Widowland

by C. J. Carey

  Martin had begged a photograph of Rose to keep by his bedside and told her he was in love. Yet whenever he asked about her own feelings, she evaded the question.

  Perhaps it made no difference. She could never have rebuffed Martin’s advances. It was not as if she could have turned him down. There was no way a Geli could refuse a senior man. His embraces were as much a cage as a comfort.

  As the rain slapped against the window and drummed on the roof overhead, Rose fixed her eyes on the ceiling and thought of another bed, in another country.

  It was probably – no, certainly – the most exciting time of her life. Foreign travel was banned outright to all women beneath Geli status, and even then was permitted only in exceptional circumstances. Rose had never dreamed she would get the chance. She knew no other woman her age who had ventured abroad since the Alliance was formed, and her only first-hand knowledge of Germany was her father’s memories of being in a prisoner of war camp in Karlsruhe, which was not much to go on.

  It was a Thursday morning in September, four months on in their relationship, and she had been engaged in a routine but time-consuming edit – downgrading the intelligence of Margaret Hale in North and South – when the moon face of Ludwig Kohl, Martin’s secretary, with his fleshy, wet, curiously female lips, loomed over her.

  ‘Kreuz’s office.’ He had onion breath and a nasal Saxon accent, which made any utterance sound snide. ‘Now.’

  She followed Kohl’s fat, breeches-clad bottom up to the second floor where Martin was seated, wearing a pair of pince-nez and his most serious expression. Once he had closed the door, he leaned back in his chair.

  ‘I have something very serious to say to you.’

  He took off his spectacles and frowned.

  She stiffened with alarm, but tilted her head enquiringly.

  ‘It’s about your work.’

  ‘My correcting work?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you off it for a while.’

  Her heart skipped an anxious beat. She had been found out. It was true, her recent correction of Little Women had been unusually lenient. She had loved the character of Jo March, the novel’s ambitious, precocious, complicated rebel, and had been reluctant to strike out some of Jo’s attempts to rise above her gender and class, not to mention her heartfelt support for women’s voting, which was outlawed for females in the Alliance.

  Women should vote, not because we are angels and men are animals, but because we are human beings and citizens of this country.

  Rose decided to leave the sentence in.

  She did it partly because at the end of the novel Jo March ditched her dreams of being a writer, burned her own stories and married a German. Then she set up a school, for boys only. That, in several ways, made the text entirely appropriate for the Alliance’s senior school curriculum.

  All the same, it might take some explaining. Staring at Martin, Rose assembled a defence.

  ‘If it’s Little Women you’re talking about, I would say that the end is entirely in accord with Rosenberg ideals and—’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with women. Little or otherwise.’

  ‘Then perhaps Mrs Gaskell?’

  Martin gave a dismissive wave.

  ‘I don’t give a damn about Frau Gaskell, whoever she is. And your work is perfectly satisfactory.’

  She frowned. ‘Then . . . ?’

  ‘The fact is, I’m engaged in a short-term project a little further afield and I require an assistant with the correct qualifications.’

  ‘I see. Can I ask what qualifications?’

  ‘The qualifications are to be very beautiful and in love with me.’ His face broke into a grin. ‘Don’t look so worried! You’re coming to Berlin!’

  He got up, wrapped his arms around her, and flourished an envelope with the official passes.

  ‘It’s the dullest of bureaucratic duties. I have to visit the Office of the Control of Literature to compile a briefing paper for a speech the Protector is giving at the Germania cultural summit. I’ll need secretarial assistance, so I put your name forward and your pass has been issued. Pack a bag. We leave from Croydon tomorrow.’

  As soon as the Dakota aircraft touched down at Tempelhof, it was clear that Germania, the newly named capital, would be everything Rose had heard and more. The airport itself was enormous, milling with impossibly well-dressed travellers touting calfskin suitcases and valises on small wheels that they pulled along a floor of Saalburger marble, blood red and white veined, like giant slabs of steak. Vast stained-glass windows were inset with images of Rome, Prague, Vienna and Budapest, and outside the terminal a monumental eagle with stretched wings and imperious beak peered loftily over the forecourt, where an official car with an SS driver was waiting for them.

