Faith and Beauty (31 page)

He paused with his head tilted, as though this was the first time he had ever considered it.

‘Like a dinner guest. They were always utterly courteous. Polite. They talked about politics, or history, or art, as though I would understand, which of course, being intelligent, I did.’

Clara looked into Adler’s impenetrable eyes and tried to see in him the young boy, isolated and awkward. Polite.

‘In the winter we would go hunting. There’s a hare there that learns to camouflage itself perfectly against the land. It has a deep grey coat but in winter it undergoes a moult and turns entirely white. I admire that. The skill of camouflage. You can’t be a good hunter unless you’ve studied camouflage. This little hare turns white so expertly that only the best hunters can see it against the snow.’

‘Sounds like you miss it.’

‘I do. I often wish I’d made my life back there, managing the estate, living quietly. Keeping out of politics.’

‘So why did you?’ She kept her voice low but her words flared with passion. ‘Why get involved in all this . . . brutality? If you didn’t have to?’

Adler observed her change of expression, then gave a cool shrug. ‘It was necessary to join the Party if I was to pursue my work as an art specialist. Once the Reich Chamber of Culture was instated, it was mandatory.’

‘You didn’t have to enter
politics
.’

‘I didn’t think of it as politics. When von Ribbentrop was made ambassador to England, he invited me along as his aide, and I liked the idea. I’ve always enjoyed foreign travel.’ He leaned in confidentially. ‘Though I would have liked it a lot more if it hadn’t been for the attentions of his wife.’

‘Can it really have been so bad?’

‘She never let me alone. She liked my wealth. My aristocratic heritage. Probably the same reasons you like me.’

Clara smiled.

‘Who said I like you?’

He laughed, delightedly.

‘But of course. You came here this morning solely for the exercise. And you accepted my dinner invitation in Paris out of a desire to discuss international affairs.’

She fought the urge to tell him how accurate he was.

‘Talking of Paris, I was wondering. Who was that man you met?’

Adler’s face shuttered instantly, the way it had on the bridge.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Is it something I shouldn’t know?’

He sighed.

‘His name is Alfred Rosenberg. You’ve heard of him, I take it?’

Alfred Rosenberg was the mad philosopher seer of the Party, one of the earliest members to demonize Jews, freemasons and Communists.

‘There are a lot of Jews selling their stuff right now, trying to raise money to leave France, and there’s desperate competition for it, from the highest places. Paris is crawling with art experts, art restorers, art packers, cataloguers.’

‘So how does that involve Alfred Rosenberg?’

‘He’s overseeing it all. It’s a joke really. Rosenberg likes art about as much as he likes Jews. To have a man like that in charge is quite ridiculous.’

‘So he’s in charge of paintings being sold?’

‘Not just that.’ A dry laugh. ‘He’s masterminding the cultural audit of Paris.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘All these questions, Clara Vine. Your curiosity is extraordinary.’

‘I’m interested.’

‘Fair enough. I’ll tell you. We’re bureaucrats, we Nazis, you see. That’s where we excel. Some of the best works in the world are in Jewish hands – all the rich families, the Rothschilds, the Wildensteins, the Seligmanns. Rosenberg’s scouts are finding where the Jews live and marking down their addresses. Inventories are being made of every important object of artistic and cultural value. Not just paintings, but sculptures, furniture, tapestries, bronzes, carpets, antiques, jewels.’

‘Jewels?’

He’s hunting for a jewel. He’s looking for it high and low. God help anyone who gets in his way.

Adler shrugged. ‘Everything. It will all be noted and entered in a ledger just in case the Reich needs to acquire it.’

‘Just in case.’

‘As you say. Just in case.’

‘So the people at the Louvre . . .?’

‘They were trying to outwit Rosenberg. The French are working overtime sending all their museum works to châteaux and other hiding places in the countryside. They think they can hide things, but it’s futile. Rosenberg’s spies know precisely where the valuable things can be found.’

Clara could scarcely believe she was hearing this. She tried valiantly not to look around her, to see if they were being overheard, until she realized that these comfortable burghers, with their great steins of frothing beer and their plates of Heaven and Earth – clouds of mashed potato with black pudding – probably agreed with Adler. The riches of a foreign country would sit far better in the Reich.

