House of Gold

by Natasha Solomons

  ‘She will in a minute, when she realises you’re with me.’

  Sure enough, a thin middle-aged lady with a headdress formed from a waterfall of ostrich feathers glanced in their direction, her expression rigid as her eye passed over Greta but, on seeing Albert, she smiled and sashayed over.

  ‘Here she comes. She’ll want a donation to one of her charities,’ said Greta.

  ‘Greta, Albert, what a delight!’

  They greeted her politely and spoke for a few minutes, asking with trepidation about one another’s family, unwilling to hear more bad news. As Lady Dorchester sauntered to another table, Albert turned to his wife. ‘No one comes over when you lunch alone?’

  Greta gave a little sigh of exasperation, ‘No darling. No one. I’m one of the enemy, you see.’

  ‘I quite forgot.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t. Now do you see why London holds little charm for me?’

  He stared gloomily into his glass and did not answer. When he spoke, it was half to himself. ‘By now, what will winning mean? Whoever does so will win a broken world.’

  He looked so desolate that, despite her annoyance, Greta reached out and brushed his cheek with her fingertips. He smiled at her, but it was the tight, forlorn smile given once hope has gone.

  Later that night Greta hadn’t the heart to lock her door. She listened with pleasure and dread for the sound of Albert entering her room. A little after midnight, she felt him slide into her bed.

  ‘Are you asleep?’ he whispered.

  It would have been easier to pretend that she was, but Greta whispered back, ‘No.’

  He reached out for her and, tentative, unsure of his reception, eased closer and kissed her. He tasted of brandy and there was familiarity in his warmth and the solidity of his body. For months she had lain awake, alone and trying to picture his narrow room in France with its camp bed and small, high window. She was grateful of course that he was not serving at the front – she had no qualms about that – but the effect of the separation was similar. Their easy intimacy had been lost, one of the small but not insignificant bodiless things sacrificed in the pursuit of victory. Albert had metamorphosed into a temporary stranger. She found she was unsure of him. The smell of his skin was both the same and different. He stroked the soft down on her thigh with the pad of his thumb and then, moving firmly and gently upwards, he started to lift her nightgown. Greta flinched.

  ‘No, darling. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, is it one in three?’ he asked.

  Greta had confided, to his great amusement, her mother’s advice as to how to manage husbands in bedroom negotiations.

  ‘No, it’s too soon after Benjamin. I’m sore. I need more time to heal,’ she said.

  ‘Of course. How thoughtless of me,’ he said, turning away.

  ‘Soon, darling, soon,’ she lied, clasping his hand, glad he could not see her in the dark.

  Greta did not want another child. The prospect of giving birth again filled her with cold dread. She thought of the tiny new graves in the ancient churchyard. She had survived twice, and so had both her children. She would not risk her luck running out. Making love with Albert was a blissful indulgence, a pleasure she had not known to anticipate, but she would not risk orphaning her children because she took great enjoyment in lying with her husband. She would not, she could not. Albert assured her that his position in the army was safe, but it was war – no soldier was safe. He was compelled to risk his life; she did not have to risk hers. At present she considered the prospect of intimate relations an act of absolute selfishness.

  She glanced across at him and saw he was wide awake, too restless and aroused to sleep. Greta sighed. When they had first started lying together, Albert had tried his best to avoid planting his seed inside her, but she suspected that it had been mostly luck that she hadn’t fallen pregnant. She knew of only one absolutely effective method to prevent making a baby: to abstain from all marital relations. Albert would be hurt and appalled. Troubled, she lay awake, feeling him hot and sleepless in the dark, turning over and over beside her.

  When she woke the next morning, she was alone. After breakfast, she declined the car and sauntered along Piccadilly to her appointment at Lock of St James’s. Greta’s interest in fashion was moderate. The kind of dresses she longed to wear were out of the question, and everything else was a dreary second best, which she chose quickly and with little interest. But she was fond of hats. She didn’t want swathes of palm leaves, or to look as if she’d emerged from a jungle with part of it still attached, like Lady Goldbaum. She wanted the milliner to use her favourite plants as inspiration.

