Chapter Text
December 10, 1935. Berghof.
The snow outside the windows is coming down like a madman, as if God Himself were trying to bury this new, perfect Germany we are building. Dinner. Endless, excruciating. At the table—a gathering of idiots in uniforms. And I, Joseph Goebbels, architect of the national spirit, am forced to nod and smile while a noble contempt boils inside me for all this biological waste. I count the seconds until I can retreat to my room and somehow wash off the stupidity that has been sticking to my skin all day.
He is, of course, at the centre of everything. Adolf. My Führer. Tonight he is especially unbearable. In the best sense. That is, in the sense that he drives me mad. In his simple tunic, with that familiar lock of hair falling onto his forehead. Just moments ago he was enthusiastically describing a new Volkswagen model with the zeal of a ten-year-old boy, tracing its shape in the air with his finger; now he has moved on to a detailed analysis of the superiority of apple strudel over cherry. His blue eyes shine with absolute, unclouded happiness. He tugs at Göring’s sleeve to emphasize a point about buttery pastry, claps a bewildered Hess on the shoulder while telling an anecdote about a Viennese confectioner. He is a whirlwind of naïve, tactile energy.
And everyone responds with delighted agreement. I watch Ribbentrop, that polished idiot, freezes with his fork suspended in midair, as if hypnotized. They all gaze at the Chief as one watches a solar eclipse—blind, reverent, and devoid of any thoughts.
And then, just as everyone is standing up, stretching, beginning to disperse, it happens. He somehow finds himself beside me, as if by accident. Our shoulders almost touch. I feel the warmth radiating from him. His lips come close to my ear. His voice is not commanding, but conspiratorial — a playful whisper that sends a chill down my spine and a treacherous heat flaring below my stomach.
“Joseph… don’t go to sleep yet. Come by in half an hour. We need to discuss… the cultural program. And… bring that report on cinema. The thick one.”
He steps back, and his eyes meet mine. There is not a trace of bureaucratic seriousness in them. Only mischievous sparks, as if he has just slipped a tack onto my chair. He gives me a sly wink and turns away to wish good night to some stunned maid.
I stand there like an idiot, crushing a crumpled napkin in my damp palm. “The cultural program.” At half past ten at night. “That thick report.” Which, as I know very well, he would never open willingly. Not in his entire life.
My cynical, exquisitely calibrated mind — only moments ago constructing plans for the total intellectual annihilation of Rudolf Hess over his views on pudding — short-circuits. All my sarcasm, all my fatigue, all my irritation with the world crumble to dust before this simple, ambiguous invitation.
What is this? A new way to torment me? A desire to prolong the evening by mocking my devotion? Or… no. No—better not to think it through. Thinking it through is the path to madness.
I glance around the hall. Göring is waddling off to bed. Hess is peering out the window, probably searching for runes in the snow patterns. They all retreat to their rooms to snore and dream of greatness.
And I, Joseph Goebbels—doctor of philosophy, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda—will, in half an hour, like an obedient schoolboy, be knocking on the bedroom door of the most powerful man in Germany. To “discuss the cultural program.”
With bitterness, I realize that this is the only agenda that holds any meaning for me at all. So I straighten my tie and feel my heart pounding with a ridiculous, humiliating hope. Damn it. Damn him and his charming, teasing, gleaming smile. Damn this Berghof! And I hate the fact that I am already watching the clock, counting down those cursed thirty minutes.