Life after life

December 1930

URSULA KNEW ALL about Eva. She knew how much she liked fashion and make-up and gossip. She knew that she could skate and ski and loved to dance. And so Ursula lingered over the expensive frocks in Oberpollinger with her before visiting a café for coffee and cake, or an ice-cream in the Englischer Garten where they would sit and watch the children on the carousel. She went to the skating rink with Eva and her sister Gretl. She was invited to dinner at the Brauns’ table. ‘Your English friend is very nice,’ Frau Braun told Eva.

She told them that she was improving her German before she settled down to teach at home. Eva sighed with boredom at the idea.

Eva loved to be photographed and Ursula took many, many photographs of her on her box Brownie and then they spent their evenings sticking them in albums and admiring the different poses that Eva had struck. ‘You should be in films,’ Ursula told Eva and she was ridiculously flattered. Ursula had mugged up on celebrities, Hollywood and British as well as German, on the latest songs and dances. She was an older woman, interested in a fledgling. She took Eva under her wing and Eva was bowled over by her new sophisticated friend.

Ursula knew, too, of Eva’s infatuation for her ‘older man’ whom she made sheep’s eyes at, whom she trailed around after, sitting in restaurants and cafés, forgotten in a corner while he conducted endless conversations about politics. Eva started to take her along to these gatherings – Ursula was her best friend, after all. All Eva wanted was to be close to Hitler. And that was all Ursula wanted too.

And Ursula knew about Berg and bunker. And really she was doing this frivolous girl a great favour by inserting herself in her life.

And so, just as they had got used to Eva hanging around so they became accustomed to seeing her little English friend as well. Ursula was pleasant, she was a girl, she was nobody. She became so familiar that no one was surprised when she would turn up on her own and simper with admiration at the would-be great man. He took adoration casually. To have so little self-doubt, she thought, what a thing that must be.

But, ye gods, it was boring. So much hot air rising above the tables in Café Heck or the Osteria Bavaria, like smoke from the ovens. It was difficult to believe from this perspective that Hitler was going to lay waste to the world in a few years’ time.

It was colder than usual for this time of year. Last night a light dusting of snow, like the icing sugar on Mrs Glover’s mince pies, had sifted over Munich. There was a big Christmas tree on the Marienplatz and the lovely smell of pine needles and roasting chestnuts everywhere. The festive finery made Munich seem more fairy-tale-like than England could ever hope to be.

The frosty air was invigorating and she walked towards the café with a wonderful purpose in her step, looking forward to a cup of Schokolade, hot and thick with cream.

Inside, the café was smoky and rather disagreeable after the sparklingly cold outdoors. The women were in furs and Ursula rather wished that she could have brought Sylvie’s mink with her. Her mother never wore it and it was left permanently mothballed in her wardrobe these days.

He was at a table at the far end of the room, surrounded by the usual disciples. They were an ugly lot, she thought, and laughed to herself.

‘Ah. Unsere Englische Freundin,’ he said when he caught sight of her. ‘Guten Tag, gnädiges Fräulein.’ With the slightest flick of a finger he ousted a callow-looking acolyte from the chair opposite and she sat down. He seemed irritable.

Es schneit, she said. ‘It’s snowing.’ He glanced out of the window as if he hadn’t noticed the weather. He was eating Palatschinken. They looked good but when the waiter came bustling over she ordered Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte to eat with her hot chocolate. It was delicious.

‘Entschuldigung,’ she murmured, reaching down into her bag and delving for a handkerchief. Lace corners, monogrammed with Ursula’s initials, ‘UBT’, Ursula Beresford Todd, a birthday present from Pammy. She dabbed politely at the crumbs on her lips and then bent down again to put the handkerchief back in her bag and retrieve the weighty object nesting there. Her father’s old service revolver from the Great War, a Webley Mark V. She made fast her heroine heart. ‘Wacht auf,’ Ursula said quietly. The words attracted the Führer’s attention and she said, ‘Es nahet gen dem Tag.’

A move rehearsed a hundred times. One shot. Swiftness was all, yet there was a moment, a bubble suspended in time after she had drawn the gun and levelled it at his heart when everything seemed to stop.

‘Führer,’ she said, breaking the spell. ‘Für Sie.’

Around the table guns were jerked from holsters and pointed at her. One breath. One shot.

Ursula pulled the trigger.

Darkness fell.