noticed the peculiar discoloration of the skin: blotches of sickly pasty grey on his cheeks and forehead. I must give him some calamine for that, I remember thinking.

When he had recovered I led him back to bed and tucked him in. ‘Don't worry your head about von Hasselbach and the other quacks,' I said. ‘While I'm here nobody will harm you.'

Eva looked at me and then raised her eyes to the ceiling in mute despair.

I said, ‘We shall have to consult the signs and omens. The spirits of the body are unsettled; they are unhappy.'

‘I only wanted to get it up.'

‘I know, I know,' I placated him. ‘Quite natural. When was the last time it was hard? That you can remember.'

Hitler gazed into the room and after a moment's hesitation said, ‘Don't know,' somewhat sulkily, and I thought I saw a tear in his eye.

I sat down at the bedside and stroked the silken sleeve of his dressing-gown. ‘Listen. I have some new stuff that's supposed to work wonders. It's been tested on captured Russian airmen and the reports up to now have been very favourable.'

He turned to look at me, one eye obscured by a lock of greasy black hair. ‘Will it do the trick?' he asked morosely.

I grinned. ‘Eva will be able to answer that for you,' and reached down into my bag. ‘It's a tincture of strychnine, a mild variety, you understand. No harmful side-effects.'

It was true about the Russian airmen: they were kept in tanks of freezing water for six hours and then put into bed with two Jewish whores. They had a problem similar to the Führer's (though the cause was somewhat different) and were given strychnine to stimulate the respiratory and cardiovascular centres. It worked too – though in one or two cases the drug caused tremors and convulsions and eventually death from respiratory paralysis. I didn't want to alarm him unnecessarily and I omitted to mention the tedious details.

He took 8 mg. orally and we awaited results.

Eva lay propped on one elbow, an expression of absolute deadening boredom on her face. She wrinkled her nose at me and crossed her eyes. I made a funny face back at her. With her eyes she signalled
Will it send him to sleep?
I raised my eyebrows to indicate that I hadn't the faintest idea, whereupon she sighed and pulled down the corners of her mouth. I let my eyes drift from her face down to her nightgown: through the flimsy material I could see the vague dark ovals of her nipples. She noticed the direction of my gaze and lowered her eyes, glancing at me through her lashes and licking her bottom lip with a soft pink tongue.

For some time now I hadn't found her in the least desirable, but this simple stratagem rekindled my interest and I took it into my head to have a poke at it at the next opportunity.

‘How do you feel?' I asked the Führer. ‘Anything stirring?'

His eyes were glazed and it occurred to me that perhaps the dose had been too strong. On reading the label carefully I found that it prescribed a gradual increase from 2 mg. to 8 mg. over a period of days. Well, it was too late now. No good crying over spilt strychnine.

‘I don't feel to be here,' he said, and indeed his voice did sound odd. ‘I feel to be …'

‘Anywhere in particular?'

‘I think I can see God.'

‘Oh mother,' said Eva.

‘You can see God,' I said. ‘That's interesting.'

Eva tapped her temple with her forefinger and pointed at Hitler. I nodded and murmured, ‘As a hatter.'

‘What?' the Führer said, blinking rapidly and trying to sit up.

‘Take it easy now. No cause for alarm. Can you see anyone else besides God? Any angels? Visions?'

He has often mentioned to me, in confidence, that he receives ‘visitations'. Sometimes there are ghosts present, and once he said that he could see right through me and tried to poke his finger into my chest until I insisted that I was perfectly real and solid and what's more he was hurting me.

I leaned closer and said in his ear, ‘Can you feel anything yet, Messiah of the Reich? Is anything twitching down below? Is the little worm coming out of its nest?'

‘Oh bollocks,' Eva said impatiently, ‘let me have a feel.' She rummaged under the bedclothes.

‘Anything?'

‘Not a sausage.'

‘I must have given him too much.'

‘You didn't give him enough.'

‘It would have killed him.'

‘Exactly.'

‘The visions, the visions …' mumbled the Führer.

‘Yes, the bleeding visions,' I said.

‘They're speaking to me, giving me instructions.'

‘Ask them if they can give you a hard on.'

‘I shall rule the world with my wonder weapon,' he burbled.

‘And pigs might fly,' Eva said.

‘Quiet,' I said. ‘This could be interesting. Which wonder weapon are you referring to, mein Führer?'

‘The most powerful weapon on earth.'

Eva had another feel. ‘He really is delirious.'

‘Shush.'

‘I have not come into the world to make men better but to make use of their weaknesses,' he droned. ‘Now I have the means. Total annihilation. The skies will darken, the bombs will rain down on the cities, blood will flow in the gutters. Nature is cruel, therefore we too may be cruel. If I can send the flower of the German nation into the hell of war, without the smallest pity for the spilling of precious German blood, then surely I have a right to remove millions of an inferior race that breeds like vermin!'

‘How will this be achieved, mein Liebling?' I asked softly.

‘The ultimate weapon,' Hitler gloated, his blank eyes lost in visions. ‘The brilliance of German science and technology has given the Reich the miracle of
U235
. Now nothing on earth can stand in our way. We are truly invincible. The visions tell me of greater glories ahead. I see, I believe, I will act. God wills it.'

‘And we have it – the most powerful weapon on earth?'

‘Yes, yes,' Hitler breathed, his eyes alight with phantoms. ‘We have it. The Atomic Bomb.'

Obersalzberg, June 1943

This must surely be the loveliest time of the year. Difficult to believe, here amidst this idyllic alpine landscape, that throughout Europe, Russia, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, the Pacific, on every continent and ocean, bloody battles are being fought and men, women and children are dying in the most sordid inglorious circumstances. Life is funny that way, I suppose. Some must die so that others might live. So it goes.

Goebbels paid a brief visit to the Berghof. He didn't look at all well and wasn't, I might add, in the best of moods. Indeed he took the Führer to task for not putting in an appearance in Berlin for over two months. The gist of his complaint was that the German people were having to suffer an increasing aerial bombardment by the Americans and the Russians, cities and
towns were being knocked flat, and yet the Führer hadn't once, visited the devastated areas to bring cheer and comfort to those living under daily threat to their lives. Goebbels himself, as is well known, is constantly touring the industrialized areas on morale-boosting missions; couldn't the Führer, if only for propaganda purposes, leave Obsersalzberg and see at first-hand the destruction that was being inflicted? The German people would respond magnificently if they saw the Führer taking a close personal interest.

Hitler was taking tea at the time of the interview. He had, as I recall, just eaten a cream bun and was licking the cream from his fingers. He looked at Goebbels with that fixed unwavering gaze of his, the blue-grey eyes staring and dead, lacking animation, like those of a somnambulist.

‘The bomb-terror,' he declared, ‘spares the dwellings of neither the rich nor poor; before the offices of total war the last class barriers have had to go down. Under the debris of our shattered cities the last so-called achievements of the middleclass nineteenth century have been finally buried.'