  As the limousine swept into the centre of Berlin Rose was astonished at the cleanliness and richness of the city. It reminded her constantly of the biblical phrase a land of milk and honey. From the creamy facades, all sparkling and soot-free, to the boulevards lined with towering ivory stone columns surmounted by dazzling gold eagles, the city shone. Municipal parks and flowerbeds bulged with geraniums and begonias whose very petals seemed more vivid and fleshy than those at home, and every windowsill contained tubs of trailing flowers.

  On the streets, dazzling Volkswagens and BMWs circled traffic policemen in white gloves and on the pavements prim couples accompanied by packs of children strolled in the sunshine, the women with fur stoles around their necks and well-cut suits in silk and tweed, the men in smooth, expensive camel-hair coats and fedoras or green alpine-style hats. The people here looked like a different species.

  Rose puzzled to work out why. It wasn’t the fact that they were tanned, as though from regular hiking or skiing, or that their clothes were filled out with healthy curves. It wasn’t even their confident demeanour. It was . . . their similarity to one another. Unlike Britain, with its range of female castes, its different races and mix of native and foreign males, there was a quality in the faces and figures here that made them all alike.

  As they crossed a bridge over the Spree canal, busy with stately barges filled with tourists, she gasped.

  ‘That’s the Schloss!’

  A photograph of it hung on the Ministry walls, as well as one of Unter den Linden, the elegant boulevard under whose lime trees they were now cruising. Martin smiled, as if indulging the excitement of a child.

  ‘There’s plenty more to see.’

  As the car passed under the Brandenburg Gate and up a central alley, Rose was struck by a different kind of déjà vu. A high Corinthian column, with four lions at its base, surmounted by a one-armed figure in a bicorne hat and naval uniform, towered above them.

  ‘Is that . . . I think I’ve seen that column before. Isn’t it . . . ?’

  ‘Nelson’s Column? That’s right. The Leader admired it very much so it made sense to bring it to the greatest city in the world. Wait till you see what’s in the north–south axis.’

  The limousine turned left into a boulevard faced by a row of disparate buildings, made up of a variety of styles that seemed at once alien and familiar.

  ‘That town hall was in Rochdale. The Leader liked it so much that he had it taken apart brick by brick and reassembled here. And that’s the Paris Opera House.’

  ‘It’s just . . .’

  ‘Wonderful. I know. The best architecture in Europe is here. It’s the capital of the world, after all. After libraries, architecture is the Leader’s greatest passion. He often says if the burden of leadership had not fallen on his shoulders, he would have been an architect.’

  He squeezed her hand.

  ‘We’ll have time for more sightseeing in the morning. Before then, we have work to do.’

  The Amt Schrifttumspflege, the Protector’s Office for the Control of Literature, was at Margarethenstrasse, west of Potsdamer Platz. In an effort to prepare, Rose had looked up the establishment before she came and discovered that its mission was ‘to monit
or and control the portrayal of the Party in literature from the standpoint of ideology, artistry and popular education, as well as to support deserving works.’

  It was a mouthful, of course. The regime never used one word where a whole dictionary would do, but Rose was a practised translator of Party jargon and it sounded plausible. They had an office for everything and there was no reason why literature should not be processed and cultivated and bureaucratized as much as steel or cardboard or coal.

  ‘This is where it all began.’

  Martin led the way towards a high-ceilinged space, elegantly appointed with brass lamps, heavy wooden tables and thick carpets. It smelled of leather and beeswax and hummed with subdued activity. A fat woman in white gauze gloves was dusting the first ever copy of the Leader’s autobiography, complete with his signature, a heart attack in cardiograph.

