Black Roses

by Jane Thynne

  “The source should be made fully aware of all operational difficulties and take the requisite precautions.”

  What did those “requisite precautions” include? There were so many skills Clara would need to learn. To listen out for the click on the telephone line that suggested the police were present. To cultivate that sixth sense that recognized a pattern and when it was changed. To vary her route, think before speaking, never relax and as much as she could, with the figure and face she had, avoid attracting attention. Most of all she must never underestimate the savagery of these thugs masquerading as statesmen with their medals and armbands, sipping His Majesty’s champagne. In truth, the best precaution for a woman like Clara was to be as far away from here as possible, in England preferably, performing in Hay Fever or whatever that play was she had talked about. He thought again of the moment she had come to him at the office, eyes shining with some defiant emotion, and he wondered what had provoked her desire to help.

  ‘You’re miles away.’

  A woman touched him on the elbow. It was Rupert’s friend. Mary Harker. She had what Americans called ‘the girl-next-door look’. Not exactly attractive, with her glasses and stubborn straw coloured hair which stuck out awkwardly and looked like she brushed it once in the morning, and then not again all day. She had sallow skin and a beaky nose, but they were more than compensated for by a sweet, down-turned, deprecatory smile. From what he knew of Rupert’s romantic tastes Leo didn’t rate her chances of a long-lasting relationship with his friend, but he couldn’t help warming to her.

  ‘I enjoyed the other evening. Rupert pretended he needed an early night, but that lasted about two minutes before he gave in and took us off to a nightclub. We were there until three a.m. and totally bleary when we rolled into the press conference the next day. We could hardly keep awake, which wasn’t helped by the fact that we had to spend hours taking notes on the precise division of the Propaganda Department into ministries for the press and film and broadcasting and paperclips and so on. Infernally boring! How about you two? I bet you went dancing.’

  ‘I went straight home.’

  ‘Did you? And I was sure you two were going to sneak off somewhere!’ She gave him a knowing look, which Leo blanked.

  ‘How is she anyway? Clara?’

  She was persistent. Leo had to give her that.

  ‘I really wouldn’t know, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Ah well.’ She gave up. ‘It’s quite a turnout tonight, isn’t it, considering the low opinion they seem to have of you Brits. That chap over there told me that there’s a gigantic conspiracy of international Jewry being organized from London.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  He lit a cigarette for her and they stood companionably, looking out at the assembled throng. The senior Nazis progressed around the room in a complicated gavotte, designed to avoid encountering each other.

  ‘They don’t look like they’re enjoying themselves much, do they?’ he observed.

  ‘I guess a British Embassy cocktail party is a long way from a Bavarian beer cellar.’

  ‘I hear there was another wave of arrests last night.’

  ‘I heard that too,’ she said. ‘It came up in the morning press conference. But when my colleague from the New Republic asked Goering about it, he said there has been no violence, the violence is over and anyone suggesting that there is still violence will face reprisals.’

  ‘Violent reprisals, I take it.’

  Leo noticed that Goebbels and Müller, in order to avoid crossing paths with Goering, were heading straight for them. Müller, immaculate in his SA breeches and knee boots, was already smiling speculatively in their direction. Seized by a violent aversion, whose cause he could not precisely define, Leo took Mary’s elbow and hastily turned away.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The photographer from the B.Z. am Mittag was a fussy little man with a pernickety expression and a relentlessly worried manner. He had good reason too, considering that he had taken the best part of twenty minutes to set up his equipment in the drawing room of the Goebbels’ home, where Clara was to be photographed wearing the designs of the first collection. There were a couple of large cameras on rickety tripods and both had to be fitted with the correct lenses, and then the lights placed in precise locations around the room. The curtains had to be drawn too, to get the light exactly right, and he was issuing his harried assistant with increasingly sharp orders as the lady of the house waited impatiently upstairs. Clara had compounded the problem herself by arriving late and Magda was at her most imperious, brimming with irritation. She was sitting at her dressing table, primping her hair with aggressive little jabs.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late. I overslept a little, I’m afraid.’

