by Jane Thynne
The chill breeze sent a fragile confetti of petals spiralling down from an apple tree, and a petal stuck to Hedwig’s cheek. Clara reached across to brush it away.
‘What sort of secret?’
‘She wouldn’t say. He was on her mind all the time. But this man didn’t make her happy. I think perhaps he saw other women. One of the last times I saw her, Lotti said that she had had enough. She would show him he couldn’t play around with her. She had something on him. But at the same time . . .’
The roar of a passing car caused Hedwig to startle, and turning back to Clara she lowered her voice.
‘The fact was, she was really frightened of him.’
Clara wanted her to keep talking, but she could see it was no use. The girl was as nervous as a kitten.
‘Why should she be frightened of this man if she was in love with him?’
‘I don’t know.’
Clara noticed a café across the road.
‘Would you like to have a cup of coffee with me?’
Hedwig sniffed and squeezed the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears.
‘That’s kind, but I’d better get back. Herr Doktor Kraus will have noticed by now, and God help me if the SS-Reichsführer has already arrived.’ She paused. ‘If you hear anything about . . . about Lotti, would you tell me? I need to know. She was a dear friend and I would do anything I could to find who killed her.’
‘I feel the same.’
Clara took out a tan leather Smythson’s notebook and scribbled her address and telephone number in it with her silver pen.
‘Take this. And if you remember anything else, just call me. It might be useful.’
She tore the page out and pressed it into Hedwig’s hand.
‘Thank you, Fräulein Vine. And please be careful. If that man is still out there, all of us women need to watch ourselves until he’s caught.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘So were you really there? I didn’t see you.’
Erich regarded Clara suspiciously, his dark brows knitted above sceptical eyes.
‘I told you. Right opposite the Führer’s saluting podium.’
‘And you definitely saw me?’
Goebbels was fond of saying that for a lie to be believed, it had to be a big one, but Clara thought that at certain moments, a little lie was a better choice.
‘I was very proud of you.’
It was Saturday, and they had just finished one of their regular weekend pursuits. A swim at the Charlottenburg public swimming baths. It was a lovely old building – the pride of the district – decorated with porcelain dolphins, the high glass ceiling with its turquoise blue struts echoing with the shouts of parents and children.
Clara loved these weekend meetings with Erich. She found herself looking forward to them throughout the week – a moment of sunny respite from the darkening political scene. Children lived so much more in the moment. She liked hearing about his friends, their fights and feuds, and talking about books, films and her own childhood. Erich especially liked to hear about his dead mother, Helga, who had befriended Clara when she first moved to Berlin. Although he had only come into Clara’s life six years ago, some of her happiest times had been with Erich. Rowing on the Wannsee, the sun bouncing off the clear water of the lake as Erich learned to handle the oars, or his enthralled face beside hers in the silvery glimmer of the cinema as they sat through innumerable war films.
Clara knew very little about teenage boys and had no more expected to find herself entrusted with one than she might an elephant or a giant panda, but had come to love Erich as if he were her own.
The best part of the swimming mornings came afterwards when, exuding the tang of chlorine and the virtuous flush of exercise, they would wander a couple of streets along to the vast Rogacki market hall and sate their appetites. Despite the food shortages, the market always gave an impression of plenty, and the café she and Erich liked best was famous for its generous portions. Over the years Erich had grown almost visibly before her eyes as he devoured mountains of Spätzel and Wurst and cakes and ice cream.
That day Clara had ordered Pflaumenkuchen, sweet doughy plum cake topped with cinnamon sugar and a dollop of whipped cream, while Erich, more like a boy playing chess than choosing cake, deliberated lengthily before selecting Pfannkuchen, a type of jam doughnut. To Clara’s secret pleasure he also ordered Himbeersaft, the sugary raspberry juice so loved by children in Berlin. It consoled her that perhaps he was not growing up quite as fast as she feared, despite the fact that he outgrew every shirt she bought for him within a matter of months.
