Black Roses

by Jane Thynne

  So they had checked her credentials. It would have been naïve of her to assume otherwise. Perhaps it was von Ribbentrop who had assured them that Clara would be trustworthy.

  The door opened soundlessly and the butler showed in more guests. There was Frau Ley, smoking nervously, and a couple of wives of attachés from the Foreign Office, both portly and pearl-ridden and unlikely to need any encouragement to wear the folk look. Behind them were Magda, Frau Helmuth Wohltat, the wife of the new cabinet councillor, who turned out to be half-American, and the actress who was to share the modelling with Clara. Lida Baarová, a shy brunette with ringlets and high arched brows, was a new discovery. The talent scouts from Ufa had come across her acting in a series of low grade movies in Prague and brought her back to Berlin to be turned into a star. Though she was barely twenty, she was well on her way already, having acquired a number of satin evening dresses and furs, and, courtesy of a strict diet, a pair of stunning Slav cheekbones.

  Lunch was served on a vast dining table, polished to a high gleam, with enough flower arrangements to fill a funeral parlour. There were roses and lilies on the table and hothouse chrysanthemums in vases. The Ribbentrops, Clara had heard, held the best table in Berlin. The menu was in English, but the food was French. It was served with a fussy attention to detail on porcelain plates laced with gold. It couldn’t be more obvious that Frau von Ribbentrop wanted to show off her chef. There was a green salad with prawn and caviar topping, then lamb chops wearing little crimped frills of paper, with a jellied terrine of vegetables followed by patisserie, cheese and coffee. It went without saying that hardly anyone ate a thing.

  Magda and Frau von Ribbentrop set the tone, indulging in a type of competitive fasting, waving away plates that were barely touched, disturbing only the occasional vegetable from its decorative bed. The older women followed suit and only Emmy ate with abandon, clearing her plate with swift efficiency, as though if she didn’t finish fast enough it might be taken away from her.

  Through the thicket of lilies, Clara observed Magda. She had noticed Magda’s make-up was an accurate barometer of her state of mind. The heavier it was, the unhappier she seemed. Today, it was as thick as paint, but still failed to cover the dark shadows under her eyes. Despite her refusal to touch the lunch, she cut a substantial figure, the flesh of her arms puckering against her sleeves and a bulge of pregnancy fat that she had failed to shake off. Next to the young actress, who was cradling her wine glass in slender hands, gazing through the flowery fronds with delight like a fawn in a forest, it seemed unfair.

  Clara and Emmy were discussing Hermann Goering.

  ‘When did you meet?’

  ‘Only last year, can you believe it? It seems like a lifetime ago. I was acting in Weimar at the National Theatre. He saw me, and then he invited me to meet him the next day in a café, and we went for a walk, and everything went from there. It was what the French call a coup de foudre. When I got this job in Berlin, it made it so much easier, of course.’

  ‘How fortunate.’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it? Though I do so wish Hermann was an actor, not a politician. I don’t know that I take well to the political life. On the night of the torchlight procession he gave me a gun! I was so shocked, I slipped it in my muff. I’d never handled a gun before, but as he told me, we have to be careful now.’

  She sighed, and eased a button on her waistband. ‘Still, I shouldn’t complain. I’ve been so lucky. I often ask myself why Herr Hitler can’t be as fortunate. Why can’t he meet a sensitive normal woman? It would be such a help to him.’

  From across the table, Magda widened her eyes. ‘Frau Sonnemann, I think we have said enough.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Emmy, wiping vinaigrette from her mouth. ‘Hermann says I talk like a liberal newspaper that ought to be banned. And besides,’ she mused, ‘he does have Fräulein Braun, I suppose.’

  ‘Who is Fräulein Braun?’ enquired Lida Baarová. She had a slow sensual voice with a heavy Czech accent.

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Magda tartly.

  ‘He keeps her in Berchtesgaden,’ said Emmy more quietly to Clara. ‘I tell you, I feel sorry for her. The house isn’t bad, though a little poky, but there’s no smoking anywhere. When you’re craving a cigarette you have to go in the bathroom and it’s absolutely crowded with all the senior men smoking out the window. Then everyone waves the towels around to get rid of the smoke. But you have to smoke because you’ll do anything to keep awake. Everyone has to stay up until four in the morning, you see, because no one can go to bed before the Führer.’

