The Boy at the Top of the Mountain

  He felt an urge to rip the camera from her hands and throw it down the Obersalzberg, but simply smoothed down his jacket to ensure that he was neatly attired, and made his way over to greet his guests.

  ‘Herr Holzmann,’ he said, performing a polite bow as the two townspeople emerged. ‘Katarina. I’m so glad that you could make it. Welcome to the Berghof.’

  Later that day, when Pieter realized that he hadn’t seen Katarina for some time, he went inside the house, where he discovered her staring at some paintings that hung on the walls. The afternoon had not gone particularly well so far. Herr Holzmann had done his best to converse with the Nazi officers, but he was unsophisticated, and Pieter knew that they were laughing at his attempts to ingratiate himself with them. He seemed frightened, however, by the presence of the Führer, and stayed as far away from him as he could. Pieter despised him, wondering how a grown man could come to a party and behave like a boy.

  His conversation with Katarina had been even more difficult. She refused even to pretend that she was happy to be there and it was obvious that she wanted to leave as soon as possible. Upon being introduced to the Führer, she had behaved respectfully but with none of the awe that Pieter had expected.

  ‘So you’re our young Pieter’s girlfriend?’ asked Hitler, smiling a little as he looked her up and down.

  ‘Certainly not,’ she replied. ‘We’re in the same class in school, that’s all.’

  ‘But look at how enamoured he is,’ said Eva, coming over, ready to join in the teasing. ‘We didn’t think Pieter was even interested in girls yet.’

  ‘Katarina is just a friend,’ said Pieter, blushing furiously.

  ‘I’m not even that,’ she said, smiling sweetly.

  ‘Ah, you say that now,’ said the Führer, ‘but I can see a spark there. It will not be long before it is ignited. The future Frau Fischer perhaps?’

  Katarina said nothing, but looked as if she was ready to explode in anger. When the Führer and Eva moved on, Pieter tried to engage her in conversation about some of the other young people they knew from Berchtesgaden, but she gave almost nothing away, as if she didn’t want him to know too much about her opinions. When he asked her what her favourite battle of the war was so far, she stared at him as if he was crazy.

  ‘The one where the least number of people died,’ she said.

  The afternoon had progressed like that, with him trying his best to engage her and being rebuffed at every turn. But, he told himself, perhaps that was because there were so many people outside. Now that they were alone together inside the house he hoped that she might be a little more forthcoming.

  ‘Have you enjoyed the party?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure anyone here is enjoying themselves,’ she said.

  He glanced up at the painting that she had been looking at. ‘I didn’t know you were interested in art,’ he said.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I am.’

  ‘Then this piece must please you very much.’

  Katarina shook her head. ‘It’s ghastly,’ she replied, looking around at the paintings. ‘They all are. I would have thought that a man with the Führer’s power would have chosen something a little better from the museums.’

  Pieter’s eyes opened wide, horrified by what she had said. He raised a finger and pointed at the artist’s signature in the lower right-hand corner of the frame.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, momentarily chastened, perhaps a little nervous. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter who painted them. They’re still terrible.’

  He took her roughly by the arm and pulled her along the corridor and into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, pulling free.

  ‘Protecting you,’ he said. ‘You can’t say things like that here, don’t you understand? You will get into trouble.’

  ‘I didn’t know he painted them,’ she said, throwing her hands up in the air.

  ‘Well, now you do. So keep your mouth shut in future, Katarina, until you understand what you’re talking about. And stop talking down to me. I invited you here, to a place a girl like you would never usually get to visit. It’s time you showed me a little respect.’

  She stared at him, and he could see a growing fear behind her eyes that she was doing her best to control. He wasn’t sure if he welcomed that or not. ‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ replied Pieter, stepping closer to her now. ‘It’s only because I care about you, that’s all. I don’t want to see any harm come to you.’

  ‘You don’t even know me.’

  ‘I’ve known you for years now!’

  ‘You don’t know me at all.’

  He sighed. ‘Perhaps not,’ he said. ‘But I’d like to change that. If you’d let me.’

  He reached forward and ran a finger along her cheek as she took a step back towards the wall.

  ‘You’re so very beautiful,’ he whispered, surprised to hear such words emerging from his mouth.

  ‘Stop, Pieter,’ she said, turning away.

  ‘But why?’ he asked, leaning in closer so the scent of her perfume almost overwhelmed him. ‘It’s what I want.’ He used one hand to turn her face back to him and leaned in to kiss her.

  ‘Get off me,’ she said, using both hands to push him away, and he stumbled backwards, an expression of surprise on his face as he tripped over a chair and ended up on the floor.

  ‘What?’ he asked, startled and confused.

  ‘Keep your hands off me, do you hear?’ She opened the door but didn’t yet leave, turning round to look at him as he picked himself up. ‘There’s nothing in the world that would make me want to kiss you.’

  He shook his head in disbelief. ‘But don’t you understand what an honour it would be for you?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you know how important I am?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ she replied. ‘You’re the little boy in the lederhosen who comes to buy ink for the Führer’s fountain pens. How could I possibly underestimate your value?’

