‘Have you chosen an architect?’ asked Freddy, with a concerned expression. ‘It is so hard to find a good architect in Germany. Maybe you should look for one in England.’
Thomas gave him a playful shove. ‘Yes,’ Thomas replied, ‘in the end we found an architect who can be relied on. Now, my uncle says we should go indoors.’
In they went. One saw that money had been spent on the place a hundred years earlier, and very little since. The walls were covered in old wallpapers with roses climbing round trellises, the floors were scrubbed wood with only the smallest of carpets. The furniture shone with polish.
‘We hope you will like the house,’ said Frau Curtius. ‘My sister is worried that you will find it old-fashioned. You don’t mind that there is no hot running water?’
No, no, they assured her, they did not mind at all.
‘This is a pure German interior of the 1810s,’ said Thomas, ‘almost untouched. This plain Empire furniture is much admired by architects today.’ They wandered through the rooms. Through the French windows in the Salon they could see the garden with its straight path leading to a circular pond and a pergola smothered in roses.
‘I love this place,’ said Irene to her brother and sister. ‘I feel at home here. At Salitz I feel I’m in a quiet, kind Germany.’
‘I notice the village is quite tucked away,’ remarked Sophia. ‘It means nobody in the big house has to look at the villagers.’
‘In England,’ said Irene, ‘do the owners of big houses want to look at their neighbours?’
‘You’ve become very serious, Irene, since you moved to Germany,’ said Mark. ‘I don’t remember you preaching at us like this.’
‘Trying to be serious is more interesting than never saying what you mean. I hate having to conceal any emotions or ideas because you might be laughed at.’
‘A photograph!’ cried Thomas. ‘We must take a photograph! The photographer is ready, he has come all the way from Schwerin.’
With much bowing, offering of better places to others and uttering of assorted courtesies, they lined up on the verandah. The photographer was installed on the lawn some way from the house. He moved members of the group a little to the left or the right, he asked everyone to stand patiently for a while, and after some minutes he took his picture. He bowed, and everyone applauded.
40
‘That’s my parents’ house. Father recorded everything: the empty site, then the start of the building work, then the day the house was topped out, and eventually the finished house. It was very simple and charming, with its red tiled roof.’
‘It looks quite small.’
‘They thought it offered the essential minimum for civilised living: Wohnzimmer, as we used to say, Eßzimmer, kitchen, scullery. Upstairs there was a bedroom for each of them, and my room, and Gretchen’s. Well, well, I hadn’t realised how many pictures we had of the house. It was a little inconvenient, he was perhaps not the most practical of architects. Look, isn’t that a lovely photo of Mother? She designed the garden, it was as pretty as can be. We were very happy there.’
‘I wonder who’s there now.’
‘I expect it’s divided up into two or three dwellings. It really was our home, more than the Mommsenstraße. Maybe you’ll go there one day, my darling. Imagine your mother as a little girl, playing on the swing and shaking the apple trees in the hope the apples might fall off.’
Pandora smiles. ‘And did they ever fall off?’
‘No,’ says her mother, ‘they never did.’
‘Apples don’t always fall off, you have to pluck them. Mum, just tell me something: why did you give up everything when you were married – your job, and your writing?’
‘It seemed the right thing to do, and there was the war, there was no time for writing, we just had to survive. And your father was away in his beastly prison camp. . . Why do you ask?’
Pandora hesitates. ‘Don’t you ever want to start writing again?’
Her mother does not reply.
41
Thomas and Irene liked driving out to the country in their little Adler. Both wanted to drive, though Irene’s driving made Thomas anxious. He’d tell her how to hold the wheel properly, and grip his seat as she approached a bend. Yet one day he skidded into a hedge. A while later he grazed another car. She shrugged at the time, but when he next commented on her driving, she remarked, ‘The evidence, my darling, suggests I am the better driver. Shouldn’t I advise you?’ It gave her a sense of freedom to steer her car along the tree-lined roads, with other drivers waving companionably.
The house brought them closer together. They walked round garden and house, inspecting progress, discussing the planting and whether the walls should be papered or painted, and which colours would be most beautiful. ‘What mood are we seeking to create in this room?’ Thomas would ask. She could see why his colleagues and clients held him in such esteem: he was very sensitive to atmosphere. It was true that the back door could hardly open because the space inside was so small, and that (to Thomas’s distress) you could hardly step into the maid’s room on account of the oddity of the plan – they could not afford a little house for the maid because they had spent much more than they expected – but otherwise the house was faultless. An especially happy day was the Richtfest, the topping-out ceremony, when a little pine tree decorated with coloured paper and ribbons was placed on top of the house. They invited the Lützows, and the pastor, and the carpenter, and the builder, and there was champagne and schnapps and beer. It was a merry time. They moved in late in 1913.
During the brilliant summer of 1914 they worked together in the garden. He often sang in his fine tenor, breaking off from his work, leaning on his spade, singing the folk songs she loved. She would kneel on the grass and look up, her face bright. He looked so natural and handsome, filled with love of the earth. ‘If I succeed in nothing else,’ he once said, ‘I shall have succeeded in building a fine house for my family.’ He often talked about the family that would soon be on its way. Occasionally Thomas would say things that mildly embarrassed her. ‘Here, I feel the rhythm of the world. When I dig the garden and am surrounded by its goodness, I feel its great heart beating.’ But she came to find such sentiments endearing.
