Read The Pursuit of Pearls Online
Authors: Jane Thynne
The Pursuit of Pearls (38 page)
For John Carey
I
t takes so many people to make a book, and there have been some particularly brilliant people who have contributed their talents to this one. I am grateful for the editing expertise and generous enthusiasm of the legendary Kate Miciak, as well as the support of Julia Maguire, Christine Mykityshyn, and all those on the Ballantine team. Huge thanks to Nina Pronovost, and to Zoe Maslow, Adria Iwasutiak, and everyone at Penguin Random House Canada.
To my agent, Caradoc King, for believing in Clara Vine from the time she was just a twenty-six-year-old actress fresh off the train to Berlin, and to fellow writers Elizabeth Buchan, Liz Jensen, Amanda Craig, Kate Saunders, and Anne Sebba for cheering her along.
My special thanks go the wonderful Joanna Coles, whose gift for friendship has been unrivaled since the day we met on a Fleet Street newspaper diary column. To John Carey, whose encouragement and enthusiasm have been a constant inspiration, and to my children, William, Charlie, and Naomi, who patiently steer conversation away from World War II to the more important topics of social life, travel arrangements, and food in the fridge.
I never imagined, when Clara Vine first stepped off that train in the Friedrichstrasse station, that I would follow her so far. But her destiny piqued questions in me that demanded answers about how she would come to terms with her past, what war would bring, and what her future might be. It has been wonderful to continue her story, and I hope you enjoy it.
W
hen I first thought of setting a series of novels in prewar Berlin, I knew a few things. I knew that my heroine was going to be Anglo-German and an actress. I decided that she would be a spy who gains a valuable glimpse of the Nazi elite through the women around her. Yet while I understood a fair bit about the men and the politics of the Third Reich, I realized that I knew far less about the lives of the women in that regime. And increasingly, as I delved deep into the lives of women through their letters and journals, I became fascinated by what I came to think of as the Real Housewives of Nazi Germany.
Under Hitler, every aspect of a woman's life was tightly controlled, from child-bearing, marriage, and social life, right down to her daily appearance. The ideal woman didn't pluck her eyebrows, paint her nails, or dye her hair. Nor did she smoke. In the early days of the Reich, bars and restaurants throughout Germany were plastered with signs saying
G
ERMAN WOMEN DON'T SMOKE,
and storm troopers who saw a woman smoking in public were advised to dash the cigarette from her lips.
But the control over women's appearance didn't stop at cigarettes and cosmetics. One of the first things Hitler did when he came to power in 1933 was to establish a Reich Fashion Bureau. He realized that fashion carries a potent political message and he knew exactly what image he wanted German women to project to the world. The female look should celebrate tradition, so the Bureau promoted dirndls, bodices, and Tyrolean jackets. Women should only wear clothes made by German designers, with German materials. By “German,” Hitler meant Aryan, which posed an immediate problem because the fashion industry and the textile trade of the time were dominated by Jewish companies. Hitler also frowned on Parisian couture, both because he disliked the French, and also because designers like Coco Chanel encouraged an unnaturally slender silhouette. A nation of women striving for slim hips and boyish bodies was certainly not ideal if Hitler was to achieve one of his major objectivesâto encourage prolific child-bearing.
In one of the many bizarre hypocrisies of the Third Reich, the woman chosen to preside over this Fashion Bureau was Magda Goebbels, the wife of the Propaganda Minister. Like many other aspects of Nazi Germany, Magda Goebbels's participation was rife with contradictions, and Magda herself was the living, breathing opposite of everything the Bureau promoted. Famed for her love of couture, she changed several times a day, slathered on Elizabeth Arden cosmetics, chain smoked, and wore hand-made Ferragamo shoes. Her favorite fashion designers, Paul Kuhnen, Richard Goetz, Max Becker, and Fritz Grünfeld, were all Jewish.
Yet there was a far greater contradiction in Magda Goebbels's life than her fashion sense. Before she married, she had a passionate involvement with a leading Zionist called Victor Arlosoroff, who returned to Berlin in 1933 aghast at his former girlfriend's choice of husband. To me, the idea that the wife of the arch persecutor of the Jews, Joseph Goebbels, should have had an affair with an important Jewish agitator seemed astonishing. But it was typical of the ironies that reigned in that terrible, turbulent regime.
