Black Roses

by Jane Thynne

  It gave Clara a little glow to say this. She knew how it sounded, but she didn’t want to give Leo the idea she would be able to leaf through the Minister’s private thoughts on a regular basis.

  ‘I had the chance to look in his study.’

  ‘Does he complete it every day? Is it political, or just chit chat? Anything about the leader?’

  ‘I only saw a couple of pages. It looks like he writes it every few days but the entries are pretty long.’

  ‘And what does it say?’

  ‘There was stuff about the boycott on Jewish shops. How successful it was. I didn’t get a chance to see much, I’m afraid. But there was also an entry about how he and Goering have been fighting over the budget for propaganda. He wants more, but they’re spending so much money on planes.’

  ‘On planes? He actually wrote that?’

  ‘Yes. Also Goering wants to spend more on the construction of concentration camps. They’re sort of detention places for Communist enemies of the state.’

  ‘I know what they are.’

  ‘For re-educating people.’

  ‘That’s what he says, is it?’

  The film had begun. It concerned three young girls who wanted to go to an all-boys high school, and only managed because the boys stole the exam questions on their behalf. Clara watched with interest. This, after all, was the type of film she could expect to be acting in, if her career at Ufa continued.

  ‘So when’s the next meeting?’

  ‘We’re going to have lunch at the von Ribbentrops’ house next week.’

  ‘Are they close friends?’

  ‘Hardly. Frau von Ribbentrop gives herself tremendous airs, but the others still feel superior to her. Apparently von Ribbentrop has ambitions to be Foreign Minister, but Magda says he hasn’t a hope. She says von Ribbentrop knows nothing about England except whisky and nothing about France except champagne.’

  ‘How are things otherwise? Do you have any sense that you might have been followed? Have you noticed anyone looking at you?’

  ‘Not more than usual.’

  Leo’s face creased in a transitory smile. ‘I suppose a girl like you gets used to being looked at.’

  Was that supposed to be a compliment? If so, it was the first time he had ever made any kind of reference to her being attractive.

  She continued to stare at the screen, then said, ‘Actually, there is another thing, Leo, I wanted to ask you. A friend of mine, Helga Schmidt, needs to trace someone who’s gone missing. He’s called Bruno Weiss.’

  ‘The artist?’

  ‘You’ve heard of him?’

  ‘He’s rather well known.’

  ‘He produces posters for Ufa on the side. That’s how she met him. But she thinks he’s been arrested because he’s Jewish.’

  ‘More likely he’s a pamphleteer. He’s known for his Communist sympathies.’

  Clara recalled the pamphlet she had found on the seat beside her at the Café Kranzler.

  ‘Is there anything you could do for him? Anyone you could ask?’

  ‘I suppose I could try.’

  There was a man in the stalls below them. He was wearing a dark suit and an overcoat and had been shooting them curious glances for some time. Suddenly he got up out of his seat and walked up the aisle towards them. As he approached, without any warning Leo turned towards Clara, seized her face in his hands and kissed her full on the mouth. Seconds later, when the man had passed he released her and muttered, ‘Sorry about that.’

  Clara stared at the screen. She tried to focus on the scenes of young girls arriving at school, but her mind was in tumult and her heart was hammering in her chest. She was in shock. Not because he had kissed her but because she had enjoyed it so much.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  For the past five months passers-by had been peering curiously at the dilapidated mansion in Lietzenburgstrasse. Construction workers had gutted it, and now, rewired and utterly renovated, it had been transformed into the Palace of the Occult, a pagan temple decked with Carrara marble and decorated with Egyptian and Babylonian words, astrological signs and religious statues. The walls were painted in gold leaf, gessoed and inlaid. Great caryatids held up a roof that was spangled with silvery symbols and painted with airy clouds. It was a magical place, a theatrical confection of hidden doors and sliding panels and concealed spaces. And if anyone wondered who was responsible for it all, a huge bronze statue of Erik Jan Hanussen, arm uplifted in a Nazi salute, could be seen in the entrance.