‘So France will be relieved of her art if the country is invaded.’

Adler gave a casual shrug.

‘Is it any different from what Napoleon did? He was the greatest art thief in history. And what about your Elgin Marbles? The glories of the Parthenon carried off to London. Beautiful objects will always be desired by the powerful. They will be well treated, appreciated. Loved, even.’

‘And you’re one of Rosenberg’s spies.’

‘God, no!’ His eyes flashed with steel and Clara saw that a savage anger lay beneath Adler’s urbane exterior. An anger he generally managed to suppress.

‘I’m sorry. What else should I assume? He seemed to want to speak to you pretty urgently that night.’

‘As I told you, I was advising on a collection.’

There was silence between them for a moment, and Adler stared sightlessly out into the forest before recovering his composure. Then his eyes became mellow again, dancing with amusement as though everything that had passed between them was a game.

‘On the subject of Paris . . . I mentioned I was there to see beautiful things, and as it happens,’ he reached to his side, ‘I did come across something beautiful.’

He brought a minute parcel from his pocket. It was a burgundy coloured box, with the name Cartier tooled in gold. Adler flicked the catch to display its glinting contents sitting snugly on snow-white linen and pushed it across the table towards her. Two sparkling diamond earrings set in bright, buttery gold. A large diamond at each centre and a cluster of smaller ones around it. A shaft of sun lit the stones like a lick of flames at their core.

‘Like fire behind ice. They reminded me of you.’

‘I can’t possibly.’

He swept a nonchalant hand.

‘I was inspired by those pearls you wore the other evening. You seemed a woman who suits fine jewellery.’

‘I couldn’t accept them.’

‘I hoped you might see them as by way of apology. For inconveniencing you. On the bridge.’

Clara couldn’t take her eyes off the diamonds. They were lovelier than any jewellery she had ever possessed. Before she could help it, an image flashed through her mind of Conrad Adler fastening the studs to her naked ears.

Quietly, she said, ‘I don’t think diamonds are the answer to that.’

‘It’s a gift, but if you find it inappropriate then really, no matter.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She slid the box back across the table.

‘As you wish.’ He picked it up and replaced it in his pocket.

At once Clara worried that she had acted too hastily. Would the rebuff anger him? She had no desire to encourage Adler’s romantic interest, but he was a valuable contact if she was to learn anything about the inner thinking of the Foreign Ministry.

‘Shall we go?’ He was rising from the table and reaching for his crop. ‘There’s something I’d like to show you.’

Adler strode ahead of her, out of the biergarten, remounted and led the way further into the wood.

It was darker here. The pale sky was lanced with branches and in the complicated shadows, deer skittered away through the brushwood. They carried on further as the bridleway narrowed, forcing them to duck beneath low-hanging trees with fists of fungus protruding from their trunks. The air tasted of dusk and decay. The claustrophobic gloom was freighted with the dank aroma of moss and soft, rotten mulch underfoot. Clara could not help thinking of Lotti Franke, and how, just a few miles from here, her body had been found.

Suddenly, the trees cleared and an expanse of lake lay ahead. On the far bank it was possible to see a large white villa, modelled in old Tyrolean style with red roofs and formal, well-cultivated gardens. Adler dismounted, tethered his horse to a low-hanging branch and Clara followed suit.

‘That’s my home.’

‘It’s beautiful. And very isolated.’

‘There’s no one there apart from my housekeeper and my dogs.’

‘Were you ever married?’

‘More questions, Clara.’

‘You’re quite happy to question me.’

‘No, then.’

‘Don’t you get lonely?’

‘I like it that way.’

He turned towards her and reached out.

‘Perhaps you’d like to see it someday.’

He leaned to kiss her but she averted her face so that his lips merely brushed her cheek. Undeterred, he put his hands round her waist, pulled her roughly towards him and tipped her face up to his.

‘Don’t tell me some part of you doesn’t desire this.’

Shock made her laugh, but there was a bubble of fear beneath.

