Woman in the Shadows (9 page)

“Filthy swine! Contaminating the benches for decent people!”

“I want to see it spotless. Get all that dirt off. You're lucky we don't arrest you right here.”

The young man, in his coat and hat, was visibly sweating as he scrubbed frantically at the wooden struts of the bench. His girlfriend, who might have been a secretary in her white blouse and neat tweed suit, was kneeling on the path, running a scrap of lacy material along the wrought-iron legs. Silent tears slid down her cheeks. Painted onto the bench were the words
NUR FÜR ARIER
.

“Those benches are barred for Jews,” Clara told Mary quietly.

“Where are Jews supposed to sit then?”

“There,” answered Clara simply, pointing to a bench at the far end of the park, closest to the road. It was painted a dirty yellow color, and the people who had been occupying it were moving hastily away. Above it was a sign explaining
DIE GELBEN BANKE SIND FÜR JUDEN
. “The Jews are only allowed on the yellow benches.”

Some of the onlookers appeared embarrassed at the display and winced in distaste, but most were smiling. There was even a mother, Clara noticed, pointing out the fun for the benefit of her young daughter. To Clara's horror, Mary seized her notebook and started to push through to the center of the crowd.

Clara grabbed her sleeve. “Mary. Don't. Be careful!”

“Why? I'm a journalist, aren't I? I'm supposed to be reporting on what's happening here. This is exactly the kind of thing my readers need to know about.”

How was it, thought Clara in exasperation, that the one friend whose company she most enjoyed should be a journalist? Clara's job was to be inconspicuous, Mary's to find trouble and then wade into the thick of it. Clara avoided attention. Mary attracted it. Clara hung back as the American elbowed her way to the guards.

“What are you doing?”

One of the guards had just delivered a spiteful kick to the young man, causing him to topple sideways onto the ground. The guard looked up in astonishment as Mary addressed him.

“My name is Mary Harker.” She flourished her press card. “And I intend to report this in my newspaper, the
New York Evening Post
.”

The two SS men exchanged glances, bemused. Clara held her breath. But their inventive taunting of the Jewish couple had put them in a good humor, so they linked arms, smiling.

“Sure. You can take our picture too, if you like!”

“Too bad I don't have a camera,” grumbled Mary, turning on her heel. Clara gripped her arm and walked quickly away.

She led Mary through the park tight-lipped, crossed the road, and hailed a taxi. How could she explain to her friend that while she had been away, it wasn't just Berlin's buildings that were being demolished and rebuilt? It was as though the whole of Germany had been turned inside out and the darker things that had once been hidden were now on full display.

“You've only just arrived here, Mary, and if you carry on like this you're going to get thrown out again so fast you won't need to bother unpacking your suitcase.”

Clara had not the slightest confidence, however, that Mary would take her advice.

T
he windows of Ernst Udet's apartment in Wilmersdorf looked out onto the sedate plane trees of Preussenpark. It was a leafy, upmarket neighborhood, close enough to the shops and theaters of the Ku'damm to be fashionable, yet far enough away that the streets fell almost silent after dark, save for the occasional dog walker ambling home to his handsome nineteenth-century villa. Currently, however, this area's reputation for bourgeois respectability was being comprehensively demolished by its most celebrated resident, Generaloberst Udet himself.

The blast of jazz could be heard halfway down the street. As soon as she stepped through the door, Clara realized that nothing she had heard about Udet's private life had been an exaggeration. The dimly lit room was filled to bursting with gray-blue Luftwaffe uniforms and a scattering of young women in skimpy dresses with plunging necklines. It brought to mind the kinds of clubs that had been common just a few years ago in Berlin. Small, squalid places crammed to the walls with people, where smoke filled the lungs and music throbbed through the blood. You would find couples there in any combination: men with women, men with men, women with women. Most of those clubs were closed now, or at least harder to find, but Udet's parties were a credible alternative. In the corner he had installed a cocktail bar, a modern curve of smooth wood with chrome fittings and a generous cluster of bottles, behind which a Luftwaffe general, in a barman's black waistcoat with a napkin slung over his shoulder, was concocting a Brandy Alexander. At the other end of the room a piano with a glass of beer resting on it was being played by an officer in a monocle and comically tilted Luftwaffe cap. Beside him, Udet's dog, Bulli, was petted by a statuesque blonde with hair rolled tightly away from her face and a bosom like the window display in a jewelry store.

In the four years since she had been in Berlin, Clara had never gotten used to entering a room filled with National Socialist officers. Close proximity to a Nazi uniform made genuine relaxation an impossibility. They were almost all Luftwaffe here, with a sprinkling of Wehrmacht officers in field gray. As she threaded her way through the men in their tightly belted tunics, studded with aluminum buttons and decorations, she felt the lascivious flicker of eyes upon her and guessed that many of these men had recently returned from active service. Like all men starved of female company, they were hyperalert to the approach of an unknown woman. Especially one in a halter-necked, backless evening dress.

“Isn't that what's called a cocktail dress? Surely you need a cocktail to go with it?”

