Solitaire

by Jane Thynne

  ‘If you don’t mind, Clara, I don’t want to discuss it any more. Thanks for explaining.’ He returned the newspaper clipping to his top pocket and produced the betting form.

  ‘Who are you backing for the next race?’

  There was no point arguing. Erich may quote Kant and his knowledge of logic might go back to the ancient Greeks, but to any boy of his age in Germany right then, the logic of the Führer was always going to prevail.

  Chapter Fourteen

  On the corner of Luisenstrasse fresh loudspeakers were being fixed to the walls. Whatever they broadcast, everyone knew they never told the truth. Hitler was like a disease that people suspected yet persisted in pretending didn’t exist, as though by ignoring the symptoms the illness would go away of its own accord. But Hitler wasn’t going anywhere.

  His voice, with its ear-scraping screams of indignation, was like a soundtrack to Mary Harker’s time in Berlin. It drilled right down, like a tinnitus of the soul. It vibrated in her bones and travelled into her brain. It permeated everything, like the tang of boiled flesh, cabbage and dust that hung in the air and made her feel, no matter how often she scrubbed herself, she would never be clean of it. As Mary sat waiting in Habel’s restaurant, images of the time she had spent in this city and beyond flashed through her mind.

  She remembered the hulking ruin of the main synagogue, burned down in 1938 as Brown Shirts unrolled the Torah and charged people a mark to trample the length of it. Trucks drawn up outside apartment buildings and soldiers with pistols jumping out. In Vienna, Jewish professors cleaning the gutters with toothbrushes, and last year in Poland, watching women boil weeds to stave off starvation. And now her beloved Paris, where she had lived briefly in 1932. Already the newsreels were running shots of Hitler on a visit so fleeting it looked almost furtive, driving past buildings that were ghostly as a stage set in the steely morning light, in a fleet of Mercedes sedans. Standing upright in his leather coat, gripping the windscreen, light bending towards him like a black hole. His face looked sullen, sulky almost, as though he was disappointed by the absence of cheering crowds. How different this must have seemed from his triumphant entry into Vienna two years ago, when carpets of flowers were thrown in his path. Could it be that the capture of Paris, the jewel of Europe, whose architecture he had so long pored over in maps and street plans, was proving an anticlimax?

  Special to the New York Evening Post. That was Mary’s byline, and if she was not so special to anyone else then she had learned to stop lamenting it. Leaving America and making a career for herself in Europe as a roving correspondent was the only destiny she had ever dreamed of, even if it had consigned her mother back in New Jersey to a state of perpetual disappointment. Playing golf with lucky friends whose daughters had chosen to be home-makers, Edith Harker’s life was one long losing hand; not only had Mary failed to provide her with grandchildren, but she had elected to live thousands of miles away at a time of life when any widowed mother had a right to expect the attentions of a devoted daughter. Working, what was more, for a newspaper that neither Edith Harker, nor anyone in her country club, actually took. Perhaps though, Mary thought wistfully, that would change once her mother heard about her new opportunity. Not even the housewives of New Jersey could ignore a slot of regular broadcasts on CBS Radio.

  Whether they would like what she said was another matter. Most of the ordinary Germans she knew regarded America as a wondrous land of automobiles and skyscrapers and dancing and fun and were theoretically happy to talk to a correspondent whose country was still on cordial terms with their own. Yet in reality, the risks they ran were considerable. Mary’s phone was tapped, and the lives of her informants depended on her own vigilance. In a perverse reversal of hospitality, when she visited an apartment the owner would turn on the radio loud the moment she arrived.

  The bell above the door chimed and Clara came in.

  Mary watched her dearest friend from across the restaurant, before she had been spotted. She was wearing sunglasses and a belted black dress that set off her light golden tan, falling in neat pleats below the waist. There were fresh shadows in her face and some new lines, though time had not yet dragged its beauty down. It was a face Mary thought she knew, yet she was well aware how little she really understood. She marvelled at how much the cloak of familiarity could conceal. Clara had recently returned from France, ostensibly on a visit with the Frontbühne, though Mary felt certain that other business was involved. For both their sakes she never probed too deeply about Clara’s work or any other part of her life. Officially she knew nothing of Clara’s romantic relationships, yet she had never forgotten the stricken look that engulfed her friend that evening in the Press Club when she heard the report that two men had been shot in an illegal border crossing, one of them a suspected British agent.

