The Pursuit of Pearls (23 page)

Hugh parked his car outside Ursula's home and peered enviously through the screen of trees. He gave a low whistle of admiration. “Some place.”

“It's only temporary.”

“Bet it looks right out on the lake.”

“It does.”

“Want me to come in? See you're all right?”

She knew she should invite him in. Hugh had, after all, gone out of his way to drive her home in his smart new car. The very least she could do was to brew up some of Ursula's stash of coffee. But she knew she would not be good company.

“Really, I'm fine. Another time?”

“Absolutely.” He gave a dazzling smile and steered away.

The sight of the police had brought Lottie Franke to the forefront of Clara's thoughts. She had promised the girl's parents that she would see if there was anything she could discover about their daughter's death. That had been weeks ago, and in that time the tearful hysteria of Marlene Franke and the quiet desperation of her husband had tugged constantly at her heart, yet Clara had been far too busy to give it any attention. But the previous day something had happened that renewed her resolve to find out what she could. Hedwig Holz had left a message at the studio, asking if she would mind stopping by the Faith and Beauty home. Clara had been certain there was something Hedwig was not telling her, and no matter how trivial, it could be the information that helped the Frankes in their heartbreak.

She had made a promise to them and she would do her best to keep it. She decided to visit the next day.

I
t was upscale, as all the villas were out in the affluent suburbs west of Berlin; Schlatchtensee, Nikolassee, Wannsee, Griebnitzsee. Groups of large, turn-of-the-century villas with gravel drives and high gates that allowed only a glimpse of a world framed by curly wrought iron, of sunlit lawns screened by abundant pines. This was the heartland of Berlin's aristocracy. Back in their heyday, in the 1900s, there would have been carriages in the drives and families photographed on the front steps, plump men in swallowtail coats and ladies in wide hats, flanked by their servants. There would have been dances that went on until dawn, with fairy lights strung in the trees and views across the lakes. All the big house owners were rich industrialists, lawyers, and bankers; patriarchs with wide mustaches who were the very picture of confident prosperity. Many of them were Jewish, and they had plenty of good taste to go with their money. They hung their halls with fine art, and their gardens were filled with statuary. But in 1933 everything changed. Most of the owners were moved out of their villas in as little time as it took to pack a suitcase. Some of the new residents reported finding the coffeepots still warm.

The Faith and Beauty home was an ornately decorated house whose builder had, in common with many around here, regarded the Austrian Tyrol as the apogee of architectural sophistication. Stained-glass windows and Jugendstil decoration were garnished with a pair of antlers affixed above the doorway. Little gables and cross timbers gave it the air of a hunting lodge plucked from the Bavarian countryside and transported intact to the plush district that edged up against the Grunewald's dark heart.

Inside, sun swirled up to the icing-sugar cornices of the high ceiling, filling the room with a wash of pale gold. An early bee butted softly against the window, like a bomber failing to reach its target. An opened window carried the smell of grass on the breeze, and as she waited for Hedwig, Clara glimpsed a group of girls practicing gymnastics on the lawn, shiny braids swaying in unison. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of clear girls' voices singing a marching hymn to the Führer.

Unsere Fahne flattert uns voran,

Unsere Fahne ist die neue Zeit.

Und die Fahne führt uns in die Ewigkeit!

Ja, die Fahne ist mehr als der Tod.

Our banner flutters before us,

Our banner represents the new time,

Our banner leads us to eternity!

Yes, our banner means more to us than death.

Their singing unfurled into the air, rising and falling in uncertain counterpoint, a tapestry of sound that occasionally achieved harmony but then frayed and fell apart. Every now and then it was interrupted by the bark of the singing instructor. “Enough! Again. I remind you, ladies, the Führer requires
perfection
!”

Clara had deliberately arrived a few minutes early to allow for a look around. As she stood in the hall, she felt the glances of passing girls sweep over her, as prickling and hostile as stinging nettles, as though her intrusion in their domain was some kind of threat. But a threat to what? To their privacy, their togetherness, their beliefs? Or was it merely the natural distrust that any stranger inspired after the violent trauma that had recently taken place in their midst?

Hedwig Holz hurried down the stairs, apologizing as she came. She had changed since the last time Clara saw her. The girl's face was taut with misery and her eyes were ringed with fatigue. She stood before Clara, pushing the sleeves of her smock up and then tugging them down again.

