The Pursuit of Pearls (8 page)

E
ven though he was standing in the shadows, Clara could feel his eyes on her. Calculating, malign, dangerous. Attempting, with the precision of an interrogator, to dissect her performance and separate pretense from reality. Analyzing every minute facial movement, every glance and gesture, to pounce on falsity and drag the truth from where she had concealed it.

Despite the heat of the stage lights, she shivered.

She was wearing a flimsy pink silk dress and spectacles and standing next to Heinz Rühmann on stage five of the Ufa studio—the very same soundstage on which Marlene Dietrich had only a decade earlier filmed
The Blue Angel
and Fritz Lang made
Metropolis.
Now, in contrast to those cinematic masterpieces, stage five was playing host to the final scene of
Liebe Streng Verboten
.
Love Strictly Forbidden
was pure, high-octane candyfloss for the eyes. The plot revolved around an ambitious mother who wanted to marry her daughter to the lord of the manor, while the daughter was in love with a lowly hotelier. It was a farcical procession of mistakes and confusions with a satisfyingly happy ending and just the kind of escapism Herr Doktor Goebbels prescribed to soothe a nation's frazzled nerves.

In truth, Clara was glad that the film required a minimum of effort. Her visit to London and the news of Leo occupied all her thinking space. She felt stunned, as though she had left part of herself in England, and
Love Strictly Forbidden,
whose script had as much depth and sophistication as the back of a cornflakes packet, was the ideal vehicle to occupy her. The lovelorn secretary was a popular role in German cinema, and she had played it a number of times over the last few years, so it was easy to go through the motions. It helped that Heinz Rühmann, one of the biggest blond heartthrobs of German screen, was an old friend, so kissing him was no great hardship.

Yet even the most intimate of love scenes required an army of people in the studio: director, assistant director, crew, clapper board loader, piano player. Continuity girl, props manager, cameraman, and gaffer, and a makeup artist with brushes and palette primed for a last-minute touch-up. Boys with belts of tools hung from the cranes, and in distant glass cubicles sound engineers fiddled with knobs and microphones. All morning everyone's attention had been focused on the small pool of light occupied by Clara and Rühmann, but when the minister for propaganda entered, suddenly no one was watching the actors anymore.

As soon as Clara saw Goebbels take shape in the shadows, assistants fluttering around him and the violet haze of his cigarette smoke coiling up into the studio roof, she knew there was no point going on. The man in charge of all filmmaking in the Third Reich was not the type to linger respectfully in the shadows. Once he registered that she had seen him, he gave an infinitesimal nod, and Clara, with a quick, apologetic smile to the director, threaded her way through the camera cables and followed Goebbels as he hobbled in his built-up patent leather boots along the corridor to his office.

The propaganda minister's limp was the first thing everyone noticed about him and the last thing they dared mention. In the early days of the regime, the Society for the Aid of Cripples had brought out a pamphlet celebrating Goebbels as the supreme example of mental powers triumphing over physical disabilities. The charity got a taste of those mental powers shortly afterwards, when their pamphlet was burned and the society closed down.

Reaching his office, Goebbels flung open the door.

The office was a symphony of gleaming light, polished oak, and pale leather furniture. Chrome lamps graced a desk of immaculate walnut. Stills from Ufa's greatest hits were displayed in tasteful black frames on the walls. Pride of place was devoted to an enormous close-up picture of Goebbels's own face, cadaverous, hollow-eyed, and exuding all the gravitas of a wanted poster. The office also came fitted with the standard accoutrements of any minister of the Third Reich—microphones concealed in the walls, lamps, and picture frames—invalidating the need to close the door quite so firmly as he gestured her to a seat.

Goebbels stalked across to his desk and threw himself down. Generally, his charm was as polished as his own furniture, but that day his bony visage was grimly set and his pomaded hair visibly graying. Despite the immaculate Hugo Boss herringbone suit and shimmering silk tie, he looked more wretched than Clara had ever seen him. A twitch flickered in the corner of his left eye. Something serious was plainly troubling him, and though there was no shortage of troubles that might concern a senior member of the Nazi government in the spring of 1939, Clara guessed Goebbels's misery had nothing to do with the prospect of European war.