  By the time Clara had spotted Mary and was making her way over, she had returned to her copy of NS Frauen-Warte, whose cover girl that month was dressed in traditional peasant garb, ploughing a field.

  ‘Not your usual reading matter,’ said Clara, pulling off her sunglasses. ‘I never had you down as a Nazi fashion fan.’

  ‘I’m not. You could have more fun reading a headstone. Though I notice that you made Neues Volk.’

  New People, the organ of the Party’s racial office, was the stuff of Nazi dentists’ waiting rooms, filled with opinion pieces on Aryan supremacy, the importance of Germanic names and the deficiencies of Jews and Poles. The news of Clara’s appointment to the fundraising committee of the NSV had featured above an item on congenital disease accompanied by a lurid photograph. This genetically ill person will cost our people’s community 60,000 marks over his lifetime. Citizens, that is your money!

  Mary shrugged.

  ‘But if you’re really serious about campaigning for the importance of family life, Clara, you’ll want to see this.’

  She gestured to where a second magazine was sandwiched between the Nazi periodical’s pages. It was a British magazine called Look.

  ‘One of the other correspondents brought it back. I’m being careful no one sees me reading it, but you need this sort of thing every now and then if you’re going to stay sane and I’m happy to say there’s a piece in here that’s got the Führer very upset.’

  ‘I’m amazed he read it.’

  ‘He wouldn’t, only it’s by his nephew, William, so Goebbels must have felt obliged to point it out. Apparently Hitler tried really hard for the boy, got him a job with Opel, invited him to all the best dinner parties, showed him around. And what thanks did he get? The lad only went off to England and moved into journalism.’

  ‘What’s the piece about?’

  ‘Family matters mostly. It’s called Why I Hate my Uncle.’ Mary threw the magazine down as a waiter approached.

  ‘You can read it later. Let’s order.’

  Habel’s was an old favourite of theirs, both because its cosy wooden booths meant they could speak English undetected and also because it was a historic restaurant that prided itself on serving traditional German food in huge portions. Everything on the menu made the mouth water. Rich stews issuing savoury steam and glistening wurst on a bed of translucent onions. Trout in a red wine sauce. Glossy sautéed potatoes. Asparagus swimming in butter. Schnitzels bigger than the plates they arrived on. In recent times, however, traditions had worn thin. The first tradition to be abandoned was the size of the portions and the second was the food itself. The only dishes on offer that day were Schupfnudeln, thick Bavarian potato noodles, and sawdust sausage.

  From the loudspeakers outside the voice of Joseph Goebbels could now be heard, shrill with caffeine, saying something about Lügen-Lord Churchill and the Jüdische Weltgefahr. Lying Lord Churchill in league with the worldwide Jewish menace.

  ‘When will he realize no one’s listening?’ said Clara.

  ‘People are listening, though.’

  Mary’s expression darkened.

  ‘Except it’s the foreign stations they’re listening to.
We had proof the other day. The BBC reported the name of a young Berliner who’s been arrested as a spy in England and put in prison. No less than eight people contacted the mother to say her son was safe. And how did she thank them? She reported them all to the police for listening to illegal broadcasts.’

  The waiter brought their food. Clara looked down and sighed.

  ‘Tell me something cheerful. I want to hear about CBS.’

  ‘It’s everything I hoped for! I have a regular slot – twenty minutes a week. This is my chance, Clara . . .’ Though she spoke softly, Mary reached over and gripped her friend’s wrist with surprising strength. ‘It’s my last chance. We have to convince Americans that there’s no alternative to military participation. Roosevelt’s doing everything he can. There’s an election coming up and he’s called on the nation to make an effort, to build up our military defences, but the isolationists are strong. They want to keep out of Europe’s problems. They blame everything on the Jews. You hear it from people at my mother’s country club. Leave Europe to fight her own wars. Why should Americans die? People like Charles Lindbergh laugh at the idea that Germany could ever attack the United States. But Goebbels joins in that laughter.’

