by Jane Thynne
It was a light tan leather briefcase, expensive-looking but slightly scratched and worn at the corner, with brass fittings and the gilt initials H S L indented on the front. A smaller monogram on the clasp said Asprey of London. Hedwig’s fingers trembled as she unlatched it. The air that escaped smelt of burning, the mustiness of an old fireplace, the ancient molecules of another era. And vacancy.
‘There’s nothing here.’
‘What were you looking for?’
‘A book. A manuscript.’
‘Oh that. I disposed of it.’
To one accustomed to handling the manuscripts in the Ahnenerbe with white cotton gloves, Yva’s casual comment was devastating.
‘You can’t have any idea what it was.’
‘On the contrary, my dear. I knew exactly what it was. No good German can fail to be aware of the importance of the Germania. To me, it is the world’s most dangerous book.’
‘But where is it?’
‘As I think I mentioned before, I’m a Jew, Fräulein. I reasoned that the book belonged somewhere far away from the hands of those who would use it for their own purposes. Last Saturday I was taking a picnic out by Krumme Lanke. We go there to sunbathe and swim, though it’s still not quite warm enough yet for my tastes. Anyhow, at one point I made my excuses and went into the woods. Your manuscript is there, somewhere. Don’t ask me where. I forget.’
In that moment, her shock evaporated and Hedwig laughed out loud at the little woman’s ingenuity. She was right; it couldn’t be more appropriate. The Germania. The work that meant so much to Doktor Kraus and SS-Reichsführer Himmler and everyone at the Faith and Beauty Society. The key to the German people’s past. How fitting that old Roman, Tacitus, would have thought it; that his work on the ancient forest tribe should remain where it started, deep beneath the must and mouldering leaves of the Grunewald.
An hour later she found Jochen in the place they had arranged, beside the Löwenbrücke in the south-west corner of the Tiergarten. The bridge was suspended by four cast-iron lions with ropes in their mouths, and above it the sun cascaded through the lush summer foliage and flint-necked crows squabbled in the boughs of the sweet chestnuts. Jochen was concealed in shadow at the foot of the bridge, smoking a ragged cigarette with deliberation, savouring each inhalation like a connoisseur enjoying a fine wine.
She had so much to tell, yet the sight of him silenced her. Already, only a few days since he had left home, he looked dramatically different. Feral almost. His entire frame seemed to have shrunk; his cheekbones stuck out cadaverously and he was wearing an ill-fitting, dingy jacket and unfamiliar cap. Hedwig might not even have recognized him were it not for the way that he was surveying the vegetation intently, his eyes fixed on the variety of weeds and the bees that were blundering between the flowers, pollen spinning like jewels in the sunlight.
‘Where are you living?’
‘Schmidstrasse.’
It was a slum area, north of Kreuzberg.
‘Are you sleeping all right?’
‘I’ll sleep better if you’ve brought me what I asked for.’
She felt in her bag and brought out one of Kurt’s muslin cloths in which she had wrapped the pistol. He took it from her swiftly, almost imperceptibly, and slipped it into his pocket.
‘Also, I brought you some food.’
She passed him a lovingly prepared roll of ham and cheese, a piece of white sausage, a packet of tea and a bag of sugar she had purloined from work. These too he transferred wordlessly into his jacket.
‘What about your clothes? Do you need me to wash them?’
Still, Jochen didn’t move, but his eyes flicked towards her and he gave a sharp smile.
‘You think of everything.’
‘I’ll have to if I’m going to come with you . . .’
‘You’re not coming with me.’
‘You said I could.’
‘I’ve changed my mind.’
Looking into his face, dappled with green shadow reflected from the water under the bridge, she felt he had already receded from her, like an animal into deep camouflage.
‘But why?’
He remained slouched against the bridge, staring straight ahead, taking swift, savage drags of his cigarette.
‘It won’t work. I have no idea how long this will go on. Where I might go. What will happen when war comes.’
‘All the more reason for us to be together.’
‘I don’t need you.’
‘You don’t need me?’
The words almost choked her. Jochen’s tone was offhand, as if he was declining a cup of coffee, rather than her life.
