The Porcelain Maker, page 9
‘I can show you the factory – it’s on the way.’
The plan was for Max to start work in Lindenstraße 8 the following Monday morning. Peter pointed to the white gabled building with its pitch-roof, tucked behind a ragged picket fence. A square white chimney towered over it, belching smoke. Outside, in the yard, were trucks and wooden pallets, loaded high with sacks of minerals and coal.
‘They produce high-quality porcelain,’ Peter explained. ‘Decorative statues, urns and the like. All madly popular with Nazi high command, who collect them. Himmler is obsessed with it, by all accounts, and uses them for propaganda. He owns shares.’
Richard said, ‘See Betti, that’s where you’ve been going wrong. No more paintings; you should be making porcelain dolls for the Nazis instead.’
‘It’s no joke,’ replied Peter. ‘They’re planning on opening a second factory down the road at Dachau, at the SS training camp. It’s a good thing, too – it means they’re in need of labourers to stoke the kilns and shift the raw materials. Plenty of work, so you should be all right here if you keep your head down.’
Bettina held tight to Max’s hand. She imagined his long craftsman’s fingers blistered from shovelling, lifting and carrying, his knuckles cracked and bloody. She made a conscious effort to expel the image from her mind.
Max surveyed the building and his prospects. ‘Porcelain doesn’t sound too bad, all things considered. Takes me back to our ceramic lessons.’
Richard gave a hollow laugh. ‘Albeit on a slightly larger scale.’
The four of them moved on in silence, each one lost in thought.
Finally, they reached the house that Peter had rented for Max. When they climbed the stone steps, they found it clean and surprisingly comfortable. It was another huge relief for Bettina, who had been dreading the prospect of leaving Max in some squalid hovel. There were just a few small rooms and the furniture was sparse and plain, but it was functional and cosy: an armchair, a simple table, a little painted bookshelf and a washstand. The wood-panelled walls were weathered and in the corner of the kitchen, a little pot belly stove sat and emanated heat.
‘We’ll make it just like home,’ Bettina promised Max, with forced cheer. ‘And in the evenings, I will come and paint, and you can draw up your blueprints. We’ve got more to plan for now than ever.’
Peter had filled the few cupboards with some basic supplies. The three men perched where they could, drinking beer, while Bettina cooked a stew of chicken and potatoes on the stove. The reality of their coming separation hovered over the proceedings. Bettina tried hard to keep her focus on the few remaining hours they had together, pushing away the thought of the time they would soon be forced to spend apart.
‘Do you have that photograph?’ Richard asked Max.
He dug into his wallet and presented the small black-and-white portrait which Richard then carefully glued into place on a set of well-worn papers, the Österreich Kennkarte.
‘We made some minor alterations and Imre’s brother agreed to lend his name – you’re Friedrich Marchen now, so mind you stay out of trouble.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Max. ‘I don’t intend to get into any.’
‘It often finds one anyway.’
When it grew late, Richard and Peter bade them a farewell. Max and Bettina unpacked their bedding and made a nest of eiderdowns which smelled of home. They crawled beneath them, too sad and weary to do more than fall asleep.
The following morning Richard returned for Bettina.
‘You ready?’ he enquired.
‘Not in the least.’
She forced a smile and kissed Max, then hoisted her small suitcase into her hand and walked briskly down the stone steps into the sunlight, which strained to shine between patches of thick fog.
* * *
On Monday morning, Max woke early and alone. He found that the first frosts had followed them south, so when he stepped out from the little house and exhaled, a wraithlike mist escaped. He was swaddled in a heavy greatcoat, gloves and a warm woollen scarf, although the Allach factory was only a short walk away. By the time he arrived at the gates, his fingers were numb and the tip of his nose was already turning pink.
The prospect of starting work had been filling him with dread, so it was a shock when he entered the building and found an atmosphere of calm creativity imbued with a sense of order. He was shown to the administrator’s office and asked to wait. The building was awash with activity and noise: rattling typewriters and ringing telephones, the chatter of industry inside and out. Despite the cold, the heat from the kilns in the basement kept the building temperate, so Max removed his scarf and gloves and waited nervously. Men in dusty overalls walked past carrying clay urns lined up along planks, which they hoisted on their shoulders, somehow holding them perfectly steady, serene as swans cutting through the water.
‘Please forgive the chaos.’
Max turned at the sound of a low voice to see a man in his late thirties. He was tall, svelte and stiff; dressed in a well-pressed suit with a high collar and a pocket watch tucked neatly away.
‘Holger Ostendorf,’ he said, extending a slender hand. He smiled warmly; wire-framed glasses perched owlishly on an aquiline nose.
‘Friedrich Marchen,’ Max replied. Despite practice saying it out loud, the name he borrowed from Imre’s brother still felt foreign to his tongue.
‘Glad to have you here, Friedrich. As I say, excuse the chaos. We’re running at capacity and falling short on space. Too much success, if such a thing is possible. Shan’t complain, though.’ His keen eyes twinkled. ‘Keeps us out of trouble. Now then, let me show you around.’
