Black Roses (11 page)

‘You have a lovely home, Frau Goebbels.’

She gave a tight, formal laugh. ‘Thank you.’ She poked at the open fire, which felt like the only warm thing in the room. ‘We’ve only just moved in but Joseph already dislikes it, I’m afraid. It’s not the house, it’s the city really. He’s never liked Berlin. He calls it “asphalt culture”. He thinks it will be much healthier if we move further out. He has an eye on a place up by Wannsee.’

‘And would you like to move?’

Magda Goebbels shrugged. ‘I lived in the country for years. My former husband had an estate in Mecklenburg. If I’m honest, the country bores me to tears. I love the city, don’t you? Berlin is the loveliest city on earth. The Führer always says Paris is the most beautiful city and I suppose I know nothing about architecture, but I was born here, in Bülowstrasse, and I’d die here too, given the choice.’

Just then the maid returned with a pile of post, which Magda waved impatiently away, then turning to Clara, she sighed, ‘We receive so many letters. Of course it is lovely that ordinary people write to Joseph and myself all the time, but to answer them . . . you have no idea of the work. Please, eat something.’

She had a way of issuing invitations so that they emerged as commands. Clara, who was always hungry, decided it would be polite to obey. As she selected a liverwurst sandwich, Magda leant forward in her chair, crossed tan stockinged legs and fixed on her an unnervingly intense gaze.

‘Tell me, do you know much about fashion?’

‘Fashion?’ Clara was mystified.

‘Yes, I noticed you were wearing a lovely gown the other night – by Jean Patou, wasn’t it?’

‘I think so. Yes. But I can’t pretend to know much about clothes and so on. It was my sister’s dress, actually. Angela’s terribly interested in all that.’

‘No matter. I still think you’d be perfect.’

‘Perfect for what?’

Magda got up and went over to the mirror. Absently she adjusted her hair, then walked to the window and sighed, crossing her arms in front of her and cupping her elbows. It was almost as if she had forgotten Clara was there. Clara remembered what had struck her at the party: the sense that some private misery preoccupied this woman, some secret unhappiness hovered just beneath her steely surface. Outside, gardeners were raking the gravel and tending to flowerbeds packed with tulips that were, by accident or design, National Socialist red. But Clara felt sure that gardening was not uppermost on Magda Goebbels’ mind. She turned.

‘This is a rather confidential thing I have to say. I hope I can trust you to keep it to yourself for a while. Until it’s made public.’

Clara nodded.

‘I have had a rather special request from the Führer. He wants me to establish the Deutsches Modeamt. A Reich fashion bureau.’

‘A fashion bureau?’

‘Yes. I am to be honorary president.’ Magda came over and clasped her hands, her vivid grey-blue eyes taking on a look of intense urgency.

‘You see, he has very strong feelings on this. You might not expect a man to take such an interest in women’s things, but the Führer is exceptional. He doesn’t think like an ordinary man. He understands how all parts of our culture affect the German people. Even something that a lot of other people might think trivial, he has opinions about, and ideas for change.’

‘And what sort of opinion does he have about fashion?’

‘For a start, he believes French couture is absolute poison. It has been wreaking havoc on German women.’

‘Poison?’ Clara said, mystified.

‘Yes, and it’s not just clothes. The Führer has strong feelings about cosmetics too.’

‘He doesn’t like them?’ hazarded Clara. She couldn’t help recognizing Frau Goebbels’ perfume – Elizabeth Arden’s Night and Day. Angela wore it all the time.

‘He hates artificial hair colours and cosmetics. He says they’re all about feigning health and youth.’

Clara wondered if the Führer’s dislike of adornment stretched to jewellery. A row of chunky pearls nestled on the Frau Doktor’s neck, a diamond and emerald clasp was fixed in her hair and twin diamond teardrops dangled from her ears.

‘Then there’s this cult of unnatural slimness. It makes it so much harder for women to . . . procreate. Did you know that?’

‘I had no idea.’

‘It’s true.’

It had to be said, Frau Goebbels was not herself an obvious advertisement for German fashion. She was wearing a black lacquer Chanel bracelet and her jacket was by Vionnet. Her own make-up had been freshly and immaculately applied. But on hair dye at least she was in line. Her wheat-blonde locks clearly owed nothing to the bottle.

