A War of Flowers (2014) (16 page)

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, given 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 tantalizingly 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.

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.

Map-making was an appropriate enthusiasm for the Nazi regime, given that it was intent on revising the maps of Europe all over again. Also on the wall was a map that had been redrawn since the
Anschluss to include Austria, now renamed Ostmark, and stamped with a decorative swastika whose crooked arms seemed to extend like hooks across the continent, angling for other nations to ensnare.
Cartography was certainly a good career choice in Nazi Germany. That, or making battleships.

Austria had shattered him. At the age of thirty-six, with a good fifteen years in journalism behind him, Rupert Allingham no longer expected that a news story could make him weep, but the things
he had seen in Vienna in the past month had brought tears to his eyes. The sound of German drums beating like an iron heart as the troops marched into the city centre. The sight of strapping
blondes fighting to get a glimpse of a Jewish surgeon on his hands and knees, scrubbing the pavement with delicate, experienced fingers that had probably saved the lives of hundreds of Austrians
and were now bruised and bleeding from the slashes of the whips wielded by thugs in swastika armbands. The Viennese Nazis were far more brutal than the Germans and they lost no time in jailing Jews
and confiscating their property. The rich or élite Jews, like Sigmund Freud, were able to flee, but the others were stranded. Even before they crossed the border the Gestapo had assembled a
hundred thousand names with Viennese addresses, and now an official called Adolf Eichmann had been put in charge of an Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. The trouble was, nobody else wanted
them. Czechoslovakia had closed its borders to Jewish refugees. President Roosevelt had convened a conference in France to address the problem, but France, too, was making it hard for Jews who
wanted to escape. The word was that since the Nazis had given up the hope of the Jews moving en masse to Palestine, they had a plan to ship them to Madagascar. All sorts of schemes were in the
pipeline, formulated by fat officials behind desks in Berlin, reducing the faraway lives of thousands of people to a stack of paper. One plan had been floated to arrest all the Ostjuden on a single
night and transport them at gunpoint to Poland. Canada, Angola, Haiti, Abyssinia had also been mooted. What kind of minds devised these schemes? Did they consider what it would mean for people to
be wrenched away from everything they knew? It was sometimes impossible to avoid the conclusion that some of the nastiest acts of the century were being perpetrated not by evil geniuses, but by
bureaucrats.

No wonder he drank.

‘You waiting for something, Allingham?’

A voice cut through his reflections. It was Herbert Melcher, from the Associated Press, a quiet American with a wit as dry as a vodka martini.

‘I’m waiting for the Fourth Reich to begin.’

‘You might be waiting some time.’

‘Let’s hope not.’

Melcher had a face full of creases, like a newspaper that had been balled up and smoothed out again. He was more softly spoken than a lot of the correspondents, whose voices tended to match the
size of their by-lines, but he had been around a long time, and Rupert respected him.