‘Not exactly. I do need you. But if I’m going to survive underground, I need you on the surface. Someone who would never arouse a moment of suspicion. Somebody ordinary.’
‘Is that what you think I am, then? Ordinary?’
‘No.’ He ground out the cigarette impatiently beneath his foot, swivelling his heel in the damp gravel. ‘I thought you realized that. You’re brave. Just as brave as Sofie. You took a big risk at the ball the other day. And you were willing to leave those brothers you love so much and come with me.’
‘Then why . . .?’
At last Jochen’s gaze lost its hardness and he turned to look at her full on.
‘Don’t you see, Hedy? Surely you understand? It’s not only food or clothes or guns you can give me. It’s the thought of you. The thought that there’s someone good waiting for me. Someone worth caring about.’
He was staring at her now, as if trying to stamp the impression of her face indelibly in his mind. He lifted a grimy finger to her cheek and touched it briefly.
‘Everyone needs something to keep them going. For me, it’s you.’
She knew then, as she looked at him, that this gruff, prickly man was her fate – a fate that no fortune teller would ever have predicted. Who at the Faith and Beauty Society, training her up for the black-liveried arm of an SS man, would have paired Hedwig with an angry, independent anti-Nazi instead? Plain Hedwig Holz, who except on the dance floor had never put a foot out of line. What could she possibly have in common with this unpolished character, so indifferent to the social graces and averse to pleasantries or compliments? Yet Jochen had divined something in Hedwig, a potential she had never recognized herself and nor, she was sure, had anyone else.
He noticed her eyes were glinting and burrowed in his pocket. ‘Here. I got this a while ago from work and I forgot to give it to you. Dry your eyes. If I’m going to think of you, I don’t want to think of you crying.’
He passed her a square of synthetic silk, emblazoned with the words Our Führer is Fifty and pictures of Germany’s achievements: a People’s Car, a Luftwaffe plane, a factory in the Ruhr, and at the centre an image of the Führer. Hedwig blew her nose on it and they stood in silence, shoulders touching, as the wafts of cigarette smoke curled into the brightening air.
Chapter Forty-two
Berlin Mitte had been washed in blood. It was ablaze with crimson pennants, marching troops and the clatter of drums and brass. There was a greasy swirl of gasoline on the wind, and a sea of eagle-topped banners, glinting in the sun, recalled the triumphal march of a Roman emperor. Percussion shivered in the air and the thump of side-drums made the ground quiver. An excited crowd of sightseers had gathered to watch, and every so often the monstrous operetta of boots and belts and guns caused them to break into frenzied applause. If something was that good to look at, who cared if it was fake?
The filming of Germania, like every other project in the Reich, was proceeding at an extraordinary pace. No obstacle would be allowed to get in the way and every barrier, no matter how great, would be conquered. Not that many people dared put up obstacles to Leni Riefenstahl, even when it required commandeering half of Unter den Linden and the whole of Pariser Platz and filling it with cameramen, lighting crew, stills photographers and a squad of fifty Faith and Beauty girls.
Several detachments of soldiers from the near
by Lichterfelde barracks had been co-opted – some to march up and down for as long as the director required and others to string up banners, halt traffic, erect barricades and clear the way for cameramen on roller-skates who were filming the troops from street level. The guards participated enthusiastically, agog at the girls, assiduously preventing ordinary citizens from crossing the square lest they collide with extras dressed as ordinary citizens crossing the square. It made a pleasant change from their usual occupation of practising military manoeuvres, endlessly cleaning and reloading their guns.
Leni herself had spent much of the day winched on a minute wooden platform up a ten-metre-high flagpole next to the Brandenburg Gate, squinting up the new East-West axis with a viewing device and defying the inelegance of the situation with a pair of Dior trousers and her glossy hair bundled tightly beneath a director’s cap. Around midday the Führer had dropped by for a viewing, accompanied by Goebbels, who was unable to resist the opportunity for an impromptu speech. ‘Whoever has seen and experienced the face of the Führer in Triumph of the Will will never forget it. It will haunt him through days and dreams and will, like a quiet flame, burn itself into his soul.’ Leni, dressed in her trademark white greatcoat, stood by, smiling, though everyone knew that inwardly she was seething at the waste of precious time.
