The Dower House (14 page)

‘And?' she prompted.

‘An egg!' he exclaimed. ‘Look! It's like the top half of an egg. That's
it
!'

‘What is? I'm sorry . . .'

‘No!' He laughed as he picked the salt cellar up and turned it round and round in his hand. ‘I'm the one who's sorry. I've just . . . I found the answer to a problem. It's perfect.' He placed the salt cellar back on its stand. ‘But we were talking about modern art. Did those names mean something to you?'

She gave a slight shrug. ‘A bit.'

‘I'm trying to build a bridge back to them. The war . . . the whole Nazi . . .
abomination
 . . . is like a vast sterile desert that divides the century. Before it we had absurd hopes and monstrous naïveté . . . but the art was great. If we can build a bridge – not just me but all of us – a bridge back across the Nazi desert, and let the power of all that pre-war greatness put down new roots on this side of it, where the hopes are despairing and only the cynicism is monstrous, then there's a chance.'

While speaking he had watched her lick a fingertip and mop up every last crumb – dab, lick, dab, lick, dab, lick . . . with compulsive monotony. ‘Are you going to have any pudding?' he asked.

She shook her head.

‘I don't think I will, either. What luxury – to say no to food! Let's take that walk?'

On the way up Charlotte Street, beyond where he had ever walked before, he noted an art shop – Tiranti – worth a visit perhaps. On through Fitzroy Square and into the Euston Road they commented on the architecture, the bomb damage, the post-war scruffiness, the static water tanks; in their minds lay images of the total devastation they had left behind in Germany – all façades, and the blind windows thronged with ghosts. Here, even the most recent bombsites were greened over with rosebay willowherb and London pride, for no V-bomb had fallen in this part of town.

Narrow little Euston Road, lined on both sides with closed or rundown shops and greasy cafés, was a surprise after the relative opulence of Fitzroy Square, where just one building had been destroyed.

‘I miss Paris,' he said. ‘The Paris that has gone forever. They tell me London will be the new art capital of the world but it can't hold a candle to the Paris that was.'

‘Hold a candle?'

‘Sorry. Can't hope to equal. You've no idea—'

‘Hold a candle!' she repeated approvingly. ‘I like these things in English.'

‘You've no idea how vibrant . . . alive . . .
gay
 . . . Paris was in the thirties. That's why I stayed on, even after my first arrest – which is when I should have got out.'

‘I have digs just across there in Robert Street,' she said.

He told her about the Dower House but did not mention Faith.

They entered Regent's Park, past one of the two vast static water tanks that flanked the road.

‘EWS?' she asked, looking at the huge, now-faded letters.

‘Emergency Water Supply?' he guessed. ‘You were going to tell me about that villa in Wannsee – Interpol
HQ
? Were you employed to record proceedings there?'

There was a long pause before she replied, ‘I was an officer in the
SS
.'

He was too stunned to make any response. Then it dawned on him that he had been rather naïve. She'd been a recording engineer at Interpol
HQ.
They'd never have trusted that work to a civilian. But then . . . that Ravensbrück tattoo on her arm . . .

‘D'you still want to hear?' she asked.

‘Of course.' He recovered swiftly. ‘You ended the war in Ravensbrück. Of course I want to hear. More than ever, now.'

Did she have a prisoner's tattoo added after the liberation? Many
SS
guards had done that.

The buzz of traffic receded as they penetrated farther into the park.

She drew breath and took the plunge. ‘Have you heard of Heydrich? Reinhard Heydrich – he was Number Two in the
SS
.'

‘Assassinated in—'

‘Yes. May the seven-and-twentieth – I mean twenty-seventh – nineteen forty-two. In Prague. They liquidated Lidice in reprisal. The whole village. He was also head of the German branch of Interpol. He was one of the most evil men I ever met but it was the sort of evil a young girl might take many years to understand, because he was also most charming. And to see him with his wife and children – as I did, many times – was . . .'

