by Thynne, Jane
Rapidly Clara realized that whatever Sabine wanted to discuss, it wasn’t cosmetics. Leaning back obediently she closed her eyes as Sabine poured a few pearls of apricot-scented oil into the palm of her hand, and began massaging her face with soothing, rhythmic strokes. Bending over Clara she murmured softly in her ear.
‘I tried several times to get hold of you.’
‘I’ve been in Paris.’
‘Perhaps you should have stayed there.’
‘What on earth do you mean by that?’
‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Clara.’
‘Please . . . tell me.’
‘It’s very delicate. If anyone knew I had mentioned this . . .’
‘Sabine, I know how to keep quiet.’
‘You see, they all come here, the top wives. Frau Heydrich, Frau Goering, Frau Goebbels, Frau Ley. I hear all the talk. Not deliberately, but I can’t help it sometimes. They gossip, you know. What else are they to do when they’re having treatments? When you’re lying on your back having a massage or relaxing with a facial, your guard is down. You talk. They assume that the person who tends to them is a servant who simply won’t hear. Or perhaps they think a servant can’t understand.’ Her fingers fluttered over Clara’s brow, smoothing the apricot oil in relaxing circles.
‘Anyhow, the other day, I overheard something Frau von Ribbentrop was saying. She knows you a little, I think.’
‘She does. I didn’t know she was a client of yours.’
Sabine made a grimace which suggested she knew of no beauty treatment that could soften the iron mask of Annelies von Ribbentrop.
‘She comes often. And she’s very happy at the moment. This spring the SS took over a castle called Fuschl near Salzburg, executed the owner and handed it to her family. It’s proving to be the perfect holiday place, apparently.’
‘I pray I never get invited. What was she saying?’
‘She was talking to Frau Lina Heydrich, the Obergruppenführer’s wife.’ Sabine lowered her voice, though they could not possibly have been overheard. Merely the name of the man in charge of the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst, the SS’s own spy service, was enough to provoke people to an instinctive whisper. He was called Himmler’s Hirn, Himmler’s brain, because his severe meticulous attention to detail was invaluable to his superior. His wife Lina, a cool, Nordic beauty, was known to be a more ardent Nazi than her husband, if such a thing was possible.
‘Both ladies were here to have a treatment before the Nuremberg rally. And they were gossiping about the Propaganda Minister. There’s always so much gossip about him. It’s their favourite topic.’
‘I think the same goes for everyone in Berlin.’
‘Annelies von Ribbentrop was telling Frau Heydrich that Joseph Goebbels is so blinded by love for this actress – you must have heard – that his judgement is quite askew. Otherwise he would notice that Berlin is infested with English spies.’
‘English spies?’
The soothing motions of Sabine’s hands massaging Clara’s face were in inverse proportion to the alarm that this remark engendered.
‘Yes. Infested, Frau von Ribbentrop said.’
‘Strange thing to say.’
‘Perhaps not. You know better than me that the von Ribbentrops hate England with a passion. Ever since he was ridiculed when he was ambassador there. His wife is worried that the Führer has been so blinded by those Englishwomen he hangs about with, the Mitford sisters and their crowd, that he will let them influence him in this Sudetenland business. He will refrain from action out of an unfounded respect for the English.’
‘If he refrains from action that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe, but it’s not that . . .’
‘What are you getting at, Sabine?’
‘That’s just it, Clara. It’s what surprised me. Frau von Ribbentrop mentioned you.’
‘Me?’
‘She said you might have Goebbels fooled, but you don’t fool her. It was about time someone checked up on you.’ Sabine lowered her voice yet further to a frightened whisper. ‘Frau von Ribbentrop said Heydrich should have one of his men keep an eye on you.’
Clara opened her eyes and caught Sabine’s agonized expression in the mirror. Her own face, sleek with cream, had a ghostly, impenetrable glow.
‘Keep an eye on me?’
‘That’s all she said. To Frau Heydrich. I thought you should know.’
‘Thank you,’ said Clara, closing her eyes again in an attempt to suppress the panic that was rising within her.