  There was a thin glitter of rain on the street outside but it hadn’t deterred a small huddle from lingering to watch the parade of visitors emerging from their gleaming cars to the dazzle of camera flashes. This was a reliable patch for a bit of celebrity-spotting. Since the launch a few weeks ago, politicians, celebrities, newspaper owners, princelings and aristocrats had already passed through these doors. Rupert and Mary looked around them in wonderment. In the main vestibule stood priestesses in white silk gowns which left nothing to the imagination, their nipples protruding pinkly beneath the voile. Nazi officers were stuffing themselves with canapés and helping themselves to trays of champagne as though French wine was about to go the way of Paris fashions. As they processed through the hall Rupert passed a pillar and tapped it. It gave a hollow sound.

  ‘Should suit the Gestapo. They say there are recording devices hidden in every one.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So they’ll be able to read your mind later on, of course.’

  The two progressed through a series of rooms to the centre of the complex, a gloomy arena called the Hall of Silence lit by the flicker of crimson candles. A crowd waited expectantly while searchlights played on an empty stage. In the front row could be seen the uniformed figures of Hanussen’s private SA bodyguards.

  ‘There’s a lift hidden in the centre of that stage,’ murmured Rupert. ‘Just wait. Hanussen will rise into the rafters and commune with the gods. It can give you quite a turn if you’re not expecting it.’

  They stood at the back and waited as a green fog swirled into the hall, a distant band struck up some Wagner and the lights dimmed, leaving nothing but a single spotlight. Sure enough, slowly and majestically, a black throne bearing the seated figure of Hanussen wearing a flowing scarlet cape rose thirty feet into the air.

  ‘Smoke and mirrors,’ hissed Rupert. ‘Just what we’ve come to expect from our National Socialist friends.’

  ‘So you’ve been here before?’ murmured Mary.

  ‘On the opening night. He got Maria Paudler, that blonde Czech actress, to sit on the throne and he massaged her brow. He asked what she saw, and she said “red”. He said, “Could it be red flames?” And she said ‘Yes, and they seem to be coming from a great house’.’

  ‘I heard about this.’

  ‘Then Hanussen says he sees a bloodcurdling crime committed by the Communists, a wilderness of blazing flames that lights up the world. A couple of hours later, the Reichstag burnt down. Don’t tell me someone didn’t know what was going to happen.’

  They stood for a while longer, as Hanussen continued to speak. He had a sultry, brooding expression and his gaze was fixed on the middle distance. Mary tried to make out what he was saying but it was rambling and indistinct. It seemed to centre around a blood feud between Britain, Germany and Russia.

  ‘I can’t hear.’

  ‘You don’t need to. Come on.’

  They threaded their way out of the hall and ducked into a smaller chamber which had a sign over the lintel saying ‘The Room of Glass’. Cages of snakes and other reptiles were set into the walls and in the centre was a circular table. In the dim candlelight all they could make out were a number of Nazi officers seated, with their hands placed on the table. A séance was underway. A woman with dramatic black eyeliner and a costume embroidered with Egyptian motifs turned crossly towards them.

  ‘This is a private hearing.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Rupert led the way back to the vestibu
le.

  ‘I can’t take much more of this. At least, not without a drink.’

  ‘They love all this mystic stuff, don’t they?’ Mary observed. ‘It’s like they want to think the Nazis’ power is written in the stars or something.’

  ‘Makes up for electoral legitimacy, I suppose. And you can’t deny it’s worked for Hanussen. He has seven apartments and a yacht the size of Rockefeller’s. There’s all kinds of stories about what goes on there. He holds the most decadent parties. He gives his guests drugs and gets the girls to . . . well, you can imagine.’

  ‘No Rupert, I’m not sure I can!’ Mary laughed, delighted to notice that he was actually blushing. ‘This is all a long way from New Jersey, you know.’

  ‘Hitler is the jewel in his crown, of course. He gives him mandrake root apparently, as well as voice lessons. They say the Führer is going to return the favour by setting up an Aryan College of the Occult Arts. But Hanussen has made one mistake. Last year he published a horoscope for Hitler that prophesised a violent end. His tenth house presaged disaster, apparently, Jupiter and Saturn not getting on or some such nonsense. No one else repeated it and all the other astrologers decided to move the time of Hitler’s birth by two hours.’

