Faith and Beauty (36 page)

‘The stamp needs to project across the photograph. Now we’ll need to give it a few minutes to dry.’

He sat motionless, as if expecting that she too would sit in silence beside him. But Clara had too many questions.

‘Where do you get the passes to copy?’

‘One of our supporters is a church pastor. Some of his congregation drop their expired ID passes into the collection box instead of money. They know how valuable they’ll be. I’ve had all kinds, even Wehrmacht passes. The equipment I get from work. There’s no shortage of brushes or paint there.’

‘You make it sound simple.’

‘That’s only the beginning. Once we’ve given someone a new identity, we advise them to join a lending library and get a card with their new name on it. As many extra pieces of ID as possible.’

‘So you can make anyone into anything?’

‘Not at all. You need to match the face with the occupation. If I have a card which gives the occupation as kitchen cleaner, I can’t hand that out to some smart lady whose husband owned a department store.’

‘Are you busy?’

‘It’s constant. But time’s running out. People are going to need more than ID documents. Jews here are trapped in a net. They need places to hide.’

‘Or they need to leave Berlin.’

‘No. Berlin’s the best place to hide. Did you know almost half of the city is underground? There are a thousand bunkers in Berlin. Speer has built a tunnel running all the way from Mitte to Tempelhof so Goering can ride the whole four miles in his car. The customers of the Adlon Hotel have their own shelter under Pariser Platz. Not so grand for the rest, of course. They’ll mostly be using the U-Bahns. They’ve just finished a new shelter at Alexanderplatz.’

‘I was there just the other day. I didn’t see anything.’

‘You wouldn’t. It’s entirely inconspicuous. You walk along the tunnel to the U5 line and you pass a green steel door. You’d miss it if you didn’t know it was there.’

So that was where they would huddle. Waiting for the explosions. Listening to the muffled boom and the lick of flames as above them the dark blast of bombs flowered into the night sky.

The young man put out his half-smoked cigarette and tucked the stump in his pocket.

‘The Nazis may be driving people underground now, but one day soon they’ll be driven underground themselves.’

He jumped up and checked the card.

‘There. You’re no longer a Jew. But don’t go dropping it into any French rivers again. Don’t allow it to get wet at all. Even a drop of rain might dissolve the watercolour.’

She placed it in her bag and looked at him soberly.

‘Thank you. I’m sorry. I don’t know your name.’

‘I’d be a fool to tell you. If anyone thought this was a forgery, they’d ask where it came from and who forged it. There aren’t many people who can resist answering when they’re having a chat with the Gestapo.’

She made her way to the door.

‘ID forgery is punishable by death, isn’t it?’

‘You ask a lot of questions, Fräulein. Most of my clients are too frightened to do anything but sit in silence.’

‘Just because I ask questions, doesn’t mean I’m not frightened too . . . I do have another question, though. When I first saw you, I knew I’d seen you before. In the lobby of my apartment building in Winterfeldtstrasse. You remember, don’t you?’

‘You’re an observant lady.’

‘What were you doing there?’

He smiled; a quick smile that utterly transformed his features.

‘As a matter of fact I had just posted a flyer on the wall opposite. I had my leaflets and the paste bottle in a suitcase. But a policeman appeared and I needed to leave in a hurry.’

Clara left the apartment as swiftly as she could and got on the first bus she found. As she travelled, the bus rocking under her, she thought how her whole life was like the young man’s painstaking work. The least inconsistency, the tiniest slip, and her entire, carefully constructed identity would unravel, like the silk spooling from a beautiful gown. Yet in a few days’ time the existence that she had crafted for herself over the past six years was facing its greatest test. And whatever happened, she would not be the same person afterwards.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Their meeting place was the bridge over the Spree just before Museum Island. It was, according to their Heritage Studies teacher, the place where the first settlers in Berlin, who were fishermen, had erected their wooden huts. Hedwig leaned for a moment, watching the canal as it glittered in bright rings beneath the setting sun, stirred into lazy arrows by the coal-heaped barges making their slow progress westwards. Above, the sky was as luminous and mottled as an oyster shell and faint traces of Linden blossom were carried on the breeze. It was a lovely summer evening, but Hedwig was sick with nerves.