‘I can’t imagine why you would think that.’

‘Can’t you? I thought you were different from the others. Do you want me to play some complicated game, to court you with flowers and violins?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Good. Because I’m not like that. If something pleases me, if it gives me pleasure to look at, then I say so. If I like it, I make that clear. I may be much older than you, but I sense we’re both realists. We’re both capable of taking what we want.’

‘This is not what I want.’

He frowned, as if her refusal was some ancient philosophical problem that he was determined to solve.

‘There must be someone else then. But he’s not in evidence. Let me think. He must be married to another woman. Are you one of those actresses who have to make do with the scraps of a married man’s attention? Or delude themselves that he will ever leave his Frau and his kleine Kinder. Who live out their lives waiting for the telephone to ring, losing out on their own hopes of happiness? Take a lesson from Frau Goebbels. You’ve heard the gossip. A woman is capable of making her own romantic decisions.’

‘This man isn’t married.’

‘But he’s not here, is he?’

‘No.’

‘And nor, I assume, is he married to you?’

Clara passionately did not want to tell him any more. She was mad to give away any information about her personal life. She felt a ripple of nerves. Any scrap of information was enough for the Gestapo to work on. Like a single drop of blood to a hungry predator, the smallest detail was enough for them to work with.

Adler was staring down at her, arms crossed, eyes drilling into hers.

‘I’m not sure I believe in this phantom lover of yours. I don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘He does exist.’

‘What’s his name then?’

Leo
. His name leapt into her mouth but she could not give it breath.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You don’t swallow that nonsense about there only being one person, one soul mate, do you? It’s a delusion, you know.’

‘Not to me.’

‘You’re far too intelligent. That kind of thing is only fit for the script of
Love Strictly Forbidden
. You know as well as I do that’s not for adults. Human emotions are entirely untrustworthy. I, for one, have never been in love and I don’t intend to start now.’

He was smiling, yet she could see from the bruised eyes and the way his fingers flicked, that her refusal had bothered him.

As if struck by a sudden thought, he took her hand.

‘Perhaps I could think of a bargain,’ he said lightly. ‘If you become my mistress, no one would need to know that you were Jewish.’

Suddenly all Clara’s fear was turned to a churning anger. Any attraction he had ever roused in her evaporated. She wrenched her hand away.

‘If that’s what you think I am, why would you want a Jewish mistress?’

He looked at her impatiently.

‘I told you. I don’t care about race. Pedigree. I thought you realized.’

‘What would that relationship be worth, if you bought it at a price?’

‘Everything comes at a price. Even the greatest art is traded in the marketplace like bread or eggs.’

‘And you think human beings have a price?’

‘Don’t be a fool, Clara. Of course they do. I’m proposing a bargain. We all make bargains in our lives. I’m not a savage. I don’t want to force you into something against your will. That would be beneath my dignity.’

‘So is making threats against me.’

He lifted a hand to touch her cheek and she jerked away.

‘You can’t want a woman under these circumstances. What about love, or affection?’

He shrugged. ‘Just words.’

An image flickered through her mind. Something old, something she had not thought of for years. Her brother Kenneth’s collection of butterflies. Ken was mad about butterflies. He collected them all through one summer in Cornwall; Red Admiral, Cabbage White, Purple Emperor, and once they had expired he stuck them with a pin into a frame. As a girl Clara had hated to see those tiny fragments of beauty, designed to be seen only in a transitory flutter, fixed forever. The dust scalloped on their intricate wings offered up to any passing gaze. That was what she meant to the bored, cultured Conrad Adler. A pretty specimen to be studied and admired, imprisoned by compromise and circumstance.

Ducking out of his arms, she sprang back onto her horse, turned his head sharply and spurred him to a canter. The horse responded willingly, flying much too fast through the difficult forest terrain until a bird whirring up from the brushwood caused him to startle, and he shied forcefully to one side, throwing Clara out of the saddle and pitching her painfully into the undergrowth.

Instantly Adler was at her side. He hauled her up with one hand and held her shoulder. The sardonic, jousting manner was gone. His eyes were serious and concerned.

‘Are you all right?’