The Winter Garden (2014)

by Thynne, Jane

  ‘I’m worried, Fräulein Wolff. Will it not be difficult?’

  ‘Difficult? Why?’

  ‘Who is going to cut up the Führer? No one will want to do that, so no one will be able to eat him. It’s a waste, and the Führer hates waste.’

  The teacher’s face creased in contempt. ‘Let’s not get into that, Ilse. I need your assistance. This is Fräulein Mary Harker from the New York Evening Post. She’s an American journalist, and she would like to write a piece about an average day at the Reich Bride School. You will accompany her to the music room.’

  At this suggestion Ilse looked thunderstruck. She stared from Mary to the teacher in dismay.

  ‘Well, go with her, girl! Be as helpful as you can.’

  Ilse wiped her hands on her apron and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Despite the uniformity of the dreary serge uniform, she somehow made it look untidy, bulging out in places, her blouse spilling out between the laces of her dirndl. She led the way to the music room and Mary closed the door behind them.

  ‘Forgive me, Fräulein, I’m sure I can’t help you. I don’t know very much.’

  ‘It’s fine, Ilse,’ said Mary, pulling out her notebook. ‘I’ll ask the questions. All you need do is answer them.’ She gave her best, most encouraging smile. The one she reserved for policemen and small children. ‘Tell me about the Bride School.’

  ‘Well,’ Ilse chewed a lip and cast her eyes around the music room, as though she might draw inspiration from the posters proclaiming ‘Cooking Is the Woman’s Weapon’ and ‘Order saves you Time and Effort’ which had been tacked to the wall.

  ‘What do you learn?’

  ‘All sorts of things.’ She rattled off a list. ‘How often to change linen, how many times to wax and polish a floor, how to can fruit, how to obey your husband, what to cook on special days.’

  ‘And why did you choose to come here?’

  ‘Oh but you have to. If you don’t attend, then your man will be dismissed from the SS. When you get your certificate you must submit it to the wedding office of the Race and Settlement central office, so that the marriage gets official SS approval.’

  ‘Approval?’

  Ilse looked at her as if she was mad.

  ‘Everyone in Germany needs approval to get married. Everyone needs an Ariernachweis, that’s a certificate of Aryan purity. But it’s stricter for people marrying in the SS. You have to report to the Race Bureau to have your racial characteristics assessed.’

  ‘And how do they do that?’

  ‘It’s very simple really. You get weighed and they measure your nose and your upper lip. You won’t get permission to marry if you don’t pass that. You also need to provide birth and marriage certificates for your ancestors going back to 1750 – that’s such an effort. Sometimes you have to visit all the churches they married in, to find the proof. But the SS needs to be absolutely certain you are racially pure, with no Jewish or mixed blood.’

  Their conversation was interrupted by the clanging of a bell and the clatter of shoes on the stairs.

  ‘It’s lunchtime, Fräulein. Would you like to join us? It’s not Sunday but the school has declared today we will have Eintopf.’

  Mary had heard about this. Every Sunday, in an effort of national belt-tightening, everyone, from party leaders downwards, ate only one dish at dinner and gave the savings to the Winter Relief fund. Generally the Eintopf was a stew with floating islands of grease, into which the least glamorous parts of an animal had gone. Mary decided to pass on it.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Ilse. ‘I’m not hungry either. We could take a walk in the garden if you’d like.’ She cast a glance at Mary’s bag, from which a packet of cigarettes protruded. ‘You can smoke outside, if you want.’

  They strolled into the garden and down the path. It was a crisp autumnal day and as they rounded the path they came across a workman hammering the timbers of a building, midway through construction. He straightened up politely as the women passed, then continued with his task. It was a mediaeval-style cottage, complete with flowering window boxes, beams and timbered gables. Only the roof remained to be finished. It looked like a playhouse for grown-ups.

  ‘That could be straight out of Snow White. It looks like it ought to have the seven dwarves inside it.’

  ‘It’s going to be a model home,’ explained Ilse. ‘For the brides to practise married life.’

  ‘Not so much of a fairy tale then.’