  When she arrived at the shop, she saw that her dicentra hat had been placed in the centre of the window. It had a broad brim trimmed in white, with a slash of cherry painted geometrically across the crown, and was adorned with velvet blooms of split dicentra hearts, with pale tongues fashioned in silk. It was elegant, striking and playful. It was the perfect hat.

  ‘I adore it, Mrs Paulson. You’re a genius,’ she said, as she pushed open the door.

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased, Mrs Goldbaum,’ said a plump and pretty woman, coming out from behind the counter. She wore her hair in a neat bun, the exact size and shape of the pincushion beside her order book. ‘I hoped you wouldn’t mind, my putting it in the window, but it’s quite the nicest hat I’ve ever made.’

  ‘I don’t mind. Such beauty must be shared, especially now.’

  ‘Of course everyone wanted one. But I wouldn’t make another the same. The other hats only pay ’omage, as it were.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Greta.

  Mrs Paulson’s pleasant face creased into anxiety. ‘Have I done something wrong, Mrs Goldbaum? You always said, before, that imitation was flattery or some such.’

  ‘Yes, but they didn’t know who they were imitating?’

  Mrs Paulson shook her head. ‘And I’ve had three ladies each day asking about it.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not very popular at the present,’ said Greta with a little shake of her head.

  She spent the next half-hour very pleasantly inspecting all the new creations, particularly pleased with Celia’s cloche hat, which had been dyed to look like a cloudy sky and had tiny swifts stencilled on top. As she was preparing to leave, the bell jangled and another customer entered. A tall and elegant woman wearing a heavy brown hat, which reminded Greta of a field mushroom, ignored Greta and sailed straight up to the counter.

  ‘The Duchess of Grosvenor said that everyone is talking about a hat with fuchsias on it.’

  ‘Dicentra. They’re not part of the Fuchsia family. They belong to the Fumariaceae family,’ said Greta, smiling.

  The woman turned to look at Greta and frowned, disapproving, on hearing Greta’s accent. ‘The Fumariaceae family. Never heard of them. Are they from Scotland?’

  Mrs Paulson saved Greta from a reply. ‘I’m afraid I’ve had to pack up the hat, Mrs Jarvis. The lady who ordered it is come to collect.’

  Mrs Jarvis looked again at Greta, who smiled once more. It took Mrs Jarvis a moment and then, finally recognising Greta and her understanding dawning, she flinched.

  ‘Mrs Goldbaum has kindly said that she doesn’t mind if I make something similar for other customers. She’s inspired half the hats in London for next season,’ said Mrs Paulson with a hint of pride.

  Mrs Jarvis shook her head vigorously, the mushroom puff on her hat wobbling. ‘No, thank you. I shall have something quite different.’

  Greta studied the other woman, knowing that she was silently thanking her lucky stars for her escape, tingling for the moment she could gleefully inform the Duchess of Grosvenor and a dozen others that they had gleaned their style from the infamous Greta Goldbaum, a Jew and a German. They never did remember that she was born in Austria. Greta rather worried that poor Mrs Paulson would be busy until Michaelmas, picking apart hats and remaking them.

  ‘Tell them not to worry,’ said Greta serenely to Mrs Jarvis. ‘I’m rar
ely invited to anything any more.’

  Mrs Jarvis departed on a hastily remembered errand, leaving Greta and an embarrassed Mrs Paulson alone in the shop. After instructing Mrs Paulson to wrap all her purchases ready for the car to collect them, Greta decided to walk back to the hotel along Piccadilly. She passed streams of soldiers at home on leave, officers and men, all with the same dazed expression, many of them younger than herself. How could anyone imagine that she – a mother – whether born in Austria or not, would wish harm on these poor fellows? True, she longed for similar protection for Austrian and German soldiers. She could never quite manage to call them ‘the enemy’, even in her own mind. Here in town, her loneliness wrapped itself close about her until she couldn’t breathe. She imagined that everyone looked at her with dislike and suspicion, even strangers.

  Glancing into a mews off the street, she saw a pair of elderly kitchen porters sharing a cigarette. She turned and hastened over to them.

