Faith and Beauty (17 page)

‘No. I mean . . . No, thank you. I must leave.’

She looked across to where the librarian was sitting. The girl had clearly been listening to their conversation. Even though she was pretending to flick through a pile of papers on her desk, the tips of her ears had gone pink and there was a high flush on the apple of her cheeks. As Kraus clicked his heels and left the room, she said softly, ‘Excuse me, Fräulein Vine?’

Clara turned.

‘Your magazines?’

‘It’s okay, thank you. I don’t think I’ll be needing them. I’ve seen enough for one day.’

Clara left the building and set off down the gravel path, but as she did she heard footsteps pattering rapidly behind her and turned to see the librarian heaving breathlessly into view.

‘I’m sorry, Fräulein. I mean, I wonder . . .’ She hesitated, then cast her eyes down again. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t interfere.’

‘What did you want?’

‘It’s just. I know who you are.’

Clara was used to being recognized, and direct approaches from strangers usually involved an autograph. Automatically she pasted a friendly smile on her face and reached for the pen in her bag, as the girl before her continued.

‘You’re the actress, aren’t you?’

‘That’s right.’

Though she was flushed with agitation, the girl had a sweet smile and soft, heavy-lidded eyes.

‘No. You see, I’m a member of the Faith and Beauty community. Where the girl was killed.’

‘Lotti Franke?’

‘She was my best friend.’

She uttered this sentence with an air of incomprehension, as though even now she was trying to understand the desolation of death.

‘I’m Hedwig. Hedwig Holz.’

Instantly she came into focus. The girl from the photograph in the Franke family apartment. Large and clumsy in her regulation uniform, an awkward foil to Lotti’s eye-catching beauty.

‘I’m so sorry.’

Hedwig hesitated, twisting her hands on the edge of her unbecoming tweed skirt.

‘The thing is . . . Maybe it doesn’t matter, but . . .’

Clara recognized the first rule of her training. When a door is ajar, push it open.

‘Of course it matters. Whatever you have to say, if you were a friend of Lotti’s, I’d love to talk. You must be very affected by what happened. Would you like some lunch?’

Hedwig’s eyes lit up and then dipped again, like a dog denied a treat.

‘I can’t. I need to be at my desk when SS-Reichsführer Himmler arrives.’

‘Why don’t we take a short walk? Just round the block. We’re bound to see the official car when it passes. And if Herr Doktor Kraus is angry, I’ll tell him I asked you.’

‘Would you?’

‘Of course.’

With a reluctant look behind her, Hedwig Holz slipped through the gate and they proceeded down the road.

‘I shouldn’t complain. Herr Doktor Kraus has been very kind to me. It was he who offered me this job actually, right after his lecture on Mate Selection.’

‘Mate selection? What on earth is that?’

Distractedly she said, ‘Oh, we have to select genetically suitable mates according to the Nordic-Greek ideal.’

Select mates? What kind of young women referred to their boyfriends like this? Come to that, what kind of girl talked of love and marriage in terms of their genetic suitability? Almost as soon as she had asked herself, Clara knew the answer. Girls in Nazi Germany.

‘We have these social evenings. We Faith and Beauty girls have been specially selected by Herr Himmler as suitable mates for his future warriors, so there are dances and dinners with SS officers. I hate them, to be honest, but one of our group is already engaged to a man she met. They’re getting married in a few weeks. The trouble is,’ her face clouded and she shot a quick glance at Clara as if calculating whether she could trust her, ‘I already have one. A boyfriend, I mean. That’s why I’m in the Faith and Beauty Society.’

Clara frowned.

‘But if . . .?’

‘My mother hopes I’ll meet a handsome SS officer and forget Jochen altogether.’

‘And might you?’

‘Not a chance.’ She smiled softly. ‘Especially if they see me dancing. Fräulein von Essen, she’s our instructor, says I dance like a pantomime cow. There’s a ball next month and I’m terrified.’

Clara laughed.

‘They have something like that where I grew up. In England. They were called debutante balls.’

