Irene smiled pleasantly and stared out of the window. When she looked back, her mother-in-law was considering her. She told herself, I must never let my guard slip, not for one moment.
Frau Mamma took her hand. ‘And I must show you,’ she said, ‘this mother and child in porcelain. I think it’s charming – don’t you? – but Thomas says it’s vulgar, so I keep it here out of sight. These material things, they’re not important in the end, but they are enjoyable, and comforting too. The great test, I suppose, for people like us, would be how we would manage if our comforts disappeared.’
They heard the doorbell. In came Lotte, the second daughter, and her husband Max, the doctor, with one child holding her mother’s hand and the little one carried by a nurse. Max kissed his mother-in-law on both cheeks, then her hand. They fell upon Thomas and Irene.
‘I am so sorry that we have not yet visited you,’ Lotte cried. ‘We thought you would want to settle in. But tomorrow?’
Paul appeared, composed as always, and then Freddy, tousled as though just out of bed. ‘Last night I went to a ball, I only got to bed at six. We are so happy to have you with us. What a honeymoon you’ve had, longer than many marriages these days.’
‘Shhh, Freddy,’ said his mother.
The last arrivals were Elise and her husband, Major von Steinaeck, in the resplendent uniform of the Garde-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 4, with their son in a sailor suit, and their little daughter. Elise wore her crucifix prominently, like a rebuke. She kissed Irene politely. The major kissed her hand and retired to a corner.
The family talked as though they’d not met for months, rattling on as they moved into the dining room with its table covered in a stiff white cloth and vases of flowers, an epergne laden with fruit, shining silver. Irene sat beside Herr Curtius, Thomas beside his mother. It was above all, Irene thought, Frau Mamma who created this atmosphere of cordiality.
Herr Papa explained the dishes to Irene. They began with Rindfleischsuppe mit Perlgraupen, a subtle beef soup with grains of pearl barley, flavoured with celery and cauliflower and nutmeg, a soup much more flavoursome than anything one found in England. This was served with dry sherry. With an air of excitement, the maids re-entered with the main course, Hirschragout, venison in a piquant creamy wine sauce that revealed new tastes at each turn of the fork: dark bread, lemon rind, cloves, onions, Gurken. With this they drank Burgundy. And finally a sumptuous Nachtisch involving chestnuts and cream and little biscuits, and though everyone had already eaten a great deal the Nachtisch, accompanied by the finest Rheinwein, tempted them all, many of them twice. Irene blessed her loose clothing.
They questioned Irene at length, exclaiming at the excellence of her German. They wanted to know whether she liked Berlin, and (smilingly) what she thought of Thomas’s ideas about decoration. They asked whether he chose her clothes, and roared with laughter when she said, ‘Well, only hats. . .’ He looked uneasy.
Herr Papa was much taken with his daughter-in-law. He was anxious she should enjoy her lunch, watched closely as she negotiated each course and burst into a proud smile when she said how delicious the food was. ‘Mathilde! Unsere erste Schwiegertochter mag das Rehfleisch – erzähl Bettina das.’ In due course he proposed a toast ‘Auf den König von Württemberg,’ and they raised their glasses enthusiastically. Then ‘Auf den Kaiser.’ This was greeted with less ardour, even a mild groan.
‘But another toast is in order: to the King of England!’ cried Freddy, in English. General enthusiasm.
‘And I have another toast – to Thomas and our new sister, Irene.’ Paul bowed to Irene, and they all raised their glasses. She had to drink to each in turn.
After this there was a subdued hum. All through the meal Irene had been growing happier among these kind people in whose company she would be spending her life. When she caught Thomas’s eye, she smiled back without reserve. Then the major cleared his throat as though about to make a speech.
‘I too would like to say something. Irene, you are very welcome in this family.’ The others shifted in their seats. ‘But I have to warn you of something. You come to us as an Englishwoman. We Germans have no difficulties with the English as individuals, we stem from the same roots. But you must understand, not everybody in Germany likes the English.’ Frau Mamma looked pleadingly at Elise, but her eyes were fixed devotedly on her husband. ‘They say the English have not been good friends to Germany. In our great war against France, England secretly assisted the French. Now England tries to prevent the development of our empire. And now they mock us in the newspapers, in the theatres, in novels, showing us as aggressive and bombastic. So you must not be surprised, if outside this family people are not always so friendly.’