  ‘Would you mind?’ she asked.

  Stupefied, one of them passed her a cigarette.

  ‘And a light, if you would,’ said Greta, placing it between her lips.

  Slack-jawed he lit it. Calling her thanks over her shoulder, Greta strolled back onto Piccadilly. Smoking a cigarette in the street, Greta didn’t think she had ever done anything so lewd, so gauche. She wanted to laugh. She wanted someone to see her. There was no pleasure in performing such an act, if one wasn’t caught. All that could make it worse would be if she were hatless. With a flick, she removed her hat – last season’s Ascot – and tossed it away. To her great satisfaction, she noticed Lord Parnicott driving past in a cab. She waved. At least when they whisper about me now, they will have something to say, she decided. She took another pull on her cigarette.

  Albert walked to his appointment along the Thames, inhaling the cold air. Soon, Greta had said, soon. Knowing that he couldn’t lie with her made him want her even more. The dampness of her skin, the curve of her back. It was unbearable – he was tormented by desire for his wife. He hummed with frustration. He longed to kiss her, lips soft and slightly chapped, the slight dimples like matching commas at the base of her spine, her full and rounded bottom. He pictured licking the creases in the arch of her instep while she laughed, complaining that he was tickling her. Twists of smoke daubed the clouds, dirtying them. The river was busy with boatmen, the surface of the water threaded with mist. Frost glinted on the stonework along the embankment and, in the bare chestnut trees along the pavement, someone had written names of the dead upon scraps of paper and threaded them from the branches so that they hung there, spiralling in the light.

  To his surprise, Albert was shown into the dusty, unremarkable office of Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall himself. The Admiral was small and ruddy-cheeked and he blinked steadily at Albert, in no hurry at all, with the shining self-confidence and authority of a man with a gold stripe on the arm of his uniform. He sat comfortably in his leather chair, but left Albert standing.

  ‘Some weeks ago, Captain Goldbaum, you delivered a telegram in code to one of my colleagues.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I gave it to Nigel de Grey. He’s an old friend from school.’

  The Admiral continued to watch him, his blue eyes blinking, tufts of white hair around his bald head like the fluff of a dandelion-seed clock.

  ‘And what do you know of the telegram, Captain?’

  ‘What do you know, sir?’

  The Admiral chuckled. ‘We’ll come to that.’ He sat and opened a box of cigars, first offering one to Albert, who declined, and then helping himself. ‘We had hoped that the German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare would bring in America.’

  ‘It might,’ said Albert. ‘They’ve cut off diplomatic relations with Berlin. I’ve heard the German Ambassador is to be sent packing.’

  ‘Yes, but that is all they will do. Wilson thinks that’s enough. He’s shown the Germans that he disapproves. The pride of the American people is satisfied.’

  ‘And he still won’t allow the American banks to extend our credit,’ said Albert, frowning. ‘My father tells me that the pound teeters on the brink. The moment the Americans stop accepting government credit, we shan’t be able to pay our soldiers, or the Americans themselves for grain or cotton. The ultimate weapon isn’t the machine gun or barbed wire or the new tank, but money. And the Americans appear to have it all,’ he added, with an arch look.

  Admiral Hall sucked on his cigar. Although Albert was a captain supplicant before an admiral, a minnow flicking its tail before a pike, there was nothing submissive about him. He met the Admiral’s eye like a captain of finance, not of the general staff.

  ‘There are those on our side in America,’ said the Admiral. ‘The moral chaps who want to join the fight for honour and justice, but also those chaps at the Federal Reserve who worry that they’ve lent us a staggering amount of money, and that the only way to make sure they get it back is to make sure we win.’

  ‘I like both those sorts of chaps. Anything we can do to give them a helpful nudge?’

  ‘We’re rather hoping that the contents of your telegram might just do it. Bring ’em in at last. If it’s real, of course,’ said Admiral Hall.

  ‘And is it?’ asked Albert, interested.

  ‘Perhaps. But we’d like you to furnish us with a few more details.’

