Woman in the Shadows (7 page)

“I saw you at Babelsberg the other day, I think, Fräulein Vine. With Generaloberst Udet?”

“He's starring in our new film. He's agreed to perform a stunt.”

“Has he? I saw him in
The Miracle of Flight
. A miracle he was able to make the flight, was what I heard.”

It didn't surprise Clara that Goebbels should be fully briefed on Udet's love of alcohol. It was his job to know the weaknesses and peccadilloes of all senior Nazis. No doubt the Gestapo, too, had a stack of notes filed away in the great bank of records that they kept in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, ready to use against Udet at a moment's notice.

Clara smiled politely. “Actually, I'm hoping he will let me fly with him.”

“Then you're a braver person than I. Perhaps you have a taste for danger, Fräulein Vine.”

“I'm sure it'll be perfectly safe.”

“I suppose. So long as you make sure it's before lunchtime!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Clara was aware of being scrutinized. It was the latecomer, the Englishman called Ralph, who was standing between Magda and the Mitford girls, or rather towering over them, a good six foot two. He had a broad-featured face and a bump in his nose that suggested a break on some distant playing field. His hair receded over a high brow, and he cupped one elbow in his hand as he smoked. Clara noted the clean ovals of his fingernails and the gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. For a split second, as their eyes met, a spark of connection flickered across the distance between them.

Diana called over to Goebbels. “We're playing a game, Herr Doktor, and you must join in. We're talking about the deadly sins. I think the old ones are all terribly passé. There should be new deadly sins. Or perhaps we should have deadly virtues instead!”

“How about chastity?” suggested the Englishman.

“A sin or a virtue?”

“It's pretty deadly either way.”

A burst of laughter filled the room. “Well, if you can't decide, Ralph, you'll have to think of another,” Diana persisted. “What do you suggest?”

“Secrecy.”

“A sin or a virtue?”

“A virtue, definitely.”

While Diana's bright laugh glittered out, Goebbels was glowering. He was refusing to join in the joke. It might be that he detested this kind of English party game, but more likely he suspected in his guests' banter some humorous reference to his love affair with Lida Baarová. What had Albert said?

He's really smitten. They say he's…going to ask Magda for a divorce.

His expression stony, Goebbels turned his attention to the Englishman.

“On the subject of virtue, Captain Sommers, I have a complaint to make about your English newspapers. They are constantly handing out lectures on our morality, like some dried-up old governess scolding away at our young Reich. Tell me, are you happy for them to continue spouting their lies? Or are you going to put them right?”

“I'm afraid you overestimate my influence on the denizens of Fleet Street, Herr Doktor,” Sommers replied pleasantly. “Though I'm surprised you find them uncongenial. Surely many British newspapers are supportive of the National Socialists? Wasn't Lord Rothermere insisting just the other day that Adolf the Great will soon be as popular in England as Frederick the Great? And as far as I'm concerned, the faster England realizes her interests lie in a close association with the German Reich, the better.”

He nodded to Clara and extended a hand. A small silver swastika glinted in his lapel.

“Ralph Sommers.” At the touch of his hand a shiver ran through her.

Goebbels waved grandly in Clara's direction. “Captain Sommers, this is Fräulein Clara Vine. She represents the perfect union of our two great nations. Her father, Sir Ronald Vine, is English, and her mother was German. Fräulein Vine may look a little English on the outside, but I think we have won the battle for her heart.”

Sommers's eyes swept over her again speculatively. “I'm pleased to hear it. I only wish some of the people back home would follow her example. Stop talking about war and start thinking more about what our two people have in common.” He nodded at Clara. “Don't you agree, Fräulein?”

“Of course.”

“We are two ancient Aryan races, who should be united in friendship. We stem from the same blood. Our royal family speaks German as a mother tongue. We have a common enemy in the Bolshevik. There seems to me no reason why England and Germany should not form one of the great alliances of the modern world.”

Clara didn't need to ask what a man like Captain Sommers was doing in Berlin. The city was full of people like him. English socialites enamored of the new regime, infatuated with the marches and the banners and the upstanding ranks of the Hitler Youth. Though his eyes were a little tired and his face shadowed with stubble, Ralph Sommers exuded the same unmistakable confidence she recognized instantly from the men her sister knew, men from the most privileged ranks of society, the sleek products of public schools who felt the world was at their feet. Given his mention of Lord Rothermere, Sommers was no doubt another of the press baron's associates, determined to befriend Hitler and bent on an alliance with Germany. She wondered what Sommers assumed of her. That she was one of those girls who hung around Nazis because they liked the uniforms and the proximity to power? Clara reminded herself how important it was to be careful with other English people. They could spot mistakes that the Germans ignored. They could sense falsity.

