The Winter Garden (2014) (48 page)

Clara sat up and began to row frantically, until the blades struck the shallows of the lake, and reaching the other side she jumped out onto the jetty. She ran along the sandy path to the park
exit and, breath tearing her lungs, slowed to a jog, as she made her way across the Cornelius bridge. It wasn’t until she reached the safety of the streetlights that she paused and found a
lipstick and comb in her bag. She peeled off the muddy elbow gloves and discarded them. The fur-collared coat, sodden and flecked with dirt, went over a nearby wall. Her shoes were soaked too, but
less visible beneath the evening gown. Tidying herself as much as possible, she headed for Joseph Goebbels’ night of the stars.

Ahead of her a phosphorescent glare lit up the sky. SS guards flanked the door. The name of the Ufa Palast am Zoo was picked out in lights over the turreted entrance. Giant posters of the
film’s stars, Baarová and Mathias Wieman, towered over the excited crowd. Clara wondered if it would be possible after all to pull this off. Her dress was damp with sweat and water
from the lake. She felt entirely wan, as though pain and fear had seeped into her pores and bleached all colour from her face. She slowed to a walk and as she approached the red carpet, an SS guard
moved to bar her entrance but at that moment, cameras began to flash and she caught sight of Mimi Reiter, an actress she had worked with, who came up and kissed her.

‘Clara darling!’

‘Fräulein Vine! Could you smile for us, please?’

The guard, bewildered for a moment, waved her through the velvet rope.

Another shout came. ‘Fräulein Vine, look this way, please!’

Clara posed automatically as the glare of a camera flash momentarily blinded her. Then, as another burst of flashlight lit up the faces of the crowd around, she saw him. He must have lost his
hat at some point because he was bare-headed now and she could see his bullet skull and crop of silvered hair. The slit of a mouth and the eyes as pale as slivers of ice. It was the first time she
had seen him in plain view, and the moment she did, she knew where she had seen him before. It was the man she had met at Ernst Udet’s party. The Luftwaffe officer who had seen Bruno at the
Degenerate Art exhibition and reported him to the police. His name, what was his name? Rudolf Fleischer.

So Fleischer was the man who had gone from an assistant to Heinrich Hoffmann to a big-paying job in Berlin. It made perfect sense. It must have been Fleischer’s expertize from
Hoffmann’s laboratory which secured him a job in the Luftwaffe’s Technical Division. Yet no sooner had he secured this prestigious position than his past had risen up and threatened to
engulf him. His old girlfriend Anna had stolen compromising photographs, which he should have ensured were destroyed. His solution had been to kill Anna. Only the photographs were still there, and
he knew it was Clara who had them.

Clasping Mimi’s arm, Clara progressed through the doors into the hall.

The foyer of the Ufa Palast was given over to an immense party space. The walls had been hung with billowing lengths of rose damask and extravagant displays of pink hothouse camellias were
unfurling in the heat. Waiters with silver trays of champagne slid through the crowd, and from above gilt chandeliers sent their sparkling light over the cream of the National Socialist regime.
Germany’s new aristocracy had turned out to greet the English royals in full, glittering regalia.

Rudolf Hess was there, a mad glint in his heavy-browed face, alongside his matronly wife Ilse, and Heinrich Himmler, his glasses a sinister glitter in the lights, was standing with his wife
Marga. No amount of velvet and Russian lynx could prevent Marga Himmler from looking like the broad-beamed farmer’s wife that she was. Her hair was in Brunhilde braids and her face was as
scrubbed as a scullery floor. Magda Goebbels had told Clara she always avoided Marga Himmler because she was very dull and talked only about pig-keeping. The only SS wife who could stand her was
Annelies von Ribbentrop, who Clara could also see, eyes raking the outfits of the prestigious guests, like a general on guard inspection.

