Chocolate Cake With Hitler Read Free

bombs. I’m hoping I might be able to get some truth out of her.
    Cheese and salami sandwiches, chocolate cake and hot chocolate were all laid out on a big table in the corridor . Miss Manziarly served us. She’s Uncle Leader’s special cook. The only person he trusts to cook for him.She’s Austrian and has a very strong accent, a bun of dark hair, a tight apron and thick fingers. She said that Uncle Leader had insisted that she make us chocolate cake. She cut us six very fair and even slices. Holde didn’t want any chocolate cake because she doesn’t really eat anything except bread and butter, but Miss Manziarly didn’t make a fuss about that. She said she was used to people being particular. Uncle Leader eats chocolate cake every day and never eats meat.
    After tea Auntie Eva came to see us. She gave us each a kiss. She puts her cheek against your cheek and she has the softest skin in the world and she just kisses the air beside your ear, and you get this lovely waft of cologne. She looks like she’s in a movie. Her hair curls back in flicks around her face. Her eyebrows are plucked so neatly they look like they have been painted on. Or maybe they have been. Her lips make a perfect red love heart. And her finger nails are all exactly the same length, curved into identical points and matching the colour of her lipstick. She looks incredibly clean. I don’t know how you get that clean. Especially not here. Anyway, she had fantastic news, which is that Uncle Adi’s – she calls him Uncle Adi – Alsatian, Blondi, has had puppies! We all followed her swish-swish dress down to the Leader Bunker to see them.
    The puppies are gorgeous! They’re really tiny; it’s hard to believe that they’re going to grow into great big dogs like Blondi. They’re only two weeks old, andbrown and golden and covered in messy fluffy hair, really soft! There are five of them, two girls and three boys: Foxl (my favourite, she’s named after a terrier that Uncle Adi had during the First World War); Stasi (which was the name of one of Auntie Eva’s favourite old dogs); Wolf (Auntie Eva says he’s Uncle Adi’s favourite); Harass (he’s named after their father); and Luger (Auntie Eva says he’s named after a person who inspired Uncle Adi, not the gun). Auntie Eva said we could have one to take home after the war. We couldn’t agree which one. I really wanted Foxl because she fell asleep on my lap, but Helmut really wanted Luger because he’s the biggest. In the end Auntie Eva said that we could ask Mummy if we could have two dogs.
    Auntie Eva sat at her little desk and wrote a letter. All her things are beautiful. Thick cream paper, and a smart black fountain pen. She makes you forget that you’re under the ground in the middle of a war. After a bit she went to call Mrs. Junge to take us back to bed. Auntie Eva says we can play hide-and-seek down in the Leader Bunker tomorrow.
    “And don’t be afraid of the soldiers,” she said. “Everyone is so pleased you’re here!”

1937
    It was pouring with rain the day we first visited the house on Swan Island. We sheltered on the wide veranda whilst Papa opened the front door with a giant key. Inside it was pitch dark. He went round opening all the tall wooden shutters, letting in a dull green light from the dripping overgrown garden. I pretended I was a mermaid in an underwater palace.
    I loved the large echoey rooms, the cupboards you could hide in, the bedrooms with faded flowery wallpaper . We explored everywhere – the kitchens, the cellars , the bathrooms with their vast stained baths. There was so much to see that Mummy had a touch of her heart trouble and had to stop to catch her breath in one of the servants’ rooms in the attic. She sat down on an old iron bed that the people before had left behind, and I climbed on her lap and we just sat quietly listening to Papa whooping with delight downstairs and she smiled a secret Papa-is-mad-but-we-don’t-mind smile at me, and I