He was beginning to dislike her tone.
He noticed a stack of mildewed coupons bound together with a piece of brittle string. He studied the top coupon. Two sig-runes were imprinted in the left-hand corner beside the words STANDORT-KANTINE, beneath which was the ominous designation BUCHENWALD. At the lower right was the notation RM 2.
“What are these?” he asked.
“The guards in the camps were paid in tokens. They could use them to buy food and sundries in the camp canteen. Those were worth two reichsmarks each.”
“Buchenwald was an extermination camp. What was your father doing there?”
She shook her head. “My older brother. He was a guard in the Death’s Head Unit. The SS-Totenkopfverb?nde.”
He caught the German pride in her voice.
“Did he die in the war?”
“The Russians slaughtered him.”
He eased the top trunk down to the earthen floor, then started searching the second. More clothes, children’s keepsakes, and a curious item—a typewriter, its black metal casing rusted and battered.
“My father’s. Used during the war.”
He noticed the keys. The number row served the usual dual function. A semicolon appeared above the 1. Parentheses above 6 and 7. Other number keys likewise possessed punctuation as a second alternative. But above the 5 was a double sig-rune. SS. The typewriter had apparently been modified to accommodate the regime.
He was beginning to wonder about Isabel and her father.
He opened the last trunk.
Inside was crammed with letters and old newspapers. He lifted out one of the bundles.
The cat wandered in, and Isabel stroked the animal. “Such a good girl, Evi.”
He faced Isabel, who was still petting the cat. “Does Evi have any connection to Eva Braun?”
“Of course. Her closest friends used that nickname. I called her that myself. So I’ve named every cat I’ve owned since after her, in remembrance.”
His patience was wearing thin. “What’s your game?”
She continued to stroke the cat. “Whatever do you mean?”
He stepped toward her. Not the slightest hint of fear filled her eyes. They remained icy green marbles.
“You and Herr Combs are being played for fools.”
“By who?”
“The Brown Eminence.”
He’d already done the math. “He’s long dead.”
“Not his successors.”
Maybe they were Combs’ objective? “What’s their game?”
Her glare sharpened. “They are all we have left.”
“Who is we?”
“Those of us who believe.” Her eyes were hard with indignation.
“That was a long time ago. It’s over.”
“Yet you and Herr Combs are both still interested. Herr Combs knew that my father worked for the Führer. That’s why he came. He also knew it was Hitler’s wish that Bormann survive the war. A letter from Hitler himself directed my father to do whatever the Brown Eminence desired. So my father spent his life hiding Martin Bormann.”
He waited for more.
“Bormanns appeared everywhere. Those who searched had plenty to look for, but never the actual man.”
He vaguely recalled reading about Bormann sightings throughout Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay. A few Bormanns even turned themselves in to the authorities, claiming a need for justice in their old age, but all were eventually confirmed as either deranged or delirious.
“What does any of that matter anymore?”
“What you mean is, why did it matter to Herr Combs.”
That’s exactly what he meant.
“Bormann was no Hitler. The Führer was special. Politicians before him talked down. Bormann talked down. Hitler talked to us.”
It seemed she wanted to speak her mind, so he let her.
“I’ve watched Hitler speak many times on film. He would parade into a hall to some lively military tune. Oh, I loved that music. He always wore his brownshirt uniform and had the shiniest boots. Such a sight. People stood while he spoke, as they should. He loved them, and they loved him.”
She was clinging to a vicious fantasy. But if the memory loosened her tongue, he was willing to allow her the luxury.
“What happened to Bormann?” he asked again.
She spat on the floor. “He was a sloven bastard. The Führer made a horrible mistake trusting that one.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
She shrugged. “Why not? As you say, it was a long time ago.”
“Could you—”
“I’m through talking to you.”
She started to leave the barn, the cat nipping at her heels.
He tried, “You speak of the past with reverence. Are you a Nazi?”
She stopped, turned back, and surveyed him with an insolent air of triumph.
“I am a faithful follower of my Führer.”
And she ambled off.
His visit with the old woman disturbed him. It was not at all what he’d expected. Never had he thought Martin Bormann, Eva Braun, and Adolf Hitler would be the subjects of their conversation.
Before leaving Turingia he parked the car under some shade trees and used his smartphone to access the Internet. There he found a concise summary of Martin Bormann’s life.
Born in Halberstadt on June 17, 1900, the son of a former Prussian regimental sergeant major, Bormann dropped out of school to work on a farming estate in Mecklenburg. After serving briefly as a cannoneer in a field artillery regiment at the end of World War I, he joined the rightist Rossbach Freikorps. He eventually entered the National Socialist Party, becoming its regional press officer in Thuringia and then business manager in 1928. From 1928 to 1930 he was attached to the SA Supreme Command and in October 1933 he became a Reichsleiter of the party. A month later he was elected as a Nazi delegate to the Reichstag. From July 1933 until 1941 he was the chief of cabinet in the office of the deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess, acting as his personal secretary.