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.