Faith and Beauty (13 page)

Perhaps because the end result was far from what he had planned. Speer, whose own style was cool, severe and neoclassical, favouring shimmering colonnades of pristine marble, must have winced at the grandiose swags of cerise velvet that now gussied up each window, the silk wallpaper and mounds of soft furnishings. Opulent chandeliers had been fitted and the walls were plastered with old Masters in handsome gilded frames, Rembrandts and Goyas hanging in tiers three and four high, displayed in order of expense. Every pillared hall, every marbled vista, every gleaming polished wall now bore the flamboyant personal stamp of Joachim von Ribbentrop. Or to be more accurate, his wife.

Clara stood amid a group of journalists at the far side of the room, Major Grand’s words resounding in her head.
From what we’ve heard, Frau von Ribbentrop frequently formulates political policy, which is later passed off as her husband’s.
It was true, the Foreign Minister’s wife was very different from those of other senior men. Magda Goebbels was too depressed to care about politics and Eva Braun, the Führer’s girlfriend, probably couldn’t spell Czechoslovakia. The only international affairs Frau Goering cared about were holidays on the Italian Riviera. Annelies von Ribbentrop, by contrast, was highly educated and politically motivated. She dominated her husband and insisted he discuss every decision with her. She knew more, and would impart far less. How could Clara possibly find a way into her mind?

That day the châtelaine of the new Foreign Ministry was wearing a suit of hairy mauve, a pussy-bow blouse, emerald earrings and a welter of pearls at her throat. Powder settled into the lines round her eyes like wrinkles on old paint and her hair was set like concrete. Her delight at parading Albert Speer was all the greater because of the hot competition for his services. He had already redecorated Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry with lacquered walnut fittings and installed a home cinema in the Minister’s townhouse. He had renovated 11, Leipzigerplatz, the grandiose, turreted monstrosity that was home to the Goerings, and in January he had signed off on the brand-new Reich Chancellery, on which eight thousand workers toiled night and day. Now he was starting his most ambitious commission to date – rebuilding Berlin as the world capital of a continental empire. Speer would be the man responsible for turning the Führer’s dreams into stone. No wonder he seemed anxious to get away from the von Ribbentrop’s soft furnishings.

‘Poor Speer,’ said Hugh Lindsey, who was standing at Clara’s side. ‘He’s the only one who seems remotely modest, and he has the least to be modest about. Some of his buildings are genuinely exciting.’

‘Not so exciting for the Jews whose homes are being razed to make way for them,’ commented Mary.

‘You’ve heard about his next commission?’ said Hugh, helping himself to a canapé proffered by a waiter in silk stockings. ‘Hitler wants Speer to build a Führermuseum in Linz. His home town. It’s going to house his collection.’

‘What collection is that?’ asked Clara.

‘Clara, you must be the only person in Germany who hasn’t heard. The Führer’s planning to create the greatest art gallery ever seen.’

‘The only problem is,’ added Mary conspiratorially, ‘so is Goering. When I had my interview with him the other day I thought it was going to be about the Luftwaffe, but it was all about art. He says his country villa, Carinhall, will house the biggest private collection in the world.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Hugh. ‘Nothing about Goering would be small.’

‘Goering told me his collection will be far more important than Hitler’s. He wants to track down all valuable art of Germanic origin, whatever that might be, and return it to the Reich. It’s quite a spat. Apparently, Speer’s calling it “the picture war”.’

‘Thank heavens I’ve found you, Clara.’

The voice that broke into their conversation was the kind of theatrical whisper designed to reach the back row of the upper circle.

‘What do you make of it? Not exactly cosy, is it?’

Emmy Goering, the wife of Hitler’s second-in-command, sailed unopposed through the goggling throng. Frau Goering had been an actress herself before fate decreed that Hermann Goering, on a rare outing to Weimar, should catch sight of her and fall in love on the spot. Now her fortunes were transformed – she was married with a child, and universally known as the First Lady of the Reich. Yet despite having accumulated more wealth than she could have dreamt of, Emmy Goering had also accumulated enemies, and none more potent or bitter than Annelies von Ribbentrop. As Mary and Hugh melted discreetly into the background, Clara recalled Major Grand’s motto.

My enemy’s enemy is my friend.

