A War of Flowers (2014) (32 page)

The international situation was becoming daily more febrile. After his inconclusive meeting at the Berghof, Chamberlain had returned for a further session at Bad Godesberg, a resort on the west
bank of the Rhine, but there was no sign that Hitler would back down. Rupert remembered his first glimpse of the Führer, years ago, shaking hands with Hindenburg, and he was still astonished
at how that little figure bowing to the old Field Marshal like a head waiter receiving a tip had grown immense enough to terrify an entire continent. As far as avoiding war went, Rupert could see
no hope. He tried to remember what he had felt last April, walking through Victoria with Leo, looking at the sunset over Green Park and hoping the sun wasn’t sinking on everything he held
dear. At the time he had been annoyed at Leo’s suggestion that he leave the
Chronicle
, yet now he saw that Leo had been prescient. Every day Winstanley spiked more of Rupert’s
stories, while never making clear what he wanted instead. Whatever it was, though, it wasn’t pieces about missing girls on transatlantic cruises.

Rupert had only begun asking questions about the girl on the cruise ship as a favour to Clara, but his original instinct to dismiss Erich’s story as part of a young boy’s overactive
imagination had changed when he met the secretary at the Führerin’s office. That grey-eyed, imploring stare she had given when he asked her about her trip on the
Wilhelm Gustloff
had lit some battered journalistic touch paper within him, with the result that he had met up with Bremer in a Kneipe beneath the arches of Friedrichstrasse S-Bahn and asked him to look through the
Missing Persons file.

He could tell now, from the ponderous way Bremer crossed the hall towards him, heels slapping reluctantly on the parquet, that the search had uncovered something. He came up to Rupert, gave him
a handshake that could crack nuts, and stroked his fine, handlebar moustache.

‘Any luck, Alfred?’

‘I think I’ve found your girl. Or rather, I haven’t found her.’

‘Bit cryptic for me.’

Bremer refilled his pipe and underwent the habitual pantomime of combustion, before expelling clouds of noxious smoke while Rupert did his best not to flinch.

‘The other day, when we met, I came back to the office and looked through the files as you asked me and there she was. Ada Freitag, age twenty-three. Notified missing by her parents
– nice couple – Viktor and Hilde Freitag of Wedding, on August 12th. Never returned from a cruise on the
Wilhelm Gustloff
. She was their only daughter and she’d never been
in any trouble before. High-spirited, is what I think they called her, but no reason to think she would abandon her old parents without a word, even if, as the captain said, she disembarked at
Madeira. I had to attend to another matter so I put the file back, meaning to return, but when I went to look this morning, it was gone.’

‘So perhaps the case is being looked at?’

‘The case? Who said there’s any case?’

‘You mean it’s not being investigated?’

‘I mean it doesn’t exist.’

‘Help me here.’

Bremer looked unhappily around.

‘I searched for the file, though I didn’t want to make too much noise about it, but it’s simply disappeared. Nobody took it, and nobody I’ve asked knows anything about
it.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Perhaps the girl’s been found.’

‘But you don’t think so.’

Bremer’s voice sank so low it was barely detectable. For some time he stared into the glass case beside him, as though transfixed by Sophie Kleist’s evening dress, then said,

‘What does it matter what I think? Maybe old guys like me don’t know best. In the past, we Kripo detectives prided ourselves on being out of politics – we were the
professionals; the career detectives. Look around you.’ He waved a phlegmatic arm at the glass cases. ‘All this was our work. But now, these Gestapo men have come and they’re all
lawyers and administrators and they have – what do they call it? – different skills. Protective custody, intensified interrogation. Us old-timers have weekly training sessions telling
us that the Kripo must undergo a change in our criminological theory.’ His eyes dulled as he reeled off the list. ‘We must learn a new definition of crime. Concentrate on habitual
offenders, lags whose racial roots lead them towards crime. We need to protect the moral fibre of society from professional criminals, vagrants and prostitutes. It’s the Gestapo men who
decide what’s a crime and what’s not.’

‘But when I raised the case at the Propaganda Ministry . . .’

‘You did what?’

‘I asked Goebbels if he knew of any young woman missing from a KdF cruise.’