Angela had done the Season. It began in May with presentation to the King at court, followed by a series of dances packed with aristocratic young men, the weak-chinned, the graceless and the brutish, who steered the girls around the dance floor while their chaperones, a formidable jury of matrons perched on gilt chairs, scrutinized from the sidelines. Every deb had their own dance – Angela’s had been held at their aunt’s home in Piccadilly – but high society husband-hunting horrified Clara. She didn’t want to learn any old-fashioned etiquette. She remembered Angela’s lofty incomprehension.

But how will you ever know how to behave?

The Faith and Beauty girls were Hitler’s debutantes – groomed to take their place in the ranks of Nazi aristocracy. Only as well as learning what fork to use at dinner and how to arrange roses, Hitler’s debs were drilled in the last detail of National Socialist ideology.

‘You’d understand then,’ said Hedwig. ‘We’re supposed to learn all the social graces because we guard the spiritual health of the nation.’

‘That’s asking a lot.’

‘That’s what Lotti used to say.’ Her face fell. ‘Lotti was always full of you, Fräulein Vine. She said you were the only one who showed real interest in her ideas. You said she had a bright future.’

‘She did.’

‘She worked as a photographer’s model sometimes. At a studio in Schlüterstrasse. They paid her.’

‘She had real talent. I’m so sorry you’ve lost her.’

‘She told me you were half-English. We went to London.’

‘I heard. Did you like it?’

For a moment, Hedwig’s face glowed as if all the lamps in Claridge’s Hotel had lit it from within.

‘I loved it. We both did. It was the last time I saw Lotti really happy.’

They came to a bench and sat down and Hedwig began to unburden all the anxiety and pain of the last few weeks in a torrent of words that Clara only occasionally interrupted.

‘Lotti wasn’t what people thought she was. I mean, she had another side that people here didn’t see. A different side.’

‘In what way different?’

Hedwig knitted her fingers and gazed around her for inspiration.

‘She wasn’t this perfect specimen of Aryan womanhood that the principal always says we are. Lotti was very . . . ambitious.’

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Hedwig hesitantly. ‘What I mean is, she knew what she wanted. She liked talking about people like Marx and Engels. Sometimes I had to tell her to keep her voice down but she didn’t care what people thought. And . . .’ With a quick desperate glance at Clara, she lowered her voice. ‘Men liked her very much.’

‘I’m not surprised. She was very beautiful.’

Clara recalled the slight, defiant lift of Lotti’s head when men’s eyes flicked over her and stuck to her all the way down the corridor.

‘She was a magnet for them. They followed her like dogs. It didn’t matter if they were married or single. You could see their eyes glaze over when they looked at her, as if they were imagining things, you know? Like they were picturing her with no clothes on.’

‘Did she like them too?’

Hedwig blushed, despite herself. She was twisting her hair and gazing sightlessly into the middle distance. There were layers of shadow in her voice, of things that remained unspoken.

‘She slept around – even when we were over in London. She slipped away a couple of nights and made me promise to cover for her. I tried to talk to her about it, but she said what was wrong with that? She wasn’t married or anything. She didn’t feel at all guilty. She couldn’t get hold of condoms any more, no one can, but she carried a bottle of vinegar with her and used it as a douche. It works perfectly,’ she blushed more profusely, ‘apparently.’

‘Did she have a regular boyfriend?’

Hedwig pushed away the hanks of mousy hair which had escaped her plaits. There were beads of sweat in her hairline, Clara noticed, and her gaze flicked around as though someone might be watching.

‘That’s just it. When the principal, Frau Mann, asked me, I said no. But now I’ve been feeling so guilty about it. I think I should have told the truth.’

‘Which is?’

‘Lotti
had
met someone. She wouldn’t tell me who. Usually she’d talk for hours about her boyfriends.’ A shy sideways glance. ‘I’m sorry, Fräulein, but she liked boasting about what they did in bed. Only this time it was different. She was infatuated with this man, but she wouldn’t even tell me his name. She just said he was very interesting. An artistic type. And he had a secret.’

The chill breeze sent a fragile confetti of petals spiralling down from an apple tree, and a petal stuck to Hedwig’s cheek. Clara reached across to brush it away.

‘What sort of secret?’

‘She wouldn’t say. He was on her mind all the time. But this man didn’t make her happy. I think perhaps he saw other women. One of the last times I saw her, Lotti said that she had had enough. She would show him he couldn’t play around with her. She had something on him. But at the same time . . .’

