by Thynne, Jane
‘Und eine Berliner Weisse mit Schuss, bitte.’
This drink was a local favourite, made by adding a shot of raspberry syrup to mask the acidity of the pale, golden Berlin beer. Dyson always ordered it for Clara, presumably thinking a dash of sweetness was what women liked, and Clara had never had the heart to contradict him.
She knew Dyson felt infinitely more at home drinking a gin fizz in some glittering hotel in Berlin’s west end than in this scruffy bar. But given the nature of their meetings, Dyson had been obliged to familiarize himself with different, and quite unexpected, places around town.
Dyson waited until Koch had moved away and addressed Clara in English.
‘So how are you, Clara? Any news for me?’
‘Yes, as it happens. Magda Goebbels has asked me to a party. It’s in honour of the Mitford sisters. You know of them, I suppose?’
‘Of course. The daughters of Lord Redesdale. One of them, Unity, is obsessively in love with the Führer by all accounts. She’s moved to Munich and installs herself in his favourite restaurant whenever he’s in town.’
‘I heard she said that sitting next to the Führer was like basking in dazzling sunshine,’ said Clara.
He snorted. ‘Presumably with the odd thunderstorm thrown in.’
‘There’s another sister here too. Diana.’
‘Indeed. Given that she’s married to Oswald Mosley we do keep an eye, as you can imagine.’
Clara took a sugary sip of her beer. ‘Magda wants to introduce them to some of her friends, but she’s worried their German isn’t up to it, so she’s asked me to translate.’
‘It’s not the first time Diana’s visited Berlin this year,’ said Dyson. ‘She’s already been over to talk to Hitler about constructing an English-speaking radio station on German soil in Heligoland.’
‘A radio station?’ Clara was baffled.
‘A commercial station. To raise funds for the fascists. We’ve got a chap in the British Union of Fascists who’s very helpful about their plans. The idea is, Hitler should subsidize it and the whole enterprise will assist Mosley’s movement by broadcasting fascist propaganda to southern England. Diana has had several private late-night meetings at the Chancellery already, and apparently he’s invited her to Bayreuth.’
‘I’ll pass on whatever I hear,’ said Clara.
‘Yeees . . .’ The door banged, bringing with it a gust of chill wind, and Dyson fell silent as he assessed the raddled figure in a worn overcoat making his way to the bar. ‘It’s appreciated, Clara, though—’
‘Though what?’
‘I suspect the Mosleys are a bit of a busted flush now.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘We’re hearing that Goebbels in particular is annoyed at the amount of money they’re asking for. He’ll be suggesting to Hitler that they’re spoiled goods. He knows that any political influence they had at home is rapidly dwindling. But he’ll do it subtly, because he realizes how much the Leader likes young English maidens. Unity is the only foreign woman allowed in his inner circle.’
Dyson tapped out a cigarette and offered one to Clara.
‘And the fact is we’ve got some rather more important visitors on our agenda.’ He paused. ‘Well, I say more important, but in another way, they’re not important at all.’
‘I’m not that good at puzzles, Archie.’
Dyson cupped his chin and fanned his fingers out, masking his mouth, a gesture, Clara noticed, that was instinctive to him. He hesitated, she was sure for effect.
‘It’s a little bridal party. The ex-king and his wife are about to arrive here on honeymoon.’
Clara could not suppress a gasp of astonishment. Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor as he now was, had abdicated the previous December to marry an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson, in a scandal which had blazed around the world. The couple settled in France and their wedding in June had been covered obsessively in all the magazines. Like everyone else, Clara drank in the details and pored over the photographs. The Duchess, slender as a reed in her box-shouldered Mainbocher dress – in a shade now rechristened Duchess Blue in her honour – reclining with her husband against the balcony of the Château de Cande. Sapphires and diamonds at her throat, her hair violet black with an inky shimmer. Wedding photographs by Cecil Beaton. Roses and lilies by Constance Spry. For the wedding breakfast they ate lobster, salad, strawberries and, with a certain poignancy, chicken à la king.
