Faith and Beauty (34 page)

At the gatehouse there was the sound of dogs barking and a harsh command of silence as two soldiers with helmets and rifles, wearing waterproof capes against the first spattering of rain, approached the car.

‘Don’t look so gloomy, Clara. It’s a tremendous privilege to be here. Himmler is obsessed with secrecy. A big part of him doesn’t want anyone to know that this place even exists – but he recognized that our film would be incomplete without it.’ Leni gave a slow, crimson smile.

‘Well, hello, young man.’

The guard’s chiselled features and hard eyes broke into a grin of surprise when he recognized her. His expression said it all. The Führer’s film director! So that was who the cameramen and lighting operatives and production crew were waiting for.

‘Fräulein Riefenstahl. Welcome to Wewelsburg!’

‘I’m honoured.’ Her voice was huskily seductive. ‘I hear you don’t often get female visitors.’

‘Only for wedding consecrations. Today is a special day.’

‘We shall have to make the most of it then.’

The guard peered closer into the car, towards the passenger seat. Beside him, his dog was broad and muscular, with dense black fur like the canine equivalent of an SS dress uniform. Clara focused on its flat, uncomprehending eyes.

‘And your companion?’

Clara remained impassive. Of course the solider would want to know who she was. Wewelsburg of all places in the Reich would employ dedicated guards with the most scrupulous attention to duty. How could she possibly have hoped that her lack of identity documents would be overlooked?

‘My star, you mean?’

‘Of course!’ he registered half-recognition, but not enough to deter him from his duty. ‘I wonder if . . .’

At that moment there was an almighty crash, the sound of splintering glass and a volley of shouts arose from across the courtyard. Furious voices called for help. The guard glanced behind him in confusion and waved them through. Leni drove the Mercedes into the courtyard and the gate clanged behind them.

Once inside, the forbidding, mediaeval-style exterior gave way to a triangular courtyard that contained an unexpected bustle of activity. The crash they had heard was a steel ladder falling from a truck containing lighting equipment being unloaded down a ramp into one door of the castle. It appeared the ladder had narrowly avoided decapitating a camera operator. Other production staff scurried around, trailing wires and carrying megaphones. Standing arc lights, lenses and a number of aluminium boxes were being ferried into the building. Against an opposite wall, the drivers leaned, killing time with a cigarette break. A couple of SS officers in leather coats skirted the truck with unmistakable irritation at the intrusion of the film world into their private domain, but Clara was glad for these tokens of normality. Wewelsburg castle was under siege that day, and she didn’t care if the movie world laid waste to it.

Leni parked up, adjusted the rear-view mirror, touched up her mascara and gave herself a quick dab of powder.

‘If this is the only time women are allowed to set foot in the castle, a girl has to be her best. I’m not looking bedraggled with the cream of SS honour guards standing around me.’

Yet again Clara was astonished at Leni’s coquettishness. She was the greatest female director in the world, she had the ear of Hitler himself – yet still she cared about her complexion in front of a bunch of SS leadership trainees.

Leni stowed the make-up away and grabbed her bag.

‘Right. The crew have had plenty of time to set up. I need you in position straight away. You’re up on the north tower. We open with a leaflet fluttering along the battlements. Its headline says
Germania
. The camera will pan up towards your face. You look towards the East. You are solemn, but transfixed. Your face glows with optimism for the future and faith in the Führer. And remember, you represent your country.’

It was chilly on the battlements and needles of rain were carried on a sharp wind. Clara spent an hour gazing into the distance with Leni and a cameraman lying on a trolleyboard at her feet. Though she tried her best to summon a look of optimism for the future, the sight of an SS guard marshalling in the courtyard beneath with parade ground precision made it quite a challenge.

After five takes Leni was satisfied and the crew began to dismantle their equipment.

‘It’s the wedding next.’ A sardonic grimace. ‘Irna Wolter’s special day. We don’t need you in this scene, Clara, but you’re welcome to watch.’

Clara followed her down the stone steps.