He paused. There was an uncomfortable hush. The major did not lose his air of defiance. ‘Naturally, I do not say I agree.’ He bowed his head in her direction. ‘You yourself are very welcome.’
Elise nodded a few times, as though he had settled the matter. The others looked at their plates.
‘No person of any intelligence in England believes in these prejudices,’ Irene said, not confident that this was true. ‘I thought the same was true of Germany. Have you ever been to my country?’ The major had refused to attend her wedding.
‘No.’ He cleared his throat. ‘You should understand, what I say is not necessarily my own view, but that of some of my fellow officers, and the people at large.’
Thomas leant forward, but his mother put her hand on his arm and it was Freddy who replied. ‘Heinz has strong views. As for me, I plan to go to England and live there as long as I’m allowed. I have another toast: to friendship between our nations. England and Germany!’
They drank to that enthusiastically. Conversation resumed, Herr Papa recounting ludicrous mistakes he’d made on his first visit to London, many years before. Elise and her husband left first, Irene and Thomas soon after.
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Thomas. ‘I had no idea he would talk like that. I see him very little, their views are so unlike mine.’
‘Must I expect to meet such attitudes often?’
‘My mother will speak to Heinz. . .’ He hesitated. ‘You were a great success. I have seldom seen my father so animated. You will have to sit next to him often.’
‘Often?’
‘Every Sunday. . . No, no, my dearest, just now and again. Frau Mamma never complains if I do not attend. And there’s another thing. I’ve been talking to my uncle and aunt about buying a plot of land on their estate, for our little house. Would you like that?’
She dragged herself out of her gloom. ‘Yes, but can we afford it?’
He looked slightly affronted, as he did when money was mentioned, and waved his hand. She felt embarrassed, but she thought she had a right to understand their finances.
‘Is it a beautiful place?’
‘Beautiful? Well, it’s not dramatic. But the village is as it must have been a hundred years ago. It is very natural – there you feel the beating heart of an older Germany, beneath the meadows and the beech forests. I think we could be happy there.’ He looked at her in that adoring, pleading way of his.
As they walked home, she thought about what Heinz had said and how she might react another time. Would she speak out vigorously? Defending England would have seemed absurd to her until recently, but now. . .
18
Mark was examining himself in his bedroom mirror, a small mirror suitable for a schoolboy brushing his hair, not for a grown man. It was a dull afternoon, he was bored and anxious. It was more than a week since his examination, he’d heard nothing, he was sure he must have failed.
There were books beside his bed, more on the table in the corner, others spilling over the floor. Books in German and French, on art and architecture, novels, biographies, history. His mother and Wilson had protested and he’d been given another bookcase but that was full already. His books were his friends, they were always with him. So were his paintings, or rather the prints after early Italian Renaissance
pictures he’d bought when he was fourteen, and the little portrait of him Irene had done just before she was married. One day he would be able to buy serious paintings.
It was his books that made him feel like a real person. And so did his writing, the essays on historical themes he might one day improve and publish, the book on Renaissance Germany for which he’d done a great deal of reading, the articles he’d written for journals whose editors his mother knew.
Looking in a mirror was not a sensible or manly occupation, but after all, artists painting self-portraits did it to understand themselves better. Anyway, was it necessary to be sensible and manly in private? He considered what his examiners would have seen. Brown hair, rather large eyes, mouth small. Perhaps a smile would help. He tried one, it was not an improvement. He wondered, could any girl ever find him attractive?
If he did fail the exam, what would people think of him? The reputation for cleverness – the school prizes, the Cambridge scholarship, the starred First – had always been his last resort when he felt unconfident.