  In reality Clara had sat in a coffee house by the tram stop, collecting her thoughts and bracing herself for the morning ahead. She regretted her bad temper with Leo the day before. At first she had put it down to tiredness or a lack of breakfast. But the truth was, she knew it wasn’t that. It was Leo’s assumption that she would be willing to do anything that was necessary with Müller. Did he realize what he was asking?

  She was also engaged in what Paul Croker had called “getting in character”. There was always the chance that Magda might regret her indiscretions and resolve to place a distance between them, so it was essential to preserve the breezy informality that she had created, if she was to gain any useful information. To be the young actress, thrilled to find herself at close quarters with the Nazi High Command, but so far out of politics that she was easy to talk to. She ran though her character in her head, the way she had in the past before going on stage. She straightened her shoulders, tidied her hair and tilted her hat so it sat at a slight angle. She caught a glimpse of herself in the coffee house window and tipped her head coyly. Up by the counter a man winked at her and she gave a broad smile. It was working all right.

  It was hard to preserve the breezy informality, however, when the maid showed Clara into the dressing room. Magda’s face was like thunder.

  ‘Late? You need discipline Fräulein! I am never late. Routine is vital. No matter what time I go to bed, I always follow the same routine. In the morning, forty-two strokes of the hairbrush, two minutes exactly on the teeth. I always change for lunch and dinner and never go out without fixing my make-up. It’s half the battle. That’s what they taught me at the convent school in Brussels and it has stayed with me for life.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were in a convent,’ said Clara, perching casually on a chair. ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘It was a regime,’ she said coolly, spritzing her perfume. ‘Like any regime it had good and bad points. The secret is to learn to live with it.’

  With a shaking hand she reached for her pillbox and extracted a small blue pill. She was always taking pills, but then, Clara had noticed, pill-taking was a great hobby among women in Berlin. Helga too had her own little box of some non-specific medication, which she said was herbal and calmed her nerves. It was all of a piece, Clara thought, with the astrology and the superstition and the fortune-telling. All ways of alleviating a sickness no doctor could define.

  Magda ran a lipstick round her mouth and flicked a final nimbus of powder on her immaculate face, perfecting the mask Clara had seen so often in newspapers and magazines.

  ‘These photographs are such an ordeal,’ Magda sighed. ‘Still, it’s important to appear as beautiful as I can. You may think this is foolish but I see it as my duty to Germany.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s foolish, but I can’t see why it’s your duty.’

  ‘Why do you think?’ She directed a reproving look through the mirror. ‘It’s wonderful of the Führer to create this opportunity for me to serve. After all, we all want to help in the great endeavour of transforming Germany.’

  ‘By looking beautiful?’

  ‘Do you think that sounds frivolous? In fact, it’s something I learnt from abroad. It wasn’t until I went to America and saw what hostesses th
ose women are, that I decided how I should live. They were so well-dressed and beautifully groomed, I realized then just how influential a hostess can be.’

  ‘I never knew you’d been to America.’ Clara gave a girlish sigh. ‘I’d love to visit.’

  ‘It’s an amazing place.’ Magda gave a little laugh, fixing a pair of pearl studs in her ears. ‘I had such a time there. It was before I met Joseph, of course. President Hoover’s nephew wanted to marry me. I went to Fifth Avenue! And Broadway! But in the end it bored me. I wanted to come home.’

  She braced her shoulders and gave herself a little shake. ‘Now, if you wait here, I’ll have my photograph taken, while you change. Then it will be your turn. The outfits have been delivered in your size and I’ve chosen two contrasting styles to begin with. One for the rural woman, another for the girl-about-town type. Shoes too. They’re over there.’

