Woman in the Shadows (10 page)

“Ernst has room 231 and I have room 232.”

“Do all these officers work with you?”

“Somewhere.” He cast a dismissive glance at them. “On a lower floor.”

“Do you fly much?”

He gave a bored smile. “I get out as much as I can. Like Ernst, I'm not made for desk work.”

Clara willed herself to keep the conversation going. “So what's this work for the Fatherland you're engaged in?”

His laugh was as desiccated as leaves blowing down a blind alley. “Ernst exaggerates. It's technical stuff. It may as well be me as anyone.”

He was plainly unwilling to talk, but Clara plowed on, trying to look at him without staring at the scar. His face was like a sculpture on some old Roman temple, half perfect and half decayed.

“Have you known Ernst for long?”

“We met in 1916. We were assigned to the same unit flying single-seater Fokkers. We were out one day, making a routine patrol, when we came under heavy fire from British and French aircraft. We were hugely outnumbered, but Ernst managed to down a French plane and I downed another. These fellows made forced landings and Ernst decided to land beside them and take the men prisoner. They were terrified, as you can imagine, but Ernst strode over and shook hands with them, like a proper gentleman. When they were later imprisoned, he brought them cigarettes. I thought, That's the kind of man I would like for a friend. After the war I continued flying commercially, and when Goering got the Luftwaffe going again, I rejoined.”

All the time he told her this, Strauss had kept his head averted, as though conscious that she might not like to look at him, his gaze fixed on the middle distance. Eventually, he seemed to remember where he was. “But enough of my work, Fräulein Vine,” he said stiffly. “Yours is far more exciting.”

“It's quiet at the moment. We have a short break before we start rehearsals.”

“You're going to enjoy working with Ernst. He has a taste for fun. Look at him over there.”

Udet was juggling with a couple of empty wine bottles. A space had cleared around him, but his ability was hampered by a drunken girl who kept getting too close, trying to hang on his neck.

“Everyone's looking forward to working with him. I hear he makes paper airplanes that fly as well as the real thing.”

“Just one of his many accomplishments,” commented Strauss drily. “He also spins plates and does cartoons as well as a street artist. Women find him irresistible. And he usually sees little reason to resist them.”

Was this meant to include herself? Clara wondered.

“He's promised to organize a flight for me,” she volunteered. “I need to fly to understand my character properly. And to tell the truth, I've always wanted to go up in a plane.”

“Why?”

“It sounds fascinating.”

“Does it? I'll take you then.”

His offer surprised her. “Do you mean it?”

“I have a test flight to make from Tempelhof on Thursday. A Henschel Hs 126. You can come up with me if you like. As long as you sit tight and wear something warm. No female hysterics in my cockpit. Can you manage that?”

“Certainly.”

“Good then. It'll have to be early, mind. Be there at nine.”

From across the room, Udet could be heard mocking the grand new art gallery the Führer had opened in Munich. In contrast to the Degenerate exhibition, the Haus der Deutschen Kunst was a long-held ambition of Hitler's to showcase the best of German art. Udet, his face glowing with drink and wreathed in smiles, was telling an indiscreet joke about his boss. “So Goering is visiting the House of German Art and he's enraged to find a portrait of himself as a pig. He starts to complain, but the museum director says, ‘Oh no, Herr Reichsminister, can't you see that's a mirror?' ”

There was a gale of laughter, but Strauss turned away and stared out the window towards the dim confines of the park. From there, the ugliness of his disfigurement was hidden, yet the shade of stubble on his face seemed to echo a deeper shadow in his eyes. Clara tried to read his emotions. But it was impossible to tell what he was thinking until he said quietly, “I fear my friend Ernst has a dangerous condition.”

“What's that?”

“He damaged his hearing in the war. It means he speaks too loudly for his own good.”

There was a crash from across the room. Udet, with a tablecloth tied around his waist, was dancing the cancan on a tabletop.

“W
hy must we study healthy eating?” inquired the teacher, a woman with hair wound in tight braids around a face that could split wood.

