The Pursuit of Pearls

by Jane Thynne

  “In what way different?”

  Hedwig knitted her fingers and gazed around her for inspiration.

  “She wasn’t this perfect specimen of Aryan womanhood that the principal always says we are. Lottie was very…ambitious.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” agreed Hedwig hesitantly. “What I mean is, she knew what she wanted. She liked talking about people like Marx and Engels. Sometimes I had to tell her to keep her voice down, but she didn’t care what people thought. And…” With a quick, desperate glance at Clara, she lowered her voice. “Men liked her very much.”

  “I’m not surprised. She was beautiful.”

  Clara recalled the slight, defiant lift of Lottie’s head when men’s eyes flicked over her and stuck to her all the way down the corridor.

  “She was a magnet for them, Fräulein Vine. They followed her like dogs. It didn’t matter if they were married or single. You could see their eyes glaze over when they looked at her, as if they were imagining things, you know? Like they were picturing her with no clothes on.”

  “Did she like them, too?”

  Hedwig blushed. She was twisting her braid around a finger and gazing sightlessly into the middle distance. There were layers of shadow in her voice, of things that remained unspoken.

  “She slept around—even when we were over in London. She slipped away a couple of nights and made me promise to cover for her. I tried to talk to her about it, but she said what was wrong with that? She wasn’t married or anything. She didn’t feel at all guilty. She couldn’t get hold of condoms anymore, no one can, but she carried a bottle of vinegar with her and used it as a douche. It works perfectly”—Hedwig blushed more profusely—“apparently.”

  “Did she have a regular boyfriend?”

  Hedwig pushed away the hanks of mousy hair that had escaped her braids. There were beads of sweat in her hairline, Clara noticed, and even though they were sitting in a deserted side street, her gaze flitted around as though fearful someone might be watching.

  “That’s just it. When the principal, Frau Mann, asked me, I said no. But now I’ve been feeling so guilty about it. I think I should have told the truth.”

  Clara was silent.

  “Lottie had met someone, Fräulein Vine. She wouldn’t tell me who. Usually she’d talk for hours about her boyfriends.” A shy sideways glance. “I’m sorry, Fräulein, but she liked boasting about what they…did in bed. Only this time it was different. She was infatuated with this man, but she wouldn’t even tell me his name. She just said he was very interesting. An artistic type. And he had a secret.”

  The chill breeze sent a fragile confetti of petals spiraling down from an apple tree, and a petal stuck to Hedwig’s cheek. Clara reached across to brush it away. “What sort of secret?”

  “She wouldn’t say. He was on her mind all the time. But this man didn’t make her happy. I think perhaps he saw other women. One of the last times I saw her, Lottie said that she had had enough. She would show him he couldn’t play around with her. She had something on him. But at the same time…”

  The roar of a passing car caused Hedwig to startle. Turning back to Clara, she took a soft breath and lowered her voice.

  “The fact is, I think she was terribly frightened of him.”

  Clara wanted her to keep talking, but she could see it was no use. The girl was as nervous as a kitten.

  “Why should she be frightened of this man if she was in love with him?” Clara asked gently.

  “I don’t know.”

  Clara noticed a café across the road.

  “Would you like to have a cup of coffee with me?”

  Hedwig sniffed and squeezed the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears. Then she shook her head.

  “That’s kind, but I’d better get back. Herr Doktor Kraus will have noticed by now, and God help me if the SS Reichsführer has already arrived.” She paused. “If you hear anything about…about Lottie, would you tell me? I need to know. She was my dearest friend and I would do anything I could to find who killed her.”

  “I feel the same.”

  Clara took out a tan leather Smythson notebook and scribbled her address and telephone number in it with her silver pen.

  “Take this. And if you remember anything else, just call me. It might be useful.” She tore the page out and pressed it into Hedwig’s hand.

  “Thank you, Fräulein Vine. And please—be careful. If that monster who did this to Lottie is still out there, all of us women need to watch ourselves until he’s caught.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  “So were you really there? I didn’t see you.”

