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Franz Cizek stirred restlessly, having had to wave the waiter away from him once again. He had been sitting at the table within the Kursalon for half an hour and the person who had invited him still hadn’t arrived.



He had initially been happy to accept Adolf Hitler’s invitation to have lunch with him in the place they had dined some twenty years beforehand but as the time had come closer he had grown wary of the occasion. Having initially been happy that his old friend wanted to meet after so long Franz had finally taken it upon himself to read his book only to discover he was mentioned in it by name and was credited for helping bring about the Communist leaders’ political awakening!


The mention of him had been a nice touch but that was far too large a responsibility to place on him unawares.


Franz had grown paranoid that this would lead to him being seen as some sort of political mentor for one of the most powerful men in Germany and one of Europe’s most prominent Communists. In these politically divided times it wasn’t the sort of thing Franz wanted to be regarded as. He had tried to reassure himself that the book had been out for seven years and no-one had come up to him to ask about it but for how long had Hitler really been well known in Austria? And wouldn’t having lunch with the man only confirm any suspicions that Franz was in league with him? If anyone had suspected such would they even have approached Franz about it? Or would they have feared it would have lead to a squad of Russian assassins tracking them down?


Such thoughts were allowed to play in his mind due to waiting in the restaurant alone and Franz began to ready himself to leave. Old friend or not, there was no point sticking his neck out for this man when he couldn’t even bother to show up on time.


“Franz?”


Franz turned around. Adolf Hitler was looking far less like a vagrant who had cleaned up for a funeral than the first time they had met here. His grey suit made him more clean cut but also more functional, the young man’s bohemian instincts apparently having been replaced by something more ordered in his life in the prevailing years.


“It’s been a long time,” Franz replied before standing up. They embraced each other in an awkward half-handshake, half-hug maneuver before returning to the table.


“I’m sorry for being so late, I was giving a speech for the unification campaign and it ran on.” Hitler said amidst sitting down, he did look hurried.


“Well, we both know how you could get carried away.” Franz joked.


“And you were there to keep me in check back then” There was something to Hitler’s smile that unsettled Franz for a moment, as if he was quietly saying see what I’ve managed to become. It was a feeling Franz did his best to shake off.


“Only to help introduce you to movements that might have helped you realise your true potential. Although I suppose you don’t have much time for painting these days.


“No but I still have a keen interest. I have always had that since a young age. Although I can’t say I have much time for Signor Marinetti any longer.”


Franz smiled, thinking back to the first time they met. Marinetti had indeed failed to do anything interesting for the last decade or so but he supposed Hitler wasn’t talking merely about the man’s art.


“Back to the classics then?”


“Oh no, socialist realism, that’s the future. Even if it needs to be accommodated by the current expressionist trends. Of course fostering that future is also important. I believe every young German student should be able to foster an interest in art, as you did with me.”


“Well as you said yourself the love of art was within you long before you met me.”


“But my true potential lay dormant for far too long. My father, he was a drunk, and a tyrant.” Hitler spat out the words bitterly, “He answered anything he couldn’t understand with his fists.”


Franz thought of what was happening to Soviet artists who didn’t happen to subscribe to socialist realism but reckoned it wasn’t the moment to bring up such a thing.


“I lived in his shadow for far too long, even as I strived to get out from under it. I only accomplished that with your help.”


Any of the playful glee Franz had suspected in Hitler’s expression was now gone. His old friend’s face was blank.


“Franz, you were more of a father to me than he ever was.”


Franz could only sit there, speechless. The silence persisted before a waiter came over with a bottle of the house red.


“From the gentleman in the corner.”


He opened to pour and Adolf held his hand over his glass. Franz was beginning to understand why his friend was averse to drink but needed one himself and gave the waiter a nod whilst Hitler walked over to the table the wine had come from.


Franz had poured himself another glass by the time he had returned.


“That was Ludwig Wittgenstein, an old schoolmate. He said he was back for the referendum.” Hitler seemed slightly dazed.


“It seems this business is causing all sorts of reunions” Franz mused.


“And its outcome will be the most important reunion of all!” His friend responded, confidence seemingly restored. “Brother workers together at long last and the nation in which I was born becoming one and the same with the nation wherein my heart lies. You see Franz, I have not departed from all the beliefs I had during our time together.”


“It is clear that some things remain worth appreciating. That came across in your book.”


“You read it?” Hitler exclaimed excitedly, as if it hadn’t currently been selling well all over Austria.


“Your ideas aren’t of my time but I realise their appeal amongst the working class, whom I've always had a high regard for. However the Social Democrats here seem to offer a better shake of things. Without having to turn everything upside down.”


“Oh the Social Democrats here are excellent people, I am critical of much of their programme but they showed themselves to be brave fighters. I had suspected them to be cowards due to so many of them going to Switzerland before the great imperialist slaughter broke out but back then I was deceived, and I had to see that carnage with my own eyes to have the veil removed from them.” Hitler seemed to revert to that slightly dazed look and turned to look at the menu.


“Since then I’ve fought for the causes I’ve believed in, and recent events have shown the Austro-Marxists are of the same calibre. We will work well together once united.” Hitler hadn’t looked away from the menu but now he looked Franz in the eyes once more.


“And I hope, in time, you and I will work together again as well.”


Franz attempted a genuine smile as he averted his own eyes to his menu.


He was a liberal at heart and had always sympathised with the liberal nationalist notion of unifying Austria and Germany but Hitler’s vision of the two states' future together diverged from that. Franz wondered whether he could countenance voting for it at the ballot box. Perhaps there was a clear difference between the two peoples after all, for his old friend who now resided in Berlin was clearly no longer the same man he had spent many happy times with in Vienna.



This was a new man and Franz wasn’t sure if he could work with such a person any longer.


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The painting is Fire by Giuseppe Arcimboldo