The Winter Garden (2014)

by Thynne, Jane

  Rudi, who had come up a second time, ostensibly to pass her a letter, surveyed the scene of the crime avidly. No one had come past his cubicle on Saturday, he repeated. He would have seen them. Perhaps they came in the window on the stairwell. Clara examined it. Outside was a tiny ledge with a railing which could easily be accessed by a determined burglar but the fitting was clogged with verdigris which showed no sign of having been disturbed. They must have come in from the ground floor. Had they dressed up as maintenance men and pretended to mend the lift while planning how to gain entry later? Had they arrived on Saturday might when Rudi was always out or waited until Sunday morning when he was still in a drunken stupor?

  ‘What did they take?’ Rudi asked.

  ‘Nothing important,’ Clara replied coolly. She knew better than to give Rudi any additional information.

  ‘Perhaps you had nothing they wanted,’ he shrugged, his little eyes darting pruriently around the apartment for evidence of female immorality. His eyes lit on a bra which had been left dangling over the back of a chair. He left reluctantly, saying the handyman was coming to fix the door that afternoon. As soon as he had gone, Clara had ripped open the letter he had brought to find a short note from Ralph, inviting her for a discussion on her ‘latest role’.

  The telephone on her table cut through her thoughts and she picked it up.

  ‘Devilishly good fun these things, aren’t they? I think all bars should have them. Then old married couples would never need to sit next to each other in silence. They could just pick up the receiver and say “Mine’s a gin and tonic”.’

  Ralph’s jocular tones were unmistakeable. He could be any Englishman, out for a night on the town, determined to enjoy every minute of it. The sound of his voice cheered her instantly.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Look to your right.’

  He was sitting several tables away, his arm flung over the back of the chair, a bottle of champagne and two glasses in front of him. He was wearing evening dress, his thick hair trained back with brilliantine and tie loosened. He was a tourist, determined to have the time of his life in Berlin, and hang the politics.

  ‘Care to join me? To tell the truth, I’ve an aversion to speaking on the telephone.’

  She moved over to his table and he kissed her on the cheek, a swift, masculine brush of warm skin and cologne, then poured the champagne. He took a sip and gave a little shudder.

  ‘Filthy stuff they serve here.’ She noticed his eyes roving across the room as he talked, lingering on an exceptionally lovely woman in a low-cut dress propping up the bar. ‘How was Munich? Pretty place, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very. They have some fascinating art down there. Have you been busy yourself?’

  ‘Non-stop. The Luftwaffe was holding some manoeuvres near Frankfurt to show off their new planes. They invited a handful of foreign air attachés and I went along too. They do have some impressive machines. Particularly the Messerschmitt fighters and the Dornier bombers. There must have been thirteen hundred aircraft there at least. They’re very proud of them.’

  ‘And they want everyone to know it?’

  ‘The Luftwaffe has decided it’s time to flex its wings in public. They were hoping to get the Duke of Windsor along too, but the poor wretch was down a mine in Düsseldorf or somewhere.’

  ‘Seems like everyone feels sorry for the Duke.’

  ‘Rightly so,’ Ralph smoothed his moustache insouciantly. ‘It’s incredible how much fuss the British press are still making about his private life. To think we’re on the brink of an international crisis that could threaten thousands of lives and all the British public seem to care about is the state of their ex-king’s morals.’

  ‘Do morals not matter then?’

  He caught her eye and frowned.

  ‘I’m talking about sexual morality. What two people do in bed with each other is a matter for themselves only, I always think. Don’t you?’

  For some reason, his remark stirred something in her and she shifted in her seat. At that moment her body felt ripe, ready and perfectly alive, as though it was responding to him on a purely animal level. She amazed herself. How could she possibly feel this way, given Ralph Sommers’ infuriating manner, not to mention the trauma of the break-in? The burglary had left her feeling more vulnerable than ever before. She couldn’t walk down the street without a fear of being followed. Perhaps it was like what people said about pilots or soldiers, that they never felt so alive, as when they were under threat. She only hoped he didn’t notice her blush.

