Black Roses (18 page)

When she got back to Frau Lehmann’s there was a letter waiting for her propped up on the hall table. For a wild moment she imagined that her father had managed to track her down, but on closer inspection she saw the envelope bore a Hamburg postmark.

It was Hans Neumann, the son of her uncle Ernst and the cousin she had never met. She took the letter up to her room and read it on the bed, with her legs curled up on the green eiderdown beneath her. Hans, it emerged, was working as a teacher at a
Gymnasium
in Hamburg. He enclosed a photograph of himself surrounded by three grinning children and a pudgy wife, and went into a schoolmasterly amount of detail about the achievements of his gifted offspring, who seemed to play enough instruments to staff an orchestra on their own. There were pages and pages of it, in his meticulous, spidery scrawl.
“
My wife Lieselotte was the daughter of the mathematics master in my first teaching post! . . . Ute, Franz and Jacob have been selected to perform in the city’s foremost string quartet. Ute has also competed for the school in athletics.” If Clara cared to come to Hamburg he would be delighted to put her up and give her a guided tour of the city. She made a mental note to postpone that visit indefinitely. It wasn’t until the end of the letter that he came to the part she had asked about.

Clara almost dropped the letter right there. She tried reading on but it was hard to focus on the rest of Hans’s news with that short, spiky little word banging through her mind. A Jew
.
She read it back, incredulously. Grandmother Hannah! Why had she never known? She thought of the Jewish girls she had known at school, who held mysterious Friday evening dinners with their family and were excused hymn-singing and Religious Studies; their mothers, who wore sable stoles and too much jewellery. She pictured the men she had seen in the east of Berlin with their flapping black coats and yellowed faces, and the shopkeeper that morning wearing his iron cross. Then she thought of her tiny, smiley grandmother with her high-collared blouse, black hair polished to a shine, the slow accented voice rich and dark as bitter chocolate. How she had carried a little box of sweets in her bag, to be smuggled to the children, confidentially. A Jew.

A Jew in a country that hated Jews. Those banners in the street, that Brown Shirt with his riding crop, the filthy slogans daubed on the walls. Klaus Müller’s disdainful laugh. Until now, all that had nothing to do with her. Only now, she saw, it did.

“It’s in the blood.”

That was what her father had said when he saw her honeyed complexion turn brown on the beach. Jewish blood must be what he had meant. Yet Hellene Neumann had carried her inheritance in silence. She had loved to tell the children about her German childhood, but that part of her story had stayed unspoken. Clara did not need to wonder what power her father had to enforce that silence. Her mother had always been subservient to his whims, always anxious to keep the peace. Smoothing over arguments, quieting the children’s squabbles. It was a tendency Clara had detested, resolving that it would be different for her.

She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror, and felt a new identity emerge from its silvered surface, gradually sharpening like a grainy photograph in a developing tray, gathering nuance and perspective. She was no different from the person she had been that morning, and at the same time she was entirely changed. She had come to Germany to feel closer to her mother; in the process she was learning more about herself than she could ever have imagined. It was from Grandmother Hannah that she inherited her cheekbones, her watchful eyes and her sharp, defiant chin. Perhaps, too, her inclination to perform. Yet no one had mentioned that Clara’s inheritance did not stop there. She thought again of her mother’s adamant objection when she first mentioned wanting to go on the stage
.

“Acting is not the kind of thing I’d want a daughter of mine to do.”

She should know. She had been acting for half her life.

When she walked up from the station at Neu-Babelsberg the following Monday Clara noticed immediately that changes were taking place. The squat red-brick building opposite the main entrance was being renovated. Granite door posts and pseudo-medieval porch lights had been fixed to the frontage. Outside, a van was parked and chairs, tables and filing cabinets were being carried in. A white BMW sports convertible was parked next to it.

‘What’s happening?’ Clara asked Becker.

‘The minister is setting up an office here. He wants to keep a close eye on everything.’ He checked her pass, even though he knew her by sight now, and nodded her through with a wink. ‘There are a few things the Doktor likes to keep an especially close eye on.’