The roar of a passing car caused Hedwig to startle, and turning back to Clara she lowered her voice.

‘The fact was, she was really frightened of him.’

Clara wanted her to keep talking, but she could see it was no use. The girl was as nervous as a kitten.

‘Why should she be frightened of this man if she was in love with him?’

‘I don’t know.’

Clara noticed a café across the road.

‘Would you like to have a cup of coffee with me?’

Hedwig sniffed and squeezed the bridge of her nose to hold back the tears.

‘That’s kind, but I’d better get back. Herr Doktor Kraus will have noticed by now, and God help me if the SS-Reichsführer has already arrived.’ She paused. ‘If you hear anything about . . . about Lotti, would you tell me? I need to know. She was a dear friend and I would do anything I could to find who killed her.’

‘I feel the same.’

Clara took out a tan leather Smythson’s notebook and scribbled her address and telephone number in it with her silver pen.

‘Take this. And if you remember anything else, just call me. It might be useful.’

She tore the page out and pressed it into Hedwig’s hand.

‘Thank you, Fräulein Vine. And please be careful. If that man is still out there, all of us women need to watch ourselves until he’s caught.’

Chapter Fourteen

‘So were you really there? I didn’t see you.’

Erich regarded Clara suspiciously, his dark brows knitted above sceptical eyes.

‘I told you. Right opposite the Führer’s saluting podium.’

‘And you definitely saw me?’

Goebbels was fond of saying that for a lie to be believed, it had to be a big one, but Clara thought that at certain moments, a little lie was a better choice.

‘I was very proud of you.’

It was Saturday, and they had just finished one of their regular weekend pursuits. A swim at the Charlottenburg public swimming baths. It was a lovely old building – the pride of the district – decorated with porcelain dolphins, the high glass ceiling with its turquoise blue struts echoing with the shouts of parents and children.

Clara loved these weekend meetings with Erich. She found herself looking forward to them throughout the week – a moment of sunny respite from the darkening political scene. Children lived so much more in the moment. She liked hearing about his friends, their fights and feuds, and talking about books, films and her own childhood. Erich especially liked to hear about his dead mother, Helga, who had befriended Clara when she first moved to Berlin. Although he had only come into Clara’s life six years ago, some of her happiest times had been with Erich. Rowing on the Wannsee, the sun bouncing off the clear water of the lake as Erich learned to handle the oars, or his enthralled face beside hers in the silvery glimmer of the cinema as they sat through innumerable war films.

Clara knew very little about teenage boys and had no more expected to find herself entrusted with one than she might an elephant or a giant panda, but had come to love Erich as if he were her own.

The best part of the swimming mornings came afterwards when, exuding the tang of chlorine and the virtuous flush of exercise, they would wander a couple of streets along to the vast Rogacki market hall and sate their appetites. Despite the food shortages, the market always gave an impression of plenty, and the café she and Erich liked best was famous for its generous portions. Over the years Erich had grown almost visibly before her eyes as he devoured mountains of Spätzel and Wurst and cakes and ice cream.

That day Clara had ordered Pflaumenkuchen, sweet doughy plum cake topped with cinnamon sugar and a dollop of whipped cream, while Erich, more like a boy playing chess than choosing cake, deliberated lengthily before selecting Pfannkuchen, a type of jam doughnut. To Clara’s secret pleasure he also ordered Himbeersaft, the sugary raspberry juice so loved by children in Berlin. It consoled her that perhaps he was not growing up quite as fast as she feared, despite the fact that he outgrew every shirt she bought for him within a matter of months.

‘Anyway,’ Erich seemed mollified by Clara’s admiration. ‘You can watch me march again if you like.’

‘So soon?’ said Clara, trying hard to inject some enthusiasm into her voice.

‘In the cinema. It’s a movie already.
Hitler’s Fiftieth Birthday
. We’ve watched it twice in the HJ film hour.’

‘That’s great.’

He shrugged.

‘I suppose.’

He pulled out a packet of cigarettes but at the sight of Clara’s face put it away again.

‘Anyway, I’ve got better news than that. I’ve been appointed to the HJ-Streifendienst.’

Clara beamed at him lovingly. She had no idea what it was, but any achievement of Erich’s gave her a lift. She gave a little shake of his arm.