The hotel room that Fritz rented was tiny and damp. The radiator clinked as steam moved through it. The sheets on the bed were clean but the blanket was thin and full of cigarette burns. He took a short nap, and he was so exhausted that he did not dream. When the alarm clock awakened him, the sun was setting over the spires of the city.
Before going to dinner he returned to the church. Father Pant’s car was parked at the rear. The windows overlooking the lot left squares of light on the gravel. The back door was unlocked, and Fritz went inside.
The church smelled of dust and candlewax. He had entered through a large kitchen. The white sinks and stove showed some recent money in the parish. Dishes still dried on the counter from the afternoon. In the distance, he heard voices, one of them a woman’s.
He followed the voices through a dark hallway, finally finding another square of light spilling on the red carpet. The voices were louder now. He recognised Father Pant’s, speaking softly. Then Fritz stepped into the light and rapped on the open door.
They were sitting in a study, Father Pant on a large red upholstered chair, the woman on a couch. Theology books lined the walls, and behind Father Pant, a neat mahogany desk gleamed. Father Pant held a pipe and was twisting it round and round in his hands.
The woman was small. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a fashion years out of date. She wore a black dress with a single gold brooch. Her waist was surprisingly narrow for a middle-aged woman. Her short legs were tucked under her long skirt. Only the tips of her sturdy black shoes peeked out. Even though Fritz had never seen her before, he knew who she was.
Angela Raubal. Geli’s mother.
If Geli had lived, she would have looked like this one day, a face of faded prettiness and quiet strength. Frau Raubal looked up at Fritz. Father Pant stood, said nothing about Fritz’s unexpected arrival, and made the introductions. When he was done, Frau Raubal turned an unexpectedly intense gaze on Fritz.
‘You’re the man who says my daughter was murdered.’
Fritz stiffened, unwilling to look at Father Pant. Fritz had wanted to break the news to her, had wanted to see the look in her eyes the moment she knew. He wanted to know if she had faced the news with expectation, sorrow, or surprise. He stepped into the room, and uninvited, sat on the wooden chair beside her.
‘I do not say, Frau Raubal.’ He spoke softly, like Father Pant did, wanting to draw her into their conspiracy of knowledge instead of alienate her from it. ‘I know. You would as well if you saw Geli.’
Frau Raubal glanced down at her hands. They were coarse, callused hands, the hands of a woman who had worked all her life. ‘The Minister of Justice says Geli committed suicide.’
‘The Minister of Justice has not seen her. He would have made a different ruling if he had seen the body.’
‘Seen! Seen!’ Frau Raubal glanced up, and her blue eyes caught him again, reminded him of someone he could not name. ‘What is so important about seeing her? What happened to my little girl?’
Father Pant was watching him, hands carefully folded in his lap. Fritz was startled to realise the priest was wearing his robes. He apparently needed all the strength of his office to speak to this woman about her daughter’s death.
Fritz took a deep breath. The woman was on an edge, and he needed her. He needed her to believe him to give his investigation strength. ‘Forgive me, Frau Raubal, for being so blunt, but someone beat Geli before she died.’
Frau Raubal’s face went white. The power in her gaze faded, and she seemed to retreat into herself. ‘Beat her?’
‘Yes, ma’am. The bruises she had could not have happened after death.’
‘But they said she shot herself. Maybe when she fell –?’
‘No.’ Fritz kept his voice gentle. ‘Bruises look different before death. And the body does not bleed afterward. Someone broke her nose, Frau Raubal, so close to her death that Geli did not have time to wipe the blood off her upper lip.’
Frau Raubal clasped her hands in her own lap. Her expression did not change, but her eyes took on a faraway look. Father Pant glanced at Fritz, as if surprised by Frau Raubal’s reaction.
‘Do you know what Geli did to provoke this?’ Frau Raubal asked.
A chill ran down Fritz’s back. He had not expected that question. It was not one he would have asked if it had been his child in that coffin at the cemetery.
Not now, anyway.
Perhaps a few years before.
Now he knew that people did not provoke beatings like that. Beatings like the one Geli Raubal suffered came from extreme rage. ‘We don’t know if she did anything. We don’t know what happened. We were wondering if, perhaps, you knew.’
Frau Raubal bit her upper lip so hard that Fritz could see the pressure in her jaw. With a very small movement, she shook her head.
‘Angela,’ Father Pant said, ‘we would like to help Geli.’
‘There is no help for Geli,’ Frau Raubal said. Her teeth had left marks in her lip. ‘It was my mistake.’
‘What was?’ Fritz asked.
‘Sending her so far away. To Munich. She was not ready to go.’ Frau Raubal was staring slightly to the left of Father Pant, as if she were seeing something other than the warm, well-lit study.
‘She was a woman full grown, Angela,’ Father Pant said.
‘She was a girl. She was always a girl. She was so young. I should have listened –.’ Frau Raubal put a hand over her mouth, and shook her head again, her gaze never wavering from the spot past Father Pant.
‘Should have listened?’ Father Pant prompted. He was good. Fritz was grateful to be beside him.
‘When she complained. She wanted to come home to Vienna.’
‘But you no longer live here.’
‘It is still her home.’ Frau Raubal moved her hand over her eyes, and sat for a moment. Her breathing was even, her body didn’t shake, she was not crying. Fritz and Father Pant sat in silence with her for quite a while. Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath and uncovered her eyes. The intensity was back, and Fritz finally remembered where he had seen that look before: on the man who had opened the apartment door before Fritz left Munich. Angela Raubal was Adolf Hitler’s sister.
Fritz swallowed, the resemblance reminding him of the questions he needed to ask. ‘Forgive me, Frau Raubal, but I need to know if you think someone had reason to hurt your daughter.’
She shook her head.
‘What about as a way to get to your brother?’
Her eyes went flat. It was a startling change. One moment she had blazing intensity, the next it looked as if she had left her body.
‘My daughter is dead. Tomorrow we bury her. That will be the end of it. I have nothing more to say.’ She stood, adjusted her skirts, and looked at Fritz. The sorrow she carried bowed her shoulders and lined her rounded face. ‘Nothing we can do will change the past.’
‘She didn’t care how her daughter died?’ the girl asks, interrupting him.
Fritz gazes at her. She is American. She is young. For all her studies, she does not understand, and he is not sure he can explain it to her. Angela Raubal was ten years older than Fritz. Her generation, even more than his, had lost hope of doing much more than surviving. The whys and hows were not important because whys and hows did not change things. Once an event happened, it happened, and a person had to move forward or not move at all.
‘She cared,’ he says. Of that, he is certain. ‘She just knew she could not change it. She knew that the door to the past was closed and should remain so. I should have known that as well.’