“Shall we go in the garden?” Clara suggested.

They navigated the path past the gymnasts towards a bed where a display of tulips stood to attention at the end of the lawn. Even the grass was of a higher quality here, soft and springy, its fragrance floating in the air. The sunlight was studded with pollen, and glinting insects were coasting on the warm spring currents, dipping past the blood-red petals into the tulips' molten hearts. A group of girls had spread a rug beneath a tree, and as the two women passed, the crunch of their feet on the gravel turned curious probing eyes on them.

“Thank you for your message, Hedwig. Can I call you Hedwig?”

“Please.” A quick smile lifted the girl's features. “Though I hate my name actually. There's only one person who doesn't call me Hedwig, and he calls me Hedy.”

“I've just been in France. There they would call you Edwige.”

“Would they? That sounds so much better.
Edwige
. It's beautiful. I'd love to visit France. Lottie promised that if we joined the Faith and Beauty we would end up visiting all sorts of foreign places.”

“Was that why she wanted you to join?”

“I suppose. She said she wasn't going to be some old hausfrau, shuffling around in slippers with a load of brats at her ankles. She was going to travel. She wanted to live somewhere glamorous. She had expectations.”

Hedwig used this word reverently, as if it conjured all the magic of foreign places, of haute couture and a life where she would never again wear her hair in braids or sit around with a hundred identical girls sharing the greasy contents of an
Eintopf
stew.

They walked past the flower beds and through an arch of budding roses, towards the dapple of sun and blur of shadow at the end of the lawn. Beyond it lay the fringe of forest separating the order of the garden from the wild and unknown. Conrad Adler's comment came into Clara's head.
There's a narrow boundary that separates the savage from the civilized.
Here, in this temple to female purity, that boundary had grown thin and permeable and savagery had seeped in.

“That's where they found her.”

At the edge of the trees Clara could see a flutter of tape marking off an area of the ground.

“We're not allowed to go near,” Hedwig told her.

Clara wanted more details, and thought about asking Hedwig outright, but she seemed like the kind of girl who would clam up at a direct question. She was the kind who let her twisting hands and involuntary glances do the talking.

“Did Lottie often go into the woods?” Clara asked instead.

Hedwig was kicking at the gravel, scuffing it and turning over the stones.

“She used to say that solitude was essential for the development of character. She was quite a private person.” Clara remembered the composed and secretive smile that Lottie gave. “She said that was what was wrong with our country—I'm sorry, Fräulein Vine—that people were never alone. She felt it was impossible to be a creative person if you didn't have solitude.”

“But why could she not be alone?”

“You don't know what it's like here, Fräulein Vine. All the women in one group stay together throughout their membership. In that time we're encouraged to share everything—we eat together and learn together and sing together. It's hard to feel different. They don't want you to. But other people don't realize that.”

Clara did. She had felt it standing there in the hall. She could feel the emotion in the place pressing up against the walls, all eyes alert, hearts beating as one, the sense that everyone there was part of something bigger than themselves. That was a powerful emotion. It was the emotion that the Third Reich relied on. It was the kind of emotion that could move mountains.

“Most of the people here have known each other since they were little girls anyway. All their parents know each other too. Lottie and I were the only ones who came from the east of Berlin. That's good, I suppose. They always used to point Lottie out to visitors, to prove that there was nothing stopping a girl from an ordinary background being special in the Reich.”

Hedwig and Clara stared together into the blurred shadows.

“So, was there a reason that you asked to see me?” Clara nudged.

“I should have told you this before. I think…” Hedwig cast an instinctive glance behind her. “I might have a thought about why Lottie was killed.”

Her voice had layers of secrecy in it. She was concealing something.

“You said there was a boyfriend, and that she was frightened of him?” Clara prompted.

“That's true. But it's about something that happened, just before she died. It was a Saturday like this, and Lottie came into the house. She had makeup on, but her face was dirty and you could see the tearstains on her cheeks. She laughed a little when she saw me—she always laughed—but I could see something was wrong. She was late to the art class, and I know she had spent the night with him. She was all flustered, which was so unlike her, Lottie was always perfectly turned out. Anyway, after the art class was finished, she came out here and told me a secret. She said she had stolen something.”

Hedwig's words seemed to hang in the air, glinting with meaning.

