Early in November 1914 Major von Steinaeck of the Garde-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 4 was killed leading his men into combat at the first battle of Ypres.
The funeral took place at the Garnisonkirche in Berlin, where he was to be buried. His mother and widow spent many hours discussing the children’s future. The son would be sent to the officer cadets’ school, where he would receive a free education. He was a quiet, thoughtful child, but that was not considered: a military life was his duty, and in any case the major had left very little money. The daughter would remain with her mother.
For Irene these were painful days. At the funeral, her heavy black veil had given her some sense of privacy. Afterwards at the Schloßstraße she took Elise’s hand and said the usual words. Elise merely nodded. She looked dignified in mourning, her hair cut short, her face pale, her black dress full and sadly becoming.
Some days later, Irene visited her mother-in-law. She went on foot. In these months she spent much of her time walking alone up and down the long, monotonous streets and through the squares, hardly pausing, speaking to no one, as though existing in the city but not part of it. When she first came to Berlin, Thomas had warned her against going around the city alone, unaccompanied women were often thought to be prostitutes. Now she didn’t care. There was little else to do. She could not bring herself to contribute to the war effort or do good works. However fluent her German was, her accent was still recognisably English, people would be suspicious. Her commissions for illustrations had almost dried up. Thomas said there was less work available, but she thought editors avoided employing a British artist. In any case she had no appetite for drawing. Only occasionally did she execute a drawing, but she did not like the savage little sketches that emerged, dwarves and idiotic animals, things better left unexplored.
At home, she read, not English books but the books by Goethe, Lessing and Heine that Thomas had piled on her table when she’d arrived in Berlin. In this hate-ridden country, it was reassuring to read about other Germanys. She read and re-read Effi Briest, finding its picture of Berlin not so far from the city she’d known before the war. She asked herself what would happen in modern Berlin to a woman who betrayed her husband.
Sometimes letters came from England via Copenhagen through the Danish diplomatic bag. Irene would call at the Danish Embassy and be given a buff envelope. She wondered whether anyone monitored her visits; no doubt the comings and goings there were surveyed, but nothing seemed to be censored. She’d often leave the envelope unopened for a day or two, unwilling to hear voices from home. Her mother would write about her war work, and family news: Edward had ‘left the country’, as she put it; Victoria was pregnant again and little George was the loveliest child imaginable; Irene’s cousin Peter had finished his training and was also about to ‘leave the country’; Peter’s younger brother was leaving school so he could ‘join in’. Sophia wrote about poetry, primarily; she hated living at home, then she’d left home and was working as a nursing assistant at the Charing Cross Hospital in preparation for being sent to France. Mark did not write, presumably it was not good form for a diplomat. Irene wrote back about her window box and the garden at Salitz, never mentioning conditions in Germany. One never knew who might read one’s letters.
Often, she simply stared out of the window. During the relentless November and December afternoons, the Mommsenstraße was grey and then white, as rain gave way to snow. On some days she could not bring herself to go outside, and by late afternoon was impatiently awaiting Thomas’s return; though he had little to do, he insisted on spending a full day in the office. At the piano she played German music. She remembered how she had first discovered Wagner, aeons ago it seemed, and been transported to a new world. Sometimes she went to concerts on her own: she couldn’t bear to chatter with acquaintances at such events, she hated the little complaining group of foreign wives. At the Philharmonie’s afternoon concerts, she would sit surrounded by mutilated soldiers in grey and women in black, and try to lose herself in the music.
The cemeteries suited her mood. Among the reticent memorials of old Berlin and the grandiose temples of yesterday, surrounded by the whispering and rustling of the departed and their mourners, she would consider this Prussia where she was immured. She favoured the Garnisonfriedhof, the old garrison cemetery, concealed by trees and a high brick wall in the middle of the poorest Jewish quarter. She would walk up and down the neat paths, contemplating the graves of Prussian officers and officials, their wives and daughters: some plainly geometrical, others sporting angels, or pillars, or feathered helmets surrounded by wreaths. The graves were lined up like soldiers: even the neighbouring Linienstraße was named after regiments of the line. The railings round the tombs and the crosses were made of pierced iron, the stones incised with proud, reticent wording in Gothic script. She would wonder about the people lying under this mass of stone and iron – always iron, the material of Berlin – and try to imagine the living presences of Major-General Johann Herwarth von Bittenfeld or General von Tippelskirch, Commander of Berlin. No doubt they had embodied the Prussian tradition: service to the state, sober faith, probity, stoicism, duty.
Now the empty plots were being filled again. Once, seeing Elise kneeling at her husband’s grave, she hurried away.
If she told Thomas she had been to a cemetery, he would look anxious, and suggest that the Tiergarten or the Charlottenburg park might be less melancholy. She’d reassure him that there was nothing morbid in these walks.
‘Don’t you want to see our friends?’ he would ask. But no, she had not even visited Frau Mamma since the funeral; she was not sure how she would be received.
At the Schloßstraße apartment the blinds were pulled down. The street door was unlocked and she entered between the iron animal-head gargoyles which guarded the corners of the entrance arch. She’d always liked these gargoyles, playful fantasies in this solid city. She touched the one on the right, as she often did, for reassurance.
It was a cloudy day. The hall and staircase were unlit and uninviting.
As she turned the curve of the stairs, she saw the figure of a woman, veiled in black, coming down towards her. She knew too well who it was, from the cross that hung round her neck. Irene stopped. Should she wait for Elise to say something? Should she speak? Should she try to kiss her? She could hardly see Elise’s face, only that it was pale, paler even than at the funeral. As Elise moved down the stairs, Irene attempted a smile.
The smile was not returned. Elise paused on the same step as Irene, and stared at her, expressionless. Then she said, quietly but in a tone Irene hoped never to hear again, ‘Verdammte Engländerin. Du hast meinen Mann ermordet.’ And her erect black figure passed down the stairs.
Part of Irene thought, angrily, I did not kill your husband. My people did not start this war, yours did. I have been living in this hateful city when I could have gone home, because I am loyal to your brother. Why am I to blame? But her anger gave way to sobs, and she fell onto the stairs, grasping the great iron baluster as though it might comfort her.
The door of the apartment opened. She heard murmuring voices, and someone coming down the stairs then bending over her. This person put a hand on Irene’s head, and stroked her hair. She was drawn to her feet, her waist was supported, and tenderly she was led indoors.