Black Roses (36 page)

‘He’s been taken to the SA barracks in Tempelhof on suspicion of Communist activity. From our point of view, the sooner you collect him the better. I wouldn’t want him discussing our friend in Moabit.’

‘I’m surprised he hasn’t received a visit already.’

The friend was a small printer whose shop, right next to a church, sold religious texts and songbooks. Outside of working hours however, once the staff had left, the printer would go upstairs and produce pamphlets for Communist resistors. His expertise in the matters of ink and paper was also highly valued.

‘Only a matter of time,’ grimaced Pollack. He drained his beer and made to leave. ‘Take this paper. I’ve finished with it. There’s an excellent report on the threat of famine in Russia.’

It was a newspaper drop, one of the most trusted techniques. When Pollack had gone, Leo went to the lavatories at the back of the bar and found a release permit pinned to the inside page. He returned to the office, picked up his briefcase, and caught a tram to the south of the city.

The pleasant, red-brick building in Pape Strasse had once served as a barracks for Prussian soldiers, but it was a gang of smartly dressed storm troopers who now milled round the hall, observing the visitor with bored irritation. The officer in charge inspected the paperwork meticulously while Leo consulted his watch to conceal his nervousness. Pollack’s work was known to be of the very best. Most of what he supplied was genuine, from his extensive network of contacts in the police, but what wasn’t was forged with masterly skill, complete with the correct ink and rubber stamps. And the visa itself, of course, was perfectly genuine, stamped with the insignia of His Majesty’s Government, and signed by Leo’s boss, Foley, that morning.

The officer seemed to be taking an interminable time. Leo’s mouth was dry and he was forced to check his watch again, with a show of irritation, before the man pursed his lips, returned the documents and gestured for Leo to follow a guard down the steps to the cellars.

It was dim below stairs, the ceiling punctuated with bare bulbs, the air freighted with urine and the unmistakable reek of fear. Despite himself, Leo was almost paralysed with horror as he peered down the long corridor, painted institutional green and lined with heavy steel doors with nine-inch barred inspection hatches. If this was what it felt like to visit, God knows how dreadful it would be to be frogmarched here with only the tender mercies of the SA to rely on. He forced himself to overcome his terror and go on.

From behind one of the doors low moans could be heard and from another a reedy, educated voice issued an indignant shout. ‘I demand to see a laywer! I demand it!’ For a moment Leo stopped, almost overcome by the urge to turn round and hasten back to fresh air and the freedom of a Berlin evening. They passed an empty cell whose stained floor was the only witness to the horrors it had contained, and then the guard produced his keys, and opened a door onto a tiny space, just six feet wide, with no furniture except a wooden bench and a bed that let down from the wall. No window, but a single hanging bulb. Iron rings let into the brickwork. A stinking bucket stood in the corner and the wall was scratched with graffiti. On the bench a cadaverous man was hunched wearing a shabby suit but no tie. He sprung up as the door opened, his bony face white and sweating with fear, and looked from Leo to the guard in alarm.

‘Weiss, your visa has arrived,’ grunted the guard.

‘My visa?’

Leo stepped forward, seized Bruno’s hand and pumped it. ‘My name is Mr Quinn. From the British Passport Control office. I have the visa you applied for to travel to England. Provided you sign your intention to leave the country, you will be free to go immediately.’

‘You’re . . .’ Bruno’s face was uncomprehending.

Leo was impassive, officious. A little bored. ‘You made a visit to England, didn’t you?’

‘England?’ After the hours of interrogation he had endured, Bruno was befuddled, and primed to deny any suggestion that was put to him.

Leo checked his watch. ‘Really, Herr Weiss, if this is taking up your time.’

‘No. No!’ The voice was high and frantic. ‘I remember now! England. I had an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. In, er, ’31, I think. That’s it, 1931.’

Leo sighed and the guard shuffled his huge, polished boots.

‘And while you were there you applied to British Passport Control for a visa to return?’ He reached into his briefcase, every inch the bureaucrat whose overtime was going unappreciated. ‘Well, I’m happy to tell you that that visa has now been approved.’ He proffered the paper, with its indigo stamp and Foley’s meticulous signature.