The previous day Clara had left Griebnitzsee for good. It was impossible to stay in the place where a death had happened; where she had lugged a man’s body down the garden like a sack of rotten cabbages and watched it slip, without a trace, into the dark water of the lake. She had made two trips, the first to transport her few possessions back to Winterfeldtstrasse, and the second to bundle Erich’s rabbits into their basket and deliver them to his grandmother’s apartment. She found her godson tanned and cheerful, full of the excitements of the HJ camp. His entire demeanour was energized through a combination of rigorous exercise, songs and marches. As agile as a greyhound, as tough as leather and as hard as Krupp’s steel. That was how Hitler described his ideal youth and outwardly Erich, with his newly shaven head and shining eyes, fitted the description perfectly. Yet as he sat there, fondling the rabbits’ ears, stroking their pale gold fur and feeding them cabbage scraps, Clara knew he was still the tender-hearted boy he had always been, still excited by a world beyond guns and planes. Perhaps we could go to the Strandbad Wannsee this Saturday, Clara. I’ve got so much to tell you. Is there any chance I could meet Leni Riefenstahl? His sunny optimism warmed her and just for a while the sleepless fog which had descended on Clara since Hugh Lindsey’s death lifted, and she was able to think beyond the events of the past few days.
By mid-afternoon, her scenes were finished, and she changed into her own clothes to watch the final shot of the day. It was the scene everyone was waiting for: the technically dazzling feat that would showcase Leni Riefenstahl’s trademark choreography. Leni had already explained her plans. The shot would form the opening sequence of the film. Accompanied by a soundtrack of Wagner’s Lohengrin, a Luftwaffe plane piloted by the Führer’s favourite aviatrix, Hanna Reitsch, would approach and dip down like a divine messenger from the skies. The on-board camera would record the clouds parting to reveal the whole, glorious city of Berlin laid out, and right in the centre, a swastika. As the plane drew closer, the swastika would be revealed as a troupe of perfect Faith and Beauty girls massed in the Tiergarten. In a continuous uninterrupted tracking shot, the camera’s eye would come right down to ground level, until the focus was resting on a single girl’s face.
Word of the stunt had spread and sightseers had been collecting at the west side of the Brandenburg Gate for the past hour, their gaze oscillating between the celebrity director herself, and the film of low cloud covering the sky. Soldiers linked arms to control the crowds. From a perch on a viewing platform beside the gate, Clara joined them, looking out at the sea of entranced faces below.
They didn’t have long to wait. It was just a sound at first, a low rumble from the distance, growing to a roar as the Junkers appeared, a grey gleam in the air, the swastikas on the underside of its wings clearly visible. The faint, buffeting breeze strengthened to a wash of air that flattened the leaves on the trees as the plane lowered, like some monstrous bird of prey, wings tilting slightly on the currents. Every face in the crowd was excited, expectant, enthralled as a crowd of children at a conjurer’s trick. Every face was turned upwards.
Every face except one.
She couldn’t see his features, because his hat was tilted down over his eyes, but he stood immobile, hands in pockets, pressed into the crowd, staring right at her. Even as she saw him she noticed something else – the only moving figures in the throng, two men shouldering their way fast in his direction. They were wearing long, belted raincoats, the unofficial uniform of the Gestapo, and were making a direct line for him. When Clara looked back at the place he had been standing, he had disappeared.
As swiftly as she could, Clara darted through the crowd, pushing past the dense press of onlookers in the direction of the man she had seen. But it was useless. With so much practice waiting in queues, Berliners had got used to standing their ground. They moved as slowly and obstinately as cattle. No one was giving way, certainly not to anyone without official ID. Once Clara had fought her way through to the spot where the man had been standing he was nowhere to be seen. She stood looking around in frustration.
Was it Leo? Or a figment of her imagination? And if it was Leo, where would he go?