  ‘Oh, it will have everything you need,’ continued Ilse earnestly. ‘A kitchen, an ironing board, a sewing room. They’re going to bring in children from a local kindergarten for childcare practice. I love looking at it. It’s going to be like a perfect little home . . .’ She stopped suddenly, and Mary noticed that tears had sprung into her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Fräulein Harker. It’s a difficult time for me.’ She let out a sob. ‘A friend of mine has just died.’

  ‘Died?’

  ‘Here in the garden. I don’t know what happened to her.’ Ilse shuddered, imagining Anna face down on the grass, a ruby line of blood leaking from her mouth and smearing the strands of her bleached hair. Then she remembered that Frieda Müller had said Anna had been shot directly in the heart. Killed the way an expert huntsman would kill a deer, Frieda had explained to a little group of brides in a hushed voice. That’s what one of the policemen had told her. The thought of Anna hunted down like an animal made fresh tears come.

  ‘You mean Anna Hansen?’ probed Mary.

  ‘How did you hear? It hasn’t even been in the newspapers.’

  ‘I heard they arrested the gardener.’

  ‘Hartmann. Yes, they took him away, so I suppose it must have been him. But I would never have guessed it. He’s just a simple lad really. Soft in the head. And he has a lazy eye. He was always staring at us, but I thought looking can’t hurt, can it? I suppose I was wrong.’

  ‘To be honest, Ilse, I knew about the case already. That’s partly why I’m here. I was planning to ask Fräulein Wolff about it.’

  Ilse looked horror-struck. She stopped in her tracks.

  ‘You can’t do that! They won’t talk to you about that!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We’re not allowed to talk about it. We were all told to keep quiet and not ask any questions. They said it was a tragic accident and Hartmann had been taken away, so there was nothing more to say. Oh dear,’ she wailed, realizing her indiscretion. ‘Fräulein Wolff will kill me if she thinks I’ve been talking to you about Anna.’

  The thought of punishment to come brought on a fresh burst of tears, prompting Mary to put a consoling arm round Ilse’s shoulder and say coaxingly, ‘I would never tell anyone you had spoken about it. You have my absolute word on that. But it seems unfair that poor Anna’s death should be hushed up, doesn’t it? That she should be swept under the carpet as though she didn’t matter?’

  It was a shrewd image. The idea of Anna being tidied away in the same frenzy of cleanliness that ruled everyone’s lives at the Bride School had its intended effect on Ilse. She bit her bottom lip and swiped a sleeve across her face.

  ‘No. You’re right.’

  They carried on walking down the gravel path until they reached a group of pine trees standing at the end of the grounds, overlooking the lake. Ilse stopped and looked beseechingly at Mary, as though she held the answer to the questions which had been troubling her.

  ‘To tell the truth, Fräulein Harker, I don’t really believe it was anything to do with Hartmann. Anna would never have had a relationship with him. She wouldn’t give him the time of day. She loved her fiancé, Johann. She used to tell me how she met him, when she was dancing at the Wintergarten, wearing a sequinned corset and a feather headset.’

  ‘She was a dancer?’

  ‘Yes, and Johann came to see her. He walked up to her in a bar afterwards to tell her how much he admired her performance, and it was love at first sight. She was always writing to him. And he wrote back. She kept his letters in a special place
.’

  ‘A special place?’

  Ilse froze like a trapped deer, as though Mary had laid a cunning snare for her, into which she had innocently wandered. She was the kind of interviewee who made you feel like the Gestapo, Mary thought.

  ‘Oh dear. That’s something else I shouldn’t have told you. There’s no privacy here, you see. They say privacy is bad for brides and leads to indolence. But Anna found somewhere.’ She shot a defiant, damp-eyed look at Mary. ‘A sort of hiding place, behind the wardrobe in the dormitory. If you push the wardrobe out, there’s a vent in the wall where a fireplace was. It’s bricked up, but there’s a space at the top, where the bricks don’t fit.’

  ‘How do you know? Have you looked in there?’

