Black Roses

by Jane Thynne

  ‘Because he has the good sense to know what the Führer wants to hear.’ He shrugged. ‘The Doktor hates him. He’s convinced he’s a Jew. But, you know, Hanussen’s quite an act. One of the sights of Berlin. In fact, you should see him. I’ll take you to his place next week. The House of the Occult, he calls it. It’s extraordinary.’

  He leant one arm against the wall, and looked down at her. ‘On the subject of acting, how is Frau Sonnemann?’

  ‘She’s invited us all to her latest performance.’

  ‘I feel sorry for you. Emmy can’t act her way out of her own sweater. But still,’ he touched her cheek. ‘I like to hear what these women are up to. What they fill their little minds with. It helps me know what kind of mood the boss is going to be in tomorrow.’

  ‘So that’s why you like to see me!’

  ‘It’s not the only reason, my dear, as you know.’

  He leant closer and put a hand on her shoulder. His grip was weighty and rough. He eased a finger through the strap of her dress, as though he was about to undress her.

  ‘I think you’ve enjoyed making me wait.’ His voice was thick with desire. ‘But it’s not good for a man in my position to be without a woman. People make assumptions.’

  ‘Of course they don’t. No one could think you were that kind of man.’

  ‘They think I may be going to parties with Ernst Röhm.’

  ‘But you’ve been married. You had a lovely wife.’

  ‘Perhaps. But it’s been years.’ Her mention of Elsa had the desired effect. He recoiled slightly. ‘However, I’d better watch out. The boss has his eye on you, I think.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He’s been asking a lot of questions about you.’

  ‘Questions?’

  ‘About your opinions. He’s desperate to know if you have boyfriends. He wants to know if you are spoken for.’

  ‘And what do you tell him?’

  ‘What would you like me to say?’

  ‘Tell him I live for my art.’

  He laughed. ‘All right then. I will. But I warn you, the Doktor doesn’t trust you.’

  ‘Why should he not trust me?’

  ‘I don’t know. He said the other day that he dislikes the company you keep.’

  A cold current of fear went through her. Could it be that she was being watched, just as Leo had said? She forced herself to keep smiling.

  ‘And what would the Doktor know about the company I keep?’

  He shrugged. ‘I assume he’s talking about your friend Helga.’

  ‘Helga?’

  ‘Yes.’ He lowered his voice, though there was no one listening. ‘In fact, I should give her a little advice if I were you. Tell her to be more careful. Tell her that her sense of humour is not shared by everyone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s just what I’ve been hearing. At the Sportpalast the other night. She has a loose mouth.’

  ‘Why? You’re scaring me now.’ She gave his arm a little push. ‘What has she done?’

  ‘Do you want to know?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Then I’ll explain in more detail.’ He ran a hand down the curve of her body and she smelt his sweat beneath the clean starch of his shirt. ‘Tonight, in fact. I’ve reserved a room at the Adlon for later.’

  At that moment he broke off and straightened up. From the end of the corridor a slight figure had emerged. Even from a distance his hobbling gait was unmistakable. He had donned a camelhair coat over his uniform and was accompanied by a woman whose dark head was bent close to his, a black velvet cape round her shoulders. It was Leni Riefenstahl.

  ‘Damn,’ Müller’s face darkened and he threw the cigarette away. ‘The brass neck of the man. He can’t stop himself.’

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘Officially? Officially they’re discussing a film he wants her to make about Hitler. Unofficially, they’re going to spend some private time at the Adlon. He sneaks her in the Wilhemstrasse entrance. He imagines his wife is unaware.’

  Clara sensed her escape.

  ‘Poor Frau Goebbels. She’ll be upset. I must go to her.’

  ‘Wait.’

  Müller barred her way with his arm and leant down to kiss her. At the last moment she turned, so that his kiss landed on her cheek. He scowled, frustration rising from him like the scent of the lime cologne he wore. For a second, his face twisted in annoyance, but he swiftly repressed it and summoned a smile.