In the absence of the Führer, the women had ignored his stipulations about dressing in Germanic clothing and had given free rein to their collections of haute couture. Shimmering Balenciaga
gowns competed with dresses by Patou, Lanvin, Ricci and Chanel, capes edged with white mink and jackets with chinchilla cuffs. The jewellery on display might have been ransacked from a treasure
chest compiled exclusively by Cartier and Van Cleef. Annelies von Ribbentrop was in a damson gown, with a sable stole. Inge Ley, the wife of Robert Ley and an actress herself, effortlessly outshone
the other wives in a dress of wine-coloured chiffon, with a diamanté clip at the breast, her blonde hair polished to a shine. Among the politicians threaded the Babelsberg élite:
Gustav Fröhlich beaming and toasting with his glass, Zarah Leander in a dramatically low-cut sheath, Brigitte Horney and Olga Chekhova with her sultry, Russian glamour. And in the midst of
this sea of splendour the royal honeymooners stood, keeping close like a pair of orphans in a Nazi forest. They looked as though they would rather be anywhere than here.

As Clara hesitated, Karl Ritter strolled past, the man who had risen from a captain in the Imperial Air Force to become Ufa’s top director, and beside him, laughing obsequiously at some
joke, was Albert. Albert caught Clara’s glance out of the tail of his eye and gave a quick wave. It took all her strength to smile back, hoping that he didn’t see anything amiss with
her damp dress, and that his eagle eye did not catch the splashes of mud on the hem.

Yet there was no sign of Goebbels at all.

Mimi squeezed her arm. ‘We’re late, damn it. The champagne’s running out and the film is starting. Are you coming in with me, darling?’

The guests were being shepherded towards the doors of the auditorium but the more important people were hanging back, still drinking and talking, lingering until the last moment before taking
their seats. The royal couple were cordoned by a sea of black uniforms, Wallis’s wide-jawed face drooping wryly in some private joke, her grim-faced husband at her side.

Clara walked as swiftly as she could up the sweeping staircase. She needed to reach the circle because that was where Goebbels must be, ready to show himself off alongside the Windsors in the
place of honour. In the royal circle, mahogany doors led to private boxes, each with eight gilt armchairs and a tray of refreshments laid out. The central box was reserved for the guests of
honour.

Clara tapped and opened the door. It was empty, save for a single figure.

‘Frau Doktor?’

‘Fräulein Vine. What a surprise.’

Magda Goebbels was seated alone on a little gilt chair, her hands folded in fists on her lap. Her face was expressionless.

‘I was looking for the Herr Doktor . . .’

Magda remained impassive. Her powdered skin was pallid. She wore her humiliation proudly, like pearls.

‘Perhaps you should try looking a few doors down.’

Clara edged out of the box. Of course, it was clear to her now. Goebbels would be sitting with Lída. Even though Lída’s own husband was in the audience, the Propaganda
Minister was exercising his
droit de seigneur
. His right to the attentions of the leading lady would go unchallenged.

She hurried wildly along the corridor, knocking on every mahogany door and apologizing to startled faces until she reached the right one. It was at the far end of the corridor, and Clara’s
knock was answered by the actress herself, looking flushed, in an ivory silk halter-neck dress that caressed every inch of her curves, a dazzle of diamonds at her throat. Beyond her, Goebbels
jumped up, his features distorted with rage, his jacket in one hand, the very image of the adulterer uncovered. Within a split second he had resumed his professional smile, but fury still burned
behind his eyes.

‘Fräulein Vine?’

‘Herr Doktor, I wouldn’t interrupt, but this is of the utmost importance.’

For a moment she thought he would scream at her, but instead, frowning, Goebbels dismissed Lída with a wave. She flounced past Clara, her Slavic eyes flashing, leaving the box with a
glare.

‘So what’s this about?’

She proffered the evening bag full of shards.

‘I’ve found these negatives. I think they may be pictures of the Führer. I’ve no idea whether they are genuine. I was going to hand them over to the police but
unfortunately, before I could, Unity Mitford found them in my apartment and destroyed them.’

‘Unity Mitford destroyed them?’

‘She smashed them to pieces. She is, as you said, an emotional woman. She felt if they fell into the wrong hands, they could do the Führer some harm.’

‘The Führer? Why?’

‘Because of . . . the scenes they represent.’

‘And how did they come into your hands, Fräulein?’

‘They were in a lap case that belonged to Anna Hansen. The bride who was murdered. The case was passed to me because they thought I knew her family.’

Goebbels held the larger of the shards up to the light, squinted curiously upwards, then put it quickly down. Instantly he understood.

‘No doubt the wretched bride intended some blackmail. Have you discussed this with anyone?’

‘Not a soul.’