  ‘No! Well, yes. You see, I had noticed that Anna would go to the dormitory in the evening sometimes, when we were supposed to be singing, and one day I followed her there and saw her sitting on the bed, with the wardrobe pulled away from the wall and this little leather case on her knees. Well, it was not a case so much as a little portable desk, a lap desk I think you call it, with a handle at the top, and doors that open out and little places to keep your pen. For writing letters when you travel, you know?’

  ‘Sure. My grandmother had one of those.’

  ‘Anyhow, when Anna saw me she got terribly cross and said it was bad enough having no privacy, without having nosy brides following her every second of the day. She was so angry I thought she was going to slap me.’

  ‘Did you read the letters?’

  Ilse’s cheeks blazed with colour. ‘Of course not! What must you think of me? I would never have done that. But after she died I checked to see if the case was still there. I thought she probably kept her jewellery in it too, and you aren’t allowed jewellery here. I knew I should have said something about it but, you see, I felt it was disloyal to her. When I asked Fräulein Wolff what they did with Anna’s things, she said they had sent them on to Johann. Her clothes belong to the Bride School, so there wasn’t much. Just a hairbrush and shoes and so on. I should have mentioned the case then, I suppose, but Fräulein Wolff would have been so angry. I do keep thinking about it. Someone’s going to find it, sooner or later, and read all of Anna’s private thoughts. I wish I could give it to Johann, or her family, but I haven’t the first idea where they are. All I know is that she had a sister who lives in Munich called Katia.’

  ‘Perhaps I could help.’

  ‘How could you?’

  Mary improvised fast. ‘The woman who shares my apartment is a family friend. It was she who told me about Anna. That’s how I heard about it.’

  ‘And do you think she could return the letters to Anna’s family?’

  ‘I’m sure she could.’

  Ilse flushed with joy. ‘Then you must take the case. At least that way it’ll go to someone who cares. They’ve already reallocated her clothes to another bride. There’s a new girl in her bed and Anna’s only been dead a couple of days.’

  ‘Could you fetch it for me?’

  Ilse cast a panicky glance back at the house, as if they were being watched.

  ‘I’m late for Volksgemeinschaft anyway.’

  ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘Oh, um, community issues, you know. We’re doing race and the national economy today. But the teacher, Frau Schneider, is very easy-going.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’ll say I need a clean apron from the dormitory. This one is covered with flour. And if anyone sees me with the case, I can always say it’s yours. Wait for me in the hall.’

  She was back in minutes, carrying a small case of burgundy leather by a brass handle. It was good-quality leather, supple and soft, with a brass fastening. The last worldly goods of Anna Hansen. Mary was appalled at how anxious the Bride School had been to rid themselves of all traces of their former pupil. As Ilse made to hurry off, Mary pressed a card on her.

  ‘Take this. It has my old address on it but they know where to reach me. You must contact me if anything else occurs to you.’

  Ilse scrutinized the card solemnly. The address was a street called Winterfeldstrasse that she had never heard of. She tucked it in her belt.

  ‘Thank you, Fräulein, I will.’

  The leather case was far heavier and more expensive-looking than she had expected. Mary wondered whether to open it herself, or wait till she saw Clara. As she was pondering this, Fräulein Wolff bore down on her with an expression of suspicion and dismay. Now that she had what she needed, Mary decided to broach the subject.

  ‘I meant to ask you, Fräulein Wolff. I was so sorry to hear about the dreadful incident with one of your brides the other day.’

  Fräulein Wolff flinched, as though she had been physically assaulted.

  ‘How did you hear about that?’

  ‘A family friend told me.’

  ‘It was a tragic accident, Fräulein. Her family have asked for absolute privacy on this affair. And before you ask, no one will be speaking about it, do you understand? No one at all.’

  Chapter Ten

  The terminal building of Tempelhof airbase in the south of the city was a showpiece for the new Germany. Built by Ernst Sagebiel, the same man responsible for the monumental Air Ministry, its sprawling hangars fanned out in a gigantic arc, intended to resemble the spread wings of an eagle in flight. It was the largest freestanding building in the world. Beneath it, in five levels of underground tunnels, fighter bombers were being assembled and above, the mile-long roof was arranged in tiers with room for eighty thousand spectators to observe aerobatic displays. The whole place felt less like an air terminal and more like a cathedral devoted to the twin gods of aviation and the Third Reich.