Sabine didn’t bother with platitudes about trying not to worry. Nothing could be more worrying than the attention of Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. Lean and blond with a savage, watchful gaze, of all the Nazi leaders, it was Heydrich who most conformed to the Aryan stereotype, which was ironic, given that as a child his schoolfriends had called him Issy in reference to the rumours of Jewish blood in his veins. But no one was making jokes about Heydrich now. In his immaculate black SS uniform, with the silver insignia of the SD on his arm and jackboots polished to a high gleam, the man who proclaimed himself ‘as hard as granite’ was considered the most fearsome member of the Nazi élite. A shadowy army of fifty thousand men were under his command and everyone in Germany lived in fear of them. Their base was an ominous cluster of buildings in Prinz Albrecht Strasse, but like a poison gas Heydrich’s men were seemingly everywhere. If the grocery had run short of eggs, or a military parade held up your car, and you made an unwise comment, the man next to you might show his Party badge, demand your papers and request your appearance at the police station. It was worse when they didn’t make themselves known. Heydrich’s stool pigeons were always there, keeping an ear out for anyone who might betray a sympathy for Jews, Marxists, Social Democrats or Freemasons, and if they did, the details would be noted in a vast archive of files stored in the bowels of Prinz Albrecht Strasse for future reference.
One of the beauticians arrived to place a cup of steaming coffee on a tray beside Clara and Sabine stepped back, folding a towel neatly over her arm and lightly touching Clara’s shoulder.
‘Please. Have a drink.’
Clara took a sip and forced herself to think. Annelies von Ribbentrop was an heiress, born into a wealthy wine merchant family, the Henkells. Her family had been scandalized by her decision to marry Ribbentrop – before he had added the aristocratic ‘von’ to his name – yet that made little difference, because Annelies had plenty of ambition for two. With the help of lavish entertainment at their villa in Dahlem, she had angled successfully for her husband’s appointment as ambassador to the Court of St James in Britain, only to find that the London posting was a disaster. English society had scoffed at the von Ribbentrops’ grand attempts to impress them and were scandalized by the grandiose marble cladding at the embassy in Carlton House Terrace. Rumours spread that the ambassador was sleeping with Wallis Simpson, the American divorcee now married to the Duke of Windsor, and that he sent her seventeen red roses every day. Undaunted, Annelies had simply redirected her energy to securing her husband the job of Foreign Minister, and refocused her decorating obsession to an exorbitant refurbishment of the Foreign Ministry in Wilhelmstrasse.
She had known Clara for the past five years, and disliked her for that long too. It might have been because Frau von Ribbentrop loathed Emmy Goering, who had been friendly to Clara, and was, like Clara, an actress, but if Clara had to guess, it was probably the mere fact that she was half English – a member of that despised race who had laughed at Annelies behind their hands, ridiculed her pretensions and gossiped about her husband’s affairs.
As Sabine took up a warm flannel and massaged Clara’s face, then set about perfecting her make-up, Clara was calculating the effect that Frau von Ribbentrop’s comments might have. Would Lina Heydrich actually bother to relay gossip about a half-English actress who had fallen foul of the Foreign Minister’s wife? And even if she did, what was the chance that Heydrich would pay any attention, giv
en that the Nazi hierarchy was in the midst of an international crisis? When the continent stood on the brink of war, who could be bothered with gossip about actresses? Politicians, maybe, merited scrutiny and statesmen, even journalists. But who cared about actresses?
Somehow Clara managed to thank Sabine, and leave the salon with a semblance of calm, but once outside she walked along the Kurfürstendamm without seeing it. The streets were sticky with rising heat which smelt of melting tar and the sun’s glare bounced off the hot steel of postcard sellers’ carts and reflected in the windows of the department stores. A snatch of music issued from a bar and the cries of a newspaper seller on the corner of Joachimstaler Strasse competed with the sound of drilling on yet another new building. Yet despite the hustle of the street, Clara felt as though she was in a film with the sound locked off, cocooned in silence and her own thoughts. Sabine’s comment echoed in her mind.
Heydrich should have one of his men keep an eye on you.
