Faith and Beauty (29 page)

The fresco had been lost for centuries until it was glimpsed under a layer of whitewash and painstakingly brought back into the light. How like life that was, Clara thought. Death hovered out of the corner of the eye until it came suddenly, drastically into view. The theme was a German tradition. Death danced, holding the hands of cardinals and popes, saints, kings and fools. Looking at the saints with their eroded features, softened by time and devotion, she wondered if Hitler’s own features might one day become dulled and worn away with familiarity, until, like a dreadful saint, the sight of him no longer had the power to surprise.

Emerging into the bright sunshine, she ran straight into Hugh Lindsey.

‘How lovely to see you,’ he remarked, as though they had bumped into each other on Oxford Street, or at a cocktail party in Mayfair. ‘I was miles away.’

She almost laughed with relief. In his Burberry coat, tie slightly askew, and hat pushed back on his head, Hugh was like a great breath of Englishness. It was just like she had felt on the bus in the King’s Road, surrounded by the staid, understated British citizens. Everything about him made her feel safe.

‘Were you, Hugh? What were you thinking about?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘I do.’

‘All right. I was thinking about England’s batting averages. At the last count . . .’

Clara held up a hand and laughed.

‘You’re right. I don’t want to know. I know absolutely nothing about cricket, and I’m not sure I’ll ever learn.’

‘As a matter of fact I was heading back to the Adlon. Care to walk with me?’

The two of them progressed companionably through Alexanderplatz, past the circular lawn in one corner of the square.

‘You know, in 1918 there was shooting going on in this square. Fighting between the Reds and the Freikorps,’ remarked Hugh. ‘But even though crossing this lawn was the shortest distance across the square, and the obvious way to escape the bullets, Berliners still refused to walk on the grass. Isn’t that extraordinary? Lenin said he realized at that moment that the revolution was lost. He said you can’t hold a revolution in a city where people obey the “keep off the grass” signs.’

In the Schlossplatz, arcs of water spurting from the Neptune Fountain turned into rainbows in the air, and Hugh brought out a packet of cigarettes. He lit one then almost immediately chucked it into the water.

‘I can’t smoke these things. I’ve run out of Benson and Hedges but these are like a hand grenade going off in your chest.’

‘Have one of mine.’

‘A Gauloise? Lucky girl.’

‘I got them the other day, in Paris.’

‘Paris? What were you doing there.’

‘A fashion shoot for
Vogue
.’

‘How refreshing to find a British girl who loves fashion. Most women I know don’t give a hoot about it. Their favourite shade is porridge and they like their tweeds hard as a board.’

It was a relief to be with Hugh. He had a way of speaking that was midway between joking and serious. Englishmen were often like that. It helped them cope with feelings – that was what Rupert Allingham used to tell her. Irony was the first lesson Englishmen learned at public school. Even Hugh’s manner, and his way of swiping away his forelock, reminded her of her brother Kenneth, a City stockbroker now, but just as obsessed with the fortunes of the English cricket team.

Hugh inhaled the Gauloise greedily.

‘You need these things to take the edge off the appetite. Don’t you find yourself getting frightfully hungry nowadays? I have a recurring dream that I’m at Rules, on one of the back banquettes, being served smoked salmon, potted shrimps, Dover sole and jugged hare. Followed by crumpets and buttered anchovy toast.’

He hesitated.

‘I’m not making you feel sick, am I?’

Being with Hugh Lindsey, talking about England, had brought on a compelling urge to confide.

‘I think I’m being followed.’

‘Is that all? I shouldn’t worry. Mary says we’re all being followed. I imagine my chap is having a jolly dull time of it.’

‘Not like that. That’s just the regulation minders from the Propaganda Ministry. I think this is something different.’

His smile dropped and he regarded her more seriously.

‘Could it possibly be to do with that man we saw the other evening? Herr Adler?’

‘I’m not sure . . .’

‘I don’t mind telling you, there’s something about him I didn’t like, Clara. I think you should keep away from him.’

