The Winter Garden (2014) (31 page)

The women, by contrast, were one heaving mass of fur: ocelot, ermine, silver fox, mink, and sable stoles above creamy shoulders, so closely packed that they resembled a single hybrid animal,
moving and rippling through the hall. And it was as one, too, that they stared at the Queen of England manquée, the slender figure of Wallis Simpson.

Clara, with her own fox fur swathing her bare shoulders, stared too. The photographs gave no real clue of how tiny Wallis was, in her crepe satin evening gown of greyish blue and jacket fastened
by three mirror buttons. Her voice was a slow, Southern drawl and her severe classical clothes complemented the angular lines of her figure. A sapphire choker closely encircled her throat and a
white parting ran dead centre through the gleaming hair. She resembled some exquisitely engineered, streamlined machine, as hard and shining as the jewels she wore, as steely as an aeroplane. Her
pencil thinness seemed to accentuate the flesh of the Nazi women around her and though her wide-jawed face was an impassive expanse of ivory, her chest was rising and falling swiftly as a
bird’s as she was led through the throng. As Robert Ley introduced Wallis and kissed hands, his wet lips glistening, some women, flummoxed by her exact standing, even curtseyed. Emmy Goering
brought up the rear, shuffling her guests around, like pawns on a chessboard, to gain a better view of the almost-queen. Clara recalled the ivory chess set given to the forthcoming Goering child
and thought how appropriate it was. The incessant political manoeuvrings of the Nazi court were just as complex a game, and far more vicious.

As she watched, a familiar figure bore down on her. In comparison with the woman her husband admired, Annelies von Ribbentrop was the size of a tank, swagged in cream satin like a coffin lining.
Heavy emeralds tugged at her lobes. Her face, with its slash of garish lipstick, had the predatory menace of a Venus flytrap.

‘Fräulein Vine. What a surprise to see
you
here.’

She gave Clara a quick assessment, taking in the violet sheath dress she had been sent from House of Horn and the pearl drop earrings. With her strong nose and hawk eyes, Annelies von Ribbentrop
might have been a bird of prey poised to peck away the jewels of the other guests. She nodded over at Goering who had approached the Duchess and was extending his peculiar, duck-like smile. Beside
his towering bulk Wallis looked even tinier. She could probably fit into his trouser leg.

‘They’re talking diets. The Reich Minister’s on a new one. And he’s just installed an exercise bicycle because Elizabeth Arden told him he was overweight. She’s
always nagging him about his size, but it won’t make the slightest difference. He already has an entire gym here in the basement with weights and a massage machine and an electric exercise
horse.’

‘He has an electric horse?’

Frau von Ribbentrop smiled glassily at an acquaintance across the room and murmured, ‘It’s probably the only kind of horse that doesn’t groan when he sits on it.’

‘I can’t imagine the Duchess needs a diet,’ said Clara, watching Wallis’s hands fluttering over Goering’s sleeve like flirtatious white doves.

‘Oh, the Duke and Duchess are always on diets. Didn’t you know? Their diets are the talk of London. We had to make special arrangements when we entertained them at the Embassy. They
are both so particular. It all has to be American food. The Duchess sacked the Duke’s butler for refusing to put ice in drinks in the American manner. I saw it happen.’

Clara didn’t doubt it. Frau von Ribbentrop had eyes like a sniper. She never missed a thing.

‘But then we’re all in favour of Americans right now. My husband tells me that they’ve finally shuffled off Ambassador Dodd to make way for a new man who is much more
clear-sighted. He came to the Parteitag. Adored it.’

Clara had heard about that. Mary said the decent old American ambassador, William Dodd, had grown so aghast at the Nazi regime he refused to attend any more functions. He would be leaving next
month and his successor, Hugh Wilson, was said to take a far softer line.

The royal couple were coming closer. ‘We love the Duke, of course,’ continued Frau von Ribbentrop. ‘My husband thinks of him as a kind of English National Socialist. He is a
man after the Führer’s own heart. The Duchess, on the other hand . . .’ She left the assessment of her rival hanging, scrutinizing Wallis with the cold detachment of a snake
watching a mouse.

A maid wearing peasant dress with pleated skirt and smocked blouse approached to refill their crystal goblets, enabling Clara to pivot away and escape. The hall was full of well-fed Nazis, as if
all the calories that the rest of the population were missing had ended up inside these SS uniforms. Clara threaded through the crowd listening to the talk, switching between German and English,
tuning in and out of conversations. The chat was of art, fashion, cinema, film stars and as always in Nazi circles, the latest doings of the Führer. The Führer had been regaling everyone
with Mussolini’s faux pas on his recent visit. When the Duce was presented with the ceremonial sword, he drew it from the scabbard and waved it in the air, prompting Hitler’s SS
bodyguards to rush him in fear of an assassination attempt. The Führer, however, had kept his cool. He needed to, what with all these foreign guests, Mussolini and the ex-King of England,
flocking to meet him.