  The Admiral listened as Albert repeated what little he knew; that it had been given to Henri by members of the Bohemian Alliance.

  ‘You can verify all this from Henri, of course. Wire him in Paris,’ Albert suggested.

  ‘I fear that won’t do any good. He’s missing, I’m afraid. Plane was shot down. Dead, most likely. Very sorry, thought you knew.’

  From his tone, it was clear that the Admiral had not expected Albert to know any such thing. Albert sat down on a low wooden chair unthinkingly, even though he had not been given permission. He stared at the Admiral. He must return to the hotel and tell Greta at once. The thought made him feel sick.

  ‘Was there anything else I could help with, sir?’

  The Admiral scrutinised him and said nothing for half a minute, only blinked with those blue eyes.

  ‘You are not returning to France. I’ve seconded you from GHQ. You are now part of Naval Intelligence.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Albert, bewildered rather than grateful.

  ‘We have decoded most of the telegram. It matches a copy we intercepted ourselves. It’s from Zimmermann.’

  ‘The German Foreign Minister?’

  Admiral Hall nodded and slid a typed sheet across the table to Albert, who read:

  We intend to begin unrestricted submarine warfare on the first of February. We shall endeavour in spite of this to keep the United States neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. You will inform the President of Mexico of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States is certain.

  Zimmermann

  Albert read it twice and then looked up at Admiral Hall.

  ‘To whom was this sent, sir?’

  ‘The German Ambassador in Washington. Von Bernstorff.’

  ‘And have the Americans seen it yet, sir?’

  Admiral Hall held up his hand. ‘You are asking good questions, Captain. They will see it, of course. But it must be done in the right way. The Americans will be understandably angry and will go straight to the Germans.’

  ‘And the Germans can’t know that we can read their code.’

  The Admiral chuckled. ‘You see? You have the right bent of mind for this sort of thing.’ He paused. ‘We hope it will bring the Americans into the war, because we need men, munitions and, most of all, money. In a week we want you to go to Washington and be ready to negotiate for that money.’

  Albert sat in silenc
e for a moment, considering. The Admiral smoothed the cotton-wool tufts of his hair. Albert did not ask why they had settled upon him. He was indeed an astute choice: a money man, a Member of Parliament, and the Americans at least were not averse to Jews.

  ‘I have just a week, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Then you sail to America. We want you there in time for when they declare war on Germany.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’

  The Admiral smiled without humour. ‘It is for us here in Room Forty to see that they do.’

  Albert considered for a moment. ‘Very well. To whom do I report?’

  ‘Myself, and the Cabinet Office.’

  Albert stood and, saluting, took his leave. As he opened the door, the Admiral said, ‘You can inform your wife that you’re going to America, but not why. The Zimmermann telegram is classified. As, I’m afraid, is the fact that Monsieur Henri Goldbaum is missing. Until your wife discovers the news through ordinary channels, you can say nothing to her.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Albert walked back along Whitehall in the drizzle. Henri’s probable death weighed upon him. It was ghastly, to hold in his breast news that would devastate his wife and yet be forced to conceal it from her. She deserved to know. It was her right to worry or to grieve. The drizzle turned to rain and, with a huff of irritation, Albert realised he had left his umbrella in the Admiral’s office. He would not return and fetch it. He turned up his collar and hurried faster, sloshing through puddles that were quickly forming on the pavement.

  HAMPSHIRE, FEBRUARY

  Greta was relieved to be at home again. To her surprise, Albert had agreed that they could return to Fontmell for the weekend. They arrived in time for Shabbat dinner, held with pomp and festivity at Temple Court. Hands were washed, candles lit and a glossy loaf of plaited challah blessed. Celia had been allowed to stay up, and sat on a throne of cushions with great solemnity between two officers, recuperating guests of Lady Goldbaum. One cut up Celia’s chicken with his good arm, while the other regaled her with stories of battling tigers in his years before the war. Greta considered this unlikely, knowing that he’d been a solicitor in Bournemouth, but Celia sat agape until Lady Goldbaum inquired as to whether her granddaughter was catching many flies in her open mouth.