“I had to promise not to tell anyone else about it. She was very aggressive. She frightened me. She made me swear on my life.”

“What was it that she stole?”

“I don't know.”

“And where is it now?”

“I'm not sure…”

“Didn't you ask her?”

“I would have. But that was the last time I saw her. The next thing I knew, they found her body.” Hedwig swallowed, reliving the horror of the moment. “I've tried so hard to think what she stole and where it might be. I visited her parents and went into her bedroom, saying I wanted to spend a last moment alone with Lottie, and I searched everywhere, but there was no sign of anything.”

As they walked back to the house, the high, clear voices of the girls were finally rising in harmony, coming together in clear, pleasing unison in their hymn to the Führer.

“The only thing she said was, ‘It's precious, Hedwig. It's more precious than you can imagine. There are a lot of big people in Germany who would kill for this.' ”

Clara had a sudden, spiky sense of dread. Was it possible the murder of Lottie Franke was not, after all, the random act of a lone madman? Could it have roots that went deeper? Roots that stretched and touched and entangled others, and ultimately reached out to the darkest places of the Reich?

“I
'm afraid I'm not to be trusted, Clara.”

Conrad Adler was holding the reins of a dappled gray horse, saddled up and ready for a ride. He was dressed in a finely tailored riding jacket, breeches, and high boots, his slick hair shining and a sharp edge of amusement in his eyes. To his side stood a groom with a larger chestnut horse, already snuffing the air impatiently and tossing his head against the reins.

The Reitclub Grunewald, the city's smartest riding stables, enjoyed an idyllic location next to the Grunewaldsee. Though the water and the woodland gave it the feel of deep countryside, the club was near enough to the S-Bahn that one could travel from Ku'damm to stable door in twenty minutes flat. Berliners loved horses, and the city was full of bronzed beasts, sculptures of horses rearing in battle, their manes blowing in the wind. Even the famously unsporty Hitler liked to carry a riding whip in his hand. But there was no substitute for the real thing.

That morning the place was humming with activity, grooms polishing harnesses, cleaning out stables, and loading wheelbarrows with old straw, darting in and out of the tack room and hanging saddles on the doors. And two dozen shining, well-fed horses were clattering their hooves on the cobbles, thumping against the stable doors as they waited for their rides or being rubbed down, their coats steaming in the morning air.

“Why can't I trust you?”

“I told you I wanted you to accompany me to the cinema. But now it comes to it, I can think of nothing worse than wasting an evening with you watching drivel. I would far prefer to take a ride and talk to you. And we're lucky to have countryside like this so close to the heart of the Reich.”

Clara had found Adler's postcard when she returned home the previous day. Vermeer's
A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal
. A sweet-faced girl in a blue dress, dreamily poised with her fingers on the keys, the sunlight dazzling off the blue of her silk gown, a lustrous choker of pearls around her neck. She had snatched up the card with apprehension, wondering how Adler had managed to find her address, before turning it over and reading his invitation.

T
HE
R
EITCLUB
G
RUNEWALD. 12:00 P.M. TOMORROW?

The invitation had thrown her into an agony of indecision. Since that evening in Paris, Adler had a terrifying hold over her. He knew the truth about her, yet she had no idea what he intended to do with it.

The horse assigned to Clara tossed his head fretfully and she soothed him, rubbing his velvety nose.

“He's gorgeous.”

Adler eased a place where the bridle was tight.

“D'you think you can handle him? Perhaps he's too large for you.”

“I used to have a horse back in England. Inkerman. This one's about the same size.”

“Then this will remind you of happy times.”

She took the reins from Adler and swung herself up into the saddle as Adler's groom helped him onto his own horse.

“Thank you, Karl,” he said.

They made their way along the bridle path, out of the sunshine and into a tunnel of shadow. Here the density of the darkness was layered with the low gurgle of wood pigeons. Once or twice the flash of a coppery squirrel crossed their path. The horses picked their way expertly along a route they knew by heart, their hooves padding softly on the leaf mold. It was just as Adler had said. The sight of the chestnut-brown horse in front of her and the rising scents of warm horsehair, oiled harness, and burnished leather provoked in Clara a sharp stab of nostalgia. In truth, Adler was right—the horse was larger than she was used to—but he seemed calm, and she loved the sensation of him moving beneath her, the instinctive communication between animal and rider. It had been years since Clara had been on horseback, and then it was down lanes in the Surrey countryside, fringed by hawthorn hedgerows. Here in the Grunewald, the air was fresher, with an edge of pine, and unlike the deciduous English woodland, the densely packed pine trees were dark and impenetrable.

