We’re beginning to have some hot days, my apartment is very stuffy. I try not to move around too much – some might say that’s typical of me. H. E. is moving to Manchester-by-the-Sea for high summer, but I have to stay here.
I’m going to New York next weekend.
Very much love,
M.
16
Sophia was assigned to the lowest ward. It was not his, it was the room for the least serious patients, some of whom could walk around or sit and play cards. Though many of them had lost limbs, they seemed optimistic. Some were in their forties, even fifties. She was struck again by the men’s good nature, their friendships, their dedication to one another.
Some of the prisoners had worked in England before the war, and were eager to talk about it. They wanted to know where she lived, whether she was married or had a young man. When she spoke German to a man in distress who kept calling for his mother, they were enchanted. Within an hour every prisoner who was capable of understanding knew she spoke the language. Where had she learnt German? Did she have German friends? Did she know Stuttgart? Schwäbisch Hall? Berlin? Had she ever seen the cabaret at the Wintergarten, or been to the Luna Park? The answer was yes in each case, but she could not bring herself to say so – the memory of her carefree holiday in Berlin made her sick with sadness. One man said, ‘Will you marry me? It would make me happy and I shall be dead soon, I shall be no nuisance, and I will leave you my flat in München, it is very elegant, and I have some fine works of art.’ His friends told him to be quiet. She moved between the beds, calming the men if they became too animated, saying she would be back the next day, and all the time she worried about Freddy.
By the evening she’d decided she had to tell Matron, the daytime matron, who looked as though she might be sympathetic.
She knocked at Matron’s door. Matron seemed to be taking a nap, and regarded Sophia disapprovingly.
‘Yes? Nurses do not come to matron except by special appointment through their ward sister. You know that.’
‘Matron, I’m very sorry, but I have to tell you, I know one of the patients here.’
‘That’s not unusual. Nurses do find they know patients. Patients come here from all parts of Britain. Have you just come to tell me that?’
‘He’s not from Britain.’ Matron looked at her uncomprehendingly. ‘He’s German.’
‘German? Oh, I’m sorry. What do you want, then?’
‘I want to be allowed to sit beside his bed and talk to him if he can understand me. When I’m off duty, of course.’
‘I can’t allow it. A friendly word, yes, but we cannot allow fraternising with the enemy in hospital, any more than in the field.’
‘Matron. . . The thing is, he’s not just a friend. He’s my brother-in-law.’
‘I see.’ She looked appalled.
‘I know him very well, he lived with us for two years in London, he’s. . .’ And she burst into violent sobs.
Matron let herself forget she was matron. She told Sophia to sit down, unlocked a drawer, took out a flask, gave Sophia a drink. This made Sophia feel better. She’d never drunk whisky, only the rough wine provided in great quantities in the estaminet.
‘My poor child,’ said Matron, reaching for the glass and helping herself. ‘He may get better. What is his name?’
‘His name is Freddy.’
Matron raised her eyebrows. ‘Surname?’
‘Curtius.’ She was on the verge of another crying fit. It was childish, unprofessional, she told herself, but she couldn’t stop.
Matron consulted a register. ‘No one can say we aren’t efficient here, in spite of it all.’ She found the name, and frowned.
‘I’m afraid the outlook is not good. It’s a head wound. The chances of recovery, even survival for more than a few days, are very slight.’
Sophia stared at her, wordlessly. Matron lowered her eyes.
‘Nurse, in these exceptional circumstances you have my permission to spend half an hour with the prisoner.’ She sighed. ‘With the patient. He is not often conscious, I understand. You realise, you must take great care not to excite him. I will speak to the ward sister.’ She took another sip from her glass, which was decorated with a comic picture of fat people on a beach and the words ‘A present from Scarborough’. Sophia never forgot that glass, it would appear to her years later in her dreams. ‘I am very sorry, my dear. We live with so much suffering around us that it hardens us.’
‘Thank you. You’re very kind.’
