Woman in the Shadows

by Jane Thynne

  Clara’s head pounded like a marching band. She needed coffee, then aspirin, then more coffee. She should never have drunk so many martinis. She stood up unsteadily, as though on the deck of a yacht. She would make breakfast for Mary. That was the plan. Get up, find herself an aspirin or six, and make Mary some breakfast. Then she remembered there was no breakfast.

  —

  THEY COULD HAVE FOUND coffee anywhere. Berlin was a city of cafés. Cafés were where the citizens met, disputed, wrangled, and, more recently, since it had become so hard to heat a home, huddled in the warmth that the price of a cup of coffee could bring them. Coffee flowed through the veins of Berlin and kept the city on its feet, even now, when the stuff was more likely to be chicory or acorns. And Clara was longing for coffee. But Mary insisted they walk all the way to Olivaer Platz, a good twenty minutes away, to see if a bar owned by a friend of hers was still going strong.

  “There’s no hurry, Clara. You’re not on set today, and a foreign correspondent’s day doesn’t begin until lunchtime. New York is hours behind us, remember. I don’t even start sending wires until late afternoon.”

  As they walked through the streets, Clara tried to see Berlin through her friend’s eyes. It was true, the changes wrought by the new regime were not always immediately apparent. The flower women were still selling their little bunches of violets and roses. Berlin shop owners were still not inclined to give the Nazi salute and usually contented themselves with a straight Guten Morgen. Even when they did salute, Clara, like many other Berliners, had discovered that you could avoid returning the salute with the simple precaution of carrying a briefcase in one hand and a bag in the other.

  Yet there were truckloads of soldiers in the streets, pennants and banners hanging from every building. The somber edifices of Berlin blazed with scarlet, as though someone had spilt a jar of red ink across the city. And everywhere there was Hitler’s face, in shops and on placards, and piled in postcard form on racks by the U-Bahn entrances. The licorice loop of hair across his forehead, the pasty cheeks, the studied frown. Mary squinted at them and grimaced.

  “He’s like a sunset, isn’t he? People never get bored by looking at him. That same view, in a thousand slightly different versions. Arm up, arm down, full face, half profile.”

  “Shh.” Foreigners’ voices, Clara had noticed, always seemed unnaturally loud. “Haven’t you heard that phrase everyone uses? Speak through a flower?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You hear it all the time now. It means say only positive things about the Nazis in public.”

  “You won’t catch me mumbling through my bouquet. I couldn’t care less if people hear what I have to say. And I think it’s strange they like Hitler so much here, considering he doesn’t much care for Berlin. Doesn’t he call it a Trümmerfeld—a field of rubble?”

  “Well, he’s the one we have to thank for that. You must have noticed the construction going on everywhere.”

  Even as she spoke they walked past a building site, where clouds of dust rose like incense in the morning air, and a couple of workers, their mustaches matted with dirt, hacked at rocks. One of them, with suspenders and shirtsleeves and a glint in his eye, paused to call out a greeting in a thick country accent.

  “Why do Hitler’s buildings have to be so big?” Mary asked.

  “He needs size. He thinks it enhances his own stature. Apparently he asked Speer to copy Mussolini’s idea of having a gargantuan office so that visitors have to walk a long way across the floor to reach him. He thinks it makes him more intimidating.”

  “God, and that’s a man who needs to work on his softer side.”

  “Speer is only allowing stone, marble, and bricks to be used,” said Clara. “He has a theory. Because the Reich is going to last a thousand years, one day all these buildings will resemble the ruins of ancient Greece.”

  “What does it say if your architect is talking about ruins before the thing is even built?” said Mary, pushing open a café door. “Fortunately, Stefan’s still here, at least.”

  Stefan Hirsch, a lean man in his early sixties, welcomed Mary as effusively as was possible for a habitually gruff Berliner. His smile was like a crack in gnarled oak, and his voice was as gritty as the Berlin earth itself.