‘They’re coming here? Why on earth?’
Though she asked, she knew the answer. The Duke’s mother was German, he spoke the language fluently, and his past comments suggested a robust admiration for the Nazi regime.
‘You may well ask. The Foreign Office is absolutely hopping. The whole thing has been arranged behind their back by the Germans. It’s a massive propaganda coup for the Reich. They’re going to make enormous capital out of it and it’s going to be terrifically embarrassing for Britain. They arrive at Friedrichstrasse Station on the sixteenth. The ambassador has been ordered not to attend.’
‘Ordered?’
‘Prime Minister’s orders. They’re not to be treated as having any official status. No official interviews, no special ceremonies. Not so much as a gin and tonic and a cocktail onion at the Embassy. The Government don’t want anyone getting the idea that this is any kind of official visit, rather than an entirely private occasion. The result being that yours truly has been deputed to greet them.’
Though he affected a jaded weariness, Clara could see that Dyson rather liked the idea of meeting the former king.
‘Not that we’ll be rolling out the red carpet, exactly. I’m sure the Nazi top brass will be doing that for them. Apparently Robert Ley, head of the Labour front, will be there. The Reich is paying for the entire thing. The fact is, the couple are going to be mobbed wherever they go.’
‘Where will they go?’
‘It’s a nine-city tour. And the American press are reporting that the Duke wants to discuss “Hitler’s hopes for the future”.’
‘Let’s hope the Duke’s a good listener.’
Dyson rolled his eyes.
‘Precisely. He doesn’t know what he’s in for. The plan is that the Duke should inspect working conditions throughout the Reich. Factory visits and so on.’
‘Wouldn’t be my idea of a honeymoon,’ said Clara, casually.
For some reason this remark caused Dyson to fix his gaze more intently upon her. She was a curiosity to him, she knew. Her presence seemed to make him uneasy, as though he was unsure whether to treat her as an employee or a social equal. She was different from the women he knew back home, neither one of those upper-middle-class girls waiting to get married, nor a determinedly spinster secretary or a bluestocking. She was nothing like Lettice, Dyson’s wife, a brisk redhead who spent her time organizing cultural outings with the other Embassy wives, serving coffee and shortbread biscuits to visiting dignitaries, and who fully intended her husband to be an ambassador himself one day. Clara had love affairs, Dyson knew, yet she had shown no desire to marry. Her sharp brain, as evidenced by her facility with crosswords and her formidable memory, were traits that the Service treasured in their agents. Her looks, social confidence and acting talent gave her access to circles that would otherwise be hard to penetrate. Yet it was her willingness to place herself in danger that he found hardest to fathom. Dyson simply couldn’t work her out.
‘Do you ever think about leaving, Clara? Going back to England?’
What could she say? Only last week she had received a letter from an old schoolfriend, Ida MacCloud, expressing astonishment that Clara was willing to stay in Germany while the Nazi regime gathered pace. Wasn’t she by staying there in some way tacitly supporting what they did? Ida asked. How could Clara justify that?
‘Occasionally.’
‘You must miss your family.’
She gave him a narrow look. Dyson knew, as did everyone in the Berlin station, that Clara’s father, Sir Ronald Vine, was a key membe
r of London’s Anglo-German Fellowship and a strong Nazi sympathizer. His coterie was rich, influential and determined that Britain should place itself in alliance with rather than opposition to Hitler’s Germany. Sir Ronald himself had received funding from Hitler for his political lobbying. Clara’s shock in discovering her father’s activities and the fact that he was being shadowed by domestic security in England had been part of her motivation in approaching British Intelligence four years earlier. It was important that the security service chiefs felt they understood Clara’s motivation. They needed to be able to trust her. Yet she saw no reason to confide in Dyson the Jewish part of her background.
‘As it happens I had a letter from my sister yesterday saying that she and my father are coming to visit. Though you probably knew that already.’
Dyson gave a little smile.
‘So you did know.’
‘I imagine the German authorities know too.’
‘Why are they coming over then, Archie?’