  ‘What can you do?’

  ‘It’s difficult. We have to work out of the Haus des Rundfunks.’ The Radio House, up in Berlin’s Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorff, was the home of German State Radio. ‘They censor our scripts and if they don’t like a broadcast there’ll be trouble. The fact that I’m on CBS makes it worse. It’s an important platform, so they watch what I say much more closely. If they wanted to, they could concoct some story that I was slipping in military secrets by code words and put me up before a Nazi People’s Court. They’d charge me with espionage and you know the penalty for that.’

  ‘They wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘Maybe not. Not yet. Not while they still care what Americans think. But time’s running out. More and more correspondents are being thrown out because they displease Goebbels. It’s all the more important that those of us who are left keep telling the truth. Finding the stories that reveal what’s really going on – only I’m worried about the people who do speak to me. The Gestapo turn up at my apartment all the time, questioning me about my sources. I can’t afford to be careless. The slightest slip and my informants could be arrested and charged with treason. Mind you, I had a story yesterday from a most unexpected source. My office is a few doors along from William Joyce. You know, Lord Haw Haw. The British guy.’

  William Joyce was German Radio’s prize possession. Born in America and Irish by heritage, he had the voice of an Englishman and the heart of a fascist. His programme, always beginning with the words ‘Germany Calling’, offered British listeners advice on avoiding injury during forthcoming bombing raids, and tips on learning German and living under future Nazi occupation.

  ‘Dreadful man,’ said Clara, forking her meagre portion of noodles.

  ‘I know. I can hardly bear to speak to him, but do you know what he told me when I passed him in the corridor? Goebbels has scored a major coup. P.G. Wodehouse has been taken prisoner in Le Touquet and he’s being brought to Berlin to make propaganda broadcasts.’

  Clara set down her cutlery in dismay. Her appetite vanished. Strange how such a trifling item, a mere arrest alongside the welter of daily deaths and deportations, should evoke such utter desolation. She had loved P.G. Wodehouse’s novels since her teenage years and to her his characters, Jeeves, Bertie Wooster, Aunt Agatha, symbolized everything joyful about the land of her birth. His jokes, laughter, and butterfly wit that gave the impression nothing really terrible could happen.

  Only now it had. She pictured the novelist in his tweeds and pipe, shambling out of his home under the escort of Nazi guards, fretting, perhaps, about his wife or his beloved dachshund. Trying to keep his spirits up with the kind of light-hearted quips that only his fellow countrymen would understand. No doubt, compared to the treatment inflicted on other prisoners of the Reich, Wodehouse would be treated with courtesy and all the special privileges Joseph Goebbels could devise. English breakfast tea, a gramophone, any banned book he might desire. She guessed he would regard flippant cheerfulness as an appropriate defiance of his dour Teutonic captors. Yet what use were jokes against the Wehrmacht? Humour and fun-poking glanced like toy arrows off the might of the Nazi machine.

  ‘He’ll never do it.’

  ‘Won’t he? Perhaps he agrees with the Duke of Windsor. Peace at any price. Anyhow, what about you? How was Paris?’

  ‘Interesting.’

  Mary raised an eyebrow. She was used to these gnomic remarks that said ‘Don’t probe any further’. Her own calling – if not her entire personality – was the polar opposite of Clara’s. Mary wanted to talk, to expose, to bring the truth out into the open at every opportunity while Clara kept her thoughts private and her activities even more so. Yet Mary had no doubt that her friend’s convictions were every bit as deep as her own.

  ‘Meet anyone there?’

  ‘I was only there two days.’

  ‘A lot can happen in two days.’

  She smiled, threw down her napkin and gave up.