While the threat of surveillance was always with Clara, in recent months it had become a more low-level fear, a theoretical possibility which led her to undertake routine precautions out of habit, rather than immediate concern. She still, religiously, followed the lessons Leo had taught her. She must never carry with her the name of Archie Dyson, her contact at the British Embassy, nor should she keep tickets to trams or cinemas. Tickets were tiny, valuable mines of information that pinpointed your location and left an unmistakable trace. The only tickets in Clara’s pocket should be those she had deliberately placed there. She must always ensure her moves were accountable and have a valid reason for anywhere she went. Lastly, and most importantly, she must assume she was being watched, day and night.
Despite these precautions though, since arresting her the previous year the Gestapo seemed to have satisfied themselves that Clara was nothing more than she seemed; a moderately successful actress whose ambitions lay in securing better roles, rather than securing secrets for British Intelligence. She had not dropped her guard, yet she had been able to breathe a sigh of relief. Now it seemed she would need to step up her attention again. Fresh threat lurked all around her and more than ever she would need to be at her most alert.
She came to a halt in front of a green octagonal, turreted news kiosk. The B.Z. am Mittag was displaying a photograph of the most famous baby in the Reich, Edda Goering, with her adoring parents. The fact that the child had been given the same name as Mussolini’s daughter raised excitable gossip about her paternity, particularly since the Duce had been visiting Berlin at the time of her conception and Goering was widely assumed to be impotent. That was easy to believe, Clara thought, looking at his face like a ripening cheese, the fat wet lips and slightly protruding eyes as he bent over the child in the arms of her mother Emmy, who at forty-five might well be cradling the only baby she would ever have. The couple’s joy was shared around the world, at least if you believed the six hundred thousand telegrams plus vanloads of artworks, Meissen porcelain sets and other lavish presents that had poured in. In terms of kings bearing gifts, Edda’s arrival made the original Nativity look like a Bring and Buy sale.
Clara had encountered Emmy Goering many times and knew that whenever they next met Emmy would expect her to be entirely up to date about the baby and all her appearances in the press. Like any new mother, only a hundred times worse.
Blindly, she took a paper from the rack.
‘Dreizig pfennig, bitte.’
She fumbled in her purse for change and dropped the coins. Stooping to pick them up, she was beaten to it by the customer behind her and looked up to find herself staring at a familiar face. It was jovial and slightly fleshy, with beads of sweat on the forehead, crinkled lines around the eyes, and unruly, receding hair.
Cultural attaché, Max Brandt.
At once, the sounds on the street amplified as though an invisible volume had suddenly been turned up. The screech of tram wheels ripped through the cocoon of thought that enveloped Clara and she was suddenly conscious of her freshly made-up face and the trail of apricot scent that radiated from her.
‘Herr Brandt! You’re in Berlin? What a surprise.’
‘Isn’t it?’ He took off his peaked cap and smiled down at her. ‘People tend not to like surprises nowadays, but I say this is a remarkably pleasant one.’
‘And you’re in uniform.’
‘Unfortunately. These things are unbearably hot, you know. But it could be worse. This is just the day uniform; our full diplomatic uniform has a dark blue tailcoat embroidered with oak leaves and a silver sash and dagger.’
‘A dagger doesn’t sound very diplomatic.’
‘Depends what kind of diplomacy you’re engaged in. Diplomats with daggers seem to be in vogue right now.’ He ran a finger round his collar. ‘As a matter of fact, all these get-ups are a new thing. A few years ago we Foreign Service people wore plain suits until someone had the bright idea of dressing us up like eighteenth-century dandies. They’re designed by some fellow called Benno von Arent.’
‘I know von Arent. He’s a stage designer. He works at Ufa.’
‘That makes sense. We all look like we’re performing in an operetta.’
Even in his uniform there was something unruly about Max Brandt, something untamed, as though dark hair might curl mutinously from the neck of his shirt, or the buttons of his uniform burst apart. Unlike a lot of Party men who liked to shave their heads so that only a single, brutal strip remained, his own was wavy and only just controlled by brilliantine. Instead of the polished charm of a professional diplomat, he exuded a kind of insubordinate jollity. Despite herself, Clara’s anxiety lifted and she laughed.
