Black Roses (8 page)

Rumbold turned and a brilliant, diplomatic charm suddenly illuminated his features, as though by a switch. That was the kind of thing you simply couldn’t learn, Leo thought. It was purely Darwinian. It had to be bred into you, as in Sir Horace’s case it had. He came from a long line of baronets, and had travelled the globe in a distinguished career. As well as German, he spoke fluent Arabic and Japanese.

‘Now, Quinn, you’re very busy at the moment, I’m sure.’

‘We have Jews coming to the office daily. There’s a queue by the time I arrive, and it doesn’t go away until I leave. It’s hard to turn them away.’

‘I can see it getting busier. So I hope this request I have for you doesn’t take you away from your work too much. I know you’re frightfully well connected on the social side.’

Leo gave a polite laugh. ‘For once I fear your intelligence is wide of the mark.’

‘None the less, this is merely an eyes-and-ears brief. It shouldn’t be too onerous. I’m leaving soon, as you know.’

‘I very much regret it, sir.’

‘As do I, though with the way things are, my lady wife, I think, will be glad to spend more time in England. And what one’s wife says, as you have yet to find out, Quinn, is law.’ He smiled, removed his glasses, rubbed his watery eyes, and replaced them.

‘This is what I had in mind. I want you to keep an eye on any visitors you may meet who pass through here from England, especially those who are mingling with the Nazi élite. Some of them are very young, impressionable, you know, and they get caught up in the excitement of the moment. They make friends with handsome Nazi officers, and they don’t see the whole picture, do you get my drift?’

‘I think so.’

‘They see a country whose economy is on its knees, and they think Herr Hitler is the answer to everyone’s prayers. It’s not their fault that they are unable to see beyond the glamour, but it matters very much what they say when they return to England. Favourable reports about the new regime will only encourage elements in England who want to disarm.’

‘I understand.’

‘There’s something else.’

Rumbold was craning towards Leo, almost as though he feared the occupants of the gleaming cars sailing down the Wilhelmstrasse might be able to overhear his words.

‘If you do come across any of our compatriots who have communication with the élite, it would, of course, be useful to hear the gist of their conversations. Should they be amenable to that. I’m not talking about espionage here, merely intelligence gathering. You know Dyson, my attaché, of course?’

Archie Dyson was an unflappable Etonian who had taken Leo out for a solitary gin at the Adlon on his first night here. He was clever and not especially likeable. Manners like silk, but a mind like a steel trap.

‘I’ve met him, yes.’

‘Dyson is compiling some contacts who can give us a glimpse behind the scenes, so to speak. So if you do find anything . . .’ Rumbold fingered his moustache thoughtfully, ‘we might be able to put more resources into it. But you’re going to have to be very careful, Quinn. You’re known to be connected to the Embassy. The political police have eyes and ears everywhere. ‘

‘I see.’

Rumbold leant back.

‘I’m giving a party for Goering shortly. There’ll be a host of interesting people passing through. Perhaps you could get going then. I’ll get my secretary to send an invitation to your place. Where are you living, remind me?’

‘Orianenburger Strasse.’

‘Ah yes. How original. Well, do let Miss Jenkins have your address on the way out.’

The Goebbels’ new home was in the grounds of the Ministry of Agriculture behind Wilhelmstrasse. It was a large whitewashed mansion built for a former Prussian court official and looked like a small country house, surrounded as it was by a plantation of old trees. It was a princely home for one of Germany’s new aristocracy, and once Goebbels decided he wanted it, a team of gardeners from the state parks authority had been brought in to restore the overgrown grounds, with their rusting skeletons of greenhouses and swampy lily ponds, and install paths and flowerbeds. In the drive stood a natty beige and brown Mercedes convertible, a recent present from the car company to Herr Doktor Goebbels, and a sparkling green cabriolet for his wife.

Clara and Klaus Müller proceeded through the door flanked by a pair of flame-shaped lanterns and into a room with ornate fluted pillars and a gigantic, sparkling chandelier. There were yellow and gold carpets on the floor and large bowls of hothouse flowers. The blond wood walls were hung with tapestries and paintings. Müller took a glass of Sekt from a tray and handed it to Clara.

‘Looks like it’s going to be all German wines from now on,’ he murmured.