  “So you came back. What happened? Some other café forgot your order?”

  “Oh, you know. I felt like a change. How are you doing?”

  “Lucky for you I’m still in business. You want your usual?” asked Stefan, turning to the shining coffee machine and clattering the cups.

  “With whipped cream on top!”

  “Shows how long you’ve been away. You won’t find whipped cream in any café in Berlin now, Fräulein.”

  “I’m so pleased he remembered me!” murmured Mary, as the two women ensconced themselves at a window table over steaming cups of coffee.

  “To be honest, it would be hard to forget you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? No, don’t tell me.”

  On the railings outside Stefan’s café, swastika flags fluttered, alternating with banners with the bear of Berlin, the city’s heraldic animal, raised on its rear legs.

  “Don’t think I put them there,” Stefan growled, delivering thick slices of freshly baked Streuselkuchen to the table. “It’s the city’s seven-hundredth anniversary. A lot of fuss about nothing, I’d say. All these flags and marches and live bears.”

  “Live bears?”

  “The city of Bern donated them. They’re building a pit for the wretched beasts in Köllnischer Park.”

  “A bear pit? In the middle of the city? Erich would like that.” Clara bit into the rich, cinnamon-spiced dough. “Perhaps you should write about it, Mary.”

  But Mary was absorbed in a copy of the Berliner Illustrirte. Its front page bore a photograph of a large Mercedes, with two SS guards in the front seat, others on the running boards, and behind them a small man with a dark-haired woman by his side.

  “Look at this! Seems your duke finally arrived.”

  Clara thought back to December, the high, surprisingly reedy voice on the wireless: I, Edward the Eighth of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Dominions beyond the sea, King, Emperor of India, do hereby declare my irrevocable decision to renounce the throne.

  The abdication had transfixed Britain and sharpened the already deepening social divisions. There were people in pubs and working men’s clubs across England who hoped it would mean the end of the monarchy and others, in smarter circles, who feared the same thing. Angela wrote that the whole household had sat in the Ponsonby Terrace drawing room, servants, too, listening to the broadcast in silence, and the cook had wept.

  “What’s wrong with Wally anyhow?” objected Mary.

  “She’s divorced.”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with that. I think it’s just that you Brits can’t stand the thought of an American on your throne.”

  The Berliner Illustrirte had gone to town. There was a six-page spread with a series of photographs. The duchess in evening gown, on a yacht, at her wedding. Then two impeccably trim figures making their way along a red carpet at Friedrichstrasse station, dwarfed by a posse of Nazis. The duchess, in a black coat and fur tippet, gripping a bouquet of white roses, and the duke with a sour expression on his monkey face. They did not look a picture of nuptial bliss. For a moment Clara almost felt sorry for the duke. What must it be like to give up the throne for a woman? To sacrifice your entire life’s work for love? Clara had only sacrificed love for her work, so how would she know?

  “It says here that Dr. Goebbels personally composed a song to be performed on the royal couple’s arrival at the Kaiserhof. That’s across the road from his ministry. No doubt he booked them in there to keep a close eye on them.”

  “Very romantic.”

  “What’s the betting the Gestapo has installed a microphone in the royal bedroom?”

  “Let’s hope they have. Then Goebbels will get to
hear what they really think of his song.”

  The two women finished their coffee and made their way slowly back in the direction of Nollendorfplatz. At the center of Olivaer Platz they passed through a little park where, between stone colonnades garlanded with late-flowering honeysuckle, sparrows hopped and bobbed. A man played his accordion for pfennigs. It was a tranquil morning, with only a couple of clouds scudding in the bright blue sky. Mary and Clara continued arm in arm until Clara noticed, with a twist of disquiet, that a knot of people had gathered ahead of them.