She wondered if it was the stomach complaint that had forced him into hospital recently, or the fact that Lida Baarová, the Czech actress he had been besotted with, had been banished from Germany on Hitler's orders. Yet instinct told her it was the same old story—the ongoing marital war with his wife, Magda, who according to studio gossip had taken revenge for her long humiliation by initiating an affair with Karl Hanke, her husband's aide, and was now disporting herself in an unseemly manner around the city's nightclubs. On Goebbels's desk Magda stared out from a silver picture frame with a look that could freeze blood. Clara wondered how he managed to stop himself turning it to the wall.

He eyed her coldly.

“I must say you look totally unrecognizable with those spectacles. You don't need them, do you?”

“Not yet.”

“Good. They're hideous. Take them off. Spectacles on women are worse than trousers. They lend a dreadfully academic air, and I loathe academic women. Besides, it makes it harder to tell what you're thinking.”

Unbidden, Conrad Adler's phrase again floated into Clara's head.
Like fire behind ice.

“Actresses are supposed to project their feelings, not suppress them. It doesn't do to look sly. Especially—”

He broke off to reach for the silver cigarette box, a gift from Hitler himself, and extracted one cigarette, tossing it carelessly in Clara's direction and offering a light. Having savored this hesitation, he resumed.

“Especially when you're about to appear in the most ambitious film that Germany has ever seen.”

“Love Strictly Forbidden?”

Goebbels cast his eyes to the ceiling, as though beseeching divine help, and tapped a finger on his patent leather boot.

“Don't be ridiculous, woman.
Love Strictly Forbidden
is a piece of nonsense designed for brainless secretaries on a night out whose highest ambition is to seduce their employer and entrap the poor sap into marriage. I'm talking about something of immense artistic importance.” He exhaled a weary stream of smoke, as though the woes of the world had settled on his narrow shoulders.

“You, Fräulein Vine, have been plucked from—well, perhaps not obscurity”—he gave a sardonic wince—“but very far from stardom, to feature in a documentary film about the making of Germania.”

“But I…”

“Don't interrupt. It's the inspiration of the Führer himself. He feels the time is right for a full-length film about the triumphs of our nation and a celebration of our cultural conquests abroad.”

What exactly could Goebbels be referring to? The remilitarization of the Rhineland? The annexation of Austria? The seizure of Czechoslovakia?

“Which cultural conquests did you have in mind?”

Goebbels's eyes narrowed to check for subordination, then he said, “I take it you've heard of the Ahnenerbe?”

“I'm not sure I…”

“Herr Reichsführer Himmler's hobby.”

The mention of the sinister, moonfaced SS chief was like an ice cube down the spine. Himmler had that effect on most people. Generally his hobbies involved building new concentration camps and expanding the Gestapo's state-of-the-art surveillance system, but no one, as yet, had suggested making a film about them.

Goebbels crossed his skinny legs and sighed. “I can see I'm going to have to explain. You must have seen newsreels about the trip to Tibet?”

“Oh yes,” she said quickly. “That.”

The weekly newsreel was shown before every feature film. Clara had dozed through one just the other evening when she visited the Ufa Palast with Erich. Vaguely she recalled footage of scientists disembarking from a plane at Tempelhof airport. From what she could recall, the expedition had been dedicated to proving one of Himmler's most cherished notions—that the Aryan race was preeminent on earth. They had been examining Tibetan natives for evidence.

“Himmler's full of these obsessions,” grunted Goebbels. “If it's not the Ahnenerbe, it's that place down in Wewelsburg.”

Sensing that he had imparted a little too much information, he drew himself together, rose, and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Anyway. The Ahnenerbe is a scientific institute established to research the cultural history of the German race, and whatever our private thoughts about the SS Reichführer's—
enthusiasms—
its work will be the centerpiece of this film. It's got foreign locations, history, adventure.” A little, dismissive wave. “Everything people love.”

