A War of Flowers (2014) (34 page)

‘What are you talking about? I saw him only the other day.’

‘He was arrested yesterday at dawn. He is being questioned on suspicion of assisting foreign powers.’

‘That’s impossible!’

‘Remember I mentioned I had a little cultural business to attend to? I went to the studios to warn Gutmann, but it was too late. I blame myself. I got wind of it a couple of days ago, then
I was held up in Berlin. I should have left immediately. As soon as I discovered I went to the police station. That was how I happened to hear of your call from Fräulein Braun’s house. I
had an inkling the caller might be you. There’s nothing I could do to help Gutmann. Now another fine man is destined for the attentions of Heydrich.’

‘What will they do with him?’

‘Work him over first, ask questions later. That’s the way they usually operate.’

Clara could not help herself reflecting on what Fritz Gutmann knew. If his association with London Films had been detected, the entire operation was compromised. And even if he did not know
exactly what Clara did, he had arranged for her to meet the Führer’s girlfriend. If Gutmann was interrogated and confessions flooded out of him, there was no telling how many people his
knowledge might threaten. Interrogations were like throwing a stone in a lake. The consequences of confessions rippled far. And the Gestapo liked throwing stones.

‘So what will happen to the film?’

‘Nothing, for the moment.’

Brandt’s face was absent. Calculating.

‘I’ve changed my mind. We’ll leave right away. You can’t go back to your hotel. You’re coming with me and we’re catching the first available train.’

‘But . . .’

‘It’s dangerous for you to stay here. There isn’t any time to lose. You’re coming back with me to Berlin.’

Villages and towns sped past as the train made its way northwards in the six-hour journey to the Anhalter Station. Dawn was gradually lightening the fields and forests and in
the farmsteads, cherry, apple and nut trees were in fruit. Mist was rising from the grass as it was warmed by a low morning sun.

They had taken window seats in an ordinary second-class compartment. Around the carriage photographs of the Bavarian countryside were framed on the walls alongside a sign decreeing ‘Nicht
Raucher’. Max Brandt sat opposite her in his Foreign Service uniform. Clara was still wearing the previous day’s clothes. The only other occupants of the compartment were a
kindly-looking elderly couple in Bavarian costume unwrapping hot bacon rolls whose smell quickly filled the carriage and piqued Clara’s senses.

They had already agreed not to talk openly, so Clara occupied herself by gazing out of the window at the fields, the odd cluster of farmhouses and occasional small church. They passed a youth
camp, with little wooden huts, and a banner over the entrance reading,
We were born to die for Germany
. Looking out at the fat, uniform squares of corn rolling into the distance, glinting in
the morning sun, Clara couldn’t help but be reminded of the shots of the Nuremberg rally, with hundreds of thousands of people ranked in the rally ground, stretching as far as the eye could
see.

At one stop, a young man entered the carriage, hauled a heavy suitcase up onto the baggage rack and settled himself in a corner. In sharp contrast to the traditional costumes of the old couple,
he wore a floppy cravat and a suit with a wide stripe. The savoury fragrance of the bacon rolls caused him to dab his moustache fastidiously with a handkerchief, before he extracted a newspaper and
fenced himself off.

Brandt sat with his jackboots stretched out and occasionally his legs touched Clara’s. When a tunnel plunged them momentarily into darkness, he reached over and felt for her hand, only to
withdraw it again when daylight flooded back.

The train clattered and groaned, and the gentle swaying on the tracks was soothing, yet Clara’s mind was churning. She was still reeling from Brandt’s revelation of the plot to oust
the Führer. The coup would take place very soon, within days perhaps, and they – the plotters – wanted her involvement too, though they could not yet explain how. She was also
shaken by his casual comment that she was being followed, which meant that Sabine’s warning was justified and her instincts, as she moved around Munich, had been entirely correct.

