She had lived all her life in Berlin, yet Hedwig had never set foot in the Admiralspalast, even though it was everything she loved. With its scrolly Expressionist façade, it was the biggest and brashest of the fantasy palaces that lit up Friedrichstrasse’s theater district. The Admiralspalast was a great baroque barn of a place, seating twenty thousand people for a repertoire that included dance acts, operetta, magicians, and every aspect of light entertainment. It was probably the last place on earth that Jochen would want to visit, so it was with a mixture of astonishment and delight that she heard he had tickets for the Saturday evening show.
That night an eager queue wound along the street. Theater attendance was up this season. Everyone was trying to escape the worries of the present—the continual daily niggles of what the next meal might resemble and, when they’d eaten it, how to look presentable enough to go out. And once they’d gotten there, whether the gaudy signs and blinking neon billboards of the theater might be plunged into darkness if war arrived in a few months. Just then, all anyone wanted was to get lost in a few hours of romantic nonsense, and that evening’s variety performance perfectly fitted the bill.
Standing beneath the pillared entrance, her face dappled emerald and ruby in the flashing lights, Hedwig shuffled her feet and hoped Jochen would not be much longer. Her legs ached. All day the Faith and Beauty girls had been practicing waltzes for the Goerings’ ball. Their own ball dresses—white taffeta and silk with blue sashes—were not yet finished, so they were wearing gym uniforms, which only seemed to make the waltz practice more ridiculous, and the routine was being supervised by Fräulein von Essen, whose hefty form was more at home on an alpine hike than pirouetting around a dance floor.
Waltzes were what the Führer loved best, due to his Austrian heritage, and not only would the Führer actually be present at the ball but there was a chance that one of the Faith and Beauty girls would be asked to dance with him. Even the thought of that made Hedwig rigid with horror. If the Führer’s gaze fell on her, would she have the courage to go through with it, or would her legs simply give way beneath her? She consoled herself with the knowledge that Fräulein von Essen would regard the partnering of Hedwig and Hitler with precisely the same horror, and would ensure that if there was any line of female partners for the Führer, Hedwig would be at the back of it.
Especially after that morning’s practice. Hedwig had been partnering Hilde, one of the prettiest and most graceful of the Faith and Beauty girls, with a doll’s delicate, creamy complexion and a glossy crown of braids. It was bad enough that Hedwig had two left feet, but Hilde’s skill made everything worse. A couple of Kripo detectives, part of the investigation team for Lottie’s murder, had loitered at the doorway ogling and making ribald remarks, but the sensation of the policemen’s eyes on her had made Hedwig trip on Hilde’s feet, and even from the other side of the room she could hear the detectives’ snorts of laughter.
She gazed anxiously up the street. Friedrichstrasse was thronged with people. The crowds flowed seamlessly between those returning from work and others setting out for an evening’s entertainment. Trams screeched, people jostled, and neon dazzled all around them. The show was due to start in less than five minutes, and Jochen was nowhere to be seen.
I was going to ask you something.
Every night since he had said that, she had lain awake, puzzling over it, cherishing it like some delicious secret, wondering what it might be. Or, more precisely, what her decision would be, because she had guessed already what Jochen was going to ask.
He was planning for them to elope. The idea sent a thrill through her, even as she mentally shied away from the daring it would entail. How would she pluck up the courage to leave the home she had known all her life? There would be more work for her mother without help in the kitchen, let alone with all the boys. Yet also there would be one less mouth to feed, and with the apartment so crowded, they could use the extra space. But how could she leave the children? How would darling Kurt, with his sleepy smile and milky breath, cope without her? Kurt was more like her own child than her brother. What would it do to him if she suddenly disappeared?
Despite these dilemmas, Jochen’s proposition had come as a welcome distraction. It was the only thing diverting her from endless brooding about Lottie’s death.
“Sorry I’m late, Hedy. Work.”
He broke into her dreams with a gust of cold air and a rough kiss on the cheek. He had his briefcase in one hand, and with the other he took hers and tugged her through the throng. “We have precisely two minutes.”