Clara gazed around her.

‘Delightful place, don’t you agree?’ he said. There was a mocking, superior edge to his voice, which made it hard to work out what he genuinely thought.

‘Very.’

He surveyed the room. ‘Goering has a huge place behind Leipziger Platz, all gloomy panelling and stained glass and absolutely stuffed with Renaissance furniture. You feel like you’re on the set of the Ring Cycle. Fortunately the Doktor has rather better taste.’

Clara stared around her. What on earth was she doing here? When the two men had invited them for a drink, she had agreed because that was what Helga wanted, and Helga had been good enough to take Clara under her wing. Besides, she had no other plans for anything at all. Then Magda Goebbels had extended her invitation, Helga’s face had lit up, and there was no way she could have refused.

Perhaps there was no harm in it. Just this once. She would hardly have chosen to spend an evening with National Socialists, but this was a party, wasn’t it, and at least she had something to wear. Angela’s low-cut red satin evening dress went perfectly with her scarlet shoes, and her mother’s silver locket glinting at her throat. And it was just as well she had carried out that small act of theft because she was in serious danger of appearing underdressed. All the women here were done up in the height of international fashion: Chanel, Schiaparelli, Vionnet, Mainbocher. The room was awash with shimmering lamé and pleated organza, and Frau Goebbels herself was wearing a long silver silk dress, fretted with lace on top, a diamanté belt and white evening gloves, spattered with red from the customary hand kiss of female guests.

Even so, there weren’t enough women to go round. The female contingent was sprinkled among the dark male mass like a tree with too few fairy lights. Not that the men seemed to mind. Like Müller, they were mostly in uniform and stood in clusters, laughing and toasting each other. Something about them – perhaps it was the short hair and pink cheeks – reminded Clara of her brother’s school rugby team, delighting in their shared masculinity, celebrating their kinship with a self-congratulatory air as if they had just won a First Fifteen match, rather than been catapulted into power on the back of a shaky electoral process. But that was where the likeness ended. There was a pent up aggression amongst these men, a sense of violence barely contained. Some of them favoured toothbrush moustaches, presumably under the impression that imitation was the sincerest form of flattery, and most of them shared a barber too, judging by the uniformly shaven haircuts, which left scalps as gleaming and knobbly as scrubbed potatoes.

Müller’s heavy hand was on her elbow, steering her towards a group of men and Clara, who hated being steered, instinctively shook herself free. Instantly she felt his annoyance.

‘Forgive me, Fräulein. I would like to introduce you. This is Herr Doktor Bayer.’

Bayer had the face of a gargoyle and a smile like a coffin handle.

‘So this is the English actress who is to star alongside Lilian Harvey.’

Clara smiled back, disliking him on sight. ‘I hope so.’

‘I love her movies. So magnificently kitsch. The Germans have a sweet spot for kitsch in their soul.’

‘Next to the spot of steel,’ laughed Müller.

‘Ein blonder Traum.
That’s my favourite. That girl really knows how to get the juices going,’ said another, a piggy little man who looked as if he had been poured into his uniform with some left over. ‘Did you see it?’

‘Sorry, but no.’ The films Clara admired were moodier and darker-edged, with dramatic, shadowy sets. The brooding Expressionist masterpieces like
M
and
Metropolis.
Monsters and murderers with haunted eyes, sinister and macabre.

‘I loved
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
though. And I thought
M
was a masterpiece. I could hardly sleep after I saw it.’

‘You enjoyed that, did you?’ said Müller dismissively. ‘Herr Lorre, I believe, is no longer with us.’

‘Anyway,’ said the fat man, cranking his eyes from her breasts to her face, ‘how do you find Babelsberg?’

‘It’s gone a little quiet at the moment.’

‘While they work out who’s in charge, eh?’

‘So they should. It’s time for change,’ said another, a severe figure with eyes that were freakishly pale, and skin like white veal. ‘We need to sweep out the attic of German cinema, isn’t that what the Herr Doktor said? The place needs fumigating.’

‘Fumigating? asked Clara, thinking how he looked like something that had been kept in an attic himself, an etiolated insect deprived of daylight.

‘Herr Richter means,’ smiled Müller, ‘it is time we freed cinema from the hands of Jews.’

‘Why does he say that?’