  ‘There’s more to me than that,’ he snarled, standing up and walking over to her. ‘You just have to let me show you some kindness, that’s all.’ He reached out for her again, and this time she slapped him hard across the face, a ring on her finger catching against his skin and producing a spot of blood. He yelped and put a hand to his cheek, looking at her with fury in his eyes, and advanced again, this time pushing her against the wall and holding her there.

  ‘Who do you think you are?’ he asked, his face pressed close to hers. ‘You think you can reject me? Most girls in Germany would kill to be in your position right now.’

  He moved in to kiss her again, and this time, with his body pressed so close to hers, she was unable to pull away. She struggled and tried to push him off, but he was too strong for her. His left hand ran down her body, groping her through her dress, and although she tried to cry out for help, his right hand was pressed against her mouth, silencing her. He felt her growing weak beneath the pressure and knew that she would be unable to fight him off for much longer; he could do anything he wanted to her. A small voice in his head told him to stop. Another, a louder one, told him to take what he wanted.

  A force from nowhere knocked Pieter back onto the floor, and before he knew what was happening he found himself lying prostrate while someone sat on top of him, pressing the sharp edge of a carving knife against his throat. He tried to swallow but could feel the blade touching his skin and didn’t want to risk being cut.

  ‘You lay another finger on that poor girl,’ whispered Emma, ‘and I will slit your throat from ear to ear. I don’t care what happens to me afterwards. Do you understand me, Pieter?’ He said nothing, letting his eyes dart back and forth between the woman and the girl. ‘Tell me you understand me, Pieter – say it now, or so help me—’

  ‘Yes, I understand you,’ he hissed, and she stood up, leaving him lying there, rubbing his throat and inspecting his fingers for blood. He glanced up, humiliated
, his eyes filled with hatred. ‘You’ve made a big mistake, Emma,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said. ‘But it’s nothing like the mistake your poor aunt made the day she decided to take you in.’ Her face softened for a moment and she stared down at him. ‘What happened to you, Pierrot?’ she asked. ‘You were such a sweet boy when you first came here. Is it really that easy for the innocent to be corrupted?’

  Pieter said nothing. He wanted to curse her, to bring his fury down upon her, upon both of them, but something in the way she stared at him, the mixture of pity and contempt on her face, brought some memory of who he had once been back to his mind. Katarina was weeping now, and he looked away, willing them both to leave him alone. He didn’t want their eyes on him any more.

  Only when he heard their footsteps making their way down the corridor and heard Katarina telling her father that it was time to go did he struggle to his feet once again. But this time, instead of returning to the party, he closed the door and lay down on his bed, trembling slightly; and then, without quite knowing why, he began to cry.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Darkness and the Light

  The house was empty and silent.

  Outside, the trees that covered the mountains of the Obersalzberg were bursting into life, and as Pieter walked the grounds, carelessly tossing a ball that had once belonged to Blondi between his hands, he found it hard to imagine that there could be such serenity up here while the world below, which had spent almost six years being brutalized and torn asunder, was in the final throes of another destructive war.

  He had turned sixteen a couple of months earlier, and been allowed to exchange the uniform of the Hitlerjugend for the field-grey fatigues of a junior soldier, although whenever he asked to be assigned to a battalion, the Führer had brushed him aside and told him that he was too busy for such inconsequential appointments. More than half his life had been spent in the Berghof, and when he tried to think about the people he had known in Paris during his childhood, it was a struggle even to remember their names or faces.

  He had heard rumours about the things that were happening to Jews around Europe, and knew at last why his aunt Beatrix had insisted that he should not talk about his friend when he came to live there. He wondered whether Anshel was alive or dead; whether his mother had managed to sneak them both away to a safer place; whether D’Artagnan had gone with them.

  The thought of his dog made him fling the ball over the side of the mountain, and he watched as it soared through the air before disappearing into the heart of a clump of trees some distance away.

  Looking down at the road, he remembered the night he had first come here, frightened and lonely, while Beatrix and Ernst drove him to his new home, trying to convince him that he would be safe and happy there. He closed his eyes at the memory and shook his head, as if the recollection of what had happened to them and how he had betrayed them was something that could be forgotten. But he was starting to realize that it wasn’t that simple.

  There were others too. Emma, the cook who had shown him nothing but kindness through his early years at the Berghof but whose insult at Eva Braun’s party could not have gone unpunished by him. He had spoken to the Führer of what she had done, understated his role in the events of that afternoon, exaggerated the things she had said in order to make her sound like a traitor, and a day later she had been taken away by the soldiers without even enough time to pack a bag. Where they had taken her he didn’t know. She had wept as she was led towards the car, and he had last seen her sitting in the back seat with her head in her hands as she was driven away. Ange had gone soon afterwards, of her own volition. Only Herta had stayed.

  The Holzmanns too had been forced to leave Berchtesgaden, the stationery shop that Katarina’s father had run for so many years closed down and sold. He hadn’t known anything about this until a visit to the town led him to the store, where the windows were boarded up and a sign on the front door stated that it was soon to become a grocer’s. When he asked the owner of the shop next door what had happened to them, she had looked at him without any fear in her eyes and shook her head.

