The Woman at 1,000 Degrees

61 Half Hitler 1942

The big white clock over the main entrance was about to strike three and the station was now almost completely deserted. I sat in the middle of the hall and pined for Mum and Iceland. At some distance to the left of me, two stout and sluggish Dutch countrywomen were sleeping, enveloped in black, reminding me of two seals wrapped in shawls. I’d allowed myself to dream of a warm place between them, but they spoke from the bottom of their windpipes and didn’t understand the most basic questions in German, although they gave me a slice of sausage. Outside, through the darkness of the city, I could hear the crackle of gunfire and, in the distance, isolated shots from anti-aircraft guns, even though not a wing could be heard in the sky.

I had managed to slip into a semi-dormant state, which ended when a strange being appeared in the hall, to my distant right, on the corner by the newspaper kiosk, looking around. It was a dark creature with two short hind paws but long, strong front legs. The first thing that came to mind was an ape or a two-legged dog. It spotted me, the only sign of life in the hall, and edged towards me, thrusting itself on its two front legs.

As it drew closer I realised it was a man, half a man. In half a coat with half a cap on his head, hairy cheeks but a bare chin. Under his big nose he sported a short, curly moustache. He had lost his legs but transferred all their power to his arms, which enabled him to cross the hall surprisingly fast. Then he sat beside me. No doubt he’d deluded himself into thinking he’d finally found a girl of his own kind, because I could read the disappointment in his eyes when he saw I had legs. Out of some unconscious Breidafjördur consideration, I had tucked them under me, but now he saw that his dream princess was fully limbed and, moreover, a child. But even though this was only half a man, his voice was whole.

‘Good evening, good evening. “Goodnight” would be more accurate, but that’s more of a farewell than a hello. Therefore I’ll say good evening, even though it’s morning. What’s your name, young lady?’

‘Herra.’

‘Hair ad?’

‘Herra. With two rolling r’s.’

Ach so?Herrrrra. With the Führer’s r!’ And suddenly he was impersonating Adolf Hitler: ‘In unserrrem Deutschen Rrrreich! Yes, what I wouldn’t give for two rolling r’s. Then I could rrroll all the way to Amsterdam and from there across the North Sea on my yellow arse.’

‘Yellow arse?’

‘Yes, I’m Jewish. Jews have yellow arses. And a yellow star. Aaron Hitler, delighted to make your acquaintance.’

‘A… Hitler?’

‘Yes, Aaron Hitler.’ He held out his hand. It looked more like a foot. It was covered in a thick black fingerless glove; his palm was protected by a piece of wood that was hidden inside the mitten, out of which stretched long fingers that together seemed to have the power of a Beethoven string quartet. He noticed my hesitation.

‘Yes, forgive me if my hand is a foot and therefore soiled by the salt of the earth.’

I took his hand. It greeted me gently, although I felt it could easily have broken every bone in my hand in an instant. His trunk seemed lean, however, and his face delicate, with smooth, pale skin, even though the hair under his hat, his sideburns, and his moustache were all deepest black. He must have been about thirty. Two soft stubs protruded under his short coat; he’d been amputated at the groin.

‘Did you say Hitler?’ I asked.

‘Yes, Aaron. Aaron Hitler. His Majesty’s brother. His little brother.’

This was some kind of joke, some kind of nocturnal entertainment that was being performed in Germany’s train stations, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, no doubt, to provide some distraction, boost the morale. But children are serious people.

‘The Führer’s brother? But you said… Jewish?’

‘Yes, and therefore… shush!’

He mimed a giant knife with his right hand, accompanying his shush sound with a throat-cutting gesture and pretending to chop off his legs. I felt this was my cue to laugh at this cabaret number, that he probably expected me to, but I couldn’t and blurted out, ‘Yes?’ in my confusion.

‘But where are you from, you pretty creature? I hear the sea in your accent.’

‘Yes, I’m from… I… the islands.’

‘An island girl? Travelling alone?’

‘Yes, Dad just left. I’m waiting for Mum. She was supposed to be coming from Lübeck tonight but she wasn’t on the train.’

‘Oh, Lübeck. The British gave it a nasty pounding yesterday and the day before. Whole neighbourhoods reduced to dust. What a pretty city it was, at least seen from the gutter. They wouldn’t allow me up the tower, the bastards.’

‘Huh? What do you mean?’

He saw my anxiety mounting to despair.

‘But… no need to worry. Your mother is in no danger.’

‘Huh?’

‘Yes, safe and sound. I know that for a fact.’

‘How do you… know that?’

‘I know it for a fact.’

He said this with such a warm smile that I immediately calmed down in an almost supernatural way.

‘And are you Jewish?’

‘Yes, the last Jew of the Third Reich. Once they get me, that’ll be it. Ein Volk! Ein Rrrreich! Ein Führrrer!’

‘But how… how did you get away?’

‘Why… Dolfy, my brother, of course,’ he said with a shrug, which indicated that ‘his brother’ wasn’t quite as ruthless as the war led us to believe. He didn’t seem to have anything to add to this, because he gazed across the hall at the Dutch country seals and beyond out the other entrance, as if he intended to move on. The Führer’s brother couldn’t be wasting his time consoling a moping kid from Iceland. But I suddenly felt an urge to hold on to this street beggar. He exuded a strange sense of well-being.

‘So he has spared you?’

‘Yes. Although I didn’t altogether get away, my legs did, they ran away. To Sweden first, then on to America. Which is where they’re living now, little things. I sometimes get a letter from them. The right one is in Ohio and the left one in California. They were used to living wide apart, I have such a huge crotch, see? I’m sometimes asked if it’s a hassle lugging this around, but I say no, oh no, because under me I’ve got two pouches full of gold. Two entire nations to be exterminated later on. I just need to get myself into a harem. I’m working on it. But unfortunately there aren’t many females who are into big-dicked dwarfs. Women get pretty touchy about no legs, I’ve come to realise. They prefer men who can “stand on their own two feet.” SS men, for example, or men like my brother Dolfy. But, on the other hand, I say, happy is the man who has no legs, for what are legs but instruments of stupidity? Just think of what the legacy of legs has brought us!’ He held out his big, strong hands. ‘All of this is the work of men with legs. A foot will trample, a hand will sow, I say. But I’m willing to take over when my brother Dolfy loses the war. Then they’ll call me and make me the chancellor of Germany.’ And then he started to mimic his big brother again, rolling his r’s. ‘Because we shall rrrrrise from the rrrrrruins! We shall stand on our feet!’

That was one thing I found funny and could finally laugh at. He gave me an encore.

‘Because who else but I can lead the German nation out of the depths of its despair? A man who has experienced the miry pits first hand!’

And he beat his woody palms against the stone pavement, making it echo. I laughed even more. He jerked his head at the end of every sentence, just like the Führer did, and for a moment looked so much like him that I was beginning to believe he really was his brother.

Finally he straightened, threw his head back and his arm up in a mock Hitler salute, but in such a way that only his elbow went in the air, as if his arm had been amputated, and yelled out loud and clear: ‘Half Hitler!’