The Winter Garden (2014) (10 page)

‘Not the British ambassador,’ said Clara, without thinking, and then cursed herself. How had that slipped out?

‘Indeed?’ said Sommers. He cocked his head to one side. ‘And why not?’

‘I imagine it would be politically difficult,’ she improvised.

‘Do you now?’ He spoke with a slightly mocking air, his cigarette nonchalantly poised, one eyebrow raised. He seemed to be challenging her, maintaining eye contact for longer than
was comfortable. ‘Why?’

‘I would have thought that was perfectly obvious. I do read the newspapers, you know.’

‘I’m sure.’ His lips curved into a smile, but his cool, green eyes were probing her. ‘And with a father like yours, you must be well acquainted with politics.’

‘I don’t need my father to teach me about politics,’ she snapped.

At her terse reply his eyes widened slightly, but he continued to smile as though he found her amusing.

‘Of course not.’

Suddenly, Clara couldn’t stand any more. What kind of party was it, where you detested all the guests and couldn’t drink a drop? What a life this was, mixing with people whose views
you loathed, associating with a regime which stood for everything you hated: intimidation, violence, brutality. Befriending people who represented a version of England you didn’t recognize.
The strain of being constantly on her guard, of laughing and chatting and dissimulating, of never putting a foot wrong, was exhausting. She had to be away, if only for a moment.

She drifted onto the terrace as though in search of fresh air and moved away from the French windows so that the chatter of the party receded. Easing herself into the shadow at the edge of the
house she stood quietly listening to the calls of the night birds in the woods and, further off, the hum of traffic from the other side of the lake. Catching a faint, salty tang in the air she
pictured the muscular strength of the current combing the surface of the Wannsee. She had adored her time this summer on the beautiful lakes around Berlin, rowing and swimming and diving into the
breathtaking crystal water of the Havel, though she had been warned that even the calmest surface concealed treacherous tides beneath.

Another sound interrupted her thoughts. A man’s step, it sounded like. A hard leather sole with a steel tip in the heel making its way out onto the flagstones. She shrank back into the
darkness. Light spilled out of the open doors, illuminating a swathe of the terrace, and she saw it was Ralph Sommers prowling – that was the word for it – like a predator in search of
its prey. He braced his shoulders backwards and stretched his arms wide, like a wild animal, then reached up a hand and massaged his neck. Even from where she was standing, she could tell he was
tense and preoccupied. Clara folded herself more closely against the wall and tried to regulate her breathing. She was certain he couldn’t see her, yet he still looked curiously in her
direction, cupped his hand to light a cigarette and seemed to gaze right at her, before turning and going back into the house.

It was ten o’clock before Clara got back to Winterfeldstrasse and wearily parked the car. The hall was deserted, though she noticed that a couple of chicken-soup cans had
been tossed into Rudi’s collection point, enough perhaps to make a few bolts for an aeroplane wing tip. It was Party night, she remembered, Rudi’s only evening out of the week, from
which he would regularly reel back reeking of beer, and filled with SA songs.

By contrast, Clara was stone-cold sober. She had drunk nothing at the Goebbels’ party, aware more than ever now that she needed to keep her wits about her. She had held a glass of
champagne throughout, because that was the kind of detail Goebbels noticed. Yet even with her sobriety and her heightened state of alertness, she had managed to make a mistake.

At least the lift was mended. She sighed as she waited and rubbed her legs. Her black patent heels were killing her. She was longing to fling herself down on her bed and let herself relax. She
could not get the face of Ralph Sommers, aeronautical businessman and Nazi sympathizer, out of her mind. Something about him unnerved her. The cool gleam of his eyes, the current that ran through
her as they shook hands. Her inexplicable desire to see him again.

The lift shuddered upwards and stopped with a grunt at the top floor. Pushing the cage back, Clara flicked on the hall light and rummaged in her bag for her key. But as she approached the door
her senses quickened like a cat’s. She hesitated. The film of Max Factor face powder on the door handle had gone. That could mean anything, of course. Rudi, perhaps, snooping around. A Hitler
youth, or a girl from the BDM, selling their publications and aggressively rattling the door as they touted their collection boxes. And yet . . . Clara felt unsettled. Something wasn’t right.
She turned the light off again, her heart pounding as, swiftly and quietly, she inserted the key in the lock.

