The Winter Garden (2014) (23 page)

‘Presents are difficult, aren’t they?’ She sighed, fingering an especially hideous glass nude. ‘The Führer has the right idea. He only gives three things – a
photograph frame, a smoking set or a portrait of himself. Usually an oil painting.’ She paused to chuckle. ‘Wouldn’t you just love to see the look on people’s faces when
they unwrap that?’

Clara risked a smile. ‘I’m glad to find you here. I thought you might still be in Bavaria.’

‘We’re just back. We’ve bought a house at Obersalzburg now but it’s a mistake, really. It means we’re at everyone’s beck and call.’

‘Was it terribly busy?’

‘Madly. Fräulein Eva Braun has a new hobby. You’ll never guess what.’

Clara couldn’t.

‘Perfume! The Führer bought her a whole range of fragrances and she experiments, choosing a different scent for each person. She blends violet and lilac and jasmine and what have you.
Or she chooses a perfume you’ve never heard of. You’ll never guess what she chose for me . . . Schiaparelli’s
Shocking
.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I
can’t imagine what that’s supposed to imply.’

‘She sounds happier, then.’ A few years previously, Eva Braun had attempted suicide.

‘Oh, one never gets the impression little Eva’s really happy. When we were there she was moaning because Hitler won’t let her ride horses. He says it’s unladylike. And
she was nagging him endlessly about the way he dresses. She says, “Mussolini looks so dashing in his uniform, and you sit beside him in your little cap looking like a postman!” The
senior men can hardly help themselves laughing.’

‘Who else was there?’

‘Let me think. The Himmlers, of course. I can’t really get on with her. Lina Heydrich calls Marga Himmler “Size Fifty”.’

‘Size Fifty?’

‘That’s the size of her undergarments. She does love her cream cakes.’ Emmy suppressed a giggle.

‘And did you see the Mitfords?’ Clara asked. ‘I met Unity and her sister the other day. They mentioned they were just back from the Berghof.’

‘Unity Mitford!’ Emmy Goering grimaced. ‘That girl with her staring saucer eyes and the Party badge on her heaving bosom. The men call her
Mitfahrt
– the
travelling companion – because she’s always there. She absolutely dogged Hitler’s heels at the rally. She spends every lunchtime at the Osteria Bavaria in the hope of catching
Hitler’s eye. She’s dreadfully jealous of Eva Braun, of course, terrified that Eva comes first in Hitler’s affections. I’ve told her, it’s a bit late to worry about
that. Eva has her own room in the Reich Chancellery, doesn’t she?’

‘So Unity’s not popular then?’

‘No one can understand why the Führer likes her. Apparently he loves the fact that her middle name is Valkyrie. Eva says, well, she looks the part, especially the legs. Himmler hates
her too. He thinks she might be a spy. He has a tame SS man follow her around, posing as a photographer. But I said to Heinrich, spies don’t go around dressed in a home-made storm
trooper’s uniform, do they? They’d wear something a little more subtle. Mind you, this SS chap did catch Unity with a gun. Though when he asked her what it was for she said she was
practising killing Jews.’

‘Do you think the Führer will marry Fräulein Braun?’

‘Ach, who has ever been able to fathom the Führer’s taste in women?’ Emmy drew even closer. ‘Hermann says the only way he will marry Fräulein Braun is if
someone puts a gun to his head. And besides, he gets twelve thousand love letters a year so he’s not short of choice. Though they say . . .’ she lowered her voice, ‘he never
recovered from the death of Geli. His niece, you know, who shot herself in his apartment. Hermann says Hitler used to treat Geli like a gardener with an exotic bloom.’

‘So why did she shoot herself?’

‘If we knew that, my dear . . .’ Emmy Goering gave her a significant look, but did not continue.

‘What about Diana Mitford? Does the Führer like her too?’

‘I think he’s really fond of her. He took a whole day off when she married in the Goebbels’ place, and for him, that’s quite unheard of. And he agreed to ban the von
Ribbentrops from the wedding because Diana hates them. Annelies was furious when she heard because they’d already invited themselves, but frankly, Diana’s right. The Führer should
never have made von Ribbentrop ambassador. He told Hermann that von Ribbentrop would be good because he knew absolutely everyone in England but Hermann said the problem was, everyone in England
knew von Ribbentrop.’ For a moment, her husband’s wit caused a fond chuckle. ‘Still, it’s no good trying to fathom what you English think. You keep us all
guessing.’

