Faith and Beauty (19 page)

‘No.’ He was firm about this. ‘Don’t do that. If they need anything they’ll tell you.’

He lit two cigarettes and gave her one.

‘How’s that other friend of yours? Irna? She’s getting married, isn’t she?’

It was true. Irna Wolter had scored the greatest triumph of them all – the jackpot of the Faith and Beauty lottery. She had won the heart of an Obersturmbannführer and was to wed him later that month. She was currently at the Reich Bride School on Schwanenwerder Island, studying for the certificate she needed to qualify for marriage into the SS.

‘She’s at Bride School now. Getting ready for the wedding.’

‘Are you invited?’

‘I wish I was but it’s not in Berlin. It’s at a special SS training school. A castle, can you believe it, in Westphalia. Women aren’t allowed in.’

‘Some wedding. Is that the kind you want then?’

‘Don’t be silly. You know I don’t want anything special. Besides, there’s only one man I want to marry and he doesn’t have much time for castles.’

Jochen looked down at his fingers, which were yellow and nicotine-stained. Usually they had traces of ink on them too, from work. It was always this way when the subject of marriage came up. He would immediately clam up and avert his gaze. Hedwig felt the familiar, agonizing tear at her heart. She tried not to talk about weddings, but it was he who had brought the subject up. If he couldn’t bear the idea of a future with her, then why didn’t he come right out and say so? Lotti had always said she should put it to Jochen straight, but Hedwig feared that if she tried that, Jochen would back away and she would be left without the only man she had ever loved.

Being with Jochen was like being with a dog that had been ill-treated and had never lost the distrust in its eyes. Sometimes she wondered if he would ever form a commitment, at least to her, but at other times she thought she should be patient and loving and not push too far. Perhaps it was still too early, or maybe Jochen cared more than he showed about her parents’ entrenched hostility. Often she found herself scanning his face like a cryptologist, trying to divine a hidden meaning in his silence. Usually she would cover up any pauses by saying all the things that she didn’t mean, rather than saying what she did, but this time she stayed quiet, and unwelcome tears welled in her eyes. Since Lotti’s death she found herself crying at the slightest provocation.

‘At last.’

Their Leberknödel arrived, and though the dumplings turned out to contain far more breadcrumbs than liver, maybe that was for the best. Hedwig always felt guilty eating meat now. More and more people were turning vegetarian because they wanted to follow the Führer’s example, and they had been told that even the top men in the Party, like Hess and Himmler and Goebbels, regularly enjoyed vegetarian meals, though Jochen said this was all made up. It was important to be thrifty too. The newspapers were full of recipes about how to make cakes without fat or eggs. They had been told that bread, sugar and coffee were in short supply because the Führer wanted to increase the racial fitness of the nation. Just as Hitler was preparing for war by building tanks so his people must prepare their bodies for war through frugal eating. Only the other day on the radio Doktor Goebbels had condemned Berliners who complained about the coffee shortage as ‘cosmopolitan’, which was as good as calling them Jews. If people really wanted to please the Führer they should become vegetarians, like him.

‘We were learning about the Führer’s love of animals,’ she said, for the sake of conversation.

Apparently, the Führer had decided some animals were never acceptable to eat. Snails were all right, though just the idea of their little eyes on tiny grey stalks made Hedwig nauseous, but lobster and frogs’ legs were out. That hardly mattered as Hedwig couldn’t afford lobster and she was scarcely likely to encounter frogs’ legs any time soon.

‘He’s banning scientific research on animals. And there are to be new regulations on the care of horses. Hitler says all Germans love horses.’

‘Preferably in a stew,’ said Jochen, shortly.

‘Germany is the first country in Europe to make laws to protect animals.’

‘Tell that to the bombers,’ he replied, forking a dumpling into his mouth. ‘Nothing’s going to protect animals if a war starts. And it will.’

He gave a quick glance behind him and leaned closer.

‘At work they’re already printing rationing coupons. Colour-coded ones – white for sugar, blue for meat, purple for fruit and nuts, yellow for dairy and green for eggs.’

‘Rationing?’ She was wide-eyed.

‘Sure. Twenty-four hundred grams of bread a week, five hundred grams of meat, two hundred and seventy grams of fat, whole milk for children and invalids only. If you go into a diner or a café you’ll need to provide a coupon for fat or a coupon for meat, else you won’t get a meal. It’s serious, Hedy. The authorities are making preparations.’ He looked up at her, inscrutably. ‘As it happens, I am too. I’ve joined the RLB.’

