The Lady from Zagreb Read online

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said with very little sincerity. Too little for a man with ears that were so carefully tuned to meaning, like the Mahatma’s.

  He picked a tiny piece of thread off the trouser of his suit and dropped it onto the thick carpet, as if it had been me.

  “Oh, I know you’re not a Nazi. I’ve read your Gestapo file—which, by the way, is as thick as a DeMille screenplay and probably just as entertaining. Frankly, if you were a Nazi you’d be held in rather better odor at RSHA headquarters and then you’d be no fucking good to me. The fact is I want this matter handled off the books. Which means to say I certainly don’t want bastards like Himmler and Kaltenbrunner finding out about it. This is a private matter. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Quite clear.”

  “Nevertheless they will try to find out what we’re doing. They can tell themselves all they like that it’s in the country’s best interests to know the private affairs of everyone in government. But it’s not. It’s in their best interest to get the dirt on everyone so they can use that to cement their own positions with the leader. Not that there’s any actual wrongdoing here, you understand. It’s just that they might easily imply that there is. Insinuation. Rumor. Gossip. Blackmail. That’s second nature to people like Müller and Kaltenbrunner. You may not be able to tell them to go to hell, exactly, but I’m confident that you’re the kind of fellow who can outfox them. With total discretion. Which is also why I’m prepared to pay you, out of my own pocket. How does a hundred reichsmarks a day sound?”

  “Frankly? It sounds much too good to be true. Which is a habit of yours, after all.”

  Goebbels frowned, as if he were unable to decide if I was being insolent or not. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. You’ll forgive me, sir, but in the event that I do end up working for you, then I have to be straight. Believe me, if this job does require the discretion you say it does, then you wouldn’t want it any other way. I never yet met a client who wanted me to put some syrup on top of a piece of hard cheese.”

  “Yes,” he said uncertainly. And then with greater certainty, he added, “Yes, you’re right. I’m not used to people being straight with me, that’s all. Truth is in rather short supply in this day and age—when you have to rely on German civil servants. But then even the British have become experts in twisting the facts. Their reports of a night raid on the city of Dresden were a triumph of lies and obfuscation. You would think that there had been not one civilian casualty, that they bombed this city without a single civilian casualty. But that’s another matter. Thank you for the lesson in pragmatism. And since they do say that money talks, then perhaps it might be best if I were to pay you in advance.”

  Goebbels put his hand inside his jacket and removed a soft leather wallet from which he proceeded to count five one-hundred-mark notes onto the table in front of us. I left the money there, for the moment. I was going to take the money, of course, but I still had my pride to take care of first; this residual feeling of my own dignity—which was not much more than a small shard of self-respect—was going to need some careful last-minute handling.

  “Why don’t you tell me what the problem is and then I’ll tell you what can be done?”

  Goebbels shrugged. “As you wish.” He paused and then lit a cigarette. “I take it you’ve heard of Dalia Dresner.”

  I nodded. Everyone in Germany had heard of Dalia Dresner. And if they hadn’t they’d certainly heard of The Saint That Never Was, one of the more sensational films in which she’d starred. Dalia Dresner was one of UFA-Babelsberg’s biggest film stars.

  “I want her to be in Siebenkäs, my next picture for UFA. Based on the classic novel by Jean Paul, Married Life, Death, and Wedding of Siebenkäs, Poor Man’s Lawyer. Have you read it?”

  “I haven’t, no. But I can see why you felt you had to change the title.”

  “She’s perfect for the leading role of Natalie. I know it, she knows it, the director—Veit Harlan—knows it. The trouble is she won’t do it. At least she won’t until her mind has been put at rest about her father, with whom she appears to have lost contact. I believe they’ve been estranged for a long time, but her mother died quite recently and she’s decided she wants to make contact with him again. It’s a fairly typical story of our age, really. Anyway, she insists she needs a detective to help her find him. And since it’s Dalia Dresner, it can’t be just any detective. He has to be the best. And until she speaks to such a man and he does whatever it is that she wants him to do, it’s clear that her mind is going to be on other things than the making of this motion picture.”

  “And you don’t want the Gestapo doing it.”