  ‘Very well, gnädige Fräulein. We are still getting to know each other. But don’t make me wait too long. Unlike our dear Leader I do not intend to be married to Germany. I’m too young for that.’

  Chapter Thirty-four

  ‘So Goebbels’ home is burgled, and he comes home and says to Magda, “What did they steal?” And she says, “Only the results of next year’s election!” ’

  Rupert Allingham threw back his head and roared. The others clustered around the table followed suit. Die Taverne restaurant was an Italian place of low ceilings and long wooden tables, fogged with cigar smoke and the deeply ingrained scent of beer. The proprietor was not Italian at all, but a big, bluff German called Willy Lehman, who ran the place with his amiable Belgian wife and provided for British and American correspondents not just a hearty meal but a sanctuary. Here they gathered most nights, trading jokes and news and information, notwithstanding the fact that young storm troopers liked to meet there too, plus a sprinkling of government spies who eavesdropped despite the best efforts of an American jazz band.

  Most evenings, until the small hours, their regular table was occupied by journalists swapping stories. Mary had discovered that the burning instinct all journalists felt to safeguard a scoop was actually less pressing than their desire to relay the facts behind the new Nazi Germany. If Americans were ever to know just what it was like here, everyone involved in reporting it would need to overcome their competitive instincts and help each other out.

  In here, crowded around the table, with a huddle of journalists making jokes and telling stories, it was intensely warm and relaxed. There were five of them that evening. Next to Rupert was a British friend of his, a handsome man with a shock of blond hair, called Stephen Spender, who wrote poetry, Rupert said. Alongside him sat Quentin Reynolds, the Hearst correspondent, a huge man with curly hair and a big smile who had just arrived in town. Mary had squeezed in next to Sigrid Schultz, of whom she was slightly in awe. Sigrid was the bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune, a feisty American who had grown up in Paris, attended university in Berlin and was known for speaking her mind to the Nazi leaders. She had the porcelain complexion of a china doll, which was entirely at odds with her penchant for smoking a pipe. It was either the pipe smoke or the personality that inspired Goering’s nickname for her as “the dragon from Chicago”.

  Mary had almost given the meal a miss that night, but she was glad she came. For one thing she was famished. They were eating a knuckle of pork with sauerkraut, and it was delicious. The heavily marbled meat had been braised for hours and was covered with a thick layer of crispy fat, perfectly complemented by a plate of pickles. It was a chance, too, to see Rupert and try to work out exactly where she stood with him. He always beamed when he saw her and flung his arm round her shoulders, throwing out compliments about ‘the cleverest correspondent in town’, but then Rupert was always ebullient and good-mannered to a fault. That was the problem with these damned Brits. It was so hard to know what was going on underneath.

  They had spent several evenings in each other’s company now, and she had gathered that he was very close to his mother, whom he called the Countess, although that was not her actual title, just an expression of affection. Confusingly, she did have a title, her name was Lady Isidora Allingham, not plain Lady Allingham as you would imagine (though Mary wouldn’t) because she had the right to use her Christian name as the daughter of a duke. Mary said in America everyone had the right t
o use their own goddam Christian names, but when she asked Rupert to explain all the ranks and titles and so on, he had just laughed and said if you thought you understood the English aristocracy, it meant you hadn’t understood it.

  It wasn’t that he was self-obsessed. Like any good journalist he asked her a ton of questions about herself, her home and family, he’d even got the name of her dog out of her. Walt. Whitman or Disney? he asked, then got it right first time, and even quoted Whitman, to boot. He knew her dream was to settle in Europe, going wherever the story led her, and said for his part he was simply longing to visit New York, and perhaps she could show him some day. It was just that she felt she existed for him as a specimen of curiosity. Something you might observe in order to write about, a character who might pop up in a sketch one day, when the veteran correspondent finally published his memoirs. Yet however baffled and frustrated that made her feel, she wasn’t going to let it spoil the evening.

  She flicked through the pile of newspapers they always brought along with them while Rupert dominated the table with an incessant stream of tales and jokes.

  ‘Have you noticed how these Nazis boast of their prowess in the war? I was talking to one the other night who insisted that Hitler won his Iron Cross second class for capturing fourteen Englishmen singled-handedly.’

