Solitaire

by Jane Thynne

  Bettina rewarded this with a sardonic stare.

  ‘Can you honestly see me being approved as a new Reich Mother? Bettina Beyer, part-time actress and brothel worker? The only reason I get by is an army captain who’s sweet on me. My ambition is to marry him some day soon and become a Reich widow, but I can’t see that happening with a kid in tow. So no. It has to be you.’

  ‘Me?’ Clara put down her beer in surprise. ‘Adopt a child? How could I?’

  ‘You’ve seen that film, haven’t you? Hurra! Ich bin Papa! with Heinz Rühmann?’

  Hurrah! I’m a Father was a heart-warming comedy about a reluctant single parent who found himself unexpectedly bringing up a child on his own. It was yet another of Goebbels’ projects to increase the birthrate.

  ‘It would be like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Bettina, but I really don’t think . . .’

  ‘Reason I’m telling you this, Fräulein Vine, it was this kid who mentioned you. Her name’s Katerina Klimpel. You met her, didn’t you?’

  ‘The girl from the NSV home?’ Clara frowned. ‘Yes. She came to my apartment. But it wasn’t anything to do with a hospital. She was looking for her sister.’

  ‘That’s right. Sonja. I share an apartment with her. At least I did, before Sonja disappeared. And God knows if she’ll ever come back. Much better that she doesn’t. A couple of days ago I had a visit from the police. We don’t need an air raid on our place. Her room looks like a bomb already hit it.’

  The shudder of a train running through the underground beneath them, causing the table to vibrate and the beer bottles to clink, provoked a momentary hiatus. Clara ruminated for a while then decided that there was no alternative to trusting the girl in front of her.

  ‘I think I’ve found Sonja.’

  Incredulity and suspicion collided in Bettina’s face. ‘You’ve seen her? Where?’

  ‘I didn’t say I’d seen her.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘It was a few days ago. I was in Portugal. I heard the secret police had apprehended a woman from Berlin and were holding her in jail. This woman wouldn’t give her name, but she did give them a brooch. And that brooch used to belong to me.’

  ‘What brooch?’

  ‘A diamond swastika. Sonja must have assumed that it would keep her safe, but I have no idea where she got it.’

  Bettina took a cool, reflective draw on her cigarette.

  ‘She’ll have got it from Peter.’

  ‘I heard about him. He was her boyfriend, wasn’t he? But he’s French. How would he have my brooch?’

  ‘French? No. Peter’s German. He comes from Berlin. Peter Jaeger his name is. A Jew, of course. He worked at his father’s jeweller’s before it was closed down. They came for his Vati one morning last year and arrested him, but Peter was tipped off and disappeared. He managed to take a lot of the stock with him, Sonja told me, but I have no idea where he went. So he ended up in France, did he? Yet you say Sonja went to Portugal.’

  Clara was about to speak, but Bettina waved a hand.

  ‘Actually. Stop there. I don’t want to know. The less I know the better. If Sonja does come back she can tell me herself, it’s the least I deserve. But if, like you say, she’s in prison, then who knows if or when she’s going to get out. Doesn’t solve Katerina’s problem. God knows what they’ve got planned for that kid at this special hospital. She used to wear a caliper but Sonja made her take it off. It doesn’t look good to be a cripple in one of those NSV homes. It might work for Joey Goebbels, but it’s a different rule for everyone else.’

  ‘Sonja will come back. I’m certain of that. I just don’t know when.’

  ‘Not soon enough. Katerina’s being sent away on Saturday.’

  Three days. Clara swallowed.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Bettina, but I couldn’t just walk in and take her. These things take time and paperwork. And who says I would possibly be approved as an adoptive mother?’

  ‘You must have connections. You people always do.’

  ‘I just . . . can’t. It’s my work, you see. I can’t tie myself down. I have to travel.’

  ‘Sure you do. Well it was worth asking.’

  Bettina popped another of Clara’s cigarettes in her pocket, collected her jacket, and rose from the table.

  ‘Good to meet you anyway, Fräulein Vine. And if you see Sonja tell her she’d better start looking around for a new apartment. I’ve had all the excitement I can take for now.’

