Hitler's Angel (10 page)

How Father Pant would have looked at him, at Fritz, if he had known, truly known, what sort of man Fritz was.

Fritz does not know how to explain the depth of his sudden feelings, the profound change Geli’s corpse and the priest’s humanity evoked in him. He has tried to find words for that experience since he awoke, but they are inadequate.

All of the horrible events of his life crystallised in that one moment and pointed the way to the future, to the gas chambers and death squads, the casual murders and the upcoming war itself. The atrocities, which some now saw as isolated, were part of a fabric, a thread, woven long before Hitler was born, long before any of them were born, and honed to a fineness in the years after the First World War.

Somewhere, somehow, the people around him took on a meanness, a lack of caring, a casual evil. And he had become so inured to it that it took a face like Geli Raubal’s, a reaction like the priest’s, to remind him that the world was meant to be different.

And yet it is not, even now. He stands at his window and hears the sound of construction not too far away. The Olympic Games, symbol of hope, an attempt to cover over that casual evil. But the evil will appear somewhere during the event He knows that. He does not know how. And if he were still a detective inspector, he would go to his chief and remind him that nothing is easy in this land. That an entire people do not unlearn hatred in less than a generation. That such hatred breeds extremism, not just in the Germans, but in everyone who contacts them.

Even the girl. Every time Fritz mentions Hitler, she shies back, as if she expects the man’s ghost to appear in the room. ‘I do not
believe in studying the deeds of evil men,’ she has said, as if she had a choice, as if they all had a choice, as if closing one’s eyes made all the evil go away.

Closing one’s eyes only makes the evil thrive.

That is what he needs to tell her. Because in Geli Raubal’s face he saw a reflection, a reflection of all he had closed his eyes to, a reflection of all he has tried to forget.

When the girl, Annie, does arrive, she brings pastries from the bakery he has pointed her to. They look fresh but he does not eat, wanting instead to speak of his dream, of his memory. He waits until she finishes, until her coffee is gone, and her tape recorder is in its place. Then slowly, carefully, he speaks the words he has rehearsed, watching her face as he does.

Her eyes are wide, her cheeks flushed. As he describes the extent of the wounds, the edges of her mouth tighten. She is not an investigator. In her life, she probably has seen few corpses. She probably has seen only photographs of murder victims.

He does not describe the smell.

When he is finished, she says, ‘Why have I never heard of this case?’

Her voice shakes. Even though he has glossed over the details and has not spoken of his own change, he seems to have conveyed it. She is clearly moved. If she was not involved before, she is now.

‘You have not heard of it,’ he says, ‘because you were not meant to.’

T
he hotel room that Fritz rented was tiny and damp. The radiator clinked as steam moved through it. The sheets on the bed were clean but the blanket was thin and full of cigarette burns. He took a short nap, and he was so exhausted that he did not dream. When the alarm clock awakened him, the sun was setting over the spires of the city.

Before going to dinner he returned to the church. Father Pant’s car was parked at the rear. The windows overlooking the lot left squares of light on the gravel. The back door was unlocked, and Fritz went inside.

The church smelled of dust and candlewax. He had entered through a large kitchen. The white sinks and stove showed some recent money in the parish. Dishes still dried on the counter from the afternoon. In the distance, he heard voices, one of them a woman’s.

He followed the voices through a dark hallway, finally finding another square of light spilling on the red carpet. The voices were louder now. He recognised Father Pant’s, speaking softly. Then Fritz stepped into the light and rapped on the open door.

They were sitting in a study, Father Pant on a large red
upholstered chair, the woman on a couch. Theology books lined the walls, and behind Father Pant, a neat mahogany desk gleamed. Father Pant held a pipe and was twisting it round and round in his hands.

The woman was small. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a fashion years out of date. She wore a black dress with a single gold brooch. Her waist was surprisingly narrow for a middle-aged woman. Her short legs were tucked under her long skirt. Only the tips of her sturdy black shoes peeked out. Even though Fritz had never seen her before, he knew who she was.

Angela Raubal. Geli’s mother.

If Geli had lived, she would have looked like this one day, a face of faded prettiness and quiet strength. Frau Raubal looked up at Fritz. Father Pant stood, said nothing about Fritz’s unexpected arrival, and made the introductions. When he was done, Frau Raubal turned an unexpectedly intense gaze on Fritz.

‘You’re the man who says my daughter was murdered.’

Fritz stiffened, unwilling to look at Father Pant. Fritz had wanted to break the news to her, had wanted to see the look in her eyes the moment she knew. He wanted to know if she had faced the news with expectation, sorrow, or surprise. He stepped into the room, and uninvited, sat on the wooden chair beside her.

‘I do not say, Frau Raubal.’ He spoke softly, like Father Pant did, wanting to draw her into their conspiracy of knowledge instead of alienate her from it. ‘I know. You would as well if you saw Geli.’

Frau Raubal glanced down at her hands. They were coarse, callused hands, the hands of a woman who had worked all her life. ‘The Minister of Justice says Geli committed suicide.’

‘The Minister of Justice has not seen her. He would have made a different ruling if he had seen the body.’

‘Seen! Seen!’ Frau Raubal glanced up, and her blue eyes caught him again, reminded him of someone he could not name. ‘What is so important about seeing her? What happened to my little girl?’

Father Pant was watching him, hands carefully folded in his lap. Fritz was startled to realise the priest was wearing his robes. He apparently needed all the strength of his office to speak to this woman about her daughter’s death.

Fritz took a deep breath. The woman was on an edge, and he needed her. He needed her to believe him to give his investigation strength. ‘Forgive me, Frau Raubal, for being so blunt, but someone beat Geli before she died.’

Frau Raubal’s face went white. The power in her gaze faded, and she seemed to retreat into herself. ‘Beat her?’