If he failed, what would this timid-looking person do with his life? Try for the Civil Service? The Church – bishop yes, curate no? Journalism? The Bar? None appealed. He’d be compelled to have more serious conversations with his father and he’d be sent off to meet distinguished men for advice. But it would be public knowledge that he was second-rate. And what was worse, he’d have to go on living in this schoolboy’s bedroom under his mother’s eye.
There was a knock. He leapt away from the mirror. In came Wilson with a telegram. She seemed disposed to wait. The whole household was sharing Mark’s suspense.
‘Thank you, Wilson,’ he said firmly, and she went out (though probably not far). He looked at the outside of the telegram. Did it feel positive? He opened it slowly.
It was good news. He had passed, in first place.
He grinned. It was not in his nature to shout in triumph. But his future was decided. Paris? St Petersburg? How soon before he became a Head of Mission?
He looked at himself again. When his face was smiling, it probably would do for an ambassador’s face. It was not so bad after all.
19
One day a few weeks after her arrival in Berlin, Irene found her mother-in-law in particularly good humour. ‘My husband says that I don’t need to go to the court ball this year, he will release me. I do not enjoy the balls so much now, they are always full of people I don’t want to see, but it is a fine spectacle. My husband would like you to accompany him. It is not the usual rule, but it can be arranged. Would that be to your taste?’
‘I don’t know, I have not been to many grand balls.’
‘Well,’ said Frau Curtius, ‘the Schloß is certainly worth seeing when it is en fête. Now, I have something for you. . .’ She handed Irene a flat black box.
It was a jewellery case. On the white silk lining lay a necklace.
‘There is an entire parure, but this is the most important piece. A necklace for a Prussian lady. My mother gave it to me on my marriage. Such jewellery was made during the War of Liberation against Napoleon, when the ladies had given their gold and precious stones for the war effort.’
The necklace was made of iron, delicately wrought into flowers and medallions, light and exquisite. It chilled Irene’s blood.
‘You may come to like it better. The necklace may be severe, but it is modest and fine, as a good Prussian aims to be. You needn’t look so unhappy, dear child, I don’t want you to be an iron bride. But even if you hardly wear it, let it become a symbol to you of the best of Prussia.’
‘Are you sure your daughters don’t want it?’
Frau Curtius laughed. ‘No, you don’t escape that way. I have other jewellery for them. No one wears such jewellery today but I hope you will come to understand these old values of ours. One day, perhaps, you will give it to your own daughter.’
Irene tried the necklace on. It was elegant, she could see: decorated with vine leaves, almost gay in its severe playfulness.
‘Does it suit me?’
‘Almost anything suits you, my dear. You should be wearing your hair scraped back from your head, and a slender dress, in the manner of 1812. But yes, it suits you. I hope you will wear it from time to time, that would please me.’
20
For the ball Frau Mamma had lent her a ball dress she’d worn as a young woman, white silk and sparkling with silver. It had been altered by a dressmaker, because Irene did not want to buy a dress she’d never wear again, and Frau Mamma did not want her to hire one because word might get around, and Thomas was so angry she was going to the ball that he refused to help financially.
She dressed in her mother-in-law’s bedroom, assisted by the dressmaker and Mathilde and by her own maids, who were in a fever of excitement. It was odd, they seemed to feel no envy. The dress fitted perfectly. Irene saw in the mirror someone almost unrecognisable. Frau Mamma sat and watched.
‘Do I look all right?’ asked Irene.
‘You look beautiful,’ said Frau Mamma. ‘I am sure the Kaiser will compliment you.’
The Kaiser? Of course, Irene was not impressed by monarchy. Like Thomas, she thought that kings and princes did more harm than good and disguised their incompetence with tiaras and opera balls and military parades. She did not care to be presented to the Kaiser.
