A War of Flowers (2014) (28 page)

Now he looked down at the cigarette card album in front of him.
Stars of the Ufa Studios
. It was a smart, red and gold cardboard creation with the title in twirling gilt on the cover and
thick, heavy-gauge leaves inside, with spaces for photographs of forty-eight actors and actresses whose names were inscribed underneath. The album was Ada Freitag’s. She had the complete
series. They must have taken some time to collect and he could tell it was a prized possession by the way she had handled it, which made it all the more odd that she had never come back for it.
Once she had disappeared, Erich had intended to return the album to Ada’s cabin, but when he looked the whole place had been cleared, the bunk stripped and the cupboards emptied. None of
Ada’s possessions remained and there was a choking smell of disinfectant in the air. So instead he had brought the album back home with him, stashed in the bottom of his bag, along with the
green and blue silk scarf she had left. He hadn’t told anyone. Flicking through it, he paused at number 37. Clara Vine. She looked different in pictures, smooth and artificial, her pearl-grey
skin shimmering and her eyes veiled; nothing like the real Clara with her quick smile, her eyes sparkling with interest and her habit of tilting her head to one side when you talked to her. When
Clara came back he would show her the album and remind her that Ada Freitag had been one of her fans. Perhaps that would prompt her to do something.

Hours after she had fallen asleep, Clara jarred awake with a premonition of doom. Why did Eva ask her to the party at the Bayerischer Hof if she was not going to be there? What
could have happened to stop her attending? In the gap between sleep and wakefulness, when reasoning took second place to subliminal instinct, she realized for certain that something was wrong.

Pulling on the blue dirndl dress Steffi Schaeffer had made, and slipping a trench coat on top, she made her way out of the still sleeping pension.

Dawn was breaking and iridescent clouds streaked the grey sky like mother of pearl. With the sharp breath of morning in her throat Clara set off at a rapid pace, trying to rationalize her alarm.
She barely knew Eva Braun, so had no real idea whether her absence signalled a dramatic departure from habit, or merely a skittish approach to arrangements. For all Clara knew, the Führer may
have ordered Eva to Berlin, or perhaps she had felt simply unable to face the venom of the Nazi wives and girlfriends. That would be perfectly understandable. It was hard to forget the scorn in
Frau von Ribbentrop’s face as she dismissed the Führer’s girlfriend:
Perfume and frivolous films seem to be her only interests.
Yet Clara’s first instinct persisted.
Something had happened to Eva Braun; something bad.

It took twenty minutes to reach Wasserburgstrasse, and as she walked, the sounds of the city waking up filled the air – the screech of trams and the plodding of a milk carthorse, newspaper
men stacking their kiosks and the clatter of iron shutters as shopkeepers opened up. Nearer Eva’s home, in the residential streets, families were waking, making breakfast, children squabbling
and preparing for school. At Eva’s villa, however, the curtains were drawn. Pushing through the high wooden gate she went to the door but the bell clanged emptily in the hall, provoking the
distant barking of the dogs, which were, from the sound of it, confined in the back garden. Clara rang again, received no answer, and stood back to stare up at the shutters.

After what seemed like an age, though it could only have been a few minutes, a shuffling figure loomed through the glass panels of the door and after a couple of attempts undid the latch. Eva
Braun, wearing a pale blue, soiled, quilted dressing gown, her face naked and washed out, stood for a moment swaying, then staggered back into the living room, and half-sat, half-fell, into an
armchair. Clara followed her and surveyed the scene. There was a stuffy, fetid atmosphere and the room was littered with discarded clothes and magazines scattered on the floor. Several cups of
coffee stood half drunk on the table, alongside a bottle of cognac and a small framed photograph of Hitler, the glass of which was cracked. As Clara half-opened the curtains, allowing a wash of
sunlight to penetrate the gloom, Eva Braun winced and turned her face away. She had the greenish, sickly tinge of drunkenness and her eyes were half closed. Without make-up she looked much younger
and her dyed hair, showing dark at the roots, hung greasily over her face. Clara unplugged the lamp and the telephone and shut the door. Then she knelt down close beside her and spoke quietly.

‘What happened, Eva? Did you drink too much?’

Eva groaned. Yet no telltale smell of alcohol issued from her.

‘Would you like some water?’

Another, softer groan.

‘I’ll fetch some.’

