The Winter Garden (2014) by Jane Thynne Page A

head.
    ‘We had a hint you might have aroused suspicions.’
    His remark had affected her more deeply than she expected. She knew – she had known for years – that she would be under observation. Someone like her, who was half English, mixing
with the Nazi élite, couldn’t hope to go unremarked. She was ready for it. She had always been prepared to accept the consequences of what she did. Yet the absolute confirmation that
she was being watched produced a continuous, dull tension which knotted her stomach and dragged her mind relentlessly through the same questions. Again and again she had run through her
acquaintances, trying to work out which of them might have confided their suspicions about her to the occupants of Prinz Albrecht Strasse. But she could think of nothing she had done recently which
was out of the ordinary. No revealing conversations which might have been overheard, no meetings with anyone hostile to the regime.
    At that moment, standing amid the crowd, she detected a scent that brought her attention sharply back to the present. An astringent citrus fragrance. Scherk’s Tarr aftershave.
    ‘Fräulein Vine. What a pleasant surprise.’
    No matter how often she saw him from afar at the studios, hurrying along the studio corridors with his jerky crippled gait, an actual encounter with Joseph Goebbels, arch persecutor of the Jews
and the man charged by Hitler with responsibility for ‘the spiritual direction of the nation’, still made Clara shudder. His skin was stretched tightly over a pinched, clever face and
his shrunken frame dared you to look down at his deformed foot. His smile was as dazzling and intermittent as a prison searchlight and he crackled with nervous energy. Tonight he was dapper as
usual, wearing a well-cut light serge suit and navy tie. He dipped his head swiftly and kissed Clara’s hand, then took out a cigarette case and offered her one.
    ‘I saw you at Babelsberg the other day, I think. With Generaloberst Udet?’
    ‘He’s starring in our new film. He’s agreed to perform a stunt.’
    ‘Has he? I saw him in
The Miracle of Flight
. A miracle he was able to make the flight, was what I heard.’
    It didn’t surprise Clara that Goebbels should be fully briefed on Udet’s love of alcohol. It was his job to know the weaknesses and peccadillos of all senior Nazis. No doubt the
Gestapo too had a stack of notes filed away in the great bank of files that they kept in Prinz Albrecht Strasse, ready to use against Udet should the moment arise.
    Clara smiled politely. ‘Actually, I’m hoping he will let me fly with him.’
    ‘Then you’re a braver person than me. Perhaps you have a taste for danger, Fräulein Vine.’
    ‘I’m sure it’ll be perfectly safe.’
    ‘I suppose. So long as you make sure it’s before lunchtime!’
    Out of the corner of her eye, Clara was aware of being scrutinized. It was the latecomer, the Englishman called Ralph, who was standing between Magda and the Mitford girls, or rather towering
over them, a good six foot two. He had a broad-featured face and a bump in his nose that suggested a break on some distant playing field. His hair receded over a high brow and he cupped one elbow
in his hand as he smoked. Clara noted the clean ovals of his fingernails and the gold signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. For a split second, as their eyes met, a spark of connection
flickered across the distance between then.
    Diana called across to Goebbels.
    ‘We’re playing a game, Herr Doktor, and you must join in. We’re talking about the deadly sins. I think the old ones are all terribly passé. There should be new deadly
sins. Or perhaps we should have deadly virtues instead!’
    ‘How about chastity?’ suggested the Englishman.
    ‘A sin or a virtue?’
    ‘It’s pretty deadly either way.’
    A burst of laughter filled the room. ‘Well if you can’t decide, Ralph, you’ll have to think of another,’ Diana persisted. ‘What do you