‘Poor Annelies,’ continued Emmy, watching acidly as the Foreign Minister’s wife shepherded Speer around the room. ‘All that money and no taste whatsoever. You know she’s announced that all German embassies should be redecorated as precise replicas of the Reich Chancellery? Can you imagine the expense? Now she has a whole ministry to play with, her extravagance knows no bounds. She doesn’t understand restraint.’

It was hard to know how to respond to this. The Goerings’ own palatial villa would make a Borgia feel at home. Besides the gem-encrusted gold chairs and mosaic floors inlaid with lapis lazuli swastikas, it was a temple to taxidermy. You could barely move for stags’ antlers protruding from the walls, and cases containing pheasants, vultures and eagles. The first artefact to greet visitors in the hall was a stuffed giant panda, a gift from the King and Queen of England.

Frau Goering steered Clara into an alcove, away from the throng.

‘Thank God the Winter Relief drive is over. We had to spend an entire morning with the von Ribbentrops rattling collecting boxes in Wittenbergplatz.’

The annual Winter Relief charity was always crowned with the appearance of Party VIPs on street corners jovially touting lapel pins and coin boxes.

‘It took everything Hermann had to keep smiling, but now everything’s much worse. Something terrible has happened. You’ll never guess.’

She paused dramatically and Clara tilted her head, awaiting the bombshell.

‘The Italians have gone and awarded von Ribbentrop the Collar of the Annunziata.’

‘What on earth is that?’

‘You mean you’ve never heard of it? I wish I hadn’t. It’s Italy’s greatest chivalric order. It’s a gorgeous piece, solid gold, and studded with diamonds. The holder becomes the honorary cousin of the Italian king. Hermann has wanted it for so long. When he heard that von Ribbentrop was to have it he was almost physically sick. You know he adores jewels.’

Clara recalled the photograph of Goering in Herr Fromm’s shop, adorned with gold dagger and blue diamonds in the persona of a Roman emperor.

‘That’s why he admired your Duke of Windsor and his American duchess. All their jewellery! Hermann couldn’t stop talking about the Duke’s art deco cufflinks and the Duchess’s Cartier diamonds. He says you can tell a lot about a person from their taste in jewels.’

‘I bet you can,’ said Clara, recalling Wallis Simpson, studded all over with pearls the size of pigeon eggs.

‘Jewels are an absolute obsession with Hermann. I fret about him. It’s an addiction.’

There was every reason why Frau Goering should worry about her husband’s predilection. His addiction to morphine tablets – originally prescribed for war wounds – was part of the reason for his monstrous size, which led to his nickname Der Dicke – Fatso.

As if on cue, a waiter materialized with a tray of smoked salmon sandwiches and Emmy popped a couple in her mouth.

‘You should try not to worry.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Emmy replied through a mouth of crumbs. She sighed and patted the corn-coloured hair wound round her ears in thick plaits. ‘It’s driving him crazy. But it’s not just that. It’s something else.’ She frowned in genuine perplexity. ‘We’re just back from a rest cure in San Remo – in fact I wish we were still there – but all the time he’s been in the most terrible mood. He’s preoccupied with something, but he won’t tell me what it is.’

Clara wondered if she should point out the obvious.

‘Could it be the international situation?’

‘That? Oh no. Don’t be silly. Hermann assures me there will be no war. We need another three or four years of peace. The English – with respect – are terrible warmongers, but the future of Danzig can hardly concern them. And besides, the Führer won’t want to see all his new buildings bombed. No.’ She paused, as though trying to solve some incomprehensible puzzle. ‘All I know is, it’s definitely to do with a jewel.’

‘This golden collar, you mean?’

‘No. Another jewel. Hermann’s been cheated out of it. That’s all I can get out of him. He said it again at breakfast this morning. He’s been cheated out of a jewel. He’s looking for it high and low and God help anyone who gets in his way.’

‘It’s hard to imagine anyone cheating your husband.’

This remark prompted a peal of laughter from Emmy.

‘Don’t you believe it! Von Ribbentrop spends his life trying to cheat him.’ Belatedly realizing the consequences of being overheard, she lowered her voice.

‘Only yesterday Hermann told me von Ribbentrop is cosying up to the Russians.’

The Russians? Suddenly all Clara’s nerves were on alert. Could it be possible that her questions were to be answered this easily?

‘Well, one Russian in particular. I think you know her. Frau Olga Chekhova. Annelies’s new best friend.’

