Anke-Marie is right. It can’t be true.
Ulrich B. Zinnemann works as a lift-boy at the Eagle’s Nest. Temporary. Really he’s a film director, but his projects are too uncompromising, too artistic, so finding sources of funding is difficult. Which is why he directs tourists into a shiny, golden time capsule that rockets them 124 meters up to the top, through a chasm quarried into the mountain. U.B.Z. counts the proper number of people, cuts off the queue at the right spot, and presses the button. Up above, he directs the people out of the lift and then takes on an appropriate number of people going down. Then he presses another button.
Sometimes someone asks something. U.B.Z. replies with a routine, cursory answer. Lift-boys are not allowed to speak out of turn. Tour guides distribute the necessary information, but they have also been instructed not to mention the Forbidden Name (unless it’s absolutely unavoidable). They prefer to discuss the great arc of history, the Allies and the German Army, the movements of troops, and military strategies. The fact that the Kehlsteinhaus is actually a hideout, built as a fiftieth birthday present by the National Socialists for Him of the Forbidden Name—that doesn’t actually mean anything. “You can easily hide that in an aside so it won’t give anyone the chills,” Ulrich B. Zinnemann whispers to Ulrike in the Eagle’s Nest kitchen as they wolf down a quick standing lunch. “The Kehlsteinhaus lacks any hint of the macabre, any of the eerie karma that tyrants leave on things they touch and in places they visit. And do you know why?” Ulrike nods but can’t say anything because her mouth is full of spaghetti and she doesn’t want to get any sauce on her blouse or spit mushroom bits in U.B.Z.’s face, which is very close to her own. “Because,” Ulrich whispers, “the recipient of the gift wasn’t able to appreciate the gift he received due to his fear of heights!”
Ulrike knows. During her downtime she’s read all the Kehlsteinhaus tourist information plaques and listened to all the stories the guides tell. He of the Forbidden Name only visited the mountain about ten times and spent a maximum of half an hour there on each occasion. The visits were pure theatrics. He of the Forbidden Name didn’t enjoy a second of it. And because he didn’t enjoy it, the Allies didn’t have to bomb the building to smithereens.
That was not the case, however, for the Berghof in Obersalzberg, He of the Forbidden Name’s beloved vacation home, which had an entrance hall decorated with cactus plants in majolica pots. The ceiling of the dining room was paneled with expensive cembra pine, and the walls were covered with watercolors painted by He Himself. The British air force bombed the building to the ground and retreating SS troops lit the ruins ablaze. Nothing that He of the Forbidden—and becoming more Forbidden by the moment—Name had really and truly liked could be allowed to remain intact on the face of the earth. The imperceptible but inevitable transformation of it into a memorial had to be nipped in the bud.
Paulo and Ninetto have long since slipped into a deep post-coital sleep, and Ulrike dozes along with them. Not until the bus arrives at the Berchtesgaden Station does Ulrike-Ninetto start awake, with the taste of moss in her mouth and her tongue feeling hairy. Today, on the fifteenth of August, Ulrike is getting to the Eagle’s Nest in Ulrich B. Zinnemann’s Volkswagen. This is the first time she’s climbing into Zinnemann’s Volkswagen without Anke-Marie. No giggling. That much is obvious. Giggling doesn’t work without Anke-Marie. Lots of things don’t work without her, but one thing might work now that the kiosk is closed. Anke-Marie has to be away to help her mother, her mother who insists on taking her own dear mother to Mass and then out to eat. Anke-Marie didn’t think that was a good idea. “Grandma Verona doesn’t need to go to Mass any more,” Anke-Marie huffed as she shuttered the kiosk. “Yes, she might very well need it,” Anke-Marie said, mimicking her mother’s loud, shrill voice. “Grandma still understands the language of music!” Then Anke-Marie put her hands on her hips like her mother does, apparently, when she wants to tempt fate more than necessary: “We’re going to put her in her dirndl, we’re going to buy her flowers at the door of the church, and we’re going to wheel her to the front row just like last year.” At this point Anke-Marie lowered her voice back to her own tone: “Really Grandma Verona will just get tired and start to whimper.” In the end Anke-Marie cleared her throat and shouted louder than was necessary, and off key in the way someone who doubts her own decision but is stifling those doubts is wont to do: “Grandma is going to church and that’s the end of it! We’re taking her to Assumption Mass every damn year as long as she’s alive!”
Ulrich is waiting for Ulrike outside the bus station. He waves and opens the door for her. “Could you put on The Drift?” Ulrike asks as soon as she sits down, and without a word, Ulrich puts Scott Walker’s thirteenth studio album in the CD player. The passenger seat is Anke-Marie’s seat, but Anke-Marie isn’t here. “Is your left eye glass?” God damn it! She would never dare ask that! But Anke-Marie does, and in reward