  ‘You’re the boy who lives up there, aren’t you?’ she asked, cocking her head in the direction of the mountains.

  ‘That’s right, yes,’ he replied.

  ‘Then you’re what happened to them,’ she said.

  He had been too ashamed to say anything, and left without another word. The truth was that he was filled with regrets but had no one in whom he could confide. Despite the injury he had done her, he had hoped that Katarina would listen to him and let him apologize – and, if she could, allow him to talk about the life he had lived so far, the things he had done and seen; that perhaps he might then find some form of forgiveness.

  But the possibility of that was gone now.

  Two months earlier, when the Führer had stayed at the Berghof for the final time, he had seemed like a mere shadow of the man he had once been. Gone was the supreme confidence, the power to command, the absolute belief in his own destiny and the destiny of his country. Instead, he had been paranoid and angry, trembling and muttering to himself as he wandered the hallways, the slightest noise enough to provoke his rage. On one occasion he had all but destroyed everything in his office; on another he had struck Pieter with the back of his hand when the boy came to see whether he could bring him anything. He stayed up late into the night, mumbling under his breath, cursing his generals, cursing the British and the Americans, cursing everyone who he felt was responsible for his downfall. Everyone, that is, except himself.

  There had been no goodbyes between the two. A group of Schutzstaffel officers had simply arrived one morning and locked themselves in the study with the Führer for a long discussion, and then he had marched out, ranting and raging, before throwing himself into the back seat of his car, screaming at Kempka to take him away, to take him anywhere, to get him off this mountain top once and for all. Eva had been forced to run after him as the car pulled out of the driveway, and the last Pieter saw of her was her running down the mountain in its wake, waving her arms and shouting, her blue dress blowing in the wind as she disappeared beyond the curve of the hills.

  The soldiers disappeared soon after, which left only Herta, and then one morning Pieter discovered her packing her bags too.

  ‘Where will you go?’ he asked, standing in the doorway of her room, and she turned to look at him, shrugging her shoulders.

  ‘Back to Vienna, I expect,’ she said. ‘My mother is still there. At least, I think she is. I don’t know whether the trains are running, of course, but I’ll find my way.’

  ‘What will you tell her?’

  ‘Nothing. I will never speak of this place again, Pieter. You would be wise to do the same. Leave now, before the armies arrive. You’re still young. No one needs to know the terrible things you’ve done. That we’ve all done.’

  He felt the words like a shot to his heart, and could scarcely believe the look of absolute conviction on her face as she condemned them both. Taking her by the arm as she passed him, he spoke in a whisper, remembering the first night he had met her nine years before, when he had been mortified that she would see him naked in the bathtub.

  ‘Will there be any forgiveness, Herta?’ he asked. ‘The newspapers . . . the things they’re saying already . . . will there be any forgiveness for me?’

  She carefully released his hand from her elbow. ‘Do you think that I didn’t know the plans that were being made up here on this mountain top?’ she said. ‘The things that were being discussed in the Führer’s office? There will be no forgiveness for any of us.’

  ‘But I was just a child,’ pleaded Pieter. ‘I didn’t know anything. I didn’t understand.’

  She shook her head and took his face in her hands. ‘Look at me, Pieter,’ she said. ‘Look at me.’ He looked up, tears in his eyes. ‘Don’t ever pretend that you didn’t know what was going on here. You have eyes and you have ears. And you sat in
that room on many occasions, taking notes. You heard it all. You saw it all. You knew it all. And you also know the things you are responsible for.’ She hesitated, but it needed to be said. ‘The deaths you have on your conscience. But you’re a young man still, you’re only sixteen; you have many years ahead of you to come to terms with your complicity in these matters. Just don’t ever tell yourself that you didn’t know.’ She released him now from her grip. ‘That would be the worst crime of all.’

  She picked up her suitcase and made her way to the doorway. He watched her, framed by the sunlight that was bursting through the trees.

  ‘How will you get down?’ he asked, calling after her, wishing she wouldn’t leave him there alone. ‘There’s no one else left. No car to take you.’

  ‘I’ll walk,’ she said, turning away and disappearing out of sight.

  The newspapers continued to be delivered, the local suppliers afraid to stop calling in case the Führer returned and took out his displeasure on them. There were some who believed that the war might still be won. And then there were those who were ready to face up to reality. In the town Pieter heard rumours that the Führer and Eva had moved into a secret bunker in Berlin, along with the most important members of the National Socialist Party, and were plotting their return, masterminding the manner in which they would emerge even stronger than before, with a certain plan for victory. And again, there were some who believed it and some who didn’t. But still the newspapers kept coming.

  Seeing the last soldiers preparing to leave Berchtesgaden, Pieter approached them, asking what he should do and where he should go.

  ‘You’re wearing a uniform, aren’t you?’ said one, looking him up and down. ‘Why don’t you use it for once?’

  ‘Pieter doesn’t fight,’ said his fellow officer. ‘He just likes to dress up.’

  And with that they started to laugh at him, and, watching as they drove off, he felt that his humiliation was complete.