The Last Innocent Hour

by Margot Abbott

  CHRISTIAN AND I wrote to each other, but when I didn’t return to Germany the next summer, the letters petered out. It was bound to happen, but the knowledge that I would probably never see Christian again created a secret hollowness in my heart that never went away.

  I finished high school with a wonderful year in Switzerland while Daddy was with the State Department in Austria. I liked being back in Europe and using my German. But the best thing that happened to me was fencing.

  Fencing attracted me because it was an individual sport and I was hopeless at team sports. I also liked the mystery and romance of it, and I got a secret thrill out of doing something that men did. It made feel adventuresome to take on the sport by which Zorro, Robin Hood, and countless German university students had measured their manhood. I liked the anonymity of it too, the large masks worn to protect the face, that hid it as well, and the tight, padded jacket that obscured my breasts. In my fencing costume, with the mask on, my identity—my sex—was whatever I wanted it to be.

  Although there had always been female fencers, they were usually aristocratic women with the resources to pursue the sport privately. It was an unusual sport for a high school, but it was an unusual school. Our German master, an Austrian who had lost the bottom half of his left arm in the war, had been a champion before the war. He was a romantic figure to all of us girls with his dark hair, high forehead, and brooding manner, so that when he offered, God knows why, to start a fencing club, several of us signed up. Our headmistress was not wholly approving, but the school’s penchant for modem ideas and physical education was unshakable.

  A dozen of us started in Herr Kempner’s fencing salle, although by the end of the semester only five remained. All the better. Those of us who stuck with him received a unique introduction to the art of the blade. Herr Kempner did not treat us as the pampered, protected young ladies we were, but instead drilled us as he had been drilled.

  He had not fenced since his injury and worked very hard to overcome his disability. Because I tried so hard, he singled me out for attention, and sometimes I would stay after and talk with him about his championship days and the training he received. He was always absolutely correct in his treatment of me, and I felt comfortable with him and his formal manner.

  I thought about him in later years, every time I put on my fencing gear, trying to see him in a more realistic light than I had at seventeen. But he remained something of an enigma. I wonder now what became of him—whether he stayed safely in Switzerland, or if he returned to Vienna, to be swept away in the German maelstrom.

  After Switzerland, I went to a small women’s college near San Francisco. It, too, had a fencing team, and I happily found myself more advanced than most of the other girls. I got even better as my self-confidence grew, and I began to represent my college in local tournaments.

  The college was on a beautiful campus and the classes were small, the teachers personal, and I probably received a good education, although I remained a mediocre student.

  Still, I made friends and was enjoying myself. I especially loved our trips into San Francisco, where we saw some wonderful operas. I began dating and fancied myself in love with a Stanford student of my father’s, but when the boy began hinting about long-term plans, I let the relationship fade away.

  I continued my music, halfheartedly planning for a teaching career; however, as much satisfaction and joy as the piano gave me, nothing seemed to be changing for me. My life was the same as it had been: school, vacations, the music, and my silent, distant father and never-present brother. There was something missing in me, I felt a sense of dislocation, as though I didn’t belong, although if anyone had asked me where I did belong, I couldn’t have answered. At a piano? In a fencing salle? Those were the places where I felt most at home, where I lost my sense of isolation.

  Then, in 1933, two days before Daddy and I were to leave for Annapolis for Eddie’s graduation, Daddy received a telephone call from President Roosevelt, offering him the ambassadorship in Berlin.

  My father was a modest man, who hated fuss, but I know he was proud and surprised to be asked. He couldn’t understand why he should be chosen and had to be convinced of his suitability for the job. He talked it over with his colleagues at Stanford and saw the President himself on our trip east.

  Eddie thought it was terrific, and I did too, although I was, in my turn, quite taken aback when Daddy asked me to accompany him. He had been told that a bachelor ambassador was at a disadvantage, and he asked if I would come and act as his hostess.

