A War of Flowers (2014) (46 page)

Clara took a glass of Sekt and pressed into the throng. Goebbels certainly knew how to hold a party. For his Olympics party two years earlier he had taken over an entire island in the Wannsee,
filled the bushes with butterfly lights and spread sumptuous tables out beneath the trees. This evening he had again spared no expense. Although his new emphasis on family values obliged him to
bring Magda, who was touring the room shaking hands with an expression of frigid misery more appropriate to a disaster scene than a celebrity gathering, Berlin’s best-known singers and
musical acts had also been summoned, and to complement the magic of the movies Goebbels had hired a real magician, Alois Kassner, the top illusionist of the day.

Clara gave a quick scan of the room and her eyes lit on a man with a humourless, pudgy face and hair shaved two inches above his ears whom she recognized as Frits Strengholt, the head of MGM.
This was the man who was supposed to be sorting things out for Ursula. Quickly she scanned the throng for her friend, yet she could see no sign of her. Had Ursula’s party invitation been
withdrawn at Goebbels’ request, or did Emmy Goering’s remarks presage something more serious?

A fusillade of flashbulbs lit up the entrance of Olga Chekhova, a regally beautiful star who was one of the regime’s most famous actresses. With her ivory complexion and hooded eyes heavy
with kohl, she slid through the phosphorescence of the flashbulbs like a glamorous ghost. La Chekhova was half Russian and the niece of Anton Chekhov, which meant that rumours constantly circled
about her Bolshevik sympathies, but Hitler was a big fan of her films and that was better than an SS bodyguard and golden Party medal for imparting a sense of security. Despite her lofty status,
she had proved remarkably friendly on the shoot for
Bel Ami
in Paris that summer and now she came straight over to Clara’s side.

‘If I have to spend this evening listening to Hollywood producers telling me Doktor Goebbels is the greatest cultural champion the world has seen I think I’m going to scream. How are
you, Clara? You’re looking very lovely.’

‘Olga. I wonder, have you by any chance seen Ursula Schilling?’

The diva’s creamy face darkened, and instinctively she lowered her voice.

‘Clara, my dear, I thought you knew. When did you last go to Babelsberg?’

‘I’ve been in Munich. Why?’

She grimaced. ‘It’s all round the Ufa studios. No one can talk of anything else. Ursula Schilling was taken in for questioning a few days ago.’

Clara felt a sinking dread.

‘About what?’

‘She’s being investigated for allegations of sleeping with a Jew.’

Clara recalled Ursula’s face in the costume department at Geiselgasteig.
I would have left last year if it wasn’t for . . .

‘Contrary to the Nuremberg laws, as I don’t need to remind you. Maximum sentence several years in jail.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Quite a surprise actually. Not what you would expect at all. He’s called Joachim Haber. Terrifically good-looking and a little younger than her. He’s a sound
engineer.’

‘A sound engineer!’

‘I know. Quite a surprise, isn’t it? Rather an ordinary sort of fellow. He worked at the studios before the Aryanization, and since he lost his job he’s been making ends meet
with all sorts of low-paid electrical jobs, nothing remotely grand. They had a plan to leave Germany and settle in California, but until then he was living in an apartment out in Steglitz –
when he wasn’t at Ursula’s home in Neubabelsberg, that is, doing all her washing and cooking. He’s not at all what you’d expect for a girl like her.’

She paused, and looked at Clara musingly. ‘But then people can be so mysterious, can’t they? You never know what’s going on underneath. And we actresses are especially good at
that, I suppose.’

‘Who denounced her?’

Olga shrugged. ‘Her cleaner reported her, apparently. But it could have been anyone, darling, couldn’t it?’

She laid a white-gloved hand on Clara’s arm and that single satin touch seemed to communicate something important.

‘I’m never surprised when I discover an actor has a secret, are you? We so love to be in the spotlight, but where there are spotlights, there will always be darkness too.’

Was Olga Chekhova suggesting that she knew the truth about Clara? Or that she herself had something to hide? Whichever it was, Clara knew she must end the conversation at once.

She gave Olga a quick smile and moved towards the stage where Alois Kassner was performing. She recognized him from the poster pasted outside her block in Winterfeldtstrasse.
Kassner makes a
girl vanish!

