by Jane Thynne
‘That’s me.’
‘Can I talk to you?’
In the dimness Clara made out that girl was about five foot tall, with a frank expression, milk-white hair and clear, wide-set eyes. She was wearing some kind of uniform but did not give the familiar Hitler salute, as a Jugend collector would, nor did she seem to have any collecting tin with her. She looked too young to be a fan, and nowhere near old enough to be out at this time of night.
‘What’s this about?’
‘If you let me in, I’ll tell you.’
‘It’s rather late. I’m afraid I was just off to bed.’
The girl didn’t budge. She stood stolidly, as though she was prepared to remain outside Clara’s door all night if necessary.
‘Is this a collection?’ said Clara, making for her bag.
‘No.’
Automatically Clara scanned the hall, as though the answer to this child’s presence would materialize behind her, but it was empty.
‘Then . . . does anyone know you’re here?’
‘No.’
‘I suppose you’d better come in.’
The girl stepped inside and looked curiously around. In the lamplight she was extraordinarily pretty, with the faintest blonde fuzz on her rosy cheeks like the skin of a sun-warmed peach. There was a fragility about her, and closer up it was clear that something about her was not quite right. She had slender legs, but one was thinner than the other – almost wasted – and the foot turned in. She seemed familiar, but Clara couldn’t work out why.
The child settled herself in the armchair and looked around like a prospective buyer contemplating a rental. She carried nothing except a small satchel and her self-possession belonged to someone far older, though her face retained a childlike freshness, untainted by the hormonal ravages of adolescence.
‘Would you like something to drink? Some water? Or coffee?’
‘Water, please.’
Clara went into the kitchen. She had tipped the Pervitin in the bin, but she made a large pot of Melitta coffee that was no less delicious for being on prescription.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Katerina Klimpel.’
Clara poured her a glass of water.
‘You shouldn’t be out alone at this time of night. Aren’t your parents worried about you?’
‘I don’t have any parents. I’m an orphan.’
Of course. That was where she had seen the child before. At the NSV reception. She was the one whose face later appeared on a poster with Jenny Jugo. The one who had transfixed Clara with a particularly penetrating stare.
‘Papi died in December. Mutti died when I was born.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right. I don’t need a mother. I miss Papi all the time but I don’t even remember Mutti.’
Although she spoke quite matter-of-factly, the child could not have known how this remark lodged like a hook in Clara’s heart. She knew that feeling so precisely. Sometimes she couldn’t even recall her own mother’s face – only an expression she had, of slight exasperation, and her voice, soft and low, lapsing into German at moments of humour or tenderness.
She came and sat opposite the girl and said, more gently, ‘You were at that reception at the Hotel Eden, weren’t you? Where do you live?’
‘At the National Socialist Volkswohlfahrt home in Lichterfelde.’
‘So why on earth are you here?’
‘I thought you might know my sister. Sonja Klimpel. She’s a singer.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Clara shook her head, bewildered. ‘I don’t think I do. What does she look like?’
‘A lot like you. Very pretty.’
Clara looked in perplexity at the girl before her, sipping her water as delicately as a gin and tonic.
‘Does she work at Babelsberg?’
‘No. Nightclubs mostly, theatres sometimes. She was in Sonnenschein für Alle at the Admiralspalast.’ Sunshine for All was a big hit of the previous year. ‘And she sings at the Café Casanova.’
‘If you have a sister, why are you in the orphanage? Could she not look after you?’
Clara’s enquiry was mild but the riposte was sharp.
‘Why on earth should she? She’s extremely busy. She does have a career, you know.’
In the harshness of that protestation, Clara heard the echo of the older sister’s voice.
‘Besides, she isn’t even my whole sister. My mother was Papi’s second wife. I think that was why Sonja . . . she . . .’
The girl looked down at her neat brown shoes, to disguise the fact that her eyes were swimming. She sniffed slightly and Clara reached a hand towards her, uncertain how to proceed.
‘I don’t know Sonja, but perhaps you’d like to introduce me?’
