The Girl Behind The Curtain (Hidden Women) (19 page)

‘Got time for a coffee?’ Steven asked afterwards.

‘Actually, I promised I’d have lunch with Nick.’

‘Great,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll join you. Be interesting to have a chance to talk to the man away from his legions of adoring fans.’

‘I don’t know if that’s a good idea.’

‘Why don’t we ask him?’ said Steven. Nick had extricated himself from a small knot of keen students and was drawing near. Steven stuck his hand out.

‘Steven Jones,’ he introduced himself. ‘Great talk. And I understand you’re having lunch with my lovely friend here. I hope you won’t mind if I join you?’

I longed for Nick to say, ‘Actually, I do mind.’ But of course he didn’t say that. Instead he said, ‘Great,’ and plastered on a smile to match mine.

We went to Lutter and Wegner on the Gendarmenmarkt. It was a cheesy place – all wood panelling and candles in wine bottles – a skilful recreation of times long past. All the tourists went there, but the food was always great and Nick and Steven both agreed that they wanted to eat something properly ‘German’. Something meaty and stodgy and perfect for the cold autumn weather. I ordered the
sauerbraten
. I’d become rather partial to it since Herr Schmidt introduced me to the stuff. Nick and Steven tussled to take charge of the wine list.

I had never before found myself in such a strange position, being fought over by two grown men. Oh, they thought they were being subtle about it, I’m sure, but they were constantly in competition with each other, firing barbs on every subject. And they were both so attentive to me. I need only take a sip from my glass and one of them would rush to refill it. At one point, they both grabbed for the wine bottle at the same time and almost upended it over me.

When Steven and I were together I had never thought of him as possessive, but now, with competition in the form of Nick, he was unlike I had ever seen him. Nick too, was different from the man I knew. It was as though they were two robins, puffing out their chests.

When the bill had been paid, with more tussling that ended with them splitting the tab and treating me, I told them I was going home.

‘I’ll walk you,’ they both said at once.

‘No need,’ I said to both of them. ‘I’m going into the office.’

It was an excuse. I didn’t want to have to choose.

‘I’ll call you later,’ Nick and Steven said simultaneously. Then, while they were glaring at each other, I made my exit.

I suppose it was nice to know that I was a desirable woman. Two men wanted me and were prepared to make fools of themselves to be with me. I should have felt uplifted by the thought, but the truth of the matter is that it never feels good to be wanted too badly by someone you don’t want in return. Rather than being flattering, it becomes an embarrassment and an opportunity to cause accidental hurt. I wondered how many people ended up with someone they really loved, who loved them in return. How many people settled? Would I do exactly that in the end?

Having told Steven and Nick I was going to the office and set off in that direction, I doubled back on myself and went back to the Hufelandstrasse. Herr Schmidt was playing classical music as usual. This time, he was listening to the desperate yearning song of Marguerite in Berlioz’s
The
Damnation of Faust
. It gave me pause. I recognised the piece because I had read about it in Augustine du Vert’s memoir and listened to it so that I might know what had moved her.
The Damnation of Faust
was the opera that had premiered on the night she realised she had lost her true love to another woman.

I wondered what Herr Schmidt was thinking about when he listened to Marguerite’s lament. It was hard to imagine the old man transported by passion or lust. He was so self-contained and polite. But once upon a time he too must have been a young man full of young men’s passions, just like Nick and Steven. Who had been the object of his most ardent desire? Had she reciprocated? Had they in fact spent many happy years together under this roof? Did he miss her? Or did the happy memories of their time together still keep him warm?

Of course, while I was in Herr Schmidt’s apartment, I had looked for clues to his past. I was incurably nosy and though Clare was right, Schmidt was a common name, I couldn’t help thinking of Kitty’s diary and wondering if there was a connection. However he had already explained that the young woman in the picture on the mantel was his sister, who had moved to Hamburg and lived there until her death in 1999. The nephew he often spoke of was her son. He hadn’t mentioned a brother.

Marguerite’s aria reached its finale. I hovered on the bottom step until I heard her last note. Then I heard Herr Schmidt moving around in his room and decided I had better go upstairs before he caught me snooping.

Chapter 24

Thursday December 22nd 1932

Dear Diary,

Something simply terrible has happened. It was lunchtime. I was at the usual place. Otto wasn’t with me because he has lectures on a Thursday, so I was eating sauerbraten with only my book for company. All of a sudden, a shadow fell across the page I was reading and I was aware that someone was standing in front of my table, blocking the light and waiting for me to notice. I looked up. It was Gerd.

‘The man in your hotel told me I would find you here,’ he said.

I have grown used to Gerd’s way of launching straight into conversation without bothering with the niceties of ‘hello’ or ‘how are you?’ I asked him how he was just the same.

‘I am well,’ he said. He didn’t look it. He looked positively green.

‘Sit down?’ I suggested. ‘Have you had any lunch?’

‘I do not wish to eat,’ he said. He pushed his fair hair back from his face with some agitation.

‘Gerd, is there something the matter?’ I asked him.

His face was so grave that suddenly I began to panic.

‘Has something happened to Otto? Or to Helga? Your mother?’

He shook his head.

‘Has something happened to you?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he said. He swallowed hard. ‘Kitty, I can keep this to myself no longer.’

He reached across the table and took both of my hands. I had an awful feeling I knew what was coming. Alas, I was right.

‘Kitty, from the very first moment I saw you, I knew that life would never be the same again. I tried not to let it happen but I have failed to control my mind as I ought. Every day the sensations grow ever stronger. I cannot eat. I cannot sleep. I cannot do anything but think of you.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said.

