Irene sat in her studio in the Mommsenstraße. She did not want to paint more portraits or rural landscapes, she’d found her mind wandering as she painted a woodland scene. After a struggle with herself – most people would consider the picture highly proficient, even moving – she’d destroyed it. She wanted to continue to paint the scenes of Berlin that had been so well-received in her recent exhibition, and to take the approach further, making the paintings much larger. She wanted to give these paintings some of the apparent neutrality of the photograph: muted, subtle, almost monochrome. She planned to include many aspects of the city: the park at Charlottenburg, the confectioner’s on her street, the courtyard of a Mietskaserne, the Potsdamer Platz empty of traffic in the early morning. They all had a meaning for her, a meaning she hoped she could communicate.
There was a practical problem. The paintings needed to be at least two metres high, possibly more. She surveyed the room, white and grey, perfect and domestic, and much too small. It would not do. Thomas liked to think of her at work in their house, but then he did not appreciate how hard it was to concentrate when at any moment Henry might run in.
Footsteps. Well, she was to be interrupted. But it was not Henry or Dodo, it was her husband. She was surprised.
‘Are you not well?’
‘Oh yes, I’m well. I wanted to tell you, I have made a decision, a big decision. I hope you will not be angry.’
‘Only if you’re leaving me for another woman.’
‘I’ve been thinking, I shall be forty-five at my next birthday, and the truth is, my darling, when I look back at my career, I have achieved very little. The Siedlung seems as distant as ever. I do not have the reputation or the connections, I am very discouraged.’
‘I am so sorry.’
‘I have made a decision. Herr Ulrich and I will dissolve the practice. I have provisionally accepted a position with the city architects of Berlin. It is not quite what I had hoped for, but the job is secure, and they plan a series of housing colonies. . .’ He looked at her uncertainly. ‘All this is on condition, of course, that you approve.’
‘But of course I approve, if it is what you want to do.’
‘When one is young, one is idealistic, one thinks everything is possible. But as one grows older, one realises time is so short. What one can achieve is ridiculously limited, we have very little freedom unless we are heroic beings, we are bound by the circumstances of our birth and upbringing. All we can hope for is to be able to plough one little field, straight and well.’ She coaxed his unhappy mouth into a smile. ‘I hope you won’t speak like this to your new colleagues, they will not think you a cheerful addition to the office.’
‘They say I can also work privately – if anyone wants me to work for them, that is.’ He looked over her shoulder at her desk, where she had sketched a city street. ‘Very fine, yes. Of course, what I say does not apply to you as an artist, you can escape these shackles. I thought I was an artist, but no – I shall be an official.’
She thought he might need a distracting shock. ‘I think it is a wise decision. I should tell you, I am going to look for a studio of my own, away from here.’
‘But your studio– don’t you like this studio?’
‘Indeed I do, but I need a space where I can execute large works. . . I need somewhere else.’
‘But. . . it is quite irregular. . .’
She drew away from him. ‘To be honest, Thomas, I don’t mind that, it’s what I choose to do. I would remind you, my dear husband, that I have had some success. . .’
‘Whereas I am a failure.’
‘No. . .’
They looked at one another for a long, silent moment.
‘You must do as you wish,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I must.’