  ‘How tiring,’ murmured Clara.

  ‘And when they go out, he makes the poor girl travel with the secretaries so that she doesn’t stand out. Their sedan is never allowed to travel in the same convoy as Hitler’s. Even on walks she has to trudge behind. The only sign they have anything to do with each other is that they go up to the bedroom together at night.’

  ‘Yet I have heard,’ said Lida Baarová, leaning over, ‘that the Führer says he cannot give himself to any woman because he belongs to Germany.’

  ‘You mean they just talk? Well, goodness knows what they would talk about because Eva has absolutely no interest in politics! Herr Hitler told Hermann he thought the ideal woman was “tender, sweet and stupid” and I said to Hermann, “Eva’s certainly that! She cares for nothing except clothes and watching all those trashy Ufa films.” Oh I’m sorry, Fräulein Vine. I didn’t intend any offence.’ She placed a plump hand on Clara’s arm.

  ‘Of course not. None taken.’

  Across the table, Magda’s face was as dark as the sky before a thunderstorm.

  ‘Ooh, I forgot to mention.’ Emmy extracted a box, tied with ribbon. ‘We were sent these as a gift. The Otto Boenicke company has started to make them. Delightful, aren’t they?’

  It was a cigar box, produced by the oldest cigar company in Berlin. The traditional design had been replaced with an image of Goering.

  ‘I brought several. One for each of you.’ Emmy handed them round, but Magda declined.

  ‘Thank you, but no. Joseph doesn’t enjoy cigars and nor do I.’

  There followed a desultory half-hour discussing the progress of the Fashion Bureau. The Association of Aryan Clothing Manufacturers had produced a label that could be sewn into garments guaranteeing they had been manufactured by Aryan hands only. And plans were well in train for the first fashion show, which was to be held at the Grunewald race track. The date had already been earmarked in the diaries of all the top men who were, according to Magda, greatly looking forward to it.

  After coffee and with almost indecent haste, Magda offered Clara a lift back to the centre of town in her green cabriolet, which Clara took as a signal that the meeting was over.

  Once on the road, and heading towards town, Magda seemed to relax.

  ‘I had to leave. I couldn’t take a second more of listening to that Frau Sonnemann. I wonder what the Führer would think of such disrespectful remarks about his private life. What she said about Fräulein Braun . . . you must understand, my dear, Hitler has told me that he will never marry. The nation needs him too much.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And I have begun to wonder about Frau von Ribbentrop too. I think it may be difficult converting her to our cause. She spends so much time abroad, collecting foreign fashions and perfumes. I wonder if she is fully committed to the whole idea of German culture. Did you notice the butler? And as for Frau Ley, poor thing. Have you seen how she drinks? I suppose she needs to.’

  Magda seemed to have forgotten entirely the confessions of her own marital woes. Her face had softened as they headed back to the centre of town. She even smiled as the traffic was held up by a marching band, thumping out some brassy tune on its way towards the Tiergarten, and tapping her fingers in time on the steering wheel. Clara was emboldened to ask the question that had been at the back of her mind.

  ‘I wonder, Frau Doktor, if I could ask your help.’

 
She gave a warm smile. ‘But of course!’

  ‘A favour really. For a friend of mine. A friend of a friend. She’s a woman at the studios, and her friend is in a little trouble.’

  Magda stopped her with a raised hand. ‘Is it a Jew?’

  ‘I think so . . . he’s an artist.’

  Magda sighed dismissively. ‘Then I’m afraid, my dear, I can’t help. It’s always Jews.’

  ‘It’s just, he seems to have disappeared. She’s trying to find out where he might have gone.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do, Fräulein Vine,’ Magda said briskly. ‘Please don’t ask me again.’

  Her eyes had assumed the same impervious veil Clara had noticed before. The one that said don’t go any further. It was infuriating, but also essential that Clara say nothing. Any kind of protest could only attract attention. Mildly, she said, ‘I understand.’

  But Magda continued. ‘It’s not as if I don’t know. After all, my stepfather is Jewish.’