Normally, the studio complex was a mass of people, passing busily through the corridors into studios and dressing rooms. Today, the place seemed unnaturally quiet. People were moving tight-faced down the corridors, with briefcases and arms full of scripts. A couple of well-known actors who would normally take the gaze of others’ as their due, hurried past, heads down, as if loath to draw attention to themselves.

Albert had a new office up on the fifth floor, with a sofa and a bigger picture window giving on to the great hall. Clara found Helga lounging there, riffling through
Filmwoche.
She looked up and smiled broadly, waving a whisky tumbler. Something about the flush on her cheeks suggested it was not her first drink of the day.

‘Good news! We’re celebrating. I’ve got a part! There’s a new movie called
Barcarole,
using that Czech girl Lida Baarová. Oh, come on,’ she said as Clara looked blank, ‘you must have heard of her?’

‘Is she the one whose photograph has just gone up in the foyer?’ The girl looked very young, with serene, classical features.

‘That’s her. Anyway, she’s to play next to Gustav Fröhlich. I’ve got a massive crush on him. And I’m to play a beautiful temptress.’

Throughout this Clara noticed that Albert was sitting at his desk, with his head in his hands.

‘Albert, is something happening?’

‘Oh, that,’ said Helga. ‘Yes, there is some other news.’

‘He’s finally done it.’ Albert picked up a memo and read aloud. ‘ “As a result of the national revolution now taking place, it is now Ufa policy to terminate contracts with Jewish employees”.’

He looked up. ‘They’re going through the place right now. They’re going from set to set and announcing that those who don’t have pure Aryan blood must leave the studio immediately.’

‘Everyone’s saluting like crazy,’ said Helga, flapping her arm upwards in mimicry of a Nazi salute. ‘Don’t they just remind you of seals at the zoo?’

‘Most people with any sense have left already. Erik Charell is going. Erich Pommer is already gone.’

‘Erich Pommer?’ Clara thought of the formidable producer of
The Blue Angel, Metropolis
and most of Ufa’s greatest hits. ‘Surely not?’

‘He’s had his contract rescinded and he’s headed for England, apparently. He’ll survive. He can work anywhere. But that’s only the beginning. There’s to be a new Reichsfilmkammer headed by You Know Who which will control everything to do with the film industry. There’s a lot of people today tidying their desks.’

‘And leaving their offices,’ said Helga. ‘Which is how Albert came by this one.’

Albert gave a tiny shudder.

‘The good news is,’ said Helga, tossing her head, ‘Ufa’s going to be producing more patriotic films. Featuring healthy Aryan actresses.’

‘They like good hips and blonde hair. Perhaps you should think of having yours dyed, Helga,’ said Albert acidly.

‘Nonsense.’ She ran a hand through her hair. ‘I’m not a Jew, thank God. And, besides, they love brunettes too.’

Clara felt a creeping horror. ‘Isn’t anyone going to protest? Are you all going to stand by and watch everyone get fired?’

‘Protest! Are you mad? You think we want to end up in Prinz Albrecht Strasse too?’ Prinz Albrecht Strasse 8, a formidable barracks of a building on the border of Mitte and Kreuzberg, was being taken over by Goering for the headquarters of the Gestapo. ‘Besides,’ she added testily. ‘if you’re a baker and you don’t like the government, you don’t stop baking bread. Why should actresses stop acting? You’re not Jewish, are you? You don’t need to worry.’

Despite the alarm coursing through her, Clara remained impassive. Not a flicker of fear, she knew, appeared on her face. For once she was glad of her deep-rooted instinct to repress her emotions, to bury her secrets deep within her and affect a composure she didn’t feel.

‘Bauer told me a joke,’ continued Helga. ‘He said that before the Nazis, an actress’s career depended on her favours to Jewish playwrights. The good thing is, that’s no longer the case. The bad thing is, it’s the Nazis’ turn now.’

‘And you laughed, I suppose,’ said Albert glumly.

‘Of course I did. I laugh at all his jokes. Walter might be a monster but at least he’s an ordinary monster with ordinary tastes. If you know what I mean. Some of the others are far worse. Someone was telling me Geli Raubel said you wouldn’t believe what Hitler made her do. That kind of thing is too obscene for the filthiest nightclub in Berlin, let alone with your niece! No wonder she did herself in.’