One question always at the back of my mind while I was researching the lives of Nazi women was the extent to which they themselves had exerted a political influence on their husbands. Did any of them act as the power behind the throne? In some cases, the answer was yes. Annelies von Ribbentrop and Lina Heydrich were both considered more ardent Nazis than their husbands. Yet others, like Emmy Goering, actively interceded with their husbands on an occasional basis to save friends. Henriette, the wife of the Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach, was the only one who actually remonstrated with Hitler when she confronted him over dinner at the Berghof about the treatment of Jews in Holland. She was never invited again.
Women are so often the untold half of history and their perspectives are frequently ignored. I think it's impossible to visualize the Nazi leaders as people without getting a glimpse of their private lives and their most important relationships.
For me, understanding the Real Housewives of Nazi Germany, from the wives of the elite to the ordinary women in the street, was the key to making history and, I hope, my novels come alive.
1.
Despite their seemingly different political inclinations, Clara visits her sister when she is upset by Grand's suggestion of Leo's death. Blood may be thicker than water, but do you believe, as Clara does, that it should be thicker than war?
2.
How does Clara's status as an English spy change her relationship with Erich?
3.
Clara talks about all the things that have been rationed, such as coffee and meat, or made more difficult, such as easy travel. What do you think is the hardest thing for her to sacrifice? What would be the hardest for you?
4.
What advice would you give to Hedwig about the conflict between Jochen and her parents?
5.
Though Clara narrates the majority of the novel, we occasionally see events from Hedwig's point of view. In what ways are the two perspectives similar? In what ways are they different?
6.
In part due to Clara's mixed heritage many of her acquaintances ask where she would eventually like to settle down. Where do you think she should go?
7.
Conrad Adler knows that Clara is part Jewish, but she continues on with her life as always, even seeing Adler again. Do you agree with her decision, or would you have handled the situation differently?
8.
Themes of heritage pervade the book, often bringing into conflict ethnic, religious, cultural, and national identities. What do you think it is that makes you who you are?
9.
What do you think Conrad Adler means when he says that Clara has a look of “fire behind ice”?
10.
In a world of spies, secrets, and war, it is difficult to know who to trust, and Clara chooses her confidants carefully. Do you agree with all of her choices? Who in your life would you choose to trust if you were in Clara's circumstances?
11.
Do you think Conrad Adler is a good man, or do you think he is as bad as the political party for which he works? Would you trust him? Why or why not?
12.
There are quite a few revelations as the final pieces of the book fall into place. What surprised you the most?
P
RELUDE
T
he flash and dazzle of fireworks, like multicolored shrapnel, studded the night sky. Vivid bursts of phosphorus erupted in the damp air, bloomed into extravagant showers of stars, then fizzled and died against the dark sheet of the Wannsee below. A faint plume of smoke drifted across the lake as the fireworks fell quiet and night closed in again.
From where she stood, in the deep shadow of the garden, Anna Hansen tried to work out which of the big villas on Schwanenwerder Island had something to celebrate. Fireworks were nothing special here. There were always parties going on in the grand houses. They all had large gardens stretching down to the lake from where, across the water, loomed the inky mass of the Grunewald's eastern shore. Between the shores the dip and ripple of small boats could be heard, rocking in the wind as the water slapped against their sides.
Anna shivered in the night air. It was cold standing here, surrounded by softly dripping shrubs. She shuffled her slippered feet and clutched her dressing gown more closely around her. Though it might have been the bangs and whistles that woke her, in truth she had scarcely been able to sleep, despite an exhausting day. But then, it was always an exhausting day at the Schwanenwerder Reich Bride School. It seemed there was so much to learn for women who were about to marry members of the SS. It wasn't like being an ordinary German bride, though, heaven knows, those girls had their work cut out. But as the Führer said, the women who were to marry the cream of German manhood needed to be something special.
Not that Anna had much choice when she arrived at the Bride School, a stately villa with pillared gates proudly topped by a pair of swastika flags and screened from the world by a ridge of tall pines. Classes there were compulsoryâthey had been since 1935, on Himmler's ordersâand you needed to submit the certificate you received to the SS Race and Settlement Office before your marriage could go ahead. In some ways the School was like a military training academy, with a regime that started at five thirty in the morning and didn't end until the weary brides dropped into their beds at nine o'clock at night. That morning, for example, had begun with the usual outdoor bath, to take advantage of the island's fresh, pine-scented air, followed by energetic gymnastics in shorts and undershirts. After breakfast came Sewing, and then a visit from the local Mother and Child branch for Child Care instruction, before lunch, which was made on a rota by the brides themselves, wearing head scarves and spotless aprons.