‘So you see, Fräulein Vine, I have been given the task – well, the honour I suppose – of calling together designers and creating an entire new look for the German woman using German materials, German workers and German designers.’

‘That’s quite an undertaking,’ said Clara, thinking how exhausting it sounded.

‘It is. And the Führer knows that my health is delicate and that such a task might be too much for me alone. That’s why he has asked me to involve many of the wives of our top people. Together we will plan a showcase for the new German fashion. And that is when I thought of you!’

‘Me?’ Clara gave a little choke of surprise and put down her tea.

‘Let me explain.’ She came over and sat on the sofa next to Clara. ‘Look at this article. I had it placed in the
National Socialist Women’s Yearbook.’

Clara looked. The article was titled:
‘How Do I Dress Myself as a German, Tastefully and Appropriately?’
Beneath were a section of pictures of tight-laced bodices, full gathered skirts, embroidered blouses and aprons, as well as a photograph of a smiling woman wearing a green checked dirndl dress. None of them, Clara knew for certain, would she ever be seen dead in.

‘Frau Goebbels, this is very interesting, but I can’t imagine what it has to do with me.’

‘You mentioned that your acting career was on hold for a short while.’

‘Just until the producer returns, yes.’

‘So I thought, how would you like to model some of our new designs? In my first fashion show? We have a planning meeting next Wednesday. Five o’clock tea at the Adlon.’

‘Modelling! I’m afraid I’ve never done any modelling.’

Magda shook her head as though this objection was incidental. ‘You have the looks, and you are an actress, after all. An international actress. I plan to get many of our leading ladies involved, Kristina Söderbaum, Olga Chekhova, Zarah Leander. It’s quite an honour to be the first.’

‘But Frau Goebbels, the problem is . . .’ Clara thought of Angela’s stint as a mannequin at Harvey Nichols. A photograph of her, in a gold lamé evening gown, looking more elegant than Clara could ever hope to be, had even appeared in
The Times.
‘I don’t really want to do it.’

A slight frown creased Magda’s brow. Clara’s refusal seemed to have introduced a note of vulgarity into their encounter. ‘If it’s difficult, I’m sure we could also manage a fee of some sort.’

‘Oh it’s not that.’

‘No, I insist.’ She snapped the magazine shut. ‘You will be paid a proper rate.’

‘What I meant was, modelling is quite a different talent. And if you wanted well-known actresses, I can’t imagine why you would start with me. Nobody here would know me from Adam.’

‘To be honest,’ Magda regarded her coolly, ‘I would have to agree. It was my husband who suggested you.’

With a shock Clara remembered the look Goebbels had given her as she slipped out of the party. She had guessed his thoughts, but the involvement of his wife added a calculating edge to his interest.

‘I’m flattered, and thank your husband for me, but I still don’t think I can help.’

Frau Goebbels’ eyes, which a moment ago had been fixed on her with such intensity, had turned implacable. Clara’s equivocation seemed to go nowhere. ‘Nonsense. You will be wonderful. Remember this is an honour, as much as an invitation. To refuse it might be taken as an insult by Herr Hitler.’

Clara reflected a second. She had just two hundred marks to her name. She was going to need to make some money somehow if she were to stay in Berlin. And exactly how onerous could modelling actually be? Only until some more acting work came along.

‘What would you like me to do?’

Magda rose and extended her hand. ‘We shall expect you at five o’clock on Wednesday. Now, if you don’t mind, I must get going. The Führer is coming to tea.’

At the mention of it, a glimmer of girlish boastfulness escaped her controlled exterior. In a softer, more confidential tone, she added, ‘He loves a gossip you see. He doesn’t always want to talk about affairs of state or ideas. He needs somewhere he can feel safe and comfortable, and a woman who knows what he likes. He has a very special diet, and we make a particular little caramel pudding he appreciates so much. And my cook does the finest cream horns you can imagine. The Führer adores them. He has such a sweet tooth.’

The glow from the yellow lamps on Unter den Linden had dimmed since the bulbs were changed to a lower wattage, but the wind was still as sharp as a knife. It came from the east, straight from the steppes of Russia across the Prussian plain and right into the marrow of the bones. Like everything Berliners feared from those frozen Soviet wastes, it was harsh and relentless and utterly without mercy.