There was a knock on the door and the butler showed in the immaculate figure of the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. As he greeted them, his gaze flickered over Clara curiously. He had seen her
with the Goebbels only recently, and now she was here in the Goerings’ home. He was wondering what brought her here, Clara recognized, and attempting to assess her social standing.

It transpired that Hoffmann had been sent to photograph the presents. While he busied himself with unfolding the legs of his tripod and positioning lights, Emmy bore off the golden antlers
imperiously.

‘I’m hiding these. They might lead to awkward questions. Hitler censors anything he doesn’t like, so why shouldn’t we?’

Hoffmann laughed. ‘Of course, Frau Reich Minister.’ Beneath his air of unctuous jollity was a steeliness common to professional photographers who are obliged to perform their job in
a social setting.

‘What does Hitler censor?’ asked Clara casually as they walked to the other side of the room.

‘Oh, everything, darling! He won’t have any photograph of himself in spectacles, for a start. It suggests he might have the same human frailties as the rest of us. He will never
bathe in public, in case anyone photographs him in a costume, and he can’t ever be seen in Lederhosen. I don’t know why because Hermann finds them perfectly manly.’

She regarded Hoffmann with a beady eye as he snapped and repositioned, and snapped again.

‘I’m surprised Hoffmann still needs the work, he’s so rich now,’ she murmured. ‘I mean, his pictures have sold round the world, haven’t they? Stamps,
postcards, a book every week, it seems like. He keeps all the royalties. But then the Führer trusts Hoffmann with his life.’

‘Why is that?’

‘They go back a long way. They’ve been together since the beginning, since the Munich Putsch. When Hitler went to prison in 1924 Hoffmann smuggled his camera in and took some lovely
shots. Then he gave Hitler his Munich studio in Schellingstrasse for the first Party headquarters and now Hoffmann has offices all round Europe. They call him Hitler’s shadow. I say the
Führer has been his golden goose.’

She called across the room, ‘Where will these pictures be appearing, Heini?’

‘We shall circulate them to the news magazines,’ said Hoffmann. ‘The whole country shares the excitement about your news, Frau Goering.’

‘Hmm. Let’s wait and see,’ said Emmy, then more softly, ‘I’ll be surprised. Goebbels can’t stand any good news about us getting out. When we had a ball last
January at the Opera House, we had the entire place redecorated in white satin and it looked stunning, but Goebbels refused to allow a single picture to be published. Not one.’

The rivalry between the Goerings and the Goebbels was longstanding. Both couples vied for closeness to the Führer. The main beneficiaries were the Nazi élite, who were invited to
spectacular parties, each man striving to outdo the other in lavish and inventive entertaining. Goebbels’ Olympic party for two thousand guests at Peacock Island last year was a failed
attempt to outdo Goering’s evening, as everyone present agreed.

The Reich Minister’s wife shrugged. ‘But then I suppose Joseph is a past master at censoring things. Remember all the antics with the film actresses who got drunk at his party last
year? No one got to hear about that, did they? He’s absurdly prickly about public opinion. Quite the opposite of my husband. Hermann really has a sense of humour. Do you know he pays people
three marks if they’ll tell him a joke about himself and he writes down the best ones in his leather book? He has hundreds!’

Emmy lowered her voice further.

‘While we’re on the subject of Goebbels. His wife . . .’

Clara had long realized that Emmy Goering, like Magda, needed to keep abreast of the gossip, the squabbles and the divisions that existed among the Nazi élite. Understanding the private
tensions that lay beneath the surfaces of men’s lives was the first rule of politics. Clara knew that she was a valuable conduit between the two women. They were rivals, after all, for the
status of First Lady of the Reich, and each was avid for details of the other’s progress.

‘. . . you’ve just seen her. How is she?’

So Emmy knew that Clara had attended the Goebbels’ reception. She couldn’t think how.

‘She seems well.’

‘That poor woman. She is thoroughly fed up, apparently. She’s compiled a list of thirty women who’ve been intimate with her husband. He’s always been one for actresses.
As far as he’s concerned the sluttier the better. But now it’s just that little Slav Lída Baarová. You’ll have heard all about it, I suppose? I imagine it’s
the talk of the studios.’

‘I’ve heard the odd thing.’

It was never good to give an impression of being loose-tongued.

Emmy Goering sighed, shifted her pregnant belly and rubbed the small of her back.

