The Winter Garden (2014)

by Thynne, Jane

  ‘I’m glad you could make it. I know you’ve been busy.’

  Suddenly she understood. ‘It was you who rescued me.’

  ‘The Blockwart at your apartment informed me that you had moved to less desirable premises and I didn’t want you to miss this luncheon. You agreed, on our little outing, that it would be valuable for your research to see General Sperrle, and I had, of course, been looking forward to seeing you. I mentioned your circumstances to Ernst and he pursued it with Goering. At least, he approached Frau Goering and she took it up with her husband.’

  Clara was staggered. So Hermann Goering himself had authorized her release.

  ‘As I mentioned, there’s been a little difference of opinion going on. Air Intelligence is concerned about a leak. The Gestapo were very keen to investigate but Air Intelligence said they were perfectly able to mount their own investigation. These inter-departmental squabbles go on all the time. Just turf wars, really, but it means that the Air Ministry are especially keen to pursue their own ends, as they see it.’

  Strauss’s eyes flicked over the bruise running down Clara’s arm, a trace of consternation in his face. ‘I hope you’re feeling well. You received the flowers, I take it?’

  The flowers had been waiting for her when she returned to Winterfeldstrasse. A tight bunch of creamy roses, bright against the black tissue paper like starbursts against a night sky. Pinned on the side of the bouquet was a note from Strauss, with the time and venue for the lunch.

  ‘They were lovely, thank you.’

  He studied her a moment, his look impenetrable, then he took her arm.

  ‘You must be hungry. Come and eat.’

  The lunch was lavish. Meat was piled upon the table, rabbit, hare, venison, pork and beef, as though there was no end to the animals which had died to feed the Luftwaffe’s guests. The creatures’ flesh and their internal organs, liver, kidneys and tripe, were offered up in an unending range of dishes, served by waiters in black knee breeches, white stockings and red waistcoats. But the events of the past twenty-four hours had left Clara unable to swallow a thing. It was incredible to her that just a short time earlier she had been sitting in a cell at Prinz Albrecht Strasse, awaiting a beating or worse, as investigators tried to determine if she was an informer. Yet now she sat in the midst of the Nazi élite, plied with food, celebrating the achievements of their bombers in Spain. Though she had not eaten for a day, it was impossible that she would be able to consume anything now. She sat, watching the maroon hunk of meat on the plate in front of her pool in its own blood.

  As the officers ate and drank, their celebrations became louder but Ernst Udet and Arno Strauss sat on either side of her, forming a protective cordon.

  ‘How’s that boy of yours?’ asked Udet.

  ‘Fine. At least, we had a bit of a tiff when we last met. He thinks I don’t Heil Hitler enough. He gets all these ideas from the HJ about correcting his elders.’

  ‘That’s the HJ for you,’ smiled Udet. ‘Here. Let me have his address. I’ve got something that will win him over.’

  Instinctively Clara hesitated, reluctant to give away any snippet of information that might endanger Erich, but one glance at Udet’s good-natured face and she scribbled the address in Neukölln, and passed it to him.

  ‘Whatever it is, Ernst, he’ll be thrilled.’

  Udet must have sensed her preoccupation because he spent the rest of the meal in a one-sided conversation about his plans to perform a death-defying stunt at a forthcoming rally in the Lustgarten, taking a small plane all the way along Unter den Linden and right through the Brandenburg Gate. Strauss, on her other side, ate in silence, drinking heavily and glancing up occasionally with a dangerous glitter in his eyes. After the luncheon, General Sperrle rose and made a speech about the Legion Condor, paying tribute to its work and its future. His voice was a harsh baritone, the kind of voice that was used to being obeyed, and his address entirely bypassed Clara, who registered only the occasional words – ‘technical excellence’, ‘victory’, ‘domination’. As Sperrle concluded, amid a spatter of applause, Strauss nodded towards the guest of honour.