  ‘Quite an achievement,’ said Sigrid drily. ‘No doubt he surrounded them.’

  Reynolds guffawed. ‘I heard a good one the other day. There’s a German steelworker whose wife wants a new pram. He can’t afford it, so he steals the parts one by one and attempts to assemble the pram. But he’s puzzled because every time he does, it turns out to make a machine gun!’

  ‘Does anyone really doubt that rearmament is underway?’ asked Spender.

  ‘No one I know,’ said Rupert, attacking his pig’s knuckle with gusto. ‘It’s proving it that’s difficult. And even if you did, it’s a problem getting anyone interested. You can practically hear my editor yawning down the phone. They’re getting tired of atrocity stories too. It’s come to something when your own newspaper agrees with Doktor Goebbels.’

  ‘Of course, you know why Goebbels detests us all,’ said Sigrid languidly. ‘He wanted to be a journalist himself. He sent fifty articles to the Berliner Tageblatt and they rejected them all. That was after all his novels and plays and poetry got rejected too. He decided it was because all the publishing houses were owned by Jews. The Ullsteins and the Mosses. I suppose we should recognize that rejection does dangerous things to a man.’

  ‘It’s not all bad.’ Rupert grinned. ‘He’s opening a fancy new press club on Leipziger Strasse for all the foreign journalists. So we can learn to love the new regime.’

  ‘Hey, Rupert.’ Mary passed him a copy of the B.Z. am Mittag that she had been reading. ‘Here’s a picture of your friend.’

  In the middle pages was a story about how Magda Goebbels was choosing actresses to spearhead a new push for German fashion. There was a half-page photograph of the minister’s wife sharing space with a potted palm in the drawing room of her new home and on the opposite page a smaller photograph of Clara Vine posing in a brown, military style outfit that did nothing for her.

  Rupert frowned. ‘What the hell is she up to?’ He took the paper and pored over it. Then he thrust it away again. ‘And to think it’s my fault she’s here.’

  Observing the change in him, Mary wondered for a second if Rupert might be in love with the girl. The thought made her heart drop in the pit of her chest.

  ‘How did you meet her?’

  ‘What?’ he looked distracted. ‘Oh I had a friend back in London. A slightly raffish chap called Max Townsend, who’s been producing films out here. Clara was looking for work and I thought he’d be able to give her a part. To be honest, I never actually thought she’d take me up on it.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose she’s just another one of those well-born English girls who are all too happy to see the sights, without seeing what’s underneath them.’

  ‘She didn’t strike me like that.’

  ‘What’s this girl doing anyway?’ said Sigrid Schultz, removing her pipe and leaning across.

  ‘She’s modelling that natural German look being promoted by Magda Goebbels.’

  ‘What natural German look?’

  ‘You know, no make-up, no trousers, no jewellery.’

  ‘No jewellery?’ queried Quentin Reynolds. ‘Frau Goebbels wears so many diamonds it’s like she had a fight with a chandelier.’

  ‘As for cosmetics,’ added Sigrid sourly, ‘those women look like they’ve won a free day on the beauty counter at KaDeWe.’

  Their conversation was interrupted by a commotion from the opposite corner of the room. Two men in the brown shirts of the SA had entered the restaurant and walked towards the back. One was a huge meaty man with a face like a side of ham, the other an old-fashioned German, with tawny moustache sprouting from his face like the whiskers of a wild boar. Their target, a pallid man in his thirties, was sitting alone, sipping tea and doing his best to disappear into the newspaper he read. The fatter Nazi barged into the table, knocking the tea cup to the floor.

  ‘You’re taking up too much room!’

  ‘Forgive me.’ The pale-faced man apologized and ducked down to retrieve the broken cup.

  ‘His people always take up too much room,’ said the other. ‘They’re taking up too much room in Germany.’

  ‘Not for long!’