  American ambassadors, unlike diplomats from other countries, were expected to rent their own living quarters as well as the embassy building, and to provide the expenses for the usual social demands from their own pocketbooks. Daddy’s money—separate from my inheritance from Mama—was quite sufficient for this, especially considering the simple way both of us lived.

  Well, of course, I agreed to go. I was tired of college and dormitory living and I was eager to return to Germany. I could pursue my fencing and music there. I was also very flattered that my father had chosen me that he thought I was grown up enough to go with him.

  I didn’t let myself think about seeing Christian or his family again until I came upon an old battered copy of a Karl May book about old Shatterhand that Christian had given me.

  Standing with the little book in my hand, I thought of the lake and the people there, memories whirling through my mind. Maybe, maybe . . . I grew excited by the possibilities.

  It was a busy summer, with Daddy traveling to Washington for his briefings, and Eddie setting out for his first posting in Norfolk. I had returned to California to pack and ready a shipment for Germany. It was the first time I had been given an important task and I wore myself out trying to warrant my father’s trust.

  Happily, all went well, and I recrossed the United States in August to sail for Europe. I think I slept away the entire ocean crossing, I was so exhausted.

  When my ship, the Bremen, a fairly new German liner, docked in Hamburg, Daddy was there to meet me. He hugged me fiercely, surprising me with this uncharacteristic display of emotion.

  What surprised me even more were all the reporters from German and American papers that met the ship. They liked the fact that I spoke German and that my father and I were polite to them. Daddy introduced me to his protocol officer, and we made our way to the Berlin train. Two reporters followed us closely, although Daddy had told them he wasn’t giving any interviews. That was all right, they told us, they wanted to talk to me. One, a woman, wanted to know where I got my coat, which was a navy wool with brass buttons, shoulder tabs, and a high collar. I told her I had bought it in New York after envying my brother for his watch coat. The other reporter was an American man who wanted to know if I was aware of the problems Jews were facing in the Third Reich. The protocol officer held off both reporters, and my father and I got onto the train.

  We entered Berlin from the north, and by the time we were met by the American consul general and his wife at the Lehrter Bahnhof, I was in love with the city. I was prepared to love it, of course, but the bustle and energy, contrasted with the age and dignity of the buildings, completely captured my imagination.

  We got into one car—my trunks went in another with the protocol officer—and drove to the Adlon Hotel, where Daddy was staying for the time being. I tried responding politely to the questions the consul’s wife addressed to me, but I kept my nose to the window of the car. There was greenery over the tops of the buildings to my right, and above the green, I saw the ruined dome of the Reichstag. It had been burned the previous February, as Mrs. Bushmuller, the consul’s wife, informed me.

  We crossed Unter den Linden with its broad double rows of trees. The avenue was alive with traffic and lights in the summer dusk. At one end of the wide Pariser Platz, I could see the magnificent Brandenburg Gate, the famous symbol of Prussian military might. The traffic was intense but orderly, and it took our driver some time to get us across to Number One U
nter den Linden, which was the address of one of the most famous hotels in Europe—the Adlon.

  Daddy had been staying in a smaller hotel, he told me, but decided to give me the gift of a few nights at the Adlon. “To get a sense of what Berlin used to be,” he said sadly. I was too happy to be there to question what he meant. I thought he was just bemoaning the passing of the mythical pre-war world that older people were always going on about.

  I had my own rooms, connected to his by a large sitting room, and after I had said good night, I sat at my window in the dark, watching the Unter den Linden traffic flashing by for hours. I don’t really know why Berlin affected me so. I was not untraveled. I had seen New York and Paris. Maybe it was the fact that I had been born there; maybe it was my still-strong connection with our German summers; and certainly it was the knowledge that Christian and his family lived there; But I also liked the city for itself.