She pushed the door open a fraction, then stepped into the hall. An eddy of cool air against her face suggested a window had been opened. There was a distinct, indefinable fragrance that she
didn’t recognize. Someone had been in the apartment. Perhaps they were still there. Two steps in allowed her a view of the kitchen, where she could see a used cup on the table. A single, blue
china teacup without a saucer and a teaspoon by its side. Yet the table had been bare when she left. The kitchen window was slightly ajar, but it seemed impossible that anyone should have climbed
in from there. From that window into the cobbled courtyard was a sheer five-floor drop.

Clara froze. From where she stood there was no other sign of an intruder, none of the casual wreckage a burglar might create. Whoever had entered her apartment that evening did not have
destruction on their mind. She slipped off her heels and stood in her stockinged feet, straining for the slightest sound. Although the apartment was silent, there was a ripple in the air. A
strange, subliminal frisson that suggested the presence of another human being. Another heart beating, very near.

Walking as slowly and as silently as possible, she approached the drawing room and flung back the door. There was no light on but to her shock, there was the dark mass of a figure in the chair,
framed in shadow against the uncurtained window. Even as she looked, the woman stood up and addressed her with a laugh.

‘Clara Vine! I might have guessed you’d never actually be at home on a Saturday night. And looking so glamorous. You cut your hair!’

Clara dropped her bag and took up her friend in a wide-armed embrace. The adrenaline coursing through her turned to joy. Tears sprang into her eyes.

‘Mary! Mary Harker. What on earth are you doing here?’ The visitor returned her hug, tightly.

‘Long story.’ Mary had a languid, American drawl with a bubble of humour beneath it. ‘Which I have every intention of telling in great and exhausting detail, so you’d
better not be tired.’

‘But . . .’ Clara snapped on the lamp, shrugged off her coat and dropped it over a chair. ‘How did you even get in here?’

‘Rudi let me in. I caught him off to one of his Nazi nights out. He was thrilled to see me back. He’s a nice guy really, under all that Nazi bluster. While I waited I had a good look
around to see what you’ve done with my apartment and I admit I’m impressed. It was never this tidy when I was here. I never even saw the floorboards under all my junk. I love all this
furniture. And I simply adore that painting in the bedroom.’

Mary Harker had aged since the day Clara had last seen her, in 1933, as she prepared to leave Germany for America. Her bosomy figure had filled out and her face had gained a few lines. Yet in
all other ways she was exactly the same ambitious reporter who had briefed the readers of the
New York Evening Post
on the early days of the Third Reich. Same thick tweed suit. Same heavy
glasses and earnest air. Tousled hair which she cut herself and was barely acquainted with a brush. Grey-green eyes that could switch from serious to humorous in an instant. The merest lick of
make-up. Freckles, a voice that sounded like she gargled gravel and a gap-toothed smile that warmed every corner of the room.

She clapped her arms theatrically. ‘But God, it’s cold in here. I forgot how freezing this city can be in winter.’

‘And it’s getting colder. Winter’s only just beginning. I’ll stoke up the stove. First let me get you some food.’

Clara opened the refrigerator to find a single bottle of beer and some milk, a hunk of dark brown rye bread and a rind of cheese. Mary peered gloomily over her shoulder.

‘I thought actresses were supposed to keep champagne and cold salmon in their refrigerator.’

‘Not this one. I haven’t been shopping in a while.’

‘What do you eat?’

‘I tend to eat out. Or at the studio. It’ll have to be coffee for now.’

As Clara put on the kettle and got out the cups, Mary scrutinized her critically.

‘You’re looking thinner. Not starving yourself, I hope, for some role.’

‘Oh, Mary. You’re going to find a lot has changed here.’

How could you explain, to someone who had been away for four years, just how Germany had changed in that time? Now, in the autumn of 1937, food was so much scarcer. Under Goering’s
four-year plan, there was a new slogan, ‘Guns Not Butter’, to drive home the sacrifices everyone needed to make for the nation’s rearmament. Not that it was such a sacrifice,
given the state of the butter when you did find it.