Forcing Eva to sip a cup of water, Clara reasoned, might bring her to her senses, but when she returned, balancing the cup on the side of the coffee table, something else caught her eye. An
opened bottle of Vanodorm sleeping tablets, with a few remaining tablets scattered across the table. Eva was not drunk. She had taken an overdose. Just like she had done before.

‘My God, Eva. How many have you taken?’

There was a whispered croak. ‘I didn’t count. I took twenty last time and it didn’t work so I reckoned I’d take more.’

‘We need to get you to hospital.’

‘No!’ The force of her resistance caused Eva to sit up and open her eyes. As she did, her complexion grew greener and she produced a small amount of vomit and some of the pills were
ejected.

‘Sorry.’

Clara found an abandoned cardigan on the floor and wiped her mouth with it.

‘Don’t worry. It’s going to be OK.’

Eva sank back against the chair. ‘I’ll never be OK. Never again.’

‘What do you mean?’ Her mumble was barely audible, so Clara drew closer. She reasoned that it was vital to prevent the girl lapsing into unconsciousness again before she could fetch
help.

‘He’ll never marry me now.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I do. Not after what I’ve done.’

‘What have you done?’

Eva turned her face away and issued another groan.

‘Besides, I have it from his own lips.’

‘He told you that?’

‘Oh, not directly. That would be too brave. He did it a different way. He told his old girlfriend, and she told me.’

‘Who is this girlfriend?’

‘Mimi. Mimi Reiter. She was his first girlfriend. She was sixteen when she met him and he was thirty-seven. They were walking their dogs in the Kurpark in Berchtesgaden. She said Wolf
wanted them to have a host of blonde children and she was his ideal woman.’

Eva gave a choked laugh.

‘It wasn’t true, of course.’

‘Of course not.’

Clara reasoned that the best thing was to keep Eva talking. She scrabbled in her bag for a cigarette, lit it, and placed it between Eva’s parched lips. She inhaled, then coughed, sat up
and inhaled again. A flicker of life came back to her face.

‘They broke up years ago but she’s always showing up at the Berghof as if she owns it. And now they’ve met up again.’

‘Why did they break up?’

‘She used to laugh at him. He hates anyone to laugh at him.’

‘So how do you know they’ve met up again?’

‘She came to his apartment here,’ she slurred. ‘In Prinzregentenplatz. She’s married now, to an SS officer, Georg Kubisch, so she’s Frau Kubisch now, but it
doesn’t seem to have made any difference. She had the nerve to call on Wolf in the hope of staying the night. When I accosted her about it she told me Wolf had said he was not happy with me.
He’s known from the day we became intimate on that red sofa in his office that it would never last. He’s forty-nine now. He thinks he’s too old for me.’

‘Don’t take any notice of her. She’s jealous. That’s no reason to attempt something silly like this.’

Eva groaned again. Fear darkened her eyes. She buried her head in her hands.

‘It’s not just that. It’s something else. I can’t tell you. Something awful. When I discovered, I realized I might as well be dead.’

‘It can’t be that bad.’

‘It is . . . he’ll be so angry with me. They all will.’ She stared at Clara, then looked dully away. In the vivid sunlight her complexion seemed almost translucent, with a
bluish colour around the mouth. She dropped the cigarette into an ashtray and slumped down further in her chair.

‘It would help to talk,’ insisted Clara, attempting to prop her up.

‘It would help to die.’

She retched again and a realization came to Clara in a rush – the haggard eyes, the feeling of doom, the dreadful discovery – they all told the same tale. Eva Braun was pregnant. She
must have hoped it would encourage the Führer to marry her, and instead she learned that he was tiring of her. If the Führer really was planning to dispense with her, as Mimi Reiter said,
presenting him with an unwanted child would surely only hasten the impending rejection.

With another sigh, Eva’s eyes drooped shut and her head fell back. Clara realized she needed to act quickly. She eased the sleeping girl onto her side, plugged the telephone back in and
dialled the operator.

‘I want to speak to the police.’

In the apple trees outside, the birds, untroubled by the gravity of the moment, sang their hearts out. The milky morning light had clarified to promise another sunny day and
Stasi and Negus, indignant at being confined to the garden, issued a continual volley of barks to indicate that breakfast was long overdue. The minutes passed agonizingly as Clara stood in the
small sitting room, watching the slow breaths of the comatose figure beside her and waiting for the police to arrive. It must have been a full five minutes before, with a wave of relief, she heard
a car screech to a halt outside and footsteps hasten up the path. When she opened the door, however, it was not a policeman on the step but an officer in black tunic and cap with a death’s
head emblem and smartly pressed breeches tucked into jackboots. It took a moment for her to swallow her amazement because the man standing in front of her, kitted out in the full uniform of
Heinrich Himmler’s SS, was Max Brandt.

