The Winter Garden (2014) (33 page)

She was biting her lip, trying valiantly not to cry.

‘Hey, Ilse,’ Mary took hold of her arm. ‘That’s not going to happen. You were helping them, not being investigated. It’s to your credit that they came and talked to
you. They obviously saw you as trustworthy.’

Mary was making this up as she went along and privately her brain was whirring. The Gestapo were never going to win any cups for courtesy but why should they threaten a girl like Ilse who was
patently innocent of any involvement in the murder? Someone must want to solve this case very badly.

‘I don’t know, Fräulein. They seemed so angry. They made some nasty threats.’

It was hard for Ilse to explain the terror that those men had raised in her. That remark they made about her having to work in Friedrichstrasse. She knew what they meant by that. It was Anna who
told her, in fact. Ilse had had a sheltered upbringing, just Church and the Bund Deutscher Mädel and a few vague guidelines on married love from her mother who was a devout Lutheran, but Anna
had explained that in Berlin there were women who sold their bodies for money. And what was more they defined their sexual speciality according to the colour of their high-laced boots. Ilse had
been so shocked she had not asked any more, so she never got to know what obscenity the green boots were supposed to promise.

Yet the more she thought about it, the more Ilse realized that there was something she could have told the Gestapo. There was one person whom the police had not considered. Someone who might
well have been responsible for Anna’s death. She decided to tell Fräulein Harker about it. Perhaps
she
would be able to sort it out.

‘There is something I would have told the policemen but I only thought of it later.’ She corrected herself. ‘I mean I will tell them. I promise.’

‘Take your time.’ Mary instinctively disliked the idea of the Gestapo knowing anything before she did. ‘There’s no need to rush into anything. Perhaps I could give you an
idea of whether it’s important. I mean policemen don’t like to be disturbed with irrelevant details, do they?’

Ilse recalled Kriminal Inspektor Wiedemann’s face when she had mentioned Anna’s secret lipstick. His enraged question, ‘
Are you trying to play me, girl?
’ spat
out like a curse. She shuddered.

‘No. You’re right. I wouldn’t want to waste their time.’

In truth Ilse wouldn’t want to speak to another policeman ever again. Not even a traffic policeman.

‘So what is this thing that occurred to you?’ prompted Mary, gently.

‘They asked me if Anna had any secrets. Had I seen anything unusual. Well, I thought about it, and I realized, I had. I saw her speaking to a man.’

‘Which man? Do you know who he was?’

‘Yes, I do.’

Ilse looked in the direction of the model house, which was now almost completed. It was a pretty, Bavarian-style cottage with petunias in the window boxes and a picket fence.

‘He’s over there.’

Mary followed her gaze and saw the man. He was bearded and cadaverously thin, a row of ribs sticking from his skin and biceps standing out on the sunburned arms. He was bent over, mixing a heap
of concrete, blending the dry materials and the water with repeated scoops of the spade with artisanal precision. Over and over the spade churned the concrete with a satisfying slap, blending the
grainy gloop like the mixture for a giant grey cake. The builder’s face was pearled with sweat as he worked and he kept his eyes trained rigorously on the job in hand. But he could sense them
watching him, Mary knew, because he looked up momentarily with black, piercing eyes, which although he was a stranger, seemed to take in everything about her in a single glance.

The plane shuddered like a living thing and the bolts strained in its aluminium sides. Peering out of the window with relief Clara saw the grass shiver and flatten as the
wheels hit the ground with a bump and juddered over the muddy ruts. The vibration penetrated her to the core, making her bones rattle and the teeth shake in her head. Finally, Strauss doused the
engine and removed his goggles. She looked out at a field clotted with thistles and weeds, and the remains of a concrete hut.

‘Is this it then?’

‘The place we like to eat is through that wood. This disused airfield is quite convenient for us. We pilots think of it as our little secret. Come on.’

They climbed out and headed across the airfield to a fringe of trees, through which led a chalk-stoned path. It was a beautiful afternoon, and the trees were at the height of their autumn
colours, creating a vivid tapestry of russet, amber, yellow and gold. Inside the wood the sun penetrated the birch leaves to make a mosaic of light and shade, and above them in the boughs the birds
were calling to each other. Clara and Strauss walked side by side, the ground beneath them springy with pine needles, the air tinged with woodsmoke. Clara was just thinking how exquisitely lovely
the place was when they passed a sign saying
Jews are not wanted in these German woods
.

