The Pursuit of Pearls (15 page)

She might have seen it as an omen, had she not long since learned to disregard them.

“W
hy did you want to meet here?”

Hedwig sneaked a quick look around her and frowned. They never went to restaurants, let alone ones like this. They couldn't possibly afford it. Alois's restaurant, at 3 Wittenbergplatz, just across from the ritzy KaDeWe department store, was a pretty smart place. The building had belonged to a Jewish family until it came under the uncomfortable scrutiny of a tavern proprietor whose influence was out of all proportion to his pale, sweaty, unprepossessing form. For the bespectacled Alois, who had set his sights on the Jewish family's home and subsequently had them beaten up and evicted, was not just a former Bavarian waiter and petty criminal but the half brother of the Führer himself. Even though relations between the two men were not what anyone would call brotherly, no one in the Third Reich felt like questioning the strength of that particular sibling bond.

“It's amazing what a powerful brother can do for you,” muttered Jochen as he surveyed the menu and selected a dish of liver dumplings. “From a petty thief and drunken waiter to owning a classy joint like this.”

“The Führer's brother's a thief? That can't be true.”

“He served a couple of prison sentences in Austria before he fled to Britain to start a new life. Then he married another woman without bothering to divorce the first. He's a family disgrace. His brother even made him resign from the Party.”

“That may be,” Hedwig said softly, trying to avert her eyes from three rowdy storm troopers leering in her direction. “But I don't see why that would make you want to come here.”

“I thought I'd give it a try,” he replied curtly. “If it's good enough for the SS. And aren't you supposed to be mixing with SS men now? I thought that was what the Faith and Beauty Society was all about. Moving in the right circles.”

“Jochen, please.” She placed a hand on his arm. She knew he was jealous, seeing his girlfriend being primped and groomed as a consort to senior Nazi men, and it hurt her to think it. “I told you I'd never be interested in any man but you.”

He managed a smile, a quick flicker that transformed his face and, just for a second, erased all the worry lines.

“Any news about Lottie?” he asked more gently. “Are the police still searching? Have they found anything yet?”

“Nothing. They were there again this morning. They kept asking if we had seen anyone.”

In a matter of a few weeks, the Faith and Beauty home had transformed into a full-blown crime scene. Kripo cars cluttered the driveway, and the corridors were full of detectives, their boots ringing unnaturally loud on the polished parquet floor. Police tape fluttered across the lawn like ribbons on a maypole. Why would a girl like Lottie go into the woods? That was the question they all asked. Faith and Beauty girls were not the sort to make unlikely assignations in the Grunewald, unless someone had forced them. It tormented Hedwig, too. Lying awake at night, she tried to imagine the man who had killed Lottie, yet she couldn't conjure any features. Only a face that seemed to compress into it all the horrors of the night.

“I'm surprised they haven't questioned me more, but no one wants to know. It's as though no one really cares.”

“Of course they care.”

“They don't. Or if they do, it's only because it's in the newspapers, and it might look bad if they don't arrest someone soon. I miss her, Jochen.”

“I know.”

“Do you think I should ask the police if I can help them more?”

“No.” He was firm about this. “Don't do that. If they need anything they'll tell you.”

He lit two cigarettes and gave her one. “How's that other friend of yours? Irna? She's getting married, isn't she?”

It was true. Irna Wolter had scored the greatest triumph of them all—the jackpot of the Faith and Beauty lottery. She had won the heart of an Ubersturmbannführer and was to wed him later that month. She was currently at the Reich Bride School on Schwanenwerder Island, studying for the certificate she needed to qualify for marriage into the SS.

“She's at Bride School now. Getting ready for the wedding.”

“Are you invited?”

“I wish I was, but it's not in Berlin. It's at a special SS training school. A castle, can you believe it, in Westphalia. Women aren't allowed in.”

“Some wedding. Is that the kind you want then?”

“Don't be silly. You know I don't want anything special. Besides, there's only one man I want to marry, and he doesn't have much time for castles.”

