A War of Flowers (2014) (26 page)

She tickled Hans-Otto’s cheek.

‘Shall I tell you a story?’

A dreamy nod.

She settled on the warm chair next to the stove, hauled Hans-Otto onto her lap and flicked through, searching for an appropriate tale as his small body snuggled up to hers. Most of the fairy
tales in the NS Frauenschaft version had soldiers in them, like the stormtrooper who came to rip open the belly of the wolf who ate Red Riding Hood, or the SS officer who arrested
Cinderella’s Slavic stepsisters, and there was plenty of violence too. But Rosa disregarded anything too gory, like
Snow White
, where the Jewish Queen was made to wear red-hot shoes,
or
The Jew in the Brambles
, in which a magic violin made the merchant dance in a thicket of thorns, and carried on searching until she came to one of her favourites,
Rapunzel
.

‘
There was once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a child . . .
’

Hans-Otto sucked his thumb and with his other hand held the Hitler doll up against his cheek. His limbs were entirely relaxed and his eyelids drooping. It was hard to tell if he was listening or
not.

The Tiki Bar at Munich’s Bayerischer Hof hotel was an eccentric testament to the craze for Polynesian culture which had swept Germany a few years earlier. The basement
bar was done out entirely in colourful island fashion with fishing nets draped from the ceiling, teak beams decorated with the evil eye supporting it, and coconut and conch shells studding the bar.
The lamps were made from dried blowfish and bamboo, and the cocktails were Mai Tais and Pina Coladas. Island music was piped through the loudspeakers in the wall and the entrance was flanked with
totem poles carved with the grotesque visages of gods and demons. But none of them could compete with the faces of Frau Emmy Goering’s soirée.

Clara was not looking forward to the party. She had already walked twice around the centre of Munich in an attempt to soothe her nerves. Her relationship with Eva Braun depended on attending
this event yet the prospect of coming face to face with Frau von Ribbentrop, who had so recently denounced her as a spy, and Frau Heydrich, who may have repeated that accusation to her husband, was
daunting and it would take every acting skill she possessed to retain an outward calm. Might the women take the opportunity to have her arrested there and then? And if so, could Clara count on Eva
Braun to vouch for her? Eventually, after attracting the whistles of a pair of stormtroopers, who assumed that the attractive lady in high heels and a fox fur coat was parading the streets for
their benefit, Clara braced herself and entered the throng.

The cream of the master race was out in force that night; sweaty men with short necks and only a brutal dusting of bristles on their scalps, squeezed into SS dress uniforms that were bursting at
the seams. They were loud, competitive and flushed with drink and their demeanour was aggressively alert, as if they were assembled for a brawl rather than a high society cocktail party. As was
usually the case at Nazi events, male guests vastly outnumbered the female, and the men tended to prioritize the chance of professional advancement over the opportunity to make small talk with
other people’s wives. In this case they were all vying for the choicer spots next to the more senior officers, jostling for position in the Nazi pecking order.

Swiftly Clara scanned the room, checking which VIPs were present. National Socialist cocktail parties were the opposite of the ordinary kind – you sincerely hoped there would be no one
there you knew – and it seemed she was in luck. She recognized very few people and no one so much as gave her a glance in return. Nor was there any sign of Eva Braun.

The room was packed and oppressively warm and she felt a strong temptation to turn tail and slip away. No one would notice and she could always make her excuses the following day. Yet she forced
herself to remain – it was essential to excavate some more cogent information from the Führer’s girlfriend. Mr Churchill and all those people in Whitehall who were presumably aware
of her mission had no interest in Eva Braun’s views on perfume, or that she was planning a Hollywood biopic of her love affair with Hitler. They wanted concrete insight into Hitler’s
military plans.

As Clara was thinking this, two things happened. A waiter thrust a vivid green cocktail into her hand and a large, plump woman elbowed her way through the crowd to greet her. Her hostess, Emmy
Goering, the wife of Germany’s second most powerful man, was decked in diamond earrings and a matching necklace that cut into her heavy flesh. Just like her husband, whose love of jewellery
and outlandish uniforms suggested many happy hours with the dressing-up box, Emmy never stinted on extravagant displays of satin, velvet and lace. That evening bulky Wagnerian braids framed her
face and enough taffeta to rig a ship was ruched around her considerable frame, topped with the pelt of a sizeable fox. The whole ensemble could not have looked more out of place amid the tropical
island décor of the bar. The thicket of SS men parted like the Red Sea as she made her way across the room.

