by Jane Thynne
Chapter Seven
‘The hot water, Mademoiselle, is available from seven in the evening.’ The bellboy coughed nervously and corrected himself. ‘That is, the new seven o’clock.’
Times had speeded up. Clocks in France now ran on Greater Reich time, and in this new future everyone was obliged to live one hour ahead.
‘And breakfast is from seven in the morning until nine.’
Clara nodded, surveying the hotel room. It was archetypal of the kind of modest residence in which a travelling actress might stay. A small basin in the corner, with its delicate blue and white china bowl, a white armoire and a faded frieze of flowers on the walls. A high, narrow bed that was certain to be rock hard, sheets thick and coarse, though clean. The window, with a crust of mildew at the rim, and a spotted mirror. Her eyes went to the latch, working out whether it would be possible to climb onto the rusty balcony in a hurry, down into the brick-paved courtyard. Searching for ways of escape had become second nature in the years since she had first taken on her secret role. Her first thought in any space was to find the way out, to calculate the method of rapid exit and how to extricate herself in a hurry should circumstances require it. It took a second to remind herself that there would be no call for an escape in Paris. She was here, after all, on Goebbels’ orders, and Erich was his hostage to ensure she returned to Berlin.
‘Will there be anything else?’
‘I’m performing at the Théâtre de Montmartre so please ensure the concierge knows that I won’t be back until late.’
‘Certainly, Mademoiselle. Fräulein.’ He shuffled, uncertain whether tips were part of the new regime, and Clara reassured him with fifty centimes that were still, as far as she knew, legal tender.
She walked out of the front door and turned into the Avenue Foch. The chestnut trees were bursting with summer green, and in the houses of Paris’s smartest arrondissement lilac, laburnum and clematis were tumbling over the high walls. The buildings, in the morning sun, were pale and golden, the colour of fresh bread. Outside one of the grander edifices two lorries covered in tarpaulins had drawn up and Chinese jars, paintings, rolled carpets and tapestries were being ferried out under the direction of a German officer.
It was ten days since the Germans entered Paris. The wide boulevards, designed by Baron Haussmann to allow the broad passage of civilization, had instead allowed German troops in shining boots and well-cut uniforms to march, several ranks abreast, up to the Arc de Triomphe unopposed. Like a field-grey spear lancing into the city, the column of soldiers, tanks, armoured cars and anti-aircraft guns had stretched for miles, while the houses each side closed their shutters against the sight. Vehicles fitted with loudspeakers trundled through the streets – ‘Parisians stay home. No demonstrations will be allowed’ – promising the death penalty for disobedience. Planes roared overhead. As tanks crunched over the cobbles, French police with white batons lined the sidewalks and the population watched, frozen with astonishment and fear. Veterans of the first war, their medals pinned to their chests, had tears streaming down their faces while some small boys, unable to contain themselves at the sight of the gleaming machines, waved and cheered as the parade made its way across the Pont Alexandre III to the Esplanade des Invalides, where the gilded tomb of Napoleon sketched its famous shape on the skyline. A fleet of sedans led the way to the Hôtel de Crillon, which had been singled out as the new HQ for the high command.
And yet, less than two weeks after this dramatic parade, a sense of normality, or at least the new normality, had returned. Schools, restaurants, theatres and bars were back in operation. The women on the sidewalks, in slender-waisted dresses, retained their understated Parisian chic. Outside the cafés, cane-bottomed chairs were still lined three deep on the pavement. If this had been an Ufa newsreel, as it surely would soon be, audiences in Germany would be unable to discern the uncanny changes that had descended. Yet to Parisians they were all too painfully obvious. For a start, the city sounded different. There were no motorcars; vehicles had been requisitioned and bicycles rigged up with trailers to serve as taxis. Push carts were everywhere. Those buses that still existed had been equipped with charcoal burners on the roof, giving them the appearance of exotic monsters. Thin strains of Beethoven drifted over from the free concerts in parks and squares and everywhere the German language splintered the air.