“Because our bodies belong to the Reich and we have a responsibility to nurture them?”

“Good. Anything else?”

A forest of hands. “Because we are the bearers of children and children are the building blocks of the German Reich.”

In a sun-dappled room, with a stunning view overlooking the lake, twenty young women sat in rows, dressed identically in gray dirndls over white blouses and blue checked head scarves. Ahead of them, her feet planted wide and a rod in her hand, the teacher pointed at the board.

Mary always felt a little ripple of nausea when she set foot in a school—a souvenir of her days in a New Jersey boarding establishment battling alternately with algebra and the American Civil War. But the Bride School brought on a lurch of full-scale queasiness in the pit of her stomach. There was no smoking inside—God, how did they cope?—and the corridors were infused with an institutional cocktail of cabbage and carbolic. Indeed, it would be hard to find a more spotless institution than the Bride School. The garden looked like it had been tidied with tweezers. The gravel drive was combed, and the path ran down the lawn like perfectly parted hair. Even the birds were like tiny mechanical toys, hopping like clockwork on the shaven grass.

“This really is an inconvenient time for a journalist's visit,” complained the woman alongside her, who was named Fräulein Wolff.

“Why inconvenient?” asked Mary disingenuously, but if she had hoped to eke some information out of the woman, she was disappointed.

“We have an administrative examination,” she replied blandly. “There is to be a visit from the ministry. We are planning demonstrations of the various classes. Child Care, Sewing, Obedience in Marriage, and so on. Also there is to be a talk on how to be a good German woman.”

“That all sounds fascinating,” said Mary encouragingly. “Perhaps I could sit in.”

“I doubt it.”

She tried again. “Do all SS brides come to a school like this?”

“All SS marriages must be authorized to prevent SS men marrying unsuitable women.”

“In what way unsuitable?”

Fräulein Wolff gave a sniff of exasperation at being required to answer unsolicited questions.

“Health, for a start. The brides must complete forms giving all family history of tuberculosis, psychopathy, and gynecological records. If an SS man is found to have contracted an unauthorized marriage, he will be immediately expelled from the SS.”

“Expelled? Just because he doesn't have a certificate?”

The woman looked as if she would dearly like to expel Mary there and then.

“Follow me.”

She led Mary through a pair of high double doors into the marble hallway. Above the mantelpiece, facing the Führer's picture like a pair of grisly betrothal portraits, was a painting of Gertrude Scholtz-Klink, the leader of the Woman's Bureau, in gray worsted jacket, shirt, and tie.

“It's Frau Scholtz-Klink you need to see. She's away just now. I shouldn't really be the one to talk. Can I see your journalist permit again, please?”

Mary flourished the pass that had been issued to her with punctilious efficiency on the day of her arrival. The Germans were still, fortunately, eager to assist American journalists in every particular in the hope of cementing an international alliance. Fräulein Wolff's face creased with dismay.

“As I tried to explain, this is not a convenient day for you to visit, Fräulein. Perhaps you could return tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow I will be attending a speech by the Führer,” lied Mary. “But I don't need much. I wonder if I could interview one of the brides? Perhaps there's somewhere I could talk with one of the women in private?”

The idea of brides enjoying private conversations was plainly unheard of here. Fräulein Wolff seemed about to refuse, then the demands of the day overtook her.

“Very well. Come in here. They're preparing a wedding breakfast for one of the brides. I'll see if anyone can help.”

They entered a large, sparkling kitchen, crowded with a bevy of brides in white aprons. Either the warmth of the ovens or the proximity of food made the atmosphere jollier here than in the rest of the house. There was a hum of chatter and a mouthwatering smell of spices and baking. In the shafts of sunlight, clouds of flour floated over a worktop where brides were bent attentively, in the act of what looked like braiding strands of dough. Others were weaving ivy and orange blossoms into table settings in the shape of a swastika with a candle at each corner. In the middle of the wide pine table, glistening in the sunshine, stood the wedding cake. It was a glorious two-tier effort. Then Mary looked closer. On its snowy top, instead of a bride and groom, a tiny, black-suited effigy of the Führer stood at attention, rendered in marzipan right down to his little mustache, and surrounded by sugar roses.