Ernst Udet surfaced from the crowd and kissed Clara's hand. His own hands, she noticed, as he waved over a man carrying a tray of margaritas, were rather small and exquisitely manicured.

“It takes the Luftwaffe to really appreciate a beautiful woman. You want to know why? It's a requirement of the job that pilots have perfect vision, so it follows that we need something perfect to look at too.”

His tanned face beamed with boyish pleasure at this aperçu, and Clara couldn't help laughing, too. “Herr Generaloberst…”

“Ernst, please.”

“Ernst. Thank you for inviting me. I'm so pleased you were able to spare time to make the film. You must be terribly busy.”

“I jumped at the chance! I miss the old days, you know. There was none of this stupid office work. Just flying all day. Now I haven't practiced a good stunt for weeks. The last real stunt I performed was flying my Focke-Wulf Stieglitz under the
Hindenburg
and hooking on to its undercarriage…” He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Ach, but girls aren't interested in airplanes.”

“No, I am. It's fascinating.”

“You're lying, my dear. However, even if you think I'm an old bore, your young friend Erich would like to hear about it, I'll bet. You must get me to tell you about how the famous Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber was born. But first, we should find our producer. Herr Lindemann was here, somewhere.”

Clara looked around for Albert. Plenty about this party would appeal to him. One young man was sprawled on a sofa, legs splayed, his arm flung around an older officer. Another's full formal evening dress included mascara and lipstick. For a man like Albert, everything had changed since the death of Ernst Röhm, the monstrous commander of the SA, the storm troopers' unit, whose downfall had been preceded by a welter of homosexual scandal. Being homosexual was an antisocial offense now, warranting direct removal to a concentration camp. Indeed, the accusation had become a useful method of dispatch for anyone who caused offense. Neighbors with a grievance would frequently entrust their suspicions to the Gestapo with a quiet note.
I regard it as my duty as a German to bring this to your attention.
When a friend was arrested for homosexuality, no one even needed to mention the word. They would simply murmur
“Hundert fünfundsiebzig,”
signifying the 175th paragraph of the German criminal code. That was enough. Bars and meeting places once popular with homosexual men were monitored closely by the secret police. The result was that private parties became prime meeting places.

“There he is.”

Standing in the midst of a group of Luftwaffe officers, Albert had the regulation blonde clamped to his arm. Clara had not seen this one before. She had a hard, calculating face with high arched eyebrows, which gave her an expression of permanent surprise. Or perhaps she was genuinely surprised at being the date of a man like Albert, Clara thought. He was holding forth, slightly drunkenly, on the subject of film production.

“We're a nation of engineers. Germans are the best engineers in the world. You people are making airplanes, we are making films.”

Another officer, with shaved flaxen hair, guffawed. “Forgive me, Herr Lindemann, but with Goebbels in charge you're not exactly producing Junkers.”

Udet gave Clara a complicit wink. “Clara, meet Oberst Heinrich von Kleist, Oberst Horst Schilling, and Oberstleutnants Rudolf Fleischer and Hans Schwarzkopf. Heinrich and Horst are test pilots, and Hans and Rudolf work for me in the Technical Division. We often have a refreshing exchange of opinions. Take no notice. It's nothing serious. Just men's talk.”

The four officers acknowledged her with nods. They towered over Albert with an air of confidence and authority that was enhanced by their Luftwaffe uniforms.

“Say what you like, but Goebbels is an emotional engineer,” persisted Albert. “Films produce emotions, and Goebbels believes in engineering the right films to produce the right emotions.”

“Poisonous little propaganda runt,” said von Kleist, but under his breath.

“In terms of understanding the value of propaganda, Doktor Goebbels stands head and shoulders above the others,” asserted Albert, his voice slightly slurred.

“Goebbels couldn't stand head and shoulders above my dick!” announced Schilling to general laughter.

“Wait, gentlemen. I will advance one defense of Doktor Goebbels,” volunteered Fleischer. “He's made some attempt to sort out the art from the trash. I was down in Munich the other day, and I decided to take a look at that revolting Degenerate Art exhibition. All the rubbish they confiscated from museums.”

“I heard about that,” said Schilling languidly, puffing on a cigar. “Jew art, isn't it? You can see that kind of thing on the walls of any public lavatory. I don't understand why it needs a museum.”

“The interest was phenomenal. There were queues stretching down the street.”

“There you are then! The genius of Goebbels!” interceded Udet. “It must be a great exhibition!”

Fleischer eyed him coldly. The way the skin stretched over the Oberstleutnant's bullet head made Clara think about the skulls at the Berlin Natural History Museum, lined up in rows according to their ethnicity. His eyes were as pale and flat as highly polished steel.

“Goebbels was right to gather it up, but he should have made a bonfire of it, just like he did with the books. Those paintings are really disgusting. They're rotten, depraved works by human effluent. The message is always the same: Man is bestial. Berlin is a sink of depravity. Germany is poisoned. Everyone is for sale. All that Bolshevik crap.”

“So which artists are appearing in this Degenerate exhibition then?” inquired Clara.