“So what brings you here, Captain Sommers?”

“I run a small aeronautical research and sales company. Offices in Conduit Street. Here…” He reached into his pocket and drew out a gold business card holder. “Take my card. I'm over on business actually, but I took the opportunity to motor down to Nuremberg for the
Parteitag,
and I have to agree, it was an absolutely tremendous show. It quite takes the breath away. While I was there, the Frau Doktor very kindly invited me to this evening. She really does spoil me.”

Goebbels saw his empty glass. “It seems we're not looking after you so well tonight, Sommers. You have no champagne.”

He gave his wide smile, the one that chilled Clara to the core, and signaled to a young woman holding a bottle of Henkell champagne wrapped in a white napkin. Clara recognized her as the girl who had served tea the other day. The girl from the Bride School. Her cheeks were flushed and a drop of sweat trickled down the side of her brow. At the minister's summons, she approached and grappled with the bottle, managing to spill champagne on Ralph Sommers's sleeve.

Goebbels's face twisted with anger. “Watch yourself, you clumsy woman!”

Sommers brushed the flecks of champagne from his sleeve with a smile. “No harm done,” he said smoothly.

Goebbels glowered after the retreating bride. “I'm sorry. She's not one of our usual maids. She's from the Bride School.”

Diana Mosley pricked up her ears. “A Bride School, did you say? How awfully quaint! Perhaps I should attend one of those.”

“You wouldn't last long,” said Unity belligerently. “Given you were expelled from every school you ever attended.”

Goebbels, however, was again not joining in the joke. “God help the wretched Schutzstaffel who have to marry these women.” With a visible effort he controlled himself. “Still. We have quite another wedding in mind right now. We are expecting a visit from some of your other countrymen. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor are arriving on honeymoon.”

For a split second, from across the room, Clara locked eyes with Frau von Ribbentrop. There were rumors that von Ribbentrop, in his time in London, had conducted an affair with the former Wallis Simpson. After they were introduced by the society hostess Emerald Cunard, whose home in Grosvenor Square was the center of pro-Nazi London, it was said von Ribbentrop had sent seventeen red carnations to the duchess's London home every day. His wife had handled this gossip with her habitual iron composure. Now, at the mention of Wallis, she assumed an expression that could set concrete.

“The only shame for them is that they should be hounded from their own country for such a harmless misdemeanor,” continued Goebbels, turning to the Mitford sisters. “I cannot get over the disdain you English have for the idea of a divorced queen.”

“Not
all
the English,” corrected Diana, who was, Goebbels scarcely needed reminding, divorced herself.

“Perhaps not. But the fact remains you were fortunate enough to have a happy young king with a most attractive wife. Yet those dried-up prunes in the government could not tolerate it. And they were abetted by the repulsive hypocrites in the Church. I regret to say, to me that's the mark of a nation on the decline.”

“The duke feels it most awfully,” conceded Diana. “I think the idea of the tour is that Wallis should have a little taste of being queen. If they're going to be so beastly as to deny her the Royal Highness status, the duke says she should jolly well experience a royal tour with all the trimmings. Rolling out the red carpet and being greeted by the British ambassador when they arrive.”

“Not the British ambassador,” said Clara, without thinking, and then cursed herself. How had that slipped out?

“Indeed?” Sommers cocked his head. “And why not?”

“I imagine it would be politically difficult,” she improvised.

“Do you now?” He spoke with a slightly mocking air, his cigarette nonchalantly poised, one eyebrow raised. He seemed to be challenging her, maintaining eye contact for longer than was comfortable. “Why?”

“I would have thought that was perfectly obvious, Captain. I do read the newspapers, you know.”

“I'm sure.” His lips curved into a smile, but his cool green eyes continued probing her. “And with a father like yours, you must be well acquainted with politics.”

“I don't need my father to teach me about politics,” she snapped.

At her terse reply his eyes widened slightly, but he continued to smile as though he found her amusing.

“Of course not,” he agreed.

Suddenly, Clara couldn't stand any more. What kind of party was it, where you detested all the guests and couldn't drink a drop? What a life this was, mixing with people whose views you loathed, associating with a regime that stood for everything you hated: intimidation, violence, brutality. Befriending people who represented a version of England you didn't recognize. The strain of being constantly on her guard, of laughing and chatting and dissimulating, of never putting a foot wrong, was soul-killing. She had to escape, if only for a moment.