  Later that night, just as Clara was about to go to bed, the siren sounded.

  There were three levels of air-raid warning, L30, L15 and the last, L3, which meant there were an estimated three minutes before the danger of enemy bombs being dropped. Generally Clara left it until the last one before she moved, partly because most of the raids so far had been false alarms, and partly because her usual shelter was in a converted cellar that ran the length of several houses in Winterfeldtstrasse so there were only five flights of stairs to navigate and a short walk down the street in order to reach the door. Besides, the shelter was not a place you wanted to spend any more time than strictly necessary.

  Designed for around thirty people, it had a whitewashed wall at one end that could be knocked through to the next building in case of collapse, and the air, filtered in from the street above, was stale and damp. The bricks bubbled with moisture. The place reminded Clara of one of those mausoleums that wealthy families secured for their descendants to lie in perpetuity; except that here the occupants were all too alive, especially the fretful baby and Frau Bessell’s five children playing a board game on a table to one side, screaming with alternate jubilation and despair. Though there had been plenty of practices that summer, thus far Berlin had suffered minimal bombing, with the result that many citizens viewed the raids more as an inconvenience than a cause for alarm and most of her neighbours contented themselves with knitting, gossiping and trying to keep their children quiet.

  She entered the shelter, noting the stray cat already curled in a corner.

  An arch on the far wall led through to a self-contained alcove that was half screened from the main shelter and offered a modicum of privacy. There on a wooden bench Clara’s neighbour, Franz Engel, had installed himself. He was reading a novel, but on sighting Clara he put it down and motioned to a space beside him.

  ‘Heard the one about the air-raid shelter?’ she said. It had become a habit for them to trade a joke each time they met. Flüsterwitze, these jokes were called. Whispered wit. Subversive humour that was not the kind you wanted overheard, but was ideal to allay the boredom of a session entombed underground.

  ‘The man who comes into the shelter and says Good morning has already slept. The man who says Good evening is yet to sleep. And the man who says Heil Hitler is still asleep.’

  ‘That’s a new one.’ Engel shifted to allow her more space. ‘How are you, anyway?’

  ‘Better, thank you. I stayed off the Pervitin, as you warned me. How about you?’

  A tremor travelled across his features and resolved itself into a bitter smile. In the chalky light of the cellar, he was a waxwork, his complexion blanched with fatigue.

  ‘No one needs help staying awake when we have the services of the Berlin police force.’

  ‘Franz?’

  ‘It was yesterday morning. I was still in bed. I had been to a very enjoyable concert the previous evening and for once I was sound asleep. My two visitors informed me they were under orders to bring Herr Doktor Engel to the station for routine questioning.’

  She had not heard a thing. For once her sleep had been deep and dreamless.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You remember the tests I was carrying out? On the orphans selected for Germanization?’

  ‘Sixty-seven categories.’

  ‘I never failed one. Every child, every category. I passed them all.’

  Although there was no chance of being overheard above the shrieks and howls of the children’s game, Engel lowered his voice
yet further.

  ‘More than that, I falsified the records of my colleagues whenever I could. If I found that a child had been failed, I changed the data. I had access to all the right stationery, the correct forms. I did it late at night at the hospital after everyone else had gone home. I knew sooner or later it would arouse suspicions. Even the limited intelligences of the Lebensborn staff might eventually marvel that such a rich seam of Volksdeutsche children had been discovered in the conquered territories.’

  ‘Why did you risk it, Franz?’

  ‘Ah. There’s a question.’ He removed a handkerchief from his top pocket and devoted himself to the tender cleaning of his spectacles with meticulous care. Then he refolded the handkerchief and only after he had done this and replaced the glasses, said:

  ‘I’m not sure if you know, but our hospital managers recently informed us there is no point caring for the long-term ill. They have put the problem to mathematicians who have concluded that it takes one healthy person to care for three sick people. In the case of sick children, the issue is even more severe. Smaller human beings are more demanding. Their requirements are mathematically incompatible. Unhealthy children sap the energy of nurses who could be usefully employed elsewhere. Seeing as hospital managers lay such great store by logic, my fear was that a logical conclusion of that type might determine the fate of children whose genetic potential is less . . . valuable.’