There was something strange about Goebbels’ reaction. Why was he not more surprised? Clara had presented him with the solution to Anna’s murder and yet he was as phlegmatic as ever.
He looked her up and down, noting the splashes of mud on her dress and the locks of hair that had fallen from her chignon.

‘It seems you arrived in a hurry. Perhaps you would like to sit down for a moment.’

He held out a chair for her, leaned forward and lit her a cigarette. As he thumbed the lighter she noticed that the silver polished rectangle was inscribed with the initials A.H. It was the
Führer’s birthday present, she recalled. Part of the set that Goebbels had shown her that day at the studio when he asked her about the Mitford sisters. Suddenly, something came into
focus. That remark Heidi had made about Anna. She said Hitler had given Anna presents. But Hitler only gave three presents, didn’t he? One of them was an oil painting, wasn’t that what
Emmy Goering had told her? That, or a photograph frame. Or a smoking set (a cigarette box and a lighter). Anna Hansen had a lighter with her own initials on, but what if the AH didn’t stand
for Anna Hansen, but Adolf Hitler? If Goebbels had found out about Anna’s lighter, if he had been shown it, he would have recognized it at once as one of the Führer’s special
gifts. Just the same as his own. And he would have understood that Anna was a special bride indeed. A bride with a past.

The Nazis were fond of blaming violent crimes on convenient halfwits – they had managed, after all, to find a simple Dutch boy to take the rap for burning down the Reichstag. But when
Goebbels saw the lighter, he would have realized that it was no soft-headed gardener who killed Anna. He must, at the very least, have suspected that Anna was killed for a reason. That was why he
sent the Gestapo to interrogate that poor girl at the Bride School.

‘Now I wonder how this blackmailing bride came by these photographs.’

‘She had a boyfriend back in Munich. A Rudolf Fleischer.’

‘Fleischer, you say?’ He pulled out a card from his inside pocket and made a note.

‘Oberst Leutnant Fleischer now, I believe. He’s employed in the Technical Division of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium. He met Anna Hansen when he worked as an assistant to Heinrich
Hoffmann.’

Goebbels’ eyes widened.

‘I see. Then I think this is best dealt with quietly. Thank you, Fräulein. It seems I am yet again in your debt.’

‘I’m very anxious that you will be able to explain to the Führer—’

‘I will assure the Führer of your good intentions. Rest assured he will hear of your service.’

He rose and gave her a swift, assessing glance, noting the silver and diamond swastika that he himself had given her.

‘I would suggest, of course, that you stay on for the film, but I suspect, Fräulein, you might prefer to return home.’

‘I am rather tired. And filming begins tomorrow.’

‘Then you must let my driver take you back to your apartment.’

As she was driven through the streets in the ministerial Mercedes, Clara wondered where Fleischer was now, and how long it would be before Goebbels’ men found him. How
those pictures must have haunted him. What rage he must have felt when the past rose up and threatened to overtake him. Yet in the end even murder had not been enough to save him.

In the hall at Winterfeldstrasse, Rudi’s collection point was brimming. There were tins, balls of aluminium foil, cutlery, even a frying pan in the mix, all destined to be melted down and
turned into aeroplanes. Junkers and Henschels and Stuka bombers which might one day cross Europe and drop their bombs on England.

Clara thought for a second, then tossed Erich’s knife on top of the pile.

‘Your publicity shots, Fräulein.’

The studio boy put his head round the dressing-room door and smiled politely, handing Clara a thick cardboard envelope. Both she and Udet would that day be signing publicity photographs to be
sent out to all Germany’s film magazines and newspapers. This honour was new for Clara because Gretchen was her first title role. They had taken photographs of her scanning the skies,
presumably in search of her lost husband, and another, which would be the film’s poster, featuring herself in the arms of Ernst Udet, gazing rapturously into his eyes. It had been hard,
shooting that one, because Ernst kept making her laugh.

Automatically she reached in her bag for a mark to tip the boy, but when she looked up, he had gone. That was unusual, Clara thought. The studio runners were generally keen to collect as many
tips as possible. It occurred to her that she had not seen this particular runner before.

She opened the envelope and found a scrap of notepaper with a single line of sharp handwriting, uncoiling like barbed wire across the page. As she read the words, she saw the brief, twisted
smile behind them.