  ‘What do you think of Sperrle?’ he asked, conversationally. ‘Did you know the Führer called him one of his two most brutal generals? Whenever I look at him I am reminded of Hitler’s comment in Mein Kampf. He said his generals should be like butchers’ dogs who need to be restrained by their collars from setting on their enemies. General Sperrle has a look of the butcher’s dog about him, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think this is the wrong place to be making that kind of comment,’ said Clara quietly.

  ‘You’re right of course. You actresses are experts in saying the right thing.’

  He stood up and offered her his hand. ‘Shall we dance?’

  A band had struck up and they moved onto the tiny dance floor, where several officers were already circling with their women. As they began to move together Clara felt dizzy. It wasn’t just the fact that she had not eaten, it was that Strauss was holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. When she struggled to move away from him, his grip tightened like iron. He leaned down and she felt his breath, hot against her cheek.

  ‘Do you know, my dear Clara, if I didn’t know better I would say you are not what you seem.’

  ‘What on earth can you mean by that?’

  ‘Not everyone’s flaws are written on their face. It would suit a girl, wouldn’t it, to befriend a senior Luftwaffe officer? If she were a spy.’

  ‘That’s a ridiculous thing to say.’

  Her heart racing, she tried to turn her head, or even look him in the eye, but he had her clamped to his chest and refused to release her. His voice in her ear was soft.

  ‘You are a spy, aren’t you? Don’t deny it.’

  She squirmed against the tight wall of muscle that imprisoned her.

  ‘That’s why they were entertaining you at Prinz Albrecht Strasse, I guess. And, my dear, I don’t trust you an inch. All those questions about the plane, the photographs . . . my childhood. My brother.’

  Clara shook her head. Strauss’s hands were still gripping her but he continued pleasantly, conversationally, as if they were discussing the excellence of the restaurant’s orchestra, or a weekend trip to the Grunewald.

  ‘I should have guessed it from the first.’

  They were playing Küss Mich Jetzt, a cheerful, romantic tune that could be heard on every dance floor in Berlin just then. Clara couldn’t help casting a quick glance around the restaurant. This conversation was suicidally dangerous. Despite the music, everyone knew the place was bugged and on top of that there had to be listening ears everywhere. Yet Strauss seemed unconcerned. His body swayed slowly and rhythmically, keeping her folded tightly in his arms.

  ‘To tell the truth, I hope you are a spy. I despise all those English women like your Miss Mitfords who seem so ready to forsake their own country. Can’t they see what Germany will do to them? Have they no idea what is planned? Someone ought to warn them.’

  With a renewed struggle Clara wrenched herself free and made to leave the floor, but deftly Strauss stopped her and pressed her lips in a quick kiss before letting her go with a grimace. His eyes were bloodshot. He smiled at her, a savage smile contorted with self-loathing.

  ‘Forgive me, Fräulein, it’s this drink. It anaethetizes me. It stops me feeling anything. It’s like that for a lot of us. Look at Ernst. He’s the same. Every night, drink till you drop.’

  He was beginning to attract glances. Wildly Clara thought how she might silence him. She pulled him over to a quieter part of the room but there seemed no way to make him stop.

  ‘I almost killed you in that plane, you know.’

  ‘You mean when you lost control?’

  ‘I wanted to die. I was planning to die. I think I took you up with me to stop myself. I thought, if I had you there, I would stop myself. But it was close. There’s a saying we pilots have: Wet or dry? Do you want to die wet in a crash, or dry in a fir
e? I can never answer that one.’

  Clara leaned towards him and murmured, ‘Arno. You’ve got to stop talking like this.’

  He held her at arms’ length for a moment, studied her face, then gave a dreadful, bright smile.

  ‘You’re right again. Fine. Let’s talk about other things. Why don’t we talk about art, yes?’

  She nodded cautiously.

  ‘Have you seen the latest one by Picasso? The one that’s all grey with the bull and the horse?’

  ‘Guernica?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ He spoke with a kind of musing menace. ‘You know, with due respect to Herr Picasso, it wasn’t a bit like that actually. I don’t know why he chose to paint it grey. The grey of newsprint perhaps. But I tell you, it was nothing like the newspapers said. There was nothing grey about Guernica. It was red with blood and fire against a white sky. The only grey I saw was the smoke of burned flesh.’

