A Season of Secrets (60 page)

With great effort she pushed the thought of Luther Schultz to the back of her mind. What she was trying to do at the moment was reassure her father, not give him even more cause for concern.

‘So you see, Papa,’ she continued, ‘where Paul Goebbels and Hermann Göring are concerned, nothing is as it seems.’

‘Except that every time you passed on information to the Americans you risked your life.’

She pushed her chair away from the table and walked across to one of the room’s long windows. Looking out of it, and with her arms folded tightly across her chest, she said, ‘I know
you, and the rest of the world, are aware of what happened in Germany a month ago, Papa, but cold facts will not give you any idea of the horror of it – and, for the Jews, the
terror.’

‘
Kristallnacht
,’ he said, knowing only too well to what she was referring. ‘Crystal night. The Night of the Broken Glass.’

It had been the night when, thanks to the instant reporting of it by foreign journalists, any lingering trust he might have had in the policy of appeasement had been snuffed out like a
candle-flame.

In retaliation for the shooting of a German Embassy official by a Polish Jew, Hitler had ordered full-scale coordinated attacks on Jews throughout Germany. Jewish homes, hospitals and schools
were ransacked and looted by both paramilitary forces and non-Jewish citizens. Nationwide, in an orgy of hate and destruction, the windows of Jewish shops were smashed with axes and sledgehammers,
the shards of broken glass in the streets giving birth to the name
Kristallnacht.
In towns the length and breadth of the country synagogues burned; businesses were looted; Jews were beaten
on the streets, and thousands were arrested and taken to concentration camps.

It had been as if the entire non-Jewish German nation had been convulsed with a sickness: a dark and savage and brutal insanity.

In America, President Roosevelt had told reporters, ‘I can scarcely believe that such a thing could have occurred in twentieth-century civilization.’

It had been a statement that Gilbert was in complete agreement with.

Violet hugged her arms a little tighter against her chest. ‘If the information I have gleaned, and passed on, has done anything to make the American government rethink its isolationist
policy, and to impress on Britain’s government that Hitler has no intention of keeping any promise or any treaty that he makes, and that the sooner Britain is on a war footing the better,
then the risks were necessary.’

She turned to face him and the sun streaming through the window caught her torrent of red hair, making it glitter like fire.

‘Hitler is a madman, Papa. He’s a megalomaniac. His telling Britain and France that the Sudetenland is the last of his territorial demands is a lie, as is his constant claim that all
he wants is peace.’

She came back to the table, this time sitting down next to him.

Slipping her hand in his she said, ‘Only hours after he had signed the Munich Agreement, Hitler told Goebbels that Chamberlain’s backing down over the Sudetenland crisis had shown
him how powerful he himself was. Hitler told him that, because of his other plans for territorial expansion, a war with Britain and France would be inevitable, but that he was master of the
situation; that Germany’s military situation was excellent and that the country could fearlessly face a war with the great democracies. This, Papa, while at the same time Prime Minister
Chamberlain was waving his piece of white paper at Heston Aerodrome declaring it was an agreement, signed by Hitler, promising that Britain and Germany would never again go to war with each
other!’

Ashen-faced, Gilbert stood up, saying, ‘That Goebbels would tell you such things only makes me more vastly relieved that you will soon be out of the country. I’d return to London
with you today, if I could, but I have a vital task to see to first in Vienna. While I’m there it will give you time to pack what you are going to bring with you and close up the
house.’

‘Vienna? But why? Since the
Anschluss
things are even more horrendous there than they are here.’

‘Zephiniah has a twenty-seven-year-old daughter living in Vienna. Her name is Judith Zimmermann and she believes herself to be Jewish – and may even be Jewish. I’m acting as
her sponsor so that she can emigrate to Britain, but things aren’t moving along very fast. I’m going to Vienna to find out why.’

Violet had a score of questions she would have liked to ask about a stepsister she had never heard of, but uppermost was her need to disabuse her father of the impression he was under.

‘I shan’t be packing, or closing up the house, Papa. At least not yet.’

He opened his mouth to protest and she said swiftly, ‘Hitler isn’t only planning to break the agreement he made at Munich and to march into the rest of Czechoslovakia; he’s
planning an invasion of Poland. I can pass on this information till I’m blue in the face, but what is needed for America and Britain to treat it as hard fact – and for Chamberlain to
put Britain on a full-scale war footing – is documentary evidence. The very second I’ve got that, Papa, I’ll be on a train to Ostend as fast as light.’

Their extraordinary-coloured amber eyes held, hers fierce with determination, his filled with the horror of knowing that the stakes were so high that he had no choice but to give way to her.

‘Promise me,’ he said unsteadily, ‘promise me that you will keep your word.’

‘I promise, Papa.’ She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. ‘Darling Papa, what a worry I’ve always been to you, haven’t I? But I promise I won’t be, once
I’m safely back in England. I do so long to be in Outhwaite again and to see Hermione and Miss Calvert and Jim and Charlie. Do you know I haven’t yet seen little Charlie junior?
We’ll have to have the most
enormous
Gorton party, and it’s all going to be the most splendid fun.’

They walked arm-in-arm into the hall and she didn’t ring for Irmgard to fetch him his hat and coat. She went for them herself, and helped him on with his coat.

The drawing-room door was open, the Christmas tree clearly visible.

He said, ‘Did you have a long search to find an angel so like the one you grew up with at Gorton?’

‘No. The Christmas markets in Berlin are flooded with Christmas-tree angels in all shapes and sizes.’ Her eyes grew misty with remembrance. ‘I used to love decorating the tree
with Mama and Thea and Olivia. Some years Roz spent Christmas with us and helped as well, and Carrie was always there, holding the ladder steady for whoever was placing the angel on top of the
tree. When I was little Thea and Olivia never had much time for me, but Carrie always did. In all the years I have lived away from home the person I have always missed most – apart from you,
of course – has been Carrie.’