  Magda disappeared and Clara picked up the clothes that had been made for her. They weren’t quite as bad as the preliminary sketches had suggested, but not far off it. The first had the feel of a folk costume. It was made of heavy green woollen fabric, with a close-fitting top, bell shaped skirt and a sweetheart neckline. There was embroidery round the hems and cuffs. Presumably it was to be worn with Gretchen braids and no make-up. The girl-about-town costume could not be more different. It had a military look to it, made of brown worsted, with padded shoulders and a sleek pencil skirt. It was marginally less hideous than the first, so Clara took off the skirt and blouse she had arrived in, stripped to her slip and stockings and pulled it on.

  She stood in front of the mirror and sighed. There was something about these outfits that drained all femininity and defied any kind of flirtatiousness. If she had wanted to play second tuba in a marching band, then the clumpy, low heels and military shoulders looked just right. But if she wanted to turn heads as a sophisticated girl about town, forget it.

  It occurred to her that while she was on her own she should look around. Swiftly she ran through the cupboards in Magda’s dressing room. The contents could not be further from those designed for the Reich Fashion Bureau. The wardrobe was fitted with special compartments for her shoes, dozens of them in satin and velvet, some bearing the label ‘Hand Made in Florence by Ferragamo’. There were shelves of linen, and fur coats in a line. On one shelf stood her alligator handbag, and a clutch bag in black crocodile with a diamanté clasp. Above were evening gowns in diaphanous chiffon with low-cut bodices and beaded straps, some backless and others with short capes floating from the shoulders. Below were nightdresses in ivory crêpe de Chine, and a lace bedjacket. As she rummaged, Clara kept her eye on the door in the mirror. She even ran her hand beneath the frothy silk slips and underwear folded with precision in the drawers, but there was nothing here that could be of any interest at all.

  After ten minutes she ventured down the corridor past the bathroom, a magisterial affair with black marble bath and gold taps, then downstairs and along to the drawing room. Through the crack in the door she could see Magda being photographed. The little man’s nerves were in shreds, causing him to make numerous mistakes. First he dropped the light, then he clipped the tripod with his foot, requiring him to reposition the camera at length. Then he bustled across the room to reposition Magda physically, a proposition that he almost dared until he saw the expression on her face and backed swiftly away. It was too painful to watch. Clara wandered back down the corridor, passing the door to Goebbels’ study which had been left open, and on impulse she slipped inside.

  The study was obsessively tidy. Three sides of the room were devoted to bookshelves, which extended floor to ceiling. A pair of leather armchairs stood before a tall window, which looked out onto the gardens at the back of the house. From a hook on the wall, she noticed, a suit hung and beneath it a pair of patent leather shoes, one of them with a built-up platform to accommodate the crippled foot, giving the unnerving impression that Goebbels was present in ghostly form. Positioned precisely on the desk was a row of sharpened pencils, and beside them a cut-glass ashtray, a typewriter and a framed photograph of Magda and the baby. Everything was immaculate and nothing out of place. It spoke of someone to whom control was all important. Not even a pencil would be allowed to step out of line.

  Clara made her way over and pulled out the drawers. In the top one was a nail file, a hairbrush, a jar of pomade and a small atomizer of Scherk’s Tarr cologne. In the second was a manila file of papers. They were subdivided into smaller files. Leafing through them she found one headed ‘Employees of Ufa’. There followed a list of names. Quickly, and efficiently, she ran through them until she came to ‘V’, but hers was not there. She replaced the file and pulled out the drawer below. It contained a thick, leather-jacketed notebook, a diary by the look of it. The handwriting was small and densely packed. The first entries had been made in January that year and from what she could see Goebbels completed it several times a week. She looked at the entry datelined 1 April.

  The boycott against the international atrocity propaganda has burst forth in full force in Berlin and the whole Reich. All Jewish businesses are closed. The public has everywhere proclaimed its solidarity. There is indescribable excitement in the air. The boycott is a great moral victory for Germany. We have shown the world abroad that we can call up the entire nation without thereby causing the least turbulence or excesses.

