Free Hitler's Niece by Ron Hansen

afternoon reading, invited him to parties with their wealthy friends, cheered him up by banging out Wagner preludes on the piano “with Lisztian fioriture and a fine romantic swing.”
    The headwaiter refilled his coffee cup and then he continued, “While in the first days of his remand at Landsberg, Hitler followed the Sinn Fein of Ireland in trying a hunger strike. Roder, his counsel, got in touch with my wife, and Helene forthwith sent a message to Adolf saying she hadn’t prevented his suicide in Uffing just so he could starve to death in the fortress. Wasn’t that exactly what his enemies wanted? Well, Hitler has such a great admiration for my wife that her advice turned the scale, and he’s far fitter now.”
    “You have our thanks,” Geli said.
    Putzi tilted forward in a bow while saying, “And you have my admiration.”
    “Will you be staying in Wien long?” Angela asked.
    Geli glared, as if she’d heedlessly thrown cold water on a cake.
    “Oh no,” he said. “Who can work here?” And he offered his observations on the gaiety and frivolity of Wien, falling into French to say, “Elle danse, mais elle ne marche pas.”
    It was left to Angela’s fifteen-year-old daughter to translate: “The city dances, but it never gets anything done.” And then in the way of teenaged girls with their mothers, Geli added, “French.” She smiled at Putzi. “I want to hear you speak English.”
    Hanfstaengl gave it some thought before saying in English, “You are quite the saucy morsel.”
    Geli grinned in fascinated ignorance at Angela. “Did you understand him?”
    Angela shook her head.
    Hanfstaengl said, “I told her she was not unattractive.”
    Angela stared glumly at Geli and said, “Yes, it’s true, isn’t it.”
    Only then did he turn to the older woman. “You often hear gossip in high society about Herr Hitler and glamorous women, that he fancies this one, that he’s marrying another, but I assure you, Frau Raubal, there’s absolutely no substance to it.”
    Angela grimly asked, “Why are people always assuring me that my family has no love life?”
    Geli sighed loudly, then fluttered her eyes at Putzi in apology.
    “Well,” he said. “We’re having such a lovely time I hate to have it end. Shall I try to get us seats at the opera?”
    Geli nearly shrieked, she was so thrilled. “Oh, could you?”
    Putzi stood up from the dining table and said, “The concierge of the Sacher Hotel is famous for finding tickets when none are available.”
    Angela watched him lumber through the dining room to the hotel lobby, then she frostily said to her daughter, “You shock me, Angelika!”
    She smiled. “Only because I have such an electric personality.”
    “Carrying on with a married man.”
    “We were just talking, Mother!”
    “You’re fifteen years old! The thought of you at twenty gives me goose bumps!”
    “Well, that’s easy: Don’t think.”
    Angela furiously hit the dining table hard with the flat of her hand. Cutlery jangled and Geli jumped with fear. Heads turned in wonder throughout the Café Sacher.
    Tears filled Geli’s brown eyes as she thickly asked, “You know how long it’s been since I’ve had any fun at all? Why can’t you just let me be this one night?” She sniffed, and got out a handkerchief. “It probably won’t ever happen again.”
    She’s right , Angela thought, and said nothing more. She watched a handsome couple on Kärntnerstrasse get into a horsedrawn carriage. She ate the last of her Sacher torte. And then the last of Geli’s. Then Ernst Hanfstaengl was there again, huffing with breathlessness but holding up three opera tickets in triumph. “ The Merry Widow ,” he said.
    Geli felt sure he was making fun of her mother, but she couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

C HAPTER S IX
    L ANDSBERG F ORTRESS , 1924
    At Christmastide the Raubals got a card from Ernst and Helene Hanfstaengl featuring a fine reproduction of Raphael Sanzio’s Madonna of the Chair