The Pursuit of Pearls (3 page)

B
eing seduced by Joseph Goebbels was every starlet's worst nightmare, but for foreign journalists it was a rather pleasanter experience. The Press Club he had established at a cost of half a million marks on Leipziger Platz was a comfortable mansion of gleaming wood and chrome, superbly fitted out with ornate restaurant, reading room, library, and bar, where journalists were encouraged to congregate in the clubby armchairs and write their stories in luxurious ease. The restaurant served the types of white-fleshed schnitzel, buttery vegetables, and rich, flaky pastries that were no longer available elsewhere in Berlin, accompanied by fine wines and the holy grail of Viennese coffee. All the international newspapers were available, a Tannoy system was in place, and journalists could obtain anything from reduced-rate opera tickets to special red identification cards for procuring taxis. They could also write their copy on the typewriters there and have it cabled directly back to their own newspapers, if they didn't mind the censors crawling over every word. The club was practically in earshot of the Propaganda Ministry in Wilhelmplatz, but that was irrelevant because beneath every plush leather banquette was a listening device to collate conversations, and anything the listening devices missed was scooped up by the superbly attentive waiters, who doubled as Goebbels's spies. All the journalists knew the Press Club was an eavesdroppers' paradise, but the quality of the food and the prices at the bar made it a popular destination, just so long as you didn't mind your thoughts being shared by a wider audience, which journalists by their very nature generally didn't. The level of comfort encouraged harmonious conversation, and the only permanent disagreements came from the three clocks on the wall, telling the time in Paris, London, and Tokyo.

Clara made her way towards Leipziger Platz with some difficulty. Battling the throng of people who had spent all day at the birthday parade was like wading through a drunken river upstream. It was as though every one of Berlin's four million souls had turned out to glimpse the Führer. Whole family groups walked several abreast on the pavement, the fathers carrying cameras slung over their shoulders by straps and the mothers lugging picnic baskets and folding seats. Clara breasted the flow, passing bars belching beer breath through open doors and navigating crash barriers, skirting the boozy crowds and dodging the sharp sticks of flags trailed by exhausted children who had been up before dawn.

Eventually she escaped up the porticoed steps of the Press Club, edging around a twenty-five-foot portrait of the Führer in the lobby proclaiming
OUR
LOYALTY
:
OUR
THANKS
, and entered the party.

Like everywhere else in Germany, the Press Club was celebrating with unrestrained joy. Goebbels had allocated a large quantity of
Sekt
to assist the celebrations, and despite the fact that the drinks came accompanied by a liberal sprinkling of bureaucrats from the Reich Chamber of Press, the foreign correspondents had decided en masse to take full advantage of it. Clara looked round for the plump, sandy-haired figure of Mary Harker, the journalist she had met when she first arrived in Germany and who was now a close friend. Mary, with her passionate concern for the underdog and her deep sense of justice, had been reporting from Europe for the
New York Evening Post
since 1933. Recently, though, she had been in Prague, and Clara hadn't realized how much she missed her. Being good-hearted, wholly on Clara's side, and, most important, having an inkling of Clara's secret role meant Mary Harker was the only person with whom Clara could genuinely relax.

Mary's hearty laugh and distinctive New Jersey accent were instantly recognizable from the far side of the room. She had scarcely changed since they met six years ago. She still had the same mordant sense of humor, the same favorite old black dress, her hair was a corn-colored tangle, and her lively eyes were hidden behind heavy-rimmed black spectacles. As usual she was at the center of a throng, and loudly enjoying herself.

“Clara, let me introduce Bill Shirer, from CBS, and Louis Lochner, head of the Berlin bureau of the Associated Press.” She indicated a short man with a mustache, waving a pipe, and his balding colleague, with horn-rimmed glasses. “You already know Sigrid Schultz of the
Chicago Tribune
.” She gestured at a tiny, china-complexioned woman with a fierce stare. “Guys, meet Clara Vine. A star of the Ufa studios, as I expect you know.”

