Faith and Beauty (45 page)

‘I have tried to contact you a couple of times. I even visited your apartment. I hoped to find somewhere discreet, but it seems Fate has intervened. Shall we visit the Post-Impressionists?’

Clara shot a glance around her, searching for any police or security services, but there was nothing unusual. Besides, who was going to arrest her in the company of Hermann Goering’s brother? He was employed at the film company Tobis-Sascha, Emmy had said. Perhaps he wanted to talk to her about a part.

‘Why not?’

The Post-Impressionist gallery was predictably deserted. Those of the exhibits that had not been filched or deemed Degenerate were of dubious quality and mostly French. No schoolchild in Germany was going to waste time learning about French artists. Although there was little to detain them, Clara and Albert Goering strolled slowly along the undistinguished walls.

‘Are you here for the ball, Herr Goering?’

‘I had a little business to attend to first.’

‘Film business?’

‘No.’ He fished out his handkerchief and gave a quick, fastidious dab at his moustache. ‘It was to do with some Jewish friends. I needed a word with my brother about them.’

He acknowledged her astonishment.

‘It is a sideline of mine. I escort them personally to the border and provide them with currency.’

‘And your brother knows about this?’

‘Of course.’ He gave a quick, nervous laugh. ‘Hermann says he will decide who’s Jewish. He tells me he can get anyone he likes redesignated as Aryan. Occasionally it works the other way. It was Hermann who called me about Henny Porten. The actress. You’ve heard of her, I’m sure.’

Henny Porten had been a legend of the silent movie era, but with the arrival of the Nazis, her star had faded. Although she was Aryan herself, her husband was Jewish, and she had no inclination to divorce him.

‘I met her a couple of times.’

‘It was my sister-in-law Emmy, I think, who got Hermann to contact me. I was able to secure a contract for Miss Porten at my company so she moved to Vienna.’

There was no way to know how to react to this. That Hermann Goering, a man capable of such extreme viciousness, who had overseen the arrest and murder of so many people, who had personally dreamt up the plan to fine Germany’s Jews a billion marks for the damage inflicted on Kristallnacht, should bother himself with sorting out the affairs of an actress and her Jewish husband.

His brother gave a pained grimace.

‘You look surprised. But Hermann wouldn’t be the first to be flexible in his approach to Jewish affairs. Goebbels was once engaged to a half-Jewish girl, I believe, and his wife was involved with a Zionist. I can’t pretend I have anything but abhorrence for Hermann’s behaviour. My brother’s actions horrify me, but I do what I can to atone for it. It’s a very little part, but the Jews have a saying.
He who saves a single person, saves the whole world
. It comforts me.’

‘So what exactly did you want with me?’

‘It’s a bit of a story.’ Albert Goering looked around him, but the room remained as deserted as a church. Not a soul had entered or left in the time they were there. All the same, he lowered his voice.

‘A few months ago, a friend of mine, Gustav, a former employee of Tobis-Sascha who I had helped escape to England, got in contact with me. He is now working for British Intelligence Services and he said there was someone coming to Vienna that he wanted me to meet. Gustav said the man would be waiting at six o’clock in the musicians’ section of the Zentralfriedhof – the big cemetery, you know. He would stand by the Mozart memorial.’

Mozart. The closest that music comes to prayer.

‘I went along to the cemetery, and sure enough, the chap was there.’

Her throat constricted.

‘Leo.’

‘Yes. Mr Quinn knew I was in the habit of making regular trips to Berlin and he begged me to get in contact with you. He gave me your address in Winterfeldtstrasse and made me promise to find you. He said he had needed to leave very suddenly and that you would be worried about him. But you must not be. Does that make sense to you?’

‘Yes. Yes, it does!’ She was laughing, half mad with delight. In her joy she barely registered that Albert Goering remained sombre. ‘Thank you, Herr Goering. Please, tell me, where is he now?’

His kindly eyes dipped.

‘That, my dear Fräulein, is the part of the story I am less happy to tell. We arranged to meet the following day at the same time and place, but when I arrived, there was no sign of him.’

‘So he missed the meeting. There must have been a hitch. Surely you went back?’

‘I did. I returned the following day. And the next. And I asked around, as much as I could.’

Clara reached forward and gripped his wrist unintentionally hard.