‘Geli Raubel,’ Albert explained to Clara shortly, ‘shot herself in Hitler’s apartment two years ago. Apparently he keeps a portrait of her beside his bed.’

‘And they say he once beat his dog to impress a girl.’

‘This is hearsay,’ Albert mumbled.

‘But he rather likes being beaten himself.’

‘Helga!’

‘As for that Emmy Sonnemann. I feel sorry for her with Goering on top of her. He must weigh a hundred and twenty kilos. He does love his Currywurst.’

‘For God’s sake, Helga!’ Albert sprang to his feet. The colour had bled from his face and his starved figure seemed to be trembling. ‘What’s wrong with you today? You’re a terrible one for gossip. You should be careful what you say.’

‘Oh, who cares?’ Helga’s delight at the prospect of work had caused her to throw caution to the winds. ‘The Nazis are no better than anyone else. What about Herr Ley? Didn’t he make all his money selling contraceptives? He must know a thing or two about decadent desires.’

Albert advanced, as if physically to silence her.

‘Oh stop it Albert. I’m only having a joke! Perhaps you should concentrate on getting yourself a girlfriend before people start to talk.’

Albert threw her a shocked look but didn’t answer. Clara stepped forward.

‘Albert’s right. You could be overheard.’

‘So what? Who’s going to inform on the girlfriend of one of Doktor Goebbels’ most important aides?’

She kicked up her leg, expensively clad in new stockings.
‘Bleyle Strumpfhose!
The special ones that never run!’

‘A present, were they?’ said Albert sourly.

‘Don’t ask me questions, I won’t tell lies,’ she said, happily.

The white of Clara’s knuckles gripping the handle of her bag was the only outward evidence of her apprehension. She turned to Albert.

‘There is just one thing. You said all foreigners were to be banned. That has to include me.’

‘I think, said Albert, ‘you’ll find you are exempt from this particular ban.’

‘Why? I’m half-English, after all.’

‘How do you think you got the job?’ laughed Helga.

‘What do you mean?’ Clara looked over at Albert, who glanced away defensively, but not before she had caught his eye.

He sighed. ‘Herr Lamprecht had a call, from Klaus Müller. He was left in no doubt that a part for you would be a good idea.’

‘Klaus Müller?’ she said, but Albert’s face was rigid and he jumped to his feet. He was staring behind her at the door.

‘Did I hear my name?’

‘Herr Doktor,’ stammered Albert.

Clara turned to see the figure of Müller, wearing a dove grey herringbone suit, navy tie and the habitual slight smirk on his face. He was carrying an armload of files and a couple of aides hovered behind him. Müller, she realized in a flash, was here to dismiss people.

‘What good luck, Fräulein. I was hoping I might run into you. Perhaps you’d like a lift back to town later?’

Gerhard Lamprecht had been a matinée idol once, and his good looks, well-cut three-piece suits and status as Ufa’s star director meant his face featured in the film magazines as much as any leading man. But the events of the past few days had aged him ten years. Ashen, chain-smoking and raking his hands constantly through lanky hair, he ushered Clara to a corner of his cluttered office, cracked open a fresh packet of cigarettes and proceeded to interview her as though the idea of his next movie was about as pressing as a trip to darkest Africa. Every time someone passed he jumped, and didn’t relax until he had escorted Clara down to the Great Hall and they were standing in the deep shadow of the set.

He confirmed what Albert had told her. The part he had in mind for Clara was the English version of Alicia, the role played by Karin Hardt, an exquisite blonde.

‘Won’t there be a problem? I mean, we look nothing like each other. I’m much darker than Karin.’

Lamprecht waved his hand. ‘This is cinema, my dear. Illusion is our business. In fact illusion, you might say, is all we have to offer right now. Given that we are able to persuade people that black is white, we ought to have no difficulty persuading people that blonde is brunette.’ He gave a phlegmy laugh, which turned into a cough, then recovered himself.

‘All the same, we should be able to furnish you with a wig.’

Clara was given a script and asked to learn the first few pages, which she would rehearse with Hans Albers, the actor scheduled to play the lead. She had seen Albers’ face beaming out of a hundred posters, and knew he was one of the studio’s biggest stars, but it wasn’t that which proved the problem.