Golden Boy. Paula Astridge
Isn’t that what The Party’s all about?’
‘Yes, you’re right. By God you’ve got guts Speer. The whole thing’s bloody outrageous.’
Outrageous enough, as it happened, to win The Nazi Party hierarchy over completely. They approved of men with daring. And after getting over the vibrantly coloured culture shock, they all decided that they not only approved of the work, but of the young architect who had the audacity to step out of ranks and design it.
They rewarded him, not by calling on his architectural skills again straight away, but by requesting his car and chauffeuring services. It was a request that would have had Speer’s noble ancestors turn in their graves and his father drop into his with mortification at the thought of his son lowering himself to such a level.
But then his father could not have known that at this early stage in The Party game one could not pick and choose. It was all for one and one for all within its ranks, with no such thing as being a specialist in trade. Not when every member of the fledgling clique had to be a Jack-of-all, spreading themselves thin to help out in whichever way was needed at the time. It just so happened that on the day of the next political rally they were in need of chauffeurs rather than architects, which meant a short term slip down the entrepreneurial ladder for Speer. But then one had to remember that there were passengers and then there were passengers.
‘6.00pm at the airport Speer,’ Hanke instructed, handing him Hitler’s itinerary, ‘and do yourself a favour, don’t keep him waiting. He is not a patient man.’
For fear of sounding gauche Speer kept his mouth shut, but he could hardly hide his elation. He was going to actually meet Adolf Hitler face to face. It was an incredible stroke of luck. Meeting Hitler was usually reserved only for a select few in the upper ranks of The Party. He had no idea that he’d be handed such an opportunity so soon. Perhaps it was his chance to make that impact he was after.
‘The rally starts at eight. Make sure you have him at the stadium well before that. He likes plenty of time to psych himself up before each performance.’
‘Thanks Karl.’
‘Don’t thank me. No special favours here. We’re just short on manpower and wheels.’
That manpower and wheels (i.e. Speer’s car and the cavalcade that followed him to the airport) made an impact all right. Making it by arriving five minutes late.
It was an unforgivable slip up to Hitler’s way of thinking, despite the fact that it was not their fault. They were held up by a head-on, explosive collision between two trucks that blocked the road to the airport for an hour. It was a tense, perspiration-packed 60 minutes for all concerned. Perhaps even more so for Speer than for the dead and dying at the scene because he knew that having to stop and wait for their burnt and bloodied bodies to be dragged off the road was not a good enough excuse for running late. The crash and its carnage would be of no concern to Hitler other than the fact that it had interrupted his tight schedule.
Speer’s heart was in his throat when he finally drove onto the tarmac and circled to a stop in front of Hitler and his uniformed entourage: all of them tight-lipped and impatient for having been kept waiting.
‘But surely this wasn’t the same man?’ Speer thought as he caught sight of Hitler.
It was certainly not the same sedate person who, with his navy suit and dignified performance on stage had impressed him so much. This time, in full dress uniform, Hitler was much as Speer had originally imagined him. His face was white with rage as he paced irritably back and forward, slapping his dog-whip against his black leather boots, his voice shrill and close to screaming, as he cursed the staff for their disloyalty and inefficiency.
So Speer was not so overjoyed after all when Hitler suddenly curtailed his tirade and got into the car.
‘Move and move fast!’ came his order from the back seat. It was an order all the more frightening for its sudden, ominous and suppressed rage.
This was the first and last thing Hitler uttered until they reached the stadium. At which point Speer dared take a look in his rear vision mirror, hoping to catch an unobtrusive glimpse of the man himself. He did not expect to find Hitler’s eyes already intent on him, his compelling gaze holding Speer’s for a brief, brilliant moment before its intensity forced Speer to look away.
‘Well what did that look mean?’ he wondered.
The answer to which came through loud and clear when Hitler got out of the car and slammed the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Well? Did you make a good impression?’ Margret asked, handing her husband a late night cup of cocoa. She had not been able to resist waiting up for him. Not on such an important night. Just fancy her own husband meeting Adolf Hitler face to face! Now that she had fallen completely under Hitler’s spell and committed herself to his cause, it was nothing short of a dream come true.
‘Oh, I made an impression all right.’ The sarcastic inflection to his tone had her eye him suspiciously.
‘A good one, I hope?’
‘Let’s just say that I didn’t exactly get off on the right foot.’
‘Oh Albert!’ She put her cup down on the kitchen table and slumped back petulantly in her chair. She was genuinely disappointed. ‘What a wretched shame. I had such hopes for us — I mean — for you.’
It was unlike Margret to wallow in self-pity, but even more unlike Speer to fly into a spontaneous rage over it. For some reason he took exception to her words and she was shocked.
‘I don’t want to talk about it!’ he snapped.
He was fed up. Fed up because he had made a fool of himself in front of Hitler and fed up with the tannin-stained teaspoon on his saucer. In a sudden rage, he hurled it across the room, landing it with a loud metallic clatter in the sink.
‘What on earth’s the matter with you?’
He was tired, that was the matter. Tired, frustrated and annoyed with himself for having failed. It was a rare occurrence in his life, and one that he wasn’t handling well. Burying his face in his hands, he rubbed his eyes. He hated losing his temper. To lose one’s dignity and control, he believed, was a weakness in any man.
‘I’m sorry,’ he sighed. ‘It’s just that I wonder why nothing is ever what it seems? That nothing ever turns out the way it should? Don’t you think that I had hopes too? That I didn’t exactly want to see them shattered so early in the piece either.’ He lifted his head again to look at her; his normally alert eyes weary and slightly bloodshot.
‘Hitler’s not exactly the man I thought he was,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘My fault. I should have trusted my initial instinct. I mean the more educated one I had before I actually met him.’
‘What’s changed?’ It didn’t give Margret any pleasure to ask the question or to pursue this particular conversation now that she had set her heart on an ideal. Frankly, she did not want to know that the reality of Hitler had fallen short of it.
‘Me,’ he answered simply, putting her immediate fears to rest.
Perhaps it should not have come as such a relief to her to have her husband take the blame, but the truth was that she found more comfort in thinking less of him than of her newfound hero.
‘Hitler’s the same, I suppose, as he ever was,’ he continued, his tone more contemplative as he rubbed his jaw, grazing the palm of his hand on the prickly crop of stubble that had taken root there. Now that his bohemian university days were over, having a five-o’clock shadow went against the grain. These days, as the clean cut, immaculately dressed man he had become, the thought of ‘letting himself go’ was abhorrent to him.
‘Well, don’t go on about it,’ Margret said with a sudden sharp intolerance. ‘You’ve just had a bad day, that’s all.’ Albert’s gloomy mood was beginning to rub off on her. She found introspection of