As far as Klara was concerned, this man was lucky to steal her stepdaughter. It was virtually a crime. Angela was entitled to much more. Raubal wasn’t even healthy in appearance.
What Klara did not know was that Angela had been living with a guilty secret. She had never stopped pining for Alois Junior. She knew that Junior would never come back, but in the course of these seven years of absence, she had transmuted him into a perfect young man. She remembered how handsome he had been on Ulan. She was certain, of course, that if she and Alois Junior were still together, she would never take one improper step, but all the same she might now allow her brother to dismount from his horse and kiss her. Even after the family moved to the Garden House and Angela had a room to herself, she still kept, carefully hidden, a photograph of her brother taken by an itinerant photographer on a fine warm day in Hafeld. Alois Junior had been proud to obtain a picture of himself standing by his horse. Indeed, he had taken Ulan out of the stable and led him up to the view camera.
Angela had stolen that picture. It had been her way of paying Alois back for the times he had teased her when she refused to mount Ulan. When the photo disappeared, she had to swear to Alois Junior that she had no idea where it might be. “I say this on a stack of Bibles,” she had said.
“Where are these Bibles?” Alois Junior asked.
“In my mind. They are there. You can trust me.”
She did not mind that he was suffering just as much as if he had lost a gold watch. He deserved to suffer for the way he had teased her. So cruel!
Angela still kept this photo hidden, but, as the date of her marriage neared, she became more concerned about the carnal redolence that remained in her heart for this innocent—yet maybe not so innocent—attachment to a fading sepia portrait. Finally, she came to the cruel recognition that the picture had to be destroyed. (Otherwise, Leo Raubal was bound to find it sooner or later.) So, on a night when she was unable to sleep, in a small but most private ceremony, she tore up this small piece of her past and in the dark of early morning put the scraps in a small bowl, set a kitchen match to them, and wept silently as bits of the photograph turned to black.
After the wedding, Adolf was bothered by thoughts of how ugly must be the acts that Angela and Leo were performing in bed. Adolf had seen the groom’s phallus one time when they urinated side by side in a field, and thought it was nothing agreeable to look at. Now Leo was rubbing it in and out of this supposedly sacred passage between Angela’s two unmentionable holes—how disgusting! His thoughts came to a halt when he recognized that his father and mother were no different from the newlyweds. How awful was this secret that all men and women had to keep silent about.
4
By May of that next year, 1904, in addition to earning another mediocre set of marks, Adolf failed French. A make-up exam would await him in the fall. He did receive a passing mark, but the principal remained unforgiving about the episode with Herr Schwamm. If Adolf Hitler wanted to enter his last year in a Realschule, the principal declared that it would not be at Linz. In retaliation, Adolf said to himself, “I will never allow this school to insult my intelligence again.”
Klara solved the problem by sending Adolf to a town called Steyr, fifteen miles from Leonding. It was there that he could finish his Realschule studies. Given the pension, Klara could afford to rent a room for Adolf rather than be obliged to pay for his travel back and forth every day by train. So, from Sunday night to Friday afternoon, Adolf stayed with a woman who was also boarding four other students. It was Frau Sekira’s duty to see that her boarders were reasonably well fed and did their homework. Indeed, she was motherly. Adolf always addressed her in a formal manner and then was off to his own small room, where he would spend his time reading and drawing. His marks in the Steyr Realschule were no better, however, than in Linz, and by the end he even failed French once more. In the fall of 1905 he would have to face a makeup exam in order to graduate.
Over the next summer, Klara took Paula and Adolf back to Spital, but in September he traveled to Steyr again for his French test. This time he passed and so received his graduation certificate. In celebration, he and some of the new roomers at Frau Sekira’s house decided to have a party. One of the boys had brought four bottles of wine from home and was generous enough to share them. “My father said that it is good to make a pig of yourself once a year. That is just what my father said. Do it once, not twice.” They all applauded the absent father.
The students stayed up late that night and by the end, Adolf declared, “I am as drunk as my father ever was,” and fell asleep on the floor. In the morning, he could not find his certificate of graduation. It had been in his pocket but now it was gone. Since he would be going home later in the day, he had to have something to show to his mother. She would never believe that he earned his degree if he could not present the certificate. Trying to put together an explanation, he wondered whether he could tell her that on the train he had unfolded this precious piece of paper in order to enjoy looking at it, but since it was a warm day, he had also opened the train window. With no warning, a gust of wind carried it off! Yet, now as he stepped outside to clear his mind, he recognized that such a story would not suffice. It happened to be a cold day.
Preparing to say farewell to Frau Sekira, he did mention his troubles. Frau Sekira suggested he not attempt to deceive his mother. “That is so inadvisable,” she said. “If your story is accepted by her, you will then feel so very guilty. And if your mother does find out, it will be worse.”
Over the previous school year, she had been no more than a woman who served him food every day and changed the sheets once a week. Now she had become a rare and thoughtful human being. In misery, he asked, “What should I do?”