There were other changes too. Signs were now in German, with French in smaller type beneath, and newspaper kiosks had been requisitioned to sell only German papers and magazines. Scaffolding had been erected for the camera crews to record military marches and along the Rue de Rivoli the familiar blood-coloured banners billowed like a row of carpets ready to be beaten. If you want to earn more, go and work in Germany advised the advertising hoardings, and Give your labour to save Europe from Bolshevism. One poster portrayed a Nazi trooper holding a fair-haired child with the slogan Populations abandonnées, faites confiance au soldat allemand! You have been abandoned, put your trust in the German soldier.
There was also a deeper, more telling difference. For some weeks Parisians had been holding their collective breath, but now their faces were beaten and downcast. Not even a spark of rebellion lit their dejected air. A pall hung over the city like a leaden sigh.
Midway down the Rue de Rivoli Clara paused at a café called Angelina. Her appointment was not for another two hours, so she might as well eat while she could. Entering, she marvelled at the way light streamed through the windows and shimmered on the gilded mirrors, the chequered floor and murals, and the glass cases at the counter where piles of croissants and choux buns and macarons gave an impression of careless plenty. The place was, she remembered, a favourite of Coco Chanel, where the designer took a demitasse of chocolat chaud every morning accompanied by a dish of whipped cream. Confident chatter bounced from the mirrored walls and for a moment, as Clara sat down, her mind blanked and she couldn’t think what to order. Months of deprivation had diminished her imagination so much that she could barely conjure anything but coarse bread, padded sausage and bitter root vegetables. In Berlin cafés you had nothing more than a grainy slice of rye bread and a smear of margarine accompanied by a cup of watery tea and Immergut Milch, a milk substitute that never went off. In the end she asked for a boiled egg, accompanied by a café crème and a tartine spread with real butter, sweet and silky pale, rather than the sharp yellow chemical back home with its rime of grease. This meal she consumed like a fairy-tale feast.
Opening her copy of L’Illustration, she turned to read what it had to say about the invasion.
Under the headline Tourists in Uniform, the editorial confirmed her worst expectations. It oozed fascination with the invaders and their rosy complexions and blond hair, their confidence and clicking heels. The Germans were ‘handsome boys, decent, helpful, above all correct’. Perhaps, after the fears of mayhem and the unspoken terror that troops might rape any women they encountered, the sheer orderliness of the occupation came as a relief. These Germans seemed so perfectly assembled, like the tanks and cars they drove, their hair precision-parted, their boots polished to a high shine; why, even their uniforms choreographed harmoniously with their surroundings, the Wehrmacht field grey matching exactly Paris’s weathered domes and spires. To Clara, however, the picture of the Wehrmacht against the elegant backdrop of Paris was a glaring horror. They were robots marching through a daydream, Expressionist figures on an Impressionist canvas.
Finishing her coffee she headed north. Outside a little Basque restaurant off the Opéra she saw a German officer brandishing a Baedeker guide and discussing sites of special historical interest with his men. A busload of soldiers on a guided tour sailed by, photographing everything they passed. Compared to Albert Speer’s gleaming, monumental blocks in Berlin, Paris’s stately buildings must seem dramatically different, covered with a calcified crust of soot, their musty grape-skin domes dissolving into the skyline. Further on, a soldier had erected an easel and was painting a church. Everywhere, Germans
were wide-eyed at the beauty of Paris and already a blitzkrieg of shopping was underway. Food, stockings, cosmetics for their girlfriends. At the Place Vendôme Clara saw a soldier staggering under a pile of boxes and recognized the interlaced black-on-white C of Chanel.
This looked not so much like war as tourism.