Jochen looked down at his fingers, which were stained yellow by nicotine. Usually they had traces of ink on them, too, from work. It was always this way when the subject of marriage came up. He would immediately clam up and avert his gaze. Hedwig felt the familiar, agonizing tear at her heart. She tried not to talk about marriage, but it was he who had brought the subject up. If he couldn't bear the idea of a future with her, then why didn't he come right out and say so? Lottie had always insisted she should tell Jochen the truth, but Hedwig feared that if she pushed too hard, Jochen would back away. And then she would be left without the only man she had ever loved.

Being with Jochen was like being with a dog that had been ill-treated and had never lost the distrust in its eyes. Sometimes she wondered if he would ever form a commitment, at least to her, but at other times she thought she should simply be patient and loving. Perhaps it was still too early, or maybe Jochen cared more than he showed about her parents' entrenched hostility. Often she found herself scanning his face like a cryptologist, trying to divine a hidden meaning in his silence. Usually she would cover up any pauses by saying all the things that she didn't mean, rather than saying what she did, but this time she stayed silent, and unwelcome tears stung in her eyes. Since Lottie's death she found herself crying at the slightest provocation.

“At last.”

Their
Leberknödel
arrived, and though the dumplings turned out to contain far more bread crumbs than liver, maybe that was for the best. Hedwig always felt guilty eating meat these days. More and more people were turning vegetarian because they wanted to follow the Führer's example, and they had been told that even the top men in the Party, like Hess and Himmler and Goebbels, regularly enjoyed vegetarian meals, though Jochen said this was all made up. It was important to be thrifty, too. The newspapers were full of recipes for cakes without fat or eggs. They had been told that bread, sugar, and coffee were in short supply because the Führer wanted to increase the racial fitness of the nation. Just as Hitler was preparing for war by building tanks, so his people must prepare their bodies for war through frugal eating. Only the other day on the radio Doktor Goebbels had condemned Berliners who complained about the coffee shortage as “cosmopolitan,” which was as good as calling them Jews. If people really wanted to please the Führer they should become vegetarians, like him.

“We were learning about the Führer's love of animals,” she said, for the sake of conversation.

Apparently, the Führer had decided some animals were never acceptable to eat. Snails were all right, though just the idea of their little eyes on tiny gray stalks made Hedwig queasy, but lobster and frogs' legs were out. That hardly mattered as Hedwig couldn't afford lobster and she was scarcely likely to encounter frogs' legs any time soon. “He's banning scientific research on animals. And there are to be new regulations on the care of horses. Hitler says all Germans love horses.”

“Preferably in a stew,” said Jochen, bitterly.

“Germany is the first country in Europe to make laws to protect animals.”

“Tell that to the bombers,” he replied sourly, forking a dumpling into his mouth. “Nothing's going to protect animals if a war starts. And it will.”

He gave a quick glance behind him, then leaned closer. “At work they're already printing rationing coupons. Color-coded ones, white for sugar, blue for meat, purple for fruit and nuts, yellow for dairy, and green for eggs.”

“Rationing?” She was wide-eyed.

“Sure. Twenty-four hundred grams of bread a week, five hundred grams of meat, two hundred and seventy grams of fat, whole milk for children and invalids only. It's serious, Hedy. The authorities are making preparations.” He looked up at her, inscrutably. “As it happens, I am too. I've joined the RLB.”

The Reichsluftschutzbund, the Reich Air Protection League, was busily organizing blackout provisions and shelters in event of war.

“I had my first outing yesterday, inspecting cellars. All blocks have to convert their cellars, and in some streets all the cellars will interconnect, in case escape routes get blocked. You wouldn't believe what there is underneath your feet, Hedy. There's a whole network of underground canals, tunnels, and shelters already constructed. You'd be astonished.”

She was bewildered at this initiative. “That's not like you.”

“Why not?”

“You hate thinking about war, or the Führer's attempts to protect Germany.”

“Perhaps I've changed my mind.”

A terrible thought seized Hedwig. “Does that mean you're going to enlist?”

“Your father would like that, wouldn't he?”

So her suspicions were correct. Her parents' hostility bothered Jochen far more than he let on.