  Clara nodded. A horror was running through her. His meaning was all too clear. She wrenched her mind back to Franz.

  ‘How did they treat you? The police?’

  ‘Adequately.’ He offered a tired shrug. ‘The information against me seems to have come from one of my colleagues who was recently arrested. He’s a courteous chap, and like all doctors he prides himself on professional confidentiality, so I’m sure he wouldn’t have parted easily with such a private matter.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Clara’s fists were bunched on the bench beneath her, her eyes trained on his as if she could barely believe Engel was still right there in front of her.

  ‘Fortunately the police, like us doctors, are great believers in paperwork. Bureaucracy is everything. German doctors have discovered that no condition exists without a paper that is stamped and sealed and signed with the correct signature. In a somewhat ironic turn of events, the documents that would incriminate me beyond doubt have gone missing in the transit to Professor de Crinis’ new office.’

  ‘Which meant they had to let you go.’

  ‘When I denied all knowledge they were obliged to release me.’

  The screech of a siren cut through the air, signalling that the alert was over. The enemy bombers, if they had even arrived, had now departed the city airspace and moved on to terrify another town or city. There was a mass movement for the door and up the stairs, but after they had climbed the stairwell and emerged into the night, Engel lingered.

  ‘I’m heading back to the hospital to catch up on work.’

  ‘Does that mean what I think it means?’

  A flicker of a smile.

  ‘Thank you, by the way, for introducing me to your friend Miss Harker. Mary. She seems a charming woman.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘If a little immune to the glories of Beethoven, though I’m sure that could be remedied.’

  ‘Perhaps you could help in that direction.’

  ‘Can I trust her?’

  ‘With your life.’

  He gave Clara a searching look; a look that seemed to contain within it all the pain and uncertainty and horror that he had seen.

  ‘My life, dear Clara, is not my concern. This is about other lives.’

  Then he shrugged himself into his overcoat and disappeared into the night, as though he would far rather disappear altogether.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Until a few years previously, the formidable, eight-storey Bauhaus building towering over Torstrasse and Prenzlauer Allee had been a Jewish-owned department store selling fancy watches, perfumes, clothing and accessories to Berlin’s affluent middle classes. Now, however, the building had been stolen, looted and Aryanized and its arching marble chambers were in the process of being transformed into the headquarters of the six-million-strong Hitler Youth. The location was an intensely appealing one for Baldur von Schirach, the plump blond Nazi Youth leader, not only because it was plum in the centre of a solidly Jewish area of town, thus rubbing the swastika banner firmly in the faces of the residents, but also because it overlooked the grave of Horst Wessel, the young activist and thug whose messy death in a brawl had made him the unlikely candidate for first Nazi martyr.

  Being a temple to youth, the building was also an inspired venue for Emmy Goering’s orphan fundraiser, despite the institutional air and the fact that the Hitler Jugend was generally dedicated to more hearty entertainments such as ten-mile runs and folk singing. Posters of wholesome youthful activities – mountain climbing, rifle shooting and tank driving – were bizarrely interposed on the walls with studio stills of that evening’s A-list entertainers, Ludwig Manfred Lommel, Jupp Hussels and Heinz Rühmann.

  In many ways a comedy cabaret was a risk. Humour was more dangerous than dynamite now and an explosive joke could land its teller in a camp, yet Emmy Goering’s choice of repertoire lay closer to home. While Joseph Goebbels had recently launched a newspaper diatribe about ‘tearing out subversive comedy at its roots’, Hermann Goering saw jokes as a valuable escape valve – a way for the population to express their daily exasperation about the shortages and petty bureaucracy without ever truly challenging them. So in some ways the evening itself was a big joke at Goebbels’ expense, a fact not lost on the Propaganda Minister, judging by his thunderous expression as he hobbled through the crowded foyer.