  “Correct.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “I really don’t see that it’s any of your damn business.”

  “And it can certainly stay that way. Frankly the less I know about your personal affairs the better I’ll feel. I certainly didn’t ask for this job. I didn’t ask to come here and be offered an opportunity for profit and advantage. If I was interested in either of those things, then by your own admission I wouldn’t be sitting beside you on this sofa. But I won’t work for you with a patch over one eye and one hand tied behind my back. If I am going to outfox the likes of Kaltenbrunner and Müller, then I can’t be treated like your poodle, Herr Doctor. That’s not how foxes operate.”

  “You’re right. And I have to trust someone. Recent events have taken their toll on my health and I was obliged to cancel a badly needed holiday. This whole affair isn’t helping me, either. I should get myself in shape but I can see no possibility of that happening. Frankly it’s all left me feeling rather depressed.”

  He crossed his legs and then nervously hugged his right knee toward him so that I had a good view of his famously deformed right foot.

  “Do you have a sweetheart, Herr Gunther?”

  “There’s a girl I see, sometimes.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Her name is Kirsten Handlöser and she’s a schoolteacher at the Fichte Gymnasium on Emser Strasse.”

  “And are you in love with her?”

  “No. I don’t think so. But lately we’ve become quite close.”

  “But you’ve been in love, Herr Gunther?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And what was your opinion of being in love?”

  “Being in love is like being on a cruise, I think. It’s not so bad if you’re sailing on a smooth sea. But when things start to get rough, it’s easy to start feeling lousy. In fact it’s amazing how quickly that can happen.”

  Goebbels nodded. “You put it very well. Most of the policemen I’ve met have been blunt instruments. But I see you have a subtler side. I like that. The fact is, I am in love. This is not an unusual situation for me. I like women. Always have. And they seem to like me. I’m married, of course, with several children. Sometimes I forget how many. But, before the war, there was another actress. Her name was Lída Baarová. You’ve probably heard of her, too.”

  I nodded and finally lit the cigarette in my fingers. It’s not every day that the Reich Minister of Propaganda opens up to you about his love life, and I wanted to give this my full concentration.

  “I wanted to leave my wife and live with her but the leader wouldn’t hear of it. Lída is a Slav, you see, and considered to be racially inferior. So is Dalia Dresner.” He nodded. “For Dalia’s sake, I have tried not to become too involved with her. Himmler and Kaltenbrunner would dearly love to cause trouble for me by being able to tell the leader that I’m involved with another Slavic woman. And of course he’d be furious. The leader takes a very dim view of anything but total monogamy. So I’ve tried to keep a distance. But I am in love with her. And the plain fact of the matter is that she very much reminds me of Lída.”

  “Now you come to mention it, there is a certain similarity.”

  “Ex
actly. I’ve even tried to sell her as the German Garbo just to make Hitler forget about that. The similarity between her and Baarová, I mean. Just to deflect any hint of suspicion that this is why I’m advancing Dalia’s career.”

  “And are you? Is that the reason you’re building her up into a star?”

  “Perhaps a little, yes. You see, when I’m with Dalia I find that I don’t really need a holiday. And right now all I want to do is to make her happy.”

  “I can understand something like that.”

  “Good. Because you should also understand that I would take a very dim view of anything that happened to embarrass her, or me.”

  “I can keep my mouth shut, if that’s what you mean, Herr Doctor.”

  “It is. I want this case handled as quietly as possible.”

  “That’s just the way I was planning to handle it.”

  “So then. What I want you to do is meet with her, find out what the problem is, and put a smile back on her face. I need that smile. And the picture needs it, too. We need it so that we can start production on this picture before the summer is over. I’ve got Veit Harlan and Werner Krauss under contract and it’s costing the studio a fortune. Not only that but this good weather is perfect for us, only we can’t shoot a damn thing until she’s got what she wants.”

  I shook my head. “There’s still something you’re not telling me. Which really doesn’t surprise me.”

  Goebbels laughed. “My God, but you’re an impudent fellow.”

  “I expect that’s in my file, too. So why act so surprised about it? Like you said yourself, if I was a good national socialist I’d have already made something of myself in the RSHA and then I’d be no good to you.”

