The Pursuit of Pearls

by Jane Thynne

  That morning the place was humming with activity, grooms polishing harnesses, cleaning out stables, and loading wheelbarrows with old straw, darting in and out of the tack room and hanging saddles on the doors. And two dozen shining, well-fed horses were clattering their hooves on the cobbles, thumping against the stable doors as they waited for their rides or being rubbed down, their coats steaming in the morning air.

  “Why can’t I trust you?”

  “I told you I wanted you to accompany me to the cinema. But now it comes to it, I can think of nothing worse than wasting an evening with you watching drivel. I would far prefer to take a ride and talk to you. And we’re lucky to have countryside like this so close to the heart of the Reich.”

  Clara had found Adler’s postcard when she returned home the previous day. Vermeer’s A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal. A sweet-faced girl in a blue dress, dreamily poised with her fingers on the keys, the sunlight dazzling off the blue of her silk gown, a lustrous choker of pearls around her neck. She had snatched up the card with apprehension, wondering how Adler had managed to find her address, before turning it over and reading his invitation.

  THE REITCLUB GRUNEWALD. 12:00 P.M. TOMORROW?

  The invitation had thrown her into an agony of indecision. Since that evening in Paris, Adler had a terrifying hold over her. He knew the truth about her, yet she had no idea what he intended to do with it.

  The horse assigned to Clara tossed his head fretfully and she soothed him, rubbing his velvety nose.

  “He’s gorgeous.”

  Adler eased a place where the bridle was tight.

  “D’you think you can handle him? Perhaps he’s too large for you.”

  “I used to have a horse back in England. Inkerman. This one’s about the same size.”

  “Then this will remind you of happy times.”

  She took the reins from Adler and swung herself up into the saddle as Adler’s groom helped him onto his own horse.

  “Thank you, Karl,” he said.

  They made their way along the bridle path, out of the sunshine and into a tunnel of shadow. Here the density of the darkness was layered with the low gurgle of wood pigeons. Once or twice the flash of a coppery squirrel crossed their path. The horses picked their way expertly along a route they knew by heart, their hooves padding softly on the leaf mold. It was just as Adler had said. The sight of the chestnut-brown horse in front of her and the rising scents of warm horsehair, oiled harness, and burnished leather provoked in Clara a sharp stab of nostalgia. In truth, Adler was right—the horse was larger than she was used to—but he seemed calm, and she loved the sensation of him moving beneath her, the instinctive communication between animal and rider. It had been years since Clara had been on horseback, and then it was down lanes in the Surrey countryside, fringed by hawthorn hedgerows. Here in the Grunewald, the air was fresher, with an edge of pine, and unlike the deciduous English woodland, the densely packed pine trees were dark and impenetrable.

  Apart from the occasional command to his horse, or a suggestion of right or left, Adler progressed without speaking, following a route deeper into the wood. From time to time Clara glanced across, but she could tell nothing of his thoughts other than that he was apparently absorbed in his ride. Leaning down to slap his horse’s neck, he asked, “What do you think of Flieger? He has the most wonderful pedigree, but I don’t care about any of that. I bought him because he is such an intelligent animal. The moment I saw him I had to have him.”

  There was a tenderness in his voice she had not heard before, and Clara’s heart warmed to him in response. She had never met a man who loved horses the way she did. The men she knew liked a hard, competitive gallop, or a morning’s hunting on the south downs.

  “Karl looks after him wonderfully. I’ve told him to make the most of it while he can.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He’s a Jew,” Adler answered, matter-of-factly. “The Führer will soon ban Jews from caring for animals. So Karl won’t be able to work at the stables anymore. He’s going to be looking around for a new occupation.”