‘I may be many things, but I’m not a clairvoyant, Clara. Ask them yourself. That’s not why I asked you about going home.’
‘Why then?’
Dyson fiddled with his glass for a moment, as if weighing his words. The hesitation made Clara’s heart pound. Something had happened. She forced herself to wait for him to explain.
‘Actually, it’s what I wanted to talk to you about. It might be nothing.’
Dyson’s mouth twisted unhappily, reluctant to impart the news. It may be nothing, but Clara knew from the gravity of his expression that it almost certainly wasn’t. She kept her face composed, despite the small detonations of panic inside her.
‘We had a hint that you might have aroused suspicions. I just wanted to say . . . don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Tread carefully.’
‘I always do. Where did this hint come from?’
‘A friend. He let us know that in the past couple of days your name had come up in conversation.’
‘Whose conversation? Where?’
‘At Prinz Albrecht Strasse.’
Though Dyson uttered it without flinching, this address more than any other had the power to strike terror into a citizen of Berlin. The blank Prussian façade of the former Arts museum at Prinz Albrecht Strasse 8 gave no clue to the horrors within. Since 1933 it had been the headquarters of the Geheime Staatspolizei, the Gestapo, who had the power, without the intervention of the courts, to arrest, interrogate and send prisoners to SS concentration camps like Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Lichtenburg. Beyond its austere, vaulted entrance hall hundreds of bureaucrats spent their days combing files and reports on citizens. Beneath them, in the basement, lay the interrogation rooms, a warren of white-tiled cells where information could be extracted in a more direct manner. Once you arrived in Prinz Albrecht Strasse, no amount of acting talent could save you from what they had in store.
A wave of fright hit her, like a blast of icy air. Deliberately she hesitated, taking out a cigarette, fixing it in a holder and inhaling.
‘Who exactly is this friend?’ He had to be either a policeman or a Gestapo member if he had access to Prinz Albrecht Strasse.
‘He works for them. He says an informer passed on your name.’
An informer. That could be anyone. All Gestapo agents had their own network of informers, fanning out through every layer of society like a malign web enmeshing anyone who crossed its path. The service depended on them heavily for denunciations of suspect or illegal activity. They were not always the obvious candidates. An informer could be a quiet neighbour, or a friendly butcher. Postmen, shop owners, even children. Anyone with a secret to keep or who might be susceptible to blackmail. In one way or another the Gestapo viewed the whole population as an amateur police force to assist in enforcing control. The idea was that nothing should escape the Gestapo’s net.
Dyson was uttering calming words, like a doctor who had just delivered terminal news.
‘Look, we’re not worried. Nobody has talked about an arrest order. You speak German like a native. In their eyes you’re no different from an actress like Lilian Harvey – she was born in Muswell Hill, wasn’t she? And, most importantly, they know your father . . .’
They knew her father. It seemed incredible that the same nepotistic class structure which had governed Britain for hundreds of years might also hold sway among the Gestapo agents of Nazi Germany.
‘And you take routine precautions?’ Dyson was saying. ‘You don’t talk on the phone? You vary your routine, you write nothing down. Don’t drink in doubtful company.’
‘I take precautions, Archie.’
‘Fine. It may be nothing. But I would say you’re almost certainly being tailed. So I wanted to warn you to keep your guard up. And more importantly still, to lie low.’
Lie low?
‘So should I attend the Goebbels’ party?’
‘You’ll have to go because you’ve been invited, and not to turn up might attract attention. But don’t do anything more at the moment. Do nothing. Enjoy your filming.’
‘There’s a break in filming. I’ve finished my last film and we don’t start rehearsals for another few weeks.’
‘Enjoy your break then. Remember what I said.’
