Hitler's Angel by Kris Rusch Read Free Book Online Page A

away each second. He cannot read the watch upside down either. ‘We should probably have lunch.’
    ‘There is a deli down the block.’ He does not offer to buy them lunch. He wants her to bring the food back. He wants her to leave him alone for a few minutes.
    She grabs her bag, stands. ‘I’ll buy.’
    He does not rise. ‘I would like cold roast pork on salt rye. And a pack of cigarettes. Tell them the cigarettes are for me. They keep a carton for me under the counter.’
    She opens her mouth, closes it, and smiles. The smile does not reach her eyes. ‘I thought perhaps we could talk.’
    ‘My dear,’ he says, ‘I have been talking.’
    ‘No, I mean, about me.’
    He looks at her, really looks at her, in a way he hasn’t wanted to. Her pantsuit is umber polyester, her bag plastic. She has worn the same white platform shoes every day since he met her. She is notpart of the workers, the opportunists who have come here for the Olympics. Such a travesty that will be. They have ruined his city, rebuilt it with their ugly designs, and they think that such an event can erase the bloodstains of the past.
    Just as Hitler thought in 1936.
    But this woman, this Annie, she is not one of them. Despite her inadequate history, her poor education, she is here to discover things. To dig up the past. The Olympics made a trip to Munich affordable, she said to him on the telephone when she arrived. She is on sabbatical, she has told him that, but she probably came to Munich alone, studies alone, spends her time alone. Her grant is probably small, and her income from her teaching position smaller. After she leaves him, she returns to the apartment the university provides for her and studies in the silence, away from her friends, her family, her world.
    He sighs, then pulls his wallet from the drawer of the end table. He hands it to her without counting the bills. He knows how much money is in it, knows how much lunch will cost.
    ‘I am an old man,’ he says softly, knowing it is an ersatz excuse. ‘I need a moment to rest.’
    Her smile remains, but the edges of her eyes pinch. He has hurt her.
    ‘Please,’ he says, ‘buy whatever you like.’
    ‘I should pay. You’re helping me.’
    He lets the words hang in the air for a moment. He is not sure who is helping whom. Then he smiles and waves her away. ‘You bought breakfast.’
    She nods, turns, but not before her smile fades. She looks older today. She lets herself out, and he waits until he can no longer hear her footsteps on the stairs. Then he gets up, like a sleepwalker, and returns to his bedroom.
    He has left the cardboard box in the middle of the floor. He crouches, and reaches inside. The cardboard squeaks as the back of his hands rub against the sides. His fingers brush mounting board, and even before he has a chance to think, the photograph is in his hands.
    It is the wrong photograph. This one he has forgotten. It hits him like a fist in the belly. He stares at the posed photograph, taken of his family just before he left. His younger self stands straight and sombre, his uniform loose, its collar starched, the gold buttons looking white in the black-and-white print. His hat is tucked under his left arm, his chin is jutted forward. He has a young, hopeful look that disappeared in the trenches. None of his later photographs ever seemed so bright-eyed.
    But it is not his younger self that hurts him. Nor is it Gisela. She is even more beautiful than he remembered, her brown hair piled on top of her head, her smile soft and serene. She wore no make-up in those days, and her black dress, although simple, accentuates the fullness of her figure in ways the cabaret clothes she favoured in the Twenties never did.
    No. It is not his wife that stops his heart. It is the babe she cradles in her arms. Wilhelm. Fritz never lets himself think about Wilhelm.
    Footsteps on the stairs. He tosses the photograph back in the box, then folds down the flaps and shoves the box back into