The Iron Necklace

by Giles Waterfield

  It was a dull phrase, but the train seemed to pick it up. ‘No going back,’ repeated the wheels, ‘no going back.’ They grew closer to Dover and the boat and the honeymoon and Berlin.

  Thomas had fallen asleep, his mouth had dropped open. He looked vulnerable, as he hardly ever did. Only once before had she seen him look truly vulnerable.

  From the beginning, he’d never doubted his feelings for her. They’d first met one hot day taking the steamer down the Elbe with a group of friends to picnic at Schloß Pillnitz. At once, it was clear he admired her, though at first she hardly noticed him. They often met in this society of young people, living in what many considered the most beautiful city in northern Europe. Many of her friends were British, studying German or music or art, staying as paying guests with impoverished ladies. Irene was surprised at how free and easy life was; her German friends lived with little interference from their parents, whereas her own bids for freedom in London had met with continual protests from her mother. In Dresden one could easily meet any friend, male or female, and walk along the banks of the river or through the suburban streets with their drowsy gardens and their pergolas covered in wisteria, past the frescoed balconies dreaming of Italy. Soon Thomas wanted to see her every day; she wanted to see him perhaps every three days. What did she feel about him, she would ask herself every day at breakfast when an envelope addressed in his fine hand was handed to her by the Baronin, in whose house she was lodging, with the smallest smile.

  He invited her to Berlin to stay with his parents. It had not been a success. She was irritated from the outset. The parents had been kind, but there were so many younger sisters and brothers around, who treated her as though she were certainly going to marry Thomas and must prove she was good enough. She resented this, and the long meals taxed her German. Thomas took her to see the things that interested him, mostly old buildings. She was bored, he was hurt.

  Actually Thomas turned out to be surprisingly radical. He believed the trappings of the past, even the empire, must be swept away. In front of the Reichstag he spoke about the parliamentary system. ‘It is a farce. They pretend we have a powerful parliament but the elections are adjusted to suit the Junkers, and the deputies have no real power. The Kaiser opened the building but to him it is just a nuisance, he considers he is divinely appointed.’ I’m superficial, she thought. I can’t ask the right questions about politics, I’m more interested in how to convey the effect of light striking a pot. He was explaining the social organisation of a living-colony being planned close to Dresden. My work, she thought, is private, for me and a few friends. What he does is highly public, for the state, for the good of great numbers of people. But isn’t what I do worthwhile too?

  The worst moments occurred on the last day, on a walk with his sister Elise down Unter den Linden. Irene did not enjoy Thomas’s account of the regiments parading through the Brandenburg Gate to salute the Emperor. It was odd, no one could have called Thomas militaristic, he constantly complained about the deference shown to the army, and yet he seemed proud of such events. And she was annoyed when Elise proclaimed that London had no ceremonial street, that Berlin was much better provided. These people do nothing but lecture me, she thought. She stopped saying ‘Schön’, merely remarked that in Britain Parliament was more important than the army. This agitated Elise, who explained that the Kaiser knew his people and could not surrender his power to the Reichstag. The German system worked better, in England everything was in chaos. Irene merely smiled condescendingly. By the time they arrived home they were hardly speaking.

  When Thomas saw her off the following day at the station he did look vulnerable. He had been looking forward so much to her visit, he said. She curled her lip and closed the window, hardly bothering to wave him goodbye. After an hour she began to feel uneasy. By the time she was back in Dresden, she felt she’d behaved badly, and realised that all they’d wanted was her approval. She felt sufficiently guilty to send the parents, and Thomas, grateful letters decorated with little drawings.