Apart from the occasional command to his horse, or a suggestion of right or left, Adler progressed without speaking, following a route deeper into the wood. From time to time Clara glanced across, but she could tell nothing of his thoughts other than that he was apparently absorbed in his ride. Leaning down to slap his horse's neck, he asked, “What do you think of Flieger? He has the most wonderful pedigree, but I don't care about any of that. I bought him because he is such an intelligent animal. The moment I saw him I had to have him.”

There was a tenderness in his voice she had not heard before, and Clara's heart warmed to him in response. She had never met a man who loved horses the way she did. The men she knew liked a hard, competitive gallop, or a morning's hunting on the south downs.

“Karl looks after him wonderfully. I've told him to make the most of it while he can.”

“Why's that?”

“He's a Jew,” Adler answered, matter-of-factly. “The Führer will soon ban Jews from caring for animals. So Karl won't be able to work at the stables anymore. He's going to be looking around for a new occupation.”

After a while they emerged from the forest trail to a clearing where a timbered
Biergarten
stood, complete with a cobbled yard dotted with scarlet geraniums, where drinkers were sitting in the sun. A man in lederhosen and a short Bavarian hat was playing Mozart on the violin, and sparrows hopped and pecked between the tables. A stag's head hung above the door, and glancing into the dim interior, Clara saw a collection of other animals—birds, badgers, and pine martens—in glass cases. Foxes' heads snarled at each other across the room, and a molting hare, inexpertly stuffed, cocked a glassy eye. At the entrance a stuffed bear with the fur rubbed away at the snout stood, paw extended, like a maître d' welcoming new customers.

“This place has been here for centuries. Shall we stop?” Adler asked.

They sat in the dappled shade, and he ordered beer for both of them.

“So. Did the ride bring pleasant memories back?”

“I'd almost forgotten how much I love it,” Clara told him. “I haven't ridden for so long. It reminded me of being a child.”

“What were you like as a child?”

His question brought her up short. Her childhood seemed a vanished dream of gardens and lessons, of intense, intimate adventures with Angela and Kenneth. Yet also, she realized with hindsight, childhood had been a time of secrets. Of concealed diaries, repressed feelings, and hidden emotion.

“I suppose I was a typical middle child. Self-reliant. Reserved.”

“Yes.” His keen eyes seemed to penetrate her. “I can see that. Though from my time in London I would say that's something of a national trait. The English are very skilled at concealing their emotions.”

She smiled briefly but did not trust herself to reply. Since Adler's discovery of her forged documents, she was determined to guard every detail. She had no idea of his intentions towards her, or what he planned to do with her secret.

“So why were you reserved, Clara? Were your parents unhappy?”

He could not have been more accurate. Towards the end of her mother's life, Clara had found herself going between her parents like a double agent, translating and embroidering their comments for each other, patching up the glaring cracks in their façade of family life. Her father retreated to his study with its bay window overlooking the rose garden and her mother to hours of practice on the grand piano.

“I think they were mismatched. They had a whirlwind romance—I suppose that's what you'd call it—and once it died down, they discovered they were very different.”

“There's nothing worse than a romance that has gone sour. It's why I have always preferred my solitude. What was your first memory?”

“The
Titanic
sinking. I remember my parents sitting at the breakfast table—our breakfast room had high walls with a pattern of dark green leaves like wreaths, and I was counting them. My father was reading the newspaper, and he said, ‘All those people dead,' and I tried to allot a wreath in my mind to each dead person. It filled me with fear.”

“Why? It wasn't your tragedy.”

“The idea that death could come quite suddenly, out of nowhere. And then of course it did. My mother died when I was sixteen. I thought as time went by I would miss her less, but in fact I miss her more.”

“What was her name?”

“Helene. Helene Neumann.”

Not the name on the gravestone in the churchyard of St. Michael and All Angels, softly eroding as the rain dripped down its runnels. But her mother's absence was chiseled into Clara's life in a way that could not be erased. It had brought home to her the telescoping of time. Time that felt tangible, curdled, the minutes growing thick. Gradually running out.