To the west of the Brandenburg Gate lay the Tiergarten, the largest park in Berlin, dense with trees that could provide cover, but at that moment staked out with cameras and arc lights, as the Faith and Beauty troupe held their gymnastic pose in the open ground. To the left was Potsdamer Platz and behind stretched Unter den Linden. Anyone being pursued would surely be more likely to make his way towards the busiest centre of population, where streets and crowds and buildings offered potential escape. Clara turned and pushed her way back through the stolid crowds to Pariser Platz.
Past Wilhelmstrasse she came to the Soviet Embassy, a handsome building with high brass lanterns, and she stopped and changed her bag to her other shoulder, giving her the opportunity to glance casually behind her, before scanning the street ahead. It was filled with pavement cafés and ambling shoppers, but there was no sign of Leo. If he had headed this way, both he and the men following had already been swallowed up in the crowd.
On the corner of Friedrichstrasse two policemen were standing, their eyes travelling over the passing pedestrians with more than usual scrutiny. Were they a second patrol on the lookout for him? And if so, how many others had been posted to join the hunt?
A couple of minutes later she had the answer. Towards the Lustgarten and crossing the bridge, a ribbon of lights on the dancing waters of the Spree, she noticed a car moving slowly, two men in the front seats, their faces sweeping left and right, scanning the crowds on the pavement as they trudged home from work.
At the same moment, far ahead, she caught sight of him. A vague shadow, moving swiftly, dipping in and out of the throng. A flash of red-gold hair. He turned sharp left, up to Museum Island, along the side of the canal where it was impossible for a car to follow, heading for the maze of streets around the courtyard complex of the Hackesche Höfe. Clara turned too, but once she had reached the elevated S-Bahn arches she lost him again.
In this area, Albert Speer’s redevelopment of Berlin was at its most advanced. In some places entire streets had been flattened and elsewhere half-demolished homes stood like broken teeth, their debris coated with dust. Cranes and trucks were parked up for the evening. She hastened along Spandauer Strasse, past a restaurant whose glass front was shattered and a board hammered diagonally across the door. Inside, tables and chairs were overturned, cups and plates abandoned on the tables. A paper was taped to the cracked door.
Closed until further notice. By order of police.
A zealous official had added a handwritten explanation.
I charged extorti
onate prices and that is why I am now in a concentration camp.
Blood drumming in her ears, Clara looked around her, wondering if she had been wrong, trying to guess where in the maze of streets Leo might go. The streets in this part of the city were narrower, older, more winding than the broad boulevards elsewhere in Berlin. She remembered that Leo had once had an apartment near here, in Oranienburger Strasse, close to the enormous, gold-domed Neue Synagoge. That meant he knew the local streets well and he knew where best to disappear.
Amid the jangle of trams, a high-pitched angry shout rang out and faces turned. The police car that Clara had seen earlier had rejoined the street two hundred metres behind her at Dircksenstrasse and was coming in her direction, one man’s head craning out from the passenger window. Ahead of her the figure of Leo darted across the road. The occupants of the car had seen him too.
At that moment the air was riven by a clanging bell. A siren wailed like a mournful wraith and a plume of smoke mushroomed into the street, obscuring the houses on each side. Traffic drew to a halt. Klaxons sounded and people on the street looked hesitantly around until they saw a patch of derelict waste ground where a row of HJ boys was assembled in a line facing their corps leader, a grown man in shorts with a whistle, issuing staccato instructions through a megaphone. Almost immediately surprise mutated into mild irritation. Everyone knew what this was about.
Air-raid drill.
Practices for the bombing raids were happening every day now and they always involved the Hitler Jugend. The HJ, Erich had told her, would play a vital part in air-raid precautions. It would be their job to assist in the clean-up, to get casualties to first aid points and help relocate bombed-out civilians. Some would act as air-raid wardens and others would help put out fires. The really lucky ones, Erich said, would get to help operate the flak guns.
Amid the swirling smoke, a host of boys with Red Cross armbands dashed forward with stretchers. Others threw themselves enthusiastically on the ground, issuing loud, theatrical groans, enacting the aftermath of a bombing. Further recruits spilled from a nearby building and others, outfitted in gas masks and fireproof suits, proceeded to spray the ground with water, dragging wheeled canisters behind them as if removing traces of poison gas.