Gilbert, who missed Carrie every second of every day that he wasn’t with her, said with deep feeling, ‘When I’m away from Carrie, I miss her too.’

Violet tilted her head to one side, regarding him intently.

At last she said perceptively, ‘Then when your divorce is finalized, why don’t you marry her?’

‘I’m going to,’ he said as she handed him his homburg. ‘At least I am if, when I pluck up the courage to ask her, she says yes.’

Olivia was as surprised and delighted to see him as Violet had been.

‘You should have let us know you were coming,’ she said, ushering him into a drawing room furnished in a style reminiscent of Gorton Hall when Blanche had been alive. ‘I would
have met you at the station.’

‘Is Dieter home?’

‘Not for another two or three hours. The Foreign Office workload is manic at the moment. Have I to ring for some plum-cake and English tea?’

‘That sounds grand.’

He had decided before he’d arrived at the house that he was going to say nothing about the purpose of his trip until Dieter was with them. Talking about Judith wasn’t something he
wanted to do twice and, unless Olivia brought Violet into the conversation, he wasn’t going to mention her name to Olivia, either. To put Olivia in more danger than she was already in would
be insanity, and what she didn’t know she couldn’t, if she was ever questioned, tell.

He was going to tell Dieter, though. There could well be a time when Violet would need his help.

The thought made him shudder and Olivia said in immediate concern, ‘Poor darling Papa. You’re not used to Berlin’s fierce cold weather, are you? Let’s get cosy in front
of the fire with cake and tea, and I’ll tell you all about the most amazing experience I had a little while ago.’

He’d always found Olivia the easiest of his children to be with. She didn’t possess Violet’s unnerving ability to shatter his peace of mind, or Thea’s political left-wing
intensity. Nor did she possess their fierce intelligence and perceptiveness. Thea would have realized instantly that something was dreadfully wrong for him to have arrived in Berlin so suddenly
without warning, and would have questioned him, just as Violet had questioned him.

That Olivia hadn’t, and that they were about to have tea and cakes in front of a log fire while she chattered away happily, was something for which he was thankful.

The minute he was seated Olivia said, ‘The Führer has a secret known only to a handful of people – I’m one of them, and Roz is another.’

His relaxation vanished in an instant. ‘Tell me,’ he said, fearful of what he was about to hear.

Olivia kicked off her shoes and curled her feet beneath her on the sofa. ‘He has a mistress – and he’s had her for several years now. She’s twenty-three years younger
than he is, and he never takes her out and about in public. He hides her away at the Berghof, his home in the Alps at Berchtesgaden.’

Gilbert let out a cautious sigh of relief. It was certainly an interesting secret to know, but hardly one that would bring the Gestapo down on Olivia’s head – not, that is, unless it
was openly chatted about.

‘You don’t talk to friends about it, do you?’

‘Lord! Of course not, Papa. It’s fascinating, though, isn’t it? And the most fascinating thing is that she isn’t at all as you might imagine a mistress of Hitler’s
would be. Both Roz and I rather liked her.’

The blood left Gilbert’s face.

‘You’ve
met
her?’ he asked incredulously.

Olivia bubbled with laughter. ‘I met her for the first time when Dieter, along with other high-ranking members of the Foreign Office, was invited to the Berghof and wives were invited
also. She was fascinated by the fact that I was English, and we got on rather well together. Then, in October, she accompanied Hitler to Berlin when he was giving a major speech in the Olympic
stadium. True to form, Hitler didn’t want her presence noted and, as she was going to be on her own in a hotel room that evening, she asked if I would keep her company. And so I
did.’

‘And Rozalind?’ he demanded, wondering when the many shocks he’d received over the last thirty-six hours would come to a merciful end. ‘How on earth did Rozalind come to
meet her?’

‘She came with me to the hotel and, when I went up to Eva’s room, she remained in the hotel lounge. After a little while I mentioned that my American cousin was downstairs, and Eva
immediately suggested that she join us.’

‘Dear God! Where were the SS officers when this was happening? There must have been some in the hotel with her?’

‘There were. Two of them were seated outside her room all the time we were there, but they’d been told to expect me and so I wasn’t a surprise to them, and they accepted Roz as
being just another foreigner Eva wanted to meet.’

‘And there have been no repercussions?’

‘No. None. Don’t look so worried, Papa. We were simply three young women, all approximately the same age, having a very jolly time together.’

He came back to the sofa, sitting beside her once again. ‘And so this young woman you say is Hitler’s mistress? Who is she? What did you say her name was?’

‘Eva. Eva Braun. And she wasn’t at all what we had expected. Knowing how formal Germans always are, Roz and I were wearing evening gowns and we arrived to find Eva wearing
shorts.’

‘Good grief! Why on earth . . . ?’

‘She was in the middle of an exercise routine. She’s very slender, very athletic. Despite our wearing
very
unsuitable clothes, we joined in the routine with her and we all
laughed ourselves silly. She’s pretty, but not at all glamorous or sophisticated. When we’d exhausted ourselves and were sitting drinking wine and eating pretzels she told us that she
loves swimming, skiing and American films. She only spoke of Hitler once, and that was when she was talking about his dog and of how fond she is of dogs. Roz said afterwards that she doubts if Eva
is even remotely politically aware. There was absolutely no Nazi talk. None at all. She was bright enough, and very bubbly, but certainly not an intellectual. Her main interest – which I
understand completely – is clothes. Can you imagine Hitler chatting about clothes? I can’t.’

Neither could Gilbert.

Not until four hours later, when Dieter was with them and they were having dinner – with the dining-room door firmly closed and no telephone in sight – did Gilbert bring up the
subject of Judith.