  After a while they emerged from the forest trail to a clearing where a timbered Biergarten stood, complete with a cobbled yard dotted with scarlet geraniums, where drinkers were sitting in the sun. A man in lederhosen and a short Bavarian hat was playing Mozart on the violin, and sparrows hopped and pecked between the tables. A stag’s head hung above the door, and glancing into the dim interior, Clara saw a collection of other animals—birds, badgers, and pine martens—in glass cases. Foxes’ heads snarled at each other across the room, and a molting hare, inexpertly stuffed, cocked a glassy eye. At the entrance a stuffed bear with the fur rubbed away at the snout stood, paw extended, like a maître d’ welcoming new customers.

  “This place has been here for centuries. Shall we stop?” Adler asked.

  They sat in the dappled shade, and he ordered beer for both of them.

  “So. Did the ride bring pleasant memories back?”

  “I’d almost forgotten how much I love it,” Clara told him. “I haven’t ridden for so long. It reminded me of being a child.”

  “What were you like as a child?”

  His question brought her up short. Her childhood seemed a vanished dream of gardens and lessons, of intense, intimate adventures with Angela and Kenneth. Yet also, she realized with hindsight, childhood had been a time of secrets. Of concealed diaries, repressed feelings, and hidden emotion.

  “I suppose I was a typical middle child. Self-reliant. Reserved.”

  “Yes.” His keen eyes seemed to penetrate her. “I can see that. Though from my time in London I would say that’s something of a national trait. The English are very skilled at concealing their emotions.”

  She smiled briefly but did not trust herself to reply. Since Adler’s discovery of her forged documents, she was determined to guard every detail. She had no idea of his intentions towards her, or what he planned to do with her secret.

  “So why were you reserved, Clara? Were your parents unhappy?”

  He could not have been more accurate. Towards the end of her mother’s life, Clara had found herself going between her parents like a double agent, translating and embroidering their comments for each other, patching up the glaring cracks in their façade of family life. Her father retreated to his study with its bay window overlooking the rose garden and her mother to hours of practice on the grand piano.

  “I think they were mismatched. They had a whirlwind romance—I suppose that’s what you’d call it—and once it died down, they discovered they were very different.”

  “There’s nothing worse than a romance that has gone sour. It’s why I have always preferred my solitude. What was your first memory?”

  “The Titanic sinking. I remember my parents sitting at the breakfast table—our breakfast room had high walls with a pattern of dark green leaves like wreaths, and I was counting them. My father was reading the newspaper, and he said, ‘All those people dead,’ and I tried to allot a wreath in my mind to each dead person. It filled me with fear.”

  “Why? It wasn’t your tragedy.”

  “The idea that death could come quite suddenly, out of nowhere. And then of course it did. My mother died when I was sixteen. I thought as time went by I would miss her less, but in fact I miss her more.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Helene. Helene Neumann.”

  Not the name on the gravestone in the churchyard of St. Michael and All Angels, softly eroding as the rain dripped down its runnels. But her mother’s absence was chiseled into Clara’s life in a way that could not be erased. It had brought home to her the telescoping of time. Time that felt tangible, curdled, the minutes growing thick. Gradually running out.

  “I miss my sister too. We were so close at one time, you would never believe. We just grew apart.”

  “Do you see her much?”

  Clara had a sudden, passionate desire to talk about Angela. It had been so long since anyo
ne had asked her questions like this. Yet she refused to let herself relax.

  “Not really. And I haven’t seen my father for years.”

  “Would you like to?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Why stay in Germany then?”

  “For my work.”

  “Can your work be so important?”

  “I think so.”

  She took a deep draft of the beer. It was a Berlin Weiss, with a shot of fruit syrup—unexpectedly refreshing. Adler’s barrage of questions disconcerted her. She shifted beneath his dissecting gaze and said, “Enough of me. What about you. Were you born in Berlin?”

  “My family comes from Weimar.” He looked away, smoothing a lock of hair from his eyes. “I’m a count, actually. Von Adler. The decoration was bought a few generations back. I’m not proud of it, that’s just how things are. I had every blessing I could ask. A perfect heritage, a bloodline, money, and land in the finest city in Germany.”