The Reichsluftschutzbund, the Reich Air Protection League, was busily organizing blackout provisions and shelters in event of war.

‘I had my first outing yesterday inspecting cellars. All blocks have to convert their cellars, and in some streets all the cellars will interconnect, in case escape routes get blocked. You wouldn’t believe what there is underneath your feet, Hedy. There’s a whole network of underground canals, tunnels and shelters already constructed. You’d be astonished.’

She was bewildered at this initiative. ‘That’s not like you.’

‘Why not?’

‘You hate thinking about war, or the Führer’s attempts to protect Germany.’

‘Perhaps I’ve changed my mind.’

A terrible thought seized her.

‘Does that mean you’re going to enlist?’

‘Your parents would like that, wouldn’t they?’

So her suspicions were correct. Her parents’ hostility bothered Jochen far more than he showed.

‘Of course they wouldn’t. They just need time . . .’

‘Then I could go off and get killed and not bother their dear daughter again.’

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘Please stop talking like that. You know I hate it. It tears me apart.’

The savage look fell instantly from his face and he reached out a hand towards her.

‘Don’t cry,’ he whispered. ‘I’m a cruel beast, but I don’t mean it.’

He wiped away a tear that was dripping off the bottom of her spectacles.

‘I thought you’d be pleased that I’m spending my evenings in cellars rather than nightclubs or bars.’

‘There are plenty of nightclubs in cellars,’ she joked with a brave sniff. Any quarrel with Jochen engulfed her in alarm, but being Hedwig, she didn’t stay miserable for long. Jochen was the only person in the world to call her Hedy. She hated her name. Her parents had named her after St Hedwig’s, Berlin’s Catholic cathedral, an uninspiring place whose pediment was lined by ranks of stone saints surveying all comers like police officers inspecting the faithful. There were no glamorous Hedwigs in history, or literature, or any kind of culture. Even the Viennese movie actress Hedwig Kiesler had moved to Hollywood and changed her name to Hedy Lamarr.

‘Anyhow. How’s work?’ she enquired, pulling herself together.

‘Busier than ever. You can tell your father, our company’s supporting the Reich just as much as any soldier. Our products make millions for the Party. The Führer makes a pretty packet out of it too. He charges for the use of his image. He makes a pfennig every time his face appears on a postage stamp.’

‘I’m sure he gives it to the Winterhilfswerk. The Führer wouldn’t want any money for himself.’

‘Wouldn’t he? That makes him different from the rest of them then. I heard old Joey Goebbels was making money selling all those degenerate paintings they took down from the museums.’

‘That’s only Jewish art, though, isn’t it?’

His eyes sparked dangerous fire.

‘What does that mean exactly?’

‘I mean,’ Hedwig laboured on, trying to remember what Herr Fritzl had told them. ‘It’s disgusting, isn’t it? Not like your kind of art.’

‘Not like my kind of art?’ he repeated in a tone that seemed slightly menacing. Hedwig knew she had said something wrong, or obtuse, but she didn’t know how to address it. She worried the edge of her skirt with a nail.

‘What’s my kind of art then, Hedy?’

‘You paint faces.’

‘Not faces. I paint a
face
. The same face, day after day after day. Sometimes making his cheeks a little pinker, his eyes a little darker blue. Flattering him. Touching up his moustache. Shortening his nose. Making him into a matinee idol. A little more hair, a little fewer wrinkles.’

‘That’s nothing that the old Masters wouldn’t do. They had patrons and they needed to please them so they flattered them.’

Herr Fritzl had definitely said this.

‘We’re not talking about Michelangelo here, Hedy. What I do is hack work. I know Hitler’s face better than I know my own. I’ve painted it on plates and dishes and canvases and candle-holders and beer steins. Sometimes I wonder how he can bear it, seeing his face everywhere. It’s on everything except the money and that’s only because he remembers the inflation and thinks he had better keep his head off the banknotes in case it happens again.’

Fortunately, their conversation was interrupted at this point by a cheer and a round of applause from the far side of the restaurant. The Führer’s brother had emerged and was standing, incongruously, beneath the portrait of his sibling, a cigar in one hand and a beaming smile across his face. At the sight of him, Jochen seemed to forget their argument instantly.

‘As a matter of fact . . .’