  There were several more entries, pondering administrative changes in his office and his anxiety over the dated décor of the Palais Prinz Friedrich Leopold, which had been allocated to the new Propaganda Ministry. The most recent entry had a large X beside it. What did the X signify, Clara wondered. It couldn’t be, surely it wasn’t, the most obvious code of all, the one teenage girls put in their diaries, the mark that signified a secret liaison?

  ‘You should be more careful, Fräulein.’

  She jumped, and the acid taste of alarm sprang into her mouth. Heart racing, she found herself looking directly into the eyes of Klaus Müller. How was he able to approach so soundlessly? She hadn’t heard a thing. It must be the thickness of the carpet. He was frowning, the fleshy mouth compressed into a harsh line.

  ‘The Herr Doktor might want to know that there’s a curious young English lady creeping around his house.’ He closed the door behind them and came over. ‘Exactly what do you think you are doing?’

  She had never heard his voice without its jovial edge. At the sound of it her hands had dropped and the book fell back to its place in the drawer.

  ‘The Frau Doktor asked me to wait while she was photographed.’

  ‘In her husband’s study?’

  ‘Oh!’ she laughed and placed her hand to her hammering chest. ‘Is that what it is! I wondered why you were so angry. I thought it was the library!’ She gestured to the shelves. ‘All these books.’

  She leant her body against the draw that held the diary, pushing it shut.

  ‘It’s the private office of the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and anyone snooping in here gets to explain themselves to the political police.’

  ‘But,’ she looked around the desk and picked up the silver-framed photograph, ‘I was just admiring the picture of the Frau Doktor. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? And the baby is so adorable.’

  Flustered, she talked on, protesting too much. ‘Frau Goebbels said I should make myself at home. How should I have known this was his study? I was just killing time because that man from the newspaper is taking so long with these wretched photographs. He must think we have all day. And she has a headache. I don’t like to think what kind of mood she’s going to be in when she comes out.’

  He continued glaring at her for a moment, then broke into a laugh. ‘Oh, don’t look so worried. I can keep your secret. Come here.’

  She came out from behind the desk and stood in front of him. She noticed that he was growing a moustache. He placed his hands on her shoulders and looked down.

  ‘Though I preferred you in what you were wearing
before.’

  He reached out a hand to her hip and she felt it travel across the ridge of her suspender belt. Her heart was racing but she tossed her head and struck a pose.

  ‘Frau Goebbels chose the design, actually.’

  ‘So this is the famous fashion enterprise, eh?’ His fingers passed the curve of her hip and strayed lightly towards her groin. ‘And I thought you hated uniforms.’

  She forced herself to adopt a light, bantering tone. ‘By wearing a uniform, the German woman subjugates her individual desires to the communal destiny of the German race. Surely you heard your boss on the radio the other night?’

  ‘But of course. I would never miss it. Though I can think of more enjoyable ways to spend my evenings.’ He extended one arm to prevent her stepping backwards and reached his hand up to twirl a lock of hair at her brow.

  ‘On the subject of which, perhaps you’d like to come for a drive with me?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Not now. I have work to do with the Doktor. But tomorrow perhaps. We could drive out to the Grunewald. There’s a villa I want to look at. It’s just become available and I need a country place.’ His brown eyes were studying her meaningfully. ‘We could stop on the way.’

  ‘Perhaps some other time. I’m afraid I’ll be at Babelsberg.’

  ‘Well then.’ He pulled her more tightly towards him and she felt a surprising hardness against her belly. ‘It’s a long time to wait, but on Thursday night there’s a gala performance of Madame Butterfly at the Staatsoper. Perhaps you would like to accompany me?’

  Clara braced herself. It was no good trying to avoid him. She could think up endless excuses but the fact was, she was supposed to be seeing him more. She freed herself from his grasp with a little wriggle and smiled.