They edged their way in and settled in a row at the front of the stalls, waiting for the luxurious swags of purple velvet to rise and reveal the stage.
“What have you been doing?” he whispered.
“Practicing for Reichminister Goering’s ball.”
“Sounds interesting.”
He was being polite. That was another change. Jochen had been in a difficult mood lately, and much as Hedwig tended to attribute all problems to her own deficiencies, she knew it was more likely the stress of work. His company had been working overtime making anniversary editions of Mein Kampf, and Jochen was an important part of that process, crafting the elaborate medieval-style frontispiece for each edition in Gothic writing, replete with swirls of black ink, oak leaf swags, and fat little cherubs at the margins.
“It’s not just dancing. We’re having to practice conversation. They say it’s important that the Prince of Yugoslavia gets a good impression of Germany.”
Most girls could barely lift their thoughts above their families and their favorite movies, but Faith and Beauty girls needed to understand the currents that motivated world affairs.
“Apparently Russia holds a Bolshevik dagger at Germany’s throat but Prince Paul can help the Führer restore balance to Europe.”
“And how exactly will he manage that?”
“I can’t remember.”
Hedwig was sketchy on the details because she had lost all ability to concentrate. Every visit to the Faith and Beauty home these days filled her with apprehension. Everything had changed. The place was buzzing with policemen, shouldering their way through the corridors, building a picture of Lottie’s last hours. A pair of detectives had even come into the art class and hauled Herr Fritzl out for questioning. Hedwig couldn’t help thinking that his face, chalky with fright, had resembled one of the pieces of Degenerate art he was so eager to condemn.
“They read a speech from Reichsführer Himmler. He says he wants us to be hohe Frauen, sublime women. We’re going to be trained in several languages, as well as debating and chess.”
“So I’m taking out a sublime woman, eh? I don’t need Heini Himmler to tell me that.”
She could feel the undercurrent of laughter in his voice. Not derisive mockery, like the Kripo men, but affectionate amusement.
The lights darkened, and she shuffled down in her seat as the chorus line came on. A variety show always started with the chorus. The orchestra struck up “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz,” the song that Richard Tauber had sung to Marlene Dietrich in The Land of Smiles. “You Are My Heart’s Delight.” It could hardly be more perfect. Hedwig reached across to Jochen and felt his warm fingers stroke the back of her hand.
Even though they were dressed in feathers and tulle, the girls performed with as much military discipline as any storm trooper in the Führer’s birthday parade. When they goose-stepped, turned, bent, and regarded the audience through their parted legs, Hedwig expected to feel Jochen stiffen with distaste, but instead he was transfixed. It was a revelation to her that he might like dancing. She hoped he never wanted to dance with her.
The girls changed costumes and returned dressed as red Indians with strategically placed feathers preserving what little modesty they possessed. Watching Jochen more closely out of the corner of her eye, Hedwig realized that, despite their shapely legs and high kicks, it was not the dancers who had captured Jochen’s attention but the orchestra. And in particular, one member of the orchestra. Following his gaze, she saw a stunningly lovely brunette playing lead violin, her instrument clenched beneath her chin and her bow sawing the air with febrile energy. She must have been in her early twenties, her thick hair bundled up like a ballerina’s from a face that acted as a mirror to the passions of the music, by turns grave and joyful. Jochen was studying the girl with intensity; it was as though all the dancers, musicians, the theater audience, and even Hedwig herself did not exist.
A blind surge of jealousy erupted in Hedwig. Early in their relationship she had coaxed out of Jochen the dismaying news that he preferred brunettes to blondes, except in her case. Now, she knew, he was reverting to type.
WHEN THEY EMERGED FROM the theater two hours later, Friedrichstrasse was glinting with a thin sheen of water, the puddles rippling with speckled light. People jostled for cabs and flung up their umbrellas. Others huddled into their fur collars and turned down the brims of their hats. To her surprise Jochen seized her hand and ushered her around the corner into the dank alley to the theater’s stage door.