‘My dear fellow,’ Bremer took his arm, his face aghast, ‘isn’t there enough to be going on with, with the Czechs and so on, that you can’t stick to international
questions? Why do you need to be worrying about a girl on a ship?’

‘So because we’re about to go to war with the Czechs, a missing girl doesn’t matter?’

Bremer’s kindly face was deadly serious.

‘Let’s just say, the girl is missing, her file is missing and in my professional opinion, my dear chap, unless you want to learn the Gestapo’s definition of crime for yourself,
I advise you not to ask another question about it.’

He turned and trudged slowly out of the hall.

‘So this is the dinner engagement, Sturmbannführer Brandt?’

He winced at her use of his rank.

‘Don’t call me that. I told you, it’s honorary. Himmler awarded it to me on account of my extraordinary knowledge of Parsifal. Please call me Max.’

They were seated in Max Brandt’s fifth-floor suite at the Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel. Outside, evening traffic sailed down Maximilianstrasse, and inside, the curtains were drawn on an opulent
room of brocaded upholstery, walls hung with still lives of half-peeled fruit, and a vase of lilies with yellow stains at their heart. Clara was being handed a glass of champagne that tasted of
vanilla and wet stone.

‘Thank you then, Max.’

Brandt’s tension had all but disappeared. He smiled, and leaned languidly back in his chair.

‘After all, you made me wait long enough.’

Clara sipped her champagne. The cut glass sparkled in the candlelight and she felt the bubbles tilt at the back of her throat, sharp as diamonds.

He chuckled. ‘It seems a long time since that night at Coco Chanel’s salon. I’ve looked forward to this ever since. You know, I still can’t believe the way you ran rings
round me in the streets of Paris. Anyone would think you were practised in evasion.’

‘Surely not.’

‘It’s true. And you certainly managed to evade any awkward moments with the Reichsführer too. You handled him very well, if I may say so. There are plenty of SS officers who
could learn from you. Himmler is not an easy person to make conversation with.’

‘It seems he likes to make most of the conversation.’

‘If you can call it conversation.’ The jollity had vanished from his eyes. ‘All that stuff about breeding.’ He shook his head.

There was a knock at the door. Clara froze, but Brandt smiled.

‘Relax.’ He called, ‘Komm!’ and a waiter entered, bearing a trolley stacked with dishes. A platter of oysters bedded on ice. Two dishes, topped with silver covers,
glasses and side plates. Delicious smells emanated, of rich sauce and meat, and the waiter removed the covers with a flourish to reveal golden Wiener Schnitzel, crispy fried potatoes, spinach and
carrots. Beside them was a plate piled with grapes and peaches. Clara felt a wave of hunger sweep over her.

‘Here, as promised, is dinner! I hope you can manage some after that lunch we had.’

‘I don’t think I ate a mouthful.’

‘Nor me. There’s something about the Berghof that drives all thought of food from one’s mind.’

‘There are oysters!’ she exclaimed.

‘They don’t look much, do they?’ He prised open a shell and offered it to her with a spritz of lemon. ‘But they say it’s the least distinguished ones that contain
the pearls. There. Eat it in one.’

She felt the oyster slide down her throat, like the purest, distilled essence of the sea. She shut her eyes to savour it and when she opened them he was smiling at her.

‘I like watching women eat. It’s as if they’re devouring life.’

‘I enjoy eating. Believe me, it was hard for me to decline dinner with you before. I’m always hungry.’

‘Good.’

A fire was burning in the grate, and its wavering flames caught in his eyes, illuminating the amber shards in their depths. The light seemed to draw both of them into its soft, enclosed circle,
shutting out the shadows beyond, as though they were in one of the paintings on the walls, with the fruit and oyster shells beside them posed like a still life and their own faces lit up from
inside with a painterly glow.

‘I think we should all live more sensuously.’

‘What does that mean?’ she laughed, taking another oyster and dabbing at her dripping chin.

‘We should listen to what our senses tell us. We should be alive to our feelings.’

‘That’s pretty much the opposite of what Reichsführer Himmler was saying.’

‘Sounds about right then.’

She smiled.

‘Although Himmler was correct in one regard.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘It seems curious that a woman like you is still single. Can I ask why?’