Today they had been focusing on Cooking Without Butter because of the shortage, and it had been very dull. Though that was no bad thing, Anna thought, because all these regular meals were making her plump. After lunch came Culture, consisting of a talk on fairy tales. All brides needed to learn fairy tales because the German mother was the “culture bearer” to the next generation. Today's lecturer had explained how in “Cinderella” it was the prince's Germanic instincts that led him to reject the stepsisters' alien blood and search for a maiden who was racially pure.
Culture should have been what Anna enjoyed best. She had been a dancer after all, not so long ago. Chorus line at the Wintergarten. Standing there amid the shadowy shrubs, she ran an absent hand over her rumpled, shoulder-length hair. Her dark roots were showing badly, and the bleached curls were already turning to frizz in the damp air. She sighed. It was hard to imagine a greater contrast than that between her previous life and the one she was living now. Her old friends would die laughing if they could see her. But then Anna's circumstances had changed. Changed drastically. And by some miracle, just as she had needed to escape from a difficult spot, SS Obersturmführer Johann Peters, six foot two with a jaw like granite and eyes as blue as the Baltic Sea, had walked into her life. From the moment Johann had come up to her in that dank little nightclub, she hadn't looked back. If it hadn't been for Johann, she might even have resorted to answering one of those depressing advertisements you saw in the newspapers.
54-year-old lawyer, pure Aryan, desires male offspring through marriage with young virgin, hardworking, low heels, no jewelry.
So when Johann had requested a dance, and shortly afterwards her hand in marriage, she had taken him up on it without a second thought, even if it meant spending six weeks at Bride School in preparation.
The villa that housed the Bride School had been occupied by a single Jewish family until it was transferred to the ownership of the Deutsches Frauenwerk. As Anna walked between lessons, she would look wistfully at the grandeur of the décor, the mahogany paneling of the hall and the line of little bells in the kitchen, which were connected to different rooms in the house. The whole place was full of color: pistachio paint in the hall, almond white on the dado rails, and deep burgundy in the library, which still smelled of leather and cigars. The music roomâan entire room devoted to music!âwas painted daffodil yellow, and the ballroom, which was lavender blue, had a ceiling like a wedding cake, molded with plaster roses, from where great chandeliers were suspended. Anna liked to imagine the life that had existed there beforeâall the parties and the fun and the elegance. There were patches on the walls where gold-framed oil paintings had hung, and if you stood quite still you could almost sense the family that had once lived here, evanescent as a waft of perfume down a corridor, or the faint ripple of laughter in the air.
Now, however, the ballroom had been fitted with desks and its damask curtains taken down in the interest of cleanliness. Cleanliness was all-important at the Bride School. Everything had to be hygienic and disinfected, smelling of soap and polish. Dirt, and all soiled traces of the past, must be scrubbed away. Dirt was disgusting, the instructors said. Dust was almost un-German.
Anna's dormitory, where eight girls slept, was a long room on the top floor. It must have been the nursery originally, but it had been redecorated in the same stark, brutal fashion as the rest of the house. Iron bedsteads flanked the walls, and the floors were bare boards. The wallpaper had been whitewashed over, but if you tipped the wardrobe slightly, you could see a remnant of it, pale pink with knotted posies. Anna was observant like that. She had an eye for detail; she always liked to know what lay underneath things.
It had been hard to leave her bed and slip out of the house unnoticed. Strangely for an organization that believed so fervently in fresh air, the dormitory window was kept locked, and after bedtime the corridors were patrolled by the sewing mistress, Fräulein Wolff. Brides were told not to leave the room except in cases of emergency. Luckily the only person to notice Anna waking that night was Ilse Henning, a good-hearted country girl with a shelf of a bosom and a face as scrubbed as a pine table, who blinked at her in puzzlement, then rolled obediently onto her side. Ilse probably assumed, quite correctly, that her roommate was going into the garden to smoke an illicit cigarette.