“Oh,” she said, “tell them the truth at school. They might be unhappy but they will certainly give you a copy.”
So Adolf went back to a school he thought he would never see again, and the Rector kept him waiting. It was, after all, a day of registration. Yet, when the Rector did let him in, it was to open a locked closet and take out a heavy paper bag. After which he said, “Your certificate is here. It has been torn into four pieces. You will soon see its condition.” Now the Rector stared at him. “It is one thing for a student to celebrate his graduation when he is pleased that he passed a makeup examination. At last he can allow himself to think that perhaps he has taken a valuable step toward his future. It is, however, another matter, Herr Hitler, to enter into a bout of intoxication that ends in despicable acts.” He shook his head. “I can see by the absence of recognition in your face that you do not even have a recollection of the low act you chose to indulge.”
This was now becoming equal to standing before the long-nosed priest who had caught him smoking. “Sir, what have I done?” he managed to say. “Be so good as to tell me.”
“My dear Herr Hitler, I will be exactly so good as to tell you. You took this document and left your filth on it!” His hands shaking with disgust, he passed the bag over to Adolf. Then he said, “I cannot bring myself to believe that any student in our school could have committed such a bestiality. You would do well to fear that you will go through life never learning to govern perverse impulses. Shall I write to your mother? No, I will not. She is probably a good woman who does not deserve such a stinking embarrassment. Instead, you are to swear to me that from the moment you leave this office, I will never have to see your face again. Just be certain that you do not open the bag while you remain within the walls of this school.”
Adolf nodded. By now, he could remember. Yes, he had taken the certificate and wiped his ass with it. The moment came back. He had been feeling so endowed with inner grandeur! How his drinking mates had applauded. His ass was now superior to all that scholarly nonsense.
What made it worse was that he had to wonder how the Rector had found out. There was only one explanation. One of the four students with whom he had been drinking must have turned it over to him. But who would that be? He did not want t
o find out. Such a confrontation could add to his shame. What if the perpetrator was one of the two fellows bigger than himself? That was most likely.
Back at Frau Sekira’s, he spent a long time at the washbasin cleaning the certificate, and drying it. Then he pasted the pieces onto another piece of paper. Now he would have evidence that he had passed his exam. For Klara, he would come up with some explanation.
“Oh, Mother, the more I looked at it, the more did I realize how much you sacrificed for me, and how little I had understood. I tore it up to keep from crying like a baby.” Yes, thought Adolf, that will take care of that.
He had to keep wondering, however, which of the students had been the traitor. It could have been all four! He decided that he would never drink again. “Liquor is for traitors,” he told himself. He kept sniffing the document to make certain that it now smelled of talcum powder.
I have to remark that no event since Alois’ death had come so near to breaching Adolf’s sense of personal importance. I had built, however, such a protective palisade around his vision of himself that even this episode did not become a disaster.
5
Klara wept with love when she heard why the certificate had come back to her in four pieces.
“It is even more valuable to me this way,” she said. “I will be proud to put it into a frame.”
That was the hour when he decided that the ability to lie with art was a skill to be esteemed and, indeed, they had a lovely evening, mother and son. With Paula soon asleep, they sat side by side on the sofa and reminisced over old times, when he had been two and three.
That was a special occasion. Over the previous year, coming back from Steyr each weekend, he had certainly grown weary of listening to Klara speak of Alois. In her mind, the old man was now to be remembered as a pillar of their Empire, a profoundly dedicated Civil Servant. His long-stemmed clay pipes were set up on the mantelpiece, each installed in a special holder. The family gospel took it for granted that Alois had given a blessing to Adolf. It was a blessing to have a father who, in his career, had climbed the equal of a mountain.
I was ready to tell him as much myself. These days, I looked to implant one notion into his thoughts. It was that Alois had given Adolf the opportunity to start from a higher place than his father, and so he could become a most prestigious individual. I cannot say whether Klara or myself had the larger influence concerning this matter, but these thoughts became so embedded in Adolf’s brain, that by the time he wrote Mein Kampf nineteen years later, in 1924, he would speak of Alois in eulogy:
Not yet thirteen years old, the little boy he then was, buttoned up his things and ran away from his homeland, Waldviertel. A bitter resolve it must have been to take to the road into the unknown with only three Guilders for traveling money. By the time the thirteen-year-old was seventeen he had a long time of hardship. Endless poverty and misery strengthened his resolve with all the tenacity of one who’d grown “old” through wanton sorrow. While still half a child, this seventeen-year-old youth clung to his decision and became a Civil Servant. Now there has been realized the promise of the vow to which the poor boy once had sworn, not to return to his native village until he’d become something.