  Soon afterwards she returned to London, and Thomas ceased to interest her. But after a year or so he visited England, and called at her parents’ house at Evelyn Gardens. By chance, she’d had a violent quarrel with Julian that day. Thomas had been easy and confident, and had talked with passion about the excellence of work by Mr Voysey and Mr Baillie Scott. She liked him again. He delayed his departure by a week, and then a week longer. And when on the day of his eventual departure he’d asked her, much to her surprise, to marry him, she’d not said no. A month or so later, partly to stop her mother’s nagging but mostly because her work was going badly and she was tired of her friends in Fitzroy Square, and also because Thomas was good-looking and good-natured and not at all like Julian, she accepted him. And as the wedding plans developed, it seemed easier to let the process continue.

  Well, she must live in the present: a beautiful morning in July and the beginning of her three-month honeymoon. Thomas woke up, and smiled that tentative subtle smile of his. He leant forward.

  ‘This is a happy moment, is it not, my darling?’

  She smiled back. Yes, decidedly. Yes, a happy moment.

  7

  When Mark, late and flustered, arrived in Trafalgar Square, he found Paul looking through the new triumphal arch at the park and the palace. He wore a light blue tie and grey suit, making Mark anxious about his own flannel trousers and shapeless summer jacket, but Paul seemed not to notice, shook his hand vigorously, grasped his arm. Mark didn’t think he had ever touched any of his friends like this. He must not flinch.

  The city was quiet, as though nobody could be bothered to make much effort, not even the flower sellers with their wilting roses. The newspaper sellers urged passers-by to Read All About It, but sounded unconvinced that It really mattered. On such a day, who cared?

  The great houses along Piccadilly and Green Park were being cleaned and tidied, blinds coming down, tubs of plants being removed. They talked about how in Prussia the nobility were poor and lived on their estates, and how Paul’s aunt and uncle survived on what they could grow or hunt; and how Mark truly wanted to enter the Diplomatic Service and that in any case his mother was determined that that was what he would do and she must be obeyed. At which they both laughed.

  ‘Would you like to go to Charlotte Street?’ asked Mark. ‘There’s a German colony there, a successful one. But perhaps you’re tired?’

  ‘Not at all. So if you are to be a diplomat, my new cousin,’ and he put his arm round Mark’s shoulders, ‘you will have to prevent the war between Germany and England that is approaching. You look shocked, but it is likely, is it not? We may find ourselves fighting on opposite sides.’

  ‘We think Ireland is more of a problem. The Irish are very unreasonable, though perhaps it’s reasonable for them to be unreasonable. And the Suffragettes are a nuisance too.’

  ‘You have so many problems, but who would guess it, seeing all this luxury? In any case, it is hot, perhaps we can go to a café?’ But Mark said that there were no cafés in London, really, and one had never been to a public house, was not sure what to do there. So they walked to Charlotte Street.

  ‘Ah, so this is the German colony,’ remarked Paul. ‘What will all these good Germans do when war breaks out?’

  ‘I’m sure our governments don’t want war.’

  ‘It’s hard to say what our Kaiser wants. He’d like to be a great war leader, but then he adores England. You respect your King, no? We make jokes about the Kaiser all the time, in Berlin we regard him as the best joke ever. My father likes him though, because of his position he sees him quite often. It seems the Kaiser is aware of this marriage – your sister, my brother – and approves. No, I fear war is inevitable.’

  ‘And so my poor sister is marrying into the enemy.’

  ‘She will become one of us, yes. National loyalty transcends individual loyalties. Don’t look so dismayed. We will look after her. Who are all these people in Charlotte Street, these German
s?’

  ‘Shopkeepers, I suppose, and musicians, waiters. Business people too, there are many German businessmen here.’

  ‘Well, there is money in England. You know Berlin, it is a rich city, and flashing – flashing?’

  ‘Flashy?’

  ‘My apologies. But there is so much poverty too. Thomas is always talking about it, he wants to make their lives better. . . You seem dejected, I’m sorry. It’s just that at home we talk about war against England all the time. At my university some visiting Englishmen were attacked by drunken students, they had to take refuge in a restaurant until the police arrived. It is so strange to come here, and find you all so friendly and. . .’

  ‘And?’