‘Well, we can hold onto a bit of kindness, whatever else has to go. What’s your name?’
‘Benson.’
‘I mean, your Christian name.’
‘Sophia. I’ve almost forgotten it here,’ she said drearily.
‘Sophia, you shouldn’t delay. Go and have your dinner – even if you don’t want it, you must keep your strength up. Go to the ward when you’re ready. They’ll be expecting you.’
17
New York was seductive. Mark could not go there every weekend, it wouldn’t be approved of and the minister liked to know his staff ’s movements. But as often as possible he would jump on the train and be transported across the great rivers and past the brick towns to the most exciting of American cities.
He went for the first time in June 1915 because George Bruegmann invited him to stay. George had a bachelor apartment off Washington Square. Mark liked the narrow spare bedroom with its fold-up bed and its typical Greenwich Village view of chaotic brick walls and disorganised backyards. George told him to treat the place like home.
One hot Saturday evening Mark arrived in New York extremely tired and on edge. The news was excruciating, the casualties unbearable, the Gallipoli initiative turning into a disaster. The atmosphere at the embassy was pessimistic: if anything, American public opinion was turning against the Allies. Everyone there knew somebody who had been recently killed or wounded, often a close relation. Five from Trinity Hall had been killed, and a don who’d taught him. Mark would put all this out of his mind at work, but at night he’d dream of his friends’ faces shot to pieces.
George was at home, having a cocktail. This was normal on a Saturday evening. What was not normal was that George was only wearing a singlet and shorts. Mark had not really seen his body before. He became aware that he was looking George up and down.
‘Come here.’
Mark went over. George stood up.
‘We’re on our own.’
Mark nodded politely.
‘I think you should take off that jacket, it’s a warm day, you don’t need it.’ Mark hesitated, and obeyed. Then George did what Mark had done, slowly inspecting Mark’s body from top to toe. When he’d finished he put a hand on Mark’s thigh.
‘Ever been kissed, Mark? Properly? By someone you know.’
No answer.
‘That’s what I thought. Well, here goes.’
Mark resisted.
‘From the moment I first saw you,’ said George, ‘I wanted you, and I knew it was possible. I have an eye for these things. Forget convention, do what you really want to do.’
No answer.
‘Oh come on, Markie, you like me and I like you. Nobody’s going to know, you’re safe with me. It’s just pleasure, it doesn’t mean you’re a queer, this is just close friendship with another man.’ He stroked Mark’s body. ‘You need to extend yourself – and look, you have extended yourself ! Well. . . you need to follow a lead as long as that one.’ He took Mark by the shoulder. ‘Don’t look so grim. I want you to try an experiment.’ And he stroked Mark’s cheek.
Mark shook his head.
‘It’s what the Ancient Greeks did, you know. Have you read Havelock Ellis? Interesting about male love: nothing inherently wrong about it, genetically determined, a genuine form of love.’
‘I’ve not read him.’ Mark realised how cold and stiff he must sound, but what was he to say?
‘Well, his works are banned in England. A member of His Majesty’s Diplomati
c Corps is not going to read him, is he? But you’re in America now, Mark, we like to cross new frontiers. Anyway, I wouldn’t be the first one, would I?’
Mark looked away.
‘Just the first whose name you’ve known, is that right? Isn’t it a little odd, to want to make love only to people you don’t know?’ He put his arm round Mark’s shoulder, and shook him. ‘We’ll make a pact. If, by ten, you aren’t enjoying it, you can get out of bed.’ Mark jerked his head. ‘And in the morning we can go to Macy’s, and you can buy me a red tie, and I’ll buy you a true blue tie.’ This made Mark smile just a little, a red tie meant you were a man who liked men.
‘That’s my boy.’ And George steered him towards his bedroom.