For a wedding, it would be hard to imagine a venue more funereal. With its spartan brick floor, exposed timbers and windowless walls, the oppressive gloom of the consecration hall was barely penetrated by the greasy light of a gas lamp hanging from a wrought-iron fitting. At the front, a wooden table was furnished with a pair of völkisch candlesticks and oak leaves, and as a gesture to the essentially joyful nature of the occasion a picture of their host, Himmler. The groom was in place already, fiddling with his belt and cap and trying valiantly to ignore the bevy of lighting men, sound men, cameramen around him, not to mention the figure of Leni Riefenstahl, crouching at knee level. He looked scarcely out of his teens, rigid with tension and bearing a bubble of blood on his cheek where he had cut himself shaving. All around him black-uniformed officers engaged in the same awkward chat that occupies any wedding party, as they await the entrance of the bride.

Irna Wolter looked younger than her twenty years. She had procured a long white dress and had been furnished with an armful of creamy roses whose weak fragrance wavered faintly across the chilly space. Her expression was strained, as well it might be, considering the amount of preparation she had devoted to this moment in the previous six weeks. Apart from her time at Bride School, essential to gain the document of marriage consent, Irna must also have compiled a sheaf of further certificates – proof of her ancestry and physical health, of the measurement of her facial features and her blood type, not to mention medical certificates to ensure that no one in her family suffered from any mental or congenital illness. There was more paperwork in a Third Reich wedding than any amount of confetti.

The prospect of being filmed for posterity did nothing to ease Irna’s nerves. Directly in front of her Leni had mounted a step ladder and was softly instructing the camera operator to focus on the bride’s face. As the officiating officer began his talk – a lengthy drone centring on the responsibilities of SS marriage, including at least four children and entering their names in the clan bible of the SS Sippenbuch – Irna was as pale as a ghost. Her hand visibly trembled during the exchange of silver rings engraved with runes, but she managed not to drop the gifts of bread and salt, nor the specially inscribed copy of
Mein Kampf
that was presented to all happy couples.

What must Irna feel? Had she winced at the chill steel of the calliper, measuring the distance between her nose and upper lip? Had she trembled at the prospect of tainted blood or disease being detected deep in her ancestry? Did she fret at swapping one set of regulations at the Faith and Beauty Society for the fresh constraints of married life? Or was anything bearable, if it meant being with the man you loved?

For a brief second the proceedings in front of Clara faded and it was she herself in the white dress, standing at a church altar in England somewhere with Leo beside her smiling into her eyes. The image hovered only a moment in her mind before she blinked, and brushed it away.

Suddenly the oppressive air of the wedding chamber was more than she could bear. The tension of being in Wewelsburg was making it hard to breathe. Turning tail, she slipped softly out of the door and headed off down the corridor, trying to remember the route back to the north tower.

It was more complicated than she had imagined. After two wrong turns she found herself in a long brick corridor studded with doors that appeared to be offices. Between them were arranged suits of armour and collections of ancestral knives and swords. The passage was narrow and badly lit and the icy walls themselves seemed to exude a sense of menace. Clara hesitated, wondering whether to turn back, when from the far end of the corridor came the crunch of boots and she hurried on, taking the next available turning and descending a flight of treacherous steps into depthless darkness.

It was a crypt of sorts, about fifteen metres wide, and as her eyes adjusted she saw that the blackness was penetrated by spears of light lancing down through narrow apertures onto twelve seats set into the walls. Each had a wall niche set above it, and on the ceiling, a swastika extended its crooked arms. In a circular depression in the centre of the room, an eternal flame flickered, filling the air with smoke and acrid incense. She guessed at once that the twelve seats represented the twelve knights of King Arthur and the round table. A devotion to Wagner was compulsory among the Nazi élite. Hitler would stand on the balcony of the Berghof with the prelude to Parsifal playing on his gramophone. Goering had concocted his own Wagnerian fantasy in the shape of his hunting lodge Carinhall and even Goebbels claimed to love the composer and devotedly attended the annual Bayreuth festival. Himmler – intent on surrounding himself with a band of racially pure blood brothers – had chosen Wagner’s Camelot as his personal obsession, but the future occupants of these seats would be no knights in shining armour.

The blood pumping in her ears, Clara felt the air around her contract. She remembered the feeling she had at the Faith and Beauty house of a rapt devotion, a sense of belonging in the women to something greater than themselves. The same claustrophobic feeling existed in this crypt, savage and almost tangible, inspiring a terror as real as if she had plunged down a lift shaft with no chance of escape.