  Erich regarded Clara suspiciously, his dark brows knitted above skeptical eyes.

  “I told you. Right opposite the Führer’s saluting podium.”

  “And you definitely saw me?”

  Goebbels was fond of saying that for a lie to be believed, it had to be a big one, but Clara thought that, at certain moments, a little lie was a better choice.

  “I was very proud of you.”

  It was Saturday, and they had just finished one of their regular weekend pursuits. A swim at the Charlottenburg public swimming baths. It was a lovely old building—the pride of the district—decorated with porcelain dolphins, the high glass ceiling with its turquoise blue struts echoing with the shouts of parents and children.

  Clara loved these weekend meetings with Erich. She found herself looking forward to them throughout the week—moments of sunny respite from the darkening political scene. Young people lived so much more in the moment. She liked hearing about his friends, their fights and feuds, and talking about books, films, and her own childhood. Erich especially liked to hear about his dead mother, Helga, who had befriended Clara when she first moved to Berlin. Although he had only come into her life six years ago, some of the happiest times in her life had been with Erich. Rowing in the Wannsee, the sun bouncing off the clear water of the lake as Erich learned to handle the oars, or seeing his enthralled face beside hers in the silvery glimmer of the cinema as they sat through innumerable war films.

  Clara knew very little about teenage boys and had no more expected to find herself entrusted with one than she might have an elephant or a giant panda, but she had come to love Erich as if he were her own.

  The best part of the swimming mornings came afterwards when, exuding the tang of chlorine and the virtuous flush of exercise, they would wander a couple of streets along to the vast Rogacki market hall and sate their appetites. Despite the food shortages, the market always gave an impression of plenty, and the café she and Erich liked best was famous for its generous portions. They sat among the market traders surveying a whole panorama of food—glistening haunches of meat, slabs of cheese, and rainbow-scaled fish on beds of ice. Over the years Erich had grown almost visibly as he devoured mountains of spätzele and wurst and cakes and ice cream.

  That day Clara had selected Pflaumenkuchen, sweet, doughy plum cake topped with cinnamon sugar and a dollop of whipped cream, while Erich went for Pfannkuchen, a kind of jam doughnut. To Clara’s secret pleasure he also ordered Himbeersaft, the sugary raspberry juice so loved by children in Berlin. It consoled her that perhaps he was not growing up quite as fast as she feared, despite the fact that he outgrew every shirt she bought for him within months.

  “Anyway”—Erich seemed mollified by Clara’s admiration—“you can watch me march again if you like.”

  “So soon?” said Clara, trying hard to inject some enthusiasm into her voice.

  “In the cinema. It’s a movie already. Hitler’s fiftieth birthday. We’ve watched it twice in the HJ film hour.”

  “That’s great.”

  He shrugged. “I suppose.”

  He pulled out a packet of cigarettes, but at the sight of Clara’s face put it away again.

  “Anyway, I’ve got better news than that. I’ve been appointed to the HJ-Streifendienst.”

  Clara beamed at him lovingly.
She had no idea what it was, but any achievement of Erich’s gave her a lift. She gave a little shake of his arm.

  “Darling, that’s wonderful! Clever you. What is it?”

  “It’s the Patrol Force. We keep order at meetings and watch out for troublemakers. We make a note of anyone criticizing the Party, you know, or disrespecting the Führer, and we put that in a regular report to our divisional office. It’s a way of keeping the HJ strong and united.”

  “Oh.” Clara couldn’t help the disappointment seeping into her voice, and Erich flared with annoyance as if she had rubbed a raw wound.

  “I knew you’d be like that! You should be pleased. Anyone else would be. It’s a privilege. A position of responsibility. If you get into the Streifendienst, you’re on track for recruitment to the SS, and sometimes you go directly to SS officer training school. You can’t believe what an honor it is!” He had a high flush on his cheeks. “But you’re never pleased when I have good news.”

  “That’s not fair,” she reproved gently. “But all this talk of the SS is quite new. I thought you wanted to join the Luftwaffe. You’ve spent so much time building gliders and taking rides in fighter bombers.”