  Goebbels nodded patiently. I’d pushed him just about as far as I could go and then a bit further. That’s the one thing I know about people with power and money; when you’ve got something they want, they’ll take almost anything in the ear in order to make sure they get it.

  “You’re right. But I’d rather she told you herself. So, will you please go and see her? At least listen to what she’s got to say?”

  I picked up his money off the table. It seemed the least I could do was see his girl. Like I said, it’s not every day the Reich Minister of Propaganda opens his heart and, more importantly, his wallet to you. And it’s not every day you get a chance to meet a film star.

  “All right. Where can I find her?”

  “In Potsdam. On Griebnitzsee, close to the film studios. There’s a house that’s recently come into my possession on Kaiser-Strasse. My secretary will give you all of the details. Address, telephone number, everything. When shall I tell her that you’re coming?”

  I shrugged and glanced at my watch. “This afternoon? I don’t know. Is there an S-Bahn station near there? I don’t know Potsdam all that well.”

  “Neu-Babelsberg,” said Goebbels. “I believe it’s quite a hike from the station. But you could go now and be there before lunch if you were to borrow my car.”

  “Sure.”

  He tossed me a set of keys. “One thing about the car,” he added, as if he already regretted letting me borrow it. “The supercharger whines a bit on start-up. And you have to let the oil heat up before you let out the clutch.”

  I walked toward the door. “I’m trusting you with the two things I love most in this life. My car. And my leading lady. I hope that’s clear enough.”

  “Crystal clear, Herr Doctor. Crystal clear.”

  Fourteen

  I ought to have been in a better mood. I was driving a bright red Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster, the one with the streamlined body and the boot-mounted spare wheel. I had the top down, the wind in my hair, and my foot hard on the gas. I liked driving—especially on the AVUS speedway—and I should have been smiling from one earlobe to the other, but until Goebbels had asked me the question in his office, I hadn’t realized that I wasn’t in love with Kirsten, and wasn’t likely to be, either. Which made me wonder if I was doing the right thing in going out with her at all. Even a car as beautiful as the 540K wasn’t enough to compensate for that kind of feeling. After all, love is rare, and to find that you aren’t in love is almost as upsetting to the human mind as finding that you are.

  I’d started seeing her regularly on my return from Smolensk after she’d spoken sharply to me in the line for bread, because of the uniform I was wearing. She’d accused me of jumping the line, which wasn’t true. Later on the same day, I saw her at the swimming baths on Schlacht-Strasse and she’d apologized. She explained that she was upset because the SD had come to her school asking questions in an effort to find out why none of the children in her school had chosen to be evacuated from Berlin to a KLV camp, because of the bombing. She’d told the SD that everyone in Berlin knew the poor reputation of these camps—that parents didn’t want their daughters taken advantage of by the Hitler Youth boys who were also at these camps. Kirsten was worried she’d said too much, and in truth she probably had, but I advised her not to worry and that, if she found herself in trouble, then I’d speak up for her, although in truth that would hardly have helped her cause.

  I realized that when I was through with whatever service it was that Goebbels and Dalia Dresner wanted me to do for them, I was going to have to have a quiet word with Kirsten and tell her the bad news. It was only bad news for me, of course; she was an attractive girl and it wasn’t going to be hard for her to find another man, perhaps even one nearer her own age, assuming that after the war was over there would be any of those still left.

  I came off the AVUS and slowed down to drive through Wannsee. A few people turned and stared at the red car; they must have thought I was Tazio Nuvolari. I know I did.

  Until the 540K arrived there, Potsdam was a quiet town of about eighty-five thousand just thirty miles southwest of Berlin, although it might as well have been located on Rome’s Palatine Hill. Most of Prussia’s kings had made the place their summer residence, which is a bit like saying that Louis XIII used to own a hunting lodge at Versailles. With several beautiful parks and palaces, and surrounded by the Havel and its lakes, Potsdam is now home to some of the richest people in Germany. Of these the richest probably live on the edge by the Griebnitzsee in the so-called villa colony on Kaiser-Strasse, where the houses are a little smaller than the average palace, but rather more private, which is what real money buys these days. That and twenty-five rooms and entranceways like the Parthenon and enough garden to park a squadron of Dorniers.