The path petered out into a track that led to the village and, just around the bend, a white-painted, timbered inn with green shutters, leaded glass and heavy wooden doors, the kind of place you
might find in the Tyrolean section of the Haus Vaterland. Inside, a row of steins stood above the fireplace and a landlord in traditional red waistcoat and white apron was pouring beers with a
frothy head. A couple of locals leaned against the bar, and a few elderly men holding cards gathered in a corner around a game of skat. Clara sat in an oak inglenook while Strauss went to the bar.
He returned balancing three glasses.

‘Is someone else joining us?’

‘No. Two are for me.’

He downed the first quickly, and she noticed a slight tremble in his hand. He surveyed her wryly.

‘So how did you like the flight?’

‘It was a different plane this time, wasn’t it?’

‘A Heinkel He III, if that means anything to you.’

She laughed.

‘Not a thing.’

‘It’s probably better that way. There’s a security scare in the Air Ministry right now.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘Some top secret information leaking out where it shouldn’t. They suspect a Luftwaffe staff officer. It’s tiresome, but we’re having to go through all sorts of new
procedures and security checks. The Gestapo tried poking their nose in, but Goering told them the Luftwaffe can handle its own internal affairs. That showed them. I tell you, the affair between
Germany and France has nothing on the rivalry between the Gestapo and Goering.’

Clara placed her cigarette in the ashtray and watched the slight string of smoke blowing in the breeze, its delicate skein tugged each way by divergent currents. This was what she was here for.
She recalled what Strauss had said when he took her for the first time in the plane.
Officially, you don’t exist.
He couldn’t know how accurate that was.

She paused while the waiter brought them their food: schnitzel for Strauss; for Clara, trout which had been caught in the nearby lake, with creamed potatoes. After she had given the pink-fleshed
fish and rich buttery sauce her full attention, she said, ‘Don’t tell me a thing about the plane then. I positively don’t want to hear. But what on earth were you doing with that
camera?’

‘That’s technical stuff. You don’t want to know about that.’

‘But I do. I’m interested. I’m a film actress, remember. I work with cameras myself.’

He cast her a quizzical glance.

‘All right then. I was using the camera to map the terrain beneath us. It uses special thirty-five-millimetre film with a perforated edge, which allows motors to turn the film
automatically behind the lens and get a precise exposure. It can also be used for night photography.’

‘So you’re taking pictures of the ground beneath you? Why would you do that?’

‘To examine the lie of the land.’

‘The lie of the land? What’s that?’

‘It’s everything.’ He leaned towards her eagerly. His enthusiasm for the subject had overtaken his normal reserve. ‘You see, it’s not just a question of taking
pictures of the terrain. It’s a question of working out their meaning. You’ve got to know what you’re looking for. What information a photograph may contain.’

She cocked her head and frowned. ‘Information?’

‘Exactly. There is so much more than meets the eye. You need to be a geologist, a mathematician, an archaeologist and, I don’t know, a botanist, to work out everything a picture
means.’

She laughed. ‘A botanist? As in plants and flowers? Surely not. When did flowers ever reveal anything?’

‘Oh, you underestimate flowers. They’re not just pretty little innocents. The type of plants reveal crucial details about the terrain. Is it swampy or marshy? That would mean it
would be too soft for landing. Is the ground hard, does the earth shift? Botany can tell you a lot. Have you ever read Goethe’s
Metamorphosis of Plants
? It’s a wonderful
combination of botany and poetry. You’d like it.’

‘So you’re saying, a pilot has to read the land . . .’

‘Exactly. And you would be surprised what you can make out once you get the photographs back. Sometimes you see the remains of an ancient settlement, a fort, or a castle, that literally
doesn’t exist any more. All that’s left is a grey smudge on the map. And you think, long ago people lived there, and loved and fought, but now they’re nothing. Just shadows on the
ground.’

Clara thought of people, long dead, leaving their ghostly shadows for those who knew where to look.

‘Of course we’re more interested in what’s there now,’ Strauss continued. ‘These photographs reveal all kinds of secrets. Some of the most important things are
hidden in plain sight.’

‘What kind of secrets?’ She glanced at him closely, uncertain of his meaning.

He laughed warmly and leaned back, signalling to the waiter.

‘Now then, they wouldn’t be secrets if I told you, would they?’