He was scratching at the surface of the table with his finger.

‘I’m going to ask you something.’

Hedwig was bathed in relief.

‘Anything, you know that.’

She was rewarded with one of his true smiles, a tender beam which lit up his face, and made his hazel eyes shine. It was the smile that had first made her love him. It opened up a chink in his cynicism and revealed the gentle and protective man that other people would never have believed possible. That was what love did, she supposed. It made you see below the surface of a person, to the soul beneath.

‘Is it to do with a book?’

She guessed it would be something to do with literature. Jochen was a fervent reader. He was like Lotti in that. Always quoting little snippets of poetry and talking about writers she had never heard of. Hedwig suspected that he kept a stash of banned books somewhere in his home, too. Perhaps he wanted to borrow something from the library at the Ahnenerbe.

‘Not exactly.’

‘What is it then? Don’t keep me in suspense!’

‘I can’t tell you quite yet.’

‘How mysterious.’

‘It is. Shall we meet the usual time next week?’

‘Any time. I can tell Mutti I’m needed at work. There’s a lot going on at the moment. They’re making a film about the Ahnenerbe. Leni Riefenstahl is to direct it.’

He gave a whistle. ‘Leni Riefenstahl! Will you be in it?’

‘I certainly hope not. I’m going to keep well away.’

‘You’re far too shy.’

She took off her spectacles and began absently cleaning them on her skirt.

‘I’m not exactly film star material.’

‘Don’t say that.’

He grasped her hand.

‘You know? I spend my whole day beautifying the Führer, straightening his nose, giving him a bit of colour in his cheeks, touching up his hair. So it’s nice to come out in the evening with someone who doesn’t need any beautifying.’

He reached a hand up to brush a curl from her eyes.

‘You’re perfect, Hedy. You know I think that.’

Chapter Sixteen

Erich Carow’s Laugh In was a celebrated comedy act staged at the Valhalla Theatre in an appropriately cavernous cellar on Weinbergsweg, north of Rosenthalerplatz. Just a few years ago Berlin had been the nightclub capital of the world, a neon-lit, champagne-fuelled extravaganza of singing, dancing, and most of all sex. Sex à la carte or off the menu, sex for every taste, no matter how specialized or how depraved, could be found in dimly lit caverns off the Friedrichstrasse and openly in the rooms above. For two decades straight, night-time Berlin was a dazzling, decadent, non-stop party, played out at the Wintergarten, the Admiralspalast and the Residence Casino. But the party stopped abruptly in 1933; the Nazis knocked the needle from the gramophone and most of Berlin’s cabarets closed down. The risqué acts were replaced with musicals and the only variety on offer was the choice between folk singing or operetta. Jazz was degenerate –
entartete Musik –
and Goebbels issued all musicians with instructions on how to hold their instruments so they didn’t resemble Africans. All the dangerous glamour had been swept up by the broom of National Socialism and the only traces of it were left in a few dark corners, one of them being the Valhalla. Everyone went there – actors, journalists, artists, politicians – and while the comedy survived, the laughter was darker and more bitter. At a time when blackout paper and black material were everywhere, black humour was the only kind in vogue.

Navigating her way down the stairs, past an enamel plate reading
Jazz Dancing Forbidden
, Clara made her way into the shabby cellar and looked around for her friends. Immediately in front of her a table of young soldiers were amusing themselves by trying to shove ice cubes down the cleavages of a pair of buxom waitresses. The waitresses, struggling with large trays of beer and trapped amid the knot of young men, were laughing, but Clara glimpsed the alarm behind their eyes. The soldiers’ faces were lean and savage, as though they were already inured to cruelty. Anyone of their age had already spent years in the Hitler Youth being trained to ridicule, taunt and bully, and their sport with the barmaids was no different from cats playing with a mouse. These women existed for entertainment, and their distress was simply part of the fun.

Clara prayed that the same did not happen to Erich.

The foreign correspondents were up by the bar. She detected the lanky frame of Charles Cavendish towering over an animated Bill Shirer, who was jabbing a point for emphasis with his pipe. Further along, Hugh Lindsey, a Burberry coat slung across his shoulders, was deep in conversation with Mary. As she approached he caught her eye and winked, but Clara had no intention of interrupting, so she approached Charles Cavendish, who swivelled towards her, sweeping an oiled hank of hair from his eyes and baring his tombstone teeth in a patronizing smile.