behind them a stream of white—it was maybe snow, maybe Styrofoam, maybe the Moscow pollen of poplar trees—Margaret couldn’t guess. In any case, the cottony white blanketed the ground behind them as they walked and marked their narrow path. The figures, so brave and so young in their earnest trajectory, were in shadow, disappearing and reappearing behind the pillars.
At first they walked slowly. Then, still hand in hand, they began to run, faster and faster. Soon they lost hold of each other’s hands, and in their desperation ran increasingly apart from each other, losing each other in the maze. Margaret, trying to keep up a view, ran along the side, her shoelace untied and her wet pant cuffs flapping. Now it was the taller child coming closer to her as the smaller one got farther away. Margaret could hear—a small, frail voice. As the child neared she could see its hair—it was grey. The child was falling and stumbling now on the rough earth; the other one vanished. And then Margaret could see—almost, at least, for her view was partly obstructed by one of the stone pillars—as the larger child fell into one of the empty holes.
Margaret cut in to the memorial and ran to the empty grave.
She looked down inside it. The child was not there, and not at the next, and not in the next after that. Margaret, breathing heavily, sat down at the foot of one of the blocks beside a yawning, waiting hole.
She sat several minutes. She could not seem to collect herself.
She went back out, finally. She almost collided with the German student, Philipp. He took hold of her arm. He touched her with an awkward, formal gesture that was nevertheless far too intimate. It made Margaret queasy. She wrenched her arm away.
Gathering the customers together, she led them around the corner to the site of Hitler’s bunker. She had gathered her wits somewhat, but still the Communist apartment complex in front of her in flesh form looked almost like chanterelle mushrooms.
“The first thing you’ll notice here is that there’s nothing to notice,” Margaret began, looking down at the tarmac. “But directly under our feet, Hitler’s bunker is sinking deeper into the earth.”
Some people took out their digital cameras.
“Hitler moved into the bunker in the middle of March 1945 and was far from lonely here,” Margaret said. She breathed hard. “The twenty-room bunker was occupied by his dog, Blondi; the puppies she gave birth to during this time; his vegetarian cook; his three female secretaries; six bodyguards; his valet; his girlfriend, Eva Braun, come up from Munich; and ultimately the Family Goebbels as well, with their six children, who were between the ages of four and twelve. It was a rowdy life, down in the bunker, in those final days.
“Where you see the orange barrier,” Margaret said, turning to gesture behind her at the entrance to the parking lot, “was the center of the bunker.”
But at her turn, high up behind her, in one of the windows of the chanterelle block of flats, there she was: the hawk-woman, with her heavy brow and clothes of black gabardine. She beamed down at Margaret—sunnier and brighter than ever before—a smile for professional photographers, a rapacious smile, designed to make Margaret cower. And then she was calling to Margaret, loudly and clearly—“Yoo-hoo!”
Margaret pretended not to hear.
Margaret turned back to the group before her and her mouth worked automatically. She jabbered on about Hitler’s dental records. At some point she could not help herself and looked back at the hawk-woman in the window again, and she was still there, she with her gleaming water-waves of blond hair, her rich bun. Magda Goebbels was still looking down at her indeed—this woman, who was bird of prey and rich man’s wife rolled into one—with the widest and most welcoming of grins.
“We simply must meet again!” the hawk-woman called. “I won’t take no for an answer!” She lifted her hands, these hands, which, white like seashells lobbed heavenward, caught Margaret’s instant dazed admiration, and she began to wave enthusiastically with both of them. “Yoo-hoo!” she called again. “Don’t you hear me?”
Margaret turned her back. She patched together a final few words about the bunker and asked if there were any questions. She lived to regret it. A raised hand. “What happened to the six children?”
“Which?” Margaret asked, knowing full well.
“You said there were six children in the bunker.”
“That’s right.”
“Where did they go?”
“Well, that’s a sad story, actually.” Margaret looked over her shoulder