“I just need to see someone for a moment. Don’t mind, do you? It’s work.”
“Work?”
His face was shuttered in the way that brooked no argument. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
Hedwig stood mutely beneath the misty light of the stage door, trying to keep out of the rain and to prevent herself being engulfed in a wave of misery and outrage. How could Jochen bring her to the theater if his true interest was some brunette who played the violin? Did he imagine she wouldn’t notice? Or did he think she was the kind of doormat who would tolerate some amorous adventure when he was supposed to be on a date with her? She heard her mother’s voice again, with its knowing, cynical ring.
There’s something about him I don’t trust.
Less than two minutes later he was back, briefcase under one arm.
Hedwig walked stiffly, trying to transmit her unhappiness through silence, but Jochen actually preferred walking without conversation, so eventually she said, “What was all that about?”
“All what?”
His mouth was a tight line, and his jaw was set like rock. As they dodged the crowds pouring out of theaters and cinemas into the evening’s drizzle, he increased his stride.
“The girl in the orchestra. I saw you watching her. Then you went to meet her, didn’t you?”
“You’re not jealous, surely.” He gave a little humorless laugh.
He was walking fast. Hedwig had to do a little skip to keep up.
“Why did you see her?”
There was an even longer silence, so that she feared he was furious. Part of her longed to abandon the matter entirely, although another part insisted that she discover everything. After a while he said, fiercely, “You don’t want to ask these questions. You won’t like the answers.”
“Just tell me!”
They had proceeded as far as the Gendarmenmarkt, where the gray stone Concert House was flanked by two matching cathedrals, the French and the German. The plinth where the bust of Schiller, Germany’s Shakespeare, had stood for generations was still empty, the sculpture having been removed a few years previously on account of his newfound degenerate status.
Still Jochen stared ahead, saying nothing. Something intense and dangerous loomed between them. Hedwig didn’t care anymore about the rain that blurred her spectacles and mingled with her tears. She didn’t know where they were heading, or why the man she loved was behaving in this cruel and unfamiliar fashion. Her voice choked in her throat.
“Jochen?”
Eventually he replied. “Are you sure you want to hear?”
She nodded weakly. She didn’t trust herself to talk.
“All right. I’ll tell you. Her name is Sofie. We meet every Tuesday.”
“Do you love her?” she asked, in a small, stricken voice.
“Sofie has nothing to do with you and me.”
“I asked if you loved her.”
“I admire her, certainly.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Some time.”
“And where do you meet?”
“Her father has a villa in Dahlem.”
It was everything Hedwig feared. Her beloved Jochen was in love with a clever, rich, beautiful woman. A woman whose family lived in Dahlem, which was so far from Moabit in its social status it might as well have been Timbuktu. No social graces Hedwig could ever learn at the Faith and Beauty school—no amount of ballroom dancing, or flower arranging or chess—could match the social status of a girl named Sofie who lived in a villa in Dahlem.
“And does she take you there?”
“Yes. For dinner. Her family know all kinds of artists, politicians, and priests. Important people. They talk about literature—Brecht, Schiller. Other people I’ve not heard of.”
A conflict of emotions warred in his face. “A lot of them are aristocrats, bohemians. Not my sort. But their hearts are in the right place. And the main thing is…”
He stopped, turned to her, and moved his face very close. “They all hate the Nazis.”
His words floated quietly on the night air, like a hiss.
“Some of them hate National Socialist politics, but others just consider the Nazis ill-bred. Rich people think like that, you know, but being smart works in these people’s favor. No one believes a family like Sofie’s could have money and still belong to the KPD.”
The KPD. The banned German Communist Party. Hedwig’s heart sank like lead. Mutti had been right.
“Are you a Communist?” she whispered.
It was not a word she ever used. It felt as bitter in her mouth as a lump of shrapnel. Communists were never mentioned at home, except as a curse. Bolsheviks were Germany’s worst fate, it said on the radio. The Jew devil.
