Paving the New Road (18 page)

The address she gave them was for an apartment in an older part of Munich.

Rowland pulled up at the building.

“I’ll only be a minute,” Rowland said, as he opened the door.

“Just hope she doesn’t want you to meet her parents first,” Milton called after him.

Eva opened the door as soon as he knocked. The apartment behind her was a tastefully furnished family home. The walls were adorned with framed photographs of Eva and other young women who Rowland presumed were her sisters. The largest frame, however, held the brooding likeness of Germany’s Chancellor. Eva was apparently the only one home. She had on her hat and gloves and a small suitcase waited by the door. She didn’t invite him in. “Shall we go? I do not want to make you late.”

“Don’t you have to let anyone know where you’ll be?”

“They shall think I am with Herr Wolf,” she said. “I do not want them to know he has no time for me.”

Rowland hesitated. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want your … anyone to be worried about you.”

“You are kind, Herr Negus, but you must not worry. I often go away with friends. My parents are in Berlin right now, but they would be happy to know that I am enjoying myself for once, instead of waiting by the telephone.” She looked at him anxiously. “Please, do not say you have changed your mind.”

Rowland reached in and picked up her bag. “Of course not, Fräulein Eva.”

Her face relaxed and, beaming, she took the arm he offered.

It took a little over an hour to find Richter’s villa near the town of Berg, by the Starnberger See. They approached through a screen of natural woodland; the light of late afternoon speared through pillars of grey-barked birch to give the leaves a gentle incandescence. The building was, if anything, more impressive than the one in which Richter lived in Munich. Classically Bavarian, its walls were white, and seamed with dark external timbers. Its steeply pitched roof was shingled. Every window sat above a window box which hosted a mass of spring blooms, and looked out upon the crystal waters of the lake. A fat horse with a braided tail was tethered to a tree.

Edna was delighted. “It’s magical,” she said stepping out of the car. She turned slowly, putting out her hand as if she was trying to catch one of the thin shafts of light. “There’s a castle in Berg, isn’t there? Can you see it from here?”

Rowland asked Eva.

She shook her head and pointed. “It’s in that direction but it’s hidden by trees.”

Rowland translated though Edna seemed to have inferred the gist of it. She was disappointed.

“I love castles … It’s a shame we don’t have one or two at home.”

Clyde rolled his eyes. “Just what New South Wales needs …”

Though Rowland did have a key, the door was opened by a
taught-haired woman who introduced herself as Frau Engels. She explained that she lived in the village, where her husband worked in the post office, and so Herr Richter had been able to telephone and get a message to her. Of course, she came to the house immediately to light the fires and air the bedrooms, making sure she put extra blankets on the beds because the nights could still be very cold. She’d stocked the pantry, and cooked a hot meal, and she hoped they would be comfortable. And then she took a breath.

Rowland seized the pause to thank her and translate quickly before she started talking again. Which she did.

Frau Engels bustled them into the living room, directed the men to take their bags upstairs and explained that the cat was deaf, so there was no point shouting at it.

Rowland was not entirely sure why any of them would want to shout at the cat, but he translated faithfully. When they had finally been settled to her satisfaction, she began a verbose farewell, assuring them she would return to prepare breakfast the next day. Eventually she mounted the fat horse, and chattering to it now, rode off towards Berg.

“Bet the horse wishes it was deaf too,” Milton said, as Edna picked up a small white cat. “Did she say what its name was?”

Rowland shook his head.

Edna held the feline up and looked into its eyes. “What are we going to call you, then, sweetheart?”

“It’s deaf,” Clyde murmured. “I don’t suppose it matters.”

They sat down to the meal of roast pork and dumplings which Frau Engels had prepared and set out, and talked easily of inconsequential matters. Rowland, necessarily, didn’t say a great deal on his own account as he translated between Eva and the others. Edna and Milton had picked up a few German words but Clyde could not yet tell one word from another, let alone remember what they meant.

With dinner over, they retired to the sitting room. Clyde and Rowland rearranged the furniture to place the large card table closer to the fire, and Milton set a record on the gramophone. Eva ran upstairs to fetch the photographs she had developed for Edna.

For a time they examined the pictures: images of the
Southern Cross
and its crew, Maugham and Haxton at Raffles, and Karachi. And Eva was understandably curious about their travels.

“It must have been an old film,” Rowland said, as she exclaimed over the pictures. “We did this trip some time ago.” It was a minor and probably unnecessary deception, but Rowland opted for caution.

Milton produced a pack of cards and, armed with sherry, they taught Eva to play poker. She took to the game and the sherry enthusiastically, although Rowland remained unable to impart the art of bluffing, and her cards were apparent in the rise and fall of her face. He advised her in German as they played, which might have been unfair if it had had any impact whatsoever on the way she played.