At a brisk pace, Holger led him through the building, explaining the process room by room and the tasks performed by almost every worker. The factory was divided into areas, each of which had a separate character, defined by the tasks which happened there. Some spaces were, by necessity, dusty or dirty, some spattered with a drying sheen of slip and gobs of clay. Others were immaculate, as clean and polished as a surgeon’s table, where razor-sharp blades were wielded with the same precision.
On one floor rows of spinning wheels stood and throwers shaped rounded bowls and urns, their strong hands dripping wet, coaxing form from lifeless lumps of clay. On the next, vast vats of glaze glistened, awaiting the bisque that would soon be submerged and spun by practised hands, skimming the surface with its thin gloss skin.
There was a drafting room where new designs sprang from the mind and onto the page, while in the studio, sculptors carved the naked clay, shaving it into shape and honing all the detail. The final pieces were examined in the inspection room and destroyed if deemed unworthy. The last stop was the packing room, where one old man sat hunched like Rumpelstiltskin, squatting on a mound of straw. He gathered the flawless, finished pieces in his arms, then wrapped them in handfuls of sweet-smelling, golden grass, before stacking them up in wooden barrels.
As they toured the rooms, Max saw it all with an architect’s eye; from the gabled roof with its tall, square chimney, to the furnace, hot as hell and choked with soot. Like a doll’s house, the building opened up before him in his mind and all made sense. Each part of the process required precision and artistry in equal measure and everyone understood their role. The procedures were methodical, the construction of each piece both fluid and repetitive, the seeming simplicity of every element belying the skill required.
At the end of their survey, Herr Ostendorf opened a door into a small, blue baize-lined room where examples of the finest Allach porcelain were displayed on open shelves. Throughout the factory there was a sea of noise; the metallic thud of machinery mixed with the grunts of men at work, but as the heavy door swung slowly shut, all external noise diminished, and a sense of quiet reverence settled over Max.
He found himself standing before a tall display case where, for the first time, he was able to closely examine these fabled porcelain figurines. There were human forms and animal, each wrought in quite exquisite detail. A bust gazed out with unseeing eyes. A pale cavalcade of Lilliputian soldiers filled half a shelf, along with urns and plates and candelabras. The cold china clay was pure white and, in places, as translucent as a petal.
Max had trained in ceramics at the Bauhaus, where simplicity, clean lines and a functional aesthetic were the order of the day. By comparison, the porcelain of Allach seemed almost kitsch and sentimental; far too pretty for his liking, though it was evident Holger cherished each and every piece. He cradled them adoringly, pointing out the finer details.
‘Porcelain is such a miraculous substance. The constituent parts start out so pliable, and yet are made impervious by the end. It simultaneously embodies strength and fragility: resistant to heat, to water, to rust, it has existed for thousands of years, although the precise method of making it eluded westerners until relatively recently. The final product is pure white, undefiled, but to get there it must pass through a baptism of vitrifying heat. To me, there is no medium quite like it. Porcelain is art and alchemy in equal measure.’
As he talked, Holger’s eyes shone with such enthusiasm that Max found himself looking again at the figurines which lined the wall. They still seemed pallid and a little pompous, but the older man’s excitement changed the lens; he understood the artistry and skill which they required.
When they were done, Holger led Max back to his office. It overlooked the main yard and through the window Max could see half a dozen broad-backed men bent almost double as they helped unload a heavy cargo truck. Considering how refined the end product was, Max was struck by the contrast to the raw ingredients required: stacked pallets of kaolin, of china clay, and petuntse; of silica, quartz and feldspar. There were tons of coal to service the furnace, piled high alongside rotund pitch-pine barrels for slip and glaze and packaging. It was a dirty and demanding business and the process consumed as much human sweat and toil as minerals. Max looked down at his own un-calloused palms until he noticed Herr Ostendorff observing him. He shoved both hands back deep inside his pockets.
‘Have you done this kind of work before?’
Max shook his head, ‘Not exactly, but I’m a quick study, rest assured.’
‘What did you do previously?’
‘I trained as an architect, but I learned the basics of ceramics as a student at the Bauhaus.’
‘Goodness! Really? It seems a shame to waste those skills, but I’m afraid we only have positions for manual labour, at the moment.’
‘I’m not afraid of hard work,’ Max said in haste.
‘I don’t doubt it.’
The man’s slight smile reassured him.
‘Do you have your papers to hand?’
Max pulled out the Österreich Kennkarte which Richard had given him, willing his hands to remain steady. Herr Ostendorff took the documents and scrutinized them for a long moment. He put them back down.
‘I see you’re from Vienna – beautiful city.’
He opened a large ledger on the desk in front of him and wrote the date and the name ‘Friedrich Marchen’ in a florid, fluid script. He slid the papers back across the desk to Max, who went to pick them up, but found he had not relinquished his hold.
‘Before you go, Friedrich… you understand that attention to detail is of the utmost importance in what we do?’
Max nodded and murmured his assent.
‘Good. Then I’m sure it’s just an oversight that the stamp on these doesn’t correspond with the photograph.’
Max felt the blood drain from his face. Holger let go of the papers and held up both hands.
