He pauses there and pulls his cigar box from under his chair. He opens it and removes the wrapped newspaper clippings from the bottom. The newsprint is yellow and fragile. He must unfold the articles carefully before handing them, one by one, to the girl.
She studies them as if she will be quizzed on them. Absently, she reaches beside her and shuts off the tape. Then she grabs her notepad and writes down the dates.
He has quoted to her the only article he remembers, and he remembers it because it shocked him. The other articles, which he gathered later, are more explicit, given to wild speculations. Each paper had its own idea of what happened. Some were lurid accounts of assassins who arrived planning to kill Hitler, and getting Geli instead. Others speculated that Hitler had shot the girl himself. Still others claimed that Geli was pregnant by a Jew and had to be killed to protect Hitler. She was alternately beautiful in death, beaten to unrecognisability, shot through the head or the heart, and wearing nothing, or a brown robe, or a blue nightgown.
The most accurate report was the one he read first, and the one he concentrated on. But the girl reads them all, that small frown furrowing her brow. Finally, she looks at him and hands him a brittle clipping. It too is from the Münchner Post, although he has a matching one that first appeared in the Völkischer Beobachter. It is a letter, signed by Adolf Hitler, which reads:
1) It is not true that I was having fights again and again with my niece Geli Raubal and that we had a substantial quarrel on Friday or any time before that.
2) It is not true that I was decidedly against her going to Vienna. I was never against her planned trip to Vienna.
3) It is not true she was going to get engaged in Vienna or that I was against the engagement. It is true that my niece was tormented with worry that she was not yet fit for her public appearance. She wanted to go to Vienna to have her voice checked once again by a voice teacher.
4) It is not true that I left my apartment on September 18 after a fierce row. There was no row, no excitement, when I left my apartment on that day.
‘It is so defensive,’ the girl says.
‘Yes.’ Fritz stares at the clipping. To this day he is not certain if Hitler actually wrote the document, if one of his cronies did, or if one of his enemies did to discredit him. The statement’s very existence shows the divisions within the NSDAP.
She hands the rest of the clippings back to him, and stands. ‘I want to make you lunch,’ she says. ‘An American lunch.’
For the first time, he notices that she left one bag on the counter when she brought in breakfast. When she had entered, he had been thinking of his dream, of Geli’s brutalised body, and had not watched the girl very closely.
‘Do you miss your American food?’ he asks.
‘A little,’ she says. ‘The meals are so heavy here. I feel as if I have gained eighty pounds.’
She is trim, almost too thin. German women are not that thin. Such thinness, here, is a sign of poverty – at least to men like him. Fat is a sign that a man can afford to feed his family, and feed them well. But Americans have never suffered. They do not understand these matters and try to maintain an unnatural look at all times.
She goes into the kitchen and begins to unload items from the bag. He recognises many of them as canned goods from the American-style supermarket built near the autobahn.
‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘It looks like a lot, but it won’t take very long.’
‘That’s fine.’ He needs to rest anyway. His throat is dry, has been dry and sore for days. He is not used to talking to anyone. He goes through his days wandering through the English Garden, reading books he buys – often American now – and going to movies of all kinds. When he goes to a beer hall, he speaks to the others at the tables, but he is usually alone. The Chief Inspector died last year of a liver ailment, and Henrich moved to Nuremberg, too sick to care for himself, an invalid in the hands of a daughter he barely knew. Fritz called him once or twice, but to hear hearty Henrich filled with such despair depressed him even farther. Perhaps because they had nothing when they were young, the men of his generation did not believe what they had when they were old. After retirement, life became a simple waiting game, waiting for death, for more tragedy to strike.
Fritz’s life has contracted, even though he has not worked for decades. His resurgent celebrity brought some promotional appearances, a false camaraderie among the fashionable in Munich and West Berlin, a sense of purpose he had lacked. But that faded, and with it his interest in the world around him. The interest on his money feeds and clothes him, but he has no one to leave the money to. No one will remember Fritz the man after the Fritz the famous Kripo officer is completely and officially dead.
The girl is searching through cupboards in his kitchen, finally removing thin soup bowls he barely remembers he owns. Then she takes his metal ladle and two spoons, and ladles liquid from the stewpot. His stomach growls. He has not been watching her cook. He hadn’t realised how hungry he was.
Finally she brings him a bowl filled with carrots, onions, broccoli, green beans, tomatoes and macaroni in a thick tomato broth. No meat, although he searches for it as he spoons his first bite. Only beans and macaroni. A poor man’s dinner. Still, he smiles and thanks her, and then tastes, surprised at the flavourings she has used.
She watches him like an expectant mother – no one has cared about what he has eaten for decades. He smiles and nods, approving, although he feels vaguely odd about the absent meat. The soup eases his dry, sore throat, and restores him. He hopes she will leave it on the burner all afternoon so that he may refill his bowl whenever his voice gets tired.
She eats her own meal at the table, away from her recorder, staring at his pictures. So far, she has not asked him about them, but it will only be a matter of time. When she does, he is not certain how much he will tell her.
He feels as if he has told her too much already.