  Clara attempted to contain her astonishment. ‘Your stepfather?’

  ‘Yes, my mother’s name was Friedlander until my husband asked her to change it.’

  ‘You mean Frau Behrend?’ Clara thought of the timid woman she had met occasionally at the Goebbels’ home, who always seemed to appear when Joseph was absent.

  ‘She understands. It’s rooted in the rationale of the regime. The Third Reich is opposed to Jews and if that is what the Führer wants, then that is what we have to obey.’

  She spoke with the air of someone who has tussled with a seemingly illogical maths problem and come to accept the answer without remotely comprehending it.

  ‘The thing is, my dear, it’s hard to understand, but if we let them, the Jews and the Communists would take everything. It’s their way. Look what the Bolsheviks did to the Russian royal family. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the newspaper picture, when all those children of the royal family were murdered. Murdered in cold blood. All those little faces lined up. What kind of person could do that? Those poor children. Images like that never leave your mind.’

  Chapter Forty

  All over Berlin impromptu prisons had appeared in basements, sheds, bunkers, even cinemas. There Ernst Röhm’s storm troopers could provide Schutzhaft, “protective custody”, for trade unionists, Social Democrats, Communists and whoever else they deemed an enemy. This custody protected them from everything except beatings, torture, and occasionally death. For the families of those abducted it could take days to discover where they had gone, provided they did not end up at Scharnhorststrasse hospital. And even when they had located their relatives, it was generally impossible to find a lawyer to represent them. But these SA prisons, Leo knew, were only for ordinary enemies. More important people went straight to the new Gestapo headquarters and lately there was another destination too. A different kind of prison in an old munitions factory at Dachau, a little village close to Munich. A concentration camp, it was called, for political subversives, especially Communists. Hundreds, maybe thousands had already been taken there, arrested without charge. The worry was that Bruno Weiss was one of them.

  Having consulted his boss, that evening Leo caught a tram to Französische Strasse and entered a wine bar, where a good-looking dark suited man sat at the back smoking a cigar and perusing the Berliner Morgenpost. He had a brush of russet hair springing up from his brow, an immaculate handkerchief folded in his pocket and bright, intelligent eyes. He looked every inch the lawyer he was, so much so that anyone would assume the bulge in his jacket was a roll of court documents if they hadn’t known it was a Mauser. He waved Leo over and lit a cigarette for him.

  ‘A beer, my friend?’

  Hubert Pollack now spent all his time setting up an advisory office for Jewish emigrants who wanted to leave for Palestine. To Leo and his boss, his co-operation was invaluable. He had already established a network of contacts amongst the police and was skilled in paying the right bribes to the right people. As far as locating and releasing prisoners went, there were few people more equipped than he. One beer later, Leo had established that Bruno Weiss was, in fact, still in Berlin.

  ‘He’s been taken to the SA barracks in Tempelhof on suspicion of Communist activity. From our point of view, the sooner you collect him the better. I wouldn’t want him discussing our friend in Moabit.’

  ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t received a visit already.’

  The friend was a small printer whose shop, right next to a church, sold religious texts and songbooks. Outside of working hours however, once the staff had left, the printer would go upstairs and produce pamphlets for Communist resistors. His expertise in the matters of ink and paper was also highly valued.

  ‘Only a matter of time,’ grimaced Pollack. He drained his beer and made to leave. ‘Take this paper. I’ve finished with it. There’s an excellent report on the threat of famine in Russia.’

  It was a newspaper drop, one of the most trusted techniques. When Pollack had gone, Leo went to the lavatories at the back of the bar and found a release permit pinned to the inside page. He returned to the office, picked up his briefcase, and caught a tram to the south of the city.

  The pleasant, red-brick building in Pape Strasse had once served as a barracks for Prussian soldiers, but it was a gang of smartly dressed storm troopers who now milled round the hall, observing the visitor with bored irritation. The officer in charge inspected the paperwork meticulously while Leo consulted his watch to conceal his nervousness. Pollack’s work was known to be of the very best. Most of what he supplied was genuine, from his extensive network of contacts in the police, but what wasn’t was forged with masterly skill, complete with the correct ink and rubber stamps. And the visa itself, of course, was perfectly genuine, stamped with the insignia of His Majesty’s Government, and signed by Leo’s boss, Foley, that morning.