‘There are food shortages all the time. You can’t find eggs. Any butter you get is rancid. The milk is so watered down they call it Corpse Juice. People have to save their crusts. On
top of that, there are all sorts of rumours whirling round. Like the reason you can’t buy onions is that they are being used for experiments with poison gas. And out in the country, you can
be hanged for feeding grain to pigs. There’s this song they sing. “
Der Hitler hat keine Frau, Der Bauer hat keine Sau, Der Fleischer hat kein Fleisch, Das ist das Dritte
Reich.
” Hitler has no woman, the farmer has no sow, the butcher has no meat, that’s the Third Reich for you.’

‘Catchy.’

‘Yes, and liable to get you caught if anyone hears you singing it.’

‘The place doesn’t look too different to me. The restaurants are full.’

‘Sure, but they only serve two dishes. Try ordering anything else and you’ll find it’s sold out. And the waiters scrape the plates and take the scraps home to their families.
According to the Reich Food Corporation we need to make the nation self-sufficient. The only problem is, the Government says if Germany is to be self-sufficient, it’s going to need more
land.’

‘Somebody else’s land, I assume.’

Clara handed her friend a cup of coffee and tucked her feet beneath her on the sofa.

‘Exactly. But let’s talk politics later. First things first. I want to know everything. What’s been going on in your life? What brings you back to Berlin?’

‘Apart from the biggest story in Europe, you mean?’

‘I mean how did you manage it? Being expelled by the Propaganda Minister himself isn’t an achievement all journalists can put on their resumés.’

‘Oh, getting accreditation was a nightmare. I’d gone back to New Jersey to spend time with my father, and when he died, my mother wanted me to stay on at home to entertain her. Given
that her idea of entertainment is playing bridge at her country club and peekaboo with her grandchild, I was dying to escape. We never saw eye to eye. Keeping out of journalism was killing me and
once the civil war broke out in Spain, I said damn it, I just have to go. Mother’s always saying she wants there to be more between us. I thought, let’s make it the Atlantic
Ocean.’

‘You went on your own?’

‘Sure. I decided I was going to be a one-woman band. I took out a thousand-dollar bank loan and booked a passage. Took my Remington,’ Mary tapped the typewriter case beside her,
‘and my lucky hat,’ she pointed to a battered black felt creation which Clara recognized, ‘and set sail for Europe.’

‘I can’t imagine what it’s like out in Spain. The reports are terrifying.’

‘Words can’t describe it, Clara. I went to Madrid first, while it was being besieged by Franco. The International Brigades were fighting from street to street. I’d never seen a
sight like it. They saved the city from the hands of the Nationalists at the last moment. Then in February I was on the Andalusian coast, where there were thousands of refugees fleeing the advance
on Malaga. I passed mothers who actually begged me to take their children, because they were so certain they would be killed. Everywhere you go there are ruined buildings and desolation. This
spring I moved all the way up to the Basque country. That’s where most of the Republican resistance movement is and I can’t tell you the things I saw there.’

Mary stopped for a moment and passed a hand across her eyes.

‘I will tell you. Only not now. Anyway, I freelanced for various outfits and filed a little copy for United Press and I begged and wheedled Frank Nussbaum, the
Evening
Post
’s editor, to take my stories. But what I really wanted was to get back into Germany. This was where I wanted to report from. Then I had the most enormous piece of luck. You’ve
heard of Charles Lindbergh?’

‘Who hasn’t?’

Everyone knew Charles Lindbergh. The celebrated American aviator, world famous for his solo flight from New York to Paris, had had his life torn apart when his baby son was kidnapped and
murdered. To escape the hysteria of the ensuing murder trial, the family had moved to a peaceful village in Kent.

‘As it happens, Colonel Lindbergh comes from New Jersey, near where my parents live, so we knew him a little. I prised the address out of my mother, went over to England, drove down to the
village and knocked on the door. I dropped my family name very heavily and asked if he would do an interview and to my amazement, he said yes. I suppose I must have been talking about wanting to
come to Germany, because it seems he spoke to someone and the next week, a visa came through.’

‘Lindbergh must have German contacts.’