The Secret of Lions (17 page)

Mocha looked at her with great attention, as
if she meant me harm. He was very protective of me.

“Mocha is a good animal. He wants to protect
you. I want to protect you too, Willem. But there is something I
want to tell you, something I have to tell you. Your mother may not
be around forever. And you need to know about your father. Your
real father.”

“Poppa,” I said. “What about him,” I
replied.

“Poppa? You mean Adolf. Where did you hear
Poppa?”

“Father told me to call him Poppa from now
on,” I said. I remember the expression on my mother’s face so
vividly. She looked like my words had stabbed her like a barrage of
daggers, like a booby trap, rigged to pierce her heart.

“No, Willem, he is not your Poppa. I want to
tell you about a man, a great man named Heinrik Kessler,” Gracy
said. She gently stroked her hands through my hair as I did the
same to Mocha.

Gracy told me the story of Heinrik, as I’ve
told you. She told me the story of my father.

57

A trickle of rain fell from the sky and
landed on the tip of the Erma EMP submachine gun. The water slipped
off the barrel and fell to the ground. Two SS guards stood on
either side of the door to Hitler’s apartment building. EMP machine
guns close in hand, they stood alert.

Gracy lay in her bed. She’d fallen asleep as
soon as she’d gotten back from the speech. The sun had set hours
earlier, giving birth to the night.

She slept soundly, feeling victorious that
she had told me of Heinrik. She dreamed of him.

Suddenly, she stirred, realizing how quiet
it was in her room. Suspiciously, she looked around the room. She
didn’t want to get out of bed because Hitler was nowhere around.
Rarely did she get to enjoy the bed alone.

However, she wondered about me. Generally I
slept in the bed with them. She looked around the room. I was
nowhere in sight. Frantically, Gracy leapt to her feet. She closed
her nightgown and stepped into her slippers.

Walking through the long halls, Gracy
searched for me. She stumbled past Hitler’s private study. She
heard me laughing like I was playing.

“Willem?” Gracy whispered. She didn’t want
Hitler to catch me in the study. Gracy knew that neither of us was
allowed to go in any of Hitler’s studies. In every apartment and
house he owned, that was the one rule he made very clear to my
mother and me.

“Never go into the study,” he had said to
us.

That was where he performed matters of
state, and it was none of her business. Of course, she suspected
that it really was a rule meant to hide us from his friends and
staff.

My laughter grew as she slowly pushed the
door open.

I sat on Hitler’s lap behind the desk. He
tickled me. The two of us played as if we were longtime friends, or
actually father and son. I was too young to know any different
then.

In front of us on the desk were some of
Hitler’s old paintings. They rested side by side with my sketches,
as if they were all done by the same artist. Hitler admired my
talents. Thinking back, I even think he was envious. Even then, my
artistic abilities were advanced, far more than his were.

Hitler looked up from the drawing of a lion
and saw Gracy. She froze with terror.

“Why, Gracy. You woke up just in time. Peter
and I were just looking at his sketches. They are so amazing. He
gets his talent from me,” Hitler said, with a disturbing
expression. His eyes cocked up at her while his head tilted down
toward the art.

Gracy trembled.

“Why don’t you come in and join us, dear?”
Hitler asked. “Come and sit next to us. We can compare Peter’s
drawings with mine—as a family.”

Gracy whispered, “Willem…”

Hitler was silent for a moment.

“What? Gracy, did you say something?” Hitler
asked.

“Willem,” she mumbled.

“Gracy, really I can’t hear what you are
saying,” Hitler retorted.

“His name isn’t Peter! You monster!” she
screamed, still trembling in fear.

Hitler put me up on the desk. He stood up
from the chair and tussled my blond hair.

“Don’t worry, Peter. Mommy is just upset,”
he said. Hitler marched over to Gracy.

She stood completely still. Her breathing
grew heavy. Hitler circled around her.

“Gracy,” Hitler said calmly. “Willem is no
more. He is Peter now.”

“No! He is Willem! He’s my son! And he is
Willem!” she screamed.

“He is Peter! He is Peter! He is my
son!”

Hitler returned. He began banging his fist
down on a nearby table.

Gracy shuddered.

