Hitler's Niece Read Online Free PDF Page A

good,” Angela said, “because the police tell me you’ll be arrested at the border.”
    “And why would I go back to Austria?”
    “Us!”
    “Who’s that?”
    “Your family!” she shouted, and watched him chew his fingernails as she urged him to find a real job in Linz or Wien, to register for his Austrian military duty, and to help in taking care of his childlike, seventeen-year-old sister.
    And then it was Adolf’s turn to argue, and she found she was no equal to his flame as he wildly paced all around the flat, his hands flying, his voice a screech as he harangued his half-sister about a hopeless Austro-Hungarian army composed of gypsies and mongrel people, about Wien, the home of the despicable Habsburgs and their Babylon of mixed races, and about his own Wagnerian genius as a thinker and artist that she wanted quelled with grinding labor and drudgery.
    It was the tyranny of anger she’d grown used to with him. Angela begged him to see things her way, but she hated her own whining tone as much as she hated his nastiness and scorn, which reminded her so much of their father’s, and so she finally did what his mother would do. “Dear Adolf,” she said, “you’re so worked up. Are you hungry?”
    Obviously he was, but he wouldn’t say so.
    “Shall I get us some groceries? We can talk later, when we’ve eaten. We’ll all feel better then.”
    With anxiety he again noticed his niece on the sofa. “Don’t stay away long.”
    “Shall I take her, then?”
    Hitler shrugged. “I have no company here usually. I’m a hermit. She won’t be a nuisance?”
    “You’ll be good, won’t you, Geli?”
    “And quiet?” he asked.
    The little girl looked at her mother in fright.
    “She’ll be fine,” Angela said.
    Hitler shoved his forelock left with his right hand. “Kindergarten isn’t man’s work, you know.”
    Angela sighed, got her hat and purse, and went out.
    A sheet of paper with handwriting on it was weighted down by an inkwell on the sill beside his bed. The little girl pointed to it. “What’s that?”
    “A poem,” he said. “About my mother. She’s passed away.”
    “Oh,” she said. And then, “Will you read it to me?”
    Uncle Adolf sighed, but twisted to get it. “‘Think of It!’” he read. “That’s the title.”
    She was listening with great seriousness.
    “‘When your mother has grown older, / And you, too, have grown older, / When what was formerly effortless / Now becomes a burden, / When her dear loyal eyes / Do not look out into life as before, / When her legs have grown tired / And fail to carry her anymore—/ Then lend her your arm for support, / Accompany her with gladness and joy. / The hour will come when, weeping, you / Will join her on her last journey! / And if she asks questions, answer her. / And if she asks again, have patience. / And if she asks another time, speak to her / Not stormily, but in gentle affection! / And if she cannot understand you well, / Explain everything joyfully. / The hour will come, the bitter hour / When her mouth will ask no more!’”
    She finally said, “Oh.”
    “A good poem?” her uncle asked.
    She gravely nodded.
    Hitler slid the sheet of paper under the inkwell again, and then he seemed to faint, falling backward onto his feather bed and throwing a forearm over his eyes.
    “Are you sad?” Geli asked.
    After a few seconds, he said, “Tired.”
    The sofa fabric was making her thighs itch, so Geli slid off. “I’m hot,” she said.
    “Darling, I have to rest a little.”
    She heard a ticking clock on the windowsill and walked to it. She put her ear to its face. She got up on tiptoes and looked out the window to a playground on the other side of Schleissheimerstrasse, but no children were in it. She found three paintbrushes in a full glass of water. She slightly lifted the tallest one and watched a faint strand of blue paint float from it and change into smoke, and then there was nothing but tinted water. She watched her