The Pursuit of Pearls

by Jane Thynne

  Leni Riefenstahl.

  Leni Riefenstahl was, without doubt, the most famous female director alive. Her film about the 1934 Nazi party rally, The Triumph of the Will, had seduced not just Germany but many around the world. Her documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games had just won Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. If Germania was anything like Leni Riefenstahl’s previous epics, it would make all Clara’s previous films look like home movies.

  “I’m honored, Herr Doktor. I really am. But…” For a moment Clara’s habitual composure had deserted her. “I don’t understand why I should have been given the privilege of presenting something quite so…high-profile.”

  “That makes two of us,” said Goebbels gracelessly. He rubbed a hand over a cheek silvered with stubble. His complexion was dull with fatigue.

  “It’s the obvious question, and the first thing I asked, too, but Fräulein Riefenstahl has not deigned to honor me with an explanation. She just said the Führer had given her a free hand and you were what she wanted. She’s irrational like that.”

  He examined his beautifully manicured fingernails and regarded Clara with disdain.

  “You seem very cool, considering the honor that’s being handed to you. You’re invited to star in a movie made by the world’s most famous female film director about the most powerful country on earth. I can’t imagine you’ve received many more significant propositions recently. Or perhaps you’re too busy? Possibly you have too much on your plate?”

  “Of course not. I’m very grateful.”

  If he was mollified, he didn’t show it.

  “Good. Well, there’s a tight deadline, so you’ll need to start right away. I’ll have Fräulein Riefenstahl get in touch. Where are you living now? Winterfeldtstrasse, wasn’t it?”

  “Not anymore. I’m very near here actually. At the Artists’ Colony in Griebnitzsee.”

  “Griebnitzsee?”

  She had surprised him. No doubt he assumed he knew everything about her movements, so his surprise provided a crucial piece of information.

  Whoever had ordered surveillance on her apartment, it wasn’t Joseph Goebbels.

  “Strange choice. I’ve never seen you as the country type.”

  He was more accurate than he knew. Already Clara wished she was back in Winterfeldtstrasse, watchers or not. She’d never realized how much she loved the comforting racket of the city around her, the clank of the trams and trains on Nollendorfplatz a few blocks away, which started early in the morning and didn’t end until late at night, the rattle of shopkeepers rolling up their blinds, the shouts of the newspaper men, and the crash of bottles from the local bars. Some things you never knew you loved until you missed them.

  There was a knock on the door, and a secretary’s head craned around. “Your sitting, Herr Reichsminister.”

  “Already? Show him in then!”

  Goebbels’s face brightened, and he straightened his tie. “Another official portrait, I’m afraid. I’m not a vain man. I don’t like the idea of ministers flaunting themselves, but the ministry will insist. It has to do with official prestige.”

  A shock-headed figure with an easel had edged into the room and was hovering uncomfortably by the door.

  “Herr Messel! Come in! You have precisely nineteen minutes of my time.”

  Goebbels moved to the window so that the light sliced onto his cadaverous cheekbones, fixed his gaze on the sunbathing girls outside, and assumed a philosophical air.

  “At least Herr Messel is a decent German artist. My fellow ministers have not been so scrupulous. Von Ribbentrop actually asked André Derain to come from France, and the chap turned him down. Extraordinary, don’t you think?”

  Clara was saved from replying by a clatter and a soft exclamation of dismay. Beneath nervously fumbling fingers, Herr Messel’s easel had collapsed.

  “For God’s sake, man!”

  Goebbels gave Clara a brusque wave, and she realized that if she didn’t act now, she might not have another chance.

  “As it happens, Herr Doktor, I have a request. It’s another kind of cultural expansion really. Vogue magazine in France have asked to photograph me for their September issue. In Paris.”

  She might as well have proposed flying to the moon.

  “Vogue? You? Why?”

  “They first suggested it when I was there last year,” she lied.

  “Why not Brigitte Horney or Marika Rökk?” Goebbels protested, cruelly citing two better-known actresses. “Or Zarah Leander?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a feature called ‘Cinema and Fashion.’ Apparently the article’s a tribute to German cinema. Under the aegis of the Reich Chamber of Film,” she added politely.

