‘I wanted you to see this, Peter. When I see what is happening to Berlin, I know it’s all nearly over. Down in the Bunker the retreat to the Alps might make sense, but not up here. The whole world seems to have gone insane, and I don’t think anyone can save it.’ They stared across the burning city, standing side by side, until he found her hand in his.
‘Peter?’ The voice was tremulous, anxious, full of uncertainty. Gone was the self-confident authority of the chase through the Chancellery, the uncertain schoolgirl had returned. She clutched his hand ever more tightly as his eyes turned upon her, but he said nothing. Already he knew what she wanted. He had turned to face her, still silent, but now she held both his hands. Tentatively, hesitating as if at any moment she might change her mind or be rebuffed, she raised herself unsteadily onto the tips of her toes, leaning against him for balance, her body pressing into his as she craned her slim neck. When their lips met it seemed scarcely a kiss, more a light brushing, a dance of butterflies, testing her own resolve as much as his, but she was committed now and searching more eagerly for him, her fingers working their way up his back to force his head down, her lips taut, inexperienced, the kiss for all its earnestness that of a woman many years younger. In many ways she was still a child, an innocent in this city of slaughter. ‘No regrets,’ she whispered. ‘Help me die. With no regrets.’
Like an attentive pupil she had listened, and thought she understood. She led him back into the great library, to the far end where a chaise-longue stood beneath a wall-length tapestry, a classical scene of bacchanalian excess which stood in stark contrast to the intellectual aspirations of the rest of the room as naked women were carried off into the dark oak forest by half-man, half-horse for purposes which the skilful weft and warp took no steps to hide. And, in the half light thrown through the windows, scarcely before he had time to notice, she too was naked.
‘Your uniform,’ she whispered, ‘your uniform.’ Her fingers were eager, everywhere. The belt and its holster clattered to the wooden floor, the buttons of his tunic sprang one by one as her hands found their way inside his shirt. Her kisses, still tight and over-conscious, began to cover his neck. In a moment she was all breath, heat, energy, wetness. She was inside his trousers now, examining, exciting, pulling him on top of her as she lay across the chaise-longue.
‘Please, Peter …,’ she breathed. ‘You’re the only one I can ask. All the others are liars and swine; I don’t want to end up as an item in one of their wretched files. Help me.’
He held back. He was on her, but not in her or, she could sense, with her. She grabbed his head.
‘Please, Peter. I can’t just sit back and wait to die! That’s all there is left, no matter what anyone says.’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘I’m scared, for God’s sake. At least for a while can’t we forget what’s waiting out there?’ She shook her body, urging him on.
He knew he had to. There was no choice; to reject Hitler’s mistress, to make an enemy of her, was certain disaster. She was crying now, tears of passion, of frustration, of growing anger at his indifference, tears of a lonely and frightened girl, who had never hurt anyone, whose only crime had been to fall in love with the wrong man and who was waiting to die as bravely as she could. He understood, sympathized, even cared. So he started, trying not to think, to feel, losing himself in the enormity of it all.
It was not to be. As they lay entwined, thoughts only on each other, their private world was shattered by the explosion of a thousand brilliant flashes from beyond the windows. Lightning seared through the night sky, followed by a devastating and unending blast of noise. They froze. Death was rattling at the window frames and their moment was gone.
The sexual tension drained from her as the fear forced its way in. ‘The Russians. Those are Russian rockets and artillery. The final bombardment has begun,’ she said quietly.
From around them came the pandemonium of falling shells as they erupted to pile new rubble on top of old, to seek out those corners of the city that had somehow survived and reduce them to ashes. They were back in the real world, the world of insanity and destruction which for a short time they had left.
‘It will all be over soon, Peter.’ Her voice was plain, matter-of-fact.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Tears were falling again but there was no sobbing, no self-pity, only release from the tension.
‘If only we’d had a little more time.’
Very slowly, tenderly, she pushed him away, until he lay beside her, face to face, while she stroked the hair gently back from his damp forehead. ‘We’ve had enough time, Peter. Enough to show me that at least I can die my own person, not simply …’ She hesitated, considering the word carefully. ‘An appendage. Not just an extension to his life. This, us, here – it wasn’t so much doing it as the act of deciding to do it. To break away a little, to make up my own mind for once, be sure I could be myself. So it’s done. I can return to him. My own woman. My own choice.’ She was trying to smile through the tears. ‘I’ve lived so much for him over all these years, I needed to know that I could face up to dying for him, too. Now I do know. Thanks to you.’
She had learned more than he had realized. She kissed him again, gratefully and with passion, not taut like the schoolgirl but openly, and lay back on the chaise-longue as more shells burst about them.
Hencke rolled away and onto the floor. ‘Eva, take this.’ He was down on his knees, scrabbling in the semi-darkness for his belt and holster. The Walther was in his hand. ‘Put this in your handbag. Just in case. It will get chaotic, very dangerous, neither I nor anyone else may be there when you need us most, to protect you.’
‘To help me die, you mean.’
‘Take it, just in case.’
She stretched up to brush his cheek, grateful for the concern, then she took the gun and placed it in her handbag.
He watched her dress in the flickering light of the bombardment, smoothing the rumpled cotton as best she could. He shivered as he felt a cold river of fear run over him, not from the shells raining down but from what he knew had been the touch of Fate. It had not been planned, he couldn’t possibly have foreseen this. He had gained a friend on the inside. And possibly, just possibly, through Eva Braun and her handbag, he had broken the iron ring of security around the Bunker.
A few minutes before midday Hencke received the command to report to Goebbels in the Bunker. As he strode through the Chancellery it was clear that the established routine of the building had suddenly changed. No longer was it built around the twice-a-day pattern of Allied bombing; the bombers had left for good, and in their place had come the incessant and insistent pounding of Russian artillery and fire-belching ‘Stalin organs’. The message of the barrage was unmistakable; there was no longer a time to sleep and a time to work in the Chancellery, only a time to die.
In the Vorbunker there seemed to be other ideas. Where before he had seen little but unrelieved grimness in the faces of its inhabitants, in its place had come a new tension, an excitement, a glow of hope in their eyes. Everywhere there were signs of preparation for departure. Packing cases were being nailed shut, suitcases locked, papers being sorted and discarded, crates being carried out. Instead of the maudlin atmosphere of the birthday celebrations there was purpose, energy, urgency, the noise of rushing feet echoing from the concrete walls.
‘The Fuehrer has given the order,’ Goebbels explained, eyes bright. ‘The breakout begins!’
He paused from issuing instructions for the safe transportation of various cases and turned to study Hencke. Less than an hour ago he had received the report of the officer detailed to follow Hencke and who had lost him in the maze of the abandoned Chancellery. Why had Hencke gone there? Out of curiosity? Souvenir hunting? Yet the report had said he seemed to know precisely where he was headed, not tarrying to look. And there appeared no doubt that he had deliberately lost his tail. What had he been doing during those lost hours of the night; yet what harm could he possibly do in the empty section of the Chancellery? Hencke was a puzzle, and Goebbels neither liked nor trusted puzzles. Particularly now.