“It sounds very ambitious.” Clara made a mental note to grill Erich about the Ahnenerbe as soon as possible. As an ardent member of the Hitler Youth, he always knew about these things.

“It is. As the Führer sees it, the Ahnenerbe is at the very heart of our work as National Socialists. It seeks to propagate the eternal values of the Germanic races. Et cetera, et cetera.” Goebbels waved his hand to signify the kind of officialese beloved of his own newsreels and newspapers. “I'm giving you the broad-brush picture here, but you're going to need to familiarize yourself fairly swiftly, because from what I hear Himmler is taking a close interest in this film and he's perfectly likely to turn up on the set without warning.”

Goebbels's face twisted with distaste at the thought. The prospect of another senior Nazi intruding on his own department was plainly a serious irritant. He strode over to the window to look out on a small square of lawn in the style of a medieval cloister, where actresses and secretaries liked to relax between takes, gossiping and catching the sun and, all too often, the minister's eye. Although his gaze traveled automatically over the tanned legs and golden figures on display, his mind was plainly elsewhere.

“I would have thought, Fräulein Vine, you would be flattered to be involved.”

“I am. Very. Who's the director?”

He swung round, his expression, if possible, even more dyspeptic. “I was coming to that.
Germania
is to be directed by Fräulein Leni Riefenstahl.”

Leni Riefenstahl.

Leni Riefenstahl was, without doubt, the most famous female director alive. Her film about the 1934 Nazi party rally,
The Triumph of the Will,
had seduced not just Germany but many around the world. Her documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games had just won Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. If
Germania
was anything like Leni Riefenstahl's previous epics, it would make all Clara's previous films look like home movies.

“I'm honored, Herr Doktor. I really am. But…” For a moment Clara's habitual composure had deserted her. “I don't understand why I should have been given the privilege of presenting something quite so…high-profile.”

“That makes two of us,” said Goebbels gracelessly. He rubbed a hand over a cheek silvered with stubble. His complexion was dull with fatigue.

“It's the obvious question, and the first thing I asked, too, but Fräulein Riefenstahl has not deigned to honor me with an explanation. She just said the Führer had given her a free hand and you were what she wanted. She's irrational like that.”

He examined his beautifully manicured fingernails and regarded Clara with disdain.

“You seem very cool, considering the honor that's being handed to you. You're invited to star in a movie made by the world's most famous female film director about the most powerful country on earth. I can't imagine you've received many more significant propositions recently. Or perhaps you're too busy? Possibly you have too much on your plate?”

“Of course not. I'm very grateful.”

If he was mollified, he didn't show it.

“Good. Well, there's a tight deadline, so you'll need to start right away. I'll have Fräulein Riefenstahl get in touch. Where are you living now? Winterfeldtstrasse, wasn't it?”

“Not anymore. I'm very near here actually. At the Artists' Colony in Griebnitzsee.”

“Griebnitzsee?”

She had surprised him. No doubt he assumed he knew everything about her movements, so his surprise provided a crucial piece of information.

Whoever had ordered surveillance on her apartment, it wasn't Joseph Goebbels.

“Strange choice. I've never seen you as the country type.”

He was more accurate than he knew. Already Clara wished she was back in Winterfeldtstrasse, watchers or not. She'd never realized how much she loved the comforting racket of the city around her, the clank of the trams and trains on Nollendorfplatz a few blocks away, which started early in the morning and didn't end until late at night, the rattle of shopkeepers rolling up their blinds, the shouts of the newspaper men, and the crash of bottles from the local bars. Some things you never knew you loved until you missed them.

There was a knock on the door, and a secretary's head craned around. “Your sitting, Herr Reichsminister.”

“Already? Show him in then!”

Goebbels's face brightened, and he straightened his tie. “Another official portrait, I'm afraid. I'm not a vain man. I don't like the idea of ministers flaunting themselves, but the ministry will insist. It has to do with official prestige.”