  “I know.” Erich frowned and fiddled with his glass. Clara guessed that she had hit on the heart of his dilemma, but that didn’t mean he was ready to forgive her. She knew his mother, if she had lived, would have been proud of him.

  “It’s true. I did want to join the Luftwaffe. I do. But when someone gives you a chance like this. The SS, Clara! All the others were green with envy. It means I’ve been singled out for leadership.”

  Clara forced a smile. The HJ was all about spotting future leaders. Once a likely candidate had been identified, the boys were plucked by the leadership schools, in Vogelsgang and Krossinsee and Pomerania, and trained in political science and administration as well as obedience, zeal, and mental fitness for the struggles they would face enacting the Führer’s wishes.

  “You just don’t understand.”

  “I suppose I don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” Erich never sulked for long, and besides, it was Saturday, and a Pfannkuchen, glistening with sugar, had just landed on his plate. “Everything will change if we go to war with Poland anyway, and that’s only a few months away.”

  “You seem quite sure.”

  “I am,” he said, through a mouthful of sweet dough. “We’re not supposed to say, but our battalion has already been issued luminous paint for painting the curbstones. So people can see their way in a blackout when the Poles begin their aerial bombardment.”

  The news gave Clara a chill. Everyone knew Goering had laid elaborate plans to defend Berlin in case of bombing, and the HJ were endlessly practicing air-raid precautions, but the idea that these plans were now being put into action made the threat of war seem even more real.

  Erich licked his sugar mustache. “It’s quite exciting. They’re saying we’ll be pushed to fight over Danzig by the autumn. The Poles are refusing to see reason.”

  “There’s nothing exciting about war, Erich.” There was steel in Clara’s voice, but she couldn’t help it. “Don’t ever make that mistake.”

  Erich shrugged and returned to his glass of Himbeersaft. Clara knew what was going through his head. Men were better judges of these things than women. Male reasoning powers were scientifically superior to women’s, and the woman should never presume to argue with the man. That was the kind of thing he had learned in the HJ, where they were taught that even the highest BDM leader in the land could not issue orders to the lowest HJ boy.

  She reached a hand across to Erich and patted his arm. “Why don’t we talk about something else?”

  She hated talking politics with Erich. Subjected to weekly political conditioning at the HJ, and gifted with a naturally quick, analytic mind, he loved to pursue political debates. Having to maintain a façade with the boy she so loved, while dreading what might happen to him in a war, was draining. Erich’s argumentative nature would have made him a good barrister, but instead he was probably destined to become cannon fodder in Hitler’s deluded war. She looked at his face, still puppyishly rounded, and his eyes, shining with a sense of absolute rightness, the clarity of conviction so common in the young and dangerous in the old.

  “Have something else to eat. It’s a treat, remember,” she told him.

  It was a treat because Erich was to leave the next day for a three-week Hitler Youth camp north of Berlin. Clara had first taken him there when he was fourteen and entered the senior Hitler Jugend; that was when he’d acquired his short brown trousers, black boots, and belt with its iron eagle buckle. Above the camp entrance was a banner with the slogan “We were born to die for Germany,” and Clara’s sarcastic comment on it had caused a predictable squabble between them. But it was soon forgotten. Even though the marching, bayonet drilling, grenade throwing, and pistol shooting went against Erich’s naturally studious nature, and he was often so tired that he would fall asleep in class, he embraced the HJ with fervor.

  “What’s this favor you wanted to ask?” asked Clara, wrenching her mind back to the present. She had already guessed that the answer lay in the wicker basket that Erich had tucked beneath the table.

  “It’s only for a couple of weeks. Just while I’m away.”

  He lifted the basket’s front grille to show Clara its tiny, trembling cargo: a pair of young rabbits huddled together. Erich and his grandmother, like a vast number of Berlin citizens, had taken to breeding rabbits for meat, and the animals were kept in a hutch on the balcony. As Erich was off to camp, his grandmother had suggested that she wring their necks to save herself some work, but instead he had brought them to Clara.