The group nodded politely. American correspondents were thick on the ground in Berlin. There must have been at least fifty, staffing the wire services, broadcast stations, and newspapers, but you rarely saw so many together.

“Quite a turnout,” said Clara.

“We're congregating for safety.” Shirer laughed. “Roosevelt has refused to send Hitler a birthday card, so we Americans aren't flavor of the month anymore.”

“At least you remember what it's like to be popular,” came a voice. “We British haven't been popular for years.”

Clara didn't know the voice, yet in another way, she recognized it instantly. It was the kind of voice that echoed across expensive school playing fields and down the corridors of the British civil service in Whitehall. The same voice that belonged to friends of her brother's back in England; precise, understated, and slightly mocking. A tone that said most things should not be taken too seriously and very little should be taken seriously at all. Clara turned to see two men, one tall and lanky in a three-piece suit of Harris tweed with a lock of oiled hair jutting over his brow. Beside him stood a shorter figure with a shock of blond hair, a freckled face, and alert blue eyes, his old school tie secured with a tiepin.

“Clara, meet Charles Cavendish and Hugh Lindsey. Your fellow Brits,” said Mary, eliciting a look of pure puzzlement on the men's faces.

“Clara's half English, didn't you know?” she continued. “She's the daughter of Sir Ronald Vine.”

“
The
Ronald Vine?” asked Cavendish, with the look of disdainful astonishment that always accompanied a mention of Clara's father's name. Almost immediately he concealed it with a polite smile and stuck out a hand, but not before Clara had noticed.

“The same,” she replied evenly.

Being known as the daughter of one of England's most prominent Nazi sympathizers had been invaluable in gaining the trust of senior members of the Nazi regime. Her father's loyalties had been Clara's ticket into the inner circles of the Third Reich. Yet still, it was an uncomfortable façade to maintain, especially with the British.

Somehow, the second journalist, Hugh Lindsey, seemed to understand. His eyes traveled over her with intuitive sympathy.

He said, “None of the Nazis love us Brits anymore. Despite the Duke of Windsor's best efforts.”

“Hugh's just arrived,” Mary explained.

There was a rapid turnover of foreign journalists in Berlin. Reporters were constantly having their visas withdrawn for overstepping Goebbels's mark, or allowing criticism of the regime to creep into their stories.

“Hugh's Rupert's replacement,” added Mary.

“Not that Rupert could ever be replaced,” said Hugh, gallantly. Clara gave Mary a quick, private glance. At one time Mary had been half in love with Rupert Allingham, the aristocratic head of the
Daily Chronicle
's Berlin bureau. Eventually his increasing frustration with the regime, combined with increasing drinking, had the predictable results. When his friends gathered on Lehrter Bahnhof to wave him off, they agreed that, however much they were going to miss him, Rupert's expulsion from Germany had been an accident waiting to happen.

“You have big shoes to fill,” Clara told Hugh.

“Big beer glasses too,” he replied lightly.

“Rupert's well out of it,” Cavendish remarked. “There won't be any war. I've heard Chamberlain is having a nervous breakdown. Whenever people try to talk to him, he just stands feeding pigeons through the Downing Street window.”

“You wonder how the Nazis would even have the time for war,” added Shirer. “They're so busy being at war with each other. Von Ribbentrop and Goering aren't even on speaking terms I hear, and Goebbels can't stand either of them.”

“I'll be able to update you on that,” said Mary. “I've been granted an interview with Goering tomorrow. My new minder just told me.”

“Your minder?” asked Clara.

“Over there.” Mary tilted her Martini glass towards a cluster of officials all towering over Goebbels's five-foot-six frame. They were vigorous, hard-faced men, mostly in uniform, and those in civilian dress wore the Party emblem in their buttonholes.

“We have one each. Mine's the one with the face like Babe Ruth and the charm of Al Capone. They've been appointed to keep an eye on us.”

“Don't they have enough spies?” complained Shirer.

Every newspaper office in Berlin had its quota of government informers, from the translators to the secretaries, following the reporters like wasps at a picnic and keeping a watch on their contacts.