She had barely slept since the evening of Jochen’s revelations. Tonight was their regular meeting but she had no idea what they might do or where they would go. Everything had changed now. She had hurried home after work and pulled on a flowered dress that Lotti had made up from one of her own designs. It clung to her curves a little too obviously for her taste, and Hedwig was only wearing it because Jochen had once said casually that he liked girls in flowered dresses. And because the memory of the beautiful Sofie, whom Jochen admired, burned in her mind.

A hand on her shoulder made her jump, but the sight of him brought the reflex rush of excitement.

‘So where are we going?’

‘Somewhere interesting. Up west.’

‘Where exactly?’

‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

‘Is it . . . to do with what you told me? The other night?’

He grinned.

‘Patience, Hedy! It’s a secret.’

On the tram Jochen seemed lost in contemplation so she stared out of the window at the glimmering shop windows and the commuters in their office outfits hurrying home from work and thought how foolish she had been to assume that Jochen was planning to propose. Perhaps it was for the best. Hedwig thought of her mother savagely scrubbing, her father looking her up and down in that way he had. They already thought badly enough of Jochen; God knows what they would think if they knew what he was really doing. Since Lotti’s death her life seemed to be spinning out of control, with one terrible shock following on another. She desperately hoped the next surprise was not about to arrive.

She waited until the tram had reached the smart boulevards of Wilmersdorf, and they had disembarked, before she spoke again. Jochen walked fast, hands jammed in his pockets, as if propelled by some urgent inner force.

‘I still don’t know where we’re going.’

‘Actually, we’re going to see a fortune teller.’

She so wanted to believe him. It was such a wonderful, imaginative idea and it might have been planned expressly to delight her. Numerous friends had visited fortune tellers to investigate their romantic futures. Hand reading and Tarot cards were all the rage. Irna Wolter had visited a psychic with her fiancé before they married and had learned they would enjoy a long, happy marriage, blessed with five children. Hedwig had not consulted a psychic herself, but she never missed her horoscope and she kept a Winterhilfswerk donation pin in the shape of her star sign – Pisces – in her lapel. She had bought one for Jochen, too – Aries – but she had never seen him wear it.

‘I thought you didn’t believe in fortune tellers.’

She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. Her stars in that month’s edition of
Der Zenit
promised dramatic developments in her love life.

‘I believe in this one. Her forecasts are impressively accurate.’

After a few minutes they reached a building in Pariser Strasse, the kind that Hedwig sometimes fantasized about inhabiting but had never set foot in. It was a five-storey stucco block with fancy scrollwork round a doorframe. A lot of smart houses were having swastikas set into their lintels, but here the plaster was moulded into an elaborate confection of leaves and squirrels. Next to it a buffed brass plaque read ‘
Psychic consultations. First floor.
’

The door was opened by a maid who ushered them into a front room with a vaguely eastern air bestowed by drawn tasselled curtains, fringed red lamps and rich Turkish carpets. Around the room low tables were clustered with the accessories of the trade – crystal balls, Tarot cards and a porcelain phrenological head segmented into areas with labels like Caution, Secrecy, Eloquence and Artistry. A pungent odour hung in the air. Hedwig was quite used to homes that smelt strongly, but unlike the cabbage intercut with rancid fat that perfumed her family’s apartment, this scent was exotic and mysterious. Nutmeg, cinnamon and frankincense, perhaps. Like the incense in a Catholic church or the ancient smells that emanated from the library at the Ahnenerbe.

The door opened and a short, commanding figure swept in, wearing a cerise kimono-style silk jacket and a beaded cap. She must have been in her late sixties, with a crooked nose and kinked hair, her dark caramel eyes heavily lined in kohl, and her makeup thickly applied. Exactly like a fortune teller was supposed to look, thought Hedwig, enthralled.

‘This is Hedwig,’ said Jochen shortly. ‘Hedwig, this is Frau Annie Krauss.’

The
Annie Krauss! Everyone had heard of her. All the top people, film actors and singers and sports people, were said to consult her. There had been a feature on her work in
Der Zenit
,
Madame Krauss Prognosticates
, with a picture of her craning over a crystal ball wearing a fringed headband, and reports of some of her predictions, mostly picking winners at the Hoppegarten race course. This was so thoughtful of Jochen. It was impossible to get an appointment with her unless you booked months in advance.