“As you can imagine, we make a lot of wedding cakes here,” said Fräulein Wolff tersely. “What's the matter, Ilse?”

A plump blond girl, with greasy braids and an agonized expression, was surveying the sugar figure in dismay.

“I'm worried, Fräulein Wolff. Will it not be difficult?”

“Difficult? Why?”

“Who is going to cut up the Führer? No one will want to do that, so no one will be able to eat him. It's a waste, and the Führer hates waste.”

The teacher's face creased in contempt. “Let's not get into that, Ilse. I need your assistance. This is Fräulein Mary Harker from the
New York Evening Post
. She's an American journalist, and she would like to write a piece about an average day at the Reich Bride School. You will accompany Fräulein Harker to the music room.”

At this suggestion Ilse looked thunderstruck. She stared from Mary to the teacher in dismay.

“Well, go with her, girl! Be as helpful as you can.”

Ilse wiped her hands on her apron and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Despite the uniformity of the dreary serge uniform, she somehow made it look untidy, bulging in places, her blouse spilling out between the laces of her dirndl. Reluctantly, she led the way to the music room.

Mary closed the door behind them. “Forgive me, Fräulein, I'm sure I can't help you. I don't know very much.”

“It's fine, Ilse.” Mary pulled out her notebook. “I'll ask the questions. All you need to do is answer them.” She gave her sunniest, most encouraging smile. The one she reserved for policemen and small children. “Tell me about the Bride School.”

“Well.” Ilse chewed a lip and cast her eyes around the room, as though she might draw inspiration from the posters proclaiming
COOKING IS THE WOMAN'S WEAPON
and
ORDER SAVES YOU TIME AND EFFORT
.

“What do you learn?”

“All sorts of things.” The girl rattled off a list. “How often to change linen, how many times to wax and polish a floor, how to can fruit, how to obey your husband, what to cook on special days.”

“And why did you choose to come here?”

“Oh, but you have to! If you don't attend, then your man will be dismissed from the SS. When you get your certificate you must submit it to the wedding office of the Race and Settlement central office, so that the marriage gets official SS approval.”

“Approval?”

Ilse looked at her as if she were mad.

“Everyone in Germany needs approval to get married. Everyone needs an Ariernachweis—that's a certificate of Aryan purity. But it's stricter for people marrying in the SS. You have to report to the Race Bureau to have your racial characteristics assessed.”

“And how do they do that?”

“It's very simple really. You get weighed and they measure your nose and your upper lip. You won't get permission to marry if you don't pass that. You also need to provide birth and marriage certificates for your ancestors going back to 1750—that's such an effort. Sometimes you have to visit all the churches they married in, to find the proof. But the SS needs to be absolutely certain you are racially pure, with no Jewish or mixed blood.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the clanging of a bell and the clatter of shoes on the stairs.

“It's lunchtime, Fräulein. Would you like to join us? It's not Sunday, but the school has declared today we will have Eintopf.”

Mary had heard about this. Every Sunday, in an effort of national belt tightening, everyone, from Party leaders downwards, ate only one dish at dinner and gave the savings to the Winter Relief fund. Generally the
Eintopf
was a stew with floating islands of grease, into which the least glamorous parts of an animal had gone. Mary decided to pass on it.

“It's all right,” said Ilse. “I'm not hungry either. We could take a walk in the garden if you'd like.” She cast a glance at Mary's bag, from which a packet of cigarettes protruded. “You can smoke outside, if you want.”

They strolled into the garden and down the path. It was a crisp autumnal day, and as they rounded the path they came across a workman hammering the timbers of a building midway through construction. He straightened up politely as the two women passed, then continued with his noisy task. It was a medieval-style cottage, complete with flowering window boxes, beams, and timbered gables. Only the roof remained to be finished. It looked, Mary decided, like a playhouse for grown-ups.