  The idea prompted an explosion of vicious laughter from Goebbels, long, hacking guffaws culminating in a spluttering cough, like a chain saw refusing to start. He bent his heaving shoulders over to recover.

  “I shouldn’t laugh. I can see how desperate they are to curry favor. But it’ll take more than that.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Nothing. Just thinking ahead.”

  “I was hoping you would give your permission for a few days’ travel.”

  He was certain to refuse. Why, after all, should he grant permission for such an insignificant jaunt? Nazi Germany had never been interested in accommodating the French, precisely the opposite. Many more powerful artists had had requests for foreign travel turned down. Since Marlene Dietrich’s defection to Hollywood, Goebbels lived in eternal suspicion that his stars were about to jump ship and thumb their noses at the Nazis from the safety of America or Britain.

  Clara tried valiantly to remain unruffled beneath his skeptical gaze until Goebbels spread his hands in mock surrender and said, “Go, if you want to. But I can’t spare you for more than forty-eight hours. I’m all for the cultural conquest of Europe, but this film is far too pressing to be held up for some trifling magazine piece. Particularly if it’s French.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  If there was one occupation that offered true job security in the Third Reich, it was manufacturing uniforms. From the field gray of the Wehrmacht to SS black, from the attractive slate blue of the Luftwaffe right down to the dark brown overalls of the Reich Labor Service, uniforms were the only product that was never in short supply. And amid the plethora of uniforms lay numerous fine degrees of difference. A universe of trimming, braid, buttons, silver oak leaves, daggers, insignia, and gleaming death’s-heads existed, all of them signifying specific titles and ranks and requiring meticulous attention to detail. Contracts to dress the armed forces sparked fierce competition among tailors, and those who were lucky enough to win business were keen to advertise their skills. To this end, twin life-size mannequins in black SS death’s-head uniforms had been erected in the window of Fromm’s tailor shop, in a narrow street just off the Königsallee, scaring late-night drunks and terrifying children on their way to school.

  Clara averted her gaze from the mannequins and checked the address again. It was hard to imagine a less appropriate workplace for a Jewish seamstress, but this was where she had been led to find her old friend Steffi Schaeffer.

  The bell clanged behind her as Clara entered the shop and looked around. It was a hushed, deep-carpeted space, perfumed by a tangy mixture of polish, leather, and expensive pomade. Bolts of cloth were stacked at every level, dull gray, blue, pinstripe, and herringbone, rolled up and reverently folded like vellum manuscripts in a medieval library. Against one wall a dresser of gleaming mahogany with ivory-handled drawers was stacked with containers of braids and buttons, tortoiseshell, horn, ivory, bone, visible through the glass compartments.

  On the opposite wall was a gallery of Fromm’s more famous clientele. First came the ordinary stars, the actors Gustav Fröhlich and Hans Albers, and the boxer Max Schmeling sporting immaculately cut dinner suits, and above them, at eye level, hung the true celebrities of modern Germany: Heinrich Himmler, with his trademark wide gray breeches and clini
cal grimace, mad-eyed Rudolf Hess, and Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SD security service, as skeletal and expressionless as any catwalk model.

  From the interior gloom a stooped figure emerged with a measuring tape around his neck, peering at Clara through a pair of pince-nez. She guessed this must be Herr Fromm. He nodded towards Himmler’s photograph. “We are honored to have the SS Reichsführer as a regular customer.”

  “So I see.”

  “And Herr Reichsminister Goering is also a most rewarding client,” he added unctuously, intertwining his fingers.

  “I can imagine.”

  Anyone who loved dressing up as much as Goering did would keep a team of tailors in full-time occupation. Clara peered at a picture of Hitler’s second in command cavorting in the bejeweled guise of a Roman emperor, in toga and fur-trimmed slippers, with hair freshly permed, a gold dagger at his waist, and blue diamonds on his pudgy fingers. He was clearly wearing full eye shadow and lipstick. German women might be constantly informed that makeup was degenerate, but different standards applied to German men, it seemed. Senior ones, at least.