She walked on. Although outwardly she observed everything she passed, it was as though an invisible membrane existed between herself and the rest of humanity. It took scarcely anything – a vague silhouette, a strain of music, the register of a voice – to recall Leo’s face and bring images of their time together rising from the depths of her mind. His touch setting her senses alight, his hands roving hungrily across her body, his heart banging against his ribcage as their limbs entwined. The ache in her was almost overwhelming and even as she dug her fingers into red crescents in her palms to end it, Clara couldn’t stop thinking how different things might have been. If she had left Germany last year at his bidding would they be together now in his London flat, high above the plane trees of a Bloomsbury square? Would they take walks through the dusk and spend their evenings cooking and sitting peacefully, Leo doing his translations or writing his poetry and her content to read at his side? Or would the war have driven them apart again? What would her life be now? How slender the split-second decisions were on which existence hinged, and that opened doors to such different lives.
For a moment Clara felt a shaft of grief so profound, her heart contracted.
Her rumination was so deep that she stepped off the kerb and was almost knocked down by a leather-coated motorcyclist with a sidecar.
‘Achtung!’
A young German soldier appeared from behind and grabbed her arm, hauling her out of danger.
‘Be careful, please, Fräulein.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Not at all. It’s easy to forget, but these motorbikes are very fast, you know. You ladies must watch out.’
He clicked his heels and smiled at her startled face, but Clara’s shock was more the result of his own behaviour than the accident so closely averted. This degree of good manners was rarely extended by troops in Berlin. Back home, stone-faced soldiers marched in lines or progressed in pairs along the pavement, expecting ordinary citizens to get out of their way. Their conduct was brisk at best and brutish at worst, yet in Paris the same soldiers were transformed. Could it be because the Germans planned to occupy the city with a relatively small army, and so had instructed troops to place an emphasis on civility? Or was it simply Paris itself that had cast its spell? Either way, with two million Frenchmen already taken prisoner, Clara guessed some women would find such courteous strangers hard to resist.
She stopped by a shop with lemon soap for sale and bought two bars, then passed a boutique selling silk underwear and retraced her steps with amazement. Such items were impossible to find in Germany, where the only brassieres available were scratchy contraptions of coarse cotton. Inside the shop, French knickers with little frills of chambray lace, crêpe de Chine slips, satin basques and delicate peach silk camisoles hung on gilt rails. Clara’s mind raced ahead to the purpose of her mission here, the honey trap for Hans Reuber, and she was surprised to find her reaction was not revulsion but indifference at the idea of the proposed seduction. She wondered exactly how far Goebbels expected her to go. Did he assume she would go to bed with this man in order to gain his confidence? She imagined another man moving above her, his alien scent, and his unfamiliar hands ranging over her naked body as she tried not to flinch. She pictured herself succumbing. What would it matter if she did? Erich was all she minded about and if it kept him safe then who cared? Leo was gone. What point was there in preserving some fidelity beyond death? She didn’t believe in any shining hereafter where Leo would be waiting for her. All she believed was that her love for him should be cherished, burnished by memory, like the precious thing it was.
She tried on an apricot-coloured camisole and a lace-edged matching bra. They weren’t cheap but Goebbels had provided her with an allowance and what was underwear if not a justifiable expense? She noted the treacherous, sensuous caress of silk against the skin, and studied her reflection in the changing-room mirror with grim resolve. She would need to gain Reuber’s confidence by any means possible. If he was a traitor to his Fatherland, then she had to find out. Not to warn Goebbels, but Reuber himself.
Montmartre, in the northwest of Paris, had for centuries been the traditional haunt of artists, its narrow streets crammed with cinemas, cabarets and bars. Reaching the theatre, Clara saw the original sign now obscured by a giant banner reading Deutsches Soldaten Theater, crowned by the imperial Eagle. Beside it a poster had been pasted up advertising that night’s attractions and, even though she had expected it, she was still taken aback to see her name prominently displayed on the bill. The repertoire looked identical to the kind of variety evening that could have been found at any Berlin theatre in the past five years – light-hearted sketches spiced with sentimental tunes, magicians and dancing girls, and the whole performance interspersed with some Schubert Lieder. It was entirely familiar and, as she walked through the brass doors and crossed the foyer, she heard the bars of a song so distinct that no German, and no Frenchman either, could fail to hear it without a shudder.
Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein . . .
On the heath a little flower blooms . . .