  Before the others knew what was happening, Rupert had sprung up, approached the men and engaged in an energetic row. Mary saw them cast a glance across to their table, assessing how many men could be ranked against them if it came to a fight. They obviously decided they were outnumbered because after a large amount of shouting but no actual blows, the Brown Shirts left, overturning chairs and a further table as they went, sending tea glasses and plates flying and leaving the sound of smashed crockery lingering in the air. Rupert came back and inserted himself into his seat with unruffled ease as the waiter hurried across to clear the mess.

  ‘So you actually want to get yourself arrested then?’ said Quentin Reynolds with amusement.

  ‘The benefits of playing for the first fifteen.’

  Rupert looked over at Mary, his good humour entirely restored. ‘I’ve got something I wanted to ask you.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The cinema was a cheap, unremarkable place in Neukölln, where people huddled to while away a dull, weekday evening. It smelt of old beer and bodies, damp tweed coats and the smoke of a thousand cigarettes, ingrained forever in the velour seats. Clara’s ticket had arrived that morning.

  Reifende Jugend, 7 p.m., admit one.

  Reifende Jugend was one of those films of “purely German character” that the authorities had decided everyone wanted to see. That probably explained the fact that the cinema was almost empty. It had been raining all afternoon, the dark clouds marching like storm troopers against a leaden sky, so Clara wore the old Burberry trench coat she had brought from home, with a hat pulled down over her eyes. Inside the cinema she stumbled in the dark for a second before making out the figure of Leo already sitting at the back of the stalls, his face ghostly in the flickering light of the screen. She felt a rush of relief to see him.

  The newsreel was on, the Ufa-Tonwochen, which always came on before the main feature. A field full of young men wearing only shorts were performing press-ups. They were being addressed by an Obersturmbannführer about their commitment to a Fatherland of healthy comrades.

  ‘Hi.’

  Clara took her coat off and slid into her seat. In the silver darkness Leo looked alien, the planes and angles of his cheekbones accentuated, making him appear more severe and mysterious. He smiled briefly but stared straight ahead, so Clara too, focused on the screen. The newsreel had moved on to a story about villagers in an Alpine setting gathering in last season’s harvest with their scythes. It could have been a scene straight out of the nineteenth century, with the corn making its way to vast barns where
it glowed in golden heaps. The message of abundance and plenty throughout the Reich was unmistakable.

  ‘Have you seen our friend?’ he murmured.

  ‘Once or twice.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Changeable. She can go from warmth to ice in an instant. She calls and asks me to see her, then she cancels.’

  ‘Why? Does she suspect something?’

  ‘I think she’s tired. She has a lot of entertainments to organize. Her husband has arranged for her to give a talk on the radio for Mothering Sunday. Then there are collections to arrange for the Winterhilfswerk – you know, raising money for coal and food for the poor. There’s the baby too. And I think she has something on her mind.’

  ‘His womanizing?’

  ‘Not that. Though there’s a new woman now. Leni Riefenstahl, the actress? He’s crazy about her, Magda says. He’s asked her to be his permanent mistress, but she rejected him.’

  ‘Surely Goebbels wouldn’t be that blatant? Isn’t Riefenstahl a big favourite of his boss?’

  ‘Yes, but someone told Magda he’d been seen looking at an apartment in Rankestrasse, near the Zoo Bahnhof. She suspects he’s looking for a safe place to take her. And I think . . .’ Clara hesitated, uncertain of whether this information was sufficiently sound to pass on, ‘she might be considering a divorce.’

  Leo gave a little disbelieving snort. ‘I’d like to see the lawyer prepared to handle that.’

  The newsreel had moved on to a story about Goering taking the salute at a Nazi march. Even by the rose-tinted standards of the Tonwoche, the crowd around him were ecstatic. It was noticeable, Clara realized, how people liked Goering. Whenever Goebbels appeared, the crowd fell silent.

  ‘Goebbels hates Goering. He calls him Fatso.’

  Leo suppressed a grunt of amusement. ‘She said that did she?’

  ‘I read it in his diary.’

  Leo sat up and gripped the arms of the chair. ‘A diary? My God, Clara. Where did you see that?’

  ‘I found it in his desk.’