18
She did not eat her dinner. She sat by herself in the corner of the estaminet, and stared at the wall. The other nurses were looking at her, she was sure, and whispering. They must all know something, she didn’t mind. No doubt they thought she and Freddy had been lovers. She did not care for the other nurses; on the whole, they were primarily interested in any ambulant man they could get hold of. The nursing assistants were more sympathetic, but they came and went, and she’d refused to join in their homemade entertainments, it was like being at some awful boarding school.
Thirty minutes was one thousand eight hundred slow, tedious seconds. Even the hospital was a little like being back at school, only here you learnt how to tell if someone should be left to die, and how to close the eyes of the dead.
In the lavatory she glanced in the mirror. She wanted to look as pretty as she could, in case Freddy’s dark eyes met hers in the good-humoured quizzical way they used to. But she looked pale and dreary, great bags under her eyes.
As she went up the stairs, she thought about Freddy when she’d first known him. They’d had such fun in Berlin. They’d loved dancing together, he’d taught her the foxtrot and the tango. They were a fine couple, Puppi had said in that sweet, soft way she had. In London they’d gone dancing again, though not often, because she was still not much more than a schoolgirl, and he was a young man working in the City, and they had to take a chaperone. He had teased her a great deal, he loved making her blush, which was not difficult. When he was sitting in the drawing room before dinner, reading the newspaper, he would ask the meaning of difficult English words, and she would lean companionably on the back of his chair and look over his shoulder, reading sentences aloud in a playful German-English accent. Now and again, she would rest her hand lightly on his shoulder or stroke his head. She admired his silky black hair. She’d say, ‘This pomade, where on earth did you find it? Your hair is like an oil field.’ And he, half-listening, half-reading the business pages, would laugh and reach up his hand to hers for a second. It was very easy, like being brother and sister, though at the back of their minds they were always aware that his much-admired brother was married to her much-admired sister, and this made their friendship special. But she was sure, she thought she was sure, they’d never been in love.
She reached the top of the curving stone staircase. One minute to go – timings were precise in the hospital. She stopped on the landing, listening to the ward’s horrid symphony of groans and shouts. For a moment she could imagine how one could be like the senior nursing staff, dissociating oneself from the patients, seeing them as malfunctioning machines, wanting them as fast as possible either to work properly again or expire.
Sometimes she’d thought Freddy and she might marry one day. But not yet, she’d wanted to see more of the world, meet lots of people, have adventures, not settle down yet. Then she’d gone to Paris.
It was time to enter the ward. The sister was standing by the door and nodded to her.
‘You must be very quiet. Captain Curtius must not be stimulated. You may speak to him if he opens his eyes and looks at you, but softly.’
Sophia was not sure she had her eyes completely under control, but she tried her best.
‘You must be brave, Nurse,’ said the sister.
Why, Sophia wondered, why must she be brave? ‘I suppose I mustn’t touch him?’
The sister was silent for a moment. ‘You may hold his hand, if it seems right. You will know, as a nurse. The last thing they lose is their hearing, so if you speak to him, he may respond.’
‘Half an hour?’
The sister hesitated again. ‘Don’t you worry too much about that.’
They had put a chair beside his bed. She sat down. She looked at him properly for the first time. She had been unable to bring herself to do this earlier. There he was, sweet-natured, humorous Freddy, who, she now recalled for some peculiar reason, had never quite mastered the present continuous form in English – ‘I am doing this’. What was he doing now? He was lying dead pale on a hospital bed, with a great bandage across the right side of his head and his hair chopped off. Dandyish Freddy who had taken such pleasure in clothes, scrumpled into a rough, yellowish night shirt.
She held his hand and spoke to him, as the sister had suggested. ‘Freddy, it’s Sophia, do you remember me? Irene’s sister. Do you remember me, Freddy?’ For a moment she thought she felt the faintest pressure, one finger pressed lightly against her hand. But she could only say a few words, now and again.
She was aware of the man in the bed behind her, staring. She did not mind. The ward was quiet for once, only the man who kept begging to be allowed to go home still made a noise.