Magicians were everywhere in Berlin just then, from chancers performing the three-card trick on street corners, to celebrated variety artists on the bill at the Wintergarten. Like acrobats,
contortionists, escape artists and illusionists, magicians’ acts had taken over from the political songs and risqué humour of the cabarets that had been swept away in the early days of
the regime. Perhaps, at a time when people were daily disappearing, it was a relief to focus on fantasy, on women who levitated and rabbits that vanished from hats. Watching a girl disappear in a
wooden cabinet or a man unravel himself from chains was a reassuring distraction when escaping from a tricky situation was a subject on everyone’s mind.

That evening Kassner was performing some kind of card trick. He had laid out a deck of cards in lines in front of him on a table covered in crimson velvet and was moving the cards faster than
the eye could keep up with, flipping and whirring, spinning them into a hundred different positions. Clara found herself automatically attentive, the blur of flashing cards fixing in her memory
with mechanical precision, and as she watched, the magician called out to her.

‘Fräulein, can I ask your assistance? Would you please pick a card?’

Still abstracted by thoughts of Ursula, she complied.

‘The King of diamonds. An excellent choice for a beautiful queen. Would you replace it, please?’

Clara gave the card back and watched Kassner rotate it with impossible speed around the table. She was aware of people gathering around her, trying and failing to follow its progress.

‘Now could you remind me, Fräulein, which card was yours?’ said Kassner, expecting her to fail. Before she could stop herself, Clara had pointed it out.

‘A remarkable guess. Perhaps you would try again.’

She picked the ten of diamonds from the deck and again the cards whirred in his hands as he shuffled them around the table. Again, she managed to follow its progress and identify it with ease.
Murmurs of admiration came from the people who had gathered around to watch.

‘What an eye you have, Fräulein.’

‘Again!’ said the people looking on.

‘Perhaps a different trick this time,’ decreed Kassner, sensing competition. ‘The lady has an excellent eye, but memory is another matter. In a moment, I will show the audience
my ability to memorize an entire deck of cards in any order. Maybe,’ he smiled, holding out a hand of cards to Clara, ‘you would like a try at that?’

Clara was about to demur, but the sight of the cards brought back her rainy teenage holidays, when her family would while away the hours as the rain hammered down on the Cornish fields outside.
One of Clara’s diversions had been to memorize cards by using pictures from her own life. The Germans had a word for this memory trick,
Eselsbrücke
, literally Donkey Bridge,
because it was a technique that made a mental bridge between one part of the mind and another.

‘All right.’

Kassner fanned out ten cards on the velvet.

‘A gentle start. I will give the lady thirty seconds to commit just ten cards to memory in order.’

Clara looked down, and saw her childhood open out before her. First came the three of clubs and she saw the three of them as children, with the queen of hearts, their mother, playing in the
avenue of tall trees in their Surrey garden which resembled the ten of spades, alongside the Jack of diamonds, who looked mischievously like their dog Jip. The nine of clubs were the muddy prints
of Kenneth’s boots when they came in from outside. Then came the four of diamonds, four hearts shattering into jagged pieces when her mother’s illness was diagnosed and the ace of
spades, which was the darkness that descended over their lives.

She carried on the story in her head, until Kassner swept the cards up and fixed her with a challenging stare.

‘Enough time, Fräulein?’

‘The three of clubs, the Queen of hearts, the ten of spades, the Jack of diamonds, the nine of clubs, the four of diamonds, the Ace of spades, the two of diamonds, the King of clubs, the
Ace of diamonds.’

A couple of people clapped, and Kassner’s eyes widened.

‘Bravo, Fräulein. Shall we try with a few more cards?’

Clara was about to agree, but she had glimpsed a figure out of the corner of her eye.

‘I’d rather not, thank you.’

‘Go on!’ The people in the crowd thought she was teasing. Kassner raised an eyebrow.

‘Come now. Fifteen cards this time. Surely, you could manage that?’

‘Yes,’ said the audience. ‘Fifteen cards!’

‘I couldn’t possibly.’

Kassner mimed a courtly bow, and felt for something by his side.

