Five Past Midnight - James Thayer [149]
Kahr normally appreciated Helena's modest attempts at being a coquette, and would linger awhile, but today he had work to do. He ate the eclair in two bites, and mumbled around the pastry in his mouth, "You are stockpiling flour, sounds like."
"All the time. And sausages and cabbage and venison, everything."
Kahr licked chocolate from his thumb and index finger, hoping this little concern with cleanliness would disguise his agitation. "Well, I've been told I've got to share my office with some bags of flour."
She cackled. "You call your roomful of pipe an office?"
"I've been ordered to take as much flour off your hands as I can cram into my room. You'll get another load tomorrow."
She clapped her hands together, raising a cloud of flour. Her teeth showed sourly. "So now we are hoarding? Is it because access to the warehouse on Kremnitz will soon be impossible? Are the Russians that close?"
Kahr swallowed. His fear had given the eclair—the Führer's favorite dessert—a rancid aftertaste. He tried to be chatty. "The end has been near since 1942, but don't tell anybody I told you so, lest I'm dragged before a court-martial. Let me into the pantry, Helena."
She untied her apron and hung it on a towel bar. Her keys were on a cord around her ample midriff. Silk stockings were still available to those who had the keys to the Führerbunker pantry and didn't mind passing out butter tins and jars of preserves and a few links. Helena's thighs swished together loudly as she led the sergeant from the kitchen back into the dining hall. The cut-faced Austrian, Kaltenbrunner, had just arrived, and was placing his coffee cup on a table. At another table Generals Krebs and Burgdorf were huddled over plates of noodles. Krebs eyed Kaltenbrunner uneasily. A few servants were now also eating in the room. Making motor noises, one of the Goebbels children ran along the wall, a toy airplane held over his head.
When Helena came to the supply room door, she inserted her key, pushed open the door, then reached inside for the light switch. He followed her through the door. Barrels and crates and bags and bottles filled the room. Rounds of cheese, racks of wine, casks of olive oil, kegs of beer, shelves of spices, baskets of oranges, and combs of honey Eggs, potatoes, raisins, tea, condensed milk, and peppermints. At the back of the pantry was a door to the refrigerator room.
"The flour sacks are there." Helena pointed. The sergeant stepped around stacked boxes of carrots. He grunted as he lifted a bag. He guessed it weighed thirty kilograms.
"I'll be back for more." He brought the sack up to his left shoulder. The crowd in the dining hall was rapidly growing. Kahr stepped along behind a row of chairs. He did not draw a glance.
At the stairs the SS guard demanded, "What's in the sack?"
"Flour. I was told to store some bags in my generator room. As many as I could get in."
The guard drew his knife, and pricked the side of the cloth sack. He pinched a bit of exposed flour between his thumb and forefinger and put it to his mouth. "It's usually a plate of wurst or pigs' knuckles that the cook gives you."
With that, the guard turned his attention back to the stairs. Kahr carried the sack into the main hall, as crowded as ever. General Busse emerged from the Führer's conference room, his face a mash of chagrined rage. He bolted for the stairway to the garden, a Wehrmacht aide rushing after him. The pretty blond woman — whom Kahr had heard called die Blode Kuh, the stupid cow, and whom the sergeant had once seen absently reach for the Führer's hand, which he jerked away as if her hand had been a sizzling brand — was sitting in a chair, teaching the eldest Goebbels daughter how to apply mascara. Kahr pressed the generator room's buzzer with that day's code, three rings then