‘Perhaps it was damaged and needed to be replaced?’
Max nodded stiffly.
‘Very good.’
Max stuffed the Kennkarte back into his pocket.
‘Thank you, Herr Ostendorf.’
‘Please, call me Holger,’ he smiled with absolute sincerity.
Max bobbed his head and hastened from the room. He made his way out to the yard, where the foreman directed him to join the queue of men behind the lorry, where sacks of silica were still being offloaded. When his turn came, he braced himself but still gasped as the weight of it descended, knocking the breath from him and buckling his knees.
* * *
When Bettina first asked her mother’s permission to return home, Marielein had grudgingly replied that she was welcome, she supposed, as long as she gave her brother the respect which he deserved. Bettina had written back with a great show of remorse, explaining that she realized she’d fallen in with the wrong crowd in Berlin. She threw herself on her mother’s mercy. How glad she would be, she said, to return to the familiar simplicity of the farm.
Bettina applied herself to fitting in. She was dutiful, helping in the kitchen and listening to Albrecht with his endless tales of woe, imagined slights and petty rivalries. In his eyes, the world was set against him – he worked hard where others failed, he had clarity of vision, while everyone else was blind. He seemed to be thwarted at every turn, while others had luck they’d done nothing to deserve. The petty tyrant of her childhood years had grown into an angry, bitter and resentful adult.
Every evening played out in the same way. Albrecht would return home mean-spirited, ready to air the day’s grievances at the dinner table – stories of an SS underling who’d gained some recognition which should, by rights, be his. Or the Bolshevik butcher who had swindled him and, in so doing, earned himself a beating. After a meal, Albrecht would set his boots on the table and drink yet more, while both women cleaned up around him. He would turn ever more maudlin as the night wore on, while Marielein stayed silent and kept a watchful eye on him. She monitored his state of inebriation until such a point that she deemed it safe to steer him off to bed, shushing him up the stairs.
Bettina felt the need to remain hypervigilant at all times in case Albrecht decided to turn his ire on her. She found it utterly exhausting and longed to escape to see Max, but feared raising their suspicions. She stayed at the farm for two weeks straight before deciding it was safe enough to venture out. Even then, she only dared go after dark, when the whole house was sleeping. She crept from the back door and pushed her bicycle until she reached the rutted road, before cycling off, with only a small battery lamp to light her way.
Max was often so tired he could do no more than doze while she read to him, or sketched, or stroked his hair. He tried to reassure her that the job itself was not so bad, though he was utterly exhausted by the stamina required. At least, he said, it afforded him the time to think and fully plan the house he’d build for them one day. It was coming into focus in his mind: an open space, clear of anything superfluous, where light and nature could encroach, where she could paint, and their children might play.
He resolved to stay cheerful in the face of all adversity, to work hard for Holger and prove himself indispensable. Bettina loved him for it, though it pained her heart to touch his cracked and toughened palms. The heavy sacks had left their scars already and a carapace of rough skin had formed, his body’s bid for self-protection.
‘I think I might be turning into a golem,’ he teased when she rubbed her fingers over the callouses.
She determined to buy him a salve for his hands and materials to sketch with, so he might preserve the home he built for them in his imagination. She told Albrecht and Marielein that she needed to travel to Munich for art supplies and, with some bad grace, Albrecht agreed to take her to the station. He even gave her spending money, for which she thanked him, pocketing it quickly. She and Max could have lived off the amount for weeks in Berlin. Most of it would go towards their escape fund, but she decided she could afford to spend a little on more immediate rewards.
When the day came, she woke to the sound of rain hammering the roof, peppering it like hard nails driven into tin. Albrecht drove her to the station and then left her there, waiting on the platform while the rain fell in sheets. She shivered, holding her umbrella almost parallel to a wall of wind and water. When the train finally arrived, she climbed aboard and shook out her sodden coat. She rubbed at her shoes and stockings with a handkerchief and stared through the steamed-up, rain-washed windows, as the farms and factories flew by.
For weeks she had longed to escape the suffocating confines of her new world. A few short trips into Allach had brought home to her the risk she ran by coming back. So many people knew her and were excited at her reappearance; the prodigal daughter, returning to the fold. It made her ache for anonymity and yearn to lose herself in a city crowd.
As the train clattered through the outskirts of Munich, she thought about how she might spend her day. It had been years since she’d been to the city, despite studying there as a younger woman. She and Richard had forged their early friendship there, jointly plotting their escape to greater things – to Weimar and the Bauhaus. Munich had given them both a taste of freedom, which made them hungry for much more. Now, after spending weeks in the backwater of Allach, the promise of a day in Munich felt like feasting after starvation.
Bettina realized that shopping for Max wouldn’t take her long, leaving plenty of time at her own disposal before she needed to return. She would take lunch in a café and then, if she was able, feed her soul by visiting a gallery.
The prospect stirred a recollection; her mind was taken back to that scorching day in Berlin when she had wandered lost and then been jostled by the crowd. She realized that the ‘Degenerate Art’ exhibition that Der Stürmer had spoken of should still be on, and would be within easy reach of the station.