In the country they lived very simply. ‘Wir leben auf dem Land, und auch vom Land,’ Thomas would proclaim, though his aunt would remark amiably, ‘Dear Thomas, you do not live off the land, you live off the landlord.’ They tried keeping chickens but the chickens had a way of growing thin and dying. They grew vegetables enthusiastically for a year, but in the second year they silently agreed that for Berliners to grow vegetables in Mecklenburg was a mistake. Her flower garden was surrounded by a white fence, with gravel paths lined with box hedges and flowerbeds. To one side was the kitchen garden, and behind that an old apple orchard, half-abandoned when they came, where they created a Spielgarten, with benches and a swing. Thomas loved to work in the orchard, bringing the trees back to health. He would caress them, running his hand along the wood, standing for minutes at a time, considering them as though they were works of art. She asked him once if he’d given them names, and he smiled quizzically.
Usually in the morning she would work, in chalk or watercolour. Her watercolours were unlike the designs she had executed for Thomas’s practice, or the posters she had started to create for the cinema. They were impressionistic, richly coloured, intense, you could hardly hope to recognise the forms. She did not show them to anyone. She was not sure whether she liked them, she would consider them at length, often tear them up.
In the evening they would eat their supper at the garden table or by the fire, talking mostly about the day’s events. They would go to bed immensely tired and wake early, to the cooing of wood pigeons.
42
Sophia did not go to university in 1913. She was told by her parents to wait for a year, she was too young. She did not react submissively. ‘Why should Mark go to university and not me? Because he is a man. Mamma, I know y
ou only wanted to be a wife and mother, but not everyone wants to be a model matron. I was awarded the Queen’s College Certificate of Associateship, which is equivalent to matriculation at university – surely that proves I’m worthy of some respect?’
Her mother pursed her lips. Her father, already sympathetic, was even more so when Irene pleaded her sister’s case. Sophia threatened to leave home, to run away, to throw herself at the feet of the Mistress of Girton.
The quarrelling split the house. Sir William asked, ‘How could anyone want to be looked after by such an argumentative child?’
Lady Benson said, often, ‘It is her duty to stay at home and help me.’
They reached a compromise. Sophia would not have to be a debutante but she would attend a few parties during the Season. Since she wanted to read French and German at university, she would go to Paris for a year, and if she liked it, to Germany. Then, if she passed the entrance examination, she might be allowed to go to university. It was agreed that in Paris she would reside in a genteel household suitable for a young lady. A French duchess was found in the rue de l’Université, who would arrange lessons in French and music and art. In September 1913 Sophia left for Paris.
In this new setting, Sophia became so animated and contemptuous of convention, and attracted so many adoring young men, that the duchess asked her mother to warn her in person that she would have to return to London unless she settled down. Irene laughed at her mother’s description of the exiguous lunch with the duchess, at a table surrounded by girls of good family from all over Europe. Sophia, her hair put up in the most stylish manner, ‘looked so pretty and funny, it was difficult to be angry’. She issued looks of withering contempt as the duchess outlined the rules of good behaviour à la française that she instilled in her young ladies. But when Irene suggested to her sister that by being so frivolous she was not making a good case for being allowed to go to university, she changed direction, she abandoned the young men – at least, most of them – applied herself vigorously to French, took German lessons, and applied to the University of Cambridge. She was accepted at Girton for the Michaelmas Term 1914.
43
The Mommsenstraße was quiet, quieter than ever, since many residents were away, enjoying one of the best summers anyone could remember. As usual the shops offered the people of Charlottenburg the fruits of peace. The Bäckerei-Konditorei proferred sweet and savoury pleasures: Schokoladentorten and Mohntorten, Pflaumentorten and Apfeltorten, Wilhelminentorten and Englische Zitronentorten, Königskuchen and Linzer Torten, Marzipankuchen, mandelat de Turino, corbeilles à la crème, and – smallest and most delicious – petit-fours, petites mosaïques aux confitures, diablotins, croquets à la piémontaise. The florist’s shelves were laden with roses, lilies, carnations from the French Riviera. Oblivious to these delights, the nursemaids with their prams and the fashionable ladies moved languidly along the pavements, unable to hurry in the heat or think about anything except the anticipation of feeling cool.
Only the newspaper placards disturbed the calm: ‘Germany Declares War On Russia’.
Irene was alone in her bedroom. She had been there for some time. Before her lay piles of summer clothes. In two days she was due to go to London for a month with her family, as she had the year before. ‘Hat es Ihnen gefallen?’ Lisa had asked anxiously on her return, as though worried she might prefer England. And yes, she had enjoyed her holiday. But what had been almost better was the journey back, as she said goodbye at Victoria and sat on the boat and boarded the train at Ostend and travelled through the autumnal countryside. Though sorry to be leaving her parents, she’d been glad to be going home. She’d looked forward to seeing Thomas, who had written her long letters about how her plants were flourishing and the maids missed her. She’d looked forward to seeing her mother-in-law and Freddy and Puppi and Alexander. And to the peaceful harmony of their flat.