  The finials on the wrought-iron fence in front of the address I’d been given looked like oak trees; there were smaller ones in the front garden. I hadn’t ever seen the Alhambra, but I imagine there were parts of it—the guesthouse perhaps—that resembled the place I was looking at now. Built of cream-colored stone, with redbrick details and church windows, it even had towers and castellations, not to mention a car parked on the gravel driveway that was the exact twin of the one I’d just left on the street. It was exactly the kind of house where you expected to meet a movie star, so the little lozenge-sized scar on the right-hand side of the doorpost from where a mezuzah had once been fixed to the doorframe brought me up short. You didn’t have to be the local rabbi or see a bar mitzvah party in the garden to know that this large eccentric house had once belonged to a family of Jews.

  I cranked the old-fashioned silver doorbell handle and heard it ring loudly in the hall. I waited and cranked it again, and when nothing happened I peered through the glass in the door for a while but, seeing nothing but a hall tree and bench with a mirror as big as a cinema screen, I walked around to the back where the lawn rolled gently down to the side of the lake. Several orange marker buoys had been deployed in the water to remind any unwelcome visitors with boats that the residents of the house weren’t ever home to visitors. But I wasn’t looking at the water, I was looking at the green baize lawn and what was on the lawn, because it was there, lying on a
large white linen spread, that I first laid eyes on Dalia Dresner in the flesh, of which there was rather more on show than I’d been expecting. She was as naked as a Potsdam Giant’s bayonet and every bit as hazardous to men, as I was about to discover. Tiresias at least had the good grace to cover his eyes when he accidentally walked in on Athena taking a shower. I did not. Eventually my own natural good manners persuaded me that—certainly after five minutes—I should have announced myself or at least cleared my throat.

  “When Dr. Goebbels asked me to come and see you I had no idea that this is what he meant.”

  She sat up quickly and covered herself with the linen spread, but not before she’d made sure I had seen everything.

  “Oh,” was all she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t sorry at all. “I rang the bell but no one answered.”

  “I gave the maid the day off today.”

  “If she doesn’t come back, I’ll take the job.”

  “You’re Gunther, of course. The detective. Josef said you were coming.”

  “I’m Gunther.”

  “The studio makes us lie in the sun like this. To get a tan. I can’t imagine it’s very good for my skin but Josef insists that this is what the public wants.”

  “I’ve got no argument with that.”

  She smiled shyly.

  “Perhaps I ought to wait in the house.”

  “It’s all right. You stay here. I’ll go and put on some clothes. I won’t be long.”

  She got up and went into the house. “Help yourself to some lemonade,” she said without looking back.

  It was only now that I noticed the garden chairs and table and the jug of lemonade that was standing on it. If there’d been a pink elephant in the garden I probably wouldn’t have noticed that, either. I unbuttoned my tunic and sat down and lit a cigarette and put my face in the warm July sunshine. There was a smile on it now although really there shouldn’t have been. After all, I’d seen Dalia Dresner naked before. Millions had seen her naked. It was the only high spot of The Saint That Never Was, a Jud Süss–in–reverse movie about a woman called Hypatia who was a fourth-century Greek philosopher. At the end of the movie, also directed by Veit Harlan, Hypatia, played by Dalia Dresner, is stripped naked and stoned to death by the Jews of Alexandria. Until that moment it had been a very boring film and there were some women I knew who said that Hypatia had it coming—that Dresner’s was not a great performance. Others, less critical of actors and acting and mostly men such as myself, enjoyed the film for what it was—a good excuse to see a beautiful woman taking off her clothes. Goebbels knew half of his audience, anyway. The smile on my face persisted; but instead of rerunning a sequence of shots inside my mind’s eye of Fräulein Dresner’s naked body, I ought to have asked myself how, if she knew I was coming to the house on Kaiser-Strasse, she’d prepared so carefully for my arrival—after all, there were two glasses on the table next to the lemonade jug—by being splinter-naked in her garden.