  To the people of Germany

  ‘This place is simply incredible. Rosenberg’s Confiscation Squad has gone through libraries all over Europe to get these books. Occupied countries and private collections. Homes and bookshops. Since 1940, his people have collected more than three million volumes by Catholics, Poles, homosexuals, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses. You name it.’

  ‘But why? Why would he want to keep so much degenerate literature? Surely he can’t update all of it?’

  Martin paused, as though she was a bright pupil who had asked the correct question.

  ‘Because he’s a genius. What do you do if you want to study your enemy’s psychology? His inner thoughts? His very motivations? You study his literature. These may be dangerous texts but they help the Security Service understand the nation’s enemies in greater depth. As I said, books are intellectual weapons.’

  He beamed at her and straightened up.

  ‘I’m off to see the Controller, Herr Hagemayer. Why don’t you take a look around?’

  Rose wandered among the books. Generally, she adored the complicated perfume of libraries, scented with paper and polish, the most ancient volumes beautiful with their decorative brass clasps, silk endpapers and gilt-edged leaves. Yet the stacks here had a far more clinical air. Beyond shelves labelled Freemasonry and The Slav Race she came to a series of glass cases housing a display dedicated to the life of Alfred Rosenberg.

  Curious, she peered in.

  The Protector had been born in January 1893 to a family of Baltic Germans. He studied architecture and engineering in Riga before moving to Munich, where he had the great fortune to meet the Leader and instantly became one of his closest allies.

  This event was illustrated by the familiar visage of the Leader, looking younger and more forceful, and the Protector, whey-faced and shifty, hovering just behind his right shoulder.

  In 1933, Rosenberg visited London to discuss the possibilities of an Alliance between the two great nations. Cue a photograph of the Protector laying a swastika wreath at the Cenotaph.

  More promotions followed, as the Protector assumed an overarching cultural mission to confiscate degenerate texts from libraries and homes throughout Europe. This was illustrated by a photograph of stormtroopers removing boxloads of books from a library in Prague.

  The Confiscation Squad operates in close co-operation with the Wehrmacht and Security Police in the occupied territories. Its officers have the authority to appropriate all writings by and on subversives. These materials are preserved as items of value for propaganda and research purposes.

  The last picture recorded the Protector in London outside 10 Downing Street, the traditional home of the British Prime Minister, which he had now assumed for his own use. Alongside him Oswald Mosley stood ramrod straight, in his high-necked black uniform and brass belt. For the first time, Rose thought she glimpsed a look of uncertainty, perhaps even apprehension, in Mosley’s forceful demeanour.

  She drifted through the stacks until she came to an area labelled Jewish material, picked up a volume by a man called Henry Ford entitled The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem and put it down again. Next to it was a badly damaged volume bound in cracked, cherry-coloured leather, its pages coming loose from its binding. It looked like a diary of some sort.

  She turned to the frontispiece and read the words Agatha Kettler, aged fifteen, 1941. The schoolgirl handwriting was neat and regular, each page filled to the brim. Flicking through, isolated phrases leapt out.

  Father was always talking about his dreams of creating a world, but Mother says he should have realized that other people have dreams, and it’s their dream that has come to pass.

  Curiously, she read on, her eyes skimming the mottled pages.

  This morning they arrested another thousand Jews. I’m keeping this in a safe place in the hope that it might survive me.

  The words made her stomach clench. Why would they arrest Jews?

  Into her mind came the face of Sophy Freeman, who Rose had known at school. The Freeman family were Jewish; Sophy’s father was a doctor who had fought alongside her own father in the war, and because the two men were friends, their daughters gravitated towards each other. Rose and Sophy had spent an entire summer together at the age of fourteen, exploring their local neighbourhood, camping in the nearby woods, laughing and reading and gossiping. Only recently, Dad had mentioned that he and Dr Freeman had met up for the first time in years, sipping pints at their favourite pub, The Moon Under Water. Sophy sent her love. Rose felt a momentary pang that she had allowed her childhood friendship to fade.