‘Thank you, then, for your participation. And perhaps you would do me the honour of accepting a ticket to my next performance?’

As Clara took the proffered envelope, a voice came in her ear.

‘But you were doing so well!’

The voice was sinuous but brimming with malice, like a razor blade dipped in honey. It belonged to the scrawny, dinner jacketed figure of Joseph Goebbels.

‘You have an excellent memory.’

‘No better than any actress, Herr Doktor.’

‘I beg to differ. And I think you are far more than an actress.’

He was exceptionally dapper that evening, in an evening suit with a camellia in the buttonhole, and his handmade, built-up patent leather shoes polished to a high shine. He dipped his head to
kiss her hand. Compared with their last meeting, he was cordial, if not jubilant.

‘How charming to see you again, Fräulein Vine. Don’t get too thin, will you? It’s not good for an actress’s image.’

He seemed gleeful. As though something more than the Munich triumph was motivating him.

‘I understand you were obliged to leave Munich early.’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘No matter. As it happens, your film has been cancelled. Herr Gutmann is currently residing in Dachau.’

Clara willed herself to remain expressionless. She saw Goebbels searching her face for reaction.

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘He was found to be consorting with undesirables.’ For a moment Goebbels left the ambiguity lingering in the air as if to imply that, perhaps, Clara herself was the undesirable. Then
he said,

‘He’s also charged with exchanging information with the Führer’s adversaries abroad. So far he’s not been especially forthcoming in explaining himself, but I told
them, that’s just like his films! Completely unintelligible, don’t you find?’

He chuckled a little at his own wit.

‘Still, I’m sure they’ll come up with something to make him more loquacious.’

Clara felt a deep pang of sorrow for Gutmann, and a hope that his cadaverous frame and narrow shoulders would withstand what his interrogators had to offer him.

Goebbels took a languid sip of Sekt, then added,

‘Herr Gutmann introduced you to Fräulein Braun, I think?’

‘She had written me a letter actually.’

‘Of course. A fan letter, I’m sure. But it interested me. Why a man like that should involve himself by introducing an actress to the Führer’s girlfriend. What did you
make of her?’

‘I thought she was charming.’

‘I think so too, though many would disagree. But it’s my view that your charming young penfriend has more to her than meets the eye. You know, I wonder sometimes whether the
Führer is too insistent on his plan to be married to Germany. I’ve begun to think that Fräulein Braun might make a more satisfactory spouse in some regards. At the very least, she
should receive more public recognition.’

Clara frowned. Surely this was the opposite of what Goebbels believed. The Minister removed a silver cigarette case from his jacket, offered Clara one, then lit it with his special lighter which
bore Hitler’s initials.

‘I know what you’re thinking, and indeed until quite recently, I would have agreed with you. I was the first to say that our leader should be regarded as a man with no private life.
The adulation of the public stage is enough. He needs to devote himself to his destiny and so forth.’ He waved his palm to indicate the platitudinous waffle the public was obliged to
endure.

‘Yet now I realize there’s a lot to be said for the family man. Perhaps we do need to see our Führer in human terms, as well as a great leader.’

Clara remembered what Brandt had said about Goebbels.
He’s a tailor. He tailors people to be the way he wants them.
That applied to Eva Braun, as much as to Hitler himself. Looking
at Goebbels’ clever, calculating face, she understood precisely his motivation. If Hitler had ordered Goebbels to behave more like a family man, then shouldn’t Hitler, too, be seen in
more human terms? And Eva Braun was his raw material. Like some grotesque Pygmalion, Goebbels was planning to fashion Eva Braun to be the human side of Hitler.

‘Remember how your British press made no mention of the touching love story between the Duke and Duchess of Windsor? What did that avail?’ he mused. ‘They still married,
happily, but England lost a great monarch in the process. No, I think it’s a shame Eva Braun needs to remain a secret.’

He tilted his head and exhaled a stream of smoke.

‘Still. We all have our secrets, don’t we, Fräulein Vine?’

‘If you say so, Herr Doktor.’

From the direction of the band rose the plangent voice of the Marlene Dietrich classic.

Falling in love again, never wanted to, what am I to do, I can’t help it.

Goebbels winced.