‘So what brings you from Paris?’
‘Just some work matters. But it looks like serendipity.’
‘Are you here long?’
‘A few days, probably.’ Although he looked older in uniform, his eyes were still sleepy and humorous and his manner suggestive.
‘As I recall, we had an arrangement to meet for dinner. What would you say to making that a firm plan? That is, if Sturmbannführer Steinbrecher doesn’t object.’
Despite herself, Clara blushed at the memory of her made-up boyfriend.
‘I’m really sorry. I can’t just now.’
‘Lunch then. It’s not yet midday.’
‘Again, I can’t.’
‘Can’t today, or can’t with me?’
‘It’s just not possible.’
‘That’s a shame. I thought you gave me your word.’
She hesitated. Though she felt an intense gravitational pull of attraction, the appearance of Max Brandt redoubled her alarm. Moments earlier she had been warned that Heydrich might be watching her and here was a Nazi officer on the street in front of her, claiming co-incidence. How could it be co-incidence that he should resurface in Berlin, let alone contrive to turn up right by her side at this precise junction on the Ku’damm at exactly the same time? Coincidence troubled Clara. She had learned to see it for what it was, genuine but rare, and always meriting scrutiny. Where other people saw coincidence, she tended to see patterns. Just some work matters, Brandt said, but how could the work of a cultural attaché have any importance at a time when the fate of nations hung in the balance? His business was opera and art, but which opera could merit his immediate return to the capital? What painting could require high-level attention in Berlin?
And yet . . . she yearned to accept his invitation.
Unbidden, her mind travelled ahead to the idea of a long lunch with Max Brandt, talking about theatre and opera, and a slow walk afterwards, perhaps culminating in a hotel somewhere, silk sheets rumpled and curtains drawn against the world. A tangle of clothes on the floor. Her cheek against that tanned chest, her naked limbs entwined with his. The smell of French cigarettes and his warm skin. The image was so scandalously real in her mind that she blushed and in that flash she perceived that similar scenes were playing in Brandt’s imagination too. For a fraction of a second, the possibility hung tan
talizingly between them. A stolen afternoon of pleasure, cut off from the world. Then she remembered how lonely she had felt in Paris and realized that Brandt, with his broken marriage, probably felt that way too. It didn’t have to be her – he would probably have gone with any girl who might, for a few days, staunch the isolation of a solitary existence. But Clara wasn’t just anyone and she was not interested in a few days’ pleasure, above all not when it came to sleeping with a Nazi officer whose motives were far from romantic.
‘I don’t have the time.’
‘Please.’ There was a note of appeal in his voice. For a second it was as though the suave mask had slipped to reveal a kind of desperation. A need for contact that went beyond the purely personal. Brandt reached a hand forward to her arm and his touch seared her, but she kept her tone light and friendly.
‘You see, I have an audition in Munich tomorrow so I’m taking the night train down this evening. We’ll have to postpone our dinner.’
It did the trick. His mask was resumed, the languid smile back in place. ‘I note you say postpone and not cancel, Clara Vine. I shall take that to heart. I won’t forget.’
She rested her hand in his briefly.
‘Nor will I.’
Brandt remained, watching her thoughtfully, as she headed up the street.
Chapter Twelve
In the lobby of the Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment, Rupert Allingham paused beside a display of priceless mediaeval cartography that had been recently pilfered from the city’s museums. Since seizing power, Nazi ministers had had no qualms about helping themselves to the contents of the state’s art collections, not only for home use but also to decorate their political domains. This time Goebbels had been on quite a spree. The most exquisite item in his new collection was a fourteenth-century depiction of the Kingdom of Bohemia, a vista of turrets and bears, with a glinting river running through it, crowded with fishes and ships. Rupert squinted at it carefully. He loved those old maps, the ones with dolphins plunging into absurdly crested waves, towns encircled by fortifications and cherubs in the corners blowing their trumpets. Where nations were divided into states with their own coats of arms and tiny castles nestled in miniature woods. They belonged to another, simpler world, one where history hatched national borders gently, like cracks in a shell.