‘I will. I can’t imagine I would see Adler again. It’s nothing to do with him.’

‘Do you know what? I think I can guess what’s really bothering you.’ His eyes were kindly, with an Englishman’s repressed emotion. ‘It’s that business about the Faith and Beauty girl. You knew her, didn’t you, and you said you were living close to where it happened.’

‘Yes.’

‘The whole affair must have been a tremendous shock.’

‘It was, but . . .’

‘They think the man’s still around, don’t they?’

‘Apparently.’

‘That decides it then. I’m giving you a lift home. My car’s right outside the Adlon. It’s a Mercedes Sport Roadster. Burgundy red and a real thoroughbred. Runs like a dream. I’m pathetically proud of it.’

‘Thank you, I’d like that.’

Once they were in the car, and driving out towards the west of the city, Hugh lifted a silver Dunhill hipflask from the side pocket and tipped it towards her.

‘Can I tempt you? I always keep a little something and having managed to get hold of a half decent bottle of Glenmorangie it would be a shame not to share it.’

Clara sipped, grateful for its slow, reviving fire.

As they entered the fringes of Griebnitzsee they passed a couple of police cars. Since the murder, there were police cars all around the area. The newspapers said there was to be ‘no expense spared’ to catch the killer. It was as if Lotti Franke had come to symbolize everything that was good and pure about German womanhood, and her hideous murder was an outrage that threatened to sully the whole of the Aryan race.

Hugh parked his car outside Ursula’s home and peered enviously through the screen of trees. He gave a low whistle of admiration.

‘Some place.’

‘It’s only temporary.’

‘Bet it looks right out on the lake.’

‘It does.’

‘Want me to come in? See you’re all right?’

She knew she should invite him in. Hugh had, after all, gone out of his way to drive her home in his smart new car. The very least she could do was to brew up some of Ursula’s stash of coffee. But she was suddenly desperate to be alone.

‘Really, I’m fine,’ she said, getting out of the car. ‘Another time?’

‘Absolutely.’ He gave a broad smile and drove off.

She did want to be alone, but the sight of the police had brought Lotti Franke to the forefront of her thoughts. She had promised the girl’s parents that she would see if there was anything she could discover about their daughter’s death. That was weeks ago, and in the time since, the tearful hysteria of Marlene Franke and the quiet desperation of her husband had been playing at the back of her mind, yet she had been far too busy to give it any attention. Now she was reminded that Hedwig Holz had left a message the previous day at the studio, asking if she would mind calling in at the Faith and Beauty home. She had been sure that there was something Hedwig was not telling her.

She decided to visit the next day.

Chapter Twenty-four

It was smart, as all the villas were out in the affluent suburbs west of Berlin: Schlachtensee, Nikolassee, Wannsee, Griebnitzsee. Groups of large, turn-of-the-century villas with gravel drives and high gates that allowed only a glimpse of a world framed by curly wrought iron, of sunlit lawns screened by abundant pines. It was the heartland of Berlin’s aristocracy. Back in their heyday, in the 1900s, there would have been carriages in the drives and families photographed on the front steps, plump men in swallowtail coats and ladies in wide hats, flanked by their servants. There would be dances that went on until dawn, with fairy lights strung in the trees and views across the lakes. All the big house owners were rich industrialists, lawyers and bankers; patriarchs with wide moustaches who were a picture of confident prosperity. Many of them were Jewish, and they had plenty of good taste to go with their money. They hung their halls with fine art and their gardens were garnished with statuary. But in 1933 everything changed. Most of the owners were moved out of their villas as fast as it took to pack a suitcase. Some of the new residents reported finding the coffee pots still warm.

The Faith and Beauty home was an ornately decorated house whose builder had, in common with many around here, regarded the Austrian Tyrol as the apogee of architectural sophistication. Stained-glass windows and Jugendstil decoration were garnished with a pair of antlers affixed above the doorway. Little gables and cross timbers gave it the air of a hunting lodge plucked from the Bavarian countryside and transported intact to the plush districts that edged up against the Grunewald’s dark heart.