“I miss my sister too. We were so close at one time, you would never believe. We just grew apart.”

“Do you see her much?”

Clara had a sudden, passionate desire to talk about Angela. It had been so long since anyone had asked her questions like this. Yet she refused to let herself relax.

“Not really. And I haven't seen my father for years.”

“Would you like to?”

“I suppose.”

“Why stay in Germany then?”

“For my work.”

“Can your work be so important?”

“I think so.”

She took a deep draft of the beer. It was a Berlin
Weiss,
with a shot of fruit syrup—unexpectedly refreshing. Adler's barrage of questions disconcerted her. She shifted beneath his dissecting gaze and said, “Enough of me. What about you. Were you born in Berlin?”

“My family comes from Weimar.” He looked away, smoothing a lock of hair from his eyes. “I'm a count, actually. Von Adler. The decoration was bought a few generations back. I'm not proud of it, that's just how things are. I had every blessing I could ask. A perfect heritage, a bloodline, money, and land in the finest city in Germany.”

“I've never been to Weimar.”

“It's the home of the Reformation, and of Goethe, of course. You should take a trip there. Have you read
Faust
?”

“I don't think I have.”

“You must know the story. The man who made a pact with the devil.”

“He sold his soul in return for anything he wanted on earth.”

“That's the one. Don't go reading anything into that, though.”

He took a sip of foamy beer, and the sun caught his glass and made it sparkle.

“I often think of my life back in Weimar. The place was enormous. You can't imagine the upkeep, but as a boy one never thought of those things. We had horses, of course, stables of our own, magnificent gardens. A lake and a chapel. Even an ice palace. My mother was much younger than my father, and neither of them had the slightest idea about how to care for children. I was the only one they had, and they treated me as a type of miniature adult. Or rather…”

He paused, as though this was the first time he had ever considered it “Like a dinner guest. They were always utterly courteous. Polite. They talked about politics, or history, or art, as though I would understand, which of course, being intelligent, I did.”

Clara looked into Adler's impenetrable eyes and tried to see in him the young boy, polite and awkward. Isolated.

“In the winter we would go hunting. There's a hare there that learns to camouflage itself perfectly against the land. It has a deep gray coat, but in winter it undergoes a molt and turns entirely white. I admire that. The skill of camouflage. You can't be a good hunter unless you've studied camouflage. This little hare turns white so expertly that only the best hunters can see it against the snow.”

“Sounds like you miss it.”

“I do. I often wish I had made my life back there, managing the estate, living quietly. Keeping out of politics.”

“So why?” She tried to keep her voice to a whisper, but her words flared with passion. “Why get involved in all this…brutality? If you didn't have to?”

A cool shrug. “It was necessary to join the Party if I was to pursue my work as an art specialist. Once the Reich Chamber of Culture was instated, it was mandatory.”

“You didn't have to enter politics.”

“I didn't think of it as politics. When von Ribbentrop was made ambassador to England, he invited me along as his aide, and I liked the idea. I've always enjoyed foreign travel. I would have liked it a lot more if it hadn't been for the attentions of his wife. She never let me alone.”

“Why?”

“Annelies liked me. Or rather she liked my wealth. My aristocratic heritage. Probably the same reasons you like me.”

“Who said I like you?”

He laughed, delightedly. “But of course. You came here this morning solely for the exercise. And you accepted my dinner invitation in Paris out of a desire to discuss international affairs.”

She fought the urge to tell him how accurate he was. “Talking of Paris, I was wondering. Who was that man you met?”

Adler's face shuttered instantly, the way it had on the bridge. “It doesn't matter.”

“Is it something I shouldn't know?”

He sighed. “His name is Alfred Rosenberg. You've heard of him, I take it?”

Alfred Rosenberg was the mad philosopher-seer of the Nazi Party, one of the earliest members to demonize Jews, Freemasons, and Communists.

“Rosenberg has been put in charge of overseeing the acquisition of art. There are a lot of Jews selling their stuff right now, in an effort to raise money to leave the country, and there's desperate competition for it, from the highest places. It's a joke really. Rosenberg likes art about as much as he likes Jews. To have a man like that in charge of art is quite ridiculous.”

“So he's on the lookout for paintings being sold?”