A War of Flowers (2014) (29 page)

‘Why do you think she did it?’

‘Who knows? She’s unbalanced.’

It’s something else. I can’t tell you. Something awful. When I discovered, I realized I might as well be dead.
Clara was more certain than ever. Eva Braun was pregnant.

‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’ she asked.

‘Those bottles of Vanodorm hold twenty-five tablets. She hadn’t taken all of them. And I noticed she had coughed up quite a few. So I suspect she’ll be fine once they get it
out of her. A little groggy perhaps, but no damage done.’

He gave a sidelong glance.

‘Nothing worse than a few Mai Tai cocktails could do, at any rate.’

Clara remained staring out of the window, trying to analyse the remark he had just made. So Max Brandt knew about the party at the Tiki Bar. Perhaps he had been there too. How could she have
missed his distinctive figure in such a confined space?

‘How did you know where I was this morning?’

‘A stroke of luck.’

‘You can’t expect me to believe that. You turned up a few minutes after I had called the police. Who told you?’

‘I happened to be at the police station when you called.’

‘You happened to be there? Why?’

He shrugged.

‘Perhaps I lost my dog.’

‘Don’t joke.’

‘All right. I was on official business. I happened to be there when you made your call.’

Official business. What kind of official business did a cultural attaché have at a Munich police station? Clara didn’t need to wonder long because the truth was perfectly evident to
her, and as sharp as a knife in the heart. Brandt, the man who had danced with her so tenderly in Paris, whose charm had been so seductive and whose kiss she had dreamed of over so many nights, was
the instrument of Heydrich she had been warned of. The man who had been sent to check her movements and build a case against her. What else could explain why he had turned up at her side in Berlin?
Or why she had sensed surveillance in Munich? Why else should he have appeared, out of the blue, at the home of Eva Braun, ordering her into his car? And most damning of all, why should he now be
wearing the uniform of the SS, when he had previously told her he was an attaché in the German diplomatic service?

Glancing sideways she saw the tense jut of his jaw, and his eyes, which she had once considered melting, were now steely. Brandt looked old. Perhaps he didn’t like what he was doing. What
honourable man would? Maybe he regretted deceiving her. Perhaps he hated himself for the role he was carrying out, and for what was about to happen to her. Clara shut her eyes momentarily, dreading
what lay ahead. A year ago she had been interrogated in Prinz Albrecht Strasse, the headquarters of the Gestapo, and the memory of that night and day, the casual brutality meted out by
Hauptsturmführer Oskar Wengen, a man with the eyes of a snake, still woke her regularly with a racing heart.

Yet the thought of that night also served to focus her. If Max Brandt was Heydrich’s man, she was now in his car, powerless, so the best she could do was to give nothing away. He could
have no idea that she had been warned of surveillance. She must remain resolutely in character – an actress with no conceivable interest in politics.

She shuffled herself deeper into the cream leather seat, smoothing her dress over her knees and checking her face in the overhead mirror.

‘Where exactly are you taking me?’

He glanced at her and said gruffly, ‘It’s a social event.’

‘A social event?’

‘Precisely. I have to go, so you may as well come too. It’s about a hundred miles from here.’

He glanced in the mirror behind him.

‘It’ll take up most of the day, if that’s all right with you.’

‘I don’t suppose I have much choice. Where exactly is it?’

‘The Berghof.’

The address, uttered so casually, caught the breath in her throat. The Berghof. Hitler’s mountain residence. The heart of his domestic base, and the place where, above all others, the
Führer felt at home. High in the Obersalzberg mountains where, away from the hustle of Berlin or Munich and surrounded by his inner circle, Hitler liked to relax and plan the next stage in his
strategy to enlarge the German Lebensraum.

‘Hitler’s house? Herr Brandt, I can’t.’

He lifted an eyebrow.

‘It’s an honour, you do realize.’

‘I know. I just don’t feel . . . I mean I don’t know if I could cope with that. Just now. After what I’ve seen. I mean, the Führer’s girlfriend.’

‘You’ll cope fine, as long as you give no word of what has just happened. You need to stay completely silent. Don’t let on to anyone – and I mean anyone – about
Fräulein Braun’s mishap.’

‘But the Führer . . .?’