She fiddled with her glass then gazed at him directly.

‘I suppose because the only man who ever proposed to me made it a condition of marriage that I move back to England. If I’d done that I would have lost any chance of parts at the Ufa
studios. And my work was important to me. Is important to me, I mean.’

‘So this man asked you to choose between your work and love?’

‘In a way.’

‘And you chose . . .’

‘As you can see, I chose.’

‘Still.’ He finished the last of his schnitzel and beamed. ‘You don’t need to worry about old flames any more. Not now you have Sturmbannführer Steinbrecher. Tell me
about him. He sounds a nice chap.’

She took another sip and dipped her eyes.

‘A good upstanding servant of the Reich?’

‘Of course.’

‘Would you marry him?’

Marry him? Clara wished fervently that she had never invented him. Evasively, she rummaged amongst the grapes on the tray.

‘Far too early for that.’

Cautiously, she drank her champagne. There was a mystery about Brandt. Something unknowable. She could see why he was in the diplomatic life because, despite the odd glimpses beneath the mask,
such as his urgent desire to escape the Berghof, there was a smooth imperturbability to him. His eyes were ranging over the remnants of the dinner tray.

‘This fruit is quite something.’ He sliced a peach into six neat portions, offered her one and she bit into it. The flesh was sweet and intense and she felt a pulse of pure
pleasure.

‘Good, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘And I suppose we should make the most of it, in the circumstances.’

‘The circumstances?’

‘Given that we don’t know what’s coming . . .’

A shadow crossed his eyes. He jumped up, gesturing at his black tunic with its glistening silver buttons and its insignia.

‘Would you excuse me? I’d like to change out of this.’

‘Of course.’

He disappeared into the adjacent bedroom, leaving the door ajar, and Clara remembered the image she had conjured back in Berlin, of a half-made bed, with drawn curtains, rumpled sheets, and hot
bodies entwined. An anonymous hotel, somewhere like this, closed against the eyes of the world. Why had that image so stubbornly refused to leave her mind? She fortified herself with another sip of
champagne and when she looked up again he was leaning against the doorframe, wearing an open-necked white shirt which revealed dark curls against a golden skin.

‘As far as I’m concerned the less time I spend in uniform, the better.’

As he came towards her he turned off the overhead light, leaving only the glow of a pink-fringed lamp, and sat opposite her, smelling of Eau de Cologne and lemon soap, their knees almost
touching. As he did, Clara felt a surge of attraction so strong she was almost faint with it and as an automatic response to what she was feeling, she said,

‘Tell me about your wife.’

Brandt blinked, stiffened and looked away.

‘Clara Vine. You have the most extraordinary ability to . . .’ He drew a hand across his eyes. ‘All right, if that’s what you want, we’ll talk about my
marriage.’ He leant forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘I come from a close family. My father was a lawyer, as I said, and my mother was musical, and they were untypical of their
generation in that they loved to spend time with my sisters and brothers and me. We had a family boat and we would go sailing down the Havel and took holidays on my grandfather’s estate
outside Potsdam. They were very cultured people. We would stage family concerts and I suppose I got my love of music from them. Anyhow, I expected that sense of security and predictability to
continue when I myself was married. Closeness, loyalty, sharing. Those were my expectations. I thought that was what family was.’

Clara couldn’t help a wry sympathy. Her experience of family had been of bereavement, estrangement, and buttoned-up English unhappiness. She had learned that if you didn’t expect
much, you wouldn’t be disappointed.

‘Unfortunately,’ Brandt continued, ‘my marriage was not like that at all. Gisela loved the outdoor life, but she disliked music and theatre, and most of all she hated
travelling. That was, perhaps, the only way in which she was out of step with our leadership. They enjoy the idea of European travel. They’ve made it their mantra.’

‘Do you have children?’

His eyes clouded. ‘No, sadly. I wanted children but it seems Gisela couldn’t have them. She became pregnant shortly after we married, then lost the child. For years, we tried and
nothing happened, until one day she told me she was expecting for a second time. I begged her not to go out riding but she wouldn’t listen and she lost that one too. I was still grieving for
it, when she told me it hadn’t been my child anyway. That seemed to seal it.’