This afternoon the apartment did not seem peaceful or harmonious. The bedroom was suffocatingly hot. Out of perversity perhaps, she’d not opened the windows. The intertwined plants on the wallpaper threatened to grip her in their tendrils, just as the deep green of the walls and curtains might suck her into their depths. Even the bed, with its carved head and its white cover laden with coloured beads, threatened to smother her under mounds of linen.
She looked at the photographs on her dressing table, as though for guidance. The English photographs stood on the right. Her mother, photographed a long while ago in a flowing, artistic dress, smiled beatifically: Irene heard her voice, telling her to come home. Her father looked as impassive as ever, but she could hear his call too. Her dear Mark. . . she worried about him. . . what would he say to her? And would he have to fight? Please God no.
The German photographs stood on the left. A recent picture showed Thomas in a pale linen suit she particularly liked. It softened his appearance, she’d told him, and when he’d pulled irritably at the cloth, she said that a little softening improved him. He’d raised his eyes to heaven, but when he’d had his photograph expensively taken on the Leipzigerstraße as an anniversary present, he’d selected that suit. Beside him was a Curtius family group, a holiday picture taken just after her marriage: Elise’s little boy and girl, Lotte’s children lined up on the beach by the Baltic. It made her smile to recall grey mornings and sunny afternoons by the ocean, the children so merry in their sailor suits. Behind it was the family group of the Bensons and the Curtiuses at Salitz. She turned it to the wall.
Would the men all have to go to war? Of course Heinz would, as an officer, but what about Freddy? Even Thomas? And Alexander, now that Jews were full citizens of the Reich, would he be called up?
She sighed, oppressed by the throbbing irritation of indecision. She looked again at the piles of clothes. Lisa would have packed for her, but she’d sent the girls out for the afternoon, she could not stand their solicitous, enquiring faces. Her tickets were booked, there was nothing to stop her from going to London except the Diplomatic Notes, the rumours of mobilisation. If Great Britain stayed neutral, she could easily go. They said Britain would never declare war against Germany, her father-in-law declared the Chancellor was pro-British, the German ambassador in London was determined to prevent silliness, the Kaiser loved his English cousins. . .
The trains between Berlin and London were still running, said to be packed with English governesses and businessmen going home, and with German waiters and musicians and merchants coming home. The post still worked. Only the day before, she’d received a letter from her mother, outlining plans and ending, ‘I do so hope there will be no problem about you coming to London, I’m sure this crisis will soon blow over.’ Then she had scored two lines across the page and written, ‘10 p.m. I have been speaking to your father. He says – and I must agree – that in such times as these, all of us should be guided by duty, not by personal inclination. You must decide where your duty lies, my dearest. Of course we will understand, whatever it is you choose to do. Papa sends his love, as do I.’ Irene could see her writing this, blotting neatly, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief so her tears did not smudge the ink.
‘Duty’ – that was a hard word. At Queen’s College they had talked about duty, about how from those to whom much had been given, much was expected. For men, duty meant serving one’s country, but the concept also applied to women, as wives, mothers, Britons, citizens of the greatest empire in the world. There was no escaping: born into a certain level of society, you were bound to subscribe to certain ideals. Mark had been fed even more of this at school, where duty had been a constant theme. He’d parodied the school sermons. ‘My duty,’ he’d proclaimed at fifteen, ‘is to enjoy myself at all costs.’
She stared at the walls. Where did her duty lie now? To her mother and father, and to the country where she’d grown up? Or to the country she’d married into?
She felt violently homesick. She was homesick for the house in Evelyn Gardens, for the butcher’s and post office in the Fulham Road, for her artist friend
s. Almost against her will, she let the thought of Julian pop out of the box to which she’d consigned him. What would he do now? Would he join the army? He had a reckless side, enjoyed the thought of new experiences – it was the sort of impulsive decision he might take.
Her trunk was open on the floor, where she’d put it after Thomas had left, so as not to upset him. One case would be enough, one couldn’t know what might happen to one’s luggage, let alone oneself, at such a time. If she packed now, quickly, she could put the trunk away and Thomas wouldn’t see it. The thought of her departure agonised him. This evening she would be animated and sympathetic, they would hardly mention her proposed holiday in England. But she knew that in bed he would turn away from her and face the wall, silent and awake, pulling away if their bodies made contact, while she simulated the deep breathing of rest. She wondered if she should go to the station and try to change her reservation to the overnight train leaving this evening, but the trains were full to bursting, she might not get a place. It was even rumoured that no more tickets to Paris or London were being sold. The doors were closing on her.
She put some summer clothes, already folded in tissue paper, into the trunk: a white-work dress with white embroidery on white cotton, a beige shantung silk suit, some embroidered cotton lawn blouses. She had chosen them with great care and wanted to show them to her sister and mother. She needed nothing else, she still had clothes at home. No, no, England was not home. And how could she be thinking about clothes, when the world was bent on war?
The Iron Necklace Page 11