  Clara had never been anywhere so big. Standing in the cavernous Hall of Glory, still not completed, she was completely disorientated. The place was so vast, the distances between each point of focus so great, that she felt disembodied, all her senses adrift. It was like being trapped inside a Cubist painting with perspective going in all directions and an incipient dizziness from looking too hard.

  Arno Strauss was striding towards her. The withered twist of his face startled her afresh, and it was hard to tell if his tense expression was mere disfigurement or if he was regretting his offer of a flight. He had goggles pushed back on his head and a cigarette clamped between his fingers.

  ‘Good morning, Fräulein Vine.’ He looked askance at the black polo-necked jumper and trousers she was wearing. ‘You’re going to freeze like that. Take this.’

  He shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it around her shoulders. It was sleek brown leather with epaulettes and a simple winged eagle on the breast pocket. The weight of it was comforting, as was the warmth of his body still contained in its rabbit fur lining.

  ‘Still want to come? Not nervous, I hope?’

  ‘Only a little.’

  She had been sick with nerves from the moment she woke up. Indeed she had barely slept. Silly really, she told herself as she brushed her teeth and made a black coffee. People fly in aeroplanes all the time. And this man was an expert. One of the top pilots in the entire Luftwaffe, Udet had said. Why should the prospect of flying be enough to terrify her? Nonetheless, she had been unable to eat any breakfast. That was probably a wise precaution.

  ‘Just so you know,’ he remarked shortly as they headed out of the hall, ‘I’m bending the rules a little here.’

  ‘Not too much, I hope.’

  ‘Let’s just say, for official purposes you don’t exist.’

  They walked out onto the tarmac, a sharp wind blasting against their faces, forcing them to raise their voices to a shout. The plane was standing ready for them, a sleek, angular, grey-blue machine, nose tilted upwards like some great rook poised to lurch forward and creak heavily into the air. As they ducked under the wing, Strauss reached up and his forefinger brushed a swastika painted on the underside.

  ‘I always touch one for luck.’

  ‘Do you need luck?’

 
‘We all need luck. Though I’ve probably had more than my share already. We may have to rely on yours.’

  The cockpit was barely big enough for one person but there were two seats, one behind the other, and Strauss propelled her into the rear, threading the buckles of a parachute harness over her shoulders and handing her a sheepskin-lined cap and goggles. His face was rigid with concentration as he fitted first her parachute, then his own. He smelled of leather, grease and petrol fumes. When he bent close to fasten her buckles she caught a whiff of alcohol, which added to her jittery nerves.

  ‘So have you flown this plane often?’

  ‘First time, in fact. This one’s a prototype. A Henschel Hs 126. It hasn’t entered service yet. They’ve made ten for us to try out. The idea is it’s able to go fairly slow.’

  ‘Is that a good thing?’

  He gave a gruff laugh.

  ‘Good for our purposes. Though it won’t seem slow to you, I promise.’

  He settled in front of a curved dashboard, slammed down the glass hatch over their heads and began to run his eyes over the instrument panel. Through her goggles, Clara looked uncomprehendingly at the blur of levers and dials. Strauss’s perfect, undamaged side was towards her and she was so close to him, she was practically breathing into his neck, her knees folded up into her chest.

  ‘Who usually sits back here?’

  ‘It’s the camera bay.’

  He flicked a switch, gunned up the engines and the plane began to whine, a deafening high-pitched squeal that sent a shudder through the entire fuselage. Below them Clara saw a man run out to remove the chocks beneath the wheels and the plane crept forwards, taxiing slowly and bumpily down the runway which stretched seemingly endlessly ahead of them, lit by a narrow avenue of lights. Then it gathered speed and she felt her intestines sink within her as the plane rose with a loud thump into the air.

  As the force of acceleration pressed her body back into the bucket seat, Clara thought how uncomfortable it must be for a grown man to cram himself into this tiny steel space. The dashboard had come alive now, a bank of wavering needles and glowing lights, and she saw the set of Strauss’s jaw, the flinty eyes narrowed as he pulled the stick towards him and they hurtled upwards into the dense air.