‘The Führer’s not there today. He’s in Munich with Doktor Goebbels.’ For the first time, he allowed a terse smile. ‘I’m only going because I have a
little cultural duty to perform.’

The familiar ironic lilt entered his voice. ‘I’ve been summoned by Reichsführer-SS Himmler.’

Himmler, head of the SS, the élite of the Nazi party, whose carefully picked members wore the same striking black uniform that Brandt was wearing now.

‘He wants to brief me on his plans for a celebration of Teutonic culture with reference to the operas of Wagner. My task is to appear as enthusiastic as possible.’

‘I thought Wagner was the Führer’s special interest?’

‘It is. But Teutonic mythology is Himmler’s passion. He has a castle in Wewelsburg for his SS leadership school dedicated to the Teutonic order. It’s a most extraordinary
place. It’s triangular in shape and full of mosaics decked with mythic significance. All the rooms are named after the Grail legend – King Arthur, Siegfried, Parsifal and so forth. The
crypt is called Valhalla and there are all sorts of stories about what goes on there.’ He winked. ‘Don’t worry. Women aren’t allowed in. Except for SS wedding ceremonies,
and I don’t imagine you’re about to participate in one of those.’ He paused, and a glimmer of the old, sardonic manner returned. ‘Unless Sturmbannführer Steinbrecher
has plans, of course.’

Outside, it was brightening into an exquisite morning. Clara sat in silence, staring out of the window as the Munich buildings with their cream and gold stone slipped by and the powerful car
purred southwards, through the outskirts of the city, until the houses gave way to fields and the autobahn stretched out before them. Perhaps it was the beauty of their surroundings, but Brandt
himself seemed to relax a little; his brow unfurrowed, his shoulders dropped and he stopped checking his mirror.

‘So is that the official business that brought you to Munich? Himmler’s celebration?’

‘Not exactly. I had some other issues to attend to, but I found myself invited to lunch at the Berghof, and as you can imagine, that kind of invitation is difficult to refuse.’

He gave a wry smile.

‘How did you come to be Himmler’s expert on Teutonic culture?’

‘Good question. I was a lawyer before I joined the Foreign Service. I went to law school in Königsberg, then I worked briefly in a magistrates’ court in Berlin and began to
specialize in civil rights.’

A dry laugh.

‘Good job I switched professions or I’d have found myself redundant. Civil rights lawyers are about as useful as handlooms or spinning wheels in Germany today. Anyway, I’d
always had a hankering for foreign travel. I had an uncle who’d been an ambassador and he struck me as far more civilized and worldly than the dull lawyers populating the other branches of my
family. We’re a family of lawyers, all upstanding men, of course, minor nobility, we’ve been running the Prussian justice system for generations and I was all set to follow in their
footsteps. But I always secretly cherished the idea of living an exotic life, like my uncle. That was how I saw it, anyway, so I sat the exams for the German Foreign Service and passed them.’
He grinned. ‘Though I realize life as a Nazi cultural attaché probably doesn’t sound too exotic to you.’

‘You joined the Party?’

‘Of course. I knew that was going to be essential if I was to progress. I was lucky with my first embassy – I was posted as an attaché to Budapest – but I served in a
couple of less salubrious places before I landed Paris. I can’t deny I was very fortunate to get the French Embassy. 78, Rue de Lille is the address of Foreign Service dreams.

‘Anyhow, my heavy exposure to opera, as you so acutely noticed, must have rubbed off. Himmler takes me as a cultural connoisseur of the highest order. I’ve had to bone up because
whenever I see him he asks about Wagner. It would be enough to terrify a lesser man, but as it is I have a gift for bluffing. It’s probably my greatest talent. Perhaps my only one.’

Casually, he added, ‘He was so pleased with me he’s awarded me an honorary rank in the SS. I’ve had to change uniforms.’

‘I noticed.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I preferred the other one.’

The roads had emptied out now and they had passed into the Bavarian countryside. The air was fresh and clean. Pockets of forest were intersected with fields of intense, luminous green, and here
and there white-faced houses with green shutters and red slanting roofs stood, bursts of crimson geraniums frothing at their windows. Cows gazed indifferently at a gate. It was a landscape of
idyllic calm, but it was not enough to soothe the anxiety thrumming through Clara’s body.