“Goebbels says Germany's message needs to be better controlled than ever. The minders have to note every word we write and every place we go. Mine's going to be spending a lot of time at the Adlon bar.”

“Mine too.” Hugh had an easy laugh and an expansive manner that seemed to put people at their ease.

Clara glanced again at the men clustered around Goebbels, and as she looked, one man caught her gaze and boldly returned it. He was a haughty figure in a crisp uniform, his hawkish nose and cheekbones as sharp as an SS dagger. Even from across the room she felt his eye travel over the contours of her silk cocktail dress, down her body, then up again to her face. As their eyes met, a brief smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Then he nodded and raised his glass very slightly in her direction.

“Did you see all those presents being taken into the Chancellery this morning?” Cavendish asked. “Weren't we always told it was frightfully spoiling to have too many presents? What's wrong with cake and champagne?”

“You can forget the champagne,” Mary teased. “I asked. The Propaganda Ministry informed me that the birthday dinner consisted of asparagus tips and artichoke hearts in cream sauce. And the only alcohol on offer was beer at one percent proof. I'd kill to see the guests' faces when that was served up.”

“I heard our host gave Hitler a hundred and twenty feature films,” said Hugh. “But then what
do
you give the man who has everything?”

“Poland, probably,” said Mary.

Clara glanced again at the tall figure who had caught her eye. She had evolved many tricks for remembering faces, and one of them was to think of which animal she was reminded of. This man would be a large, powerful creature, a panther perhaps, with his dark coloring, black livery, and sleek, muscular demeanor. There was an impatience about the flare of his nostrils and the brief glance he cast towards the door, which said that as far as he was concerned, this party couldn't end soon enough. As she looked, their eyes met again, and he gave a smile that suggested amusement at some private joke only they shared.

She looked away.

She wandered over to the window to watch streams of people returning from the parade, their flags turning the street below into a shimmering sea of swastikas. Having spent all day offering rigid salutes at every opportunity, the crowds were relaxed now, drunkenly loud, singing off-key. Overhead, the last squadrons were passing, their drone fading into the distance. The crash barriers were being folded away, and litter collectors were busy picking up the occasional abandoned flag and empty cardboard wurst carton. More than any city on earth, Berlin liked to be immaculate. On the surface at least.

“It's a historic occasion.”

Clara turned. The man who had been surveying her from across the room had come up behind her. At closer quarters, he was more than merely good-looking—there was a kind of perfection to his features. His eyes were gray as pewter, his silver-flecked hair swept precisely from the kind of face Clara had seen on statues in the British Museum—haughty, aristocratic, chiseled by generations of breeding, with a nose that in relief would fit perfectly on an ancient Roman. The only unambiguously German things about him were the four silver pips and stripe on his collar badge, which marked his rank as an SS Obersturmbannführer.

“I suppose. We have an awful lot of historic occasions nowadays. Sometimes one longs for a simple, unhistoric day.”

The Obersturmbannführer raised a dark eyebrow. “Aren't you enjoying the holiday?”

“I'm not a great one for holidays. I'd rather get back to work.”

Close up he smelled of fresh leather. No one, except soldiers, smelled of that anymore; the rest of the leather in Berlin was worn, scuffed, and long overdue for replacement.

“Personally, I'm finding it a welcome respite. But perhaps that's to do with my current occupation.” He rocked backwards on his heels and followed her gaze down at the street.

Clara didn't ask him to elaborate, so he continued.

“Herr Doktor Goebbels has suggested I acquaint myself with all aspects of the Reich Chamber of Culture. I can cope with the concerts, but the minister thought I should watch as many films as possible, and frankly, I'm finding it a formidable job. He's provided me with a list of movies, and I'm having them screened as often as I can bear it.”

“Tiresome for you.”

“Indeed.” He drained his glass. “I'm managing two per evening.”

“Almost as many as the Führer, and he watches movies for pleasure.”

“Well, it wouldn't do to compete with the Führer,” he replied smoothly. “Though watching these films does rot the brain, don't you find?”

“Considering I spend my time acting in them, I suppose not.”