‘But he was also one of the architects of the
Vernichtung
. Pardon my German.'

‘I met him through recording, of course. He was – you may find this hard to believe – he was a virtuoso on the violin. If the war—'

‘No, I knew that.'

‘It was true. If the war had never been, I think we might now be buying Heydrich playing the Beethoven violin concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic – truly. Anyway . . . he formed a string quartet of fellow
SS
officers and . . . they weren't up to his standard, of course, but they weren't bad. And he came down to
UFA
with Goebbels one day to borrow some recording equipment and my father wouldn't let it out of his sight so he went with them to manage the recording. And that happened many times. But then, one day, he was too busy doing some editing and so he sent me along. And –' she swallowed heavily – ‘I fell completely under his spell. I thought he must have the most sensitive soul because he played so exquisitely . . .'

‘You could say the same about Picasso – draws and paints like an angel but in private life he's a bastard.' Felix wondered if she had ever slept with Heydrich.

Meanwhile she was saying, ‘We knew they were doing unpleasant things to the Jews, of course – and this was even before they had to wear the yellow star – but we knew about all the race laws. And then there were bloody beatings-up. But I thought that had to be the work of the lower ranks of the
SS
– the dregs – and that such sensitive men as Heydrich and those senior officers would never lower themselves to behave like that.' She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘You were right to speak of our “monstrous naïveté” back in those days. And of course they cultivated it, that façade of civilization. Anyway, after that first time, Heydrich always asked for me to record their music. I don't know what happened to all those tapes and disks. Probably Bormann had them destroyed after the assassination. Bormann had no charm and Heydrich had too much. Ersatz, of course, like everything else in our lives back then. Shall we sit on this bench? I don't think it's good to walk too strenuously after a meal.'

‘Especially a heavy salad like that.'

She dug him with her elbow as they sat down. Ducks paddled expectantly toward them but a little boy, out with his nanny, soon diverted them with a bag of crusts.

Watching them fight for each morsel, Felix was reminded of scenes from Mauthausen. He said, ‘Takes you back, eh?'

She reached a hand across the void between them and squeezed his arm.

‘Those recordings,' he said. ‘Did they take place at the Interpol
HQ
?'

She shook her head. ‘No. I first became
officially
involved with the
SS
in 'thirty-nine, when they set up the Gestapo brothel – Kitty's, in Giesebrechtstrasse. I supervised the technical work – setting up the recorders . . . hiding the mikes. That's a story in itself. I never
believed
all that Mata-Hari stuff where aged generals would cry out in their ecstasy, “The forty-fifth cavalry will be moved to Passchendaele at dawn on the twenty-third . . .” but it happened. Anyway, that's when I had to take the
SS
oath – as Heydrich's personal recording engineer, more or less. I mean not officially. Women didn't officially join the
SS
until 'forty-two, of course. That's when I also joined – officially. But Heydrich told everyone, already back in 'thirty-nine, to treat me as if I had the authority of an ss-Führerin. He was obsessed with knowing what people might be saying behind his back, you see. There was a rumour that he was a half-Jew, a
Mischling
, because his mother married a Jew – but that was her second marriage, a long time after he was born. So he was fanatical about secretly recording even his closest associates –
especially
them. But by nineteen forty-two he was dead and certain people who resented his patronage of me were after my blood. So by joining the
SS
and taking the oath I had walked into a trap.'

‘Is that why they sent you to Ravensbrück?'

‘No. I'll tell you about that. Heydrich organized a conference at the Interpol villa in forty-two – the twentieth of January, that dreaded date for you. And for me! It was just a few months before he was assassinated. And after he was dead they accused me of recording it, that conference.'

‘And did you?'

‘Yes, of course. It was Heydrich's orders. I had two tape recorders there and four wax-disc machines, to record everything – conversations in the anteroom . . . the lavatories . . . the hallway . . . everywhere. And he also ordered me never to tell anyone – because of his obsession. So I never admitted it – at least, not until after they tortured me for days and days.'