  The officer seemed to be taking an interminable time. Leo’s mouth was dry and he was forced to check his watch again, with a show of irritation, before the man pursed his lips, returned the documents and gestured for Leo to follow a guard down the steps to the cellars.

  It was dim below stairs, the ceiling punctuated with bare bulbs, the air freighted with urine and the unmistakable reek of fear. Despite himself, Leo was almost paralysed with horror as he peered down the long corridor, painted institutional green and lined with heavy steel doors with nine-inch barred inspection hatches. If this was what it felt like to visit, God knows how dreadful it would be to be frogmarched here with only the tender mercies of the SA to rely on. He forced himself to overcome his terror and go on.

  From behind one of the doors low moans could be heard and from another a reedy, educated voice issued an indignant shout. ‘I demand to see a laywer! I demand it!’ For a moment Leo stopped, almost overcome by the urge to turn round and hasten back to fresh air and the freedom of a Berlin evening. They passed an empty cell whose stained floor was the only witness to the horrors it had contained, and then the guard produced his keys, and opened a door onto a tiny space, just six feet wide, with no furniture except a wooden bench and a bed that let down from the wall. No window, but a single hanging bulb. Iron rings let into the brickwork. A stinking bucket stood in the corner and the wall was scratched with graffiti. On the bench a cadaverous man was hunched wearing a shabby suit but no tie. He sprung up as the door opened, his bony face white and sweating with fear, and looked from Leo to the guard in alarm.

  ‘Weiss, your visa has arrived,’ grunted the guard.

  ‘My visa?’

  Leo stepped forward, seized Bruno’s hand and pumped it. ‘My name is Mr Quinn. From the British Passport Control office. I have the visa you applied for to travel to England. Provided you sign your intention to leave the country, you will be free to go immediately.’

  ‘You’re . . .’ Bruno’s face was uncomprehending.

  Leo was impassive, officious. A little bored. ‘You made a visit to England, didn’t you?’

  ‘England?’ After the hours of interrogati
on he had endured, Bruno was befuddled, and primed to deny any suggestion that was put to him.

  Leo checked his watch. ‘Really, Herr Weiss, if this is taking up your time.’

  ‘No. No!’ The voice was high and frantic. ‘I remember now! England. I had an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. In, er, ’31, I think. That’s it, 1931.’

  Leo sighed and the guard shuffled his huge, polished boots.

  ‘And while you were there you applied to British Passport Control for a visa to return?’ He reached into his briefcase, every inch the bureaucrat whose overtime was going unappreciated. ‘Well, I’m happy to tell you that that visa has now been approved.’ He proffered the paper, with its indigo stamp and Foley’s meticulous signature.

  ‘Ah, yes. Thank you.’ Bruno’s mouth was trembling as he tried to smile, so it emerged as a contorted grimace of fear.

  ‘So, if you’d like to accompany me, perhaps we can discuss the formalities.’

  The SA officer motioned both of them out of the door and up the stairs.

  ‘You have to sign for him.’

  At the reception, another officer scrawled something in the record book, Leo added his signature, then Bruno was handed a bag containing his watch and glasses, and the two men walked out the door.

  It wasn’t until they had reached the street that Bruno seemed to stumble and clutched Leo’s arm. He was trembling so violently that Leo decided it might be wise to steer him towards a bar.

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘Eaten?’ He looked at Leo as though he was mad.

  ‘Let me buy you something. You can tell me what happened, Herr Weiss.’

  They went into a small tavern beneath the S-Bahn and sat at a table as the trains thundered and clattered above them. Leo bought two plates of meatballs with mustard, pickled eggs and gherkins, salami, bread, cheese and two beers on the side. For a few minutes he refrained from questions, while the man fell ravenously on his meal. He had been handsome, from what Leo recalled, but now his eyes were pits sunk into the hollows of their sockets, gaunt shadows hollowed his cheeks, and the entire side of his face was purpled with bruising. His hair was tangled and powdered with dust. He looked, Leo couldn’t help thinking, exactly like one of the figures in his own work.