Roots of Evil(137)

Lucy said, ‘You gave him up?’

‘If I had resisted I would have been overruled and Alraune would have been taken anyway. But I didn’t resist,’ said Alice. ‘He was a German and a Nazi, that young man, and he was on the enemy’s side. But at that time we had no idea how long the war would last – it could have gone on for many more years. There were stories that Britain was losing – that might have been propaganda or it might have been the truth. Again, we had no way of telling. We were afraid that if Germany won we would never leave Auschwitz, and that meant Alraune might not know any other life. I would have done anything to get him out. The officer was young, and I had seen shame and pity in his eyes at some of the atrocities. I thought he could be trusted. And when you are half-starved,’ said Alice with a sudden hardness in her voice, ‘and when you shiver through every winter’s night, and have only the sparsest of clothes and barely enough water to survive, your values change. What did it matter which country Alraune lived in if he had food to eat and warmth, and the promise of a reasonably normal childhood and some happiness?’

‘Yes, I see that,’ said Lucy softly.

‘The officer promised that Alraune would be known as his nephew,’ she said. ‘And that the circumstances of his early childhood would never be told. He said Alraune would have everything of the best – everything within reason that money could buy. And so I let him go. But after the war ended – after I got out of Germany, Ilena and I searched for him. Ilena was the finest, truest friend I ever had. Elsa, whom you met earlier, is her daughter.’

‘And in the end, you found him,’ said Lucy.

‘I did. But it took a long time,’ said Alice. ‘I had very little money, and I had no idea then where Alraune was, or where Conrad was. So I searched for them both, and at the same time I made attempts to re-enter the film world. That was harder than I had expected. There were rumours that I had spied for the Nazis, which meant I was looked on with suspicion and often with derision. They said I had slept with von Ribbentrop and consorted with G?ering – all nonsense, of course, but the stories stuck. And as well as that, the competition was much fiercer: there were a great many talented actors and directors who had survived the war in their various ways, and who wanted to resume their careers. But we had to learn new techniques – there were no longer any silent films, for instance. Garbo had talked, and the rest of us had to follow suit. But I was determined to regain what I had lost, so I donned the mantle of the vamp again…’

‘The black hair and the kohl-enhanced eyes,’ said Francesca.

‘Illusion,’ said Alice, smiling. ‘Smoke and mirrors. I did it all on a shoestring, but I was used to that. And quite soon I did find Conrad again which was the greatest joy of all. Or perhaps Conrad found me. He had been in Dachau. Another terrible place, but there was music there – a few small orchestras that the commandants had set up, and Conrad had been part of one of them.’

‘I don’t understand that,’ said Liam, leaning forward.

‘The orchestras?’

‘Yes. It doesn’t square with what the Nazis were doing to you all. The brutality and the mass-killings. Oh wait, though, it would be a kind of egotistic culture-trip for them, wouldn’t it? “See how civilized we are”?’

‘Exactly,’ said Alice. ‘The concerts were rather makeshift, but many of the musicians were classically trained and very gifted. And the idea that they were promoting serious music made the Nazis feel very good about themselves. Also it conferred a great prestige on them. Conrad once told me that the music saved him,’ she said. ‘At the time, he meant it saved his life – there was no death sentence for the camp musicians – but I think it saved him in other ways.’

‘It helped him to endure the…the hardships?’ said Lucy.

‘Yes. Music was his one real passion,’ said Alice. Her eyes suddenly had a faraway look, and Lucy saw that despite the sharp mind, she really was very old. Ninety? Ninety-three? Yes, she must be at least that.

But then Alice said briskly, ‘Too many memories,’ and made an impatient gesture as if to brush them away. ‘I am recounting a history to you,’ she said. ‘And we do not need romantic memories getting in the way.’

‘Personally I’m in favour of all the romance I can get,’ said Liam.

‘Well, there was plenty of that. Your mamma was born in those years, Lucy. Mariana. Conrad was going through a gothic period at the time; a dark period. Perhaps none of us had quite shaken off the darkness of the camps – probably most of us never did shake it off. But Conrad had written Deborah’s Song for Deborah, and now he wanted to write a piece of music called “Mariana in the Moated Grange”.’

‘Tennyson,’ said Liam after a moment.

‘What a pleasure to meet an educated man,’ said Alice, regarding him with approval. ‘Yes, Tennyson. I planned that I would bring Mariana and Deborah up together, of course. That when there was a little more money, we would all live in England. Because I did get back into films, of course. You all know that. I became again the adventuress with a past – and now I really did have a past. And Conrad began to give concerts again, and I made a couple of films that replenished the coffers very nicely indeed, and that were quite well thought of—’

‘Erich von Stroheim?’ said Lucy. ‘The Passion Master?’