  ‘You were there?’

  He carried on, as though she had not spoken. ‘From what we were told, the idea was not to destroy the town. We were told it was the roads and the bridge to be targeted because loyalist reinforcements were arriving. The Basque front was on the point of collapse so the plan was to demolish the bridge and prevent the Republican troops escaping. Besides, they had informed us the inhabitants were away. It was a holiday that day. Only troops were left in the town. Unfortunately that was not true.’

  ‘When we came over the mountains there was smoke everywhere. You couldn’t see what was road, or bridge or housing, so you just dropped everything in the centre. It’s called bombing blind. Once you’ve destroyed the buildings, it makes it easier for the incendiaries to spread. The way they build their houses there – wooden porches, tiled roofs, a lot of timber, well that just makes it burn all the better. The idea was, the Messerschmitts would maintain cover and we would come in close, strafing and bombing the target. We’d fly in waves, wingtip to wingtip, with fragmentation bombs. Behind us, they had orders to machine-gun everything that moved.’

  ‘The thing was, Monday was market day in Guernica. And once the bridges and the roads were destroyed, all the people in the town went to the centre, to the marketplace, because they couldn’t get out. There were a lot of women and children who had come in from the surrounding villages. They probably thought they were safe there. They must have assumed that was the best place to be.’

  ‘So you targeted the marketplace.’

  ‘Indeed, as it turned out, it was the ideal spot for our new tactics. We’ve been experimenting with carpet bombing. That means dropping bombs from every available aircraft all at once. Teaching young pilots to destroy whole towns from the air. Sperrle was especially interested to observe the effect of burning buildings in cities. He wanted to see how it affected the civilian population.’

  He rocked back on his heels and passed a hand over his eyes.

  ‘Personally I think I have seen too much.’

  ‘But you said you were bombing blind. Presumably you didn’t see anything.’

  ‘You can always see if you look hard enough. You can get low in those planes, you know. After the first wave, people started to come back out of the shelters. They probably thought it was over. We were flying so low we could hear the bells ringing and see the people scattering like rats. I swept over something, it looked like a flock of pigeons, until I realized it was nuns. They had children with them and they were running towards the church. Can you imagine that pathetic group of boys, crying and cowering from us? There was one nun among them who stopped right where she was, to pray with the people in the square. As I came down very close, she stood there, quite still, knowing it was the day she was going to die. I will never forget the look in her eyes. She had two boys holding her hands and they looked identical. They must have been twins, I think.’

  ‘You couldn’t have known that there were going to be civilians in the square.’

  ‘I didn’t, Clara, but that’s just the thing. Our superiors knew. They knew the market square was full of children.’

  ‘Who knew?’

  ‘General Sperrle over there, he knew.’

  ‘How could he know that?’

  ‘On the morning of the raid a series of aerial photographs were taken. They had sent the reconnaissance planes over. I told you, the pictures tell you everything. Pictures don’t lie. Pictures mean that you can never act without knowledge or accountability. They knew it wasn’t a holiday. They knew the marketplace was full of women and children. And that was fine. Because those people were going to be guinea pigs for a new kind of war. Our commanders wanted to see if we could destroy an entire town from the air. Well, they got their answer.’

  She looked up at his face. It was contorted with something more ugly than his scar. Self-hatred. He lurched closer, his voice a harsh, urgent whisper.

  ‘But I haven’t told you the worst thing. The thing that really bothers me. Do you know, Clara, I enjoyed it! It gave me a buzz. Flying in, seeing a woman with a pram darting for cover, I felt myself wanting to hit her. I wanted the feeling of flying past her and machine-gunning. When I saw that nun, I was excited because she was wearing black and white, like a perfect target. She made me want to score a bullseye.’

  ‘You can’t have enjoyed it. That’s not like you. You’re a good man.’

  ‘But I did. I adored it. It was the most exciting experience of my life. Euphoria, isn’t that the word you used? Dive bombing made me feel euphoric. It made my pulse race.’