Erika. The marching song of the SS.
Pushing past a musty velvet curtain, she stood in shadow at the back of the stalls. Hans Reuber was on stage, supervising a dwarf and a female contortionist whose face peered incongruously from between her clasped knees. The woman wore a flesh-coloured leotard that made her look, from a distance, as though she was entirely naked, and the dwarf stood by, ready to spring onto her turned back. An acrobat was finishing a backflip, coming to a halt with a stormtrooper’s precision. Clara caught a flavour of something she had not scented for years, the shimmering, decadent air of the old Berlin cabaret, brimming with subversive sexuality.
Reuber was dressed with artistic flair, with a spotted cravat at his neck, secured by a swastika tiepin, and a smart, well-cut suit. His shirt was expensive-looking and his hair a decadent inch or so longer than was de rigueur among German men. His eyes were as brown as polished chestnuts. As she made her way through the stalls he turned and spread his arms in a stagey welcome.
‘Fräulein Vine! Our guest star. Forgive me for not coming to meet you but we are working against the clock to get the concert ready. I was so pleased to hear that you could join us.’
Clara stood at the stage edge and smiled up at him. ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Any of us would leap at the chance to be in Paris right now.’
‘You’re right.’ He jumped down and came to stand beside her, rubbing his hands. ‘Have you had any briefing of what we’d like you to do?’
‘Doktor Goebbels told me it would involve singing.’
‘Precisely. Perhaps we should take a break and find somewhere to discuss it. Tell me, have you had lunch? Or coffee?’
‘I can’t get enough coffee here.’
‘That was my reaction.’ He checked his watch and turned to the actors on stage.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we break for an hour.’
The contortionist uncoiled herself, and stood, hands on hips, glancing between Reuber and Clara with a scowl that suggested that her relationship with her producer went beyond the merely professional. The pianist began chatting to the dwarf and Reuber and Clara made their way through the streets to the picturesque Place du Tertre.
The square was almost a pastiche of a perfect Parisian scene. The air was mild, and artists stood behind their easels in the plane trees’ dappled shade, making and remaking the weathered façades while ignoring the uniformed interlopers who strolled before them, picturing a city that existed only in memory and whose charm was now as shallow as a stage set. Paris, the eternal city, determined to regard defeat as a temporary distraction. All around
, cafés and bistros were doing a busy trade, exuding the smell of roast chicken and the tang of garlic. The yells of flower women and souvenir sellers mingled with the clatter of bicycles over the cobbles. It was so picturesque that Clara had to remind herself that she was only in this holiday setting on Goebbels’ orders.
On one side of the square a restaurant called La Mère Catherine stood, with a dark wooden façade and traditional navy canopy sheltering the pavement tables. A sign had been freshly fixed in the window announcing Man spricht Deutsch – though it scarcely needed spelling out. Lounging and chatting at the tables prettily clad with pink gingham, groups of Wehrmacht officers were savouring glasses of beer, their harsh babble of German drowning out the treacly croon of Maurice Chevalier issuing from the gramophone. Skirting them, Reuber chose a table at the far end of the gloomy interior and handed Clara a menu. Just as before, she registered an initial shock of plenty. The carte boasted a ‘dozen egg omelette’. There was a terrine of foie gras and the plat du jour was Filet de sole au vin du Rhin, the inclusion of German wine no doubt designed to make the occupiers feel at home.
He touched her arm. ‘Eat well. We have a long day ahead.’
It was clear why the idea of seduction had occurred to Goebbels. In the dim light of the café table, Hans Reuber was even more handsome than he appeared on his posters. He was more bronzed than the usual German, with dark curly hair, a sleepy smile and a look in his soulful brown eyes which seemed to say that the woman he was speaking to was the only one who would ever understand him. He projected an air of immediate intimacy, as though the two of them were privy to some special secret, despite the fact that they had only just met. Clara wondered if, under different circumstances, she might have found that easy charm attractive, even though she knew that it was more about Reuber himself than the girl on the receiving end. Yet now, she felt nothing.
