A War of Flowers (2014)

by Thynne, Jane

  As the traffic swirled round the roundabout, Clara made a couple of circuits of the monument and checked her watch. It was exactly 6.45 p.m. She would give it another few minutes and then leave. After a couple more circuits she was about to pivot away when a drift of air from behind caused her to look around.

  Her heart turned over.

  ‘Max?’

  ‘Clara. I need to speak to you.’

  The vigour had left him and he seemed tense and drained. An errant lock of hair fell down into his eyes.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I might ask the same of you. I was on my way to your apartment and I saw you crossing Pariser Platz so I followed you. I hardly recognized you. Are you meeting someone?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Why are you here?’

  ‘I wanted to see you. It might be the last time. Come with me.’

  He drew her away, so they crossed the road and headed into the comparative shelter of the trees. Clara cast a swift glance back at the Siegessäule and decided that the contact from London Films would have to wait.

  ‘Let’s walk quickly. We need to be careful. The place is teeming with agents.’

  ‘My God, why?’

  ‘Heydrich’s men, the SD, have an operation on this evening – they’re aiming to catch a Czech agent who has a rendezvous in the Tiergarten – so all the agents have been dressed as gardeners and equipped with rakes.’

  Despite herself, Clara scanned the park, looking for the blur of a face or the glint of metal under the canopy of trees. She was shocked that her own checks had been so careless. Max Brandt took her arm as they walked, leaning closely into her.

  Some distance into the park, a rose garden was laid out – a souvenir of the original eighteenth-century French-style modelling of the Tiergarten – and as they passed, the pale blur of roses stood out in the gloom, their fragrance swallowed up in the chill evening air. They progressed to an avenue flanked with bronze statues of Prussian statesmen and mythological creatures.

  ‘I don’t have much time.’ Brandt’s tone was low and urgent. ‘I need to leave Germany. The Gestapo is on my heels. I’ll be given a safe berth in England, of course, just so long as I can get past the border, but they’ve put an alert out to arrest me on sight.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘They say Hitler is Europe’s greatest travel agent because he has everyone on the move. That’s certainly the case for me.’

  Alarm cascaded through her.

  ‘Has something leaked?’

  ‘I’m glad for your sake, Clara, that this has nothing to do with the plot.’

  ‘But then . . . why?’

  ‘I have Madame Chanel to thank for my situation.’

  ‘Chanel?’

  ‘Remember that evening in Chanel’s salon?’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘There was a man there. You asked about him.’

  Clara pictured the salon again, and tried, through the dancing couples and the dazzle of jewels, to visualize the person she had noticed there, a handsome officer with thick hair brushed back from a broad forehead and an easy smile.

  ‘Walter Schellenberg, you said he was called.’

  ‘SS Oberführer Walter Schellenberg. A very charming diplomatic intelligence officer. He’s just been promoted actually, not that his rank is strictly relevant. It’s more significant that he works in Heydrich’s Sicherheitsdienst. He’s Heydrich’s number two. It seems Chanel reported her suspicions of me to Schellenberg and he took them back to his boss.’

  ‘He came all the way to Paris to check you out?’

  ‘Oh no. I was just unlucky. Schellenberg was not in Paris to expose a treacherous cultural attaché – he was on an entirely different mission. A very specific request for Coco Chanel. Heydrich had overheard Fräulein Braun talking at a dinner about her plan to create a cologne for Hitler.’

  ‘That’s right. She told me about it too. And Heydrich wanted to help?’

  ‘How sweet you are, Clara. Heydrich’s motives are never the kindly ones that people like you imagine. No, Heydrich became aware that Eva Braun had asked a young woman to bring samples of perfume into the Reich Chancellery.’

  ‘I know about that. It was a girl from Ludwig Scherk’s. I think Goebbels may have recommended her. He gets his own toiletries from Scherk’s.’

  ‘Well, Heydrich was not so sanguine. There’s no motive so innocent that it can’t be turned into treachery in a mind as devilish as his. He got the idea that perfume would be an ideal method of poisoning the Führer.’

