Page 49

“Sexy,” Henny said.

Geli glared Are you crazy?

“Well drawn,” Henny said.

Hitler’s face was flushed, and his back was as shut to them as a wall. “Don’t humor me,” he said. “It’s like pity. I have far too much talent for that.”

Geli lightly stroked his shaking trouser leg. “We do think it’s good.”

“My thanks,” he archly said. “And now why don’t you girls put clothing on and fix lunch?”

Geli’s brother found her rinsing dishes. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you,” he said, and so they strolled far from the group to an impermanent dune of sand where they could feel erosion underneath their stomachs as they lay there and watched a hot wind harry the hurrying green waves. “Are we far enough away?” Leo asked.

“Why?”

Leo found two handmade cigarettes of Turkish tobacco in his wrinkled shirt pocket, offered one to his sister, and lit hers with a friction match. With fraudulent elegance she poised the cigarette in her right hand just as her older brother did. She smiled at him as she considered his friendly but not handsome face. His hairline had receded in just a few years, with a hand’s-width stripe of dark hair combed straight back and two fresh areas of forehead beside it, shaped like the heels of shoes. And his mustache she found unfortunate, only a little wider than Hitler’s; but when she questioned him about it he said it was the fashion for teachers in Realschule.

“And that’s what you want to be?”

“I have already been offered a position in Linz after graduation next year.”

“Good for you.”

“Thanks. Are you still studying medicine?”

“I haven’t totally given it up.”

“You aren’t, then?”

“I have other concerns.”

He smiled with cunning and told her his own “other concern” was a Frenchwoman named Anne whom he hoped to make his fiancée even though Uncle Adolf considered it a misalliance. “Are you seeing someone?” Leo asked.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“You guess.”

“He’s here?”

“Aren’t you observant.”

Geli’s brother frowned and rested his chin on one fist, squinting as he inhaled smoke and flicked away ash. “Emil Maurice?” he finally asked.

“Awfully difficult for you.”

“Well, it’s not very obvious.”

“Haven’t you talked?”

“You weren’t mentioned.”

She hit her brother on the shoulder.

“Really,” he said.

“Don’t say it just because it’s true.”