“That could be straight out of ‘Snow White.' It looks like it ought to have the seven dwarfs inside it.”

“It's going to be a model home,” explained Ilse patiently. “For the brides to practice married life.”

“Not so much of a fairy tale then.”

“Oh, it will have everything you need,” continued Ilse earnestly. “A kitchen, an ironing board, a sewing room. They're even going to bring in children from a local kindergarten for child-care practice. I love looking at it. It's going to be like a perfect little home…” She stopped abruptly, and Mary saw that tears had sprung into her eyes. “I'm sorry, Fräulein Harker. It's a difficult time for me.” She let out a sob. “A friend of mine has just died.”

“Died?”

“Here in the garden. I don't know what happened to her.” Ilse shuddered, imagining Anna facedown on the grass, a ruby line of blood leaking from her mouth and smearing the strands of her bleached hair. Then she remembered that Frieda Müller had said Anna had been shot directly in the heart. Killed the way an expert huntsman would kill a deer, Frieda had explained to the little group of brides in a hushed voice. That's what one of the policemen had told her. The thought of Anna hunted down like an animal made fresh tears come.

“You mean Anna Hansen?” probed Mary.

“How did you hear? It hasn't even been in the newspapers!”

“I heard they arrested the gardener.”

“Hartmann. Yes, they took him away, so I suppose it must have been him. But I would never have guessed it. He's just a simple lad really. Soft in the head. And he has a lazy eye. He was always staring at us, but I thought, Looking can't hurt, can it? I suppose I was wrong.”

“To be honest, Ilse, I knew about the case already. That's partly why I'm here. I was planning to ask Fräulein Wolff about it.”

Ilse stopped in her tracks. “You can't do that! They won't talk to you about that!” She looked horror-struck.

“Why not?”

“We're not allowed to talk about it. We were all told to keep quiet and not ask any questions. They said it was a tragic accident and Hartmann had been taken away, so there was nothing more to say. Oh dear,” the girl wailed, belatedly realizing her indiscretion. “Fräulein Wolff will kill me if she thinks I've been talking to you about Anna!”

The thought of punishment to come brought on a fresh burst of tears, prompting Mary to put a consoling arm around Ilse's shoulder and say coaxingly, “I would never tell anyone you had spoken about it. You have my absolute word on that. But it seems unfair that poor Anna's death should be hushed up, doesn't it? That she should be swept under the carpet as though she didn't matter?”

It was a shrewd image. The idea of Anna being tidied away in the same frenzy of cleanliness that ruled everyone's lives at the Bride School had its intended effect. Ilse bit her bottom lip and swiped a sleeve across her face.

“No. You're right.”

They kept walking down the gravel path until they reached a cluster of pine trees standing at the end of the grounds, overlooking the lake. Ilse stopped and looked beseechingly at Mary, as though she held the answer to the questions that had been troubling her.

“To tell the truth, Fräulein Harker, I don't really believe it had anything to do with Hartmann. Anna would
never
have had a relationship with him. She wouldn't give him the time of day. She loved her fiancé! She used to tell me how she met Johann, when she was dancing at the Wintergarten, wearing a sequined corset and a feather headdress.”

“Anna was a dancer?”

“Yes, and Johann came to see her. He walked up to her in a bar afterwards to tell her how much he admired her performance, and it was love at first sight. She was always writing to him. And he wrote back. She kept his letters in a special place.”

“A special place?”

Ilse froze like a trapped deer, as though Mary had laid a cunning snare for her, into which she had innocently wandered. She was the kind of interviewee who made you feel like the Gestapo, Mary thought.

“Oh dear. That's something else I shouldn't have told you. There's no privacy here, you see. They say privacy is bad for brides and leads to indolence. But Anna found
somewhere.
” She shot a defiant, damp-eyed look at Mary. “A sort of hiding place, behind the wardrobe in the dormitory. If you push the wardrobe out, there's a vent in the wall where a fireplace was. It's bricked up, but there's a space at the top, where the bricks don't fit.”