‘Clara Vine! Fancy finding you at my little party. Come and talk to me,’ she said imperiously. ‘I’ve not seen you since the baby was born.’

‘I meant to say, Frau Goering, many congratulations.’

‘Thank you. It’s tremendously fulfilling having a child. You should try it. We’re holding the baptism next month at Carinhall. The Führer’s to be godfather and I
must say he’s overjoyed. If he’s not to be blessed himself it’s the next best thing.’

‘They say he loves little girls.’

For years there had been regular photographs in the papers of the Führer at the Berghof holding the hand of a small blonde poppet who shared his birthday and was often invited to tea. Once
Martin Bormann’s investigations uncovered the child’s Jewish grandmother however, the little girl’s invitations dried up and Hitler was advised to take tea with his Alsatian
instead.

‘You should see the gifts, Clara! Everyone’s been so generous.’

That was no surprise. The christening of the child who was already being called the Princess of the Reich would almost certainly involve piles of art treasures ransacked from city museums and
enough crowned heads of Europe to fill a stamp album.

‘The Luftwaffe’s promised to build a full-scale replica of Sans Souci palace in the orchard, complete with a little theatre for her plays. Isn’t that charming?’

‘Adorable.’

‘Though if she’s going to be an actress, one does hope she sticks to the stage. The film world these days seems to attract the absolute dregs of society, saving your presence, of
course, Clara.’

Clara laughed. ‘Of course.’

‘So what have you been up to? We missed you at the rally.’

Yet again, Clara had succeeded in avoiding the annual Nuremberg rally, an affair which actresses as well as international visitors were aggressively encouraged to attend.

‘I was working and I just couldn’t make it. But I saw the newsreel.’

It was hard to miss. No one could visit the cinema in September without sitting through a news documentary devoted entirely to the Party rally, whose theme this year had been Forward Planning.
Goering had focused on ‘The eternal mask of the Jew devil’ while Hitler followed up with his usual incandescent rant, concluding that the Sudetenland must return to the Reich ‘no
matter what’.

‘It’s no good saying you’ve seen the newsreel. The newsreel’s no substitute for the real thing, as I hardly need to tell you, dear. It can never capture the atmosphere.
It’s like film compared to theatre.’ As a stage actress who had never made it into films, Emmy Goering was prone to trumpeting the superiority of theatrical performance over all other
dramatic work. She was especially given to criticizing Ufa films as low-brow and lacking in artistic value.

‘Anyhow, as we were all down in Nuremberg, it made sense to come on to Munich before heading back to Berlin, which is why I thought it was the perfect opportunity for a party. And nearly
everyone’s here.’

Clara glanced around the flushed faces and the bare shoulders glittering with jewels. It was true that any assassin planting a bomb in this basement bar would take out most of the top tier of
Nazi society.

‘Apart from the Goebbels, of course. But then Magda, naturally, is in no state, poor woman.’

‘Is she unwell?’

‘Not physically.’ Emmy Goering gave her a significant look. ‘Her problem is more of the marital kind. She’s not alone, of course.’

She nodded towards a dumpy woman standing on her own with an orange juice, whom Clara recognized as Marga Himmler, the former nurse turned chicken farmer, who obeyed the Nazi ordinance against
cosmetics like holy writ.

Emmy Goering drew closer, her dense perfume enveloping them both like a rotting lily.

‘Doesn’t Marga look miserable? Do you think it’s because her husband is off with little Hedwig Potthast, his secretary, or because she thinks she might have to talk to Lina
Heydrich?’

Clara felt her stomach clench.

‘Is Frau Heydrich here?’

‘Oh yes. Didn’t you notice?’

She cocked her head towards a patrician ash blonde arguing vigorously with a cowed-looking man whose uniform identified him as an SS Sturmbannführer. It was likely to be a one-way argument
– no Sturmbannführer was going to risk disagreeing with the wife of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich.