‘Anyway,’ Erich seemed mollified by Clara’s admiration. ‘You can watch me march again if you like.’
‘So soon?’ said Clara, trying hard to inject some enthusiasm into her voice.
‘In the cinema. It’s a movie already. Hitler’s Fiftieth Birthday. We’ve watched it twice in the HJ film hour.’
‘That’s great.’
He shrugged.
‘I suppose.’
He pulled out a packet of cigarettes but at the sight of Clara’s face put it away again.
‘Anyway, I’ve got better news than that. I’ve been appointed to the HJ-Streifendienst.’
Clara beamed at him lovingly. She had no idea what it was, but any achievement of Erich’s gave her a lift. She gave a little shake of his arm.
‘Darling, that’s wonderful! Clever you. What is it?’
‘It’s the Patrol Force. We keep order at meetings and watch out for troublemakers. We make a note of anyone criticizing the Party, you know, disrespecting the Führer, or displaying anti-Party sentiments, and we put that in a regular report to our divisional office. It’s a way of keeping the HJ strong and united.’
‘Oh.’ Clara couldn’t help the disappointment seeping into her voice and Erich flared with annoyance as if she had rubbed a raw wound.
‘I knew you’d be like that! You should be pleased. Anyone else would be. It’s a privilege. A position of responsibility. If you get into the Streifendienst you’re on track for recruitment to the SS and sometimes you go directly to SS officer training school. You can’t believe what an honour it is.’ He had a high flush on his cheeks. ‘But you’re never pleased when I have good news.’
‘That’s not fair,’ she said gently. ‘But all this talk of the SS is quite new. I thought you wanted to join the Luftwaffe.’ He had been talking about it for years and his bedroom at home was plastered with pictures of famous pilots – Ernst Udet, Werner Mölders, Adolf Galland. ‘You’ve spent so much time building gliders and taking rides in fighter bombers.’
‘I know.’ Erich frowned and fiddled with his glass. Clara had hit on the heart of his dilemma, as she so often did, but that didn’t mean he was ready to forgive her. He felt the familiar stab of self-pity. His mother would have been prouder of him, if she had lived. Even Oma, his grandmother, had made his favourite supper as a reward.
‘It’s true. I did want to join the Luftwaffe. I do. But when someone gives you a chance like this. The SS, Clara! All the others were green with envy. It means I’ve been singled out for leadership.’
Clara forced a smile. The HJ was all about spotting future leaders. Once a likely candidate had been identified, they were plucked by the leadership schools, in Vogelsang and Crossinsee and Pomerania, and trained in political science and administration as well as obedience, zeal and mental fitness for the struggles they would face deploying the Führer’s wishes.
‘You just don’t understand.’
‘I suppose I don’t. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’ Erich never sulked for long and besides, it was Saturday, and the Pfannkuchen, glistening with sugar, had just landed on his plate.
‘Everything will change if we go to war with Poland, anyway, and that’s only a few months away.’
‘You seem very sure.’
‘I am,’ he said, through a mouthful of sweet dough. ‘We’re not supposed to say, but our battalion has alr
eady been issued with luminous paint for painting the kerbstones. So people can see their way in a blackout when the Poles begin their aerial bombardment.’
The news gave Clara a chill. Everyone knew Goering had laid elaborate plans to defend Berlin in case of bombing, and the HJ were endlessly practising air-raid precautions, but the idea that these plans were now being put into action made the threat of war seem even more real.
Erich licked his sugar moustache. ‘It’s quite exciting. They’re saying we’ll be pushed to fight over Danzig by the autumn. The Poles are refusing to see reason.’
‘There’s nothing exciting about war.’ There was steel in Clara’s voice but she couldn’t help it. ‘Don’t ever make that mistake.’
Erich shrugged and returned to his glass of Himbeersaft. Men were better judges of these things than women. Male reasoning powers were scientifically superior to women’s and the woman should never presume to argue with the man. He had learned that at the HJ, where they were taught that even the highest BDM leader in the land could not issue orders to the lowest HJ boy. Yet somehow, it was hard to point this out to Clara. His godmother could get quite sardonic when he explained ideas to her. He decided on this occasion to humour her. He was going to be away for several weeks and besides, he had a favour to ask.