‘Why didn't you admit it at once? They always get it out of you in the end.'

‘That's why. That's exactly why. They already knew I had recorded it. Because Eichmann came back that night . . . he had confiscated everyone's notes. No one was allowed to take anything away from that meeting. And he came back to stir the ashes so the burned papers could not be put back together.'

‘He got away, you know. They never caught him.'

‘I know. But he certainly caught me! I was dismantling the microphones and cables when he turned up and I had to pretend I was actually installing them for an Interpol meeting the following week. But I could see he didn't believe me.'

‘So why didn't you admit it at once?'

‘Because I had to make them think my confession was their triumph. I had a much worse crime – in their eyes, I mean – to conceal. I not only
recorded
that meeting, I also made a
transcript
– a private transcript for myself. They would have shot me for that. In fact, I made two transcripts. One I recovered from where I had hidden it and I gave it to British army Intelligence – after the war, of course – and now they claim it's “gone missing” – which I don't believe.'

‘And the other copy?'

The boy, the nanny, and the ducks had moved away; only a ragged breeze stirred the lake with illusions of fish shoals beneath its surface. She did not answer and he did not press her. At length she sighed and rose to her feet. ‘We must keep moving,' she said, as if it were winter. They started to walk again, around the lake, toward the rose garden. ‘One of the difficulties in trying to explain what happened in the
KLS
– to people who weren't there, I mean – is that none of it makes sense unless you know
all
of it.'

He agreed. ‘It makes sense in a shallow sort of way –
sensational
sense, you could say – but it doesn't connect. It's like describing a rainbow to someone who was born colourblind. They can see the outline of the thing but not the thing itself. I don't try. But with other survivors – with you – there's no need. And no point.'

Now she took his arm and shook it urgently in time with her words: ‘But I have the same problem in trying to tell you what happened at that conference . . . and why I made two transcripts . . . and why I joined the communist party – Yes! In nineteen forty-two, I – an officer in the
SS
– joined the communist party. And all because of what I heard at that conference. No!' She closed her eyes and stamped her feet. ‘I heard
nothing
at that conference. That's the most awful thing of all. There they were – all the top people in the
SS
except Himmler telling second-rank men from all of the Reich's Ministeriums – ministries, I mean – telling them that the
SS
had worked out the most efficient way to kill millions of Jews and Romanies and poofs and . . . anyone they didn't like . . . and they were now going to start doing it on a big,
big
scale . . . and when they'd finished, there wouldn't be a single one of those inferiors left in Europe, nor in England if the Reich won the war . . . judenrein, they called it. The entire Europe will be judenrein and if you civilians argue against it or obstruct us or even just fail to cooperate, you could end up being liquidated alongside them . . .'

‘
Um Gotteswillen!
' Felix felt the day shivering into something less than real.

‘Yes!' she insisted. ‘And
I didn't hear a word
! I was so busy checking recording levels . . . worrying about . . . I don't know . . . bias in the valves or . . . grid feedback . . . decibels and overload . . . anything except what they were actually saying. It was only when I played it back – just to check that nothing had dropped out – that's when I actually
heard
what they were saying, those fine
SS
gentlemen, one of which had been my hero. That's when I made those transcripts and that's when I put out seeking . . . how d'you say it?'

‘Put out feelers? You put out feelers toward the communists?'

‘Yes. Put out feelers – another strange expression.'

‘And obviously you succeeded, since you joined.'

‘Well . . . I never actually
joined
. I mean I didn't ever have a party card, not then. I do now, of course. I still believe in communism. The communists saved my life in Ravensbrück. But back then she said I was too valuable, being inside the
SS
. It would be idiotisk to have any incriminating bits of paper. And she was my only contact. The only one I ever saw. She's the one I gave that other transcript to. The Party must have it somewhere. They'll bring it out in the war-crimes trials, I expect.'