Inside, sun swirled up to the icing sugar cornices of the high ceiling, filling the room with a wash of pale gold. An early bee butted softly on the window, like an inaccurate bomber failing to reach its target. An opened window carried the smell of grass on the breeze and as she waited Clara glimpsed a group of girls practising gymnastics on the lawn, shiny braids swaying in unison. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of clear girls’ voices singing a marching hymn to the Führer.

Their singing unfurled into the air, rising and falling in uncertain counterpoint, a tapestry of sound that occasionally achieved harmony but then frayed and fell apart. Every now and then it was interrupted by the staccato of the singing instructor. ‘Enough! Again! I remind you, ladies, the Führer requires perfection!’

Clara had deliberately arrived a few minutes early to allow for a look around. As she stood in the hall, she felt the glance of passing girls sweep over her. It might have been recognition, but it felt different, as prickling and hostile as stinging nettles, as though her intrusion in their domain was some kind of threat. But a threat to what? To their privacy, their togetherness, their beliefs? Or was it merely the natural distrust that any stranger inspired after the recent trauma that had taken place in their midst?

Hedwig Holz came hurrying down the stairs, apologizing as she went. She had changed since the last time Clara had seen her. Her face was taut with misery and her eyes grey and hooded. She stood before Clara, pushing the sleeves of her smock up and then pulling them down again.

‘Shall we go in the garden?’ Clara suggested.

They navigated the path past the gymnasts towards a bed where a display of tulips stood to attention at the end of the lawn. Even the grass was of a higher quality here, soft and springy, its fragrance floating in the air. As the two women passed, the crunch of their feet on the gravel turned curious probing eyes on them.

‘Thank you for your call, Hedwig. Can I call you Hedwig?’

‘Please.’ A quick smile that lifted her features. ‘Though I hate my name actually. There’s only one person who doesn’t call me Hedwig and he calls me Hedy.’

‘I’ve just been in France. There they would call you Edwige.’

‘Would they? That sounds so much better.
Edwige
. It’s beautiful. I’d love to visit France. Lotti promised that if we joined the Faith and Beauty we would end up visiting all sorts of foreign places.’

‘Was that why she wanted you to join?’

‘I suppose. She said she wasn’t going to be some old hausfrau, shuffling around in slippers with a load of brats at her ankles. She was going to travel. She wanted to live somewhere glamorous. She had expectations.’

Hedwig used this word reverently, as if it conjured all the magic of foreign places, of haute couture and a life where she would never again wear her hair in braids or sit around with a hundred identical girls sharing the greasy contents of an Eintopf stew.

They walked past the flowerbeds and through an arch of budding roses, towards the dapple of sun and blur of shadow at the end of the lawn. Beyond it lay the fringe of forest separating the order of the garden from the wild and unknown. Conrad Adler’s comment came into Clara’s head.
There’s a narrow boundary that separates the savage from the civilized.
Here, in this temple to female purity, that boundary had grown thin and permeable and savagery had seeped in.

‘That’s where they found her.’

At the edge of the trees Clara could see a flutter of tape marking off an area of the ground.

‘We’re not allowed to go near.’

Clara wanted more details, and thought about asking Hedwig outright, but she seemed like the kind of girl who would clam up at a direct question. She was the kind who let her twisting hands and involuntary glances do the talking.

‘Did she often go into the woods?’

Hedwig was kicking at the gravel with her foot, scuffing it and turning over the stones.

‘She used to say that solitude was essential for the development of character. She was quite a private person.’ Clara remembered the composed and secretive smile that Lotti gave. ‘She said that was what was wrong with our country – I’m sorry, Fräulein Vine – that people were never alone. She felt it was impossible to be a creative person if you didn’t have solitude.’

‘But why could she not be alone?’

‘You don’t know what it’s like here. All the women in one group stay together throughout their membership. In that time we’re encouraged to share everything – we eat together and learn together and sing together. It’s hard to feel different. They don’t want you to. But other people don’t realize that.’