Clara heard Heinrich Hoffmann’s jovial Bavarian accent rising above the chatter, and from time to time the distinctive laughter of Diana Mosley rang on the air. Unity Mitford was holding
forth animatedly to a group of officers, including Ernst Udet, who was regarding her with frank fascination. She was lecturing them in her heavily accented German on the state of the movie
industry.

‘All these war films now. The Führer doesn’t really enjoy them, you know. He told me. He says Goebbels is far too heavy-handed. He thinks the public need an escape from all that
sort of thing.’

‘Oh yes? So what does he prefer?’ asked Udet, choosing not to point out that he was the star of innumerable war movies himself.

‘Something light and pleasant. That’s what he likes to watch. Preferably a love story. He adored
Black Roses
with Lilian Harvey. It was so romantic. He screened it for us at
the Chancellery.’

‘Well, we’re all in favour of love,’ said Emmy Goering, sinuously. ‘Indeed we’re hoping the sight of the Duke so happy will encourage the Führer to take a
wife. He has long thought that the King’s search for love was like his own.’

Unity hesitated, uncertain whether this reference was intended for her, or was a direct dig at her infatuation. Clara remembered Emmy’s remark:
We have never been able to fathom the
Führer’s taste in women
. Before Unity could respond, the royal progress was upon them, and Ernst Udet bowed deeply to kiss Wallis’s tiny, starved hand.

‘I’ve seen your stunts, General Major Udet. I was married to a pilot once,’ came her languid American drawl. ‘He was called Win. He used to take a flask of Jack Daniels
with him when he went up and by the time he came back he’d be blind drunk. He gave me a lifelong fear of flying.’

‘Yet the Duke is a qualified pilot, I think,’ Udet countered.

‘Yes, God help us! Perhaps I’m destined to marry only pilots. David loves airplanes. The King, his father, was terribly disapproving when he learned to fly. He said David had
dangerous passions.’ She laughed, a gravelly, worldly laugh. ‘Dangerous passions! You can say that again.’

The assembled company joined warily in the joke.

‘I share the Duke’s passions in many ways then, your Royal Highness,’ said Udet gallantly.

Despite her joking, there was a vapour of anxiety around Wallis. Her dark eyes darted constantly to the Duke in his parallel pilgrimage on the other side of the hall, but the phalanx of Nazis
around her was too great for her to escape. The pair was being paraded like the latest additions to Goering’s collection of exotic creatures. No wonder Hitler thought they could be moulded to
his will.

Clara looked around for Arno Strauss. He was the reason, after all, that she was here. Ralph’s instructions had been to cultivate him. Exactly what that would involve she wasn’t
herself sure, but the first step, surely, would be to strike up a conversation. And yet there was no sign of him. Emmy Goering, observant as ever, approached and murmured, ‘If you’re
looking for your Oberst Strauss, I saw him just a moment ago. He doesn’t enjoy parties, I fear.’

But before Clara could look further, the gong had been sounded for dinner.

The food was characteristically extravagant, an entire roast boar revolving in the fire place, nearly raw beef darkly oozing, mountains of trembling jellies, wine as red as arterial blood. Bowls
of creamy roses were placed on the tables and beside each dinner plate the cutlery branched out in pairs, dwindling in order of size like an extensive German family. What with the smell of the
roasting flesh, the waiters in leggings and jerkins, the candlelight and the gloom of the forest outside, they might have been back in mediaeval times.

Clara had often noticed this Germanic craving to escape to the past. As fast as the Nazis were rebuilding a new Germany, a yearning for the old Germany lay just below the surface. She had heard
that the Brothers Grimm, compiling their tales at the birth of modern Germany, had pretended to find their tales from old women in the woods, as though to create an oral history for Germany that
never really existed. An ancient, mythic country, with deep mediaeval roots. In terms of brutality, of course, the Nazis were finding no difficulty in returning the entire country to the Middle
Ages.

She found herself seated in a clutch of Luftwaffe officers, opposite Diana Mosley, with Unity two places to her left. The convention of talking to one’s neighbour in strict rotation
didn’t seem to occur to Unity, who leaned across the silent General between them and bellowed in English, ‘Hello, Clara! Are you having fun? I’m not. I didn’t want to be
here tonight at all. Diana made me. I’d much rather be with the darling Führer, but he absolutely refused to come.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s because of the hunt tomorrow. He simply loathes blood sports. He detests cruelty to animals. He decided to spend the night at the Wintergarten.’