  I once talked about this attachment one can have for cities with my friend Sydney Stokes. She, for instance, was crazy about Rome, which she visited for the first time in her university days. We decided that only reincarnation could explain this illogical love of a foreign place, this sense of belonging.

  The next morning, Daddy and I went out to the house he had rented, because he wanted us to get situated as fast as possible. The embassy itself was on the Wilhelm Platz, close to the Adlon, and in the same neighborhood as the Chancellery and Dr. Goebbles’s immense Ministry of Propaganda. Those buildings were still being renovated and expanded to the proper National Socialist proportions.

  Daddy didn’t want to live in the center of the city, and the living quarters in the embassy building were much too grand for us. He wanted and found a comfortable house on a quiet street in the suburb of Lichterfeld. Since most Berliners lived in apartments, Daddy had had a difficult time finding the house, a two-story building that stood on the corner of a wide street, surrounded by a black wrought-iron fence.

  The house was new, built just before the Great War, and it had three bathrooms and a modern kitchen. It was large enough for the modest entertaining Daddy intended us to do, but not so big that the two of us would be lost in it.

  The entry hall had black and white tiles and a lovely curving staircase up to the second floor. On the first floor, there was also a study for Daddy along one side, and next to it were two rooms connected by sliding doors that could be made into one long reception room. I put my piano in the far one. On the other side of the house, a sitting room and a dining room ran the length of the house, with a smaller morning room off the dining room. All three rooms opened onto a terrace, beyond which the lawn and gardens sloped down to a stand of trees. The property backed onto a disused military academy, so there were virtually no neighbors to disturb us.

  Upstairs, there were four bedrooms. I took one, Daddy took another, and the others were to be for guests. There was also a small sitting room with a tiled stove, an old-fashioned touch in such a modern house. I used that room a great deal, especially in the winter, when the stove made it warm and cozy.

  We returned that afternoon to the Adlon for a fancy tea. How I liked hearing German spoken, although the Berliners, with their distinctive accent, the accent Christian had insisted on teaching me, were not the most polished or classic of German speakers. For years, I had only spoken the language in classrooms, and I liked hearing the different permeations of a living language.

  Daddy smiled across the table at me. “You like it here already, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “Don’t you?”

  He pursed his lips. “I’ve always felt comfortable here. But now . . .”

  He stopped as two couples, the men in fancy brown uniforms with bright-red armbands loudly proclaiming their loyalties, walked past our table.

  “What would you like to do today? Tomorrow, I must return to work and I believe you’ve been invited to tea at the British embassy. You can call Mrs. Bushmuller in the morning.”

  We talked about decorating and when we might move into our house and agreed that we should do so as soon as possible. Daddy then informed me that he was going to leave all the details of our living situation in my hands.

  “I assume you can keep a checkbook. I’ll give you a budget. And I will trust your taste. You saw the apartments on the Wilhelm Platz. I don’t want to live in those.”

  “You want your house in Palo Alto,” I said, daring to tease him a little.

  “I guess I do. But you know what kind of impression we want to present.”

  “Simple. Tasteful and unostentatious,” I said.

  “Exactly, my dear. Now, may I have another cup of tea? Perhaps you’d like to hear some music this afternoon?”

  MOVING IN

  THE NEXT MORNING, I interviewed a prospective butler, sent over by Mrs. Bushmuller. An Italian named Vittorio Centanni, he was middle-aged, but seemed old to me, and rather ordinary-looking, with lots of dark, graying hair and well-tended hands. His clothes, though, were impressive, and I learned he had been a butler in England for many years. He was polite and businesslike, and since he had worked for the American ambassador in London for six years, I felt confident about hiring him. I was very lucky to have found him, as I discovered later. He helped enormously in making the house what we wanted it to be, and he was always discreet and formal without being pompous or condescending. He even found a valet for my father, a young German named Friedrich Diederhof, who was called Rick and could also act as chauffeur.