The letdown was instant. Clara had acted with Olga Chekhova many times over the years. Although she was Russian by birth and a niece by marriage of the great Anton Chekhov, she had lived in Berlin for decades and had even been given the honorary title of Staatsschauspielerin, State Actress. However skilful the acting talents of the kindly Olga Chekhova, one role she was surely not playing was that of spy. She was a motherly woman behind the silk and pearls, and the last person one could imagine meddling in the murky waters of Stalin’s henchmen.

‘Olga Chekhova’s a huge supporter of the Führer. I don’t think there’s anything suspicious about her.’

‘Oh don’t you?’ said Emmy, with a distinct air of affront. ‘Well just between us, Hermann has heard some very unsettling things about La Chekhova. Her brother is a senior official with the NKVD.’

The NKVD was Stalin’s secret intelligence service. As cunning and brutal as the Gestapo themselves, they formed a fearsome network of ruthless agents stretching across Europe. Yet while this revelation surprised Clara, she had no doubts about her friend.

‘You think it’s strange that a woman whose face is on every billboard in Berlin could be working in the shadows? That an actress could also be a spy?’

Was it detectable, the frisson of alarm that tightened Clara’s throat and widened her eyes?

‘I do.’

‘Trust me, these times bring out the strangest behaviour in people.’

Frau Goering paused primly.

‘So what are you doing at the moment?’

‘I’m about to start a film about the Ahnenerbe.’

The Minister’s wife rolled her eyes.

‘Ugh. Heini Himmler’s little passion. All that archaeology and measuring skulls. If men must have obsessions, give me Hermann’s jewellery craze any day. Why on earth do we need a film about the Ahnenerbe?’

‘Herr Doktor Goebbels said the Führer was attaching the highest importance to it.’

Her eyes gleamed with mischief. She pounced on this information.

‘So you’ve seen Goebbels? How was he?’

Clara hesitated. It was always risky to give Emmy Goering too much detail unless you wanted it to reappear at some future date with your name attached.

‘I thought he looked strained.’

‘Doesn’t he! The man’s a bag of nerves. He’s just been in hospital with kidney pains but I’m sure it’s all down to Magda. You have no idea of the stories I’ve been hearing.’

Clara guessed she was about to find out.

‘Are they having troubles again?’

‘Troubles! You have no idea. Far be it from me to feel sorry for the Herr Doktor, but I think it behoves a wife of a senior man to behave in a certain way and the way Magda is carrying on would try the patience of a saint, which, as we all know, the Herr Doktor most certainly is not. Fortunately my Hermann is in the pink of health. He was up to two hundred and eighty pounds – he seeks comfort in food, you see – but he lost forty pounds on his diet. I know because he was trying on his outfit just this morning. Oh, but of course . . .’

Her face brightened.

‘That’s why I was looking for you, Clara. We’re holding a reception for Prince Paul of Yugoslavia. It’s a state visit. There are eight days of celebrations, but our party will be the high point. You must come. It’s at the Schloss Bellevue. We’ve had to invite the von Ribbentrops unfortunately but it should still be great fun. As a matter of fact we’re having a deputation of those Faith and Beauty girls to the ball.’

She gave a grimace. ‘We had no choice. It’s Himmler’s wish. They’re being trained up to take their place in polite society. We have to let them loose on diplomatic guests so that they can practise their conversational skills. God help us, but at least they’ll look decorative.’

‘Thank you. It sounds very glamorous.’

‘Don’t thank me. It was Hermann’s brother who wanted you to come actually. It was his particular request.’

‘His brother?’

‘Albert’s in the film business but he’s fearfully shy. You’d never believe the pair of them could be brothers. Quite Hermann’s opposite.’

Clara was astonished. In the world of celebrity, the family of Germany’s second most powerful man could hardly remain low profile yet she had never heard of Goering having a brother, let alone one in the film business.

‘I had no idea the Minister even had a brother.’

‘Nobody does. He works for Tobis-Sascha, so we don’t see much of him.’

The film company Tobis-Sascha was based in Vienna.

‘He comes to Berlin from time to time to keep in touch. They’re devoted to each other, but Albert is nothing like Hermann. He’s just an ordinary little chap, and he hates these grand affairs. You can keep him company. Stop him being overawed.’

She gave a small, indulgent smile.