  Unusually for a Nazi entertainment, a very superior white burgundy was circulating, fresh from some Rothschild cellar, as the stars assembled in the lobby, bathed in press flashlights, ready for the next day’s papers. While the performers may have been glamorous, most of the VIPs looked as if they had been pulled straight off the suspects’ line at a murder trial, as well they might have been. Von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister, was sounding off to Robert Ley, head of the German Labour Front, with a wine stain on his white SS summer uniform and a sadistic glitter in his puffy drinker’s eyes. Alongside them was the mentally unstable Bernhard Rust, whose rumoured fondness for small boys had, through some bureaucratic mischief, led to him being made Education Minister. Rudolf Hess, who would not understand a joke unless it was summarized, analysed and costed on a ministerial briefing paper, was glaring impatiently across the throng at Heinz Rühmann. Hess had ordered cuts to Rühmann’s latest film, The Gas Man, because the actor performed a Nazi salute that was unacceptably sloppy, and even though the star had divorced his wife at the regime’s request, questions about his allegiance were still circulating.

  ‘Rühmann will be fine,’ murmured Irene Schönepauck, coming up to Clara as she skirted the crowd. Irene’s Schwarzkopf-blonde hair was styled in a Dutt, the braided bun that was every Nazi’s favourite hairstyle, though a stripe of brunette at the hairline suggested her own darker roots. Her eye-catching form was encased in a shimmering fuchsia cocktail dress and she smelled of talcum powder and Chanel No. 5.

  ‘Hess might hate Rühmann but he’s on the Führer’s list.’

  The list of approved performers had been compiled after prolonged consultation between Hitler and Goebbels. For comedians a slot on the list meant exemption from military service, but it also meant exemption from most kinds of comedy, as anything remotely political was deemed foreign, Communist or Jewish. Usually all three. In particular, all jokes about the army were off-limits. Any suggestion of undermining the armed forces or questioning the war meant death. Wartime humour – at least the official Party version – was no laughing matter.

  ‘You know who really makes the boss laugh, though?’ Irene gave a demure smile in deference to the cameras around them. ‘Goering. Hitler can’t get enough o
f Goering jokes. He loves anything about Goering’s medals. He had his photographer make up some tinfoil medals and presented them to Goering for him to wear on his pyjamas. Poor Hermann had to laugh along. So humiliating.’ She glanced around.

  ‘Watch out. Here comes the Merry Widow.’

  Irene skipped smartly away and Clara turned to see a figure in black, evening gown stretched tightly across her pregnant belly and her hair furled savagely from her face, heading towards her. Irene’s nickname was cruelly accurate. It was going to take more than a comedy cabaret to cheer the existential misery of the Propaganda Minister’s wife.

  ‘Fräulein Vine. What a coincidence. We were talking about you on the way here,’ said Magda Goebbels resentfully, as if it were Clara’s fault. ‘Apparently my husband has plans for you.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’ Clara’s gayest smile. ‘Plans in what way, or shouldn’t I ask?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. It’s a perfectly respectable way. Joseph was talking about your role in his new film, Jud Süss.’

  Magda’s voice was thick, clotted with alcohol. She must have been drinking all afternoon. She had one elbow cupped in her hand and was smoking aggressively.

  ‘He never stops talking about it. He thinks it’s going to be a historical masterpiece. Right up there with Battleship Potemkin. His own epic contribution to film posterity. At least I think that’s what he said. It’s probably dreadful. What do you make of it?’

  Clara thought of the script in the leather bag. How the dead weight of it had winded the man who accosted her in the darkness.

  ‘The dialogue’s a bit leaden.’

  ‘Is it? Perhaps you should decline it then. Joseph did mention that your career is taking you in new directions. Not literally, one assumes. Do tell me you’re not leaving us.’

  There was an undercurrent of hysteria in Magda’s voice. It had been there for years. As if the moorings of her life were shifting, the ground still giving way beneath her as marriage to an overbearing, abusive man took her ever further from the life she once expected. Unimaginably far from her early days as Magda Friedlander, student of Hebrew, engaged to a young Zionist, dwelling in the Jewish quarter of Berlin.