“No. I’m a good German. But we do have Communists. And Conservatives, Social Democrats, Catholics, Lutherans, Jews. Doctors, officers, academics. One of them is a playwright who works in the Propaganda Ministry. There’s a guy named Helmut who’s the official dentist to the Ufa studios. He does all the stars’ teeth. He gets us typewriter ribbons and ink for our newspaper.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Same reason as any of us.”
Hedwig was floundering. Grappling with her coordinates the way she tried to work her compass in the forest. Trying to reset everything she had believed with this new information.
“They’re not all smart types. There’s a waiter at the Kaiserhof who reads all the foreign newspapers for us, everything—French, English, Danish, Dutch, Russian—so we get an idea of opinion beyond Goebbels’s lies.”
Her whole world was shifting on its axis. Everything she knew had turned cruelly upside down, as though an enormous wrecking ball had taken aim and was reducing her life to rubble.
“But why? What do you want to do, Jochen?”
“I wanted some way of resisting what was going on, and it wasn’t going to be killing Hitler. I was never going to be able to manage something like that.”
Killing Hitler? Hedwig’s knees almost buckled beneath her, and she craned her head round in the quick, instinctive glance that was known as der deutsche Blick. The German look.
“How did you…how did you meet these people then?”
“Through a friend. He thought I would be useful because I’m a graphic artist, but he still screened me first, to check my leanings. He gave me a cigarette packet, and when I opened it I found a message asking me to make a flyer denouncing the occupation of the Sudetenland.”
The Sudetenland. Then this must have been last year, Hedwig thought, desperately making mental calculations and trying her hardest to recall the current affairs that generally passed her by. “And did you? Do what he asked?”
“I did. I designed the pamphlet and someone else in the group printed them. Then another member, who is a Persil washing powder distributor, packed them in Persil boxes and covered them with detergent.”
“What happened to them after that?”
“I don’t know. The idea is that we don’t know too much. So we can’t reveal anything if we’re caught.”
The frankness with which he alluded to this terrifying possibility astonished her. Yet although alarm and horror were churning through her, there remained a residual sense of jealousy.
“And that girl at the theater? Sofie. What about her?”
“Sofie’s a professional musician. She’s extremely talented. She studied under a student of Mendelssohn’s.”
“Oh.” This information did nothing to alleviate Hedwig’s jealousy.
“At the moment she performs in the orchestra at the Admiralspalast every night, then after the show she takes our pamphlets out in her sheet music portfolio. No one ever suspects sheet music.”
It was dark now that all the streetlamps had been dimmed to save money, and they had reached the point in Französischerstrasse where an arch supported by giant caryatids flung a pool of deeper shadow. Jochen stopped and drew her towards him.
“What we do is important, Hedy. One of our members has a brother in the army who supplies him with details of Jews who are scheduled for arrest, so we can warn them in time.”
“Are these friends of yours Jews?” The word almost choked in her throat. Whenever Hedwig thought of Jews, she imagined the leering figures you saw on the front of Der Stürmer, like crooked shadows with their long black coats and yellow eyes.
“Some are. Some have been in camps, but we have to be extra careful with those because sometimes people are only released from camps on the condition that they find their former friends and lead the Gestapo to them. They call the people we help U-boats. Submarines. You must have heard of them.”
Now that he was speaking, it was as though he couldn’t stop. But Hedwig wanted to stick her fingers in her ears. The delightful evening had taken a terrible wrong direction. She wanted everything she had heard to disappear.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“You asked me.”
“I had no choice.”
“And now, my darling, you do have a choice.” His eyes burned into her like acid, so fierce she almost flinched. “You can denounce me, or you can help me. If you denounce me then I will be hauled off to be shot and maybe you too. Perhaps even your dear Mutti and Vati will come under suspicion.”
Her tears began to stream, and Jochen took her in his arms.
“Don’t cry. I can’t bear that. I never intended to involve you. I had every intention of keeping you out of this. But you’re going to need to choose. Just like we all have.”
“I could never denounce you.” She wept.
He kissed her. A tender, lingering kiss.
“I knew that, Hedy. We’ll meet next Thursday, shall we, like always? At the usual place?”