  ‘Mind you,’ he continued, ‘the British newspapers are only making up for lost time. They didn’t mention Wallis for years, when the whole of Europe knew. Now they’re taking the same approach to rearmament. There’s a wall of silence. The press derides Churchill when he talks about the dangers of German militarism because they don’t dare tell the truth. It’s as though they think the public can’t take it. Well they’ll have to, soon enough.’

  At that moment there was a shout from across the room and Ralph broke into a warm grin. He gave a wave to a table of men a few feet away who were laughing in his direction and gesticulating that he should join them. Instantly he was transformed again into the genial man about town, a socialite enjoying the high life in Berlin with a pretty actress beside him in crimson lipstick and a tight satin dress. Anyone looking at them would think they were an attractive couple, out for an evening on the town. Turning back to Clara he leaned towards her, patted her hand and said, ‘This is no good. We can’t talk here.’

  ‘Why did you ask me here then? It has to be the least private place in Berlin.’

  ‘Precisely for that reason. You mentioned you might be watched and I wanted to see if you were.’

  ‘And was I?’

  ‘Only by me.’

  Leaving the Resi, he flagged down a taxi and they drove to Duisberger Strasse. The apartment was cold and dark. He snapped on the lamp and helped her off with her coat.

  ‘Sorry. You were probably expecting a lovely dinner. Instead of which you get an old bachelor’s flat with nothing in the kitchen but half a bottle of bourbon.’ He poured a generous slug into a glass, placed it on the coffee table, then rooted around in the cupboard and came up with some biscuits which he laid before her, like a trophy.

  ‘So. Any progress with our Oberst Strauss?’

  She delivered her triumph coolly. ‘Frau Goering has invited me to a reception for the Duke and Duchess at their hunting lodge. Strauss will be there too.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m impressed. All the Luftwaffe chaps in Frankfurt were talking about Goering’s little party. It turns out to have some strategic significance. Apparently Hitler is to put some important proposal to the Duke later when he travels down to Berchtesgaden. Goering’s reception is a buttering-up exercise.’

  She sat down and crossed her legs.

  ‘I do hope you’re going to tell me what this is all about.’

  ‘All in good time. You mentioned Strauss took you in a plane the other day, but you said you were hopeless with names. I assume that was the opposite of the truth.’

  ‘It was a Henschel Hs 126. A two-seater. It’s the third prototype and one of ten being tested.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Excellent. Just as I thought.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘It’s my understanding that Strauss reports to a new division of the Luftwaffe called the Squadron for Special Purposes. It’s allied to the Intelligence service. A special operations unit run by a man called Theodor Rowehl. He’s been recruiting pilots and developing aircraft with the aim of developing aerial reconnaissance.’

  Ralph prised a Senior Service out of its packet and sent it across the coffee table.

  ‘You do understand what I mean by aerial reconnaissance?’

  ‘You could try explaining,’ she said, helping herself to a cigarette.

  ‘The Germans first tried it in the war. They fitted miniature cameras to the breasts of pigeons and fle
w them over the battlefield.’

  ‘Pigeons!’ Clara couldn’t help laughing, but he was serious.

  ‘It’s true. It was ingenious but pretty rudimentary. Things have got a lot more sophisticated since then. You see, Clara, the blitzkrieg strategy which our friend Udet pioneered requires detailed knowledge of the terrain. If you’re going to swoop down with a payload of bombs, you need to know beforehand exactly what you’re going to attack. You need detailed aerial photographs.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘So they need to experiment with aerial photography. But until now German military intelligence has had a problem. They can’t make flights with standard Luftwaffe aircraft because this would be a violation of other countries’ airspace, not to mention a pretty clear warning sign of their intentions, so they’ve been using cameras hidden in passenger and commercial aircraft. Already they’ve taken pictures of Poland, Belgium, France and Russia, mapping out factories, power stations, railways, reservoirs and ports.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’ he continued briskly. ‘The plan is to select targets in case of war.’