She drifted onto the terrace as though in search of fresh air and moved away from the French windows so that the chatter of the party receded. After easing herself into the shadow at the edge of the house, she stood quietly, listening to the calls of the night birds in the woods and, farther off, the hum of traffic from the other side of the lake. Catching a faint, salty tang in the air, she pictured the muscular strength of the current combing the surface of the Wannsee. She had adored her time this summer on the beautiful lakes around Berlin, rowing and swimming and diving into the breathtaking crystal water of the Havel, though she had been warned that even the calmest surface concealed treacherous tides beneath.

Another sound interrupted her thoughts. A man's step, it sounded like. A hard leather sole with a steel tip in the heel making its way out onto the flagstones. She shrank back into the darkness. Light spilled from the open doors, illuminating a swath of the terrace, and she saw it was Ralph Sommers prowling—that was the word for it—like a predator in search of its prey. He braced his shoulders backwards and stretched his arms wide, like a wild animal, then reached up a hand and massaged his neck. Even from where she stood, she could tell he was tense and preoccupied. Clara folded herself more closely against the wall and tried to regulate her breathing. She was certain he couldn't see her, yet he still looked curiously in her direction. He cupped his hand to light a cigarette and seemed to gaze right at her, before turning and going back into the house.

I
t was ten o'clock before Clara got back to Winterfeldtstrasse and wearily parked the car. The hall was deserted, though she noticed that a couple of chicken soup cans had been tossed into Rudi's collection point, enough perhaps to make a few bolts for an airplane wingtip. It was Party night, she remembered, Rudi's only evening out of the week, from which he would regularly reel back reeking of beer and filled with SA songs.

By contrast, Clara was stone-cold sober. She had drunk nothing at the Goebbelses' party, keenly aware more than ever that she needed to keep her wits about her. She had held a glass of champagne throughout, because that was the kind of detail Goebbels noticed. Yet even with her sobriety and her heightened state of alertness, she had managed to make a foolish mistake.

At least the lift was mended. She sighed as she waited and rubbed her legs. Her black patent heels were killing her. She was longing to fling herself down on her bed and let herself relax. She could not get the face of Ralph Sommers, aeronautical businessman and Nazi sympathizer, out of her mind. Something about him unnerved her. The cool gleam of his eyes, the current that ran through her as they shook hands. Her inexplicable desire to see him again.

The lift shuddered upwards and stopped with a grunt at the top floor. Pushing the cage door back, Clara flicked on the hall light and rummaged in her bag for her key. But as she approached the door, her senses quickened like those of a cat. She hesitated. The film of Max Factor powder on the door handle was gone. That could mean anything, of course. Rudi, perhaps, snooping around. A Hitler Youth, or a girl from the BDM, selling their publications and aggressively rattling the door as they shook their collection boxes. And yet…Clara felt unsettled. Something wasn't right. Turning the light off again, she felt her heart pound as, swiftly and quietly, she inserted the key in the lock.

She pushed the door open a fraction, then stepped inside. An eddy of cool air touched her face: had a window been opened? There was a distinct, indefinable fragrance that she didn't recognize. Someone had been in the apartment. Perhaps he was still there. Two steps in allowed her a view of the kitchen, where she could see a used cup on the table. A single blue china teacup without a saucer and a teaspoon by its side. Yet the table had been bare when she left. The kitchen window was slightly ajar, but surely it was impossible that anyone should have climbed in from there. From that window into the cobbled courtyard was a sheer five-floor drop.

Clara froze. From where she stood there was no other sign of an intruder, none of the casual wreckage a burglar might create. Whoever had entered her apartment that evening did not have destruction on his mind. She slipped off her heels. Standing in her stockinged feet, she strained for the slightest sound. Although the apartment was silent, there was a ripple in the air. A strange, subliminal frisson that suggested the presence of another human being. Another heart beating, very near.

Walking as slowly and as silently as possible, she approached the sitting room, then flung back the door. There was no light on, but to her shock, there was the dark mass of a figure in the chair, framed in shadow against the uncurtained window. Even as she looked, the woman stood up and addressed her with a laugh.

“Clara Vine! I might have guessed you'd never actually be at home on a Saturday night. And looking so glamorous. You cut your hair!”

The adrenaline coursing through Clara turned to joy. Tears stung her eyes.

“Mary! Mary Harker. What on earth are you doing here?” She enfolded her friend in her arms.