Affecting a nonchalance she did not feel, she said, ‘Do you have any idea who will be at this lunch?’

‘Hardly anyone.’ He paused. ‘The Bormanns. Himmler, obviously.’

‘And Heydrich?’ she asked, before she could stop herself.

He gave her a quick, curious glance, as if assessing her interest, and said,

‘Perhaps. If he’s not detained by other business in Munich.’

Clara quailed. The thought of Heydrich’s eyes, as grey and pitiless as a frozen North Sea, meeting hers across the lunch table, terrified her. Fear narrowed her throat, making it hard to
speak.

‘Heydrich intrigues you, doesn’t he? I can understand why. He’s an interesting figure. He’s a very talented violinist,’ said Brandt musingly. ‘He plays in a
quartet with Frau Canaris, the wife of the Abwehr chief. Strange to imagine, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose.’ Actually, she could just about imagine Heydrich submitting to the discipline of practice, applying himself to a piece day after day with military rigour until he had
mastered every note of it precisely. But imagining a soul inside that cadaverous frame, thrilling to the beauty of Strauss or Beethoven, would take a greater imagination than hers.

‘He’s a surprising figure all round. When Himmler first interviewed Heydrich he was impressed by how much he knew about intelligence affairs. He never discovered that
Heydrich’s grounding in espionage matters came entirely from reading British spy novels. John Buchan, Erskine Childers and so on. Heydrich always wanted to be a spy. They say he was obsessed
with spy fiction even while he was still in the Navy. He signs his internal documents with “C” because he’s read that’s what the head of the British Secret Service likes to
do. Whether he does or not, I wouldn’t know.’

Clara gave an obligatory laugh. She did know, but Brandt must never discover that.

‘Heydrich knows all the secrets of the Third Reich. He knows where all the bodies are buried. He even dug up and interviewed the residents of the Viennese flophouse where Hitler lived in
1910. Can you imagine that? Extraordinary efficiency.’

Seeing her face he added, ‘Don’t worry. With any luck you won’t need to talk to the men. You can gossip with the ladies. I’m sure that’s the kind of
intelligence-gathering you prefer.’

The road was winding upwards now, and the landscape was becoming mountainous. Ahead, the crags of the Bavarian Alps were silhouetted against the morning sky, lilac and grey, towering into a
light net of mist. Snow lay in the folds of their peaks, and in their valleys, deep silver lakes were captured. Despite her apprehension, Clara was awestruck. These mountains had inspired so many
artists, from Caspar David Friedrich to Wagner. They encapsulated the sublime and lent themselves to the wildest flights of fantasy. King Ludwig had built his fairy-tale castle, Neuschwanstein,
amongst their southern foothills, determined to recreate the Germanic legends of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, and Hitler was merely the latest leader to be transported by their romantic grandeur.
This was a landscape that tugged at the heart of the German soul, though the feelings it aroused were not to be trusted. Something lay deep within these daunting cliffs, something as sharp and
unforgiving as the crags themselves, which dwarfed ordinary human beings and made them seem utterly insignificant.

After a while the road narrowed and they passed into a pretty little town, with a sign announcing itself as Berchtesgaden. Brandt gestured to a freshly built station, furnished with grand
pillars in monumental Third Reich style, which looked freakishly out of place in the quiet Alpine surroundings.

‘The Führer’s architectural tastes always tend towards the grandiose. His offices look like railway stations and his railway stations look like churches.’

‘What do his churches look like?’

‘Heaps of rubble, if our leader has anything to do with it. He doesn’t like churches at all. He prefers rally grounds to cathedrals.’

Past Berchtesgaden the road began to wind upwards, beneath a banner stretched across the road which read,
Führer, wir danken Dir!
, and out towards more fields. Occasional walkers
alongside the road waved and gave the Hitler salute, peering avidly through the windows of the gleaming car on the lookout for celebrities. The men were dressed in traditional leather jackets and
Bavarian hats, with knee breeches and socks, the women in starched dirndls, aprons and white, knitted socks and hobnailed boots. Some of them carried baskets of flowers.

‘They’re hoping for a sight of the Führer. He always comes out when he’s here. Sometimes the women tear open their blouses as he passes.’ Brandt grimaced.
‘It’s extremely unbecoming.’

‘I take it the Führer averts his eyes.’