  He craned a quizzical eye at her to check that she was following.

  ‘So this is serious?’

  ‘It’s deadly serious. And if it comes to war, General von Fritsch, the Army commander, says the side with the best photographic reconnaissance will win. It’s a race, and at the moment the Germans are streets ahead. Our Air Service recognizes how desperately important it is that we develop our own photographic reconnaissance. We need to keep track of the German military preparations, where troops are being deployed, ships prepared, where aircraft are being assembled. We need the ability to look right into factories and see what machines they are building. To be able to tell whether a building on the ground is a military installation or simply a factory. Do you follow me?’

  She nodded. The bourbon and cigarettes were making her head swim slightly. She had eaten almost nothing all day.

  ‘You said the Germans had a problem?’

  ‘That’s right. The Luftwaffe want to develop their own aircraft for aerial reconnaissance, but they’re limited by two things – the performance and range of the aircraft and the scope of the camera. So they’re busy on two counts. They’re intent on developing the right aircraft for the job, and they’re working on camera lenses that can see positions with pinpoint accuracy. That’s the hardest thing, because above eight thousand feet most camera lenses become fogged with condensation. At lower altitude the plane is all too visible.’

  ‘And what exactly does Arno Strauss have to do with all this?’

  ‘Strauss is in charge of developing and testing the cameras on the new aircraft. Recently I’ve had word that he’s masterminding something far more exciting. An advanced aerial reconnaissance camera with a lens more powerful than anything we’ve seen before, fitted into a camera the size of a lady’s handbag. German cameras are the best in the world. You’ve heard of Zeiss? Along with Leica they make the most sophisticated lenses. Anyhow, it’s taken years for the Zeiss photographic division to develop this. It also uses infrared film, so they can take pictures at night. It’s a whole new way of seeing, apparently, and it’s going to be of massive assistance to them.’

  He leaned closer to her, cradling his whisky in his hands.

  ‘What we need, what I would really like, is to find out more about that camera.’

  ‘You seem to have plenty of access. You were just telling me how the Luftwaffe show you all their new fighter planes.’

  ‘This is top secret, Clara. For Nazi eyes only.’

  ‘Then I don’t see how I could help.’

  ‘Let me explain. This camera sits in a bay behind the back seat of the aircraft, right next to where the machine gun is placed in a bomber. My man says that Strauss is due to trial the camera within the next two weeks, probably in a Henschel 126, like the one he took for your joyride. What I would really like is to get some more details of this camera. To understand what it’s capable of. Depth of resolution, focal length and so on. It could make all the difference.’

  ‘To a war?’

  ‘I’d go that far, yes. If we can rival the Nazis’ aerial reconnaissance it will be like . . . oh, seeing properly. Having a whole new perspective. What does that chap in the Bible say? Not through a glass darkly . . .’

  ‘Now I see as through a glass darkly, then we shall see face-to-face.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘I still don’t see how I could help.’

  He frowned and tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair.

  ‘Nor do I just yet. It’s a question of waiting for an opportunity to arise. But you do understand, don’t you, that Arno Strauss is the lynchpin? The man at the centre of it all. Which is why, at this party of Goering’s . . .’ he looked at her eagerly, ‘it’s essential that you are friendly, or more particularly that you—’

  ‘I understand.’ She cut him off tersely. ‘I know what to do. I’ll cultivate Strauss.’ She ground the cigarette stub, ringed with her lipstick, in the ashtray, and then said, ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s been a long day.’