‘She’s suffering a lot of stress. Reinhard is drowning in paperwork, they haven’t had a holiday for ages and they have barely any social life in Berlin. She says it’s
difficult to make new friends because she never knows when her husband might have to arrest them.’

Emmy gave a knowing smirk.

‘To cap it all, she had a frightful falling-out with Marga. Apparently Marga told her husband to persuade Heydrich to divorce Lina.’

‘Divorce his wife? But why?’

‘Marga thinks Lina is unsuitable for someone of Reinhard’s stature. Lina was fit to be tied, as you can imagine. And Marga won’t give an inch. How difficult for two senior men
to have wives that hate each other. At a time like this, too. Some women are so selfish.’

Clara glanced over at the stout figure, nursing her orange juice. Alone among the crowd, Marga Himmler had eschewed evening dress in favour of a dirndl.

‘It seems such an unlikely intervention.’

‘Oh, Marga’s like that. She may play the humble hausfrau but she can give as good as she gets. She had someone arrested the other day for overtaking her on the autobahn.’

As she spoke, Emmy Goering was eyeing up Clara’s pale pink dress with its collar of frosted fur.

‘So why are you here in Munich then, if not to attend the rally?’

‘I’m making a film at the Geiselgasteig studios. With Ursula Schilling.’

‘Ursula Schilling?’ Emmy took a long draw of her cigarette and narrowed her eyes. ‘From what I’m hearing, the only kind of spotlight that woman will be under in the
future is a Gestapo interrogation lamp.’

A jolt of anxiety shot through Clara, which she forced herself to suppress. It was always best to affect ignorance when it came to the Gestapo, but to hear Ursula mentioned in this casual way
made her heart race with alarm.

‘Really? I hadn’t heard.’

Emmy raised her eyebrows and lowered her voice.

‘They say she’s been consorting with asocial elements.’

Clara managed a carefully calibrated expression of surprise – enough to suggest innocence of Ursula Schilling’s private life, but not enough to imply that she was in any way close to
her fellow actress. That was a familiar demeanour just then. People were as cautious with their expressions as they were with their butter. In Nazi Germany excessive emotion was reserved for
marches and Party rallies.

‘Asocial elements? Surely not.’

‘Let’s just say, for the sake of your film I hope she has an understudy.’

Privately Clara resolved to find Ursula as soon as possible and warn her.

‘Anyhow,’ Emmy Goering retrieved the maraschino cherry from the bottom of her glass, speared it on a cocktail stick and ate it. ‘You didn’t say. Who invited you
tonight?’

‘Actually, it was Fräulein Braun.’

Emmy Goering paused mid-swallow, her face a cartoon of astonishment.

‘Really? The Führer’s . . . I had no idea you two were acquainted.’

‘Fräulein Braun is very interested in film. She sent a note of her – appreciation – to the studio, but though she invited me, she doesn’t seem to have come
herself.’

Clara scanned the room again. There was indeed no sign of Eva.

‘Oh, she’s a law unto herself, that girl. She’s probably having another photo session.’ Emmy smiled cruelly. ‘Eva’s always having her photograph taken in a
white dress – it’s a hint the Führer never seems to take.’

‘Herr Hitler only likes being with her because it means he doesn’t need to think,’ came a familiar voice.

The voice cut through the smoky air like a draft of ice. Clara did not need to turn to know it belonged to her greatest enemy, the person who above all others in Germany regarded her with
suspicion and distrust; the wife of the Foreign Secretary, Annelies von Ribbentrop.

The woman who wanted Clara investigated as an English spy was that evening resplendent in imperial purple with a frosting of tiny black hairs on her upper lip and blotches of rouge on her
cheeks. She took a puff on her gold-tipped Egyptian cigarette and gave Clara a narrow stare.

‘If, as you say, she invited you, it seems strange she’s not here.’

‘Perhaps she’s off playing with her perfumes somewhere,’ said Emmy Goering.

‘Her perfumes?’

‘Didn’t you know? It’s her hobby. The Führer’s obliged to put up with it, even though he despises perfume. She plays around making different concoctions and gets
people from perfume companies to supply her with ingredients. That and frivolous films seem to be her only interests. I heard she gets her dressmaker to run up copies of dresses she’s seen on
screen, so she can feel more like a real actress.’

Clara recalled Eva admiring her dress.
I have one just like it!