  ‘Poisoning him?’

  ‘Exactly. What could be better? A perfume that was also a poison. Something so innocent, so intimate, yet with the power to penetrate the human dermis. Heydrich knew nothing about this young woman except that she was turning up regularly at the Reich Chancellery with samples and bottles for the Führer’s mistress, so he immediately suspected a plot to kill the Führer. Extraordinary, isn’t it, that he should see plots where there were none, and miss the one that was going on under his nose?’

  ‘Is it possible to poison someone with perfume?’

  ‘That was precisely Schellenberg’s request. He was sent to ask Chanel if a perfume could also be a poison.’

  Clara’s mind was racing. She recalled Eva Braun’s comment to her in Munich. You’d never guess that perfume would contain strange, synthetic molecules. I mean, you can’t see what’s in a scent.

  ‘And what did Chanel say?’

  ‘Chanel said she knew nothing about poison, but there was no better thing than perfume to get under a person’s skin.’

  ‘Did you know all about this that night in Paris?’

  ‘No. Not until much later. It was Canaris who told me all this. Canaris’ family have always been friendly with my own and I’ve long regarded him as a decent man. When I first heard rumours of a plan to unseat Hitler in late August I made straight for Berlin and sought him out. It turned out to be the right decision. Canaris welcomed my involvement and announced he was bringing me into the Abwehr, claiming my contacts in France would be useful to Military Intelligence, but in reality, it was so that he could afford me some protection while we made our plans. He introduced me to the officers here who were preparing the coup and that’s how I got involved.’

  ‘But this woman with the perfume? Was she really planning to poison Hitler?’

  ‘Who knows? She was obviously planning something because Heydrich placed a man in her workplace to watch her, and he reported back her gossip. Apparently she told a workmate she had some great scheme concerning the Führer’s girlfriend.’

  ‘So why didn’t Heydrich arrest her at once?’

  ‘He would have done, but she left town in a hurry. She disappeared off on a cruise ship and hasn’t been heard of since.’

  ‘A cruise ship?’

  Despite their pace, Clara almost stopped in her tracks. The invisible pattern that her mind had been searching for leapt out vividly before her, like a tapestry with its last stitch in place. She understood.

  ‘They had this woman followed,’ continued Max. ‘But nothing came of it.’

  Nothing came of it, because the girl from Ludwig Scherk’s was Ada Freitag, the girl Erich met on the Wilhelm Gustloff and whose disappearance had caused him such anxiety. That was why Rupert had been warned not to pursue the story any further. It explained why the Kriminalpolizei said the missing girl should stay missing.

  ‘I just . . .’

  ‘What?’

  Clara stopped herself. There was no point burdening Max with this knowledge. The more you knew, the more risk you ran, when Heydrich was on your tail.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. But it seems wild to imagine this woman might have been planning to poison Hitler.’

  ‘Who knows? She had some ulterior motive, Canaris said. No one makes friends with Eva Braun for the sake of her company. You of all people should know that.’

  He gave her a meaningful look, then glanced around him. They had reached the fringes of the Königs
platz, where the smoke-blackened Reichstag building, which had never been fully repaired since the fire five years previously, gleamed like a dirty fossil in the lamplight.

  ‘As it happens, I did learn something though, that evening in Paris. Walter Schellenberg had a secondary purpose. It hasn’t escaped the Nazis’ notice that Chanel is supremely well connected with the British establishment. Before I met you that evening he had held a quiet talk with me. He wanted to know if I thought Chanel would be useful as a go-between for the German and English ruling classes.’

  ‘Coco Chanel?’

  ‘Strange, isn’t it, the power of fashion? Chanel is a small woman, but her influence is enormous. She knows so many of the English ruling class – Churchill, the Duke of Westminster, perhaps even your father.’

  Clara remembered the chill, appraising glance that Chanel had cast over her. Was she assessing exactly how much Clara knew, and how useful she might be to the Nazi cause?

  ‘Now Schellenberg is planning a different kind of talk with me. And he won’t be using any diplomatic charm.’

  She pressed his arm closer, as if to comfort him.