That much was true. Yet it was a deeper restlessness that was troubling Anna Hansen. All day she had had the curious sensation that she was being watched. It was nothing obvious. Just a brooding self-consciousness that crawled across her skin, raising the minute hairs on her neck, making her tense, the way a gazelle tenses when it scents the approach of a predator. Several times during the day, both in the garden and in the house, she'd had the distinct feeling of someone's eyes upon her, only to wheel around and find nothing there. She had repeatedly attempted to rationalize the sensation. Perhaps it was the sorry shortage of nicotine that had set her nerves jangling. Or maybe the ugly gardener, Hartmann, the one with the limp and the hedgehog haircut, was spying on her. He was always hanging around eyeing the Reich Brides. What was a creep like him even doing in a place like this? Why couldn't he be sent to the Rhineland or something?
The feeling came on her again as she lay trying to sleep in the dormitory, listening to the distant crump of fireworks, and to shake it off she had risen and crept out into the chill October air.
The moon was obscured by a bank of heavy cloud as she progressed through the garden, avoiding the gravel path and staying close to the shrubs at the edge of the lawn. Behind her the house was a shuttered and slumbering hulk, with only a single lamp burning on the ground floor. Ahead lay the leaden expanse of the lake, visible only by the lights that glimmered from the few yachts and pleasure boats moored at its shore.
She stopped at the trunk of a large pine tree and pulled out her cigarettes. Around her a dim tangle of laurel receded into a pool of deeper shadow. There was dense vegetation underfoot. Flecks of water from the lake blew against her face, and she hugged her arms to her chest, wishing she had worn something warmer than an old silk dressing gown. Because of the rigid dress code at the School, nightwear was the only area where brides had any self-expression. Most of the girls opted for a floral tent of scrubby toweling, but Anna's was creamy silk with ivory lace inserts, and a matching negligee that smelled of smoke and perfume and acted as a consoling, luxurious reminder of the good old days.
Suddenly she sensed a frisson of movement in the bushes, a spectral shimmer accompanied by a rustle of leaves. She froze, her senses on alert, straining to filter the night sounds. The fireworks had subsided now, and the night's silence was penetrated only by the whine of the high trees swaying and the thrum of a car making its way along the lake road. More faintly, the soft rattle and groan of boats, their timbers creaking, and the water slapping on their sides, carried on the breeze.
There it was again. A distinct crackle of leaves, a few yards to her left. Anna stiffened, her heart lifting into her throat, and whirled to see a white shape and a pair of golden circles trained on her. She almost laughed with relief.
“God, Minka. You gave me a fright! Hiding from the fireworks?”
The cat approached and rubbed against her leg. She was a friendly animal and much loved by the Bride School inmates. Anna squatted down to stroke her head, then took out her lighter, an elegant silver lozenge engraved with her initials. God forbid anyone should find her with it. She had had to smuggle it in here, because smoking was strictly forbidden at the Bride School. The Führer called cigarettes “decadent” and said smokers were unfit to be German wives and mothers. All brides had to sit through a lecture on the poison of nicotine and how the Jews had brought tobacco to Germany to corrupt the native stock. She snapped the lighter open, the flame leapt up and lit the cigarette, and she took a deep drag, impatient for the first delicious hit to coil down her throat. Sighing, she rested her back against the bark of the tree. This was a long way to come for a smoke, but it was worth it.
Beside her the cat froze and lifted her head. She had seen something, but what? A mouse perhaps, or a bird? A fox even? Following her gaze, Anna stared blindly into the murk.
“Is someone there?”
A sudden screech heralded the launch of a single rocket that flared and dissipated in an emerald shower, lighting up the sky. The cat's pupils contracted to slits. As the sound died away, Anna heard something else. The soft crunch of a footstep on the wet earth.
“Who is it?”
The words choked in her throat. As she stared desperately around her into the darkness, frantic thoughts raced through her mind. It had been a mistake to come out here. She should never have left the dormitory. Perhaps it was the creepy gardener, spying again.
“Hartmann? Is that you?”
Two more steps, and then a face loomed up before her. As Anna peered desperately through the darkness, terror engulfed her. Her knees almost buckled, and it took everything she had to summon a tone of coy flirtatiousness.
“Well, hello, stranger.”
The man raised the Walther 6.35-caliber pistol, and Anna's eyes widened, but the sound of the shot was drowned in another exuberant volley of fireworks. A spume of scarlet sparks arced and spangled the sky. The man with the gun watched Anna languidly as she fell, then he turned away and melted into the shadows. For a moment Anna's hand clutched frantically, as if she were trying to haul herself up on empty air, then it dropped back and the lighter slid out of her opened palm, down into the damp grass.