She waited until the waiter had deposited another couple of drinks on the table then said, ‘Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile before? Not properly.’

‘Perhaps I don’t have much to smile about.’

‘When did you first think about flying?’

‘Oh, that’s dull.’

‘I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t interested.’

‘You really want to know all this? My life story?’

‘Of course.’

As she watched him his face softened and the habitual sour demeanour relaxed into something gentler. ‘Well then. Where shall I start? Our parents were wealthy. My mother was descended from
a banking family, the von Eckdorffs, who came from just outside Potsdam. My father was a professor of law, who wrote books about the German legal system and so on. They were highly cultivated,
sensitive people with great ambitions for their children. Not that we thought much about that. It was a good childhood. In the summer we went to our villa on the Wannsee. It was a lovely house,
full of light, with a beautiful view of the lake. Deer would come into the gardens from the wood. We had endless picnics there, and barbeques, and we went boating. I loved that time. Whenever I
smell grass crushed beneath my feet it brings it right back to me. I remember lying on the sunlit lawn talking about our plans. Guests coming in and out of the house for our parents’ parties.
Playing with my brothers. I had a twin called Harro. We were identical, but he was the older. We were both crazy about flying. A neighbour of ours had a glider and he taught us to fly.’

It was all too easy to picture the sunlit lawns, the expensive villa, the pre-war elegance, but far harder to imagine the young Strauss, happy and unscarred.

‘Anyhow, we turned out to be very good at it. We joined a flying club. We had great plans to become professional pilots and make a name for ourselves. We competed against each other all
the time, though to tell the truth he was a little better at it than me. Harro was fearless, you see. He was not reckless, but he was lacking in fear, whereas I still had a sliver of fear inside
me.’

‘You mean you were cautious.’

‘No. It was not caution, it was fear. Genuine fear.’

‘Perhaps you need fear to be good at your job. Fear makes you careful. It stops you making silly mistakes.’

That was certainly true for everything Clara did. The razor’s edge of fear sharpened her. It kept her watchful, and wary.

Strauss considered her point for a moment.

‘I think it’s fear that separates the great pilots from the lesser ones. Ernst, for example, has no fear. Not one iota. Fear means you haven’t accepted what might happen. You
haven’t looked it in the face and embraced it before you start. It’s only when you acknowledge the worst that could happen and accept it, that you can proceed without fear.’

‘Do you still have that fear?’

‘It’s fading. But I would be a liar if I said it had left me completely.’

Pensively, he traced the silver scar that bisected his melted cheek.

‘Anyhow, one day it all went wrong. We went up together in a two-seater, Harro at the controls. The conditions were perfect. Nothing should have happened, but the plane came down and we
were thrown. We were lucky, of course, to be alive. My face was badly crushed, just a mass of blood and flesh, but Harro had hardly a mark on him. At first I thought he was just knocked out, so I
lay down beside him and told him I was going for help. It took hours to get him home. It turned out he had broken his back. He was paralysed.’

Strauss’s gaze passed hers, trained on the elaborately carved inglenook beside them bulging with wooden fruit and leaves.

‘He lived for months. You can’t imagine how it felt to see my twin, this handsome, lively young man, reduced to nothing, just a suffering body, marooned in a bed. He shrivelled up in
front of our eyes. It wasn’t just his back broken, he had brain damage, apparently, at least that was what my mother said. She spent all day with him, but my father could hardly bear to look
at him. I had to carry on, of course. They patched up my face and I went to school, though I skipped every other engagement outside the house because I only wanted to be at home with Harro. I felt
very guilty, you see. Every time I came back there were just his eyes looking up at me, mute with pain, and he was mumbling. The doctor said he would never walk again. We would never achieve all
those things we had dreamed of. Eventually, I decided I would stop flying completely. If Harro couldn’t go, then I wouldn’t either. I stayed in and read to him, and brought work home
from school for him, though we were fooling ourselves to think he might have a decent life. Pretty soon, he caught pneumonia and died. And the moment our father came and told me, I felt relieved.
That was actually my first emotion. I was relieved because it meant I could go out flying again without feeling guilty. That only lasted for a second of course. Then came the grief. It destroyed my
mother. She never got over it. Occasionally I wonder how it has affected me, too. Sometimes, in my daily life, I have a feeling that I’ve lost something, and it’s a moment before I
realize what it is.’