  ‘Perhaps you’re worrying unduly.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I met my neighbour, Frau Hanke, in the KaDeWe food hall. She mentioned, quite casually, that she had noticed my door needed mending. I understood immediately what she meant – someone had entered my apartment when I wasn’t around. It was all I needed to know; I realized at once that I can’t go back there.’

  The image of her own visit rose in Clara’s mind. Had she been sighted visiting Max Brandt? But she pushed the thought away – angry at her selfishness when Brandt was in such immediate trouble.

  ‘Where will you go, Max?’

  ‘I don’t know. Canaris can’t help me – he’s told me not even to contact him. I thought of going to my ex-wife, or my former in-laws, but it would only bring them problems and besides, I’m not sure Gisela wouldn’t denounce me herself. Ulrich Welzer’s elderly mother offered to hide me at her country estate, but if anyone got wind of that, it would only attract attention for Ulrich too. I need to get to Switzerland or Holland as soon as possible, but I don’t know how the hell I’m going to do that. Schellenberg has supplied my name to the border points and put a watch on the stations.’

  ‘I think . . . I might know someone who can help you.’

  Steffi Schaeffer.

  The idea of a half-Jewish woman helping to hide a senior diplomatic attaché, a member of the Nazi regime, from the forces of his own Party, seemed horribly illogical. But Berlin, the city where logic and rationality were once most prized, had lost sight of its philosophical heritage. Surrealism was more in vogue. And the thought of Max alone, unable even to trust his former wife, caught at her heart. If she couldn’t take him in herself – which would indeed be suicidally dangerous – then she had to help him however she could.

  ‘It’s a dressmaker I know. She works out of the Scheunenviertel. Her group have safe houses all over Berlin and exit routes established. They’re part of the resistance, Max. They’ll help you disappear.’

  ‘What can she do?’

  ‘Trust her. She’s helped other people.’

  ‘And where would I find this miraculous woman?’

  ‘Her address is Rosenthalerstrasse 31 and her name is Steffi Schaeffer.’

  He gave a weary smile. ‘Does she welcome in every Nazi officer who turns up at her door?’

  ‘She’ll trust you if you tell her I sent you.’

  ‘That would be foolish of her. I’m not sure I’d want to rely on security like that.’

  ‘Ask her how her little girl Nina is doing. Ask if she’s been kicking any Stürmer kiosks recently. Steffi will know what that means.’

  He took her hand.

  ‘Enough of me, Clara. You must be worried too. Even if our activities have gone unremarked, you need to be thinking about your own future.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’

  He stopped and turned to her, reaching a hand to her face.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I? This isn’t the kind of ending I imagined for us.’

  ‘So you did imagine something for us then? What did you imagine?’

  ‘Something like this.’

  He bent to kiss her and for the first time she reciprocated fully, giving in at last to the impulse she had first felt that night in Paris, leaning into him and responding with a deep, lingering embrace.

  He looked at her tenderly.

  ‘You choose your time, Clara Vine.’

  ‘Max . . .’

  He put a finger on her lips. ‘Don’t.’ He smiled, sadly. ‘You didn’t want me, I know, or you would have kissed me like that before. You had the opportunity in Paris, even in Munich, but I knew there was someone else . . .’

  ‘I’m alone, Max. There’s no one.’

  ‘Perhaps. I believe you, of course, and maybe we’ll see each other again – in England, I hope. Though I still think we should have taken our chances in Paris. We might have visited the Mona Lisa and the artistic ape. We could have spent a whole day seeing the sights, and a whole night forgetting them.’

  She saw the glint of a tear in his eye and to distract him she said, ‘That ape – the one that makes his own drawings – sounds awfully intriguing. What on earth does he draw?’

  ‘Ah.’ Brandt recovered himself and stood upright, bracing his shoulders with a wry smile. ‘Now that’s an interesting question. I’m so glad you asked. It’s rather sad really. This animal makes clever pictures, but he only draws one thing. He draws the bars of his own cage.’

  He kissed her again and his eyes burned into hers.

