Golden Boy. Paula Astridge
never accept that woman’s presence in our home.’
Easily fixed: they never went there. Instead, the young married couple set up camp in a dingy little flat near the University of Berlin, to which Albert had transferred. It was a one-bedroom shoe-box that set the seedy student scene. With peeling, nicotine-stained wallpaper, rising damp and rampant cockroaches, it had a chic all its own. Packed to the rafters with atmosphere, it was bulging at its century-old seams with university friends who were less fortunate than Albert and his wife in that they did not have an income to see them through their tertiary years.
Alienated or not, Albert’s parents insisted he have a monthly allowance so that he wouldn’t further shame them by living in poverty. It was a case of keeping up appearances rather than forgiveness and love. No one bearing the Speer name was permitted to run the risk of discrediting it.
Albert Speer Senior had another vested interest in providing his son with cold, hard cash. Incensed or not by Albert’s behaviour, he had to accept the fact that this stubborn, difficult son of his was the only one of the three at his disposal who had grown up to show the slightest promise of making something of himself and living up to the Speer name, of securing a success in business that mirrored his own. Unfortunately, this meant that it was only into this second son’s hands that he could drop the keys of his architectural kingdom.
Despite his promise in youth, Hermann had fizzled out somewhat in adulthood and Ernst, although still the apple of his father’s eye, was showing the signs of early dissipation as a direct result of his excessive spoiling. It appeared that only Albert had ended up with a good head on his shoulders. An extremely clever one, that to everyone’s surprise and mild bewilderment, had also become handsome. Certainly no one had expected that! Yet there he was, six foot two, eyes of blue. He had it all: not only a pretty wife but also a faithful following of friends and admirers.
In a complete reversal of fortune, Albert had become extremely popular with his fellow students. His swarm of scholastic chums were living on the breadline and hungrily accepted the invitations from Albert and Margret to join them for spaghetti and soup dinners several times each week.
‘I’ve never been happier in my life,’ Margret confessed, as she stirred yet another huge pot of pasta, making for the fourth batch on this cold winter evening. For hours she had been leaning over the bubbling brew with beads of sweat forming on her brow, but she didn’t care. She was in her element, working hard and providing for the people who needed her.
Albert was one of them. He never stopped congratulating himself on how clever he had been in choosing her for his wife. She was a good, sensible woman who looked after him. Whatever limitations he had noticed in her understanding and intellect were amply compensated for by her strong, charitable heart – the very essence of her that he so valued because it made him feel safe. Just watching her capable hands and the look of contented dedication on her face had him reach out to stroke his hand gently down her cheek.
‘I’m glad,’ he replied, stopping short of expressing the same deliriously happy sentiment himself.
Pleased as he was with the status quo, he did not feel the same intense fulfilment as she. Certainly these quasi-halcyon days he was living through did not come close to his concept of all-encompassing joy. So what else could he assume other than, as yet, he had not experienced it — that elusive emotion which had been entirely absent in his past and barely tampered with in his present. A sublime state of being that surely had nowhere else to lie but in his future?
In the meantime, he was loping along the road to that future under the insipid-coloured banner ofcontent, which to an untried young man equated to a slightly lesser and infinitely more boring way to go. His inexperience in the ways and woes of the world and his living of a life that had not yet come under siege from fate and fear, made him bold and ripe to be battered by their upcoming brutalities.
In such a state of blithe confidence, he was in the perfect position to sustain his wife, himself and his friends, providing them not only with his lively company but satisfying their more pressing need for nourishment. Day after day he filled them full of all the good things: fun, food and philosophical argument, quietly slipping the occasional few dollars into their threadbare pockets. He took great pains to do it when they weren’t looking so as not to patronise and put them under any form of obligation to him.
Anonymous as he wanted to remain, however, they all knew who was responsible for providing those welcome wads of cash that meant their survival. Each and every one of them would have bent over backwards to thank him if they hadn’t known it was bad form. That such humble gratitude would make ‘their man’, this demi-god of theirs, wince with embarrassment.
There was no doubt that Albert was the most popular man on campus, a far cry from the lad who had been labelled ‘the boy most likely to be beaten up and badmouthed at school’. Perhaps it was Margret who was responsible for this amazing metamorphosis in her husband. She had given this shy, introverted boy the confidence he needed to burst free from his stiff, grey and brown cocoon and emerge as a high flying, colourful young man. More popular than his bully-boy brothers had ever been, due not only to his impressive physical presence and magnetic personality, but also to his innate courtesy and kindness to all that came his way.
The truth was that he was generous to a fault, which was a commendable character trait that certainly was not a result of his childhood training. It had grown all of its own accord to secure him the high regard of students and teachers alike. All of whom seemed to hang onto his every word and take his lead.
Right at the moment this rather exceptional young man who hailed from the ranks of the elite was setting the trend by enlarging his social circle to include all manner of people. What had always been his genuine democratic bent had matured into a full blown dedication, because he was always happier putting his time, talent and two-cents-worth in with those who were considered socially beneath him. And for this liberal-minded gesture, those newly embraced members of the working class all loved and admired him.
No-one more so than Rudolf Wolters, or good ol’ carrot-top as they called him. It was a nickname to which he would have objected had it not been initiated by Albert, the only man who could confer it without causing offence to his tall, lanky friend. This red-haired, freckle-faced fellow student of architecture had been quick to ensconce himself as Albert’s closest colleague, content to nestle in the power and protection of what was to become Albert’s very broad wingspan, never dreaming that one day the tables would turn and that he, Rudolf Wolters, would take up the reins and become Albert’s guardian angel.
But for the time being, Wolters was just grateful to be sitting in the background. Or more specifically, in the shabby, old armchair which was shoved in the dark corner of the Speers’ crowded lounge room. There, Wolters was perfectly happy to sit in the shadows and simply watch and listen to Albert talk.
‘More spaghetti Rudy?’ Wolters jerked to attention as he always did when Albert singled him out.
‘Not for me thanks, I’m full.’ He patted his stomach to illustrate his point, which was a fairly unconvincing argument given that his concave stomach had more the look of a man on the brink of emaciation. It was a lean and hungry look that, along with Wolter’s natural pallor, often worried Albert. That was until he grew accustomed to it and came to realise that it had nothing whatsoever to do with him being weak in any sense.
Whether Wolters’ remarkable constitution was a result of sheer will power or his having become inured to poverty was anyone’s guess, but the man was as strong and stubborn as an ox. Stubborn first and foremost about his radical political beliefs and devotion to those he loved. It just so happened that he loved Albert best. In fact, he was having trouble diverting his attention to anyone or anything else. His fixation was focused, just as his eyes were on Albert, monitoring his every move, his every gesture, his every word.
Albert, of course, was wholly unaware that he had become the object of his friend’s intense interest; an interest which had turned quickly from hobby to habit and was now teetering on the verge of obsession. In the last few weeks Wolters had thought of little else and was almost at the point of giving Albert’s welfare precedence over his own. Not only was Wolters happy to live each