  Instinctively, she avoided crowds now. There were benign crowds certainly, queuing patiently at shops where a consignment of butter had arrived, or outside the theater to see the stars arriving, but more often crowds presaged something far less pleasant. The chance was you would find yourself witnessing some violence being perpetrated, or at the very least be asked for your papers. That suspicion was now confirmed as they approached. At the center of the throng were the distinctive gray service uniforms of a pair of SS men. Even from a distance Clara could sense the cruelty coming off them. Before them were a young couple engaged in the apparently futile task of rubbing down one of the park benches with their handkerchiefs.

  “What the hell…?” said Mary.

  To Clara, the situation was all too clear. The jeers of the guards explained precisely the situation.

  “Filthy swine! Contaminating the benches for decent people!”

  “I want to see it spotless. Get all that dirt off. You’re lucky we don’t arrest you right here.”

  The young man, in his coat and hat, was visibly sweating as he scrubbed frantically at the wooden struts of the bench. His girlfriend, who might have been a secretary in her white blouse and neat tweed suit, was kneeling on the path, running a scrap of lacy material along the wrought-iron legs. Silent tears slid down her cheeks. Painted onto the bench were the words NUR FÜR ARIER.

  “Those benches are barred for Jews,” Clara told Mary quietly.

  “Where are Jews supposed to sit then?”

  “There,” answered Clara simply, pointing to a bench at the far end of the park, closest to the road. It was painted a dirty yellow color, and the people who had been occupying it were moving hastily away. Above it was a sign explaining DIE GELBEN BANKE SIND FÜR JUDEN. “The Jews are only allowed on the yellow benches.”

  Some of the onlookers appeared embarrassed at the display and winced in distaste, but most were smiling. There was even a mother, Clara noticed, pointing out the fun for the benefit of her young daughter. To Clara’s horror, Mary seized her notebook and started to push through to the center of the crowd.

  Clara grabbed her sleeve. “Mary. Don’t. Be careful!”

  “Why? I’m a journalist, aren’t I? I’m supposed to be reporting on what’s happening here. This is exactly the kind of thing my readers need to know about.”

  How was it, thought Clara in exasperation, that the one friend whose company she most enjoyed should be a journalist? Clara’s job was to be inconspicuous, Mary’s to find trouble and then wade into the thick of it. Clara avoided attention. Mary attracted it. Clara hung back as the American elbowed her way to the guards.

  “What are you doing?”

  One of the guards had just delivered a spiteful kick to the young man, causing him to topple sideways onto the ground. The guard looked up in astonishment as Mary addressed him.

  “My name is Mary Harker.” She flourished her press card. “And I intend to report this in my newspaper, the New York Evening Post.”

  The two SS men exchanged glances, bemused. Clara held her breath. But their inventive taunting of the Jewish couple had put them in a good humor, so they linked arms, smiling.

  “Sure. You can take our picture too, if you like!”

  “Too bad I don’t have a camera,” grumbled Mary, turning on her heel. Clara gripped her arm and walked quickly away.

  She led Mary through the park tight-lipped, crossed the road, and hailed a taxi. How could she explain to her friend that while she had been away, it wasn’t just Berlin’s buildings that were being demolished and rebuilt? It was as though the whole of Germany had been turned inside out and the darker things that had once been hidden were now on full display.

  “You’ve only just arrived here, Mary, and if you carry on like this you’re going to get thrown out again so fast you won’t need to bother unpacking your suitcase.”

  Clara had not the slightest confidence, however, that Mary would take her advice.

  CHAPTER

  8

  The windows of Ernst Udet’s apartment in Wilmersdorf looked out onto the sedate plane trees of Preussenpark. It was a leafy, upmarket neighborhood, close enough to the shops and theaters of the Ku’damm to be fashionable, yet far enough away that the streets fell almost silent after dark, save for the occasional dog walker ambling home to his handsome nineteenth-century villa. Currently, however, this area’s reputation for bourgeois respectability was being comprehensively demolished by its most celebrated resident, Generaloberst Udet himself.