  ‘So like us, in many ways. Your sister, she will be among friends. We may not like the concept of England, but we like the individuals.’

  They stood outside an Italian restaurant, where Paul declared the food should be good. He was right. They drank red wine. Mark drank a good deal, he was nervous, he seldom went to restaurants. Paul ordered. Mark had never eaten spaghetti.

  ‘A diplomat must learn to eat the food of foreign countries, you cannot always be eating roast beef.’ Mark smiled feebly. ‘You must come to Heidelberg, and I will show you a real German university. I suppose you want to be an ambassador?’

  Mark shook his head. ‘Oh no. . .’ Yes, ambassador to Paris or Washington.

  ‘I am sure you will be successful. Of course, you will have to obey the rules, as we all must.’ Paul waved his fork in the air. ‘None of us is free, we believe what we’re brought up to believe, we behave as we’re taught to behave. We are guided towards a profession, and then we follow it all our lives. Look at me, I shall complete my second dissertation and apply for a post as an academic assistant and perhaps become a professor in Greifswald or some such place, taking tea with professors’ wives and trying to write a major book so I can be promoted to Berlin or München, as though a chair in Berlin or München were the summit of human aspiration. We are all slaves, and there is no escape, at least until our present society is destroyed, which is possible. I think Thomas would welcome such a resolution.’ He looked sideways at Mark, who blinked.

  ‘Am I a slave too?’ he asked, and laughed.

  ‘Yes, and it’s no matter to laugh about. You do what your mother says, you give up your academic ambitions in order to enter the Diplomatic Service, now you will fight elegantly to reach the peak, and there you will be subjected to the whims of politicians who know nothing about the real problems. Well, you are a charming young man, I am sure you will be most successful if you are content to remain one all your life.’ He spoke playfully.

  Afterwards, Mark walked back with Paul to his hotel through the darkening streets, softly warm now, past the Soho shops and restaurants, past the parading women in Regent Street, through somnolent Mayfair to Bayswater.

  The next evening Mark went to Charing Cross to say goodbye, clutching a little bouquet for Frau Curtius; such a sympathetic person, he thought. The Curtiuses were delighted to see him, and urged him to visit them in Berlin. Paul gripped his hand, and looked intently into his eyes. ‘Bis bald, mein Freund,’ he said.

  Mark waved goodbye longer than anyone else on the emptying platform. If he became a diplomat, he would constantly be saying goodbye, not just physically but spiritually. Like other station halls, Charing Cross, banal as it might seem to the daily crowds, was an ante-chamber to the enchanting adventure of abroad.

  The train had disappeared. The station had become quiet under its bright lights. It could, he thought, also be a place of nagging anxieties and larger fears, a portal to a dark world, foreign in every sense. He looked at the ticket office and the boards announcing trains to Bromley and Canterbury, and smiled at his own portentousness. But he shivered.

  He moved slowly towards the Strand. As he passed the news stall, he saw a man looking at him, half-smiling. Why did men smile at him in the street? He did not want their friendship.

  He wished Paul were not going so far away.

  8

  It was in the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone that Irene first asked herself whether she loved her husband. Or at least, for the first time since the wedding three weeks before. Or rather, she knew she loved him, but was she in love with him? Or rather, what did being in love involve when you had a life sentence? Did it mean you wanted to spend every moment of the day and night with that person, and missed him fiercely if he was away? She knew this feeling very well – but about Thomas?

  Thomas was reading from Baedeker. He had been reading – it seemed – for hours and hours. He read well, but one could grow tired even of his voice. They had risen, as usual, at six since at midday the churches closed and it was obligatory to see at least eight churches or two museums before lunch (a museum scored as three or four churches). She’d been moved by the Early Christian churches, and liked to think of those brave people celebrating Communion in their catacombs. What she could not bring herself to enjoy was seventeenth-century Italian architecture and ceiling paintings, her Protestant upbringing rebelled. She wished the old Romans had been less pious. But to Thomas everything was interesting. If she did not respond to a piece of information, he would look surprised and gaze into her eyes as he read, to involve her. This meant she could never yawn or sit down or let her eyes wander towards the old ladies in black moving about their prayers. He had a little black book in which he took notes. She observed this habit with a dogged wish to find it charming, but realised that one day she might find it irritating.