They had made their arrangements hastily, on the way to the station. Clara would go to Brandt’s Berlin apartment the following Sunday, where he would explain precisely what they wanted of
her. He made her memorize his address in Clausewitzstrasse –
Prussia’s greatest military strategist, appropriate in the circumstances, don’t you think?
– then warned
her not to utter another word, not on any subject, not even the movies. Yet though they had agreed not to talk, she continually caught Brandt’s glance on her and felt his probing eyes.
Despite her anxiety about the plot, another question was running through her mind. Was he right about the instinct that had caused her to draw away from him?

If you’re not waiting for someone, then it’s only your past that’s stopping you.

Every so often the train halted at a platform long enough to see newsstands hung with bright magazines and newspapers pegged to their sides.
With Hitler and Chamberlain for peace!
Countrywomen were selling fruit, and tubs blazed with scarlet geraniums. Other stations they sped through too fast to catch more than a blur of faces on the platform, and in between fields
unfolded, occasional lakes shimmering like silver lamé in the bright morning and great tracts of deep German forest, as mysterious and impenetrable as any fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm.
Clara remembered a report about an impassioned farmer who had managed to plant silvery saplings in the shape of an enormous swastika amongst the pines on his land, so that foreigners arriving in
Berlin by plane would see even the ancient woodland bearing Hitler’s mark.

Just before Berlin they passed a succession of trains full of munitions and artillery, and then an airfield, where a flock of sleek silver planes stood beside their hangars. Shortly afterwards
the train began to slacken and came to an unscheduled stop. There was a banging of compartment doors and the sound of boots coming down the corridor as three men in SS uniform, followed by the
train’s own guard, shouldered their way along the carriages, demanding identity documents. Immediately, a subdued tension pervaded the carriage, as everyone sat up and braced themselves for
scrutiny.

A guard slammed open the compartment door with a surly announcement. ‘Identity check.’

He was a burly character, with a prominent gut and a thick, creased neck encased in olive-green uniform. He passed his eyes over the old couple’s papers so swiftly he could barely have
registered their names, then turned to Clara.

‘Your papers, Fräulein.’

Without a word, Clara handed them over, her heart hammering.

The guard looked at the photograph on Clara’s red identity document, then at her face, then at the document again. He took his time, twenty, thirty seconds, as a look of blunt puzzlement
formed on his florid countenance. She reminded herself that she need not be unduly concerned. This often happened, when policemen who checked her papers happened to be film fans too. Frequently
Clara would have to endure a conversation about her latest movie, as well as some gratuitous film criticism of the kind that Goebbels himself had recently banned. But normally she would see
recognition dawning in the policeman’s eyes, not the bridling suspicion she detected now.

‘Can I ask where you boarded this train?’

‘Munich.’

‘And what was your business there?’

‘I was making a film.’

‘A film?’

‘At the Geiselgasteig studios. I’m an actress.’

That was superfluous. Why had she said that? It was as though she was undermining her own authenticity, inviting him to distrust her.

‘What film?’

‘It’s called
Good King George
.’

God forbid that they knew of Fritz Gutmann’s arrest. She wondered if Max would intercede if she was arrested.

Eventually the guard grunted and returned her papers, then turned to Brandt, who handed his own documents over with languid confidence. Noting his rank, the guard clicked his heels.

‘Thank you, Sturmbannführer Brandt.’

The young man with the cravat then furnished his documents. His sallow complexion had paled further and a line of sweat had formed on his upper lip. There was a slight, barely detectable tremble
in his hand. The guard read the papers, but did not return them. His failure to find fault with Clara seemed to make him more determined.

‘You are travelling to Berlin, Herr Honigsbaum?’

‘That’s what it says on my ticket.’ The young man was trying to sound authoritative, but merely sounded arch.

‘May I ask what your business is?’

Honigsbaum offered a smile around to his audience –
What kind of question is that?
– but the audience did not respond.

‘I live there.’

‘So I see. Rykestrasse, 131. Do you have luggage with you?’

‘Certainly.’ The young man inclined his head towards the luggage rack.

‘Open it.’

Clara remembered Steffi Schaeffer’s comments about Jews being searched on trains, right down to their tubes of toothpaste.
It pays to be very careful if you’re going to conceal
something.

