On their way from Moscow to London to spend some leave in the summer of 1930, Mark and Margaret stopped off to visit Thomas and Irene. Their little boy, William Penn, had been taken straight to his grandmother in London.
The two couples edged round one another. Mark was yet more confident, was evidently becoming used to telling people what to do. He had also grown in weight, was indeed quite corpulent. Margaret talked about the Soviet Union and its merits and demerits. She was severely well dressed, wearing only greys and blacks, not showing her pregnancy. Irene wondered what it would be like, to be their child.
The Bensons thought Irene was braving her mid-forties with aplomb. Vivacious, self-confident, efficiently bohemian – she and Thomas did not even change for dinner – she was just back from a successful exhibition in New York. Yet she still insisted on going to her studio every morning because of a forthcoming exhibition in Cologne.
‘Why do you never show in London, Irene?’ Mark asked her.
‘Oh, they are so conservative. Really, no one there is interested in my work. . .’
Thomas looked older and rather depressed. With the economic situation deteriorating again, his prospects were not promising. The daughter was awkward and quiet, though perhaps that was typical of a fourteen-year-old. Margaret spent a good deal of time talking to her, and Dodo unbent.
They went out to dinner, and visited the museums, and Irene’s studio. They met Alexander, who talked and talked, was enchanted to see Mark and Margaret, asked at length about Moscow. He did not mention his own success as a newspaper columnist.
‘If we ever have a National Socialist government,’ said Irene, ‘which happily seems unlikely even now, then life might become difficult for our dear Alexander.’ She spoke playfully, yet a little anxiously.
‘Yes,’ said Alexander, ‘if those pigs get into power, I suppose I shall have to leave the country.’
Thomas seemed annoyed. ‘It is only a few members of the National Socialist Party, uneducated men, who can be described in such a way. I see no reason why Alexander should have to leave the country, he might just have to restrain his satirical flights.’
‘I don’t share your opinion, Thomas. You should look at their disgusting literature, not to speak of their disgusting members.’
Thomas did not reply.
Mark grew animated as they went round the city, recalling places he’d known. They inspected his apartment building on the Tiergartenstraße, and he showed Margaret the window where he had read her letter inviting him to join her in Munich.
‘That letter made a great difference in your life, didn’t it, Mark?’ asked his sister. ‘As I recall, at that moment you were all set to leave the Diplomatic Service and become a journalist. And it was Margaret who made you change your mind.’
Mark blushed. Margaret turned towards him. ‘You never told me that.’ The others regarded him.
Eventually, ‘Yes, I was thinking of taking a job with a London newspaper, but it was nothing really.’
Irene was irritated by this. ‘That’s not what I remember, you talked about it endlessly. You were going to write for The Observer and earn much more money, weren’t you? And write books, which I’m sure would have been very interesting. Instead of diplomatic papers which no one ever reads.’
Thomas laid his hand on her arm. She shrugged it off.
‘Well. . .’ said Mark, agitated, ‘it’s all in the past now. I am quite committed to the Service.’
Irene was not to be silenced. ‘Won’t you ever resign, Mark? Are you determined to be an ambassador? It’s such a confining life. Margaret, do you want to be an ambassadress?’
Margaret shook her head. ‘I never knew about this, Mark. You do write so well, it seems a shame. . . After all, in the few years we have, we may as well develop our talents, particularly if one can afford to do as one chooses. Forgive me, I’m preaching, Mark says I’m given to preaching.’
Mark looked furious. He walked away from them down the street. When he came back, he looked like a boy caught out in some trivial offence. They changed the subject.
There was another awkward moment on the last evening. They were having dinner at the Mommsenstraße, en famille.
Mark asked Thomas about his building project. Thomas seemed nervous, cast a look at Irene. She merely looked back as though curious about what he would say.
‘There will be no project. The fact is, my position in the city architecture department has not been renewed. They said that in the present climate they had to economise, imaginative schemes are not feasible. I have only one more month’s employment there. I wasn’t going to tell you, but since you ask. . .’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Margaret. ‘You are too good for them, too creative.’
There was a silence. They embarked on the next course.
Mark tried to be cheerful. ‘I suppose, Thomas, you will get another job soon, even in these difficult times.’
‘The times are very difficult.’
‘Do you insist on staying in Berlin? Would you think of working somewhere else? During the war you were in Cologne designing military installations, weren’t you? Would you think of going back there, for example?’
Only Margaret’s knife and fork on her plate interrupted the startled stillness.
Mark realised abruptly what he had said and coloured violently. He and Thomas had never spoken about what they’d done in the war, it was better not discussed, even twelve years after the Armistice. Mark tried to retrieve the situation.
‘Didn’t you tell me you’d been stationed in Cologne, when we were talking about the city, or is that my imagination?’ He hurried on. ‘It’s so long ago, isn’t it, perhaps I imagined it all.’
‘I never realised these facts were common knowledge,’ said Thomas. ‘I must have spoken in my sleep.’
Irene did not look up. They finished dinner rapidly. The two women, trained from childhood to make conversation, did not have the heart for it. Coffee was refused. Margaret announced that she was tired and would go to bed. She looked at Mark enquiringly. He hesitated.
‘I might go and have a smoke out of doors.’
Irene smiled. ‘You can smoke indoors if you want.’
Margaret was already standing, gathering her things. ‘Mark wants to take a walk in the streets, they remind him of his past.’
They all three looked at Mark.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have so many memories. Margaret, my dear, won’t you come?’
Margaret did not want to wander the streets. Mark slid out of the apartment.
Thomas disappeared. The women lingered. ‘Do stay and talk to me, Margaret,’ Irene urged. ‘We’ve hardly had a moment together.’ Margaret laid down her shawl. She was wearing a dark grey dress, beautifully cut, her shoulders bare.
‘Would you like to see my little home studio? I have a few drawings and things there. I’m working on a war memorial for Salitz – even there they lost eleven men. I offered to design a memorial, and we have a sculptor friend who’ll carve it. It’s my tribute to the village, for looking after me during the war. Thomas’s aunt and uncle were so pleased. . . I decided against a Dance of Death, my original idea, it seemed too harsh. You see, it’s a simple composition, just a boy seated on a mound, holding a sickle, a bale of wheat beside him. The sickle is for death of course, the wheat for life.’
‘It’s very strong,’ said Margaret. ‘In Moscow we never meet artists, only diplomats and official Russians. It’s an isolated life but not at all private, what with the servants listening to everything we say. If we’re friendly with Russians, it’s dangerous for them. But you could hardly find a more interesting place to be.’
‘Berlin, perhaps.’
‘Yes, Berlin.’
A question hovered between them. Irene spoke.
‘I hope you are happy.’
‘Yes, I’m happy. You see. . . well, you love Mark too, don’t you? You understand, though of course a sister is different. . . Sometimes I feel there’s an unseen person always present between us. . . The thing is, I just love him. I don’t think he’s perfect, but that doesn’t matter. And I feel he needs me, professionally of course. . .’
‘Don’t speak like that.’
‘It’s true. But he’s vulnerable in his way, he depends on me, I think. His job requires so much of him, he is always having to be polite and correct. With me he can be quiet, he knows I won’t mind.’
They stayed still on the sofa, they turned carefully towards one another, their eyes met.
‘For me, it’s best. I’m not easy. I don’t like many men, not in that way. . . And as I remarked, I love this brother of yours.’