Clara reached a hand across to Erich and patted his arm.
‘Why don’t we talk about something else?’
She hated talking politics with Erich. Subjected to weekly political conditioning at the HJ, and gifted with a naturally quick, analytic mind, he loved to pursue political debates. The exhaustion of having to maintain a façade with the boy she so loved, while dreading what might happen to him in a war, was draining. Erich’s argumentative nature would have made him a good barrister but instead he was probably destined to become cannon fodder in Hitler’s deluded war. She looked at his face, still puppyishly rounded, and his eyes shining with a sense of absolute rightness, the clarity of conviction so common in the young and dangerous in the old.
‘Have something else to eat. It’s a treat, remember.’
It was a treat because Erich was to leave the next day for a three-week Hitler Youth camp, north of Berlin. Clara had first taken him there when he entered the senior Hitler Jugend and acquired his short brown trousers, black boots and belt with its iron eagle buckle. Above the camp entrance was a banner with the slogan ‘We were born to die for Germany’ and Clara’s sarcastic comment had caused a predictable squabble between them. But it was soon forgotten. Even though the marching, bayonet drill, grenade throwing and pistol shooting went against Erich’s naturally studious nature, and he was often so tired that he would fall asleep in class, he embraced the HJ with emotional fervour, like the parent he no longer had.
‘What’s this favour you wanted to ask?’ asked Clara, wrenching her mind back to the present. She had already guessed that the answer lay in the wicker basket that Erich had tucked beneath the table.
‘It’s only for a couple of weeks. Just while I’m away.’
He lifted the basket’s front grille to show Clara its tiny, trembling cargo; a pair of young rabbits huddled together. Erich and his grandmother, like a vast number of Berlin citizens, had taken to breeding rabbits for meat and the animals were kept in a hutch on the balcony. As Erich was off to camp his grandmother had suggested that she wring their necks to save herself some work, but instead he had brought them to Clara.
‘They’re only young. It’s far too early to kill them. You will look after them, won’t you? Just while I’m at camp.’
Clara poked a finger through the grille and felt their impossibly silky fur. Beady eyes blinked at her and soft noses twitched, too young even to fear a predator.
‘I would, darling, but I’m going to be in Paris for a couple of days.’
‘Leave them some cabbage leaves and water. They’ll be okay. Better off than if they stay with Oma, anyway. Please.’
He opened the basket, took one rabbit onto his lap and stroked it. The tiny creature remained motionless, ears flattened, nose still quivering.
‘All right.’
She felt a pang of tenderness. Even now, with all his Hitler Youth bluster, his cigarette smoking and adolescent edginess, the child in Erich still surfaced. She remembered their trips to the zoo, in the early days after Helga had died, and of Erich’s fury that wild animals should be caged.
The thought of exotic animals brought yesterday’s trip to the Ahnenerbe back.
‘I meant to ask. Have you ever heard of the Ahnenerbe?’
He rolled his eyes.
‘Everyone’s heard of it. You’ve heard of it, Clara. We saw a newsreel about the latest expedition, remember?’
‘I wasn’t concentrating.’
‘It’s very interesting. They’re scouring the world for the origins of the German race.’
‘You would have thought the German race originated in Germany.’
He frowned.
‘It did, I think. But the Ahnenerbe has discovered that the Aryan race used to rule all sorts of places. That’s exactly why our soldiers must fight to reclaim our original lands.’
So that was what Erich and his friends had been told.
They parted at the S-Bahn and she kissed his cheek fleetingly, because he hated public displays of affection. Then she sat on the platform, with the basket of rabbits alongside her, waiting for the train. On the next bench was a mother with two children – a little girl of around a year old, thumb in mouth and dark-lashed eyes fluttering shut, and her older brother, who was hanging off the handle of the pushchair impatiently, longing for the train to arrive. As he caught sight of Clara’s rabbits and stared with fascination, his mother reached down a hand and ran it idly through his shock of hair.