‘No. That is, I’d like to, but I can’t. That’s the whole point. She’s gone missing. I haven’t seen her for two months.’
‘That’s not so long. When people are busy.’
‘She said she would only be gone two weeks.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘I don’t know. Abroad, I think. That’s what Bettina said.’
‘Who’s Bettina?’
‘She shares an apartment with Sonja. 85, Fischerstrasse, top floor.’
‘And is Bettina a singer too?’
Katerina frowned.
‘I think. They met at the Casanova. Bettina has a flexible career, Sonja says. She turns her hand to anything.’
‘Did Bettina have any idea where Sonja went exactly?’
‘She just said it was work and Sonja would be back.’
‘Things do get complicated with international travel. Now there’s a war on.’
‘If that was the case she could have written.’
The girl had a peculiar directness, as though she would say whatever was in her head without censorship or fear of the consequences. That kind of attitude was dangerous.
‘If you’re worried about your sister, you need to tell the authorities.’ Clara spoke gently, but she needed to point this out. ‘Your teachers will help you. Or your BDM leader.’
‘I would. At least I would if I thought they would be able to do anything.’
‘I’m sure they’d be able to do far more than me. I don’t really know why you thought I might be able to help.’
‘Because of this.’
Katerina reached into the satchel and drew out an orange leather wallet.
‘When I went to Fischerstrasse, Bettina gave me Sonja’s wallet. It had some money in it and Bettina thought I should have it. But I also found this.’
She pulled out a piece of paper and thrust it under Clara’s nose, like someone requesting an autograph, yet in the same instant Clara saw that her autograph was already there. Her own looping signature, the ‘C’ curled protectively around the letters that followed it, cupping them like a palm, and the ‘V’ reaching high and sloping to one side, like a wayward tendril. Beneath it her address.
Apartment 5, Winterfeldtstrasse 35, Berlin-Schöneberg
‘That’s how I knew where to find you.’
Clara took the paper and turned it over. It was a store receipt, and on the other side was a fancy, navy blue heading.
Jaeger’s of Berlin. Established 1859.
She recognized it at once.
Jaeger’s was a jeweller’s shop in the passage off Friedrichstrasse, a short alley crowded with upmarket cigar boutiques and luggage emporiums. It was a prestigious place that had been patronized by the smartest people in Berlin for generations.
Slowly Clara said, ‘I visited Jaeger’s some time ago. I wanted them to fix something for me.’
She remembered the jeweller, a handsome young man, bent over his work table at the back of the shop, monocular in his eye, peering down at his work – a butterfly made of rubies perhaps, or a cluster of yellow opals in the shape of a daisy. She had watched him for a moment, back straight, perched forward in his chair, pressing and polishing, the lines on his face knitted closer
as he squinted, holding a gem up to the light between finger and thumb. Although he was big as a bear, his touch was one of extreme precision, so deft and delicate that it might have been a real insect he held in his palm, or a living flower whose petals might be bruised by a rougher hand. In the window there was a dazzling display of his work – pearl necklaces and sapphire bracelets, emerald and ruby rings, chokers and brooches and earrings. And diamonds, winking in the inky velvet of their settings like a hundred eyes.
‘Was it something precious?’ asked Katerina.
‘It was certainly valuable.’
Not to Clara, though. It was a swastika brooch set with diamonds. A gift from Joseph Goebbels in 1933. So much had happened since then – most of her life had happened.
‘It was a diamond brooch. The clasp was broken. Herr Jaeger took my address. He was going to contact me when the job was done.’
‘And did he?’ demanded the girl.
‘No.’
‘Why didn’t you ask? You must have wanted to know how the repair was coming on?’
‘I called. There was no answer. And then . . .’
Then there was nothing Clara could care less about than a swastika brooch. Of all the things she had lost, a brooch was the least of them. It suited her, actually, that the jeweller had not called back. Yet now she was puzzled.
‘So why did Sonja have your jeweller’s receipt in her wallet?’ The girl had the cool persistence of a Gestapo interrogator.