  From time to time Thomas, at least in their first days in Rome, had pointed out inspiring views and urged her to draw, but she’d refused. She was not interested in making genteel renderings of famous sites. To work she needed to be on her own, she couldn’t sketch in public while passersby looked over her shoulder. But she did miss drawing. Only occasionally, in their bedroom, privately, did she draw a slither of the courtyard, or her husband asleep and tousled. When he was her model, she felt, particularly fond of him but that was when he was not speaking.

  A clock struck the three-quarters. It was almost twelve. All morning she had not liked to suggest that they might stop and drink coffee, but what she most wanted to do was stop talking about architecture, it would be enough to sit in silence, and watch the people promenading. In the Piazza Navona he had discoursed about Cardinal Barberini and Santa Apollonia and the laying of foundation stones, and the palace on the right and the palace on the left. And movement in Baroque buildings, apparently all in a state of perpetual motion. And now Thomas spied an important tomb – with a Baedeker star! – in the corner.

  So, did she love him? As a surgeon might lift a specimen with the forceps for a closer examination, she wondered whether she might have made a mistake. Or rather, whether she might think so one day. Her father had told her once, when she was agonising about Julian, to distance herself from her emotions, to observe them dispassionately and analyse whether they were worth giving way to. She’d always followed this advice. They were staring now at the ceiling but at least this meant she could look upwards and not at her husband. Perhaps this detachment had stopped her understanding her real feelings about Thomas. He’d always confused her.

  Directed to look at something else, she wondered whether she would spend her whole life playing the obedient wife. She thought fleetingly, I wish I were in Danvers Street, or even Evelyn Gardens, which are less beautiful than Rome, but where at least I was a real person.

  She and Thomas were moving towards the sacristy, which contained some interesting minor pictures. It might be locked, but he was all too persuasive with sacristans.

  Making love with him was not what she’d expected. Thomas changed personality in bed. At first correct and considerate, he soon became hotly loving, pushing his lips hard against hers, trying to enter her mouth with his tongue, muttering incomprehensible endearments. Then he would get excited, even rough. She was the first woman he had ever made love to, that was clear. At the con
clusion (it felt like a conclusion), he would give her a single punctilious kiss and fall asleep. The new ideas about mental togetherness when making love had not reached him.

  She thought, I must be a disappointment, he must find me cold even though he’s accepted he is not my first lover. Does a woman who has slept with a man feel differently about him for the rest of her life, she wondered. She thought the answer was yes. And a man, about a woman?

  Meanwhile Thomas had seen a painting that worried him. ‘The book says this picture should be above the altar in the third chapel on the left side, but here it is above the door to the cloister. This must be the same picture, a Holy Family by Sodoma. Yes, it is labelled.’

  ‘I suppose they must want to move the pictures now and again,’ she remarked mildly. ‘Perhaps there is a new priest who wants to make changes. As a new wife might want to make changes to her husband’s house, that too is possible, I suppose.’

  He smiled. ‘Yes it is. Perhaps you are right, priests are human beings, after all. Even Catholic priests. For us Protestants, this Catholic apparatus can be difficult, no? We are always wondering why so much theatre is needed to reach God.’

  She agreed. She wondered briefly whether it was her fault that he talked all the time about churches, not about himself or her, whether it was her passivity – her new passivity.

  She dropped onto a bench. He looked at her, piercingly, and sat down beside her, put his arm round her, then pulled it away as though remembering they were in a church.

  ‘It is difficult, marrying a foreigner,’ he said. And then, tenderly, ‘Liebling. Don’t you agree?’ It seemed rude to agree. She shook her head.