“He is not your son! He has never been your
son! He is Heinrik’s son!” Gracy said. She turned toward him, too
terrified to make any other movements. She tried to stand strong
and stare into his eyes.

“Heinrik? Heinrik is dead! He is dead!”
Hitler screamed. His anger teetered on the brink of becoming
fury.

One of Hitler’s SS guards entered the
apartment to investigate the shouting.

“Herr Hitler?” the guard called out.

“Stay out there!” Hitler shouted into the
darkness of the hallway.

“Yes, Führer!” the guard said.

Hitler clenched his fists. He looked back at
me; I stood near the back corner of the room. Holding tightly to my
sketchbook, I trembled, staring up at my mother.

A moment of near silence swept between us.
Fire crackled in the fireplace. Hitler approached the fire and
leaned against the mantle. He fidgeted with a picture of one of his
distant nephews.

“Did you tell him?” Hitler whispered.

“What?” Gracy asked. She moved closer so she
was within earshot of Hitler’s voice.

“Did you tell him who his father was?”
Hitler asked. He reached out and grabbed my mother by the
throat.

“Momma?” I said. I reached out to her from
the back corner of the room with my free hand.

“Shut up, Peter!” Hitler said. He stared
back into Gracy’s eyes and released her from his grip.

“Does he know, Gracy?” he repeated, taking a
deep breath.

“No,” she said.

Hitler thought for a moment. He walked over
to me. He reached down and tussled my golden hair once again.

Gracy began to approach me.

Hitler screamed at her, “Stop! You stay
there!”

Gracy shuddered. Suddenly, she felt cold.
Even near the fire, she felt a tremendous chill.

Hitler grabbed my hand and pulled me over to
the desk. He reached into a drawer for a moment.

“Gracy, did you tell him?” Hitler asked
again.

“I said that I never told him!” she
answered.

“So he doesn’t know about his father?”
Hitler asked.

“I said no!”

Hitler dragged me by my hand to the front of
the desk. I started to cry, standing between Gracy and Hitler.

Quickly, Gracy saw the gun in Hitler’s hand.
It was behind me. I felt its cold steel handle brush against the
back of my neck at the bottom of my hair line.

My mother began to cry also.

“No, Adolf,” she begged. “Don’t hurt my
baby.”

Hitler motioned the gun behind my head. The
barrel peeked out, sending a chill down Gracy's spine.

“Did you tell him?”

“No! I swear I never told him! He’s your
son! Adolf. He is yours,” she begged.

Hitler ripped the sketchbook out of my hand.
He tossed it to the floor. The book fell open to my favorite
drawing of Mocha as a full-grown lion.

“Son,” Hitler said. “This is a gun.”

Hitler showed the weapon to me. It terrified
me to my very core. He swayed it from side to side so that I could
study it.

Gracy reached out with her hand toward
me.

“No!” she exclaimed.

Our eyes locked.

“Please,” she begged.

Hitler looked up at her.

“Peter, open your hand,” he said, staring up
at Gracy.

I opened the palms of my hands, reaching out
toward her. Hitler shoved the gun into one and gripped it with me.
He forced me to hold it.

“Do you see this whore? Do you see her,
Peter?”

Tears flooded my face. I was utterly
confused and scared.

“Adolf? No,” Gracy pleaded.

“Who is your father, Peter?” Hitler
asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Who?” Hitler asked again.

“Mommy,” I said, staring at my mother
through tear-blurred eyes.

“Peter! Who is your father?” Hitler
shouted.

“Willem,” Gracy said. She smiled at me.

The gun pointed in her direction.

“Willem, who is your father? What is his
name? Tell me! Tell me!” Hitler screamed.

My vision was blinded by the tears. I saw my
mother’s silhouette. Terrified, I answered, “Heinrik.”

Hitler froze at the sound of that name. He
looked into Gracy’s petrified eyes.

“You told him!” he shouted.

My vision cleared. I felt Hitler raise the
gun higher. My little fist was forced to hold the gun. It was
heavy.

Scared, I looked down toward the sketchbook.
I stared at the lion. The paper was white with the dark shaded
areas detailing the black lion.