  “We turn our hand to all varieties of costumes,” continued Herr Fromm smoothly, as Clara examined another shot of Goering, looking absurd in an orange suede jerkin and green Tyrolean hat with an animal tail sticking out of it.

  “That’s Herr Goering’s uniform as Reichsforst Jaeger. It required the most exquisite stitching, but here at Fromm’s we pride ourselves on attention to detail. Hugo Boss, of course, makes uniforms for everyone—the Sturmabteilung, Hitler Youth, National Socialist Motor Corps…” He waved his hand in a faint gesture of deprecation. “But his are made in factories. Discriminating gentlemen prefer bespoke uniforms. And ours, of course, are entirely handmade.”

  He halted the advertisement inquiringly. “But may I ask how I can help? Is it concerning a uniform for your husband, perhaps? Or something for yourself?”

  Although there was no one else in the shop, Clara lowered her voice. “I’m looking for Steffi Schaeffer.”

  The poker-faced demeanor did not change, but there was a flicker of scrutiny behind Herr Fromm’s shuttered eyes.

  “Please.” He gestured towards the back of the shop and ushered Clara through a velvet drape into an even gloomier room, where volumes of swatches were distributed like open books and a slender woman was measuring out lengths of field gray serge.

  At the sight of Clara the other woman jumped up and embraced her, then, keeping hold of her hands, she stood back and looked her up and down.

  “How on earth did you find me?”

  It was hard to equate the figure before her with the poised and beautiful woman Clara had first met in the Ufa costume department six years before. Steffi Schaeffer still had an air of elegance, but her caramel-blond hair was now liberally threaded with gray and hollows of worry shadowed her face. The lines bracketing her mouth might have been carved there with a knife. The hand that held Clara’s was still soft enough to accomplish the most delicate stitching, but her eyes had hardened. Steffi Schaeffer was no longer a costume designer, nor a seamstress with her own premises and a list of private clients. She was not even a German. All Steffi Schaeffer could call herself now was a Jew, and like all the other Jews who made up ninety-five percent of Germany’s textile trade, she relied on people like Herr Fromm to make use of her skills. She was lucky, probably, that he had been prepared to take her on.

  Instinctively Clara waited until the tailor had melted from view.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Steffi told her. “He’s been a godsend. I’ve lost all my customers, but he gives me what work he can. If anyone important arrives at the shop, he shouts ‘Get on with that jacket, Elsa!’ up the stairs. It’s our code. How did you find me?”

  “I went to your old studio. Several times. It was only by chance the block warden saw me and said you might be here.” Clara looked around the minuscule room. “What happened?”

  “What happened?” There was bitter acid in Steffi’s voice that had not been there before. “Kristallnacht happened.” The night the previous November when synagogues were burned, Jewish homes and shops demolished, and thousands of Jews arrested all over Germany. The carpet of shattered windows had spawned its own sinister, poetic coining, known the world over. Kristallnacht. The Night of Broken Glass.

  “The authorities demanded that we repay the cost of repairing shopfronts. Then there was the new law—the Exclusion of Jews from German Economic Life—which meant I couldn’t run a business. It was the same for all of us seamstresses. Until a few years ago almost every seamstress in Germany was Jewish. Now, can you believe it, they claim all Jewish influence has been eradicated from the German clothing industry! Who do they think makes the clothes? The Nazis are very demanding; they want the best, and that only comes from Jewish tailors.”

  “Is Herr Fromm taking a risk, employing you?”

  “Of course he is. Officially I need a permit to be here. We’re banned from almost everything now. Swimming, going to the cinema, walking in the park. Any sentence with a verb in it, that’s what we’re banned from. They’d probably ban us from breathing if it were possible.”

  Steffi hesitated, as if she was still, after all these years, calculating what metal Clara was made of.

  “You asked if Herr Fromm is taking a risk employing me. He is. But he’s taking an even bigger risk than that. My dressmaking business may not be flourishing, but my other business is.”