She sang along when the recording took her fancy, imitating the low husky tones of Dietrich and standing to act out the words.

All this time, over the chatter and the music, Rowland was vigilant for the phone. By now, Albert Göring would have met with Campbell, and Blanshard might have been able to glean how that meeting had gone. They would not be in the clear for another day, but if Göring had called the police Blanshard might have heard by now. Rowland was acutely aware that now Edna was as implicated as he. If worst came to worst he would not even be able to claim she had no idea of his purpose in coming to Germany.

“Come on, Robbie, dance with me,” Edna said, dragging him to his feet as Marlene Dietrich crooned a German version of
Falling in Love Again
from the gramophone.

“You mustn’t worry,” she whispered, in the privacy of his arms. “Even if Mr. Göring calls the police, it will take them a while to figure out where we’ve gone. Only Mr. Richter knows, and they have no reason to ask him.”

He smiled at her. “Did I look worried?”

She laughed. “Not really. You’re too good a card player for that … I just know you.”

Rowland changed direction so that they didn’t dance into the sofa.

Edna pressed into him. “If Mr. Göring goes to the police, we’ll simply say that he misunderstood us. After all, we were speaking in languages that were not our own.” She looked up at Rowland, her manner so sincere and innocent that he was tempted to believe that she could talk them both out of arrest.

Rowland assumed he was the only one awake. Certainly there was no sign of life from the other rooms. He could, however, hear singing from the kitchen downstairs. Frau Engels had returned, as she had promised. He elected to slip unannounced into the small sunroom. It was too early in the morning for the sheer volume of the housekeeper’s conversation.

He had been there only a few minutes when Eva came in on tiptoe. Startled, she clasped one hand over her mouth when she saw him. He put a finger on his lips and shut the door behind her.

“Good morning,” he said quietly.

She giggled. “You’re hiding too, Herr Negus?”

Rowland smiled. “I thought I’d wait for the others before I went in to breakfast.”

“Of course.” She sat and picked up the notebook he’d put down.
“You’re an artist,” she said studying the sketch of Edna. “Herr Wolf, too, is an artist. I must show you some of the paintings he has made for me.”

“He’s an artist? Does he exhibit?”

“No … not anymore. He is too busy.”

Her eyes darkened and Rowland suspected that Herr Wolf was often “too busy”.

“It’s difficult to make a living from painting alone,” he said, more out of sympathy than any real knowledge of what it took to make a living.

“Oh, Herr Wolf could make a living—I am sure of it,” Eva said fervently. “He is an extraordinary artist … I’m sure everybody would buy his works if he chose to sell them. Why I sometimes feel like I could walk into his pictures and swim in his lakes.”

Rowland’s left brow arched. So this chap Wolf painted landscapes. Rowland tried not to hold that against him.

“I shall show you one day,” she said. “I’m sure you will agree that he is a very talented man.”

“I’m sure.”

Eva chewed her fingernail. “Fräulein Greenway,” she said, as she gazed at his latest study of the sculptress. “She is very beautiful.”

“I think so.”

“Is she your sweetheart, Herr Negus?”

Rowland laughed. “No, I’m afraid not.”

She handed him back his notebook. “Do you not wish it?”

Rowland stopped for a moment. He slipped the notebook back into his jacket. “It’s not really up to me.”

“Oh.” She looked at him intently. “You and I are alike, I think. We are not seen by those we love most.”

Rowland smiled. He liked Eva, but she was a trifle histrionic. “I think everyone should be up by now. Shall we go in to breakfast?’

13

NUDE CULT

Banned In Germany

BERLIN, Tuesday

Captain Göring has prohibited the nude cult, which has hundreds of thousands of adherents, as the greatest danger to culture and morality.

He declared it was killing women’s natural modesty and men’s respect for women. Public displays of the no clothes movement would not be tolerated.

The Canberra Times, 1933

T
hey stayed close to the house. Campbell was to meet with Hermann Göring at one o’clock. Until then they would not know if their plea to his brother had been successful.

The day was warm and Eva became quite impatient to go swimming. She begged like a child, but they could not risk missing the telephone call. When at one o’clock Blanshard still hadn’t called, Eva decided that she would go on ahead alone, promising to stay on the shore just down from the house. Unable to explain why they all needed to stay, Rowland agreed. As much as Eva seemed childlike at times, she was an adult and it was broad daylight. As it was, Blanshard telephoned only minutes after she left.

The Old Guard agent apologised for not calling earlier. “I couldn’t get away from Eric. He’s a little despondent. It seems his meeting with Mr. Göring was cancelled at the very last moment.”

Rowland breathed, relieved. “Well, that’s capital. We can return to the Munich then?”

“You could, but I won’t need you for a few days at least. The Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are taking a tour with the BUF people.”