  The tea the next afternoon with Lady Harcourt-Greves at the British embassy appeared to be attended by no one under forty-five. I did my duty, smiling, making polite conversation, handling my teacup, saucer, linen serviette, as the British called it, spoon, and pastry with adroitness. The party had a mixture of nationalities, including wives of German dignitaries, as did most of these affairs.

  Everyone was politely interested in me, commenting on how young I was to be my father’s official hostess. I answered their questions about our living quarters as well as I could, and listened to their useful advice about hiring servants and setting up accounts with grocers, butchers, and the rest. In fact, the ladies gave me so much advice that I began to lose my self-confidence. I had never run a home before, and here my father expected me to run a mansion. I began to wonder if I had been right to hire the butler so quickly.

  “Can I refill that for you?” I looked around to find a slender woman of medium height, who seemed to be only slightly older than I. She wore a gray dress and beautiful, rosy pearls.

  “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

  “Well, let me take it for you.” She reached for my cup and saucer.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I need something to hang on to.”

  She smiled. “That’s understandable with this lot badgering

  “Oh, I’m not . . .” I stopped when I saw the humor in her face and smiled back at her. “They have been—a bit.”

  “You need a small recess. Come with me.” And she led me out of the room. “I’ll show you some pictures. British embassies are famous for their art. Did you know that?”

  Upstairs, she took me into a sitting room. On the far wall as we entered hung a Turner. The subject was a common one for the painter—the Thames River, painted at night, fog swirling across the water, the demarcation between sky and water and land invisible. It was very beautiful.

  “Oh, it’s wonderful,” I gasped.

  “Knew you’d appreciate it,” she answered and we grinned at each other.

  Then, leading the way, she took me down the hall into one of the bedrooms. I was extremely nervous, but her self-confidence prevailed. I stopped in the doorway, looking at the signs of occupation, brushes and combs on a dressing table, slippers under the bed. Could this be Lady Harcourt-Greves’s very bedroom?

  “Are you sure we should be in here?” I whispered.

  “Absolutely not,” she said, “but look.” And she pointed to a small picture in a carved frame, heavy with gold leaf. It was a pencil drawin
g of a little girl in a Tudor cap looking straight out at us, her canny expression belying her age. The picture drew me into the room and across the carpet. I stood in front of it and smiled.

  “You recognize it?” she asked.

  “Holbein,” I said. “Is it Elizabeth?”

  “Bravo. Of course, it’s not proved, but Lady H-G swears she knows a queen when she sees one. Even a queen at five or whatever age the darling is.” She moved closer to the picture. “And she is a darling, isn’t she?”

  “Imagine living with such wonderful pictures.”

  We admired the drawing a moment more and went back downstairs, discussing paintings. At the foot of the stairs, she stopped.

  “By the way, I’m Sydney Stokes,” she said, holding out her hand. “We weren’t properly introduced.”

  “Sally Jackson.” We shook hands. Her fingernails were long and scarlet and she wore a large modern ring, swirls of gold among which a clear blue sapphire nested.

  “You’re the American ambassador’s daughter, aren’t you?” she said. I nodded. “You’ve just now come from college in California. You fence. Play the piano. And you are redecorating the house in Lichterfeld. It’s very pretty. Let me know if I can help.”

  I laughed, surprised at the spy network. “Word gets around fast,” I said, a little nonplussed.

  “It does indeed. The secret service should give tea parties,” Sydney replied.

  “And you?” I asked diffidently.

  “I’m Lady H-G’s assistant.”

  “Do you live here? I mean in the embassy?”

  “Good Lord, no. I’m married. To a fabulous man. I must tell you immediately that he’s a newspaperman for the Perth Star”

  “Australian?”

  “Hmmm. He is, as well.” She took my arm and steered me back toward the tea party. “Everyone here thinks he’s dreadfully provincial. A peasant. He is, of course. Which is one reason why I adore him. Dads was livid. Mummy more so. Another reason why I adore him.”