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Authors: Norman Mailer
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show absolute obedience to his superiors at all levels. Second, there is a good deal to learn in this occupation, all the more so if he has had little previous education. Heavy drinkers, men who get into debt, and gamblers and those who lead immoral lives cannot last. Finally, one has to go out in all weather, day or night.
        Â
Naturally, he felt equal to the sentiments in the letter, nor did he have to brood about âthose who lead immoral lives.â Immorality, Alois knew, was not to be confused with the details of your private life. Immorality was taking a bribe from a smuggler, whereas private life was too complicated for judgment. He did not know to a certainty that Klara was his daughterâafter all, he did not have to trust Johanna Hiedler Poelzlâs word. What, after all, was the point of being a woman if you could not lie with skill?
Sie ist hier!
True, or not true?
All the same, she might be his daughter.
Alois knew why he didnât have to go to church, nor to confession, he knew why he was brave. He was ready to take the same forbidden road that drunken peasants and adolescents blundered into while sharing a bed. But he, unlike them, would not look back in fear and penitence. He would just do it. Yes.
Which he finally did at the end of a short evening that had been much like all the other dinners when he had looked at her with no deceit in his expression and no activity but to stand up now and again with his pants in full profile, his proud bulge ready to speak for itself. Then he would poke the fire and sit down and look at her again. On this one night, however, he did not say good night as she put her hand on the door to the childrenâs room, where she, too, was sleeping, but instead, strode forward, caught that hand, kissed her on the mouth, and brought her to his bedroom and his bed, even as she begged him in a low uncertain voice to do no more, âplease, no more,â whereupon he proceeded to lay a track with his hand, so veteran at insinuating his fingers through the defenses of garments and corsets, all the way to the nest of hair she had so long concealed. And there it was, much like feathersâdownyâmuch as he had expected. Half her body was on fire, but half was locked in ice, the bottom half. If not for the Hound, he might have stalled at the approach to such a frozen entry, but then her mouth was part of the fire and she kissed him as if her heart was contained in her lips, so rich, so fresh, so wanton a mouth that he exploded even as he entered her, ripped her hymen altogether, and was in, deep, and in, and it was over even as she began to sob with woe and fright and worseâin shame for the throb of exaltation that had shivered through her at a bound and was gone. She knew that this had been the opposite of sacrifice. Nor could she stop kissing him. She went on and on like a child raining kisses on the face of the great adult beloved, and then there were other kisses, softer, deeper. He was the first man she had ever kissed as a strange man rather than as a relative of the family, yes, the wrong kind of exaltation. She could not stop weeping. Nor could she stop smiling.
2
S o Klara was now his lover, his cleaning woman, and the nursemaid to Alois Junior and to Angela. On many a night she was also his cookâunless (having hired one of the hotel maids to sit with the children for an hour) they went downstairs to the dining room of the Pommer Inn, there in full display as uncle and niece, the middle-aged Customs officer in uniform and his demure young mistress. No one in Braunau was fooled, no matter how often she might call him Uncle. It was enough to stir a boil of outrage in the onlookers that he could sit there as if he were Franz Josef himself, ready to claim, âIn company with the Emperor, I, too, have a lovely mistress.â On any night that he took her downstairs to dine, it never failedâhe would make love as
        Â
Naturally, he felt equal to the sentiments in the letter, nor did he have to brood about âthose who lead immoral lives.â Immorality, Alois knew, was not to be confused with the details of your private life. Immorality was taking a bribe from a smuggler, whereas private life was too complicated for judgment. He did not know to a certainty that Klara was his daughterâafter all, he did not have to trust Johanna Hiedler Poelzlâs word. What, after all, was the point of being a woman if you could not lie with skill?
Sie ist hier!
True, or not true?
All the same, she might be his daughter.
Alois knew why he didnât have to go to church, nor to confession, he knew why he was brave. He was ready to take the same forbidden road that drunken peasants and adolescents blundered into while sharing a bed. But he, unlike them, would not look back in fear and penitence. He would just do it. Yes.
Which he finally did at the end of a short evening that had been much like all the other dinners when he had looked at her with no deceit in his expression and no activity but to stand up now and again with his pants in full profile, his proud bulge ready to speak for itself. Then he would poke the fire and sit down and look at her again. On this one night, however, he did not say good night as she put her hand on the door to the childrenâs room, where she, too, was sleeping, but instead, strode forward, caught that hand, kissed her on the mouth, and brought her to his bedroom and his bed, even as she begged him in a low uncertain voice to do no more, âplease, no more,â whereupon he proceeded to lay a track with his hand, so veteran at insinuating his fingers through the defenses of garments and corsets, all the way to the nest of hair she had so long concealed. And there it was, much like feathersâdownyâmuch as he had expected. Half her body was on fire, but half was locked in ice, the bottom half. If not for the Hound, he might have stalled at the approach to such a frozen entry, but then her mouth was part of the fire and she kissed him as if her heart was contained in her lips, so rich, so fresh, so wanton a mouth that he exploded even as he entered her, ripped her hymen altogether, and was in, deep, and in, and it was over even as she began to sob with woe and fright and worseâin shame for the throb of exaltation that had shivered through her at a bound and was gone. She knew that this had been the opposite of sacrifice. Nor could she stop kissing him. She went on and on like a child raining kisses on the face of the great adult beloved, and then there were other kisses, softer, deeper. He was the first man she had ever kissed as a strange man rather than as a relative of the family, yes, the wrong kind of exaltation. She could not stop weeping. Nor could she stop smiling.
2
S o Klara was now his lover, his cleaning woman, and the nursemaid to Alois Junior and to Angela. On many a night she was also his cookâunless (having hired one of the hotel maids to sit with the children for an hour) they went downstairs to the dining room of the Pommer Inn, there in full display as uncle and niece, the middle-aged Customs officer in uniform and his demure young mistress. No one in Braunau was fooled, no matter how often she might call him Uncle. It was enough to stir a boil of outrage in the onlookers that he could sit there as if he were Franz Josef himself, ready to claim, âIn company with the Emperor, I, too, have a lovely mistress.â On any night that he took her downstairs to dine, it never failedâhe would make love as
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