  ‘Goodbye, Clara.’

  With the glimmer of a smile he walked quickly away. Ordinarily Clara would have melted swiftly back into the shadow of the trees but this time she remained in the same spot, still as the statues around her, for several minutes more. The Tiergarten might be full of agents that evening, but her heart was too full to care who might be watching.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  When Benno von Arent followed up on his invitation to the Künstlerklub, Clara knew better than to turn it down. The club was based in a stately villa on Skagerrak Platz. Light bloomed through the windows, and the glare of flashlights from waiting photographers dazzled the arriving guests as SS guards in rubberized capes held open umbrellas against the patter of rain. A small crowd of celebrity-spotters looked on as a line of gleaming cars curved into the driveway, their headlights slicing through the darkness, and disgorged a succession of actresses, perched on the arms of their consorts like beautiful, jewelled birds of prey. All the major actresses of the Reich were there that night – Lilian Harvey, Brigitte Horney, Kristina Söderbaum, Lil Dagover and Zarah Leander. The moguls of Hollywood were being wooed by Goebbels’ own galaxy, his very own stable of stars.

  Inside, the curved wooden panelling of the building, pink rosewood inlaid with mahogany, seemed to emulate the curves of the female clientele. Intricately carved mirrors reflected the soft glow of candelabra and beyond the entrance lay a winter garden, a dance floor and a beer cellar. In the corner a jazz band played and a beautifully lit aquarium was set into the lush furnishings. Waiters slid through the throng bearing trays with Sekt and bowls of nuts and olives for the men from Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount and MGM. Gossip journalists circulated with their notebooks and bare-shouldered actresses with reddened lips swapped air-kisses. The entire scene was like Erich’s cigarette card album come to life.

  Clara took a glass of Sekt and pressed into the throng. Goebbels certainly knew how to hold a party. For his Olympics party two years earlier he had taken over an entire island in the Wannsee, filled the bushes with butterfly lights and spread sumptuous tables out beneath the trees. This evening he had again spared no expense. Although his new emphasis on family values obliged him to bring Magda, who was touring the room shaking hands with an expression of frigid misery more appropriate to a disaster scene than a celebrity gathering, Berl
in’s best-known singers and musical acts had also been summoned, and to complement the magic of the movies Goebbels had hired a real magician, Alois Kassner, the top illusionist of the day.

  Clara gave a quick scan of the room and her eyes lit on a man with a humourless, pudgy face and hair shaved two inches above his ears whom she recognized as Frits Strengholt, the head of MGM. This was the man who was supposed to be sorting things out for Ursula. Quickly she scanned the throng for her friend, yet she could see no sign of her. Had Ursula’s party invitation been withdrawn at Goebbels’ request, or did Emmy Goering’s remarks presage something more serious?

  A fusillade of flashbulbs lit up the entrance of Olga Chekhova, a regally beautiful star who was one of the regime’s most famous actresses. With her ivory complexion and hooded eyes heavy with kohl, she slid through the phosphorescence of the flashbulbs like a glamorous ghost. La Chekhova was half Russian and the niece of Anton Chekhov, which meant that rumours constantly circled about her Bolshevik sympathies, but Hitler was a big fan of her films and that was better than an SS bodyguard and golden Party medal for imparting a sense of security. Despite her lofty status, she had proved remarkably friendly on the shoot for Bel Ami in Paris that summer and now she came straight over to Clara’s side.

  ‘If I have to spend this evening listening to Hollywood producers telling me Doktor Goebbels is the greatest cultural champion the world has seen I think I’m going to scream. How are you, Clara? You’re looking very lovely.’

  ‘Olga. I wonder, have you by any chance seen Ursula Schilling?’

  The diva’s creamy face darkened, and instinctively she lowered her voice.

  ‘Clara, my dear, I thought you knew. When did you last go to Babelsberg?’

  ‘I’ve been in Munich. Why?’

  She grimaced. ‘It’s all round the Ufa studios. No one can talk of anything else. Ursula Schilling was taken in for questioning a few days ago.’

  Clara felt a sinking dread.