She thought back to her sister’s wedding, and Freddy’s speech. He had been so full of life and hope and friendliness. Like a puppy, she’d thought on first view. Now he was no puppy but a dead dog. The words insinuated themselves into her mind.
Freddy only opened his eyes once. She thought they flickered at the sight of her, but then they closed again. She tried to give him water, he would not take it.
She sat for what seemed an age. In the end, the sister came and stood beside her. Sophia nodded, and stood up, looking once more at Freddy. The sister touched her arm as she went past, and it was comforting in this place where touching other people was mostly confined to handling dead or damaged bodies. She went back to her own ward, where the sister said to her, ‘You should go to bed, Nurse, you look done in.’
Freddy died the next day. Usually there was only a very brief ceremony for an enemy soldier, if his religious affiliation was known. Then his coffin would be sent for burial in one of the cemeteries that were spreading over the landscape like an unnatural crop of weeds. Sophia took action. She caught an Anglican chaplain making one of his visits to the hospital, told him that Captain Curtius was a devout Lutheran (as he should know, she told him), and should be given a proper funeral in the chapel.
‘But he will not be buried here, I can’t commit him to the earth,’ said the chaplain, flustered. He was a large, florid-faced young man, with a slightly false heartiness, like a prefect at a fourth-rate public school, Sophia thought contemptuously.
‘I don’t care, do as much of the service as you can,’ she said.
And so a little service took place. Sophia was surprised that she was not the only mourner, several of the nurses attended too, including Matron. It was kind of them, she thought, they did not know Freddy, they’d never seen him when he was the flower of the field, only as a wreck, a number in a ward. She did not cry, she held her head high. Matron said to her, ‘Well done, Nurse.’ She went back to her duties, because there was no alternative. Battling on, that was the only thing to do.
She felt horribly old – as though the girl who’d gone dancing in Berlin had existed a century ago, and now she was quite another person.
19
8 October 1915
I’ve been very bad about writing, I do apologise. Anyway, now Washington’s back to normal, and I’ll do better.
I saw the minister today. He’s pleased with my work, he says. I have been asked to organise our press work, talking to journalists and passing on selected information. There have been some positive leaders. The way we handle the press is much softer than
the German approach, we’ve always been too gentlemanly. We thought the Lusitania would swing public opinion, but they concocted a story that the ship was filled with weapons and people believed them.
It’s hard not to feel hostile towards Germany, but our ambassador is very sensible. He served there, and likes the country. He says, when we win the war – he’s convinced we will, once the Americans join in – our objective must not be to finish the Germans off, but to lead them into more sensible ways. As he puts it, curing the fever doesn’t mean killing the patient.
I saw my friend Margaret Salt at dinner last week, back from summer in the Berkshires. Don’t worry, I’m not going to marry an American girl, though if you met her you might think it was a good idea.
20
From another yellowing envelope Dorothea extracts a sheaf of black and white photographs, curling up at the ends, a hair or two twisted among them. ‘Babies, this must be the babies envelope. This is. . . this is me, for heaven’s sake, aged nothing, in my mother’s arms.’
‘Don’t look so sad, it’s a lovely photo.’
‘She looks so loving, so proud – what did I ever do to make her proud? Except have a child. She liked my baby – you, my darling – and when she did those paintings of mythical infants, she used you as a model.’
‘It would be interesting to study how she prepared her paintings – mentally, how she used her own experiences.’
‘I don’t think she would have wanted people to analyse that. She was very private, was Irene.’
21
Berlin, the 4th of December 1915
Dearest Mamma, you are a grandmother! My little girl was born three days ago. She’s the loveliest baby you ever saw. We’re calling her Dorothea Elizabeth. Soon I shall be going home, Baby and I are looking forward to that.
I’m sending you the notice from the Vossische Zeitung, and the invitation to the baptism in our flat. That’s the German practice, they make a little altar in the drawing room.
The Iron Necklace Page 16