‘I am in love with you. I cannot help myself. So you must help me instead. You must tell me that you love me too. Without you, I cannot survive.’

I pulled my hands away. ‘Gerd,’ I said firmly. ‘I think you should stop right there. All this will seem very silly tomorrow.’

He looked crestfallen. I hoped I had nipped any real embarrassment in the bud. I tried to go back to eating my sauerbraten. I even offered him a taste of it, but moments later he returned to his theme.

‘This is not a silly matter! You must not marry my brother,’ he said as he thumped the table. ‘I cannot bear to see you with him when you should be mine. He is not the man for you, dear Kitty. You are flighty and wayward and you need a guiding hand. I recognised that the instant we first locked eyes. I saw your soul pleading for the kind of direction only I can give. Otto is not strong enough to tame you.’

This was much more like the Gerd I knew. He couldn’t even declare his love to his brother’s fiancée without trying to assert his superiority.

‘Gerd, please.’ I held my hand up to indicate he should stop.

‘Otto is a degenerate. He will only drag you down.’

I shook my head. I folded my napkin and put it on the table to indicate that I had finished my lunch and was ready to leave.

‘Gerd,’ I said. ‘I think this conversation is a mistake. I am in love with Otto and I intend to be in love with him for the rest of my life. I have promised to marry him and I will do so at the earliest possible opportunity. After that, you and I will have to see each other every day because I will be living in your family home. You will be my brother-in-law. I don’t want there to be any awkwardness, so I am prepared to pretend that today’s little debacle didn’t happen. If you would please do the same, I would be most grateful.’

When I finally dared look him in the eye, there was no hint in Gerd’s face whatsoever that he had just been dealt a mortal blow by the woman he loved. It was the strangest thing. I knew he wouldn’t be happy with what I had said, but I was surprised to see that there was no trace of tender disappointment at all. Rather, his eyes blazed with what can only be described as fury. I could tell he could not believe I would turn him down. His pride, not his heart, was bearing the insult.

‘I’m sorry, Gerd,’ I said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go. There are some letters I wish to write before I go to the club this evening.’

‘The club,’ he sneered. ‘Yes. That is the best place for a woman like you. I must have been mad to ever think you would be intelligent enough to be my wife. You’re a woman of loose morals. No doubt you have loose knickers too. I can’t see what else my brother would see in you.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘If that’s how constant your love for me is, then it’s probably for the best that I didn’t decide to run away with you after all.’

‘Don’t mock me,’ he said. ‘Don’t ever mock me. You don’t know what I can do.’

He recovered himself enough to heil that bloody Hitler man before he walked out.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell Otto. He’ll go berserk. It’s not as though we can make sure we never see the silly man again. I can only hope that Gerd is just as keen to forget the whole incident as I am. But his transformation from the nervous suitor to the arrogant spurned officer of the Sturmabteilung was so dramatic and so awful that he has left me as badly shaken as if he had pointed a gun at my head.

Otto is going to be here in ten minutes. I must compose myself. I’ll feel safe again in his arms.

26th December 1932

What a terrible Christmas. And I had been so looking forward to it. I spent it with Otto’s family, of course. Gerd would barely speak to me and he found any excuse to argue with Otto. Their exchanges became so heated that Frau Schmidt actually cried.

Otto enraged Gerd by telling him that the Party was full of weak-minded pansies who should put on a skirt and come to the Boom Boom if what they like is dressing up. I have learned that the worst possible insult you can hurl in a National Socialist’s direction is to suggest that he and his cohort are not properly ‘manly’. Thus insulted by Otto, Gerd tried to regain his dignity with his fists. That was when Frau Schmidt burst into tears and went to her bedroom. Helga says she does not know why Otto and Gerd have become so antagonistic of late.

I hope that this is not about me. I can’t get what Gerd said out of my head at the moment.

‘Don’t mock me. Don’t ever mock me. You don’t know what I can do.’

1st January 1933

Dear Diary,

Happy New Year! How quickly a year has flown by and how much has changed in the meantime. It seems almost impossible that this time last year I was sobbing in my bedroom, awaiting news of my terrible fate after being caught kissing Matthew Spencer. If you had told me then that in twelve months’ time I would be engaged to be married to the most wonderful man on earth . . .

He is sleeping beside me as I write this. What a raucous night we had. New Year’s Eve – Silvester as they call it here – is celebrated even more enthusiastically than it is back in England. The club was open, of course, and we all had to work. Marlene and I created a smashing new routine for the occasion. She played the old year, dressed as a crone in a long black cape, and I played the New Year in my birthday suit and a nappy! Well, I wasn’t really naked but Young Hans assured me that from the back of the club, you couldn’t tell I was wearing anything much at all, which was exactly the effect we were after. The crowd was absolutely wild for me.

When the club closed, we shared a bottle of champagne with Schluter and toasted a prosperous year.

Back at the Hotel Frankfort, Otto and I welcomed 1933 in our own special way. Schluter let us bring home a half-finished bottle of wine – the good stuff. We had a little picnic in bed. And then we made love. It was perfect. We are so in tune with one another’s bodies now that he only has to look at me and I dissolve in a puddle of ecstasy.

We lay head to tail, so that I could pleasure him while he pleasured me. As I took him into my mouth and gently sucked him, he carefully parted my lips to find my clitoris – my pearl as he calls it. It was hard to concentrate on showing Otto my love when every flicker of his tongue drove me just a little wilder. He is such an expert. I came long before him. The taste of him as he came in my mouth was as good as any champagne. And now he is sleeping. It is strange how after we make love, he is exhausted while I am exhilarated. He has filled me with energy and now I can’t sleep at all. I will just have to lie here and make plans for 1933. I believe it will be our best year yet.