“As Horst says, mostly Jews. Paul Klee, Picasso, Joan Miró, Emil Nolde, Kurt Schwitters, Wassily Kandinsky, Bruno Weiss. I saw him actually, Weiss. Standing there bold as brass, looking at his own filthy artwork.”

Bruno Weiss!
The shock went through Clara like a knife. This man had seen her friend Bruno. Alive, in Munich, and recently, too. The surprise caused the glass to tremble in her hand. In an effort not to betray her amazement, Clara kept her eyes fixed rigidly on Fleischer's bony face.

“In fact,” he continued, “he was lucky I didn't have him arrested immediately.”

“On what grounds?” asked Schwarzkopf. He was by far the handsomest of the group, with a high aristocratic brow and eyes of hard Aryan blue.

Fleischer shrugged. “Endangering public morality, encouraging disrespect of the National Socialist state. Any fucking grounds you like. The police have a list of those offenses as long as your arm, so they're bound to be able to find a few to suit a piece of Jewish garbage like Bruno Weiss. As it was, I reported him to the local authorities. He's likely to find himself answering some questions very soon.”

“And they won't be questions on the meaning of art,” sneered Schilling.

Schwarzkopf laughed. “More like the kinds of questions where if he gets them right, he'll be in a camp and if he gets them wrong, he'll be wearing a wooden overcoat.”

“What were you doing there, Fleischer?” teased Udet. “Do you have a taste for that kind of thing yourself? Decadent art?”

“I was visiting family,” answered the Oberstleutnant stiffly.

“Well, I come from Munich too. Perhaps I should drop in on my next visit.”

Udet grinned at Clara, but she scarcely noticed. She was still struggling to conceal her astonishment. So Bruno was in Munich. He wasn't in a camp, or dead, because this man had seen him standing in front of his own artwork. Such a notion was incredible. It would be rash, bold, and recklessly ill-advised. And exactly the kind of thing Bruno would do.

In her torrent of emotion it was hard to focus on the fact that Udet was attempting to introduce another officer.

“And this, Clara dear, is my right-hand man. Oberst Arno Strauss. Arno, you must meet my new wife. She has eyes you could drown in, don't you think?”

While Udet's face bore an alcoholic flush and there could only be room for a few more cocktails inside him, Oberst Arno Strauss was manifestly sober. He was ramrod straight, with an athletic frame and tightly cropped dark hair. In profile, his hawkish nose and lean cheek suggested a chiseled perfection. But when he turned his head, Clara had to repress a gasp. The whole left side of his face was crumpled, as though it had once melted, with a long scar that ripped and puckered the flesh from the side of his eye along the cheekbone to the corner of his mouth, drawing down the eye and raising the skin of his cheek in a silvery welt. As a result of this disfigurement, it was hard to tell whether the curl of his lip was expressive or accidental. Perhaps it was both.

Strauss clicked his heels gallantly, bowed, and kissed her hand. “So this is the Pilot's Wife.”

“Arno Strauss is the only man in Germany who can outperform me in the sky,” slurred Udet.

“Only in the sky?” taunted Strauss.

“And who can drink me under the table, of course.” Udet leaned confidentially towards Clara, exuding alcohol like the fumes of a Mercedes' exhaust. “Arno makes excellent brandy cocktails. His Angel's Wing has to be tasted to be believed. Brandy, cream, and crème de cacao, served without mixing. Superb. He would make the best bartender in Berlin, but the work he's engaged in at the moment is a little more useful to the Fatherland.”

“So what's this film about?” queried Strauss.

Udet rolled his eyes, then lowered his head like a naughty schoolboy. “To be absolutely honest…”

“Don't tell me you didn't read the script?”

“I read as far as the part where I did the first stunt. I told them I'd take it. I don't need to know the story.”

In a strange way, Udet was right. Each Ufa film now followed such a predictable template one could pretty much guess after the first few minutes how it would turn out. In this case an audience could tell that a heroic Luftwaffe pilot would almost certainly have survived the downing of his plane, and that his wife's bravery in going in search of her husband would be rewarded, allowing her to return to housewifely duties. The conflict in which Udet was supposedly fighting was not specified, but no one looking at the flat, sandy plains that had been painted on sets in the studio could mistake the landscape of Spain.

At that moment, three girls came and dragged Udet away, pleading with him to perform a juggling trick. Finding herself standing next to Strauss, Clara felt obliged to continue the conversation.

“And…where do you work?”

His chill gray eyes flickered over her as though he could barely be bothered to reply. Clara noticed a navy-blue cuff band on his arm, which read
LEGION CONDOR
.

“I suppose you know the Reichsluftfahrtministerium?”

It would be hard to miss it. Goering's new Air Ministry on Wilhelmstrasse at the intersection with Leipziger Strasse was as gargantuan as its chief, though rather more sober in its décor. Indeed, the building was starkly austere. It was popularly called Haus der Tausend Fenster, but in reality the granite slab had not one thousand but four thousand windows, extending seemingly endlessly across the cliff face of its façade. Inside there was a lift without doors, which never stopped, so that staff had to step out as it passed their floor.