For the ball Frau Mamma had lent her a ball dress she’d worn as a young woman, white silk and sparkling with silver. It had been altered by a dressmaker, because Irene did not want to buy a dress she’d never wear again, and Frau Mamma did not want her to hire one because word might get around, and Thomas was so angry she was going to the ball that he refused to help financially.
She dressed in her mother-in-law’s bedroom, assisted by the dressmaker and Mathilde and by her own maids, who were in a fever of excitement. It was odd, they seemed to feel no envy. The dress fitted perfectly. Irene saw in the mirror someone almost unrecognisable. Frau Mamma sat and watched.
‘Do I look all right?’ asked Irene.
‘You look beautiful,’ said Frau Mamma. ‘I am sure the Kaiser will compliment you.’
The Kaiser? Of course, Irene was not impressed by monarchy. Like Thomas, she thought that kings and princes did more harm than good and disguised their incompetence with tiaras and opera balls and military parades. She did not care to be presented to the Kaiser.
Herr Papa and her sisters-in-law and Bettina burst into applause when she went into the Salon. She set off downstairs on his arm, the staircase on this rare occasion looking grand rather than pretentious, and stepped into the carriage – it was a long ride but Herr Papa considered a carriage more appropriate for a man of his position than a car – and rattled through the glittering streets of Charlottenburg and across the dark dripping Tiergarten and along Unter den Linden and over the bridge to the Schloß, which was lit up by flaming torches, to be received by a smiling chamberlain with the guards saluting and up the great stairs past the gigantic guardsmen into the ante-chambers, the White Hall filled with men in scarlet robes and embroidered silver and gold uniforms, uniforms of all colours and black tail coats and women in white and lavender and pale blue, shoulders softly white, diamonds glittering, long white gloves, no one she knew, but Herr Papa introduced her and they smiled kindly, the rooms brilliantly lit, scent wafting from silver urns, the band playing the first waltzes, nobody dancing yet though the young girls tapped their feet, the royal princes entering from one end of the hall, and then a hush and the band struck up the national anthem, and everyone stood at attention, and there was more movement around that same door as the imperial couple made their entrance and of course it was a charade but what splendour and the Kaiser and the Kaiserin moved slowly through the crowd greeting people here and there, all smiles, all graciousness, and there was a stir not far from them and she realised that the fluctuating empty space that the chamberlains marshalled around the Kaiser was reaching them, and she felt excited and awed and terrified, terrified above all, and abruptly a chamberlain stood in front of Herr Papa and nodded meaningfully and there stood the Kaiser.
The Kaiser was all light and radiance and gleaming metal and moustaches and he said, ‘Herr Gesandtschaftssekretär Curtius, will you present the lady?’ He smiled affably and spoke English and that was most affable of all, and Irene curtsied as deeply as she could, reminded that Thomas had said, ‘I do not want you curtsying to that warmonger, that absurd egoist.’ And the Kaiser said, ‘We are delighted, Frau Curtius, to welcome you to Berlin, we hope you will be very happy in our city.’ And she said, with as much strength as she could muster, ‘Sire, I am very happy already,’ and the Kaiser smiled and the chamberlains smiled and the Kaiser said, ‘I see you are a Prussian already. You are wearing the iron jewellery of the time of my great-great-grandfather, even though your husband’s family is from Württemberg.’ And Herr Papa said, ‘It was a present from Frau Curtius, Your Majesty, she is as Prussian as. . . as. . .’ And the Kaiser said, ‘As dumplings.’ And they all laughed at this imperial pleasantry and she fingered the necklace and did not know what to say and the Kaiser said to her father-in-law, ‘Ganz charmant,’ and inclined his head and the imperial party moved away and Herr Papa kissed her on both cheeks and said, ‘A triumph, my dearest.’ Then the dancing began in earnest, she danced with Herr Papa and a gentleman from the Württemberg delegation and a gentleman from Hanover who trod on her toes and a pink-faced gentleman from Bavaria and Herr Papa again and her brother-in-law, friendlier than usual, inhumanly magnificent in his dress uniform, who asked in detail about her conversation with the Kaiser, and at last Herr Papa took her to have supper and she was so excited and tired she fell onto a little gold chair and drank a glass of champagne and thought maybe court balls were a good idea though Thomas would be so cross, and then a gentleman bowed and asked Herr Papa’s permission and Herr Papa introduced him and he was apparently a duke and she danced again. Only on the way home, with Herr Papa humming and resting his hand lightly on her forearm, did she wonder as she fell asleep why this flummery had seduced her.