‘You must have contacts. Couldn’t you ask them?’

‘Of course. That’s exactly what I did. And what I discovered was most unfortunate. A policeman I knew reported that a suspected enemy agent had that day been denounced to the Gestapo. I’m afraid the man who betrayed his predecessor must have betrayed Mr Quinn too.’

‘But you don’t know.’

‘I fear the worst, dear lady. I’m very much afraid that he’s gone.’

Gone
. The word hit Clara like a piece of shrapnel. It ripped inside and hollowed everything out.

Albert Goering rested a hand on her arm, then replaced his hat and made to leave.

‘I’m sorry to bring you this news, Fräulein Vine. If you are ever in Vienna, please come and visit me at the Tobis-Sascha studio. I would be happy to see you again.’

After he had left, Clara stood for a while, clenching and unclenching her fists. To have her hopes raised and dashed in such rapid succession left her unable to move, as if winded. Uncertainty paralysed her. For a moment the thought that Leo was alive had lit up her life like a flame, yet almost immediately that spark was doused. It seemed that Major Grand had been right after all when he advised her to forget Leo. Conrad Adler had been speaking the truth when he said she was in love with a phantom. Did she face years of private mourning, of never being able to tell another soul what her lover had meant to her? Was she doomed to be one of those women she had known in childhood, who lost their fiancés in the war and were dogged with disappointment and silent grief? Would she walk through Berlin, haunting the places they had inhabited like a ghost in her own life?

There was a painting in front of her. It was of a naked woman washing. With a shock she realized that she recognized it as one that Leo had pointed out to her, when they visited the gallery together, all that time ago. It was a small pastel by Manet of a woman in a tin bath, the water silvering her back, looking up at the painter with a frank and open gaze. It had a kind of purity about it. The model was not ashamed of her sexuality, nor was there anything salacious about it. Instead the connection between the woman and the painter seemed to contain a deep, unspoken conversation. She wondered how this portrait had remained in place without being removed. How it had been spared Goering’s wholesale pilfering and Alfred Rosenberg’s strictures on degeneracy. How it had escaped the attention of Robert Ley, the Labour Minister, famous for his salacious tastes. Perhaps being inconspicuous, or simple or foreign, was what it took to survive.

It was then that she made a deal. A pact with whichever deity might be listening. If Leo was alive she would do whatever he wanted. Go back to England, abandon her work, leave Berlin entirely. Become the woman Leo wanted her to be. If only he was alive. Let him be alive.

Chapter Thirty-nine

In the courtyard of the Schloss Bellevue, a fountain shot a shower of diamonds into the night air. High above, fireworks blistered the sky and inside everything was candlelit; china, crystal and flowers, all captured in an antique golden glow. It could have been a tableau from another era as butlers dressed in knee breeches and powdered wigs welcomed men in eighteenth-century frock coats and women barnacled with jewels in long, sweeping gowns. The great hall was hung with art treasures and perfumed by elaborate sheaths of hothouse orchids, roses and white lilacs. But despite the historical decor, nobody was giving much thought to the past. Not when the future hung so perilously in the balance.

A flurry of attention signalled the arrival of Goering’s car, a distinctive, aviation-blue Mercedes 540K cabriolet, dubbed the Blue Goose. Because he liked to drive himself, the vehicle had been modified not only with the standard bulletproof glass and armoured walls, but a specially engineered seat broad enough to squeeze the corpulent Minister behind the wheel.

It was obvious, once he had heaved himself out of the car, that whatever his wife might claim, Hermann Goering’s diet was not a success. The Minister’s fat fingers were manacled with emeralds and gems of sweat were already glinting as his gargantuan paunch preceded him into the reception hall. His outfit of embroidered mauve frock coat, frilly cravat and tight silk breeches didn’t help, nor did the floor-length white fur coat flatter his curves. Emmy, at his side, looked almost svelte in a low eighteenth-century gown, the neckline drawn aside like a pair of theatrical curtains to reveal her powdered bust.

An extensive cast of diplomats, aristocrats, politicians, hangers-on and members of the film and theatre world had been assembled to greet the Yugoslav royals. Tonight was the summit of the state visit and the culmination of Hitler’s attempts to flatter and intimidate Yugoslavia into remaining neutral in case of war. Yet alongside this important agenda, a range of lesser ambitions were on display. Joseph Goebbels, in white uniform and medals, was purposefully late. Magda lagged a deliberate few steps behind her husband with a dyspeptic glare. And von Ribbentrop had opted to accessorize his full Foreign Ministry fig with the magnificent diamond-studded collar of the Annunziata, expressly to annoy his host.