Honigsbaum hauled his leather case down from the rack with shaking hands and made several attempts to undo the clasps before he succeeded. The guard bent over and rifled through the contents
with a rough hand. A bottle of pomade. Underwear. A wrinkled shirt. He extracted a novel – stared at it, then held it by the spine and shook vigorously, as if notes might be concealed. Then
he seized on a pair of worn brown shoes, tapped the heel and, reaching inside, peeled back the insole.

‘Is there anything I can help you with, officer?’ ventured the young man, unwisely. His voice was reedy and educated in comparison with the guard’s thick Bavarian accent.

The request only spurred the guard to further efforts. He opened the bottle of pomade and shook it, so drops splattered on the floor, then turned a pair of gloves inside out. The young man stood
immobile, but his face was running with sweat. He would not dare to protest against this invasion of his dignity by disparaging the guard; even to query the search might suggest some criticism of
the authorities, so he said nothing. But there was a terrible eloquence in his silence, and an ominous tension amongst everyone in the carriage. The fat neck of the guard was blocking her vision
but suddenly Clara saw him withdraw a pocket knife from his tunic and with a swift, practised movement, run it through the blue satin lining of the case, cramming his sausage fingers inside and
withdrawing something that looked like a deck of greasy cards but on closer sight proved to be a wad of notes.

A look of cruel satisfaction broke across the guard’s face at this trophy.

‘What’s this?’

‘My savings. Where am I supposed to keep it, with this new ruling about bank accounts? I’m not breaking any law.’

‘That’s for us to say.’

The guard slammed the case lid shut, and stood at the door.

‘Come with me.’

‘Why is that?’ asked the young man, his show of indignation entirely failing to mask his fear. He offered an imploring smile round to the rest of the carriage. ‘I’ve done
nothing wrong.’

‘That is what we need to establish,’ said the guard, keeping hold of the suitcase. ‘Come quickly. We don’t want to keep these people waiting.’

He slid open the door and took the young man’s elbow.

‘Heil Hitler!’

Everyone responded.

The guard proceeded to escort the young man down the train and Clara watched him being marched along the platform, his white face mouthing protest, his hands gesticulating as other guards came
forward to meet them. Then there was a piercing whistle as the train moved slowly off again, and as they passed, the young man glanced directly at Clara, with an expression of imploring anguish on
his face.

Brandt did not even look up. His eyes remained trained on his boots as the scent of the spilled pomade rose accusingly from the floor. The elderly woman alongside Clara observed her distress and
reached a comforting hand to her arm.

‘Er Jude war,’ she said, consolingly. He was a Jew. It explained everything.

As the train swayed on, Clara recalled what Steffi Schaeffer had said about the men who were arrested at dawn and taken away. Loaded onto trains, but not like this one, more like trucks, and
transported to camps all around the country. What happened to them there? She had no idea. She knew no one who had been in a camp, at least no one who had returned from one.

The lift was out of order again at Winterfeldtstrasse and the bulb was out on the stairwell so she walked up the seventy-two steps – she knew exactly how many steps to
the fifth floor – in semi-darkness, listening to the sounds emerging from the closed doors as she went. There was a blast of dance music from the schoolteacher on the ground floor and the
sound of raised voices from the young couple on the first floor. Excitable squabbling from the children in apartment four. But when she reached the top of the stairs next to her own door, an
unfamiliar figure loomed in the dim light.

‘May I introduce myself? I’m Franz Engel, your new neighbour.’

He was a slender man – in his forties perhaps – with a precise, professional demeanour and a gaunt clean-shaven face that was at once humourless and forgettable. It was the kind of
face you could see anywhere, behind a desk or a bank counter, in a school or an office, but never be able to recall. A face that was always going to stick to the rules.

‘I just wanted to say hello.’

Surprise made Clara abrupt.

‘What’s happened to Herr Kaufmann? Is he OK?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know. The lease of this apartment has been assigned to me.’

Through his opened door she caught a glimpse of the apartment behind him. Drab grey paint, cheap, practical wooden furniture, no distinctive features.