‘Ah, yes. Thank you.’ Bruno’s mouth was trembling as he tried to smile, so it emerged as a contorted grimace of fear.

‘So, if you’d like to accompany me, perhaps we can discuss the formalities.’

The SA officer motioned both of them out of the door and up the stairs.

‘You have to sign for him.’

At the reception, another officer scrawled something in the record book, Leo added his signature, then Bruno was handed a bag containing his watch and glasses, and the two men walked out the door.

It wasn’t until they had reached the street that Bruno seemed to stumble and clutched Leo’s arm. He was trembling so violently that Leo decided it might be wise to steer him towards a bar.

‘Have you eaten?’

‘Eaten?’ He looked at Leo as though he was mad.

‘Let me buy you something. You can tell me what happened, Herr Weiss.’

They went into a small tavern beneath the S-Bahn and sat at a table as the trains thundered and clattered above them. Leo bought two plates of meatballs with mustard, pickled eggs and gherkins, salami, bread, cheese and two beers on the side. For a few minutes he refrained from questions, while the man fell ravenously on his meal. He had been handsome, from what Leo recalled, but now his eyes were pits sunk into the hollows of their sockets, gaunt shadows hollowed his cheeks, and the entire side of his face was purpled with bruising. His hair was tangled and powdered with dust. He looked, Leo couldn’t help thinking, exactly like one of the figures in his own work.

‘When did they arrest you?’

Bruno put down his beer with a trembling hand. ‘A week ago. More, perhaps. It was before dawn, anyway. They must have been hammering at my door for some time before I answered it. I suppose I’m lucky they didn’t break it down entirely. There were about six of them, they came in waving revolvers and I thought they were going to shoot me. I said, “Can’t you wait until I’ve put some clothes on?” but when I went to my wardrobe, they flung all the stuff out, saying, “Look at the finery this Jew can afford! All this money he’s been stealing from us!” Then they started asking me about my Communist activity. I said I’m not a Communist, just an artist, and one said, “What do you make then? Bombs?” I said I had never made any bombs, and he said they knew I was planning to bomb the Führer’s birthday parade. He was going to beat the truth out of me, then another one said, “You think this is art? This repulsive stuff?” There was something about this man . . .’ Bruno hesitated. ‘He was different from the others. More aggressive. He really looked at the paintings before he ripped them, and when he did he took his crop and slashed them right across, the breasts and the legs, and you know, the groin, as if they were real women, you know? As if he could really hurt them.’

The food seemed to have revived him and he reached over to grasp Leo’s arm.

‘Mr Quinn, I can’t thank you enough.’

‘Think nothing of it. I’m an admirer of your work, Herr Weiss.’

‘But you were running a risk yourself, weren’t you? I never applied for a visa. You must know that.’

‘Desperate times, et cetera.’

‘But who told you I was there? Was it my parents?’

‘A friend of yours got in touch. A woman called Helga.’

‘Helga! Is she all right?’

‘I think so.’

For the first time he smiled, and braced his shoulders.

‘Is that visa real?’

‘Of course. In fact, perhaps we should begin to think about your travel arrangements and so on. I take it there are people you could stay with briefly, when you arrive, just until you get settled?’

Bruno Weiss smiled and shook his head. ‘Oh, my dear man, I’m not going,’ he said lightly. ‘I couldn’t possibly.’

‘With respect, I think you’d be foolish not to.’

Bruno shrugged. ‘There’s Helga to think of. As long as she’s here, I’ll be here too.’

‘I don’t know that I could guarantee a repeat performance.’

Across the plastic table top, however, a transformation had taken place. From the hunched and trembling figure of a few moments ago, Bruno now sat straight, eyes shining with defiance, the life flooding back into him as he talked.

‘Mr Quinn, I love my country. Whatever my political sympathies, we Germans are not the same as Russians you know. We’re civilized. Nor are we Italians. We will never turn Fascist. You’ll see. The Nazis are having their moment now, but it’s our turn next.’

Leo raised his eyebrows.

‘You think it amazing that I can say that after what I’ve been through? Maybe. But these thugs, they’re not everything. The great heart of this country is sleeping now. The people are slow to be provoked, but they’ll rise. I promise you.’