‘Ach, they have turned the art of film into a business,’ said Richter. ‘That’s what happens when something is Hebrewized.’ He flipped his hand, as if brushing away the pioneers of the Ufa studios like dust. ‘We need films that reflect the true aspirations of the German people. They’re not interested in the decadent tastes of the international market.’

‘But Doktor Goebbels is a great admirer of Fritz Lang. He enjoyed
Metropolis,
didn’t he? And
Die Nibelungen
?’ Clara tried to remember the comments she had overheard in the Babelsberg foyer.

‘Oh, Fritz Lang,’ Richter’s voice dripped with contempt. ‘Herr Lang, I think, is overrated.’

‘Another one who needs his horoscope read to him,’ laughed the fat man.

Clara looked around for Helga. How could she possibly have wanted to come here? Helga was on the other side of the room, her shingled hair rippling in the light of the chandelier, her ice-blue satin dress provocatively skimming her curves. Perhaps it was that which had already secured her the top spot of the party, talking to her host, Doktor Goebbels, crooking one leg so as not to tower over him. Bauer, even though he was a bull of a man, was hanging back, allowing Goebbels to pull rank. The Propaganda Minister’s thin lips were stretched in a smile as wide as his face was narrow, his eyes fixed on Helga like a lizard waiting to devour an especially plump fly. Surveying his unnaturally skinny arms and strange, misshapen body, Clara wondered what on earth a woman like his wife saw in him.

Frau Goebbels was watching them too. Her face was a tense, thoughtful mask and the set of her mouth gave her an air of private pain, rigorously suppressed. As their gazes locked, she came across the room with a stiff smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

‘So, Fräulein Vine, how are you enjoying your work at Babelsberg? I hear you’re to be in a film called . . .
Schwarze Rosen,
was it?’

‘I hope so. The producer seems to have disappeared, though, so I haven’t started yet. I’m at a bit of a loose end.’

‘Let’s hope he comes back soon. We simply couldn’t live without the cinema! We’re having a cinema installed here, so we can see all the latest films.’

‘The Führer is a great fan of the movies too, is he not?’ enquired one of the men, deferentially.

‘Of course. We watch together. The Führer watches one every evening, sometimes two.’

‘And what kind of films does he like?’ asked Clara politely.

‘Oh, nothing dreary or tragic. Happy films.
Grand Hotel
is his favourite, and we hear good things of
King Kong
.’

‘Let’s hope that under the Doktor’s new Film Chamber the industry can at last begin to fulfil its true purpose,’ intervened Richter, pompously.

Clara was about to ask what the true purpose of the industry was, if it wasn’t simple things like entertaining people and giving them a good time, but before she could speak a frisson ran through the air. It was a kind of electric ripple that travelled through the room with no apparent cause. Black uniforms were moving through the throng, taking up positions in the crowd, and eyes were turning towards the central doors. Conversation dropped to a hush. Next to Clara a woman clutched at the arm of her companion, trembling visibly. Frau Goebbels sped away.

The next minute the doors were flung open and a bodyguard, with a distinct resemblance to Al Capone, entered, followed by a small man in a dinner suit. Everyone raised their right arm in salute. Clara didn’t know what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. His face was pale and indeterminate, strangely unplaceable, like a ghost’s face or one you might see in a dream. There was something opaque in his countenance. Dark hair flopped over his forehead, which he swiped away with a nervous hand. Only his eyes were startling, slightly protuberant and hypnotic, like blue ice cubes, as they swivelled around the room seeking out people and familiar faces. Instinctively Clara looked away. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t want that blue gaze to fall on her. She saw him go towards Magda, heard the kissing of her hand and the “
Gnädige Frau
”.

The room felt stifled and airless. Clara had expected to be fascinated by her first sighting of Herr Hitler, but instead she had an intense compulsion to escape. Perhaps she could slip away without anyone noticing. She could take a tram home and explain to Helga the next day. She would be perfectly inconspicuous. Klaus Müller’s eyes, like everyone else’s, were trained on the group at the centre of the room. No one wanted to chat to some unknown actress any more. Moving to the door, she turned to look back at the corner of the room where Helga was, to signal her intent, and found her gaze snagged in the direct stare of Goebbels himself. His eyes were curious, calculating.