Steelie 18

Von Stehle finds himself whispering too. ‘What kind of help?’

‘The usual kind of help a woman in my position needs.’

Brittleness and bitterness in her tone as they watch Mole disappear into a forest of runged coats.

Von Stehle’s mouth twitched. He smiled. ‘It’s not that bad?’ Guffawed through his nose. ‘Is it?’

‘Fucking the worst of the worst.’ She spits out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Diels.’

‘Ah,’ Von Stehle sighs.

‘He was my weakness,’ she admitted. ‘And such a great dancer.’

Von Stehle had met him a few times. His hair was sleek, black as his eyes and uniform. Duelling scars showed his aristocratic connections but his face was alive and he was inquisitive. In another era they might have been friends and not just Beer-Hall drinking buddies because he carried an easy generosity—as of a birth right—to those braying foot-soldiers in their Brown shirt and those under his command as head of the SS.

Mole came back with a coat neatly folded over his arm. ‘Good quality, but far too expensive.’ He stroked the arm of the material as if it was the thick fur of a purring cat. ‘My dad could have made it better for a quarter of the price.’ His head dropped and he rubbed away tears that sprung into his eyes.

‘Try it on.’ Von Stehle shrugged. ‘Where’s the harm? If you like it. We’ll buy it. You need a thick coat to wear when we’re going home.’

‘I’ve not got a home,’ Mole sniffed.

Charlotte took the coat from Mole and placed it on the counter. Then held it up and out, measuring it against his height of just under five-foot. He looked so small, powerless and forlorn as if his greatest wish was to disappear and she knew that feeling well. ‘Come. I’ll show you were the changing rooms are.’      

 ‘No need,’ he said. ‘I’ve already checked the sizes. I can take it in at the cuffs.’

‘His father was a master tailor,’ Von Stehle explained.

They exchanged a glance above Mole’s head and she rubbed his shoulder. ‘Well,’ she said in a perky voice. ‘It’s always nice to try something new on. To get a feel for it. To let the material fall around you.’ She offered Mole the full wattage of her smile. ‘You’d know that better than anyone, being the son of a master tailor?’  

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

She folded the coat over her arm and took his hand and led him to the changing rooms. Von Stehle walked behind them. His breathing slowed as he squint at the hats. The way they were made to last longer than the heads they sat on.

Charlotte bowed as she handed him the coat as a package. ‘You want me to help you try it on?’

His response, immediate. ‘I’m not a baby.’

She pulled the curtains shut to give him privacy. Glanced at Von Stehle. ‘I’m almost two months gone. I’ll be showing soon.’

‘Diels will be delighted.’

‘His wife, less so.’ She turned her head, listening to what was going on behind the curtain and in front of the big mirror. The shuffled movement of feet. Sliding adjustment of material and stiff buttons. She’d heard other things from other male customers, less subtle. ‘He doesn’t care about her, or me, or anyone, really. He personally made it his goal to make sure nobody would be able to buy a condom in Berlin. Clinics were shut. Vending machines emptied. His wife dislikes makeup, unsullied by perfume and Paris fashion. She wears the bronze  Ehrenzicken des Deutschen Mutter—the Cross of Honour of the German Mother—on the birth of their fourth child with pride, which doesn’t include stillbirths. She’s going for gold. Eight children! A national heroine. She’s everything I’m not, yet, he’s got me exactly where he wants me.’

‘I understand,’ said Von Stehle.

She waves a hand. ‘You don’t understand the half of it. Like Hitler, he believes women’s emancipation is an invention of the intellect. Left leaning. And therefore dangerous. Anyone offering abortions is treated as a murderer and liable to end up in the butcher’s block at the former gunpowder factory at Dachau. No one dare risk it.’

She fingers the curtains, holding them shut. ‘He has me where he wants me. He can whisk me away and have me put in one of those camps for upper-class officers like him, where I’ll be watched and fed like a brood cow, while allowing him access. He’d love that.’

The curtains were tugged aside and Mole stood looking up at them. Solemn in his new coat. He tugged at the right sleeve.

‘Lovely,’ Von Stehle added a smile to his remark.

She took a step back. Her training as a shop assistant coming into play. ‘Perfect,’ was her verdict.

‘Not perfect,’ Mole shook his head, but seemed pleased as he unbuttoned it.

‘Keep the coat on, if you like?’ Von Stehle watched him. But he shook his head. He’d already slipped it off and stepped back into the changing room.

It gave him a chance to ask Charlotte. ‘What makes you think I can help you?’

She sucked in her breath. ‘I don’t know. But I’m desperate.’ She leaned in closer, eyeing the curtain, and whispered, ‘And if you can help a little Jew boy?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘He’s the nephew of Adolf Hitler.’

She shrugged. ‘I know clothes and I know men…If you say so.’

Mole stood on the threshold of the changing room and handed the coat to Charlotte. ‘We’ll take it,’ he glanced at Von Stehle, waiting for confirmation.

He nodded, leaning forward. ‘But remember, we need three of everything. Shoes and boots.’ Challenging him. ‘You know more about these things than me. You think you can pick out something that’s value for our money?’

A crafty smile and Mole replied. ‘I’m on it.’ He swept past a crooked, elderly man at a rack fingering the material of a coat that would have swamped both of them.

Von Stele nudged her arm. ‘If you know clothes and men, do you think we could convince Diels that Mole is Hitler’s nephew?’

‘Why?’

‘Why not?’ he answered? ‘Hide him in plain sight. The Summer Olympics are soon. We could get Diels to help us present the boy to Hitler.’

‘But Hitler would know.’

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. ‘I thought you knew men. He joshed her. ‘Every man has a long list of nephews and nieces whose names he becomes overly familiar with. His brother or sister’s children. Joys of their lives, or so it would seem. None of us can actually remember very much about them, other than their name, and even then, it’s usually our wife whispering in our ear, a reminder, who it is.’

‘That’s true,’ she conceded, watching Mole with renewed interest. ‘But you’ve got a little problem.’ She tinkled her pinky. ‘Clothes may make the man, or boy, but there’s one sure way to make sure if he’s a Jew.’

‘Yes, that could be a problem,’ he conceded. ‘But nobody is likely to see his penis.’

‘You’d be surprised,’ she replied with a hollow laugh. ‘You’d be surprised what men look at, when they’re not apparently looking.’

Von Stehle laughed. ‘That’s true.’

‘You scratch my back.’

‘I’d rather scratch your front.’

‘Shut up,’ she said, laughing hard for what seemed the first time in three months.