6
To improve her economic situation further, Klara sold the house in Leonding, and the family moved to an apartment in Urfahr, just across the river from Linz. During the day, Adolf rarely left these new premises. He did not see any profitable way to enter the ranks of the employed. For that matter, he had no desire to work for others. Besides, he did feel a touch consumptive—enough to keep Klara in a whole state of in-held terror. Would he, like Alois, die of a lung hemorrhage? It was not difficult to persuade her that at this point it would be unwise to look for a career. As he presented it to her, he would be seen one day as a great painter, a great architect, or quite possibly both. Staying at home for the present, he could still amplify his education: He would read and he would draw. He did not need to say more. After five years of suffering the rigors of the Realschule, he was certainly able to enjoy his new life on Humboldtstrasse in Urfahr. His mother paid the bills and Paula cleaned the bathroom. He grew a mustache. He rarely stepped out into the sun. Only in the evening did he take a stroll across the Danube from Urfahr to Linz in order to walk by the opera house. Klara had bought him new clothes, and he ventured out in a good dark suit, wearing a dark overcoat and a black fedora while sporting a silver-handled cane, his most treasured possession. He would be seen, he believed, as one of the young gentry of Linz. Every glimpse he caught of his reflection in store windows confirmed this effect.
His need to stay in the house during the day was matched only by his love of the dark. Not all of the clichés concerning the Devil are false. Most humans do not begin to appreciate the depth of the general assumption that what is commonly condemned as Evil does indeed seek the dark. For good cause. The night is more open to evocation.
Klara was, of course, taking great pride in his appearance. She knew that once he was feeling ready, opportunities would open. He was not only a most unusual boy, but probably needed this kind of leisure for the present.
Adolf’s style of masturbation had also altered. His practice in the forest had been to spew all over the nearest leaves. (He loved leaves and he loved spewing on them.) Now, locked behind the door to his room, he kept a handkerchief at the ready. Yet, before he would allow his thoughts to lift beyond his control, he would practice holding his arm in the air at a forty-five-degree angle for a long time. He would think of the times in the Realschule bathroom when he had demonstrated this prowess to other students. They might have their two testicles and he only one, but he could keep his arm erect on high, and they could not. Of course, there were all too many other occasions when the general interest had been in another direction. The boys had collected around the urinals in order to compare the size of their genitals. It had been a curious occasion. They were always afraid a teacher might barge in. Erections were lost, therefore, with great speed before the smallest sound, and so Adi’s ability to hold his arm high was no more than another distraction. Now, in his room, he found, however, that he could maintain his erection even while his arm was raised. Thoughts of the great variety of personal equipment he had seen among the students were enough to keep him full of hearty remembrance.
One flaw remained, however, in his present life. That was Angela’s husband, Leo Raubal. He could not speak to Adolf without droning into his ear, “Fellow, you have to start earning your living. You will keep feeling unwell until you do. I think that is because you are depressed by the thought that all your relatives in Spital think you are a good-for-nothing. We know that is not true, but you have to give up your present occupation, which consists of doing nothing.”
Adolf would walk out of the room. Angela would be full of dismay. How rude he was to her husband! Klara, hearing it all, would be silent, but that was only out of respect for Angela. This oaf, Leo Raubal, was, after all, her dear stepdaughter’s husband. Therefore, she would not cause trouble. She would not be a mother-in-law to create trouble for a young married couple. That might be even worse than having to listen to your son being scolded by this new son-in-law, who had much too exaggerated an opinion of the worth of his advice. To herself, Klara declared, “Adolf is not a loafer. He does sit at home, but he works so hard when he draws. Besides, he has no need to drink, and he doesn’t smoke. That is not a loafer. He does not waste his time. There are no bad girls he likes to see. No girls I must worry about. Maybe he will yet become a great artist. Who is to know? Who is to say? He is so serious. When he is alone and working, he is so strong and so proud of himself. He is full of the knowledge that he, too, will amount to something. To that degree, he is just like Alois. Or, maybe more so. Alois wanted too many things at once.” And again, she repeated, “Adolf does not waste time with girls. There are no bad girls in his life.”
Nor would there be. Not for a long time. She would have done better to worry about love affairs yet to
come with men and boys, some of them even with bad men.
Since Klara saw Adolf by now with all the love of her heart, she was hardly the sort to ponder what might be in his head when he masturbated. Indeed, how could she guess? There was no evidence. He was careful to rinse out his handkerchiefs. No, she did not know that while stroking himself, coming closer and closer to being shot out of his own cannon, he would wonder whether there was any connection between his refusal to work at Customs and his father’s last hemorrhage. If so, that would make two people he had scalped in real life: Edmund and Alois. And this thought, in concert with thoughts of the Realschule students at the urinals, so excited his fast-increasing compressions that he could hold them no longer and presto! it was over. It was over, and he was happy, and he was exhausted by how much had been churning within.
7
Years later, a girl who went to Paula’s school often saw her walking with Klara. Until recently, this girl had lived on a farm, but now almost every weekday she would watch Klara take Paula all the way to school before saying goodbye with a kiss. Nothing like that ever happened to the farm girl. Her mother had always been too busy. So it did not matter to the girl that Paula was backward in class and had been left behind—the farm girl envied her all the same. A mother’s love, she decided, must be as sweet as honey.