  “They’re so young. It’s far too early to kill them. You will look after them, won’t you? Just while I’m at camp.”

  Clara poked a finger through the grille and felt the animals’ impossibly soft fur. Beady eyes blinked at her and soft noses twitched, too young even to fear a predator.

  “I would, darling, but I’m going to be in Paris for a couple of days.”

  “Leave them some cabbage leaves and water. They’ll be okay. Better off than if they stay with Oma, anyway. Please.”

  He opened the basket, lifted one rabbit onto his lap, and stroked it. The tiny creature remained motionless, ears flattened, nose still quivering.

  She felt a pang of tenderness. Even now, with all his Hitler Youth bluster, his cigarette smoking and adolescent edginess, the child in Erich still surfaced. She remembered their trips to the zoo, in the early days after Helga had died, and Erich’s fury that wild animals should be caged.

  The thought of exotic animals brought yesterday’s trip to the Ahnenerbe back.

  “All right—and I meant to ask. Have you ever heard of the Ahnenerbe?”

  Erich rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s heard of it. You’ve heard of it, Clara. We saw a newsreel about the latest expedition, remember?”

  “I wasn’t concentrating.”

  “It’s very interesting. They’re scouring the world for the origins of the German race.”

  “You would have thought the German race originated in Germany.”

  He frowned. “It did, I think. But the Ahnenerbe has discovered that the Aryan race used to rule all sorts of places. That’s exactly why our soldiers must fight to reclaim our original lands.”

  The urge to put him right rose in her, but she suppressed it. So that was what Erich and his friends had been told.

  —

  THEY PARTED AT THE S-BAHN, and Clara kissed his cheek fleetingly, because he hated public displays of affection. Then she sat on the platform, with the basket of rabbits alongside her, waiting for the train. On the next bench was a mother with two children—a little girl of around a year old, thumb in mouth and dark-lashed eyes fluttering shut, and her older brother, who was hanging off the handle of the stroller impatiently, longing for the train to arrive. As he caught sight of Clara’s rabbits and stared with fascinati
on, his mother reached down a hand and ran it idly through his shock of hair.

  The gesture, so ordinary, sent a shaft of longing and loss through Clara. It was something she remembered from when she first knew Erich. How casually, fondly, she had run her fingers through his dense, springy tuft of hair. And now such gestures were forever out of bounds. Never again could she ruffle his hair or pass a proprietorial hand across his face. It was only a tiny, incidental loss when set against the scale of losses that faced everyone now, but she felt it, and it ached.

  Erich had been damaged by the Nazis, too. Nowhere near so much as Esther Goldblatt, in silent hiding, lying awake every night in fear of footsteps coming up the stairs, yet the wounds Hitler’s regime inflicted on him were lasting and real. His mother had been murdered by the Nazis when he was ten years old. He had lost all his security and was left with only a grandmother and Clara herself. No wonder he reserved his ardor for dreams of heroism. No wonder he poured all his passion and loyalty into that other family, the Hitler Youth—the family that never left him with a second to himself.

  And what if she went back to England for good? Clara didn’t want to leave Erich, even if sometimes he did everything in his power to make him easy to leave. But if she stayed in Berlin she would be trapped, just like on the saluting podium at the birthday parade, confined by velvet ropes to a world that was harder and harder to escape.

  A voice jerked her back to the present.

  “Fräulein?”

  It was a lottery ticket seller, coming along the platform with a tray-load of orange, sealed tickets. The Reichslotterie, the German state lottery, was all the rage. Everyone played—except Jews, who were banned from buying tickets—and the money supposedly went to a variety of noble causes: job creation, winter relief, mothers and children. Whether the odds were entirely as pure as mathematics would suggest, or rigged to minimize payouts, was another matter. Some people said the Party ensured winning tickets were few and far between. Despite that, everyone had their favorite numbers, and in a vote for improbability as well as a protest against her own mathematical brain, Clara always selected primes. Now she handed over the requisite fifty pfennigs, the ticket seller saluted, and she picked five numbered orange envelopes. Only each one she opened had a blue ticket with the single word Nicht written on it.