Leo was making his way back to the apartment after a draining afternoon’s work. The lines outside the British Consulate had been growing longer by the day. They were well-kempt queues of men in soft hats with brims pulled down, carrying briefcases and newspapers, trying their hardest to appear inconspicuous. Intelligent faces with round glasses and strained expressions. They were professional men mostly, accountants, lawyers and doctors, respectfully waiting to argue their case for a British visa. And they would argue as if their lives depended on it.

The phone would ring non-stop from nine o’clock in the morning. There were calls from Palestine or Trinidad or Rhodesia from people vouching for visa applicants and calls from Berliners who had got all the way to the aerodrome and booked their seats on the plane, and needed only the visa to leave. There were desperate enquiries from wives and girlfriends whose loved ones had disappeared. The girls on the telephones were brisk, but they never lost their temper and just occasionally you could see the glint of a tear in their eyes.

Each day Irene brought piles of letters to open and visa requests to file. The applicants varied. The richer, smarter people had often opened foreign bank accounts already and planned ahead. Others had nothing but their desperation to propel them.

Leo’s boss, Foley, the chief of the Passport Office, was a short, thickset man in a Harris tweed suit, who looked out on this mayhem phlegmatically through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. He was a gentle man who spoke little but had immense patience. Under his guidance, staff on the visa desk knew they had an unwritten authority to bend the rules. They would issue holiday visas that could be transferred once the refugee arrived, or organize sponsors, or create visas that helped people out of prison. Foley remained available day and night with rarely a dent in his good nature. ‘Remember,’ he would say, if anyone pressed him to go home, or take a rest, ‘these people are depending on us.’ Very often Leo ended up staying late too.

Tonight, however, he had left at six. He had been thinking that he might be able to get in an hour’s translation of Ovid. He was working on ‘The Transformation Of Daphne’ and had reached the moment when the infatuated Apollo first sees the nymph and pursues her, before she prays to her father, the river god Peneus, for a disguise to save her. The lines ran through his head. ‘He saw her eyes like stars of sparkling fire, her sweet lips made for kissing, her hands and fingers and her arms; her shoulders white as ivory, and he knew, whatever was not seen must be even more beautiful.’ He had been looking forward to it. There was something about translating that appealed to him at a profound level. It was both an act of impersonation and self-effacement. To think himself into the mind of another man and enact his thoughts, leaving only the lightest touch of himself, gave him a particular pleasure. It was also, undeniably, a superior form of escapism to the kind to be found in the Katakombe or any of the other nightclubs he regularly visited in search of oblivion.

Yet the more Leo thought about it, the more he was thinking that he might prefer to sit in his chair and allow the schnapps to burn in his throat before heading out to eat his regular supper in the shabby café downstairs – sausage in gravy with a paving stone of bread to mop it up and a tankard of blonde beer by the side.

Turning off Unter den Linden and passing down the street, he sidestepped to avoid a man up a ladder defacing a perfectly innocent office block with a gigantic loudspeaker. Loudspeakers like this were sprouting all over the city, in cafés, bars, factories and offices, mushrooming on walls and lamp posts, at the zoo, in the parks and anywhere you might go to get away from the Führer’s shriek or the sarcastic hectoring of Doktor Goebbels. Radio was the new weapon of the revolution, evidently. Apparently the little doctor believed Hitler could never have crowbarred his way into the Reich Chancellery without it. There were speeches every day now, in amongst the sport and the light music and the cultural discussion programmes. Great rambling diatribes, bloated with all those long words the Germans preferred to simple short ones, calling for swastika flags to be raised at every house “behind which Germans live”. These addresses were interspersed with frequent pauses, too, to remember fallen soldiers in the Nazi struggle, which meant everyone was obliged to stop what they were doing and stand in awkward silence or risk the wrath of a passing Brown Shirt. As to what the Berliners thought about it, that was harder to fathom. The Führer’s voice wasn’t Leo’s idea of background music when you were drinking your beer, but he hadn’t yet seen anyone complain. Last time it happened, a woman in the bar beside him clapped.

This time, though, the voice that proceeded from the radio was not the hectoring bark of Doktor Goebbels, but a lighter, female voice. It took him a few moments to realize it was Frau Doktor Goebbels, the Propaganda Minister’s wife. He paused and stood for a moment in the doorway of an electrical goods shop, and lit a cigarette.