  ‘Rupert, I’m dying to write about this! The horoscopes, the séances. The fascination with the occult and everything. But I’m not sure how to get into it. I mean, where’s the female angle? That’s what Frank Nussbaum wants from me.’

  ‘Why don’t you visit a palmist? They’re everywhere. Terrifically popular with women. Even my landlady sees one.’

  ‘Of course!’ Mary remembered that Lotte Klein regularly read her horoscope in the Bunte Wochenschau. ‘I know just who to ask about that.’

  They headed towards the bar. It was entirely circular, like a giant zodiac, with the twelve signs imprinted under an illuminated glass top. In the centre a burly Bavarian, who had exchanged his lederhosen for a dainty Moroccan fez, was shaking some cocktails like they needed to be taught a lesson.

  ‘Hey! Watch out.’ Rupert protested as he stumbled over the outstretched legs of a man sitting by the bar with a young storm trooper perched on his knee.

  Mary pulled him swiftly aside.

  ‘Shh. That’s Ernst Röhm.’

  He was the size of a beer truck, with a little outcrop of hair marooned on the broad expanse of his pate, tiny eyes buried in flesh, and a broken nose that suggested a lifetime of fist-fights. He was an old colleague of Hitler’s from the army and he had command of the storm troopers who were involved in most of the violence. As well as the boy on his knee he was surrounded by an attentive clique of young men in uniform, who hummed around him like brown-jacketed bees in a hive. He looked Rupert up and down, seemed to decide against a confrontation and turned away.

  ‘Have one of these.’ Mary handed him a packet of Trommers cigarettes, emblazoned with a little figure of a Brown Shirt, drumming a merry tune. ‘Hey, isn’t that your actress friend? Clara?’

  Rupert turned. Emerging from the séance room was Clara Vine, alongside a tall, dark-haired German with a sardonic smile. One of his hands rested casually around Clara’s waist, and far from shrinking at his touch she was snuggling into his side and smiling up at him, making some little joke that caused him to rock with laughter.

  ‘My God,’ breathed Rupert. ‘She said she was getting friendly with the Promi’s wife, but I didn’t think that extended to necking with Nazis.’

  Mary had registered before that she was a pretty girl, but that night there was no denying that Clara Vine looked beautiful. In stark contrast to her appearance in the newspaper, she was wearing an elegant, low-backed navy dress, the lamp spilling its soft, golden light over her shoulders and down the deep groove of her spine. She wore elbow-length white kid gloves and teardrop diamonds dangled from her ears. Her face was expertly made up, the eyes outlined in kohl and her lips painted a deep, burgundy red. The hair, pulled into a chignon, was sleek and glossy as a bird’s wing. Beside her, Mary, in her old black dress, which had done doughty service at a hundred dinners and cocktail parties, felt distinctly drab. Her gaze flickered to Rupert, checking for signs of jealousy or dismay.

  ‘Are you surprised?’

  ‘A little. Her family are on warm terms with the English fascists. Her sister, Angela, is pretty strident, but for some reason I thought the younger sister was different. Seemed to have more sense about her.’

  ‘You knew she was involved in that fashion enterprise. You saw in the paper.’

  ‘I suppose. But I didn’t have her down as one of those English girls who get their heads turned by the Führer.’

  ‘Actually I thought she was getting on well with your friend Leo.’

  ‘Nothing doing. Despite my attempts at matchmaking. And by the looks of it, he’s well out of it. I don’t think he’d go for a girl whose idea of fun is posing for National Socialist fashion week.’ Rupert seized Mary’s hand. ‘Come on, let’s quit before she sees us. The last thing I want is to stand around making small talk to Nazis when we could be having fun.’

  As they made for the door, the booming voice of Hanussen could be heard issuing from the grand hall.

  ‘Friends and fellow travellers in the occult realms. Tonight we have been privileged to glimpse into the future. We have been shown signs and portents of events that could shake the world. It is our sacred duty to treat these revelations with the respect they deserve. And I implore any journalists present tonight not to mention what they have just witnessed, for the sake of our nation and international peace.’