Once the guests were gathered, a string quartet struck up a waltz and a host of Faith and Beauty girls, done out in taffeta dresses as white as clouds, began to dance.

Clara skirted the packed reception, the reds and blues and golds unfurling and mingling before her eyes. The sparkle and glitter of the evening reminded her of the line from
Paradise Lost
about ‘barbaric peal and gold’, yet it was impossible to concentrate fully on the scene when her mind was still in tumult. She was in possession of a secret more valuable than diamonds – the date for war – but there was nothing she could do with it. The month that Major Grand had allotted her was about to elapse. Yet still, she could barely focus on anything. Thoughts of Leo drowned everything out. After the meeting with Albert Goering she had gone to the Ufa studios in a daze, and spent the afternoon buried in the costume department, selecting a dress for the evening ahead.

‘You know what they’re all gossiping about.’

The voice was icily familiar. Syrup undercut with steel. Clara turned to find Annelies von Ribbentrop, sheathed in grey lamé as tight as aircraft fuselage, standing uncomfortably close.

‘I don’t, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, but I’m sure you do,’ she insisted, lips puckering into a smile. ‘All anyone’s talking about is the pact.’

The pact
. Could it really be this simple? Was the alliance so far advanced that it was already a topic of casual party conversation?

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?’ The malice in Frau von Ribbentrop’s face glittered like the diamonds at her neck. ‘I thought someone who likes gossip as much as you would be bound to know before the rest of us. You always seem to have your ear to the ground.’

‘Not in this case.’

She shook her head sorrowfully.

‘It’s the pact between the Goebbels. Joseph has signed a document with Magda agreeing to a year’s good behaviour and Hitler has offered to act as guarantor. It’s the only peace treaty Hitler has ever put his name to.’

Clara looked over at Magda. Though she towered like a chessboard queen over her husband’s pawn, she had evidently succumbed to checkmate. The pact may be a small victory in her marital war, but she had plainly been obliged to attend the ball, and to add to her humiliation she was at that moment being introduced to Veit Harlan and his wife Kristina Söderbaum, the director and star of
Die Reise nach Tilsen
, the film that Goebbels intended to commit his affair to romantic posterity.

‘You wonder why Goering has to invite all these actors. I mean, I know our hostess feels more comfortable surrounded by fellow . . .
performers
, but really, there must be the entire staff of Ufa here tonight. Was there some kind of round-robin invitation?’

‘I was asked because the Minister wanted some English speakers.’

‘Oh. Of course.’ She took a sip from her glass and winced, as if she had been drinking vinegar rather than the best Sekt. ‘The English are all very well, I suppose, but must they endlessly try to butt in on our business? Threatening war over the return of a city like Danzig, which is German already. And when the Poles provoke us in the extreme. Hitler has been in love with England for years, but I tell him, it’s unrequited. All these years he has paid court to England, admired her empire, entertained her aristocrats, and what does he get for it? My husband says all we ask of the English is that they recognize the Germans are also a great nation, with our own special sphere.’

Clara was saved from continuing this conversation by the announcement that dinner was to be served. Annelies von Ribbentrop disappeared to take her place on the top table, and Clara drifted towards the grand dining room, where a feast of clear soup, goose with potatoes and lettuce, cheese, fruit, coffee and pastries was waiting. Not forgetting the kilo of Russian caviar which had been delivered that morning from the Soviet Embassy.

They were only on the first course –
crab royale à la mayonnaise
with asparagus – when a muffled cry and a shout caused heads to turn up to the balcony. A beautiful young woman whom Clara recognized as the violinist from the string quartet was leaning over the balcony, screaming something and pulling from her lace-edged yellow jacket a flutter of paper, white and coloured, that came drifting down onto the heads of the crowd. The guests ducked and cowered, as if bombs, rather than leaflets, were being rained on their heads. One drifted to the table beside Clara and the man next to her, a Dutch diplomat, picked it up and studied the headline.
Hitler means war!
Almost immediately he dropped it, as if he had received an electric shock.