The Winter Garden (2014) Read Online Free Page A

during the Olympics, Berlin had been full of tourists and last month’s Nuremberg rally had attracted another clutch of politicians and dignitaries. Yet much as the Nazi
élite enjoyed meeting them, conversation could be strained. The truth was, the British were lazy about learning the language. Many of them had nothing more than a few phrases picked up from
a
Baedeker
guide to help them. They could order a beer in a restaurant and find their way to a nightclub, but that was not much use when discussing the delicate matter of friendship
between Germany and Britain in an increasingly difficult international situation.
    As she backed the car out of the drive Clara told herself that her role would be simply to chat to those guests and perform a little polite translation to oil the conversational wheels; she
would be no more than an accessory, a party decoration, like those peacocks. Her task would last a couple of hours, at most. How difficult could that be?
    Making her way back round the single road that skirted the island, Clara craned her head to glimpse the houses she passed. Most had fences and forbidding gates, or signs announcing that they
were patrolled by dogs and security guards. Others had long drives, screened with trees. Between the branches she caught snatches of handsome, turn-of-the-century villas, with balconies and
impressive porches and well-kept lawns. It hadn’t taken long for the occupants of this slice of paradise, the Rothschilds and Israels and Goldschmidts, to yield to the offers of high-ranking
Nazis and pack up their belongings. One villa had been purchased by the Reich Chancellery and reserved for Hitler’s own use. Another was occupied by Hitler’s doctor, Dr Morell, and
Albert Speer, the Führer’s young architect, had been seen house-hunting on Schwanenwerder too. It was hard to connect such men with this idyllic place. Now murder, too, had tainted this
paradise.
    It was fifteen minutes before Clara’s Opel Olympia passed through the dense Grunewald, reached the leafy avenues of Wilmersdorf, and moved along Königsallee into the clanging bustle
of Kurfürstendamm, Berlin’s smartest shopping street, known to all as the Ku’damm. The noise was always what one noticed first at the heart of Berlin. The high-decibel blaring of
car horns, the screech of brakes, the calls of the newspaper boys. Then the smell, the fumes of traffic and hot oil, the spicy scent of a pretzel cart or a wurst stall. Normally the pavements
outside the fashionable cafés were crowded with customers, sipping coffee and watching life go by. Today, though, the tables were largely empty. The cold of the past few days had reminded
everyone that another bone-chilling Berlin winter was approaching fast, and shoppers passed quickly, huddled into their coats and scarfs.
    At the junction with Wilmersdorfer Strasse Clara braked as a traffic policeman stepped forward with his hand extended to allow a detachment of soldiers to pass. There was always some kind of
military procession now. Either it was troops or a formation of the Hitler Youth or the BDM, the League of German Girls with their flaxen plaits and navy skirts. The storm troopers, the SS or the
Hitler Jugend, all with their different uniforms and insignias. War was constantly in the air. Even the collecting boxes and the banners talked of the ‘War on Hunger and Cold’ as though
the most charitable of enterprises must be undertaken with military aggression. There was a stirring of something just over the horizon that people preferred to ignore and pedestrians, looking
forward to the weekend, kept their heads down, their faces as blank as the asphalt underfoot. They hurried on, hoping that no motorcade of Party top brass would be following the soldiers, requiring
everyone to halt and raise a respectful right arm. The Führer supposedly trained with an expander so he could perform his own salute for two hours without flagging, but most people found even