  ‘A bit late now, I’d say,’ said Rupert happily, tapping the notebook in his pocket.

  There was a big mirror opposite, a speckled, silvered object whose gilt frame was etched with Masonic symbols, evil eyes and assorted hieroglyphs which were presumably meant to convey mystery and power, but in fact conveyed all the mystique of the furniture flea market at Charlottenburger Tor. Out of the corner of her eye, Clara surveyed herself. If Hanussen really had any clairvoyant powers, if he could see for a second what she was thinking, then Clara Vine with her Jewish grandmother would not be here sipping champagne in a dress that had been couriered over from the Ufa studios and a pair of diamond earrings given to her by Sturmhauptführer Klaus Müller. She would be standing in a police cell somewhere waiting to be interrogated or tortured or shot. That probably went for a lot of people in Berlin right now, but it didn’t make the façade any easier to maintain.

  As it was, though, Hanussen held no fears for her. His chances of taking in anybody but the most gullible were slight because although the Berliners might be suckers for astrology, their sense of humour kept their credulity in check. And besides, no evil eye could compete with the Gestapo themselves.

  She was worried about Helga, however. She seemed to have disappeared, most likely abducted by the group of men who had been making eyes at her all evening. Yet again she had been drinking too much, Clara realized with dismay. First two glasses of champagne, then vodka paid for by one of the attentive Brown Shirts. She had already begun to sway. Thank God Bauer was not there tonight.

  At that moment, at the far end of the hall, she spotted Helga arm in arm with two Nazi officers. She was leaning closely into them, one after the other, which Clara guessed was because she could not stand upright too well. Her dress was a pale pink gossamer silk which at first glance gave the impression that she was wearing nothing at all. The smile had slipped from her face and she was looking confused. The soldiers had the air of two large wild animals tussling over a gazelle. Either that or they were planning to share it.

  ‘Leave me alone.’ Helga pushed one man weakly, and he laughed, passing her over to his friend. ‘All right then.’

  ‘You too. Just leave me alone. My boyfriend is a very important man!’

  Another laugh.

  Instinctively Clara made to go over, but Müller tightened his grip on her arm.

  ‘Leave her be.’

  She smiled at him, and, despite her al
arm for her friend, turned her back on Helga. She was not looking forward to the end of the evening, when she guessed Müller would invite her back to his apartment and she would have to disappoint him. Again. She planned on telling him it was a difficult time of the month, but there was only so long that excuse would work. And Müller might well be in no frame of mind to hear it. Already his brow shone with alcoholic sweat, and a frown of disgust darkened his face. During the séance, when the Egyptian woman had asked them all to link hands and fix their gaze on the symbols beneath the glass table top, Müller had kept his eyes on the participants, obviously noting their responses and weighing them up.

  He wasn’t going to like it when she called a cab. She hoped he was not the kind of man who became forceful when drunk. Sometimes, Clara wished she had the gift of second sight herself.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  ‘Apparently, I’m going to marry my high school sweetheart.’ Mary Harker closed the heavy street door behind her and laughed. ‘Which would be tricky considering that I went to an all-girls school.’

  ‘She told me I was going to have seven children,’ said Lotte. ‘In fact, she probably tells a lot of women that. It’s what everyone wants to hear now.’

  ‘The equivalent of winning on the horses?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Lotte smiled. Standing there on the pavement, unexpectedly released from the office, she seemed years younger. She took off her glasses and let the breeze ruffle her normally groomed hair. ‘But it gave me a thrill all the same.’

  ‘Well, she gave me the creeps.’

  Frau Maria von Fischer, who advertised herself at the back of the Bunte Wochenschau as Madame Gypsy Rose, occupied a cramped office in Rosenthaler Strasse. It was a busy, mixed area close to the Scheunenviertel, where many of Eastern European Jews had settled and kosher shops and synagogues stood cheek by jowl with bars and brothels. Madame’s room was lit by a dim red bulb and stank of sandalwood and Madame herself, who teamed an unwashed black dress with a Romany veil, had a creased, wily face, with clever little eyes that assessed immediately the state of her customer, marital, emotional and financial, and proceeded with her predictions accordingly.