  “I’ve never been to Weimar.”

  “It’s the home of the Reformation, and of Goethe, of course. You should take a trip there. Have you read Faust?”

  “I don’t think I have.”

  “You must know the story. The man who made a pact with the devil.”

  “He sold his soul in return for anything he wanted on earth.”

  “That’s the one. Don’t go reading anything into that, though.”

  He took a sip of foamy beer, and the sun caught his glass and made it sparkle.

  “I often think of my life back in Weimar. The place was enormous. You can’t imagine the upkeep, but as a boy one never thought of those things. We had horses, of course, stables of our own, magnificent gardens. A lake and a chapel. Even an ice palace. My mother was much younger than my father, and neither of them had the slightest idea about how to care for children. I was the only one they had, and they treated me as a type of miniature adult. Or rather…”

  He paused, as though this was the first time he had ever considered it “Like a dinner guest. They were always utterly courteous. Polite. They talked about politics, or history, or art, as though I would understand, which of course, being intelligent, I did.”

  Clara looked into Adler’s impenetrable eyes and tried to see in him the young boy, polite and awkward. Isolated.

  “In the winter we would go hunting. There’s a hare there that learns to camouflage itself perfectly against the land. It has a deep gray coat, but in winter it undergoes a molt and turns entirely white. I admire that. The skill of camouflage. You can’t be a good hunter unless you’ve studied camouflage. This little hare turns white so expertly that only the best hunters can see it against the snow.”

  “Sounds like you miss it.”

  “I do. I often wish I had made my life back there, managing the estate, living quietly. Keeping out of politics.”

  “So why?” She tried to keep her voice to a whisper, but her words flared with passion. “Why get involved in all this…brutality? If you didn’t have to?”

  A cool shrug. “It was necessary to join the Party if I was to pursue my work as an art specialist. Once the Reich Chamber of Culture was instated, it was mandatory.”

  “You didn’t have to enter politics.”

  “I didn’t think of it as politics. When von Ribbentrop was made ambassador to England, he invited me along as his aide, and I liked the idea. I’ve always enjoyed foreign travel. I would have liked it a lot more if it hadn’t been for the attentions of his wife. She never let me alone.”

  “Why?”

  “Annelies liked me. Or rather she liked my wealth. My aristocratic heritage. Probably the same reasons you like me.”

  “Who said I like you?”

  He laughed, delightedly. “But of course. You came here this morning solely for the exercise. And you accepted my dinner invitation in Paris out of a desire to discuss international affairs.”

  She fought the urge to tell him how accurate he was. “Talking of Paris, I was wondering. Who was that man you met?”

  Adler’s face shuttered instantly, the way it had on the bridge. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Is it something I shouldn’t know?”

  He sighed. “His name is Alfred Rosenberg. You’ve heard of him, I take it?”

  Alfred Rosenberg was the mad philosopher-seer of the Nazi Party, one of the earliest members to demonize Jews, Freemasons, and Communists.

  “Rosenberg has been put in charge of overseeing the acquisition of art. There are a lot of Jews selling their stuff right now, in an effort to raise money to leave the country, and there’s desperate competition for it, from the highest places. It’s a joke really. Rosenberg likes art about as much as he likes Jews. To have a man like that in charge of art is quite ridiculous.”

  “So he’s on the lookout for paintings being sold?”

  “Not just that.” A dry laugh. “He’s masterminding the cultural audit of Paris.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “All these questions, Clara Vine. Your curiosity is extraordinary.”

  “I’m interested.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll tell you. We’re bureaucrats, we Nazis, you see. That’s where we excel. Some of the best works in the world are in Jewish hands—all the rich families, the Rothschilds, the Wildensteins, the Seligmanns. Rosenberg’s scouts are finding where the Jews live and marking down their addresses. Paris is crawling with art experts, art restorers, art packers, catalogers. It’s the same all round Europe. Inventories are being made of every important object of artistic and cultural value. Not just paintings but sculptures, furniture, tapestries, bronzes, carpets, antiques, jewels.”

