Roots of Evil(58)

In the end she took the problem to Conrad, who said, Pouf, it was a matter easily dealt with. He took her to the offices of a discreet Viennese lawyer who drew up something called a Deed Poll that made her new name legal. She could be called anything she liked, said the lawyer, and once the appropriate documents were signed and witnessed, all would be entirely legal and proper.

When Alice said, But what about the title? the lawyer had said, zut, what, after all, was a title? Nothing but what someone created for you, or that you created for yourself. Sign here, Madame Baroness, and you have created it. Alice had thought: yes, creating it is exactly what I have done. I have created a person out of dreams and fears and shadows and hopes, and now that person is real. I really am a King – I mean a Queen – in Babylon.

The accent that most people found so fascinating had needed no legal documents. Alice’s mind was quick and inquiring, and she had acquired a good smattering of German since she had been in Austria with Nina’s family. The housekeeper had marvelled at how she could get her tongue round the heathenish foreign words: would you just listen to that Alice Wilson gibbering and gabbering away – better than a music hall turn, it is! Now, living among German-speaking people, Alice was daily more fluent. She spoke the language with an accent, and she did not make any attempt to smooth it out. Viennese society adored it and thought it seductive.

It was Conrad who said that the illusion required an occasional display of temper in public; it would be expected of her. All great artists succumbed to temperament. Nonsense, of course she could do it.

But while the baroness’s occasional displays of fiery anger became legendary, what also became legendary was her unfailing habit of afterwards making some lavish, generous gesture of reparation towards those who had suffered the most. A gift of wine or perfume, or a dress-length of expensive silk. Cuban cigars or supper at one of Vienna’s sumptuously expensive restaurants. Who minded the scenes when they were followed by such prodigality? And one had to remember all that Romanian passion. Oh – was the baroness not Romanian? Well, Hungarian then, or Russian. Or something. Who cared.



The première of Alraune was a glittering occasion.

Alice wore a Chinese silk gown in a rich dark wine colour. It turned her shoulders and arms the colour of polished ivory, and clung sinuously to her figure. Black jewellery to set it off – could she manage that? Yes, she could. Ebony and jet earrings and a long rope of black pearls twisted negligently around her neck.

‘Pearls for Madame von Wolff?’ the jeweller had said, beaming. ‘But of course. A very great pleasure, and here are some exceptionally fine stones…Ah yes, they are quite superb worn like that…The cost? Oh, zut, the cost will be arranged to please all parties.’

The black pearls were stunning and exotic. Alice had studied them longingly, thinking, Of course I can’t possibly afford them. And then – oh, be blowed to the cost. She had left the shop with them coiled in a plush velvet-covered box.

On her hands she wore two large rings of ebony. She enamelled her nails to match the wine silk gown and painted her lips the same colour. Over the dark red gown she draped a cloak of mink edged with sable tails dyed a glowing crimson to match the gown. (‘Four times she returned it to be re-dyed!’ the designer had said, weeping hysterically. ‘Four times!’) The cloak was slightly too long for her – the edges would trail on the ground when she walked, which pleased her greatly. I am so rich, you see, that I do not give a second thought to the hem of my furs becoming draggled in the gutter. The practical side observed that luckily it was a fine, dry night, with no rain-puddles anywhere.

Conrad was at her side, dressed in exceedingly well-cut evening clothes, his eyes bright with delight and expectation. He was overjoyed to see his little English sparrow tasting this success. Pouf! who were this Clara Bow and this Marlene Dietrich! Alice would show all of Austria and all of Germany – all of the world! – that she could out-act every one of them.

He had written the music for tonight, of course – Alice did not think he would have allowed any other composer to do so – and he was pleased with the results. His music would make a fitting background to Alice’s fine performance, he said. There would, of course, be a gramophone recording of it later.

There were posters and photographs outside the film theatre near to Vienna’s famous Opera House. ‘Lucretia von Wolff as the mysterious, sinister Alraune,’ they said. And, ‘The Baroness von Wolff IS Hanns Heinz Ewers’ astonishing creation of soulless evil…’ ‘Von Wolff is the definitive child of the mandragora root…’

There were illustrations of mandragora – the plant said to grow in the shadow of the gallows – and there were brief descriptions of the legend.

‘All to do with the fable of the hanged man,’ Conrad had said, when Alice cautiously broached this subject once, wanting clarification, not wanting to appear na?ve before the film-makers or her fellow actors. ‘It is told that mandrake root – mandragora – grows beneath the gallows because of the seed spilled by the men hanged there.’

‘And – does it?’

‘Who knows?’ He had smiled at her. ‘There is a lewd old belief that when a man is hanged, semen is forced from him by the death spasms he endures. So to the legend of the half-mythical mandrake root growing where the seed spills—’

‘And so,’ Alice had said thoughtfully, ‘to Herr Ewers’ book, and Alraune’s conception. Yes, I see. It’ll be interesting to see how they deal with that aspect for the film’s publicity, won’t it?’