  He caught up her hand and put it to his chest so that she could feel the rapid beating of his heart.

  ‘That old German mythology we studied at school, they probably had a word for that feeling.’

  The thought of his schooldays seemed to impassion him further.

  ‘I always believed I would be the Irish Airman. Those that I fight I do not hate. But you see, Clara, for that moment, I did hate them. I wanted them to die. I enjoyed killing them. And afterwards I could see what I would become. In fact, what I had already become.’

  His fingers were digging into her wrist. It hurt, but she couldn’t wrest her hand from his grip.

  ‘Have you ever had that feeling of seeing your life from above? When you’re at ground level you can’t understand your life, you can’t make sense of the twists and turns. But when you see it from above the pattern becomes clear.’

  She grabbed her bag and coat. ‘Let’s go and get some fresh air.’

  The idea seemed to appeal to him. He followed her mutely out of the restaurant, then stood at the door and winced at the light.

  ‘Arno, you’ve got to be more careful. You shouldn’t be saying these things here. I think it’s time to go home.’

  ‘Is that an invitation?’

  ‘No.’

  He laughed, a harsh scrape of a laugh.

  ‘I thought not. Well, no matter. I have a test flight first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re in any shape for that.’

  ‘I’m in perfect shape for it, I assure you.’

  He caught her in his arms again, and this time he pressed on her a hard, lingering kiss from that twisted mouth, a kiss that felt as much of an assault as a caress, as though he wanted to imprint on her all his pain and fear. Clara pulled away from him and he released her and gave a little bow as she turned and walked away into the afternoon.

  Chapter Forty

  The man was coming after her. That was all Ilse knew. She was going to fall with her face down in the damp grass the way Anna had, so the scent of it would be the last thing she remembered, and the stains would cover her clean apron and she would fall crying to the ground and her tears would disappear into the mossy earth. She ran through the trees, her mouth catching the air, her long hair hanging down her back wet and heavy, like a rope.

  Her breath was coming harder as she threaded through the implacable Grunewald. The brambles snatched at her and the rigid trees with their uniform bark crowded out the light. It was growing dark now, the black ta
ngle of boughs above her even darker as they framed themselves against the sky. Ilse was crashing through the undergrowth, spongy with pine needles underfoot, avoiding the snags of trailing ivy that reached and grasped at her. She thought she might reach the soft, grey sand at the edge of the lake and follow the waterline round towards its western edge. But what if he pursued her right to the lake? The water out there was deep and treacherous, rolling and plunging in darkness, flexing its muscles like something alive. There would be no chance of an escape in that direction.

  She wanted to stop and catch her breath and listen for sounds that he was still behind her, but she didn’t dare. The forest seemed to be growing denser now, wild and terrible. She had the strange sensation of being in a book, one she had read a long time ago in childhood, one of those tales that told of the tenebrous, Germanic forest, the kind of forest you got lost in for ever. Stories like that of Hansel and Gretel, wandering deep into the uncharted wilderness. Of Snow White being hunted like a deer by men who wanted to cut out her heart. Forests were places where the ordinary rules of human society no longer applied, and people were turned into animals.

  She stumbled, and pulled herself up again. Her breathing had become ragged, and a hoarse note sounded in her throat, like a bird’s cry. She should never have left the house. She shouldn’t have gone out to see what was making the puppies whimper in their kennel and the geese cackle and call. She had wanted to comfort the dogs and run her hands through their soft fur, but she shouldn’t have stepped out of the warmth of the kitchen, where the glimmering stove was reflecting in the copper saucepans that sat above the range and the baking spices hung in the air, only to find the door slammed shut by an unseen hand, a terror which had set her running into the night.

  The sweet, pudgy face of Otto came to her. What would Otto do without her? Otto’s parents would tell him they always knew he could have done better. They thought little enough of Ilse anyway, and to have her die an undignified death would be a further slur on the family name. And what about her own parents, on their farm? Poor Papi and Mutti had never wanted their only daughter to marry a man who lived so far away and now they would be left with no daughter at all.