Ignoring Clara’s astonishment he pushed past her into the sitting room, taking in the scene in seconds, walked over to Eva Braun and picked up the bottle of sleeping pills by her side.
After a glance at the label he took off his gloves, felt Eva’s pulse for a moment, then let her wrist fall. He strode to the door.

‘Get in the car right away.’

There was no longer a jocular amusement in his eyes. The languid charm had vanished, to be replaced by a curt urgency. Clara’s astonishment at the sight of him mutated to an icy
apprehension. There was no doubt about it now. The fears she had about Brandt’s true motivation were justified and his intentions towards her were plainly malign.

‘What are you talking about?’ Clara glanced at Eva and lowered her voice. ‘She’s taken a bottle of pills. She could die if we leave her. I’ve just called the
police.’

‘I know. They’ll be here in less than five minutes. That’s why you need to leave.’

‘I’m not going. I have to look after Eva.’

‘They’ll know what to do. They’ve done it before often enough.’

‘I don’t care. I’m going to wait for them.’

‘If you do, you’ll find yourself in custody.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’ll arrest you.’

‘Arrest me? But I was the person who found her.’

‘Do you really believe you’re going to be congratulated for saving the Führer’s girlfriend? This news is going to be rigorously suppressed, especially at a time like
this.’

‘A time like what?’

‘Don’t be a fool, Clara. The eyes of the world are trained on Munich! Negotiations to preserve the peace of Europe are at a delicate stage. Even if you’re very lucky and they
don’t arrest and charge you with breaking and entering, there’s every chance they’ll keep you in custody until the meetings of foreign leaders are passed. Do you have any idea how
serious this would look if it gets out? The Führer’s mistress attempts suicide for a third time. What does it say about a man, when his girlfriends keep trying to kill
themselves?’

‘It won’t stop his enemies appeasing him.’

‘There’s no time for this. Did you give the police your name?’

‘They didn’t ask.’

‘Thank God for that. We need to get you out of here.’

He held the door open and gestured to a long, streamlined saloon with gleaming chrome and white-walled tyres standing outside. Its engine was still running.

‘Now.’

Clara cast a look behind her to where Eva remained unconscious in the chair. Brandt seized her arm, pulled her out of the house and into the car, shutting the door behind her with a thunk and
pulling rapidly away, the expensive engine purring beneath them.

For a moment they didn’t speak as Clara sat, trying to assess her situation. How much did Brandt know about her and why should he want to prevent the police arresting her? Where was he
taking her now? She glanced around the car in confusion.

‘It’s an 853A Horch cabriolet,’ said Brandt tersely. ‘I borrowed it.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about the car. I was thinking about Eva. What did you mean when you said that his girlfriends keep trying to kill themselves?’

‘It’s a habit they have. One of his first girlfriends tried to hang herself in the garage. Mimi Reiter, I think she was called.’

Mimi Reiter. The woman Eva had talked about. The one who visited the Führer just days ago.

‘Then his twenty-three-year-old niece Geli shot herself in the heart with his own Walther pistol. People say he never got over that one. He was obsessed with her. And Eva herself tried to
do the same with a gun, though not very convincingly. She had another try with pills a few years ago. The Führer has not been lucky in love. It’s one of the perils of mixing with women
half your age.’

Clara bit her lip and looked away. She had known Eva Braun for all of a week, and what had she deduced? There was a gaucheness about the girl, and a devastating naïvety. She was not like
Magda Goebbels, who had become infatuated with the National Socialist creed, or Annelies von Ribbentrop, who was more of a Nazi than her husband. Least of all like Lina Heydrich, who shored up the
cruelty in her husband’s soul. Instead, the woman closest to Germany’s Führer seemed to have no political interests whatsoever. Yet how could that be possible? Was Eva Braun guilty
of innocence, or deliberate ignorance? It seemed grotesque that a girl as young and deluded as her should forge a relationship with a man like Hitler. With her girlish, foolish hopes, Eva Braun was
like a blonde child in a German fairy tale, who enters a forest and discovers something terrible at its dark heart. Had she felt no foreboding at all when she first encountered the man who
introduced himself as Herr Wolf?