‘He’s out every evening, I hear. He can’t bear to go home to Schwanenwerder and spend the evening sitting with Magda. He’s become so secretive about his movements, he
even keeps his officials at the Ministry in the dark. He doesn’t want her to find out where he’s going. They say Magda tunes into Radio Moscow to hear what he’s up to.’

Clara laughed, as she was meant to.

‘Joseph’s getting very sensitive about it. Yet he’s the one who just proposed a ten-year sentence for adultery if the wronged husband demands it. Honestly! It’s the women
I feel sorry for.’

She gave Clara a beady look, whose subtext Clara tried to ignore.

‘So? What about your love life, then?’ Emmy was always voracious about the details of other people’s private lives. ‘Any handsome Obersturmbannführers on the
horizon? Any romances I should know about?’

Modestly Clara averted her eyes.

‘Well . . .’

‘There is? Go on! Tell me at once!’

‘It’s not a romance, but I did meet an interesting man. A Luftwaffe Oberst.’

‘Called?’

‘Arno Strauss. A friend of Ernst Udet.’

With almost comical speed the excitement on Frau Goering’s face turned to dismay.

‘Not the one with . . .?’ She performed a little mime, as though drawing a zip up one side of her face. ‘The scar?’

Clara nodded.

‘I don’t think Strauss likes women. I’ve never seen him with one.’ She frowned dubiously. ‘Not that I’m suggesting he’s . . . you know . . . I just
thought he was a man’s man. But I daresay he’s perfectly pleasant underneath . . . well, underneath the skin. In fact, I’ve had a thought.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Clara, hoping it was the right thought.

Emmy Goering hesitated a moment. ‘We’re having a reception at Carinhall next weekend. For the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I think Oberst Strauss will be there. Would you like to
come?’

Clara remembered Archie Dyson’s warning. The instruction, almost an order, he had issued just a few evenings ago. The insistence that she avoid danger at all costs.
Lie low.
Don’t do anything
. Then Ralph Sommers’ request.
I want you to cultivate him.

She smiled. ‘I would love to come, thank you.’

The cleaver glinted in the morning sun as the man, a bloodstained apron straining over his enormous belly, held it aloft. Then he brought it down with a thwack on the flesh
below, causing the blood to gush and spurt from the glutinous flesh, then slide into a glassy pool. Ilse felt herself gag.

Saturday generally offered a more relaxed regime at the Bride School. The lessons were replaced by simple household tasks and there was more time allotted to cultural pursuits. That morning,
after her chores, which were laying the fire and bringing in the baskets of chopped wood, Ilse had gone to the kitchen to hear the talk about how to get the most out of a cheap cut of meat. The
butcher showed them how to slice through a chunk of pork, swiftly and decisively, splitting it up into chops and smaller scraps for mincing. The blood leaching from the pale flesh coagulated into a
dense crimson puddle on the table and the metallic smell made Ilse want to vomit. She had never been so sensitive before Anna was killed.

Afterwards, the pork was borne off by the brides on cooking rota to make lunch and the others took their cups of coffee in the garden. Some of them played with the Bride School’s newly
arrived puppies, two squirming German Shepherds with baby teeth and claws, jumping at shadows on the dappled lawn. Everyone wanted German Shepherds now, mainly because the Führer liked them,
yet the arrival of Prinz and Wolf at the Reich Bride School was more likely an unspoken response to the recent crime. A couple of lively guard dogs would be just the thing to help the girls feel
safer.

Anyhow, Ilse recalled, it was in all respects a perfectly ordinary, normal weekend morning, which made everything that followed all the more unpleasant.

They were different men, this time, standing in the hall wanting to speak to her. The fact that they were wearing leather coats and full SS uniform meant it didn’t take Ilse long to work
out that they were not the ordinary criminal police, the Kripo. These men were Gestapo. The secret police. The thought of it made her feel sick inside. Ilse had never even met a policeman before
and now she had been interviewed by four of them in a couple of days.

Once they had been ushered into the supervisor’s office, the Gestapo men introduced themselves and told her that they had taken over the investigation from the Kripo, so there were a few
questions they needed to go over. Kriminal Inspektor Wiedemann was a short, bald man, wearing glasses with a thin steel frame, behind which his lashless eyes had a reptilian appearance, like an
iguana Ilse had seen at the zoo. Kriminal Kommissar Decker was older and tired, a chain smoker with a face grey as a wrecked battleship, craggy with frowns and angles. He had a moustache which
sloped down his mournful face as if trying to leave it. There was no coffee and biscuits this time, no gentle joshing, no comments about Otto being lucky to have a pretty bride.