“Of course they wouldn't. They just need time…”

“Then I could go off and get killed and not bother their dear daughter again.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Please stop talking like that. You know I hate it. It tears me apart.”

The savage look fell instantly from his face, and he reached out a hand towards her. “Don't cry,” he whispered. “I'm a cruel beast, but I don't mean it.”

He wiped away a tear that was dripping off the bottom of her spectacles.

“I thought you'd be pleased that I'm spending my evenings in cellars rather than nightclubs or bars, Hedy.”

“There are plenty of nightclubs in cellars,” she joked with a brave sniff. Any quarrel with Jochen engulfed her in alarm, but being Hedwig, she didn't stay miserable for long. Jochen was the only person in the world to call her Hedy. She hated her name. Her parents had named her after St. Hedwig's, Berlin's Catholic cathedral, an uninspiring place whose pediment was lined by ranks of stone saints, surveying all comers like police officers inspecting the faithful. There were no glamorous Hedwigs in history, or literature, or any kind of culture. Even the Viennese movie actress Hedwig Kiesler had moved to Hollywood and changed her name to Hedy Lamarr.

“Anyhow. How's work?” she inquired, pulling herself together.

“Busier than ever. You can tell your father, our company's supporting the Reich just as much as any soldier. Our products make millions for the Party. The Führer makes a pretty packet out of it too. He charges for the use of his image. He makes a pfennig every time his face appears on a postage stamp.”

“I'm sure he gives it to the Winterhilfswerk. The Führer wouldn't want any money for himself.”

“Wouldn't he? That makes him different from the rest of them then. I heard old Joey Goebbels was making money selling all those Degenerate paintings they took down from the museums.”

“That's only Jewish art, though, isn't it?”

His eyes sparked dangerous fire. “What does that mean exactly?”

“I mean”—Hedwig labored on, trying to remember what Herr Fritzl had told them—“it's disgusting, isn't it? Not like your kind of art.”

“Not like my kind of art,” he repeated in a tone that seemed slightly menacing. Hedwig knew she had said something wrong, or stupid, but she didn't know how to fix it. She worried the edge of her skirt with a nail.

“What's my kind of art then, Hedy?”

“You paint faces.”

“Not faces. I paint
a
face
. The same face, day after day after day. Sometimes making his cheeks a little pinker, his eyes a little darker blue. Flattering him. Touching up his mustache. Shortening his nose. Making him into a matinee idol. A little more hair, fewer wrinkles.”

“That's nothing that the old masters wouldn't do. They had patrons and they needed to please them so they flattered them.”

Herr Fritzl had definitely said this.

“We're not talking about Michelangelo here, Hedy. What I do is hack work. I know Hitler's face better than I know my own. I've painted it on plates and dishes and canvases and candleholders and beer steins. Sometimes I wonder how he can bear it, seeing his face everywhere. It's on everything except the money, and that's only because he remembers the inflation and thinks he had better keep his head off the banknotes in case it happens again.”

Fortunately, their conversation was interrupted by a cheer and a round of applause from the far side of the restaurant. The Führer's brother had emerged and was standing, incongruously, beneath the portrait of his sibling, a cigar in one hand and a beaming smile across his face. At the sight of him, Jochen seemed to forget their argument instantly.

“As a matter of fact…” He was scratching at the surface of the table with his finger. “I'm going to ask you something.”

Hedwig was bathed in relief. “Anything, you know that.”

She was rewarded with one of his true smiles, a tender beam that lit up his face, and made his hazel eyes shine. It was the smile that had first made her love him. It opened up a chink in his cynicism and revealed the gentle and protective man that other people would never have believed possible. That was what love did, she supposed. It made you see below the surface of a person, to the soul beneath.

“Is it about a book?”

She guessed it would be something to do with literature. Jochen was a fervent reader. He was like Lottie in that. Always quoting little snippets of poetry and talking about writers she had never heard of. Hedy suspected that he kept a stash of banned books somewhere in his home, too. Perhaps he wanted to borrow something from the library at the Ahnenerbe.