  His eyes roved over her, taking in the shadows beneath the eyes, the pallor of her skin. She knew he was trying to read her. He would certainly have registered the ceases in her dress caused when it had been torn carelessly from its hanger during the break-in. Perhaps he was wondering why a woman like Clara would come out looking less than her best. He must have noted her abstraction and realized there was something on her mind. Clara desperately wanted to tell him about the burglary, even about the row with Erich, but she stayed silent. She needed to find out the truth for herself first.

  ‘Why are you here, Clara? Why are you doing this?’

  ‘I might ask the same of you.’

  ‘You could give it all up tomorrow. Go back to Britain. Resume your stage career. Become the toast of the Eastbourne Pavilion again.’

  ‘Perhaps I prefer the pictures.’

  He seemed to ignore her answer. The intensity of his gaze seemed set on penetrating her defences.

  ‘You must know that there is a whole apparatus of horror out there that would have no compunction in locking you up or sending you to a camp so you would never see the light of day again. You haven’t seen those camps – I have. Do you know the penalty for espionage?’

  ‘You can’t seriously be asking me that.’

  Every day the newspapers carried reports of people arrested for treason against the Fatherland, complete with the verdicts and the sentences spelt out in aggressive detail. When she came across them Clara read them with secret horror, but mostly she tried to avoid them. She turned a blind eye.

  ‘If something happened, there’s not much anyone could do to protect you. Despite all your family contacts. In fact the Gestapo take a dim view of spying by those closest to the élite.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘So why do you stay?’

  She resented the tone he had taken. This was not some job they were talking about. He was not some chap in a pinstriped suit grilling her about an opening in the Civil Service.

  ‘I can be useful.’

  ‘But you have no emotional ties? No boyfriend? No lover?’

  ‘There is someone actually. Someone I care for very much. He’s called Erich.’

  Like a chess player watching her opponent, she noted the involuntary flicker of his eyes.

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  She paused a while, deliberately, then added, ‘He’s a boy. A godson, sort of. He’s the son of a friend who died. I take care of him. At least, he lives with his grandmother in Neukölln, but I see him often and help a little with money. He has no father either and I don’t ever want him to think he’s alone in the world. Before she died my friend Helga asked me to look after him. Those were her last words.’

  Ralph leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Poor chap, losing his parents. I think I know how he must feel. My parents were pretty muc
h missing in action. I was packed off to boarding school at seven.’

  ‘Did you not like it?’

  ‘It was a place down in Sussex, Hardingly Hall, it’s called, and perfectly typical of its kind. Not brutal, and not kind either, though I was terrified when I first saw it. All those gothic crenellations and turrets put the fear of God into a little kid. A list of alumni as long as your arm in Government and the Church, all of whom spent their formative years singing I Vow To Thee My Country and building an invisible armour around themselves so no one would ever know if they were lonely or unhappy. Emotional discipline is the highest virtue of a place like Hardingly. It’s a perfect machine for manufacturing men to run the Empire. It takes them in at seven, homesick and crying for mother, runs them through a production line which toughens them like anodized steel and your end product is a chap adaptable to any situation, anywhere in the world. Good at a cocktail party, excellent behind a desk, useful at cricket. Great at deciphering Latin on tombstones. Utterly self-sufficient, able to be alone, without the need of anyone else. The only trouble is, some find it impossible to be any other way.’

  ‘Was that where you met your friend? Tom Roberts?’

  ‘Tom was the best thing about Hardingly. Funny thing was, I didn’t like him at first. His family was Welsh and they were pretty humble. In fact he was on a scholarship and the other boys never let him forget it.’

  ‘How did you come to be friends?’

  He reflected a moment. ‘I suppose the thing that drew us together was that both of our fathers were vicars. It meant I understood the make-up of his mind. After a while, when both his parents died, he would come and stay with us in the holidays. Tom was the most argumentative person I ever knew. The only time we weren’t arguing about politics, we were rowing about cricket, but he was also the closest thing I had to a brother.’

  This moment of reminiscence had changed the atmosphere between them. He pulled off his jacket, and removed his bow tie, loosening his shirt collar.