  Clara understood at once what she meant.

  After she lost her job at the Ufa studios, Steffi had found another, more urgent line of work, assisting a network of underground resistance workers who helped Jews disappear. Steffi’s network provided clothes, food, and disguises for those who needed to vanish fast, helping them to move from safe house to safe house as they kept one jump ahead of the Gestapo’s net.

  “In fact, there’s something you should see. Come with me.”

  Steffi led the way up two flights of worn wooden stairs and into a room divided in two by a floral curtain.

  It was a stark contrast to the polished leather and gleaming mahogany cabinets below. The window shutters were three-quarters closed, casting a dim shadow across the battered sofa and cheap chest of drawers. There was a pungent smell of compressed humanity, stuffy and fetid. In the midst of the room a young girl sat at a Singer sewing machine, bent over a pile of blue gauze.

  “This is Esther Goldblatt.”

  The girl raised a pair of inscrutable almond eyes in brief acknowledgment. She had a haunting gaze, level and unblinking. She could be no more than fifteen, with jet-black hair twisted up in a bun and a slight, resentful twist to her mouth.

  “Everyone’s learning something now—infant care, mending, glove making, millinery,” said Steffi brightly. “So I suggested Esther train as a seamstress. She’s a very promising pupil.”

  “Frau Schaeffer is exaggerating,” said Esther, tersely.

  “Not at all. You’ll pick it up in no time. You’re artistic, after all.”

  Steffi turned away, and as she did, subtly but distinctly, the girl rolled her eyes. It was the gesture of teenagers the world over, the one that expressed an utter disconnect between the world of adults and adolescents, and Clara was instantly reminded of Erich.

  “How long have you been here?” she asked.

  Clearly the girl’s presence in the stuffy attic had nothing to do with dressmaking lessons.

  “A whole week.”

  It showed. Her skin was pale from lack of sunlight, and her hair was lank.

  “She sleeps on the sofa bed, and if anyone comes”—Steffi tilted her head at the cushions—“she can hide in the bed frame. It lifts up, and I’ve fixed the catchment so it looks as if it’s broken. I’ve tacked material on the underside and drilled holes for air. A friend who runs a restaurant on the Ku’damm brings us food.”

  “But…” Clara hesitated. “Why?”

  Steffi lowered her voice, as though hoping in vain that Esther would no
t hear. “The police want to question her about one of her schoolbooks.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was a drawing book, but I made it look like a schoolbook,” explained Esther, refusing to be excluded from the conversation. “I covered all my sketchbooks with blue waxed paper and stuck labels on them from school, with titles like Algebra and Racial Theory, and hid my pictures inside.”

  “What did you draw?”

  “People being arrested,” she answered tonelessly. “I did some of the day when they lined us all up against the garden wall and forced us to watch while they smashed our possessions. They threw a hammer at the mirror, and they tore all the keys out of the grand piano. Then I did drawings of the Gestapo men on the day they took our father away. I draw everything. Here. I did another one today.” She passed a piece of paper to Clara.

  “It’s only people’s faces.” The girl’s voice was deliberately blank, as though challenging Clara to protest. “Steffi can’t complain about that.”

  Esther was right. The drawing was nothing but a panorama of faces. Ordinary Berliners’ faces. Grinning, interested, indifferent, heartless. Clara had seen those faces a hundred times, when people were being arrested or loaded into trucks. Or an old man was hauled off by a policeman from a station platform while onlookers stood by.

  “Father said I should draw what I liked.”

  “Well, your father’s not here now, is he?” snapped Steffi, exasperated.

  “So what happened?” Clara asked.

  “The police came. They said our house had been requisitioned by a high-ranking SS officer and we would have to move. They started combing through all our rooms. They’d already taken all our jewelry, but then they found my books.”

  Clara imagined the hulking forms of the policemen crammed into the apartment, guns at their hips, eyes flitting everywhere, rough hands reaching into drawers.

  “Once they looked inside they came back for her that night,” added Steffi. “Fortunately her mother had already brought her to me, and she and the older sister are in hiding, too.”