Scanning the crypt, she detected at the opposite side a gap in the wall. It led to a spiral staircase of damp stone and she laboured blindly up countless winding steps until she felt the first breath of fresh air on her face and saw a glimmer of daylight ahead. By her calculation she was close to the battlements once more, but as she reached the top she was distracted by the sound of voices and stopped in her tracks.

Leni Riefenstahl was standing with the falconer they had seen on their arrival. The hawk was hooded now, with a bell tied to its leg, and the falconer was running his finger down the bird’s glinting plumage, tenderly stroking the feathers of its neck, as Leni engaged in a lively argument with two men. The men had their backs to Clara, but even from behind, the shaved skull, wide breeches and black cap of the nearest man would be unmistakable to any citizen of the Reich.

SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler.

Clara shrank back against the wall of the staircase as their conversation carried on the wind.

‘I thought you understood, Fräulein Riefenstahl. Animals are prohibited in Reich film making. Surely you of all people should know that?’

‘I wasn’t aware that birds were covered by that edict,’ said Leni, with a sweetly furious smile.

‘Of course, birds. I, of all people, understand the intelligence of birds. I ran a chicken farm for years. No German under my command will mistreat animals or birds or inflict any unnecessary suffering. I hope I can ensure that you will abide by these restrictions for the remainder of your stay.’

‘Whatever you say, Herr Reichsführer.’

Gesturing to the man beside him, Himmler turned on his heel.

Clara found Leni cursing softly.

‘Damn.’

‘What was all that about?’

‘I had a beautiful shot lined up with that hawk. It was to be the final image of the entire film. The brooding ancient walls, the sheer perfection of the lines of young men, then I pull focus to find a single hawk climbing upwards, eastwards, until it disappears into a rent in the clouds. The hawk symbolizes ambition, the future, the eternal quest of the Reich. But Himmler, of course, disapproves. He understands nothing about art. He says filming his damn hawk constitutes illegal exploitation of animals.’

‘Who was that man with him?’

‘Oh, his masseur.’

She rolled her eyes.

‘I know. Hard to imagine, isn’t it?’

More than hard, the image of a prone Himmler, relaxing for a tender muscle rub, was inconceivable.

‘Himmler was unbearable because he was in constant pain and no one could help him. His staff were beside themselves, until eventually someone discovered this man, Felix Kersten, who had studied Tibetan skills under a Llama. Himmler was persuaded to try it and fortunately for Herr Kersten, the treatment actually worked. Himmler was an instant convert, but the thing is, Kersten has to stay a big secret. That’s why Himmler meets him here. He does everything he can to keep Kersten out of sight.’

‘Is he embarrassed?’

‘Are you joking? Nothing could embarrass Himmler. No, he’s terrified that Heydrich will find out and get hold of his medical details.’

‘But Heydrich is his own deputy.’

‘That means nothing. In Heydrich’s mind, information is power. He has a locked safe that he refers to as his “poison cabinet” where he keeps all his files on the senior men.’

Looking at Clara’s face Leni laughed, and added, ‘Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But the fact is, all the top men are at each other’s throats. Their true war is with each other. Goering hates Goebbels far more than he could possibly hate Poland, and you know how much Goebbels despises Himmler. Himmler is rivals with all of them. I never told you why I chose you for this part, did I?’

‘You said I had the right face.’

‘Of course, darling.’ A smile of malicious pleasure. ‘But I could have chosen any number of actresses. It’s not a difficult part, after all. No, the real reason I chose you was not to annoy Goebbels but Himmler.’

The wind was battering their words away, so there was no danger of being overheard, but all the same Clara lowered her voice.

‘Why on earth would choosing me annoy Himmler?’

Leni chuckled like a girl revealing a conjuring trick. ‘Oh, he was terribly interested in you. I’ve overheard him asking about you and I was curious because Himmler doesn’t go for actresses as you know. That’s Goebbels’ speciality. And despite all his windbaggery about Wagner, Himmler doesn’t really have a cultural bone in his body. I despise him actually.’