  “Jewels?”

  He’s been cheated out of a jewel. He’s looking for it high and low, and God help anyone who gets in his way.

  Adler shrugged. “Everything. It will all be noted and entered in a ledger just in case the Reich needs to acquire it.”

  “Just in case.”

  “As you say. Just in case.”

  “So the people at the Louvre…?”

  “The French are working overtime sending all their museum works to châteaus and other places in the countryside. They think they can hide things, but they’ll never outwit Rosenberg. His spies know precisely where the valuable things can be found.”

  Clara could scarcely believe she was hearing this. She tried valiantly not to look around her, to see if they were being overheard, until she realized that these comfortable burghers, with their great steins of frothing beer and their plates of heaven and earth—clouds of mashed potato with black pudding—probably agreed with Adler. The riches of a foreign country would sit far better in the Reich.

  “So France will be relieved of her art if the country is invaded.”

  Adler gave a casual shrug. “Is it any different from what Napoleon did? He was the greatest art thief in history. And what about your Elgin Marbles? The glories of the Parthenon carried off to London. Beautiful objects will always be desired by the powerful. They will be well treated, appreciated. Loved even.”

  “And you’re one of Rosenberg’s spies.”

  “God, no!”

  “He seemed to want to speak to you pretty urgently that night.”

  “As I told you, I was advising on a collection…On which subject…” Adler had recovered his composure and his eyes were mellow again, dancing with amusement as though everything that passed between them was a game. “I mentioned I was in Paris to see beautiful things, and as it happens”—he reached to his side—“I did come across something beautiful.”

  He brought a minute parcel from his pocket. It was a burgundy leather box, with the name Cartier tooled in gold. Adler flicked the little catch to display its glinting contents sitting snugly on snow-white linen and pushed the box across the table towards her. Two sparkling diamond studs set in bright, buttery gold. A shaft of sun lit the stones like a lick of flames at their core.

  “Like fire behind ice. They reminded me of you.”

  “
I can’t possibly.”

  He swept a nonchalant hand. “I was inspired by those pearls you wore the other evening. You seemed a woman who suits fine jewelry.”

  “I couldn’t accept them.”

  “I hoped you might see them as by way of apology. For inconveniencing you. On the bridge.”

  Quietly, she said, “I don’t think diamonds are the answer to that.”

  “It’s a gift, but if you find it inappropriate, then really, no matter.”

  “I’m sorry.” She slid the box back across the table.

  “As you wish.” He picked it up and replaced it in his pocket.

  She felt a surge of panic. Had her rebuff angered him? Knowing what he did about her, she would be mad to provoke him.

  “Shall we go?” He was rising from the table and reaching for his crop. “There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  Adler strode ahead of her out of the Biergarten, remounted, and led the way farther into the wood.

  It was darker here. The pale sky was lanced with branches, and in the complicated shadows, deer skittered away through the brushwood. They continued as the bridleway narrowed, forcing them to duck beneath low-hanging trees with fists of fungus protruding from their trunks. The air tasted of dusk and decay. Dark-dappled birds flashed out of the boughs in a rustle and shiver of leaves, and in the claustrophobic gloom, all you could sense was the dank aroma of moss and soft, rotten mulch underfoot. Clara could not help thinking of Lottie Franke and how, just a few miles from here, her body had been found.

  Suddenly, the trees cleared and an expanse of lake lay ahead. On the far bank it was possible to see a large white villa, modeled in old Tyrolean style with red roofs and formal, well-cultivated gardens. Adler dismounted and tethered his horse to a low branch. Clara followed suit.

  “That’s my home.”

  “It’s beautiful. And very isolated.”

  “There’s no one there apart from my housekeeper and my dogs.”

  “Were you ever married?”

  “More questions, Clara.”