‘Yes, ma’am. The bruises she had could not have happened after death.’

‘But they said she shot herself. Maybe when she fell –?’

‘No.’ Fritz kept his voice gentle. ‘Bruises look different before death. And the body does not bleed afterward. Someone broke her nose, Frau Raubal, so close to her death that Geli did not have time to wipe the blood off her upper lip.’

Frau Raubal clasped her hands in her own lap. Her expression did not change, but her eyes took on a faraway
look. Father Pant glanced at Fritz, as if surprised by Frau Raubal’s reaction.

‘Do you know what Geli did to provoke this?’ Frau Raubal asked.

A chill ran down Fritz’s back. He had not expected that question. It was not one he would have asked if it had been his child in that coffin at the cemetery.

Not now, anyway.

Perhaps a few years before.

Now he knew that people did not provoke beatings like that. Beatings like the one Geli Raubal suffered came from extreme rage. ‘We don’t know if she did anything. We don’t know what happened. We were wondering if, perhaps, you knew.’

Frau Raubal bit her upper lip so hard that Fritz could see the pressure in her jaw. With a very small movement, she shook her head.

‘Angela,’ Father Pant said, ‘we would like to help Geli.’

‘There is no help for Geli,’ Frau Raubal said. Her teeth had left marks in her lip. ‘It was my mistake.’

‘What was?’ Fritz asked.

‘Sending her so far away. To Munich. She was not ready to go.’ Frau Raubal was staring slightly to the left of Father Pant, as if she were seeing something other than the warm, well-lit study.

‘She was a woman full grown, Angela,’ Father Pant said.

‘She was a girl. She was always a girl. She was so young. I should have listened –.’ Frau Raubal put a hand over her mouth, and shook her head again, her gaze never wavering from the spot past Father Pant.

‘Should have listened?’ Father Pant prompted. He was good. Fritz was grateful to be beside him.

‘When she complained. She wanted to come home to Vienna.’

‘But you no longer live here.’

‘It is still her home.’ Frau Raubal moved her hand over her eyes, and sat for a moment. Her breathing was even, her body didn’t shake, she was not crying. Fritz and Father Pant sat in silence with her for quite a while. Finally, she took a deep, shuddering breath and uncovered her eyes. The intensity was back, and Fritz finally remembered where he had seen that look before: on the man who had opened the apartment door before Fritz left Munich. Angela Raubal was Adolf Hitler’s sister.

Fritz swallowed, the resemblance reminding him of the questions he needed to ask. ‘Forgive me, Frau Raubal, but I need to know if you think someone had reason to hurt your daughter.’

She shook her head.

‘What about as a way to get to your brother?’

Her eyes went flat. It was a startling change. One moment she had blazing intensity, the next it looked as if she had left her body.

‘My daughter is dead. Tomorrow we bury her. That will be the end of it. I have nothing more to say.’ She stood, adjusted her skirts, and looked at Fritz. The sorrow she carried bowed her shoulders and lined her rounded face. ‘Nothing we can do will change the past.’

‘She didn’t care how her daughter died?’ the girl asks, interrupting him.

Fritz gazes at her. She is American. She is young. For all her studies, she does not understand, and he is not sure he can explain it to her. Angela Raubal was ten years older than Fritz. Her generation, even more than his, had lost hope of doing much more than surviving. The whys and hows were not important because whys and hows did not change things. Once an event happened, it happened, and a person had to move forward or not move at all.

‘She cared,’ he says. Of that, he is certain. ‘She just knew she could not change it. She knew that the door to the past was closed and should remain so. I should have known that as well.’

T
he morning of the funeral dawned cold. September in Vienna was not as pleasant as September in Munich. Or perhaps the events of the last few days had prejudiced him. Perhaps he would feel differently about Vienna if he had come for the opera instead of investigating a murder.

Fritz arrived at the cemetery late. The service was to be performed over the grave site. All who attended would be easy to view from afar for a few moments. Now that he knew he had a murder investigation on his hands, he wanted to make certain that he had all the advantages. He did not want to be surprised by any attendees at the funeral.

The wind had picked up as he crossed the dirt path that led to the grave site. Father Pant had indicated the new area of the cemetery the day before. He had also shown Fritz the half-dug grave site outside the consecrated ground where Geli was originally going to be placed at rest. Fritz followed the new path. Geli had, at the very least, received a dignity in death.

Only a handful of people stood on the brown lawn, all dressed in black. He recognised Father Pant first, both from
his robes and from his height. The ceremony hadn’t started yet. Father Pant was talking with Angela Raubal. A broad shouldered young man stood beside her. From the resemblance, he was her son. Beside him was a young woman whom, Fritz first thought, was Geli in the flesh. A few couples were scattered among the mourners, and one Brownshirt, who stood some distance back. He must have been the man Father Pant alluded to the day before, the man who had threatened Dr Zerht. The man whom, Fritz suspected, Frau Winter had almost mentioned in her story about the removal of Geli’s body.

Her uncle was not there, nor was any member of his household.

Fritz stuck his hands in the pocket of his overcoat, and joined the group. No one looked at him, and he did not scan the faces as a detective normally would. Instead, he focused on the coffin. This was different than the one he had seen the day before, an expensive zinc-lined model designed to preserve the body. Someone had spent a great deal of money on the arrangements, and judging from Angela Raubal’s clothing, it had not been her.

Fritz stood so that he could see the SA man and Angela out of the corner of his eye. Angela’s children flanked her, tears running down the young woman’s face. Angela Raubal stared at the coffin, that far away look again in her eyes, but she did not cry. She appeared older than she had the day before, as if age had descended on her in the night. Her son held her hand, his face so still it could have been made of stone.