‘Again?’

‘The Führer adores opera. He can never see too much of it. He often sits up at night designing stage sets and lift mechanisms and lighting. If he hadn’t been Führer he
would have been an opera designer, he says. And it’s not all gloomy Wagner. He would never miss
Die Fledermaus
or
The Merry Widow
. He’s seen
The Merry Widow
six times already this year!’

‘He must love it.’

Unity seemed entirely unconcerned by the stares of the other guests. It was almost as if they didn’t exist. She had the kind of loud, upper-class confidence which meant she said whatever
came into her head.

‘He does. I’ll ask him to take you with us to the Wintergarten if you like.’

‘Oh, I really don’t think . . .’

‘Honestly. You’ll love it, Clara. As long as you don’t go making eyes at him. Are you coming hunting tomorrow?’

‘Afraid not. I have to leave before lunch.’

‘Bad luck. I simply adore hunting. When we were children, our father used to have a child hunt. We were the foxes and he used to track us cross country with bloodhounds. We’d run
like merry hell. I learned an awful lot about being the prey. You’ve got to avoid sudden movement. That always draws the eye. You learn to blend in with the scenery. I was frightfully good at
it, I never stuck out.’

So unlike real life. The same thought must have occurred to the rest of the guests, who by now had dropped all pretence of conversation and were eavesdropping shamelessly. Even the moulting
stag’s head behind Unity was slack-jawed, as if with astonishment.

‘Have you seen the Führer recently?’ Clara asked.

‘Last night actually. He had us over to the Chancellery for supper. It was nothing special, but the thing about Hitler is, his company is so thrilling, it always feels like a party, even
when it’s just a quiet evening in. Haven’t you noticed how people simply adore being with him? We had cauliflower cheese, which is his absolute favourite, and then he had a screen put
up in the Music Salon and we watched cartoons.’

Plainly Goebbels’ gift would go down well.

‘He loves cartoons. He has a terribly good sense of humour. But do you know what makes me sad?’ Unity frowned, as though contemplating some insoluble puzzle. ‘The English
always get the wrong idea about our dear Führer. I wanted cousin Winston to come and meet him but he’s a dreadful stick-in-the-mud. He just said no, rather rudely.’

It was clear what Unity felt about Hitler – it was pure, unadulterated infatuation. But what did the Führer see in Unity? He was supposed to have summed up a woman’s ideal
occupations as Kinder, Küche, and Kirche, yet Unity Mitford didn’t look as if she would waste five minutes on any of those occupations. Clara realized that Goebbels must be preoccupied
by the same question. Did the Führer see in Unity and Diana a true reflection of British opinion, or did he understand them for the eccentrics they were?

Clara looked around for the man whom Emmy Goering had said was tailing Unity at Himmler’s request, disguised as a photographer. In theory that was an inspired idea. If you needed a
disguise, posing as a photographer was ideal. The only props you needed were a camera and an observant air. Despite that she spotted him at once, a few places along, a giveaway with his ill-fitting
evening wear and Leica to hand. He had a pasty face, a shock of dark hair and eyes fixed obediently on his charge.

At the head of the table, Goering stood up and began delivering a speech about the need to safeguard the purity of the Nazi soul. The Duke of Windsor stifled a yawn. On his other side the
Duchess sat rapt, gazing up at her host, seemingly oblivious to the fact that all other eyes were trained on her. It seemed an ideal moment for Clara to excuse herself and escape.

She made her way up a flight of wooden stairs and through the winding corridors of Carinhall. Here, again, was the blend of Renaissance kitsch that Goering adored and Goebbels so disdained. The
walls were decked with tapestries, paintings and sculptures, the rooms stacked with treasures like a pharaoh’s tomb. She peered into one room to see an enormous model railway extending across
the entire floor, with splendidly decorated trains and tenders snaking through tunnels, past perfect Bavarian villages and towns with miniature S-Bahn elevations. A few doors later she came to the
library, which boasted as many dead animals as there were books, the walls hung with the skulls of deer and the pelts of a couple of bears lying prostrate on the floor. A large map of the Reich was
painted on one wall, illustrated with mediaeval-style pictures. When she looked closer she noticed that Germany was coloured in green, but curiously Austria seemed to be depicted as part of the
Reich, with no sign of a border. Presumably, the ‘territorial readjustment’ she had heard the Nazis talking about had already happened as far as Goering’s mapmakers were
concerned. How rapidly they were changing the world.