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Walking her downstairs, his hand held her waist in a fatherly way, and he confided, “I have seen that expression of yours in Adolf. We call it ‘seething rage.’”
With intensity she asked, “Will you please take me away from here?”
They were heading east, from Schwanthalerstrasse toward the flat, when Geli said, “Please, not home yet,” and he obligingly turned north into the Englischer Garten. There they got out of his car and he escorted her to a food stall where he got them Paulaner beers and the food seller flattered Geli for her feathered headband and her fine dress. And then they strolled under the soft loom of night to sit beneath the timbers and yellow lanterns of the five-level Chinese Tower. Hoffmann swallowed half his first beer and pounded on a firm joist with his fist as he peered up inside. “They tell me this is modeled on the Pagoda in London’s Kew Gardens.”
She was quiet. She drank her Paulaner.
Sitting next to her, he said, “We try to get Adolf to England, but he won’t travel outside Germany. Wants the world to visit him.”
She sighed.
“An American laid out these gardens,” Hoffmann said. “Benjamin something. Otherwise known as Count Rumford. My mother used to feed us Rumford soup when we were hard up. Mostly potatoes, just a hint of diced bacon, and barley, water, vinegar,
salt.”
She was silently crying, her tears shining under the lanterns.
“Oh now, what’s this about? Röhm’s just a fat pighound.”
“I’m so confined,” she said. “I have to make so many concessions. And they all hate me anyway.”
“Who?”
“All his cold, pitiless, stupid friends in the Brown House. Am I not hated?”
“Cordially disliked,” he admitted.
“Why?”
“There are those who think you confuse him,” he said. “Who think he’s distracted. Weak. And frankly there are hints of scandal. An uncle and his niece sharing a flat. We could be ruined.”
“Sharing a flat?”
Hoffmann was flummoxed. “Aren’t you?”
“My uncle’s a monster!”
“Well, that’s just the Communists—”
“Oh, you have no idea!”
She felt his discomfort and ambivalence, his wanting to flee with her accusations unheard, but the father in him said, “Tell me.”
She stanched her tears. She jaggedly inhaled. “The things he makes me do are disgusting.”
“Such as?”
“Whipping him and calling him names while he plays with himself. Wanting me to urinate on him. And worse. Unspeakable things.”
“And he forces you?”
She nodded.
“Often this happens?”
“Four times now. Almost monthly.” She saw that he wanted to question her further, but would not. Willfully, he stood and walked a few meters away, sifting what she’d confessed. After a while he seemed as stilled as a motor so long shut off that it would have felt cold to the touch.
Without facing her, Hoffmann said, “We all have secrets, Geli. I, for one, have not heard any of this. I shall never admit I have. And as a father I beg of you to say none of this to Henny.”