Leo cast a swift, automatic glance at the drink-sodden loner he had noted, slumped over the bar. ‘So you’re not afraid?’

‘No. It’s not fear I feel now. It’s shame. I’m ashamed that this murderous gang should be returning my country to the fourteenth century. But it won’t last, dear Mr Quinn. It won’t last.’

Leo’s heart sank. Who was to say that Weiss was not right, and all those people who lined patiently up outside his office each day, eager for the unassuming indigo stamp that would mark them as exiles, ready to leave their homes and history for an uncertain impoverished future, were not wrong? Perhaps they were crazy to queue all day not just at the British Consulate, but the embassies of any godforsaken part of the world, just to obtain permission to escape the regime that hated them, but not enough to let them go. Yet how could it be that Bruno Weiss, of all people, whose desolate paintings testified to all the horror and despair of which human beings were capable, should feel any optimism about the fate of Germany now?

Bruno was devouring slices of bread and salami, as though he had just realized how hungry he was. He looked up and smiled, as if broaching a subject that Leo might find difficult to understand.

‘One thing this dreadful experience has made me understand, Mr Quinn, is that I must be more outspoken from now on.’

‘I would have thought you were quite outspoken enough already. Your paintings are pretty eloquent, Herr Weiss, let alone those pamphlets you help produce.’

Bruno laughed. ‘I’m not talking about politics! I meant with women. You see, my feelings for Helga are very strong, yet I have always disliked that kind of discussion that women seem to want. Talk of love, and so on. But now I see that just as it would be cowardly of me to leave Helga in Germany while I seek safety elsewhere, so it is cowardly of me not to express my feelings for her.’

For some reason, the image of Clara’s face in the shimmering darkness of the Neukölln cinema came into Leo’s mind. Her mouth, with its teeth slightly crooked and the press of her lips as he kissed her. The astonishment in her eyes and the unexpected softness of her skin. He had acted on sheer operational instinct. He hoped she understood that.

Bruno wiped his mouth. ‘There are times, Mr Quinn, when we need to be truthful about what we feel, don’t you think?’

It was a curious thing to ask of a British Government passport official, Leo thought as he signalled for the bill. He decided to consider the question as strictly rhetorical.

‘So what does Müller talk about?’

Two weeks had passed with no contact and then on Saturday another envelope was waiting for Clara on the hall table, containing a U-Bahn ticket for Krumme Lanke at the south-west end of the U1 line. There was also a ticket to a lunchtime concert at a lake-side restaurant.

The Grunewald’s villa colonies grouped around the lakes were a favourite spot for Berliners who wanted to escape the city and get a breath of air. Although the area was being developed, with fresh roads being laid into the pine forest and pretty pale gabled houses being erected, there was still a rural feel, with jays and woodpeckers raucous in the trees around them and bluebells and primroses clumped on the banks. As she walked, Clara passed a group of boys running through the wood in shorts and gym shirts, and a band of Wandervogel scouts, marching along the footpath singing.

The café was right on the waterside, a number of wooden tables set inside fancy wrought-iron fencing surrounding a small dance floor, where couples and a few girls together were twirling in the sun. One of the girls, dancing with her soldier, was dressed in a blue dirndl with puffed sleeves. Magda would approve, Clara thought.

Leo had made a point of sitting as near as possible to the band so that it drowned out their voices and made Clara lean towards him to be heard. His face was thinner, she thought, and he looked more than usually sombre. She felt a lurch of desire so intense it surprised her. As he fiddled with the beer bottle, she badly wanted to take his hand in hers. She wanted him to lean across the table and kiss her again.

‘Müller gossips. I think he’s lonely. He’s a widower, you know.’

‘My heart bleeds. What does he gossip about?’

Clara knew what he was doing. She did the same now. She sieved her conversations with Müller like a prospector panning for gold, extracting those fragments that she thought might be useful to Leo.

‘There was something. When he gave me a lift back from the studio the other day we passed an airfield. He began talking about rearming and how the Deutsche Luft Hansa is being readied for air warfare. But that’s not supposed to happen, is it?’

‘Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany’s not allowed an airforce. And they’re supposed to restrict their flying activities to gliding. But if this regime stuck to what was supposed to happen, life would be very different.’