  The blast of jazz could be heard halfway down the street. As soon as she stepped through the door, Clara realized that nothing she had heard about Udet’s private life had been an exaggeration. The dimly lit room was filled to bursting with gray-blue Luftwaffe uniforms and a scattering of young women in skimpy dresses with plunging necklines. It brought to mind the kinds of clubs that had been common just a few years ago in Berlin. Small, squalid places crammed to the walls with people, where smoke filled the lungs and music throbbed through the blood. You would find couples there in any combination: men with women, men with men, women with women. Most of those clubs were closed now, or at least harder to find, but Udet’s parties were a credible alternative. In the corner he had installed a cocktail bar, a modern curve of smooth wood with chrome fittings and a generous cluster of bottles, behind which a Luftwaffe general, in a barman’s black waistcoat with a napkin slung over his shoulder, was concocting a Brandy Alexander. At the other end of the room a piano with a glass of beer resting on it was being played by an officer in a monocle and comically tilted Luftwaffe cap. Beside him, Udet’s dog, Bulli, was petted by a statuesque blonde with hair rolled tightly away from her face and a bosom like the window display in a jewelry store.

  In the four years since she had been in Berlin, Clara had never gotten used to entering a room filled with National Socialist officers. Close proximity to a Nazi uniform made genuine relaxation an impossibility. They were almost all Luftwaffe here, with a sprinkling of Wehrmacht officers in field gray. As she threaded her way through the men in their tightly belted tunics, studded with aluminum buttons and decorations, she felt the lascivious flicker of eyes upon her and guessed that many of these men had recently returned from active service. Like all men starved of female company, they were hyperalert to the approach of an unknown woman. Especially one in a halter-necked, backless evening dress.

  “Isn’t that what’s called a cocktail dress? Surely you need a cocktail to go with it?”

  Ernst Udet surfaced from the crowd and kissed Clara’s hand. His own hands, she noticed, as he waved over a man carrying a tray of margaritas, were rather small and exquisitely manicured.

  “It takes the Luftwaffe to really appreciate a beautiful woman. You want to know why? It’s a requirement of the job that pilots have perfect vision, so it follows that we need something perfect to look at too.”

  His tanned face beamed with boyish pleasure at this aperçu, and Clara couldn’t help laughing, too. “Herr Generaloberst…”

  “Ernst, please.”

  “Ernst. Thank you for inviting me. I’m so pleased you were able to spare time to make the film. You must be terribly busy.”

  “I jumped at the chance! I miss the old days, you know. There was none of this stupid office work. Just flying all day. Now I haven’t practiced a good stunt for weeks. The last real stunt I performed was flying my Focke-Wulf Stieglitz under the Hindenburg and hooking on to its undercarriage…�
�� He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Ach, but girls aren’t interested in airplanes.”

  “No, I am. It’s fascinating.”

  “You’re lying, my dear. However, even if you think I’m an old bore, your young friend Erich would like to hear about it, I’ll bet. You must get me to tell you about how the famous Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber was born. But first, we should find our producer. Herr Lindemann was here, somewhere.”

  Clara looked around for Albert. Plenty about this party would appeal to him. One young man was sprawled on a sofa, legs splayed, his arm flung around an older officer. Another’s full formal evening dress included mascara and lipstick. For a man like Albert, everything had changed since the death of Ernst Röhm, the monstrous commander of the SA, the storm troopers’ unit, whose downfall had been preceded by a welter of homosexual scandal. Being homosexual was an antisocial offense now, warranting direct removal to a concentration camp. Indeed, the accusation had become a useful method of dispatch for anyone who caused offense. Neighbors with a grievance would frequently entrust their suspicions to the Gestapo with a quiet note. I regard it as my duty as a German to bring this to your attention. When a friend was arrested for homosexuality, no one even needed to mention the word. They would simply murmur “Hundert fünfundsiebzig,” signifying the 175th paragraph of the German criminal code. That was enough. Bars and meeting places once popular with homosexual men were monitored closely by the secret police. The result was that private parties became prime meeting places.