They left the autobahn and continued on a narrower road at a much slower speed.
“Over there!” The driver pointed. The shadow of a mountain loomed up against the sky. “Watzmann,” he said. “Third highest mountain in Germany.”
“Aaah!” Alice made what she felt was an appropriate response.
“Three peaks—Mittelspitze, Südsptize, but I’m afraid you can’t see Hocheck from here. Bit foggy on top. But the weather is going to clear soon.”
Then they were gliding down into a valley and began winding through a wooded area.
“River Berchtesgadener Ache,” the driver announced as he drove onto a bridge. There was soon another sign for the Hotel Platterhof. “Bigwigs stay there.” The driver pointed to a half-timbered building. Each window had a flower box spilling with pink and blue blossoms.
“But the biggest of the bigwigs have homes,” the driver said, pointing to the left. “Albert Speer. His villa. You know, the Führer’s favorite architect.” The driver took one hand off the wheel. “The whole lot, Fräulein. You are at the center of it all. I mean, of course there’s Berlin and the chancellery, but right here in the mountains is the true center. Everyone comes here.” He paused a moment, then pointed ahead to the right.
He’d suddenly become very talkative. “And guess whose house that is at the top?”
“No idea,” Alice answered. He clearly enjoyed educating her.
“Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.”
“He’s head of the air force,” Alice replied.
“Ever seen him in person?”
“Only photos.”
“He’s definitely a fat fellow. And just below Göring’s house is Martin Bormann’s villa. Head of the Nazi party. Has ten kids! Yes, ten! Göring, just one.” He now emitted a harsh laugh. Then he paused in this voluble account. “And now you, little one.”
“Yes . . . me?”
“So what’s the story?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you here? Are you a cousin or a friend of Fräulein Braun?”
“Oh no. Never met her. I’m just a Reich Praktikum kid.”
“Aaaah! You must be very smart. Well, they’ll find something very smart for you to do, I’m sure.”
Yes, she wanted to say, like assassinate Hitler. Although she knew that she would not be the one to pull the trigger or set off the bomb. She was unsure of the details of the assassination. She was there to provide information. And she was ready.
They had by this time passed through two checkpoints. The driver slowed down, and as soon as he stuck his head out, they waved him through. Lousy security, Alice thought. How did they know that she wasn’t in the back seat with a gun cleverly covered but pressed up against the driver’s seat? Or with a bomb that could be detonated?
They had just driven through a stone archway and begun to climb a steep hill.
“Now if you’re so smart . . . ,” the driver began slowly. Where was this going? Alice wondered.
“Yes?”
“I told you Reich Minister Bormann has ten children.”
“Yes, you said that.”
“But how did Hermann Göring, who is very very fat, who weighs three hundred and fifty pounds, how did he even manage to have a child? It’s a mystery. Poor woman.”
A quiet terror spread through Alice. Men who spoke like this to girls her age were dangerous. This was his first step. She was trapped in this car. He looked in the rearview mirror. She watched his thick lips spread into a salacious smile. What should she do? What could she say? Could she pretend to throw up? Or could she lie? Tell him that she was a niece of Minister Goebbels and would report back on the driver’s behavior? But then that might make her more memorable. That was the last thing she wanted to do. An idea came into her head.
This was where all her summer camp acting lessons came into play. She must remain calm, even thought her heart was pounding as hard as the thudding of this diesel engine. She leaned forward and locked her eyes on his in the mirror. His hand lay casually on the back of the seat. She wanted to clamp her teeth on it as hard as possible and bite his fingers through to the bone. But she didn’t.
“Herr Chauffeur, you touch one hair on my head, and I report you to the secret police. Do you know what the punishment is for sexually molesting an RP girl?” She paused a fraction of a second. “Castration.” He turned pale and put his hand back on the wheel. There was of course no such punishment.
In another two minutes they were pulling up to the villa of the Berghof. “Now, when I get out of this car, I shall forget what you told me, and you can forget you ever saw me.” It will be easy, she thought.
Seventeen
A Rhine Maiden
“Achtung! Rheintöchter! Yes, attention, Rhine maidens!” Winifred Wagner, the director of this performance from the Ring cycle, was charging around on the stage in her semi-dirndlish dress. A full-blown dirndl with puff sleeves and white apron would not have suited Frau Wagner. The daughter-in-law of Richard Wagner, Winifred was a large woman who could have been a Valkyrie herself.
“Now let me explain. What we are doing here is not, of course, a full opera, but scenes. You do not have to sing, but you present a motionless scene as music plays on the gramophone. I arrange all of you in a pose as the curtain opens. I stand at the conductor’s podium, and you watch my baton. When it moves, you change your pose.” She delivered these instructions as crisply as any drill sergeant in the Führer’s army. “You remain silent as the singers on the record do all the singing. But it helps if you keep your mouths open . . . like this . . .” She then drew her rather thin lips into an oval shape. Alice noticed that Frau Wagner had very bad teeth.
“There are only four different poses within the scene we are staging tonight. In the first pose, you are sitting on the rocks of the river, guarding the treasure of the Rhinegold, as the dwarf Alberich has just appeared. He is dazzled by your beauty. But most of all Alberich wants the treasure. This is an opera all about the gods, their ruler, and the quest for power. Whoever gets the ring possesses power. All about questing for power, and then the collapse of everything—the Götterdämmerung, the Twilight of the Gods. That’s it, in a nutshell.”
Alice learned that every summer, excerpts from Hitler’s favorite opera were performed here, in a series of these tableaux vivants. A stage was erected. Old costumes brought out of storage. And since the entire orchestra could not be transported, the records played on a gramophone.
Alice had been drafted into the performance almost as soon as she had arrived. They were now rehearsing. She was one of the Rhine maidens.
“Now which one are you?” Frau Wagner demanded. “Woglinde?”
“No, I’m to be Flosshilde,” Alice replied.
“I’m Woglinde.” A tall and frail-looking girl stepped forward.
“Aah yes, Herta.”
“And I’m Wellgunde,” said another.
Frau Wagner nodded. “Of course, and the new girl here is Flosshilde.” She paused briefly. “And what’s your name again?”
“Ute . . . Ute Schnaubel.”