Herr Papa and her sisters-in-law and Bettina burst into applause when she went into the Salon. She set off downstairs on his arm, the staircase on this rare occasion looking grand rather than pretentious, and stepped into the carriage – it was a long ride but Herr Papa considered a carriage more appropriate for a man of his position than a car – and rattled through the glittering streets of Charlottenburg and across the dark dripping Tiergarten and along Unter den Linden and over the bridge to the Schloß, which was lit up by flaming torches, to be received by a smiling chamberlain with the guards saluting and up the great stairs past the gigantic guardsmen into the ante-chambers, the White Hall filled with men in scarlet robes and embroidered silver and gold uniforms, uniforms of all colours and black tail coats and women in white and lavender and pale blue, shoulders softly white, diamonds glittering, long white gloves, no one she knew, but Herr Papa introduced her and they smiled kindly, the rooms brilliantly lit, scent wafting from silver urns, the band playing the first waltzes, nobody dancing yet though the young girls tapped their feet, the royal princes entering from one end of the hall, and then a hush and the band struck up the national anthem, and everyone stood at attention, and there was more movement around that same door as the imperial couple made their entrance and of course it was a charade but what splendour and the Kaiser and the Kaiserin moved slowly through the crowd greeting people here and there, all smiles, all graciousness, and there was a stir not far from them and she realised that the fluctuating empty space that the chamberlains marshalled around the Kaiser was reaching them, and she felt excited and awed and terrified, terrified above all, and abruptly a chamberlain stood in front of Herr Papa and nodded meaningfully and there stood the Kaiser.
The Kaiser was all light and radiance and gleaming metal and moustaches and he said, ‘Herr Gesandtschaftssekretär Curtius, will you present the lady?’ He smiled affably and spoke English and that was most affable of all, and Irene curtsied as deeply as she could, reminded that Thomas had said, ‘I do not want you curtsying to that warmonger, that absurd egoist.’ And the Kaiser said, ‘We are delighted, Frau Curtius, to welcome you to Berlin, we hope you will be very happy in our city.’ And she said, with as much strength as she could muster, ‘Sire, I am very happy already,’ and the Kaiser smiled and the chamberlains smiled and the Kaiser said, ‘I see you are a Prussian already. You are wearing the iron jewellery of the time of my great-great-grandfather, even though your husband’s family is from Württemberg.’ And Herr Papa said, ‘It was a present from Frau Curtius, Your Majesty, she is as Prussian as. . . as. . .’ And the Kaiser said, ‘As dumplings.’ And they all laughed at this imperial pleasantry and she fi
ngered the necklace and did not know what to say and the Kaiser said to her father-in-law, ‘Ganz charmant,’ and inclined his head and the imperial party moved away and Herr Papa kissed her on both cheeks and said, ‘A triumph, my dearest.’ Then the dancing began in earnest, she danced with Herr Papa and a gentleman from the Württemberg delegation and a gentleman from Hanover who trod on her toes and a pink-faced gentleman from Bavaria and Herr Papa again and her brother-in-law, friendlier than usual, inhumanly magnificent in his dress uniform, who asked in detail about her conversation with the Kaiser, and at last Herr Papa took her to have supper and she was so excited and tired she fell onto a little gold chair and drank a glass of champagne and thought maybe court balls were a good idea though Thomas would be so cross, and then a gentleman bowed and asked Herr Papa’s permission and Herr Papa introduced him and he was apparently a duke and she danced again. Only on the way home, with Herr Papa humming and resting his hand lightly on her forearm, did she wonder as she fell asleep why this flummery had seduced her.
21
Mark had never felt so close to another person as he did to Paul in Heidelberg. He’d suggested that having some weeks to spare he might spend them in the city, improving his German, but Paul had proposed only a week. Mark went for ten days.
Paul was busy attending seminars and reading in the library. Mark sat beside him and read the Gothic script of books on the Dance of Death, which he had said he would do for his father, but his mind was always wandering to the figure beside him, a figure that read intently even when Mark stole a look in his direction. Precisely at the hour previously determined, Paul would stand up and return his books to the desk. They would go out into the sunshine and wander through the streets, Paul explaining in minute detail the history of the buildings, or sit on the terrace of a café and discuss the advance of the nation state or the ethics of the colonial movement or the implications of the Treaty of Vienna. They would wander beside the Neckar, companionably silent, or walk far into the countryside, Paul reciting poetry in German, Mark responding in English.
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