Frau Krauss approached Hedwig and seized her hand. There was an unexpected strength in her stringy claw and Hedwig wondered if the old lady could discern her future merely from the faint impressions of lines on her palm. She squinted at Hedwig, as if reading the secrets of her soul.

‘Good evening, my dear. I’ve heard about you. I’m so glad to meet you.’

A beady glance up and down. Yet again Hedwig regretted wearing the clingy dress.

‘I’m honoured to meet you too, Frau Krauss. I’ve always wanted to.’

‘Hmm.’ She turned away slightly, allowing Hedwig to whisper to Jochen, ‘Are we going to learn our futures?’

He shrugged enigmatically.

‘In a manner of speaking.’

Chapter Thirty

From the pavement tables of the Café Kranzler it was possible to see a line of people stretching most of the way round Pariser Platz to the doors of the American Embassy. The queue for visas began before dawn and would still be there at dusk. Not that there was anything interesting about a queue in Berlin. Waiting was a way of life. Along with the ordinary queues for bread and meat and vegetables, there were long, snaking queues for train tickets and visas, and foreigners crammed the stations like walkers desperate to get home before the first drops of a storm arrived. A pair of hard-faced soldiers had been deputed to guard the American Embassy queue, but no one seemed remotely likely to step out of line. Disorder was not something they could afford. Occasionally a secretary bearing a tray of tea and sandwiches moved along, pouring cups and asking people if they required sugar. Their faces registered astonishment at the young American’s request. It had been so long since they were considered not just names and numbers, but humans, with preferences and opinions, even about how much sugar they took in their tea.

A few hundred yards away, Clara was waiting for Mary Harker. She had no idea why Mary had asked to meet, but she was glad of the diversion. Even if only for a few hours, it would take her mind off the task she was about to undertake.

Mary arrived late, wrenching off her battered felt hat and running her hand through her hair so that bits of it stood up vertically in a tangle of straw.

‘I’m trying to calm down.’

She threw herself dramatically on a seat, lit a cigarette and inhaled furiously.

‘I’ve just been expelled from a press conference.’

‘Not another one.’

‘I know. There are two press conferences a day now, so I have twice as much opportunity to get ejected. I wouldn’t bother, but with everything moving so fast, you can’t afford to miss one in case they let slip anything important.’

‘And did they?’

‘No such luck. It was “Good News About Employment”. The usual mixture of boasts and lies. They said full employment has finally been achieved in Germany.’

‘And I’d guess that’s not true?’

‘I felt obliged to point out that if there was full employment, it was only because all the workers are now producing armaments. Before I knew it, two thugs had frogmarched me out of the door.’

‘And you let this upset you?’ asked Clara incredulously.

‘Don’t be silly. I’ve been thrown out of more press conferences than I’ve had hot Wurst. No, that’s not why I wanted to see you. It’s about your Faith and Beauty girl. Take a look at this.’

She pushed across the table the latest edition of the
Völkischer Beobachter
, the ultra-loyal Nazi newspaper. Clara glanced at the headline.
Investigation Continues into Slain Girl
. There was nothing new in the report except that it was accompanied by a fresh photograph of Lotti Franke. All the previous shots had shown her wearing her regulation Faith and Beauty outfit but this was a large, glamorous image of Lotti dressed in a provocatively low-cut dress, eyes smouldering at the camera, one leg propped vampishly on a chair. In the upper right-hand corner was the photographer credit: Yva.

‘What does this photograph say?’ demanded Mary.

‘That she modelled her own designs. She was artistic.’

‘Nope.’ Mary thrust the paper away, as if disgusted.

‘A picture says a thousand words, right? And I know how newspaper picture desks work. If they have a choice of photographs to illustrate a piece – and there seem to have been a hundred pictures of Lotti Franke – then they’ll choose the one that transmits the correct message. Most of the
Völkischer Beobachter
might have been dictated by Goebbels himself and this photograph is not an accident. It says Lotti was not the archetypal German maiden. She was not the pure Faith and Beauty girl everyone imagines. She was different, original, a little out of the ordinary. In other words, she got what was coming to her.’