49
“YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION,” I say to the man sitting next to me in the pew.
“Then let us speak plainly,” he continues.
“I will not insult your intelligence and pretend that the man you came to meet does not have the contents of the Führer’s vault.
We obviously suspect that he does, which is why we have been pursuing him.
” He turns to me. “But then do not insult my intelligence, either. We both know that you only care about one of the six items that Inspector Bauer removed from the Führer’s safe. ”
Did he say six items? I only know of five.
“The one of most use to you, of course, is the letter from the Führer to Geli. And not only for its graphic content.”
“Because of Hitler’s thumbprint, stained in ink,” I say. “Proving that he wrote it.”
“Of course. But the information in the other five envelopes is of no use to you.”
Again, the other five. Indicating there were six envelopes total.
“Are you really so sure the other items aren’t of use to me?” I ask, mainly to keep him talking. I want to hear more about this mysterious sixth item.
“Come now, Professor,” he says. “The memos from Goebbels and Goring would have been absolute bombshells in 1931, had Gerlich been able to print them, but now they are old news. And the sketches of Geli? Easily deniable—you can’t prove the subject of the drawings is Geli, you can’t prove that the Führer drew them, et cetera.
Likewise Geli’s unfinished note. So what that it’s on her stationery?
No one could say to whom that was written or when it was written.
Nobody could definitively connect it to the day of her death. ”
And that covers the five items of which I’m aware.
“And last but not least?” I ask, flailing, reaching in the darkness.
“Quite obviously the last item is of no use to you, because it no longer exists,” says the man.
“My understanding is that it was damaged beyond recovery when it was returned to the Führer. Bauer likely compromised it when he tried to view it. Apparently the Führer was quite upset that it was unusable.”
When Bauer tried to view it, he said. Hitler was upset because it was unusable. That sparks many thoughts, but I don’t know how to probe further without revealing that I have no idea what he’s talking about.
But this man is no dummy. He figures that much out on his own. “Bauer never knew what was on it, did he? Which means you, Professor, do not know, either, do you?”
There doesn’t seem to be any point in denying it. “First I’ve heard of a sixth item in a sixth envelope,” I admit. “Though now I am curious.”
He throws up his hands. “Unfortunately you will have to remain so. Rest assured it is of no import. It is long gone, destroyed, in the dustbin of history, as they say.”
“But not the letter Hitler wrote to Geli. Or his thumbprint.”
“We must assume that your contact possesses it, yes,” he says. “The only surviving evidence that could incriminate the Führer and that would be very difficult to disavow. Your odds of obtaining that letter are quite slim, anyway. I suspect your contact will not resurface.”
“You may be right,” I say. “I may never obtain it. But there will be someone after me. Someone will find a way to get this information out. History is written by the victors, is it not?”
“Just so, but are you so sure who is the victor, Professor? Look around the world right now. Which movement is gaining momentum, yours or ours?”
For a moment I am silent, shaking out my nerves.
Thinking of my mortality, my life, my legacy, my purpose.
Thinking of my brother Tyson, of my daughter Annabelle, whom I lost to cancer six years ago, just as she was on the verge of completing her PhD in behavioral psychology and making her mark in the world.
“Funny thing about Saint Florian,” I say. “The man who fought fires? Who refused to persecute the Christians? The Roman emperor ordered him burned at the stake for his disobedience. You know what Florian said to the soldiers as he stood at his funeral pyre?”
The man nods. “He said he was not afraid of the fire, that he would gladly step into it in the name of God and righteousness.”
“You know your history as well, then.”
The man stands and straightens his coat. “They will be erecting no statues of you. You will not be canonized. You will just be dead, nothing more. And that could happen anytime, starting now. Go back to Chicago, Eleanor Robbins.”