‘I might just as well ask you.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did your sister take my brooch?’
‘I never saw her with it.’
Clara studied the receipt, turned it over then put it down on her lap decisively.
‘Well, it’s easily solved. I’ll go to Jaeger’s and ask.’
‘I went already. The shop has closed down.’
‘Oh. I see.’
All through Berlin there were shops boarded up, with signs in the window informing respected customers that sadly this establishment was now closed for business. Once the prohibitions on Jewish trade were enacted, most shops in Jewish ownership had been Aryanized, with new owners and employees, but others, like Jaeger’s, remained unoccupied, turning a vacant face to the world, their windows empty as dead eyes.
‘There must be somewhere else you can ask,’ coaxed the girl.
‘I’m not promising anything, but I’ll see what I can find out.’
Katerina’s eyes lit up. ‘Can we start tomorrow?’
‘I have a rather important meeting tomorrow. But I’ll look into it very soon.’
The hope died, to be replaced by dull despondency. Katerina looked like a child accustomed to having her requests denied.
‘I’m sorry. I understand how worried you must be.’
‘No you don’t!’ The blue-green eyes sparked with passionate fire. ‘You don’t understand at all! Sonja’s the only family I have left and the Brown Sisters say if she doesn’t get in touch then I’ll be placed for adoption. I’ll have to go and live with a family who don’t really want me. Or just want me to work in their kitchen or clean their house, or make up family numbers because they’re not kinderreich. And I can’t bear the thought of that.’
There was a sheen in her eyes, and through that invisible film Clara saw herself and every unmothered moment since the day Helene Vine’s coffin lurched into the yawning earth. She saw every adult face of awkward sympathy, every silent meal, every instance of solitary uncertainty that came from losing the central figure of her life. A mother was the universe from whose substance one was formed, and the gap she left would never be filled.
Impulsively she reached forward and gave Katerina a hug. The girl felt like a fledgling, a tense armful of bones, holding herself stiff as though a stronger embrace might break her.
‘It’s not just me. It’s you too, Fräulein Vine. You must want to find your brooch.’
‘Of course I do.’
Though in truth, Clara thought after Katerina had disappeared back into the night, complete with a torch and injunctions to walk swiftly, there was nothing on earth that she wanted less.
Chapter Seventeen
How did one ever get used to sitting in a tiny metal tube, suspended high in the air, deafened by the propeller and feeling the plane tilt and bank as it rose into the dazzling glare of the sun? Even if that plane was a Junkers Ju 52, fitted out for executive travel with black leather seating and walnut finish in the passenger cabin. Minute ferns of frost were feathering the window as Clara pressed her head against the pane and looked down at the Reich spread out below. Beneath the stately flocks of clouds was a vast patchwork of fields interspersed with a scatter of houses, the clotted darkness of forests and the occasional glint of an ink-black lake.
Ahead of her, hair coiled in a strict bun and keen eyes fixed on the dials, sat the rigid figure of Hanna Reitsch, the most famous aviatrix in the Reich. Famed for her skill as a test pilot, Flugkapitän Reitsch was a star of Nazi propaganda, her petite form and unscrubbed prettiness making her both the darling of the Luftwaffe and a pin-up among the women of the Frauenschaft. More importantly, however, Hitler was said to adore her and the feeling was mutual. Perhaps more than any woman in Germany, the unmarried Hanna Reitsch venerated the man she had sworn to serve. Every inch of her four foot eleven frame was pledged to his duty.
Clara had found Hanna in the appointed spot in the lobby of Tempelhof, beneath the windows depicting Paris, Rome and London in twenty-foot-high stained glass. The windows had been installed just a few years ago when these capitals were romantic destinations and flying was a luxurious adventure for modern citizens of the Reich, rather than the daunting prospect it had now become. The figures in the window with their chic clothing and pigskin luggage were a poignant reminder of what travellers were supposed to look like.
‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ said Hanna warmly, her tiny stature belying the strength of her handshake. ‘I enjoyed that film you made with Ernst Udet, The Pilot’s Wife. Udet is a great inspiration to me. It was he who gave me the honorary title of Flugkapitän.’
‘You worked for Ufa too, at one point, didn’t you? On Rivals of the Air?’
‘Ach. I was only the stunt pilot. I couldn’t act to save my life.’
That was almost certainly true. There was a simplicity about Hanna Reitsch, a frank directness, that suggested that she would never be able to dissemble sufficiently for any kind of performance.
She led the way briskly across the tarmac to the spot where a medium-sized Luftwaffe plane was being readied for the journey.
‘Did you always want to fly?’ asked Clara.
Hanna’s eyes lit up.
‘Since I was a child. I remember seeing the storks sailing over the fields in Silesia where I grew up and thinking how magnificent it would be to do the same. And you know what I discovered when I started flying? It’s even better! Especially, like this morning, when I get to fly one of the Führer’s own fleet. Not in your honour, I’m sorry to say, but because there may be some senior men who need transport from Portugal. All the same, I hope you’ll find it comfortable.’
In the luxury of Hitler’s leather seat, it was for a while. Until the plane bucked in a bout of turbulence that forced Clara to shut her eyes in a bid to control the wave of nausea threatening to engulf her. Yet even once the turbulence had passed and the plane was progressing steadily through the calm air, the dread in the pit of her stomach remained. It had nothing to do with the flight and everything to do with what, or rather who, awaited her in Lisbon. Walter Schellenberg.
During her time in Berlin Clara had encountered several of the most senior men in the Nazi regime. Goebbels she had met many times and Goering a few. Himmler had instructed her on his approach to breeding superior children and eliminating the weaker elements of the race. She had even been in the same room as Hitler himself. But nothing frightened her so much as the prospect of meeting the Reich’s chief spymaster face to face.
> Yet again she ran through the sparse selection of facts she knew about Schellenberg. He was the son of a piano maker from Saarbrücken, far more cultured and polished than his peers. He spoke several languages. He had studied law at the University of Bonn and was all set for a career in advocacy when someone had suggested it would help his career to join the Gestapo. From there he had risen rapidly through the ranks until he caught the eye of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Gestapo’s security service, who saw in Schellenberg’s savage intelligence and ruthless lawyer’s brain the right qualities to head the counter-espionage outfit for the entire German Reich. How could Clara, whose training went no further than a few terms at the London School of Acting and Musical Theatre in Waterloo, and the private tuition of Leo Quinn, hope to match him when they came face to face?
She tried to remember everything Leo had told her about interrogation techniques and the best way to comport herself under them. Stay calm. Don’t react instinctively. That had helped her before, when she was grilled by a mid-ranking policeman in Barminstrasse prison in Berlin, but Schellenberg was no mid-ranker. His entire expertise lay in detecting foreign agents. His fiancée Irene had been almost proud of it. He’s at the top of his game. He never gets it wrong. Clara shuddered at the thought of that blandly handsome face, and its priestly encouragement of her closest confidences. In the airless Gestapo cells the light was left burning at all times and prisoners were forced to face it. New arrivals would be marched past the inmates before interrogation to see the results of the beatings, the faces that were no longer faces, to encourage co-operation when they were questioned themselves. The screams and whimpers. Eventually these thoughts were drowned out by Hans Reuber’s comment, resounding in her frightened mind like a leaden bell, with the bleak consolation of some extreme unction. Forty-eight hours. That’s all we ask for. If you can hold out that long before you start spilling names then it gives other people a chance.
They flew down past Lyons and Marseilles to Barcelona, the bare rocks of the Spanish mountains like a lunar landscape, and the purple spine of hills stretching away. Looking down at the dwellings far below, Clara thought of all the lives there, each with its own loves and loyalties and secrets, and felt a painful surge of longing for the simple domesticity of normal family, of cooking meals, preparing for work, reading to children at bedtime. That normality could have been hers, too.