  ‘Well, remember what I said. If you come across anything that you think I should report on, you must let me know. Why don’t we go somewhere else and find a drink? This coffee’s so weak I can see through it.’

  It was not until they had visited the bar of the Hotel Adlon and enjoyed several brandies with what remained of the American press corps that Clara made her way home and allowed herself to think properly about Paris and the man she had met there. Captain Russell. They had been together only a couple of hours, but there had been so much of him that she liked; his intelligence, his quiet intensity, the light in his eyes. The way he seemed to understand what she was saying with an instinctive sympathy. How he refrained from any questions when she threw off her layers of secrecy and laid herself bare. An Anglo-German woman living in Berlin. I can be useful there. How he had left so much of his story unspoken, as if to talk any more of the bodies he had seen, or the sadism he had witnessed being meted out to his fellow prisoners, might be hard for her to bear. As though she had not seen for herself the savagery that man could inflict on man. In a strange way Ned had reminded her of Leo, though physically the two couldn’t be more different. Ned was a bear of a man, his body a heft of muscle carved from the very granite of his northern roots. Dark hair hanging down into one eye. Large hands made for hoisting logs rather than teaching English to a classroom of small boys. She wondered what had become of him and hoped with a fervency that surprised her that he had made his way out of Paris alive.

  When she reached Winterfeldtstrasse the stray cat fell in with her, tail up, trotting in her wake. She bent down to stroke it but it held back, uncertain, its desire for companionship never entirely able to overcome its own unbreachable caution.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Irene had not forgotten her promise. She sent a note saying she had managed to queue-jump a slot for Clara with the doctor who had prescribed her coffee, despite a waiting list longer than the Maginot Line. The appointment would be at the Charité with a man called Professor Max de Crinis.

  The Charité, Berlin’s main hospital, was a great Gothic hulk of blood-red brick, whose arched windows and high concentration of research staff lent it the academic air of a dismal boarding school. The hospital had been established a few centuries earlier when plague was ravaging Berlin, and now that a different plague reigned in the capital, the Charité was busier than ever. Berliners were sick more often, their skin grey through lack of nutrients and their nerves shot, so an increasing stream of depression, alcoholism and anxiety trudged its way through the Charité’s doors, alongside the routine chest pains and heart attacks.

  The campus was divided into gloomy cloisters and quads that formed cubes of light and shade like some architectural chessboard. Clara walked through the main courtyard, passing chrome and white-tiled laboratories through whose murky
windows she glimpsed weighing scales, blood pressure monitors, surgical instruments and stands with test tubes fixed in their jaws. Strange that this machinery of health should induce such a frisson of alarm. Maybe, for her, it went back to childhood. The smell of disinfectant evoked a lurching memory of the operating table in the local cottage hospital where she had had her tonsils out aged five and she was seized by a panicky urge to escape as fast as she could.

  Under an arch from which a brace of Nazi banners hung rippling and flaming in the breeze, she turned left along a walk fenced by high railings to the block where Professor de Crinis had his office. To her surprise, the brass plaque on the door identified him as not merely a doctor but a psychiatrist, and no simple psychiatrist, but Director of Psychiatry, no less.

  An assistant led her to the Professor’s consulting room and left her alone. The place was furnished to resemble a comfortable bourgeois drawing room, carpeted and wood panelled and decorated with a couple of glossy pot plants. The shelves featured a row of academic textbooks and a number of photographs of a man in his forties wearing SS dress uniform with a saturnine complexion and a wing of hair slicked over one temple. His eyebrows arched like the gables of a Bavarian inn over a pair of coal-black eyes. Moments later the same man, now dressed in a tweed suit and bow tie, entered, rubbing his hands. He strolled over to his desk and consulted a diary with leisurely ease before greeting her.

  ‘Fräulein Vine,’ he announced with lordly confidence, as though the question of her identity had somehow been in doubt. He gestured to a buffed leather consulting bench. ‘If you please.’

  Clara settled herself onto the bench and he donned a pair of pince-nez that were hanging around his neck from a cord.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me. I’m sure you must be very busy.’