The visitor returned her hug, tightly.

“Long story.” Mary had a languid American drawl with a bubble of humor beneath it. “Which I have every intention of telling in great and exhausting detail, so you'd better not be tired.”

“But…” Clara snapped on the lamp, shrugged off her coat, and dropped it over a chair. “How did you even get in here?”

“Rudi let me in. I caught him off to one of his Nazi nights out. He was thrilled to see me back. He's a nice guy really, under all that Nazi bluster. While I waited I had a good look around to see what you've done with my apartment, and I admit I'm impressed. It was never this tidy when I was here. I never even saw the floorboards under all my junk. I love all this furniture. And I simply adore that painting in the bedroom.”

Mary Harker had aged since the day Clara had last seen her, in 1933, as she prepared to leave Germany for America. Her bosomy figure had filled out, and her face had gained a few lines. Yet in all other ways she was exactly the same ambitious reporter who had briefed the readers of the
New York Evening Post
on the early days of the Third Reich. Same thick tweed suit. Same heavy glasses and earnest air. Tousled hair, which she cut herself and which was barely acquainted with a brush. Gray-green eyes that could switch from serious to humorous in an instant. The merest lick of makeup. Freckles, a voice that sounded like she gargled gravel, and a gap-toothed smile that warmed every corner of the room.

“But God, it's cold in here! I forgot how freezing this city can be in winter.”

“And it's getting colder. Winter's not even here yet. I'll stoke up the stove. First let me get you some food. You must be starving.”

Clara opened the refrigerator to find a single bottle of beer and some milk, a hunk of dark brown rye bread, and a rind of cheese.

Mary peered gloomily over her shoulder. “I thought actresses were supposed to keep champagne and cold salmon in their refrigerators.”

“Not this one. I haven't been shopping in a while.”

“What do you eat?”

“I tend to eat out. Or at the studio. It'll have to be coffee for now.”

As Clara put on the kettle and got out the cups, Mary scrutinized her critically. “You're looking thinner. Not starving yourself, I hope, for some role.”

“Oh, Mary. You're going to find a lot has changed here.”

How could you explain, to someone who had been away for four years, just how Germany had changed in that time? Now, in the autumn of 1937, food was so much scarcer. Under Goering's four-year plan, there was a new slogan, “Guns not butter,” to drive home the sacrifices everyone needed to make for the nation's rearmament. Not that it was such a sacrifice, given the state of the butter when you did find it.

“There are food shortages all the time. You can't find eggs. Any butter you get is rancid. The milk is so watered down they call it corpse juice. People have to save their crusts. On top of that, there are all sorts of rumors whirling round. Like the reason you can't buy onions is that they are being used for experiments with poison gas. And out in the country, you can be hanged for feeding grain to pigs. There's this song they sing.
Der Hitler hat keine Frau, Der Bauer hat keine Sau, Der Fleischer hat keine Fleisch, Das ist der dritte Reich.
Hitler has no woman, the farmer has no sow, the butcher has no meat, that's the Third Reich for you.”

“Catchy.”

“Yes, and liable to get you arrested if you get caught singing it.”

“The place doesn't look too different to me. The restaurants are full.”

“Sure, but they only serve two dishes. Try ordering anything else and you'll find it's sold out. And the waiters scrape the plates and take the scraps home to their families. According to the Reich Food Corporation, we need to make the nation self-sufficient. The only problem is, the government says if Germany is to be self-sufficient, it's going to need more land.”

“Somebody else's land, I assume.”

Clara handed her friend a cup of coffee, then tucked her feet beneath her on the sofa.

“Exactly. But let's talk politics later. First things first. I want to know everything. What's been going on in your life? What brings you back to Berlin?”

“Apart from the biggest story in Europe, you mean?”

“I mean how did you manage it? Being expelled by the Propaganda Minister himself isn't an achievement all journalists can put on their résumés.”

“Oh, getting accreditation was a nightmare. I'd gone back to spend time with my father, and when he died, my mother wanted me to stay at home to entertain her. Given that her idea of entertainment is playing bridge at her country club and peekaboo with her grandchild, I was dying to escape. We never saw eye to eye. Keeping out of journalism was killing me. Once the civil war broke out in Spain, I said, Damn it, I just have to go. Mother's always saying she wants there to be more between us. So I thought, Let's make it the Atlantic Ocean.”

Clara laughed. “You went on your own?”