While Dyson got up and went over to the bar to pay the bill and engage in some finely judged conversation with Herr Koch, Clara drank the syrupy remnants of her Weisse and tried to collect her teeming thoughts. An informer had passed her name to the Gestapo. Who could it be? A lowly staffer at the studios, perhaps, or someone closer to home? How bizarre it was that just as she had received an invitation to the Propaganda Minister’s home, another part of the regime was thinking of inviting her to Prinz Albrecht Strasse. Clara’s previous sense of security, the confidence that had grown and developed over her time in Berlin, was badly rocked. She felt the clench in her stomach that always came with anxiety, like a tight belt squeezed around her middle. She scanned the bar quickly, as though the informer might be watching her right now, but saw only the regular customers, slumped at their Stammtisches, their regular tables, growling in Berlinerische, the thick local dialect, and Archie telling Fritz Koch about the delights of Brighton Pier.
Lie low, Archie said. Do nothing.
Dyson returned and picked his hat up from the table.
‘On the subject of breaks, Fritz is talking about taking a holiday in Brighton, going over to see his daughter. I told him it’s restorative at this time of year. Sea air can be very bracing. My sailing hol was immensely good fun. If I were you, Clara, I’d give it some thought.’
Chapter Five
Photography was the ultimate art of the Reich. Joseph Goebbels said if you told a lie big enough for long enough people would believe it, so he must have reckoned if you showed them enough pictures they would believe those even more. Because whatever the occasion, be it a quiet lunch on Hitler’s terrace at the Berghof, a military march, a rally, or even a routine health and fitness session with a hundred fresh-faced BDM girls in the park, a camera would be right there too. Several cameras usually, straining against the official cordons, unleashing a dazzling fusillade of flash. All kinds of cameras: cumbersome official equipment with tripods and lights, or the Speed Graphics which the press men used, or the new roll film cameras from Leica and Zeiss. These days in the Reich there was always a lens poised to capture a fleeting image. To smooth rough reality with a soft focus and a monochrome glow. To fix the whole of Germany, like a film actress, in a glamorous quicksilver glare.
That bright Thursday morning Goebbels was posing by the monumental gates of the Ufa film studios for a newspaper feature in honour of his approaching fortieth birthday. He had ordered the photographer to shoot from street level, ostensibly to include the whole of the overarching gates in his picture, but actually so that his five-foot-four frame with its withered foot should seem as imposing as possible.
‘He’s very particular about the way he’s photographed, isn’t he?’
‘Wouldn’t you b
e? If he had more sense he’d keep out of shot altogether.’
Clara was gazing from the window of a production office in the Babelsberg studio lot, a sprawling assembly of halls and editing rooms and carpenters’ warehouses and sets tucked in the thick pine woods outside Potsdam, ten miles from Berlin. The office belonged to Albert Lindemann, an executive producer she had known since her first week in Germany. Back then Albert had been a harried junior producer, with sparse hair and even sparser promotion prospects. Now he was a sleek and powerful man, his wiry form encased in a silk shirt and purple bowtie with cream suede shoes stretched out before him on the desk. Since the Aryanization, when anyone of Jewish extraction was barred from working in the Ufa studios, Albert’s career had flourished. He had been given increasingly important projects to produce. He had a flashy new car and an apartment in Schöneberg which was dripping with chrome furniture, blond wood, big mirrors and thick white carpets. Albert loved gossip, possessed an acid humour and a highly developed sense of the absurd. He had no interest in women whatsoever, yet he was never seen out without a young actress on his arm. Much as she might want to, Clara refrained from asking questions about Albert’s private life. It was safer that way. Except for casual badinage about Nazi officials, they avoided politics. When news came that an actor had disappeared from the studios, as often happened, or a director had been taken for interrogation, their eyes would meet, but they rarely discussed it. Just that week, an actress both had worked with, Gisela Wessel, had been arrested for ‘organized activities and Communist demoralization’ and taken in for questioning. Albert had merely raised his eyebrows and murmured, ‘Gisela’s gone.’ He didn’t need to say any more. He was the closest thing Clara had to a friend in Berlin and they understood each other perfectly.
‘Thanks for lending me the car.’
It was Albert who had taught her to drive the year before, sitting beside her nervously as she swerved her way around the streets of Berlin, cursing theatrically as she slammed on the brakes, relaxing only when they reached the empty vistas of autobahn stretching into the countryside. She passed him the keys but he waved them away.