My finger was beneath Hitler’s. I felt the
weight of Hitler’s hands over mine as I was forced to squeeze the
trigger.

The gun fired. It echoed throughout the
apartment building. Several SS guards rushed in, clamoring into the
small space.

I felt the vibration from the gunshot. It
shook my entire body. The bones in my arms rattled. The echo
penetrated my skull. I could hear nothing.

I stared in absolute horror at the
sketchbook on the floor and at the sketch of the lion. Blood
splattered across the page. The blood seeped into the page and
filled the outline of the lion. The blood soaked the drawing and
then turned black before my eyes.

I could no longer see the color red. It
vanished from the palette of colors held in my mind. It vanished
before my eyes, replaced with the color black.

To me, the color of blood was now the color
of darkness.

Part Three

Beowulf

Chapter
Five

The Gathering of Beasts

20 April 1936

58

Moths surrounded the windowpane. A dim light
shone through. Outside the government building, people gathered.
They waited for hours just to get a glimpse of Hitler. They were
unaware that he stood on the east wing balcony. No one could see
him. The SS guards had closed off that part of the building to
onlookers. He was alone. He leaned against the railing and looked
over the edge. It was a three-story drop to the ground. He could
see cigarette butts littered behind the bushes in the courtyard
below.

Hitler wore a new suit, a perfect tie, and a
pair of gray trousers. With flawlessly combed hair, he was ready to
join the festivities of his comrades. However, his mind was
preoccupied and therefore unconcerned with the celebration of his
birthday.

The country’s armed forces were mobilizing
and gearing up for a new war. Germany had fortified its
relationship with Mussolini. Hitler had already made many friends
and enemies. There were politicians in his own party who were
concerned with his leadership. There always had been, but the
dissenters remained silent for fear of death. Hitler had defeated
most of his political enemies. And they usually ended up dead.

Enormous thoughts weighed on his mind. The
entire world watched him now. In order to establish Germany as the
superior power he believed it was, he had to consider the actions
of the rest of the world. He knew Great Britain would challenge
him. He knew the U.S. and Russia would follow. Lost in his
thoughts, he almost hadn’t noticed he was not alone.

Slowly, a figure moved silently and swiftly
to the balcony Hitler leaned against. At first he did not notice
me. It was a few moments before he reacted to my silent
approach.

“Peter,” Hitler said as he gazed into the
eyes of a young Willem Kessler. That former name was no more; now I
was only Peter. As far as Hitler was concerned, Willem Kessler had
died years ago with my mother.

“Yes, Poppa,” I answered. I stopped in my
tracks.

“You will never be able to sneak up on me,
and you know it. I can sense you. That is how you must learn to
think. Remember that. Everyone could be trying to sneak up behind
you at any given time. Never turn your back.”

“Yes, Poppa,” I answered. I was a mature
12-year-old at this point. My hair was groomed as perfectly as
Hitler’s. His personal aides groomed me. They were constantly
brushing my hair and telling me what to say and where to stand.

My green eyes glimmered from out of the
shadows. Hitler smiled at me. The two of us had mostly forgotten
the name Willem. Of course, the memory was more lost on me than on
Hitler.

“Poppa, are you going to come inside for the
rest of your birthday party?” I asked.

“I will. I am just thinking about Germany.
It’s hard for your father to celebrate when there is so much
cleansing to be done in the world. So much cleansing. There are so
many German youths out there who are squandering their lives in
poverty because of the Jew,” Hitler said.

“Yes, Poppa.”

“Son. Don’t call me Poppa. You are too old
for that now,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“Is Himmler waiting for me?” he asked.

“He is here, but I have not talked with him.
He scares me.”

“What?” Hitler asked.

“Nothing, Father.”

“He scares you?” Hitler asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s a weakness in you that I have almost
forgotten. You get that from your mother,” Hitler said, looking
away from me for a moment. He gripped his hands around the railing
on the balcony, staring out over the backyard once again.

“Peter, you are going to make a fine leader
one day. This country will be free of Jewry by the time you arrive
into power, but until then you have a lot to learn. You have to
learn to be fierce. Remember the lions you painted for me. They do
not tremble or feel fear and neither must you. Do you understand
me?”