  She caught the sound of footsteps approaching from behind. Guiltily she shut the book, as if she had been trespassing in forbidden territory. Martin was returning, swinging his briefcase jauntily, like a holiday bucket and spade. He was always tactile, but now he reached for her hand and linked fingers, like a boy with his first girlfriend. The heaviness and perpetual gloom that seemed to surround him in England had vanished, as though a physical load had been lifted from his shoulders. He kissed her cheek as they got back into the car and slung an arm around her.

  ‘Mission accomplished. Now, my darling, the fun begins.’

  ‘So, what exactly is it you’re doing here?’

  Two hours later, and they were lying in a vast, snowy bed in the Hotel Excelsior. On the back of the door hung two freshly laundered towelling dressing gowns. A bowl of fruit, glossy purple cherries and sable grapes sat on a side table, alongside a plate of Lebkuchen – sweet spiced biscuits that Rose had to stop herself devouring on sight. The tray had, to Rose’s surprise, been delivered by an English Gretl – a pallid girl with a northern accent who must, like so many others, have applied successfully for a transfer to the mainland.

  ‘How do you like it here?’ asked Rose, as the girl busied herself with depositing the tray, arranging plates and trying not to look at them. But before the Gretl could reply, Martin flicked his wrist and with a look of speechless terror, she fled.

  In the bathroom, a fat globe of ivory soap, rather than the curling sliver of carbolic found at home, rested in the dish next to a glass jar of bath salts which smelled divine. That evening, Martin had told her, they would have steak, grilled asparagus and a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Then they would go to a nightclub patronized by Party VIPs. You had to be careful with these places – the Morality Office were jumpy about an SS officer out with someone who wasn’t his wife – but the Ciro would be safe, or the Eldorado. Goebbels went there and he was the kind of man who had no problems seeing Culture Ministry officials with pretty girls. The only danger was, he might want Rose for himself.

  Martin leaned back against the plush velvet headboard, lit a cigarette and savoured the rich Turkish tobacco.

  ‘What am I doing? I’m writing a speech for the Protector. As Eckberg can’t string two words together, the task generally falls to me, but this time I don’t mind. It’s interesting, actually. It’s called “Achieving Perfection”. Rosenberg holds England as his ideal expression of the perfect society where all his ideas about Aryan supremacy and social hierarchies have been put in place.’

&
nbsp; ‘Wait . . . he can’t possibly think England is more perfect than here?’

  Rose stretched out on the crisp, clean cotton sheets. Her toes did not even reach the end of the mattress and the linen itself was softer than any she had known. Bolstered by goose-down pillows that smelled of laundry starch, she was cosseted in a fresh, silky nest that caressed her naked flesh. Every one of her senses was heightened by the sights and sensations around her.

  Luxuriating in this glorious bed, anticipating a delicious supper, she mused out loud in a way she would never have done at home.

  ‘I’ve never seen anywhere like this. The buildings, the food, the cars, the people. Even the flowers look more beautiful here. Those roses . . .’ She glanced across at the plump apricot blooms, still pearled with water droplets, that had materialized at her bedside. ‘And the coffee. Real coffee, not Muckefuck.’

  Muckefuck was fake coffee, whose name translated as ‘brown earth’. It looked like horse feed and tasted worse. No one in England could remember anything different.

  ‘It’s paradise here. I mean, I love England, but . . .’

  Martin chuckled tolerantly. He adored explaining things.

  ‘You don’t understand. When the Protector talks about perfection, he’s not talking about food or coffee or cars. He’s talking about ideas. Alfred Rosenberg, you see, is the ideological heart of the Party. He’s its genius and presiding spirit. He spent years thinking and planning for the implementation of a revolutionary society and when the Alliance was formed, Britain provided him with a blank slate. A tabula rasa that was all his to draw on. So the first thing he got in place was the caste system.’

  ‘Why was that so important?’

  ‘Social hierarchies are the bedrock. They’re everywhere. All human societies organize themselves into castes. The better they’re organized, the more smoothly a society functions.’