The gesture, so ordinary, sent a shaft of longing and loss through Clara. It was something she remembered from when she first knew Erich, at the age of ten. How casually, fondly, she had run her fingers through his dense, springy tuft of hair. And now such gestures were forever out of bounds. Never again could she ruffle his hair or pass a proprietorial hand across his face. It was only a tiny, incidental loss when set against the scale of losses that faced everyone just then, but she felt it, and it ached.
Erich had been damaged by the Nazis too. Nowhere near so much as Esther Goldblatt, in silent hiding, lying awake every night in fear of footsteps coming up the stairs, yet the wounds Hitler’s regime had inflicted on him were lasting and real. His mother had been murdered by the Nazis when he was ten years old. He had lost all his security and was left with only a grandmother and Clara herself. No wonder he reserved his ardour for dreams of heroism. No wonder he poured all his passion and loyalty into that other family, the Hitler Youth – the family that never left him with a second to himself.
If she went back to England for good it would mean leaving Erich and she didn’t want that, even if, sometimes, Erich did everything in his power to make himself easy to leave.
A voice jerked her back to the present.
‘Fräulein?’
It was a lottery seller, coming along the platform with a tray-load of orange sealed tickets. The Reichslotterie, the German state lottery, was all the rage. Everyone played – except Jews, who were banned from buying tickets – and the money supposedly went to a variety of noble causes: job creation, Winter Relief, mother and child. Whether the odds were entirely as pure as mathematics would suggest, or rigged to minimize payouts, was another matter. Some people said the Party ensured winning tickets were very thin on the ground. Despite that, everyone had their favourite numbers, and in a vote for improbability and as a protest against her own, mathematical brain, Clara always selected primes. Now she handed over the requisite fifty pfennigs, the ticket seller saluted and she picked five numbered orange envelopes. Only each one she opened had a blue ticket with the single word Nicht written on it.
She might have seen it as an omen, had she not long since learned to disregard them.
Chapter Fifteen
>
‘Why did you want to meet here?’
Hedwig sneaked a quick look around her and frowned. They never went to restaurants, let alone ones like this. They couldn’t possibly afford it. The ‘Alois’ restaurant, at 3, Wittenbergplatz, just across from the ritzy KaDeWe department store, was a pretty smart place. The building had belonged to a Jewish family, until it came under the uncomfortable scrutiny of a tavern proprietor whose influence was out of all proportion to his pale, sweaty, unprepossessing form. For the bespectacled Alois, who had set his sights on the Jewish family’s home and subsequently had them beaten up and evicted, was not just a former Bavarian waiter and petty criminal, but the half-brother of the Führer himself. Even though relations between the two men were not what anyone would call brotherly, no one in the Third Reich felt like questioning the strength of that particular sibling bond.
‘It’s amazing what a powerful brother can do for you,’ said Jochen under his breath as he surveyed the menu and selected a dish of liver dumplings. ‘From a petty thief and drunken waiter to owning a classy joint like this.’
‘The Führer’s brother’s a thief? That can’t be true.’
‘He served a couple of prison sentences in Austria before he fled to Britain to start a new life. Then he married another woman without bothering to divorce the first. He’s a family disgrace. His brother even made him resign from the Party.’
‘That may be,’ Hedwig said softly, trying to avert her eyes from a group of rowdy stormtroopers leering in her direction. ‘But I don’t see why that would make you want to come here.’
‘I thought I’d give it a try,’ he said, briefly, rolling a cigarette with one hand. ‘If it’s good enough for the SS. And aren’t you supposed to be mixing with SS men now? I thought that was what the Faith and Beauty Society was all about. Moving in the right circles.’
‘Jochen, please.’ She placed a hand on his arm. She knew he was jealous, seeing his girlfriend being primped and groomed as a consort to senior Nazi men, and it hurt her to think it. ‘I told you I’d never be interested in any man but you.’