“Sure. I decided I was going to be a one-woman band. I took out a thousand-dollar bank loan and booked a passage. Took my Remington”—Mary tapped the typewriter case beside her—“and my lucky hat”—she pointed to a battered black felt creation that Clara recognized—“and set sail for Europe.”

“I can't imagine what it's like out in Spain. The reports are terrifying.”

“Words can't describe it, Clara. I went to Madrid first, while it was being besieged by Franco. The International Brigades were fighting from street to street. I'd never seen a sight like it. They saved the city from the hands of the Nationalists at the last moment. Then in February I was on the Andalusian coast, where there were thousands of refugees fleeing the advance on Málaga. I passed mothers who actually begged me to take their children, because they were so certain they would be killed. Everywhere you go there are ruined buildings and desolation. This spring I moved all the way up to the Basque country. That's where most of the Republican resistance movement is, and I can't tell you the things I saw there.”

Mary stopped and passed a hand across her eyes.

“I will tell you,” she continued, after a moment. “Only not now. Anyway, I freelanced for various outfits and filed a little copy for United Press, and I begged and wheedled Frank Nussbaum, the
Evening Post
's editor, to take my stories. But what I really wanted was to get back into Germany. This was where I wanted to report from. Then I had the most enormous piece of luck. You've heard of Charles Lindbergh?”

“Who hasn't?”

Everyone knew Charles Lindbergh. The celebrated American aviator, world famous for his solo flight from New York to Paris, had had his life torn apart when his baby son was kidnapped and murdered. To escape the hysteria of the ensuing murder trial, the family had moved to a peaceful village in Kent.

“As it happens, Colonel Lindbergh comes from New Jersey, near where my parents live, so we knew him a little. I pried the address out of my mother, went over to England, drove down to the village, and knocked on the door. I dropped my family name very heavily and asked if he would do an interview, and to my amazement, Lindy said yes. I suppose I must have been talking about wanting to come to Germany, because it seems he spoke to someone, and the next week, a visa came through.”

“Lindbergh must have German contacts.”

“Sure he does. He's great pals with Goering. I'm certain it was Goering who had my visa approved. Anyhow, the
Post
was ecstatic when I offered them my Lindbergh interview. They agreed to take me on at the Berlin bureau again for sixty dollars a week.”

“Sixty dollars! You'll live like royalty here on that.”

“That's the easy part. Now I just have to find some stories. It's harder than before. Restrictions on foreign journalists are tighter. I just want a good story. Something meaty, that gets my byline above the fold.”

“There is something.” Clara hesitated. “I heard about it the other day, but there's been nothing in the papers here.”

The death at the Reich Bride School had been preoccupying her. Not that violent crime was unusual in Berlin. It was a daily occurrence. The fact that the girl's shooting had gone unremarked was hardly surprising. Why bother to report on a murder in a city where sudden death was the prime instrument of law and order? It was just that the woman was named Anna Hansen. It couldn't be the same Anna…could it?

“There was a woman shot last week at the Schwanenwerder Bride School. They think—”

“Hold on right there,” Mary interrupted. “Did you say Bride School?”

“There are Bride Schools all around Germany. They're Himmler's brainchild. You need to attend one if you're going to marry into the SS.”

“What do they teach? Which flowers go well with roses? Where to seat a bishop at dinner, that sort of thing? How to use an oyster fork?”

Clara laughed sourly. “More like herring recipes and how to hem curtains. Whatever it takes, in the National Socialist mind, to be a good wife.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Presumably this girl wasn't shot for her cooking skills?”

“That's just it. We don't know. There's been nothing about it in any of the papers, I've looked. And I wouldn't be interested, only the dead woman was named Anna Hansen, and I used to know a girl named that. I wondered if it could be the same one.”

“Sounds like a pretty common name to me.”

“I suppose. The woman I knew came from Munich, and she was the least likely candidate for an SS Bride School I can imagine. She was a model for Bruno Weiss. My artist friend. I don't think you ever met him, but he knew Helga Schmidt.”

Helga Schmidt
. The actress whose death had brought Mary and Clara together. Mary was shaking her head in disbelief.

“Whoever the girl was, this Bride School sounds like a story in itself. I'm sure my editor would adore the idea. I'll get on it first thing.”

Clara stifled a yawn. “Sorry, it's been quite an evening.”

“So which room's mine?”

Mary gazed innocently at Clara, then burst out laughing. “Don't worry. I'm not moving in. It would be far too compromising for you to share an apartment with a journalist. I'll just need to stay a night until I find somewhere else. I'll bunk on your sofa. You'll never even know I'm here.”